Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Stupid Brits to jump on the folic acid bandwagon. Who cares if it gives people bowel cancer?
Because America does it, it must be OK, seems to be their reasoning. The article below says that the experts have found no evidence of harm from folates. They were not looking very hard. I can find plenty and I am only a desultory reader of the relevant literature. Note this recent expert comment about folates and bowel cancer:
"Other reasonable hypotheses about one-carbon metabolism and colorectal carcinogenesis, based on our current understanding of the biochemistry and underlying mechanisms, have also not been proven correct. In a recently published placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial among 1021 men and women with a recent history of colorectal adenoma, supplemental folic acid at 1 mg/d for up to 6 years did not reduce the incidence of subsequent colorectal adenomas and might have increased it."
WHOA! The folate that Americans get compulsorily added to their bread did no good and seems to have done harm?? And do we see a double blind controlled study contradicting epidemiological inferences?? Who would have believed it! They go on to admit that two animal studies have shown that folate INCREASES cancer. Aren't you glad that your government is dosing you up with the stuff and giving you no say in the matter?
The addition of folate to our bread is more and more looking like an iatrogenic disaster to come. I think I should note once again that a folate expert has reported that the addition of folate to bread seems to have caused an upsurge in bowel cancer among Americans.
Bread should be fortified with folic acid by law to cut the risk of birth defects, the Food Standards Agency decided yesterday. The FSA board, which was split on the issue when it was last discussed in 2002, decided unanimously to back a recommendation from its scientific advisers for mandatory fortification of flour or bread, whichever is the more practicable.
In the US, Canada and several other countries, mandatory fortification has already cut sharply birth defects such as spina bifida. But Britain has hung back because of doubts about possible side-effects, and fear that "compulsory medication" would cause a public outcry.
The recommendation will now go to ministers, who will decide whether to implement it. If they do they could face opposition in the House of Commons but will be able to cite a mass of evidence gathered by the FSA.
The mandatory fortification of bread would include regular white and brown bread, but not wholemeal, enabling objectors to opt out. It would also be accompanied by controls on food that are already fortified voluntarily by manufacturers, such as some breakfast cereals, to avoid any possibility of an overdose.
The FSA board was given a range of options to consider, including the present policy of advising women planning pregnancies to take folic acid supplements. But half of pregnancies are unplanned, and the advice does not reach women in lower social classes whose diets are the most likely to be deficient. It has had relatively little effect.
The levels of fortification recommended by the FSA are 300 micrograms per 100 grams of flour, which it estimates will increase the average intake of the UK population by 78 micrograms a day. That should cut the incidence of neural tube defects by between 11 and 18 per cent, or between 77 and 162 cases a year. Greater reductions than this have been achieved abroad, and range from 27 to 50 per cent. But direct comparisons are difficult because they depend on the level of folic acid in the diet of each country before fortification began, and on eating patterns. The US achieved much greater increases in folic acid intake, probably because the amounts added to food exceeded the recommendations.
Dame Deirdre Hutton, chair of the FSA, told the board meeting in Nottingham that she supported the measure. "I don't believe it is the ultimate solution. I believe it is the best pragmatic solution we can get," she said.
The FSA board wants further advice on how folic acid can be added to bread without affecting cakes or biscuits. It called for more debate on how products fortified with folic acid should be labelled. Andrew Russell, the chief executive of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, said: "We are delighted that the FSA board has taken the decision to recommend mandatory flour fortification to ministers. "It is a rare opportunity to benefit from a vitamin, and significantly improve public health. Now that the science has been listened to, we look to health ministers to speedily implement this life-saving measure." Between 700 and 900 pregnancies per year in the UK are affected by neural tube defects (NTDs) such as spina bifida. The majority are terminated when the defects are detected in antenatal checks.
The FSA estimated that the cost of NTDs was 136 million pounds a year, of which the greatest cost was in treating babies who died soon after birth. Of the 800 affected pregnancies each year, 110 end in stillbirths or deaths early in life; 79 in births of children who require treatment but have good life expectancy, and 611 in terminations.
The FSA's decision is in stark contrast to that of 2002, when the measure was rejected. The fear then was that fortifying flour with folic acid would conceal vitamin B12 deficiencies in older people, leading them to medical problems. The unknown effect of excessive folic acid consumption on cancer risk also caused concern. Since then, the US has found no evidence of harm.
Source
'Magic bullet' devised to beat cancer
Sounds interesting
A new targeted therapy against cancer has shown impressive results in animal experiments. By using a beam of ultraviolet light to activate antibodies inside the tumour, a team at Newcastle University has created "magic bullets" that can use the body's immune system to destroy tumours while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
They use antibodies - the body's own natural defences - that are injected into the tumour. But before injection, the antibodies are "cloaked" by attaching them to an organic oil that renders them ineffective. Once in place, a beam of ultraviolet light breaks up the cloaking chemical, bringing the antibody back to life. The antibody then binds to T-cells, the body's defence system, and triggers them to target the surrounding tissue.
Antibodies are the big growth area in cancer therapy. Drugs such as Avastin and Herceptin have shown good results in shrinking tumours, and 20 antibody drugs have so far been licensed, with many more in the pipeline. But targeting them precisely and avoiding damage to surrounding healthy tissue have proved stumbling blocks. The team, led by Colin Self, believes that its technique could reduce or eliminate these problems.
Two papers published today in the journal ChemMedChem report that in a small animal trial, the technique elimated ovarian cancers in five out of six mice, and greatly reduced the tumour's size in the sixth mouse.
The body is not very effective at using its own defences to fight cancer, possibly because it fails to recognise the tumours as a threat. The aim of the technique is to activate the killer T-cells to attack cancer cells and destroy them.
There are risks in activating T-cells, as the failed human trial last year at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow proved. In that trial, an experimental antibody treatment called TGN1412 caused such a huge response that six healthy human volunteers suffered serious injuries as their activated T-cells attacked almost every organ in their bodies.
The trial showed just how powerful boosting the T-cell response can be. The Newcastle technique ought to avoid these dangers because the T-cell response will be local - inside the cancer - and not general.
However, the process will require extensive testing in animals and human trials before it has any chance of reaching a cancer clinic. David Glover, an expert in antibody technology and in drug trials, estimated yesterday that even if all went well it would be a decade before such a product could reach the market.
Light-activated therapies have achieved some success against cancers, particularly skin cancers, but have been used previously to activate chemotherapy drugs, not T-cells. There are some limitations, as light cannot always reach internal tumours very easily. But Professsor Self suggested yesterday that in an operation to cut out a prostate tumour, for example, the method could be used at the end of the operation to destroy any remaining tumour cells that the surgeon had been unable to remove, and hence prevent recurrence.
The method offers a further refinement, in which the cloaked antibody is linked to a second antibody directed against the tumour in a "double whammy". When uncloaked, it recruits T-cells to attack the tumour at the same time as the antitumour antibody also attacks it.
Professor Self said yesterday that his team had "very exciting" new results that confirmed the findings and that he was raising money for a human trial. This will be aimed at treating secondary skin cancers in patients who are already suffering cancers of the internal organs. The aim will not be to cure them, but simply to see if the skin cancers can be controlled, as a proof that the technique works in human beings.
Professor Self said: "I would describe this development as the equivalent of ultra-specific magic bullets. This could mean that a patient coming in for treatment of bladder cancer would receive an injection of the cloaked antibodies. She would sit in the waiting room for an hour and then come back in for treatment by light. Just a few minutes of the light therapy directed at the region of the tumour would activate the T-cells causing her body's own immune system to attack the tumour.
"While our work indicates that sunlight doesn't activate these antibodies, patients may have to be advised to avoid direct sunlight for a short time."
BioTransformations Ltd, the company set up by Professor Self to develop the technology, hopes to begin clinical trials on patients with secondary skin cancers early next year.
Source
British Conservatives to cut immigration
Tory leader David Cameron pledged to cut net immigration into the UK, to ward off "unsustainable" pressure on the country's public services and infrastructure. In his first major speech on immigration, Mr Cameron set out his "modern Conservative population strategy" to slow the rate of growth in the numbers of people living in the UK. A Tory administration would set annual limits on economic migration from outside the EU "substantially lower" than the current rate, set up a Border Police Force with powers to track down and remove illegal migrants, and impose transitional controls on the right of nationals of new EU states to work in the UK.
And Mr Cameron said he would raise the minimum age for spouses coming to Britain to 21 and demand that they are able to speak English. A failure to reduce net immigration would "make it more difficult for a Conservative government to deliver its vision of opportunity, responsibility and security", he warned.
The Conservative leader also cautioned: "The promises that Gordon Brown makes - whether on improving the NHS, the education system or housing provision - will quite simply be overwhelmed by his failure to deal with the root causes of our demographic challenge."
Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest, on current trends, the UK's population will rise from 60.6 million to more than 71 million by 2031, increasing pressure on housing, healthcare, schools, the transport system, energy and water supplies. Some of the increased pressure comes from Britain's ageing population, as well as the "atomisation" of society through divorce, family break-up and later marriage, which means more single-person households, said Mr Cameron. But with 190,000 more people coming to the UK from abroad than leave the country each year, the bulk of the population rise - around 70% - is driven by immigration.
"Of course we should recognise that in an advanced, open economy there will be high levels of both emigration and immigration," said Mr Cameron in his speech in central London. "But what matters is the net figure, which I believe is currently too high... It is time for change. We need policy to reduce the level of net immigration. And we need policy to strengthen society and combat atomisation."
Immigration minister Liam Byrne accused Mr Cameron of "rehashing platitudes". "He talks of a limit on immigration numbers but nowhere does he say what this would be," he said.
Source
Reducing emissions could speed global warming (??)
There's no such thing as a happy Greenie and Prof. Lovelock is unhappy about EVERYTHING
A rapid cutback in greenhouse gas emissions could speed up global warming, the veteran environmental maverick James Lovelock will warn in a lecture today. Prof Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory that the planet behaves like a single organism, says this is because current global warming is offset by global dimming - the 2-3§C of cooling cause by industrial pollution, known to scientists as aerosol particles, in the atmosphere.
His lecture will be delivered as Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, launches the results of a public consultation on the Government's proposed Climate Change Bill which is intended to cut Britain's greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Prof Lovelock will say in a lecture to the Royal Society: "Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating. "If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler. We live in a fool's climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly."
Prof Lovelock believes that even the gloomiest predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are underestimating the current severity of climate change because they do not go into the consequences of the current burden pollution in the atmosphere which will last for centuries. He argues that though the scientific language of the IPCC, which reported earlier this year, is "properly cautious" it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable if we take action now....
According to Professor Lovelock's gloomy analysis, the IPCC's climate models fail to take account of the Earth as a living system where life in the oceans and land takes an active part in regulating the climate. He will argue that when a model includes the whole Earth system it shows that: "When the carbon dioxide in the air exceeds 500 parts per million the global temperature suddenly rises 6§C and becomes stable again despite further increases or decreases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. "This contrasts with the IPCC models that predict that temperature rises and falls smoothly with increasing or decreasing carbon dioxide."
He argues that we should cut greenhouse gas emissions, nonetheless, because it might help slow the pace of global heating. We also have to do our best to lessen our destruction of natural forests but this is unlikely to be enough and we will have to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes we will soon experience.
The pro-nuclear Prof Lovelock will say that we should think of the Earth as a live self-regulating system and devise ways to harness the natural processes that regulate the climate in the fight against global warming. This could involve paying indigenous peoples to protect their forests and develop ways to make the ocean absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere more efficiently.
Prof Lovelock intends to add: "We are not merely a disease; we are through our intelligence and communication the planetary equivalent of a nervous system. We should be the heart and mind of the Earth not its malady." ...
Source
Out-of-hours NHS care 'failing'
The NHS is failing to offer sufficient out-of-hours GP care for severely ill patients, experts have said. Existing services are "inadequate and inflexible" and there is a need for better diagnostic facilities, the Royal College of Physicians taskforce said. The group also said hospital care needed to be redesigned for those with non-life threatening life conditions that none-the-less require treatment. The government said care was improving after record investment.
The taskforce, which included a range of health professionals, looked at acute medical care. This includes the care of patients with respiratory problems or chest pains or complications linked to epilepsy or diabetes, which are not yet emergencies but could become so. The taskforce said poor standards of weekend and evening GP cover, which is now done by co-operatives of health professionals and private firms after family doctors were allowed to opt out in 2004, was forcing some patients to turn up at hospital for "reassurance".
The report recommended that local navigational hubs be set up to sign-post patients to the right services. And it called for specialist outreach clinics to be set up in the community to bring expert care out of hospitals. It said out-of-hours cover needed better access to diagnostic facilities, which includes scans and blood tests, to create a "see and treat" culture rather than the "see and greet" one that currently exists.
The experts also said hospital services needed to be redesigned to ensure "rapid streaming of patients". The experts said that all too often even patients already in hospital can find themselves moving slowly through the system seeing nurses, junior doctors and then consultants when they really need urgent help. They said acute medical units, rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment centres which are becoming increasingly common in hospitals, need to be located near other key services such as the emergency department and critical care.
RCP president Professor Ian Gilmore said NHS professionals were facing a challenge - "to change what we do, when we do it and how we do it". He added: "For doctors, nurses, managers and all those involved with the care of acutely ill patients, this task will not be easy, but the status quo is not an option if we are to give these patients a consistently high standard of care."
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said the government welcomed the report but was already making sure that people have access to care around the clock. "Primary Care Trusts must deliver high quality out-of-hours care, and in addition, patients have access to a range of other services that can provide urgent care out-of-hours including NHS Direct and NHS walk-in centres," he said. "We have invested record amounts in out of hours services and patients are seeing the benefits - eight our of ten patients say that they are satisfied with the service, and six out of ten rated the service as excellent or good."
Source
As a great fan of Ayckbourn, I am delighted by this news: "An early play by Sir Alan Ayckbourn has been found more than 40 years after it was presumed destroyed, completing the 70-volume canon of his manuscripts. The satires about middle-class manners by Ayckbourn have established him as one of the most highly regarded playwrights in the world, but he was an actor in Scarborough when he wrote Love after All, his second play, in 1959. It was another nine years before he made his name with Relatively Speaking, which became a hit in the West End. The manuscript was discovered by staff from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Ayckbourn’s archive is based and his plays are still premiered. Working with curators from the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, they found it in the archives of the Lord Chamberlain who, until 1968, vetted every play before it could be performed".
Britain now closing libraries: "Proposals to close library buildings across England are being explored by a government advisory body even though more than 100 buildings are estimated to have been lost in the past two years, The Times has learnt. Two years ago a damning report by the Commons Select Committee for Culture condemned the shabby and neglected public library services, with their backlog of building repairs and refurbishments. MPs had urged the Government to give libraries access to lottery money, calculating that up to two thirds of a billion pounds would be needed to wipe out the backlog of repairs. Campaigners, who are already outraged that libraries are being turned into centres for fitness classes and Pilates, were shocked to discover yesterday that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the government agency in charge of the sector, is addressing the problem by examining whether there are too many library buildings."
Because America does it, it must be OK, seems to be their reasoning. The article below says that the experts have found no evidence of harm from folates. They were not looking very hard. I can find plenty and I am only a desultory reader of the relevant literature. Note this recent expert comment about folates and bowel cancer:
"Other reasonable hypotheses about one-carbon metabolism and colorectal carcinogenesis, based on our current understanding of the biochemistry and underlying mechanisms, have also not been proven correct. In a recently published placebo-controlled randomized clinical trial among 1021 men and women with a recent history of colorectal adenoma, supplemental folic acid at 1 mg/d for up to 6 years did not reduce the incidence of subsequent colorectal adenomas and might have increased it."
WHOA! The folate that Americans get compulsorily added to their bread did no good and seems to have done harm?? And do we see a double blind controlled study contradicting epidemiological inferences?? Who would have believed it! They go on to admit that two animal studies have shown that folate INCREASES cancer. Aren't you glad that your government is dosing you up with the stuff and giving you no say in the matter?
The addition of folate to our bread is more and more looking like an iatrogenic disaster to come. I think I should note once again that a folate expert has reported that the addition of folate to bread seems to have caused an upsurge in bowel cancer among Americans.
Bread should be fortified with folic acid by law to cut the risk of birth defects, the Food Standards Agency decided yesterday. The FSA board, which was split on the issue when it was last discussed in 2002, decided unanimously to back a recommendation from its scientific advisers for mandatory fortification of flour or bread, whichever is the more practicable.
In the US, Canada and several other countries, mandatory fortification has already cut sharply birth defects such as spina bifida. But Britain has hung back because of doubts about possible side-effects, and fear that "compulsory medication" would cause a public outcry.
The recommendation will now go to ministers, who will decide whether to implement it. If they do they could face opposition in the House of Commons but will be able to cite a mass of evidence gathered by the FSA.
The mandatory fortification of bread would include regular white and brown bread, but not wholemeal, enabling objectors to opt out. It would also be accompanied by controls on food that are already fortified voluntarily by manufacturers, such as some breakfast cereals, to avoid any possibility of an overdose.
The FSA board was given a range of options to consider, including the present policy of advising women planning pregnancies to take folic acid supplements. But half of pregnancies are unplanned, and the advice does not reach women in lower social classes whose diets are the most likely to be deficient. It has had relatively little effect.
The levels of fortification recommended by the FSA are 300 micrograms per 100 grams of flour, which it estimates will increase the average intake of the UK population by 78 micrograms a day. That should cut the incidence of neural tube defects by between 11 and 18 per cent, or between 77 and 162 cases a year. Greater reductions than this have been achieved abroad, and range from 27 to 50 per cent. But direct comparisons are difficult because they depend on the level of folic acid in the diet of each country before fortification began, and on eating patterns. The US achieved much greater increases in folic acid intake, probably because the amounts added to food exceeded the recommendations.
Dame Deirdre Hutton, chair of the FSA, told the board meeting in Nottingham that she supported the measure. "I don't believe it is the ultimate solution. I believe it is the best pragmatic solution we can get," she said.
The FSA board wants further advice on how folic acid can be added to bread without affecting cakes or biscuits. It called for more debate on how products fortified with folic acid should be labelled. Andrew Russell, the chief executive of the Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, said: "We are delighted that the FSA board has taken the decision to recommend mandatory flour fortification to ministers. "It is a rare opportunity to benefit from a vitamin, and significantly improve public health. Now that the science has been listened to, we look to health ministers to speedily implement this life-saving measure." Between 700 and 900 pregnancies per year in the UK are affected by neural tube defects (NTDs) such as spina bifida. The majority are terminated when the defects are detected in antenatal checks.
The FSA estimated that the cost of NTDs was 136 million pounds a year, of which the greatest cost was in treating babies who died soon after birth. Of the 800 affected pregnancies each year, 110 end in stillbirths or deaths early in life; 79 in births of children who require treatment but have good life expectancy, and 611 in terminations.
The FSA's decision is in stark contrast to that of 2002, when the measure was rejected. The fear then was that fortifying flour with folic acid would conceal vitamin B12 deficiencies in older people, leading them to medical problems. The unknown effect of excessive folic acid consumption on cancer risk also caused concern. Since then, the US has found no evidence of harm.
Source
'Magic bullet' devised to beat cancer
Sounds interesting
A new targeted therapy against cancer has shown impressive results in animal experiments. By using a beam of ultraviolet light to activate antibodies inside the tumour, a team at Newcastle University has created "magic bullets" that can use the body's immune system to destroy tumours while leaving healthy tissue unharmed.
They use antibodies - the body's own natural defences - that are injected into the tumour. But before injection, the antibodies are "cloaked" by attaching them to an organic oil that renders them ineffective. Once in place, a beam of ultraviolet light breaks up the cloaking chemical, bringing the antibody back to life. The antibody then binds to T-cells, the body's defence system, and triggers them to target the surrounding tissue.
Antibodies are the big growth area in cancer therapy. Drugs such as Avastin and Herceptin have shown good results in shrinking tumours, and 20 antibody drugs have so far been licensed, with many more in the pipeline. But targeting them precisely and avoiding damage to surrounding healthy tissue have proved stumbling blocks. The team, led by Colin Self, believes that its technique could reduce or eliminate these problems.
Two papers published today in the journal ChemMedChem report that in a small animal trial, the technique elimated ovarian cancers in five out of six mice, and greatly reduced the tumour's size in the sixth mouse.
The body is not very effective at using its own defences to fight cancer, possibly because it fails to recognise the tumours as a threat. The aim of the technique is to activate the killer T-cells to attack cancer cells and destroy them.
There are risks in activating T-cells, as the failed human trial last year at Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow proved. In that trial, an experimental antibody treatment called TGN1412 caused such a huge response that six healthy human volunteers suffered serious injuries as their activated T-cells attacked almost every organ in their bodies.
The trial showed just how powerful boosting the T-cell response can be. The Newcastle technique ought to avoid these dangers because the T-cell response will be local - inside the cancer - and not general.
However, the process will require extensive testing in animals and human trials before it has any chance of reaching a cancer clinic. David Glover, an expert in antibody technology and in drug trials, estimated yesterday that even if all went well it would be a decade before such a product could reach the market.
Light-activated therapies have achieved some success against cancers, particularly skin cancers, but have been used previously to activate chemotherapy drugs, not T-cells. There are some limitations, as light cannot always reach internal tumours very easily. But Professsor Self suggested yesterday that in an operation to cut out a prostate tumour, for example, the method could be used at the end of the operation to destroy any remaining tumour cells that the surgeon had been unable to remove, and hence prevent recurrence.
The method offers a further refinement, in which the cloaked antibody is linked to a second antibody directed against the tumour in a "double whammy". When uncloaked, it recruits T-cells to attack the tumour at the same time as the antitumour antibody also attacks it.
Professor Self said yesterday that his team had "very exciting" new results that confirmed the findings and that he was raising money for a human trial. This will be aimed at treating secondary skin cancers in patients who are already suffering cancers of the internal organs. The aim will not be to cure them, but simply to see if the skin cancers can be controlled, as a proof that the technique works in human beings.
Professor Self said: "I would describe this development as the equivalent of ultra-specific magic bullets. This could mean that a patient coming in for treatment of bladder cancer would receive an injection of the cloaked antibodies. She would sit in the waiting room for an hour and then come back in for treatment by light. Just a few minutes of the light therapy directed at the region of the tumour would activate the T-cells causing her body's own immune system to attack the tumour.
"While our work indicates that sunlight doesn't activate these antibodies, patients may have to be advised to avoid direct sunlight for a short time."
BioTransformations Ltd, the company set up by Professor Self to develop the technology, hopes to begin clinical trials on patients with secondary skin cancers early next year.
Source
British Conservatives to cut immigration
Tory leader David Cameron pledged to cut net immigration into the UK, to ward off "unsustainable" pressure on the country's public services and infrastructure. In his first major speech on immigration, Mr Cameron set out his "modern Conservative population strategy" to slow the rate of growth in the numbers of people living in the UK. A Tory administration would set annual limits on economic migration from outside the EU "substantially lower" than the current rate, set up a Border Police Force with powers to track down and remove illegal migrants, and impose transitional controls on the right of nationals of new EU states to work in the UK.
And Mr Cameron said he would raise the minimum age for spouses coming to Britain to 21 and demand that they are able to speak English. A failure to reduce net immigration would "make it more difficult for a Conservative government to deliver its vision of opportunity, responsibility and security", he warned.
The Conservative leader also cautioned: "The promises that Gordon Brown makes - whether on improving the NHS, the education system or housing provision - will quite simply be overwhelmed by his failure to deal with the root causes of our demographic challenge."
Latest figures from the Office for National Statistics suggest, on current trends, the UK's population will rise from 60.6 million to more than 71 million by 2031, increasing pressure on housing, healthcare, schools, the transport system, energy and water supplies. Some of the increased pressure comes from Britain's ageing population, as well as the "atomisation" of society through divorce, family break-up and later marriage, which means more single-person households, said Mr Cameron. But with 190,000 more people coming to the UK from abroad than leave the country each year, the bulk of the population rise - around 70% - is driven by immigration.
"Of course we should recognise that in an advanced, open economy there will be high levels of both emigration and immigration," said Mr Cameron in his speech in central London. "But what matters is the net figure, which I believe is currently too high... It is time for change. We need policy to reduce the level of net immigration. And we need policy to strengthen society and combat atomisation."
Immigration minister Liam Byrne accused Mr Cameron of "rehashing platitudes". "He talks of a limit on immigration numbers but nowhere does he say what this would be," he said.
Source
Reducing emissions could speed global warming (??)
There's no such thing as a happy Greenie and Prof. Lovelock is unhappy about EVERYTHING
A rapid cutback in greenhouse gas emissions could speed up global warming, the veteran environmental maverick James Lovelock will warn in a lecture today. Prof Lovelock, inventor of the Gaia theory that the planet behaves like a single organism, says this is because current global warming is offset by global dimming - the 2-3§C of cooling cause by industrial pollution, known to scientists as aerosol particles, in the atmosphere.
His lecture will be delivered as Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, launches the results of a public consultation on the Government's proposed Climate Change Bill which is intended to cut Britain's greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent by 2050. Prof Lovelock will say in a lecture to the Royal Society: "Any economic downturn or planned cutback in fossil fuel use, which lessened aerosol density, would intensify the heating. "If there were a 100 per cent cut in fossil fuel combustion it might get hotter not cooler. We live in a fool's climate. We are damned if we continue to burn fuel and damned if we stop too suddenly."
Prof Lovelock believes that even the gloomiest predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are underestimating the current severity of climate change because they do not go into the consequences of the current burden pollution in the atmosphere which will last for centuries. He argues that though the scientific language of the IPCC, which reported earlier this year, is "properly cautious" it gives the impression that the worst consequences of climate change are avoidable if we take action now....
According to Professor Lovelock's gloomy analysis, the IPCC's climate models fail to take account of the Earth as a living system where life in the oceans and land takes an active part in regulating the climate. He will argue that when a model includes the whole Earth system it shows that: "When the carbon dioxide in the air exceeds 500 parts per million the global temperature suddenly rises 6§C and becomes stable again despite further increases or decreases of atmospheric carbon dioxide. "This contrasts with the IPCC models that predict that temperature rises and falls smoothly with increasing or decreasing carbon dioxide."
He argues that we should cut greenhouse gas emissions, nonetheless, because it might help slow the pace of global heating. We also have to do our best to lessen our destruction of natural forests but this is unlikely to be enough and we will have to learn to adapt to the inevitable changes we will soon experience.
The pro-nuclear Prof Lovelock will say that we should think of the Earth as a live self-regulating system and devise ways to harness the natural processes that regulate the climate in the fight against global warming. This could involve paying indigenous peoples to protect their forests and develop ways to make the ocean absorb and store carbon from the atmosphere more efficiently.
Prof Lovelock intends to add: "We are not merely a disease; we are through our intelligence and communication the planetary equivalent of a nervous system. We should be the heart and mind of the Earth not its malady." ...
Source
Out-of-hours NHS care 'failing'
The NHS is failing to offer sufficient out-of-hours GP care for severely ill patients, experts have said. Existing services are "inadequate and inflexible" and there is a need for better diagnostic facilities, the Royal College of Physicians taskforce said. The group also said hospital care needed to be redesigned for those with non-life threatening life conditions that none-the-less require treatment. The government said care was improving after record investment.
The taskforce, which included a range of health professionals, looked at acute medical care. This includes the care of patients with respiratory problems or chest pains or complications linked to epilepsy or diabetes, which are not yet emergencies but could become so. The taskforce said poor standards of weekend and evening GP cover, which is now done by co-operatives of health professionals and private firms after family doctors were allowed to opt out in 2004, was forcing some patients to turn up at hospital for "reassurance".
The report recommended that local navigational hubs be set up to sign-post patients to the right services. And it called for specialist outreach clinics to be set up in the community to bring expert care out of hospitals. It said out-of-hours cover needed better access to diagnostic facilities, which includes scans and blood tests, to create a "see and treat" culture rather than the "see and greet" one that currently exists.
The experts also said hospital services needed to be redesigned to ensure "rapid streaming of patients". The experts said that all too often even patients already in hospital can find themselves moving slowly through the system seeing nurses, junior doctors and then consultants when they really need urgent help. They said acute medical units, rapid assessment, diagnosis and treatment centres which are becoming increasingly common in hospitals, need to be located near other key services such as the emergency department and critical care.
RCP president Professor Ian Gilmore said NHS professionals were facing a challenge - "to change what we do, when we do it and how we do it". He added: "For doctors, nurses, managers and all those involved with the care of acutely ill patients, this task will not be easy, but the status quo is not an option if we are to give these patients a consistently high standard of care."
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said the government welcomed the report but was already making sure that people have access to care around the clock. "Primary Care Trusts must deliver high quality out-of-hours care, and in addition, patients have access to a range of other services that can provide urgent care out-of-hours including NHS Direct and NHS walk-in centres," he said. "We have invested record amounts in out of hours services and patients are seeing the benefits - eight our of ten patients say that they are satisfied with the service, and six out of ten rated the service as excellent or good."
Source
As a great fan of Ayckbourn, I am delighted by this news: "An early play by Sir Alan Ayckbourn has been found more than 40 years after it was presumed destroyed, completing the 70-volume canon of his manuscripts. The satires about middle-class manners by Ayckbourn have established him as one of the most highly regarded playwrights in the world, but he was an actor in Scarborough when he wrote Love after All, his second play, in 1959. It was another nine years before he made his name with Relatively Speaking, which became a hit in the West End. The manuscript was discovered by staff from the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where Ayckbourn’s archive is based and his plays are still premiered. Working with curators from the Department of Manuscripts at the British Library, they found it in the archives of the Lord Chamberlain who, until 1968, vetted every play before it could be performed".
Britain now closing libraries: "Proposals to close library buildings across England are being explored by a government advisory body even though more than 100 buildings are estimated to have been lost in the past two years, The Times has learnt. Two years ago a damning report by the Commons Select Committee for Culture condemned the shabby and neglected public library services, with their backlog of building repairs and refurbishments. MPs had urged the Government to give libraries access to lottery money, calculating that up to two thirds of a billion pounds would be needed to wipe out the backlog of repairs. Campaigners, who are already outraged that libraries are being turned into centres for fitness classes and Pilates, were shocked to discover yesterday that the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA), the government agency in charge of the sector, is addressing the problem by examining whether there are too many library buildings."
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Oxford University students stirring the pot again
They have a long tradition of it:
"Stirring the possum" (saying deliberately provocative things mainly for amusement) is a popular tradition in Australia too. And if students cannot rebel against conventions, who can? I think Irving is mainly a publicity-seeker these days too. What he says does vary a lot from time to time.
Brits don't recognize Michael Moore's picture of their health system
The fourth estate has always had a bad name, but it seems to be getting worse. Journalism should be an honest and useful trade, and often still is. But now that journalism has more power than ever before, it seems to have become ever more disreputable. In recent years it has been brought lower and lower by kiss-and-tell betrayals, by "reality" TV, by shockumentaries and by liars, fantasists, hucksters and geeks of every kind, crowing and denouncing and emoting in a hideous new version of Bunyan's Vanity Fair.
Outstanding among these is Michael Moore, the American documentary maker. He specialises in searing indictments, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, and has, without a doubt, a genius for it. Although his films are crude, manipulative and one-sided, he is idolised by millions of Americans and Europeans, widely seen as some sort of redneck Mr Valiant-for-truth.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His latest documentary, Sicko, was released in cinemas last week. Millions of people will see it and all too many of them will be misled.
Sicko, like all Moore's films, is about an important and emotive subject - healthcare. He contrasts the harsh and exclusive system in the US with the European ideal of universal socialised medicine, equal and free for all, and tries to demonstrate that one is wrong and the other is right. So far, so good; there are cases to be made.
Unfortunately Sicko is a dishonest film. That is not only my opinion. It is the opinion of Professor Lord Robert Winston, the consultant and advocate of the NHS. When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether he recognised the NHS as portrayed in this film, Winston replied: "No, I didn't. Most of it was filmed at my hospital [the Hammersmith in west London], which is a very good hospital but doesn't represent what the NHS is like."
I didn't recognise it either, from years of visiting NHS hospitals. Moore painted a rose-tinted vision of spotless wards, impeccable treatment, happy patients who laugh away any suggestion of waiting in casualty, and a glamorous young GP who combines his devotion to his patients with a salary of 100,000 pounds, a house worth 1m and two cars. All this, and for free. This, along with an even rosier portrait of the French welfare system, is what Moore says the state can and should provide. You would never guess from Sicko that the NHS is in deep trouble, mired in scandal and incompetence, despite the injection of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. While there are good doctors and nurses and treatments in the NHS, there is so much that is inadequate or bad that it is dishonest to represent it as the envy of the world and a perfect blueprint for national healthcare. It isn't.
GPs' salaries - used by Moore as evidence that a state-run system does not necessarily mean low wages - is highly controversial; their huge pay rise has coincided with a loss of home visits, a serious problem in getting GP appointments and continuing very low pay for nurses and cleaners.
At least 20 NHS trusts have even worse problems with the hospital-acquired infection clostridium difficile, not least the trust in Kent where 90 people died of C diff in a scandal reported recently. Many hospitals are in crisis. Money shortages, bad management, excesses of bureaucrats and deadly Whitehall micromanagement mean they have to skimp on what matters most.
Overfilling the beds is dangerous to patients, in hygiene and in recovery times, but it goes on widely. Millions are wasted on expensive agency nurses because NHS nurses are abandoning the profession in droves. Only days ago, the 2007 nurse of the year publicly resigned in despair at the health service. There is a dangerous shortage of midwives since so many have left, and giving birth on the NHS can be a shocking experience.
Meanwhile thousands of young hospital doctors, under a daft new employment scheme, were sent randomly around the country, pretty much regardless of their qualifications or wishes. As foreign doctors are recruited from Third World countries, hundreds of the best-qualified British doctors have been left unemployed. Several have emigrated.
As for consultants, the men in Whitehall didn't believe what they said about the hours they worked, beyond their duties, and issued new contracts forcing them to work less. You could hardly make it up.
None of these problems mean we should abandon the idea of a universal shared system of healthcare. It's clear we would not want the American model, even if it isn't quite as bad as portrayed by Moore. It's clear our British private medical insurance provision is a rip-off. I believe we should as a society share burdens of ill health and its treatment. The only question is how best to do that and it seems to me the state-run, micromanaged NHS has failed to answer it.
By ignoring these problems, and similar ones in France's even more generous and expensive health service, Moore is lying about the answer to that question. I wonder whether the grotesquely fat film-maker is aware of the delicious irony that in our state-run system, the government and the NHS have been having serious public discussion about the necessity of refusing to treat people who are extremely obese.
One can only wonder why Sicko is so dishonestly biased. It must be partly down to Moore's personal vainglory; he has cast himself as a high priest of righteous indignation, the people's prophet, and he has an almost religious following. He's a sort of docu-evangelist, dressed like a parody of the American man of the people, with jutting jaw, infantile questions and aggressively aligned baseball cap.
However, behind the pleasures of righteous indignation for him and his audience, there is something more sinister. There's money in indignation, big money. It is just one of the many extreme sensations that are lucrative for journalists to whip up, along with prurience, disgust and envy. Michael Moore is not Mr Valiant-for-truth. He is Mr Worldly-wiseman, laughing behind his hand at all the gawping suckers in Vanity Fair. Don't go to his show.
Source
They have a long tradition of it:
"Less than a month after Columbia University gave Holocaust denier, Iranian president Ahmadinejad, a platform in the name of freedom of expression, the Oxford University debating society has contacted Holocaust denier David Irving using the same argument and asked him to participate in one of the society's forums in November. The club also wants to invite Belarus dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, and chairman of the British Nationalist Party (BNP), Nick Griffin.
Debating society president, Luke Tryl, told the British Guardian newspaper that the Oxford Union debating society "is famous for is commitment to free speech" and that the three had been invited despite their "awful and abhorrent views" He argued that the students at Oxford are intelligent enough to challenge and ridicule them....
Last month Irving told the Guardian that his views on the Holocaust have not changed at all and that his views have become stronger over the years. In several books he plans to publish soon, Irving maintains that "the Jews are the architects of what happened to them in the Second World War" and that the "Jewish problem" has been the cause of most wars in the past hundred years. Irving also claims that the gas chambers in Auschwitz never existed and that the camp was not an extermination camp and has only been publicized because it was well preserved.
Source
"Stirring the possum" (saying deliberately provocative things mainly for amusement) is a popular tradition in Australia too. And if students cannot rebel against conventions, who can? I think Irving is mainly a publicity-seeker these days too. What he says does vary a lot from time to time.
Brits don't recognize Michael Moore's picture of their health system
The fourth estate has always had a bad name, but it seems to be getting worse. Journalism should be an honest and useful trade, and often still is. But now that journalism has more power than ever before, it seems to have become ever more disreputable. In recent years it has been brought lower and lower by kiss-and-tell betrayals, by "reality" TV, by shockumentaries and by liars, fantasists, hucksters and geeks of every kind, crowing and denouncing and emoting in a hideous new version of Bunyan's Vanity Fair.
Outstanding among these is Michael Moore, the American documentary maker. He specialises in searing indictments, such as Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine, and has, without a doubt, a genius for it. Although his films are crude, manipulative and one-sided, he is idolised by millions of Americans and Europeans, widely seen as some sort of redneck Mr Valiant-for-truth.
Nothing could be further from the truth. His latest documentary, Sicko, was released in cinemas last week. Millions of people will see it and all too many of them will be misled.
Sicko, like all Moore's films, is about an important and emotive subject - healthcare. He contrasts the harsh and exclusive system in the US with the European ideal of universal socialised medicine, equal and free for all, and tries to demonstrate that one is wrong and the other is right. So far, so good; there are cases to be made.
Unfortunately Sicko is a dishonest film. That is not only my opinion. It is the opinion of Professor Lord Robert Winston, the consultant and advocate of the NHS. When asked on BBC Radio 4 whether he recognised the NHS as portrayed in this film, Winston replied: "No, I didn't. Most of it was filmed at my hospital [the Hammersmith in west London], which is a very good hospital but doesn't represent what the NHS is like."
I didn't recognise it either, from years of visiting NHS hospitals. Moore painted a rose-tinted vision of spotless wards, impeccable treatment, happy patients who laugh away any suggestion of waiting in casualty, and a glamorous young GP who combines his devotion to his patients with a salary of 100,000 pounds, a house worth 1m and two cars. All this, and for free. This, along with an even rosier portrait of the French welfare system, is what Moore says the state can and should provide. You would never guess from Sicko that the NHS is in deep trouble, mired in scandal and incompetence, despite the injection of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. While there are good doctors and nurses and treatments in the NHS, there is so much that is inadequate or bad that it is dishonest to represent it as the envy of the world and a perfect blueprint for national healthcare. It isn't.
GPs' salaries - used by Moore as evidence that a state-run system does not necessarily mean low wages - is highly controversial; their huge pay rise has coincided with a loss of home visits, a serious problem in getting GP appointments and continuing very low pay for nurses and cleaners.
At least 20 NHS trusts have even worse problems with the hospital-acquired infection clostridium difficile, not least the trust in Kent where 90 people died of C diff in a scandal reported recently. Many hospitals are in crisis. Money shortages, bad management, excesses of bureaucrats and deadly Whitehall micromanagement mean they have to skimp on what matters most.
Overfilling the beds is dangerous to patients, in hygiene and in recovery times, but it goes on widely. Millions are wasted on expensive agency nurses because NHS nurses are abandoning the profession in droves. Only days ago, the 2007 nurse of the year publicly resigned in despair at the health service. There is a dangerous shortage of midwives since so many have left, and giving birth on the NHS can be a shocking experience.
Meanwhile thousands of young hospital doctors, under a daft new employment scheme, were sent randomly around the country, pretty much regardless of their qualifications or wishes. As foreign doctors are recruited from Third World countries, hundreds of the best-qualified British doctors have been left unemployed. Several have emigrated.
As for consultants, the men in Whitehall didn't believe what they said about the hours they worked, beyond their duties, and issued new contracts forcing them to work less. You could hardly make it up.
None of these problems mean we should abandon the idea of a universal shared system of healthcare. It's clear we would not want the American model, even if it isn't quite as bad as portrayed by Moore. It's clear our British private medical insurance provision is a rip-off. I believe we should as a society share burdens of ill health and its treatment. The only question is how best to do that and it seems to me the state-run, micromanaged NHS has failed to answer it.
By ignoring these problems, and similar ones in France's even more generous and expensive health service, Moore is lying about the answer to that question. I wonder whether the grotesquely fat film-maker is aware of the delicious irony that in our state-run system, the government and the NHS have been having serious public discussion about the necessity of refusing to treat people who are extremely obese.
One can only wonder why Sicko is so dishonestly biased. It must be partly down to Moore's personal vainglory; he has cast himself as a high priest of righteous indignation, the people's prophet, and he has an almost religious following. He's a sort of docu-evangelist, dressed like a parody of the American man of the people, with jutting jaw, infantile questions and aggressively aligned baseball cap.
However, behind the pleasures of righteous indignation for him and his audience, there is something more sinister. There's money in indignation, big money. It is just one of the many extreme sensations that are lucrative for journalists to whip up, along with prurience, disgust and envy. Michael Moore is not Mr Valiant-for-truth. He is Mr Worldly-wiseman, laughing behind his hand at all the gawping suckers in Vanity Fair. Don't go to his show.
Source
Monday, October 29, 2007
More stupid "organic" propaganda
It assumes that "antioxidants" are good for you -- a myth. Antioxidants are the medical equivalent of global warming -- used to explain just about anything purely on the basis of theory. They can actually be dangerous and can shorten your life
The biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives. The evidence from the 12m pound four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice. The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain's biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.
Professor Carlo Leifert, the co-ordinator of the European Union-funded project, said the differences were so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables. "If you have just 20% more antioxidants and you can't get your kids to do five a day, then you might just be okay with four a day," he said.
This weekend the Food Standards Agency confirmed that it was reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to change its advice. Ministers and the agency have said there are no significant differences between organic and ordinary produce.
Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent organic and nonorganic sites on a 725-acre farm attached to Newcastle University, and at other sites in Europe. They found that levels of antioxidants in milk from organic herds were up to 90% higher than in milk from conventional herds. As well as finding up to 40% more antioxidants in organic vegetables, they also found that organic tomatoes from Greece had significantly higher levels of antioxidants, including flavo-noids thought to reduce coronary heart disease.
Leifert said the government was wrong about there being no difference between organic and conventional produce. "There is enough evidence now that the level of good things is higher in organics," he said.
Source
Competitive sport making a partial comeback in British schools
In Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), written by an alumnus of Rugby school during Thomas Arnold's headship, the eponymous hero states: `[F]ootball and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win.' It's not therefore competition per se that was deemed morally suspect, but self-interest - hence the emphasis on team sport. Moreover, the moral claims made on behalf of certain team sports drew on their intrinsically competitive nature, indeed, made of it a virtue. Instrumental it may be, but the ends are not extrinsic to the means.
Adding a touch more Empire to this morally robust mix, a later Victorian homilist, TL Papillon, was equally certain of sport's value to a public school boy, especially one who, lacking academic aptitude, `has devoted a great part of his time and nearly all his thoughts to athletic sports': for he will still bring `away something beyond all price, a manly straight forward character, a scorn of lying and meanness, habits of obedience and command and reckless courage. Thus equipped, he goes out into the world, and bears a man's part in subduing the earth, taming its wild folk, and building up the Empire.' (4) It is doubtful that any equivalent rhetoric exists for pedometers.
In an article published in The Tribune in December 1945, George Orwell famously echoed the sentiments above. But he did so darkly: `Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.' (5) The occasion for such a tirade may have been Arsenal's defeat of Dynamo Moscow, but it doesn't take a historian to figure out that the context of recent World War, and incipient Cold War, provided the frame through which Orwell rendered competitiveness as the essence of militarism. Furthermore, the focus of Orwell's declamation is illustrative. For it is always in terms of the competitive element, the very element both regulated and exalted in sport throughout its nineteenth-century development, that sport is judged. The disparagement of school sport during the late 1980s and 90s is no exception. On the basis that competitive sport cultivated selfishness, competitive sports days appeared as free-market induction sessions. While many lost their livelihoods during the 1980s and early 90s, in the anti-competitive parallel sporting universe, wrongs were to be set right by ensuring that eggs were glued to spoons.
But times change. `It was an absurd and perverse political correctness which caused competitive sports to be banned in some schools and I hope we never see a return to such nonsense' announced then education secretary Alan Johnson earlier this year (5). Indeed, school sport has rarely been so high up the policy agenda, nor investment so forthcoming. As last year's School Sport Survey extolled: `Physical Education (PE) and sport play an important role in school life. They help to raise standards, improve behaviour and health, increase attendance and develop social skills.' In other words, school sport does a lot of things the government is keen on doing. Not only that, it also seems to be pretty successful. As David Conn reported, in 1994, only 25 per cent of primary and secondary school pupils in Britain were doing the recommended two hours of PE a week (6). The figure is now 86 per cent (7).
There's no doubt that the stats are impressive. But it's what is driving the newfound sporting zeal that is more troubling. As with many other aspects of education, school sport seems to be acquiring its current meaning in a context of social estrangement. In this sense it appears as no more than a vital mediation between the dislocated state and the populace it seeks to manage. But in the process of reducing school sport to a policy mechanism, a management tool, the authorities run the risk of emptying sport of content, reducing it to an abstraction, units of exercise applicable to everyone - sporty or not. As such it can just about refer to anything that involves a degree of movement, hence its ability to colonise informal aspects of kids' lives - dance or skateboarding, say - and institutionalise them as another school sport.
Likewise, competition changes meaning, and becomes more of a byword for participation, a demand that children find something they're good at. To wit, James Purnell, secretary of state for culture, media and sport: `Schools are offering a greater variety of sports than ever before and children now have more opportunities to try out and find a sport which is right for them.' (8) That is by no means a terrible thing, but as the deathlessly quantitative nature of the research indicates, the aim seems to be to increase the numbers participating in `sport' without thinking about what they're actually participating in. Ed Balls at least has the advantage of honesty here: `The way in which schools provide sports after [the age of 11] has a big impact on participation. Particularly for girls. If you have a wider range of sports on offer, more alternative sports, more things like frisbee or yoga which are as health driving as any other in schools.' (9)
Though Orwell or Thomas Arnold would have argued about the worth of sport, they would at least have agreed that such meaning as it had lay in its inherently competitive nature, and the self-realisation and expression that entails. Today's notion of school sport is in danger of limiting the latter to aerobics.
Source
Scotsmen criticizing Scots is "racial hatred"??
Sir Jackie Stewart, the former motor-racing world champion, has accused his fellow Scots of being lazy and overdependent on public sector "jobs for life". The racing legend, from Dumbarton, who now lives in Buckinghamshire and Switzerland, said he was astonished at how workshy his countrymen had become. Stewart, the son of a garage owner who overcame dyslexia to become one of the country's greatest sportsmen, said he rarely heard a Scottish voice when he visited hotels and restaurants in his native country.
Praising Poles and Australians, who he said were prepared to work hard in the service industry, he accused Scots of relying on cosy jobs in the country's burgeoning public sector. "I am constantly disappointed by the fact that the Scots don't want to work," he said. "In things like the service sector which is absolutely vital for tourism, I'm served by South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders and Polish people who are really working hard.
"I think social services are too prolific. If you have a job in government you're not going to be sacked. You have a job for life. You don't have to work too hard and you don't have to present yourself well because it is not competitive."
The 68-year-old's comments have reignited the debate provoked by Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun, who claimed Scotland was a nation of subsidy junkies. As a panellist on the BBC's Question Time programme earlier this month, MacKenzie, whose grandfather was born in Stirling and was allegedly a Highland Games champion, accused Scots of living off wealth created in the southeast of England. "Scotland believes not in entrepreneurialism, like in London and the southeast. The reality is that the Scots enjoy spending it, they don't enjoy creating it, which is the opposite of down in the south," he said.
MacKenzie, who is being investigated by police for allegedly inciting racial hatred, said he was delighted a prominent Scot had now endorsed his comments. "The Scots may not want to take notice of someone like me but I hope they take notice of someone like Sir Jackie," he said. "When their own countrymen and someone who has made a success of their life starts making these statements then maybe Scots should think a bit more rather than hitting out. I am not anti-Scot but I am anti the fact we are subsidising a part of the country that should be able to look after itself."
In a separate interview Stewart recalled his own youth when he used to serve petrol in his father's garage in Scotland. "I have heard too many of my compatriots saying: `Oh, I wouldn't want to do that job, it's too menial'," he said. "But I was proud to be involved in a service industry, it taught me how to communicate, gave me confidence, and encouraged me to be positive, because I knew that if I was nice to people, they would like it and give me a bigger tip."
Other Scots disagreed. Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland's richest man, said: "Everyone is born with the same intelligence, just some are dealt a bad hand in terms of opportunity. No one wakes up and thinks they don't want to work, or go on the dole. It just happens that some people find themselves in tough situations. Sometimes they just need a little bit of extra help." Gordon Ramsay, the Glasgow-born celebrity chef, added: "Scots have tenacity, hunger and determination and, most importantly, a pair of balls. That costs nothing and that is how they will succeed
Source
Evangelical atheism
Richard Dawkins's campaign urging atheists to `come out' and be counted, is oddly reminiscent of an evangelical rally where born-again Christians are implored to rush down to the stage.
Closet atheists in the pious USA and worldwide are to be welcomed with open arms into the sceptical fold. And if sales of Dawkins's The God Delusion and other recent books like it are anything to go by, there is no shortage of people ready to join up. While some critics have labelled Dawkins and co `atheist fundamentalists', the real similarity between atheism and religion today is less fanaticism than a palpable yearning to belong. There is nothing wrong with this very human impulse, but non-belief is an odd basis for belonging.
Of course, the resurgence of interest in atheism is a reaction to the perceived rise of religion, whether in the form of Islamic fundamentalism or US-style Christian conservatism. But in taking their cue from resurgent religions, atheists also adopt something of their inward-looking focus. From attempts to popularise the term `bright' as a positive identity to calls for atheists to be included on the roster of BBC Radio 4's `Thought for the Day', it seems that some want to establish atheism as an alternative, non-religious camp for people to belong to. But atheism itself ought to be the least interesting thing about atheists, who surely have various and often conflicting beliefs and passions of their own.
The most promising term used by some atheists to describe a more positive outlook is humanism, evoking a rich tradition going back to the Renaissance. But this won't serve as a label for the non-religious for the simple reason that humanism does not preclude religious faith. Indeed, those of us with a positive belief in the human potential do not especially need to distinguish ourselves from others who share that belief while also identifying with a religious tradition. Certainly we will object to religious bigotry, but then so do most avowedly religious people. And equally, we will share opposition to antihuman ideas propagated by some atheists, such as biological determinism: the idea that humans are little more than fleshy machines.
The desire to establish atheism as an alternative identity is ultimately conservative. Rather than joining together with others who share a positive vision of the future, self-styled atheists define themselves against an external threat. Worse, it is no longer the conservatism of religion that worries non-believers, but its radicalism, its seemingly irrational passion. Where once religion was disdained as `the opium of the people', today it is seen as more akin to the alcopop of the people: a dangerous and toxic influence that makes people behave in irrational ways. If coming out as an atheist means subscribing to an ersatz religion with the fire taken out, atheists can expect to remain in the cold.
Source
It assumes that "antioxidants" are good for you -- a myth. Antioxidants are the medical equivalent of global warming -- used to explain just about anything purely on the basis of theory. They can actually be dangerous and can shorten your life
The biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives. The evidence from the 12m pound four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice. The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain's biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.
Professor Carlo Leifert, the co-ordinator of the European Union-funded project, said the differences were so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables. "If you have just 20% more antioxidants and you can't get your kids to do five a day, then you might just be okay with four a day," he said.
This weekend the Food Standards Agency confirmed that it was reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to change its advice. Ministers and the agency have said there are no significant differences between organic and ordinary produce.
Researchers grew fruit and vegetables and reared cattle on adjacent organic and nonorganic sites on a 725-acre farm attached to Newcastle University, and at other sites in Europe. They found that levels of antioxidants in milk from organic herds were up to 90% higher than in milk from conventional herds. As well as finding up to 40% more antioxidants in organic vegetables, they also found that organic tomatoes from Greece had significantly higher levels of antioxidants, including flavo-noids thought to reduce coronary heart disease.
Leifert said the government was wrong about there being no difference between organic and conventional produce. "There is enough evidence now that the level of good things is higher in organics," he said.
Source
Competitive sport making a partial comeback in British schools
In Tom Brown's Schooldays (1857), written by an alumnus of Rugby school during Thomas Arnold's headship, the eponymous hero states: `[F]ootball and cricket, now one comes to think of it, are such much better games than fives or hare-and-hounds, or any others where the object is to come in first or to win for oneself, and not that one's side may win.' It's not therefore competition per se that was deemed morally suspect, but self-interest - hence the emphasis on team sport. Moreover, the moral claims made on behalf of certain team sports drew on their intrinsically competitive nature, indeed, made of it a virtue. Instrumental it may be, but the ends are not extrinsic to the means.
Adding a touch more Empire to this morally robust mix, a later Victorian homilist, TL Papillon, was equally certain of sport's value to a public school boy, especially one who, lacking academic aptitude, `has devoted a great part of his time and nearly all his thoughts to athletic sports': for he will still bring `away something beyond all price, a manly straight forward character, a scorn of lying and meanness, habits of obedience and command and reckless courage. Thus equipped, he goes out into the world, and bears a man's part in subduing the earth, taming its wild folk, and building up the Empire.' (4) It is doubtful that any equivalent rhetoric exists for pedometers.
In an article published in The Tribune in December 1945, George Orwell famously echoed the sentiments above. But he did so darkly: `Serious sport has nothing to do with fair play. It is bound up with hatred, jealousy, boastfulness, disregard of all rules and sadistic pleasure in witnessing violence: in other words it is war minus the shooting.' (5) The occasion for such a tirade may have been Arsenal's defeat of Dynamo Moscow, but it doesn't take a historian to figure out that the context of recent World War, and incipient Cold War, provided the frame through which Orwell rendered competitiveness as the essence of militarism. Furthermore, the focus of Orwell's declamation is illustrative. For it is always in terms of the competitive element, the very element both regulated and exalted in sport throughout its nineteenth-century development, that sport is judged. The disparagement of school sport during the late 1980s and 90s is no exception. On the basis that competitive sport cultivated selfishness, competitive sports days appeared as free-market induction sessions. While many lost their livelihoods during the 1980s and early 90s, in the anti-competitive parallel sporting universe, wrongs were to be set right by ensuring that eggs were glued to spoons.
But times change. `It was an absurd and perverse political correctness which caused competitive sports to be banned in some schools and I hope we never see a return to such nonsense' announced then education secretary Alan Johnson earlier this year (5). Indeed, school sport has rarely been so high up the policy agenda, nor investment so forthcoming. As last year's School Sport Survey extolled: `Physical Education (PE) and sport play an important role in school life. They help to raise standards, improve behaviour and health, increase attendance and develop social skills.' In other words, school sport does a lot of things the government is keen on doing. Not only that, it also seems to be pretty successful. As David Conn reported, in 1994, only 25 per cent of primary and secondary school pupils in Britain were doing the recommended two hours of PE a week (6). The figure is now 86 per cent (7).
There's no doubt that the stats are impressive. But it's what is driving the newfound sporting zeal that is more troubling. As with many other aspects of education, school sport seems to be acquiring its current meaning in a context of social estrangement. In this sense it appears as no more than a vital mediation between the dislocated state and the populace it seeks to manage. But in the process of reducing school sport to a policy mechanism, a management tool, the authorities run the risk of emptying sport of content, reducing it to an abstraction, units of exercise applicable to everyone - sporty or not. As such it can just about refer to anything that involves a degree of movement, hence its ability to colonise informal aspects of kids' lives - dance or skateboarding, say - and institutionalise them as another school sport.
Likewise, competition changes meaning, and becomes more of a byword for participation, a demand that children find something they're good at. To wit, James Purnell, secretary of state for culture, media and sport: `Schools are offering a greater variety of sports than ever before and children now have more opportunities to try out and find a sport which is right for them.' (8) That is by no means a terrible thing, but as the deathlessly quantitative nature of the research indicates, the aim seems to be to increase the numbers participating in `sport' without thinking about what they're actually participating in. Ed Balls at least has the advantage of honesty here: `The way in which schools provide sports after [the age of 11] has a big impact on participation. Particularly for girls. If you have a wider range of sports on offer, more alternative sports, more things like frisbee or yoga which are as health driving as any other in schools.' (9)
Though Orwell or Thomas Arnold would have argued about the worth of sport, they would at least have agreed that such meaning as it had lay in its inherently competitive nature, and the self-realisation and expression that entails. Today's notion of school sport is in danger of limiting the latter to aerobics.
Source
Scotsmen criticizing Scots is "racial hatred"??
Sir Jackie Stewart, the former motor-racing world champion, has accused his fellow Scots of being lazy and overdependent on public sector "jobs for life". The racing legend, from Dumbarton, who now lives in Buckinghamshire and Switzerland, said he was astonished at how workshy his countrymen had become. Stewart, the son of a garage owner who overcame dyslexia to become one of the country's greatest sportsmen, said he rarely heard a Scottish voice when he visited hotels and restaurants in his native country.
Praising Poles and Australians, who he said were prepared to work hard in the service industry, he accused Scots of relying on cosy jobs in the country's burgeoning public sector. "I am constantly disappointed by the fact that the Scots don't want to work," he said. "In things like the service sector which is absolutely vital for tourism, I'm served by South Africans, Australians, New Zealanders and Polish people who are really working hard.
"I think social services are too prolific. If you have a job in government you're not going to be sacked. You have a job for life. You don't have to work too hard and you don't have to present yourself well because it is not competitive."
The 68-year-old's comments have reignited the debate provoked by Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of The Sun, who claimed Scotland was a nation of subsidy junkies. As a panellist on the BBC's Question Time programme earlier this month, MacKenzie, whose grandfather was born in Stirling and was allegedly a Highland Games champion, accused Scots of living off wealth created in the southeast of England. "Scotland believes not in entrepreneurialism, like in London and the southeast. The reality is that the Scots enjoy spending it, they don't enjoy creating it, which is the opposite of down in the south," he said.
MacKenzie, who is being investigated by police for allegedly inciting racial hatred, said he was delighted a prominent Scot had now endorsed his comments. "The Scots may not want to take notice of someone like me but I hope they take notice of someone like Sir Jackie," he said. "When their own countrymen and someone who has made a success of their life starts making these statements then maybe Scots should think a bit more rather than hitting out. I am not anti-Scot but I am anti the fact we are subsidising a part of the country that should be able to look after itself."
In a separate interview Stewart recalled his own youth when he used to serve petrol in his father's garage in Scotland. "I have heard too many of my compatriots saying: `Oh, I wouldn't want to do that job, it's too menial'," he said. "But I was proud to be involved in a service industry, it taught me how to communicate, gave me confidence, and encouraged me to be positive, because I knew that if I was nice to people, they would like it and give me a bigger tip."
Other Scots disagreed. Sir Tom Hunter, Scotland's richest man, said: "Everyone is born with the same intelligence, just some are dealt a bad hand in terms of opportunity. No one wakes up and thinks they don't want to work, or go on the dole. It just happens that some people find themselves in tough situations. Sometimes they just need a little bit of extra help." Gordon Ramsay, the Glasgow-born celebrity chef, added: "Scots have tenacity, hunger and determination and, most importantly, a pair of balls. That costs nothing and that is how they will succeed
Source
Evangelical atheism
Richard Dawkins's campaign urging atheists to `come out' and be counted, is oddly reminiscent of an evangelical rally where born-again Christians are implored to rush down to the stage.
Closet atheists in the pious USA and worldwide are to be welcomed with open arms into the sceptical fold. And if sales of Dawkins's The God Delusion and other recent books like it are anything to go by, there is no shortage of people ready to join up. While some critics have labelled Dawkins and co `atheist fundamentalists', the real similarity between atheism and religion today is less fanaticism than a palpable yearning to belong. There is nothing wrong with this very human impulse, but non-belief is an odd basis for belonging.
Of course, the resurgence of interest in atheism is a reaction to the perceived rise of religion, whether in the form of Islamic fundamentalism or US-style Christian conservatism. But in taking their cue from resurgent religions, atheists also adopt something of their inward-looking focus. From attempts to popularise the term `bright' as a positive identity to calls for atheists to be included on the roster of BBC Radio 4's `Thought for the Day', it seems that some want to establish atheism as an alternative, non-religious camp for people to belong to. But atheism itself ought to be the least interesting thing about atheists, who surely have various and often conflicting beliefs and passions of their own.
The most promising term used by some atheists to describe a more positive outlook is humanism, evoking a rich tradition going back to the Renaissance. But this won't serve as a label for the non-religious for the simple reason that humanism does not preclude religious faith. Indeed, those of us with a positive belief in the human potential do not especially need to distinguish ourselves from others who share that belief while also identifying with a religious tradition. Certainly we will object to religious bigotry, but then so do most avowedly religious people. And equally, we will share opposition to antihuman ideas propagated by some atheists, such as biological determinism: the idea that humans are little more than fleshy machines.
The desire to establish atheism as an alternative identity is ultimately conservative. Rather than joining together with others who share a positive vision of the future, self-styled atheists define themselves against an external threat. Worse, it is no longer the conservatism of religion that worries non-believers, but its radicalism, its seemingly irrational passion. Where once religion was disdained as `the opium of the people', today it is seen as more akin to the alcopop of the people: a dangerous and toxic influence that makes people behave in irrational ways. If coming out as an atheist means subscribing to an ersatz religion with the fire taken out, atheists can expect to remain in the cold.
Source
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Britain: A country wrecked by unlimited immigration
One of the most telling points in the excellent piece in yesterday's Daily Telegraph by my colleague Jeff Randall, on the dishonesty of government statistics, was to do with immigration. Slough says it has so many immigrants it needs more money: the Government says it hasn't. For decades, bare-faced lies have been told by our rulers about immigration.
When Enoch Powell was vilified in the late 1960s for drawing attention to the problem, the then social services secretary, Dick Crossman, ordered officials to conceal what he and they knew to be the true figures. Is this deceit still going on? Perhaps. But - and this may be even worse - the difference between the statistics and reality may be down to sheer incompetence. The truth is that we have no idea how many people are in this country. That is a scandal.
We have no idea because this Government decided, when it came to power in 1997, that it would be a good idea to stop proper enforcement of border controls. Jack Straw, our smug so-called Justice Secretary, was home secretary at the time, and was responsible for this. His successor, David Blunkett, boasted continually about getting tough on illegal immigrants, promising round-ups and deportations of those with no right to be here. It never happened.
The result is that parts of the country, notably in and around London, are suffering from terrible overcrowding. Coupled with the Government's insane decision to allow unfettered rights of access to Britain by the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004, this has put a crippling strain on housing, the health service, schools and the police.
Immigration is not a racial problem: it is a problem of numbers, and one the Government not only refuses to admit, but will not even attempt to quantify. This week, we were told there were 11,000 foreigners in our prisons - one in seven of those inside - and the Government, with typical incompetence, is struggling to negotiate deals to have these people serve their sentences back home.
Yesterday, an independent body called the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit said that the Government's plans to build three million new homes by 2020 were not nearly adequate. Of course they are not, because of the state's determination to allow unlimited immigration and, with it, the end of the indigenous cultural identity. The tensions of what used to be called "multi-culturalism" are dangerous enough: but so are the practical issues.
Large parts of England will be concreted over to accommodate all these new people. There will have to be new roads, railways and airports. And since we are already full up, and our public services buckling, where are we going to put everyone?
Labour has covered up its failure to control our borders by saying that our economy needs immigrants. Well, if you are determined to have a welfare state that tolerates about eight million economically unproductive people of working age - the unemployed, those in "training" and those on various benefits because they believe they are unfit for work - then of course you will. It is time someone got serious.
The present Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has hardly put her head above the parapet on this one. Between now and the next census in 2011, she might like to do a little housekeeping. That means locating and deporting all those with no right to be here. It would not be that difficult.
More here
IS POLYGAMY THE NATURAL STATE OF MANKIND?
In the cause of equal rights, feminists have had much to complain about. But one striking piece of inequality has been conveniently overlooked: lifespan. In this area, women have the upper hand. All round the world, they live longer than men. Why they should do so is not immediately obvious. But the same is true in many other species. From lions to antelope and from sea lions to deer, males, for some reason, simply can't go the distance.
One theory is that males must compete for female attention. That means evolution is busy selecting for antlers, aggression and alloy wheels in males, at the expense of longevity. Females are not subject to such pressures. If this theory is correct, the effect will be especially noticeable in those species where males compete for the attention of lots of females. Conversely, it will be reduced or absent where they do not.
To test that idea, Tim Clutton-Brock of Cambridge University and Kavita Isvaran of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalooru decided to compare monogamous and polygynous species (in the latter, a male monopolises a number of females). They wanted to find out whether polygynous males had lower survival rates and aged faster than those of monogamous species. To do so, they collected the relevant data for 35 species of long-lived birds and mammals.
As they report this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the pattern was much as they expected. In 16 of the 19 polygynous species in their sample, males of all ages were much more likely to die during any given period than were females. Furthermore, the older they got, the bigger the mortality gap became. In other words, they aged faster. Males from monogamous species did not show these patterns.
The point about polygyny, according to Dr Clutton-Brock, is that if one male has exclusive access to, say, ten females, another nine males will be waiting to topple the harem master as soon as he shows the first sign of weakness. The intense competitive pressure means that individuals who succeed put all their efforts into one or two breeding seasons.
That obviously takes its toll directly. But a more subtle effect may also be at work. Most students of ageing agree that an animal's maximum lifespan is set by how long it can reasonably expect to escape predation, disease, accident and damaging aggression by others of its kind. If it will be killed quickly anyway, there is not much reason for evolution to divert scarce resources into keeping the machine in tip-top condition. Those resources should, instead, be devoted to reproduction. And the more threatening the outside world is, the shorter the maximum lifespan should be.
There is no reason why that logic should not work between the sexes as well as between species. And this is what Dr Clutton-Brock and Dr Isvaran seem to have found. The test is to identify a species that has made its environment so safe that most of its members die of old age, and see if the difference continues to exist. Fortunately, there is such a species: man.
Dr Clutton-Brock reckons that the sex difference in both human rates of ageing and in the usual age of death is an indicator that polygyny was the rule in humanity's evolutionary past-as it still is, in some places. That may not please some feminists, but it could be the price women have paid for outliving their menfolk.
Source
One of the most telling points in the excellent piece in yesterday's Daily Telegraph by my colleague Jeff Randall, on the dishonesty of government statistics, was to do with immigration. Slough says it has so many immigrants it needs more money: the Government says it hasn't. For decades, bare-faced lies have been told by our rulers about immigration.
When Enoch Powell was vilified in the late 1960s for drawing attention to the problem, the then social services secretary, Dick Crossman, ordered officials to conceal what he and they knew to be the true figures. Is this deceit still going on? Perhaps. But - and this may be even worse - the difference between the statistics and reality may be down to sheer incompetence. The truth is that we have no idea how many people are in this country. That is a scandal.
We have no idea because this Government decided, when it came to power in 1997, that it would be a good idea to stop proper enforcement of border controls. Jack Straw, our smug so-called Justice Secretary, was home secretary at the time, and was responsible for this. His successor, David Blunkett, boasted continually about getting tough on illegal immigrants, promising round-ups and deportations of those with no right to be here. It never happened.
The result is that parts of the country, notably in and around London, are suffering from terrible overcrowding. Coupled with the Government's insane decision to allow unfettered rights of access to Britain by the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004, this has put a crippling strain on housing, the health service, schools and the police.
Immigration is not a racial problem: it is a problem of numbers, and one the Government not only refuses to admit, but will not even attempt to quantify. This week, we were told there were 11,000 foreigners in our prisons - one in seven of those inside - and the Government, with typical incompetence, is struggling to negotiate deals to have these people serve their sentences back home.
Yesterday, an independent body called the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit said that the Government's plans to build three million new homes by 2020 were not nearly adequate. Of course they are not, because of the state's determination to allow unlimited immigration and, with it, the end of the indigenous cultural identity. The tensions of what used to be called "multi-culturalism" are dangerous enough: but so are the practical issues.
Large parts of England will be concreted over to accommodate all these new people. There will have to be new roads, railways and airports. And since we are already full up, and our public services buckling, where are we going to put everyone?
Labour has covered up its failure to control our borders by saying that our economy needs immigrants. Well, if you are determined to have a welfare state that tolerates about eight million economically unproductive people of working age - the unemployed, those in "training" and those on various benefits because they believe they are unfit for work - then of course you will. It is time someone got serious.
The present Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, has hardly put her head above the parapet on this one. Between now and the next census in 2011, she might like to do a little housekeeping. That means locating and deporting all those with no right to be here. It would not be that difficult.
More here
IS POLYGAMY THE NATURAL STATE OF MANKIND?
In the cause of equal rights, feminists have had much to complain about. But one striking piece of inequality has been conveniently overlooked: lifespan. In this area, women have the upper hand. All round the world, they live longer than men. Why they should do so is not immediately obvious. But the same is true in many other species. From lions to antelope and from sea lions to deer, males, for some reason, simply can't go the distance.
One theory is that males must compete for female attention. That means evolution is busy selecting for antlers, aggression and alloy wheels in males, at the expense of longevity. Females are not subject to such pressures. If this theory is correct, the effect will be especially noticeable in those species where males compete for the attention of lots of females. Conversely, it will be reduced or absent where they do not.
To test that idea, Tim Clutton-Brock of Cambridge University and Kavita Isvaran of the Indian Institute of Science in Bengalooru decided to compare monogamous and polygynous species (in the latter, a male monopolises a number of females). They wanted to find out whether polygynous males had lower survival rates and aged faster than those of monogamous species. To do so, they collected the relevant data for 35 species of long-lived birds and mammals.
As they report this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, the pattern was much as they expected. In 16 of the 19 polygynous species in their sample, males of all ages were much more likely to die during any given period than were females. Furthermore, the older they got, the bigger the mortality gap became. In other words, they aged faster. Males from monogamous species did not show these patterns.
The point about polygyny, according to Dr Clutton-Brock, is that if one male has exclusive access to, say, ten females, another nine males will be waiting to topple the harem master as soon as he shows the first sign of weakness. The intense competitive pressure means that individuals who succeed put all their efforts into one or two breeding seasons.
That obviously takes its toll directly. But a more subtle effect may also be at work. Most students of ageing agree that an animal's maximum lifespan is set by how long it can reasonably expect to escape predation, disease, accident and damaging aggression by others of its kind. If it will be killed quickly anyway, there is not much reason for evolution to divert scarce resources into keeping the machine in tip-top condition. Those resources should, instead, be devoted to reproduction. And the more threatening the outside world is, the shorter the maximum lifespan should be.
There is no reason why that logic should not work between the sexes as well as between species. And this is what Dr Clutton-Brock and Dr Isvaran seem to have found. The test is to identify a species that has made its environment so safe that most of its members die of old age, and see if the difference continues to exist. Fortunately, there is such a species: man.
Dr Clutton-Brock reckons that the sex difference in both human rates of ageing and in the usual age of death is an indicator that polygyny was the rule in humanity's evolutionary past-as it still is, in some places. That may not please some feminists, but it could be the price women have paid for outliving their menfolk.
Source
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Must support homosexuality to be a foster parent in Britain
A Christian couple who have taken in 28 children have been forced to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality. Vincent Matherick, 65, and his 61-year-old wife Pauline were told by social services that they had to comply with legislation requiring them to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality.
They said that officials had advised them that if children in their care expressed an interest in homosexuality, they would be expected to take them to gay support group meetings.The couple said that while they would neither condemn nor condone homosexuality, they could not actively promote it because of their religious beliefs. The couple, who faced being removed from the carers' register, decided to stop fostering early. As a result, their 11-year-old foster son is being moved to a children's unit.
Mr Matherick, a Christian minister and a primary school governor, said: "We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot promote homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God. It's terrible that we've been forced into this corner. "They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11-year-olds, which I don't think is appropriate anyway, but not only that, to be prepared to explain how gay people date."
Mrs Matherick said: "We feel we are being discriminated against as Christians, and many others are finding themselves in our position." The Mathericks, who have three children of their own, are ministers at the non-conformist South Chard Christian Church, near their home in Chard, Somerset. They have cared for 28 children through Somerset County Council's social services department.
In February this year a social worker told the couple that the council was obliged to implement the Government's sexual orientation regulations. The rules, enacted this year, make it illegal for the suppliers of goods or services to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality.
David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouth, said: "It's absolutely horrendous that Christian men and women doing their bit for the community are being discriminated against because of their beliefs. I'm quite certain that social services would never dare to ask a member of any other established religion to agree to such a stance on homosexuality."
Valerie Riches, the founder president of Family and Youth Concern, said: "This is rather typical of the distorted view of equality that this Government seems to have."
A spokesman for Somerset County Council said that it was obliged to implement the regulations. "I am not suggesting that it is not very difficult for some people, but there is still an obligation under the law," he said. A spokesman for the council's children's and young people's directorate said it was about "equality issues" not homosexuality. "It is not about promoting homosexuality, it is about foster carers being aware of equality issues," he said, adding that the council did not expect to lose any more carers as a result of the rules.
Source
Age differences in grade-school classes
Some reflections by Prof. Brignell below on the latest British panic. In any given class some kids will be younger than others. How awful!
Long ago in the dim dawn of pre-history, your bending author experienced the first day at grammar school. At the end of the day he was taken aside by the form master, who explained the special problems he would experience as the youngest boy in the class, born (like Number Watch) on July 13th. That advice came from the accumulated wisdom that can only accrue from a century of existence as an institute of learning. That school was wantonly destroyed for ideological reasons and, when the demolition ball crashed through the elegant gothic arches, not only the fabric was destroyed but also that priceless store of wisdom. Now instead of wisdom we have what Kingsley Amis called "pseudo-research into non-problems" as illustrated by this heading in The Telegraph:
Pupils born in summer more likely to struggle
How things have changed! Now schools no longer run themselves, but are subject to endless interference and targetry by Government ministers and underemployed bureaucrats. Pupils are repeatedly tested into a state of coma. Expensive research is commissioned to replace what was once common knowledge. Stupid interventions and "urgent action" are thought up at the drop of a hat. "Equity" and "efficiency" are the watchwords, while teachers and parents are deemed too stupid to be able to make the allowances that they once made without instruction from above.
Furthermore, changes are suggested that are self-evidently nonsense. However many children are "held back" there is always going to be one who is the youngest in the class, while those held back now become the eldest, so there is always a difference of one year between them. Even common sense is no longer common.
The dangers of fried food and a fried planet
Claims that the `obesity epidemic' is as bad as climate change suggest that modern society is bingeing on scare stories
Just when you thought we were all going to fry because of climate change, it looks like our taste for fried food will do us in even sooner. According to headlines across the British media this week, obesity is `as bad as climate risk'. But the comparisons with climate change shouldn't leave us quaking in our boots. Rather, they show up how our fears for the future have become independent of any reason to be fearful. And once we recognise those fears for what they are - a product of political and social changes rather than real dangers - we will be in a better position to deal with them.
The UK health secretary, Alan Johnson, made the obesity and climate change comparison this week, when he said: `We cannot afford not to act [on obesity]. For the first time we are clear about the magnitude of the problem. We are facing a potential crisis on the scale of climate change and it is in everybody's interest to turn things round. We will succeed only if the problem is recognised, owned and addressed at every level in every part of society.' (1)
Johnson's comments were the prelude to a report published today by the obesity group of the UK government's Foresight programme. Foresight is an initiative to facilitate better planning by making forecasts decades ahead on how society might turn out.
The report's `key messages' document suggests that: `By 2050, Foresight modelling indicates that 60 per cent of adult men, 50 per cent of adult women and about 25 per cent of all children under 16 could be obese. Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases, particularly type-2 diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease and also cancer and arthritis. The financial impact to society attributable to obesity, at current prices, is estimated to become an additional o45.5 billion per year by 2050 with a seven-fold increase in NHS [National Health Service] costs alone.' (2)
The report says that our modern, `obesogenic' environment is very bad for us. We eat more energy-dense foods while having less and less need to expend this extra energy because we use mechanised transport and have sedentary lives. While `personal responsibility plays a crucial part in weight gain', the reports suggests that we will need a society-wide response to the problem if we are not all to become great mounds of lard suffering from multiple chronic illnesses and facing an early grave.
As the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, Dr Colin Waine, told BBC News on Monday, the effects of the obesity crisis `will hit us much earlier than climate change'. Waine warned: `We are now in a situation where levels of childhood obesity will lead to the first cut in life expectancy for 200 years. These children are likely to die before their parents.' (3)
Things are looking bleak, it would seem. But like a portion of fries, we should take these claims with a pinch of salt. Firstly, the good news: while all these doom and gloom predictions are flying about, the reality is that we are living longer, healthier lives than before. Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics suggest that between 1981 and 2004, life expectancy rose for men from 70.8 years to 76.6 years, while for women the rise was from 76.8 years to 81 years (4).
As the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee noted in 2005: `Life expectancy in the UK and other developed countries continues to increase by about two years per decade.' (5) Given that people most often start families in their twenties and thirties, such figures suggest that each generation will live between four and six years longer than the previous one, all other things being equal. Even if obesity slowed that progress down, it is unlikely to reverse it. Statements like those from the National Obesity Forum are simply alarmist.
One of the main reasons for this success is our increasing ability to tackle the kinds of chronic diseases that are widely associated with obesity. According to the British Heart Foundation's Heartstats website: `Death rates from cardio-vascular disease (CVD) have been falling in the UK since the early 1970s. For people under 65 years, they have fallen by 46 per cent in the last 10 years.' (6) According to Cancer Research UK's CancerStats pages, overall mortality rates for cancer fell by 17 per cent between 1976 and 2005, despite the fact that incidence has been rising, mainly as a result of people living long enough to develop cancers (7).
Secondly, the basis on which the government's Foresight report has been produced is questionable. The authors assume that obesity is caused by an imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. But as the Australian writers Michael Gard and Jan Wright point out, researchers have struggled to confirm this thesis. It might be true - but studies looking for an increase in calories consumed have tended to find that we're actually eating less than in the past, while studies looking to confirm we take less exercise have also been inconclusive. Yes, it's true we have many labour-saving devices and transport options now - but there are also many more options for physical activity, too. Women, in particular, would have been strongly discouraged from taking part in sport 50 years ago but now are as likely to be active as men.
Nor has the world of work changed as much people assume. In the past, only a quite small proportion of the population spent their days as miners or road diggers - most people had sedentary jobs back then, too. The kinds of jobs we do may have changed, but the energy involved may not. There is little reason to assume that manning a station on a production line, for example, was any more energetic than filling shelves in a supermarket or flipping burgers. Oh, and people may not have noticed, but despite all their physical activity, poor manual labourers have always tended to die at a younger age than double-chinned, deskbound bank managers.
Our scepticism should be further increased by the fact that the forecasts in the report are based on computer models. Such models have a laughable track record in relation to major health problems in the UK. Remember when millions of people were going to die from AIDS? Or when hundreds of thousands were going to die from variant-Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD)? In truth, the numbers of deaths were a fraction of those predicted by the models. We should be very wary of taking models seriously in such circumstances.
Thirdly, there is the assumption that `obesity equals disease'. But on closer inspection, people in the `overweight' or even the `mildly obese' categories have broadly similar health outcomes to people in the `ideal' weight range. And what are all these fat people going to be treated for? It would appear that cases of type-2 diabetes will rise, but the major diseases said to be caused by obesity are cardio-vascular disease and cancer: the things that are already killing most people, but for which mortality rates have been falling. The worst-case scenario is that, if we become obese, these diseases might get us a little bit quicker than they would have done anyway. How will that put an extra strain on health services?
Finally, the report is pretty damning in one respect: despite suggesting that there is a need for a national, we're-in-this-together approach to tackling the problem of obesity and exercise, there is no proof whatsoever that government intervention in these areas has a positive effect - a fact that the report admits. Today, there is ubiquitous advice to `eat healthily' or `be more active'. There is pressure from government, the media and society generally to get thin and get moving, with the message that being fat is going to kill you. And yet in Britain, as in many other countries around the world, people are still getting fatter.
If government intervention doesn't work, then the policies that the UK government is now hinting that it will implement - from more weighing of schoolkids and examinations of their body mass index, to greater labelling of foods and banning `trans' fats - are highly unlikely to transform Britain into a thin and healthy nation. They may well, however, make chubby schoolchildren feel stigmatised and guilty as they are weighed in the classroom, and ruin the joys of food for the rest of us.
In a sense, it doesn't matter if the latest government campaign doesn't make us all super-healthy - because the recurring panic about obesity doesn't really have anything to do with how much we weigh. Instead, what the Foresight report shows is that there is a template today for social panics. The comparison between obesity and climate change is striking: fears about both of these phenomena spring from the same source, a general sense of anxiety, and both the alleged dangers of obesity and climate change are increasingly framed in a similar way. So like reports on climate change, the Foresight report started out with a literature review; then it created `scenarios' about how the world might change over the next few decades; finally computer models were employed to predict how the disaster might unfold. We're even assured that the report is a product of the work of `250 scientists' - looking uncannily like a poor man's version of the `2,500 scientists' involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a straight rip-off of the IPCC method of working, with the aim of acquiring the kudos that the recent Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation has won in recent years.
There are other similarities between the fat and climate panics. According to anti-obesity campaigners, today's spread of flab highlights the essential problem of human greed, even more than global warming does. We want too much - and it's going to come back to haunt us in the future. We must learn to change our ways and the government will jolly well tell us how to do so if we don't make the necessary changes by ourselves. This fearful attitude towards future disaster, a disaster we have apparently brought upon ourselves, seems to float free of any particular issue. Just fill in the gaps with obesity/climate change/bird flu/whatever and you have a ready-made panic, complete with independent, neutral, evidence-based, scientific authority, in response to which Something Must Be Done - usually by the government, because we feckless individuals are too weak to do it ourselves.
A more useful approach to social problems would be to realise that society will face challenges of all sorts in the coming years. Through science, technology and innovation, we have been able not only to solve the immediate problems we face, but also to take society forward in the process. What is evident from the seemingly endless series of panics about the future is that society has lost confidence in its ability to solve problems. This gives rise to a view of the future as being filled with disease and destruction; the future is apparently something we must guard against, by making changes to our behaviour, rather than something we mould through positive human action.
As such, we cannot stop the obesity panic by trying to lose weight, nor allay fears about global warming by emitting less carbon. We can only solve the problem of these recurring panics by regaining confidence in our ability to shape the world rather than just our waistlines
Source
New hope for twisted spine sufferers
A painful and progressive spinal condition could be halted by drugs used to treat another disease, a genetic study has found. The IL23R gene has been found by scientists to be implicated in the development of ankylosing spondylitis, having already been shown to be involved in Crohn's disease.
Michael Brown, of the University of Oxford, said that the identification of the gene was a big breakthrough and meant that there was hope that an existing treatment could be used. "We already know that IL23R is involved in inflammation, but no one had ever thought it was involved in ankylosing spondylitis," Professor Brown said. "A treatment for Crohn's disease that inhibits the activity of this gene is already undergoing human trials. This looks very promising as a potential treatment for ankylosing spondylitis."
The gene was identified with a second, called ARTS1, in a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Arthritis Research Campaign. Details have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.
Source
A Christian couple who have taken in 28 children have been forced to give up being foster parents after they refused to promote homosexuality. Vincent Matherick, 65, and his 61-year-old wife Pauline were told by social services that they had to comply with legislation requiring them to treat homosexuality as equal to heterosexuality.
They said that officials had advised them that if children in their care expressed an interest in homosexuality, they would be expected to take them to gay support group meetings.The couple said that while they would neither condemn nor condone homosexuality, they could not actively promote it because of their religious beliefs. The couple, who faced being removed from the carers' register, decided to stop fostering early. As a result, their 11-year-old foster son is being moved to a children's unit.
Mr Matherick, a Christian minister and a primary school governor, said: "We have never discriminated against anybody but I cannot promote homosexuality when I believe it is against the word of God. It's terrible that we've been forced into this corner. "They were saying that we had to be prepared to talk about sexuality with 11-year-olds, which I don't think is appropriate anyway, but not only that, to be prepared to explain how gay people date."
Mrs Matherick said: "We feel we are being discriminated against as Christians, and many others are finding themselves in our position." The Mathericks, who have three children of their own, are ministers at the non-conformist South Chard Christian Church, near their home in Chard, Somerset. They have cared for 28 children through Somerset County Council's social services department.
In February this year a social worker told the couple that the council was obliged to implement the Government's sexual orientation regulations. The rules, enacted this year, make it illegal for the suppliers of goods or services to discriminate on the grounds of sexuality.
David Davies, the Tory MP for Monmouth, said: "It's absolutely horrendous that Christian men and women doing their bit for the community are being discriminated against because of their beliefs. I'm quite certain that social services would never dare to ask a member of any other established religion to agree to such a stance on homosexuality."
Valerie Riches, the founder president of Family and Youth Concern, said: "This is rather typical of the distorted view of equality that this Government seems to have."
A spokesman for Somerset County Council said that it was obliged to implement the regulations. "I am not suggesting that it is not very difficult for some people, but there is still an obligation under the law," he said. A spokesman for the council's children's and young people's directorate said it was about "equality issues" not homosexuality. "It is not about promoting homosexuality, it is about foster carers being aware of equality issues," he said, adding that the council did not expect to lose any more carers as a result of the rules.
Source
Age differences in grade-school classes
Some reflections by Prof. Brignell below on the latest British panic. In any given class some kids will be younger than others. How awful!
Long ago in the dim dawn of pre-history, your bending author experienced the first day at grammar school. At the end of the day he was taken aside by the form master, who explained the special problems he would experience as the youngest boy in the class, born (like Number Watch) on July 13th. That advice came from the accumulated wisdom that can only accrue from a century of existence as an institute of learning. That school was wantonly destroyed for ideological reasons and, when the demolition ball crashed through the elegant gothic arches, not only the fabric was destroyed but also that priceless store of wisdom. Now instead of wisdom we have what Kingsley Amis called "pseudo-research into non-problems" as illustrated by this heading in The Telegraph:
Pupils born in summer more likely to struggle
How things have changed! Now schools no longer run themselves, but are subject to endless interference and targetry by Government ministers and underemployed bureaucrats. Pupils are repeatedly tested into a state of coma. Expensive research is commissioned to replace what was once common knowledge. Stupid interventions and "urgent action" are thought up at the drop of a hat. "Equity" and "efficiency" are the watchwords, while teachers and parents are deemed too stupid to be able to make the allowances that they once made without instruction from above.
Furthermore, changes are suggested that are self-evidently nonsense. However many children are "held back" there is always going to be one who is the youngest in the class, while those held back now become the eldest, so there is always a difference of one year between them. Even common sense is no longer common.
The dangers of fried food and a fried planet
Claims that the `obesity epidemic' is as bad as climate change suggest that modern society is bingeing on scare stories
Just when you thought we were all going to fry because of climate change, it looks like our taste for fried food will do us in even sooner. According to headlines across the British media this week, obesity is `as bad as climate risk'. But the comparisons with climate change shouldn't leave us quaking in our boots. Rather, they show up how our fears for the future have become independent of any reason to be fearful. And once we recognise those fears for what they are - a product of political and social changes rather than real dangers - we will be in a better position to deal with them.
The UK health secretary, Alan Johnson, made the obesity and climate change comparison this week, when he said: `We cannot afford not to act [on obesity]. For the first time we are clear about the magnitude of the problem. We are facing a potential crisis on the scale of climate change and it is in everybody's interest to turn things round. We will succeed only if the problem is recognised, owned and addressed at every level in every part of society.' (1)
Johnson's comments were the prelude to a report published today by the obesity group of the UK government's Foresight programme. Foresight is an initiative to facilitate better planning by making forecasts decades ahead on how society might turn out.
The report's `key messages' document suggests that: `By 2050, Foresight modelling indicates that 60 per cent of adult men, 50 per cent of adult women and about 25 per cent of all children under 16 could be obese. Obesity increases the risk of a range of chronic diseases, particularly type-2 diabetes, stroke and coronary heart disease and also cancer and arthritis. The financial impact to society attributable to obesity, at current prices, is estimated to become an additional o45.5 billion per year by 2050 with a seven-fold increase in NHS [National Health Service] costs alone.' (2)
The report says that our modern, `obesogenic' environment is very bad for us. We eat more energy-dense foods while having less and less need to expend this extra energy because we use mechanised transport and have sedentary lives. While `personal responsibility plays a crucial part in weight gain', the reports suggests that we will need a society-wide response to the problem if we are not all to become great mounds of lard suffering from multiple chronic illnesses and facing an early grave.
As the chairman of the National Obesity Forum, Dr Colin Waine, told BBC News on Monday, the effects of the obesity crisis `will hit us much earlier than climate change'. Waine warned: `We are now in a situation where levels of childhood obesity will lead to the first cut in life expectancy for 200 years. These children are likely to die before their parents.' (3)
Things are looking bleak, it would seem. But like a portion of fries, we should take these claims with a pinch of salt. Firstly, the good news: while all these doom and gloom predictions are flying about, the reality is that we are living longer, healthier lives than before. Figures from the UK Office for National Statistics suggest that between 1981 and 2004, life expectancy rose for men from 70.8 years to 76.6 years, while for women the rise was from 76.8 years to 81 years (4).
As the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee noted in 2005: `Life expectancy in the UK and other developed countries continues to increase by about two years per decade.' (5) Given that people most often start families in their twenties and thirties, such figures suggest that each generation will live between four and six years longer than the previous one, all other things being equal. Even if obesity slowed that progress down, it is unlikely to reverse it. Statements like those from the National Obesity Forum are simply alarmist.
One of the main reasons for this success is our increasing ability to tackle the kinds of chronic diseases that are widely associated with obesity. According to the British Heart Foundation's Heartstats website: `Death rates from cardio-vascular disease (CVD) have been falling in the UK since the early 1970s. For people under 65 years, they have fallen by 46 per cent in the last 10 years.' (6) According to Cancer Research UK's CancerStats pages, overall mortality rates for cancer fell by 17 per cent between 1976 and 2005, despite the fact that incidence has been rising, mainly as a result of people living long enough to develop cancers (7).
Secondly, the basis on which the government's Foresight report has been produced is questionable. The authors assume that obesity is caused by an imbalance between calories consumed and calories expended. But as the Australian writers Michael Gard and Jan Wright point out, researchers have struggled to confirm this thesis. It might be true - but studies looking for an increase in calories consumed have tended to find that we're actually eating less than in the past, while studies looking to confirm we take less exercise have also been inconclusive. Yes, it's true we have many labour-saving devices and transport options now - but there are also many more options for physical activity, too. Women, in particular, would have been strongly discouraged from taking part in sport 50 years ago but now are as likely to be active as men.
Nor has the world of work changed as much people assume. In the past, only a quite small proportion of the population spent their days as miners or road diggers - most people had sedentary jobs back then, too. The kinds of jobs we do may have changed, but the energy involved may not. There is little reason to assume that manning a station on a production line, for example, was any more energetic than filling shelves in a supermarket or flipping burgers. Oh, and people may not have noticed, but despite all their physical activity, poor manual labourers have always tended to die at a younger age than double-chinned, deskbound bank managers.
Our scepticism should be further increased by the fact that the forecasts in the report are based on computer models. Such models have a laughable track record in relation to major health problems in the UK. Remember when millions of people were going to die from AIDS? Or when hundreds of thousands were going to die from variant-Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease (vCJD)? In truth, the numbers of deaths were a fraction of those predicted by the models. We should be very wary of taking models seriously in such circumstances.
Thirdly, there is the assumption that `obesity equals disease'. But on closer inspection, people in the `overweight' or even the `mildly obese' categories have broadly similar health outcomes to people in the `ideal' weight range. And what are all these fat people going to be treated for? It would appear that cases of type-2 diabetes will rise, but the major diseases said to be caused by obesity are cardio-vascular disease and cancer: the things that are already killing most people, but for which mortality rates have been falling. The worst-case scenario is that, if we become obese, these diseases might get us a little bit quicker than they would have done anyway. How will that put an extra strain on health services?
Finally, the report is pretty damning in one respect: despite suggesting that there is a need for a national, we're-in-this-together approach to tackling the problem of obesity and exercise, there is no proof whatsoever that government intervention in these areas has a positive effect - a fact that the report admits. Today, there is ubiquitous advice to `eat healthily' or `be more active'. There is pressure from government, the media and society generally to get thin and get moving, with the message that being fat is going to kill you. And yet in Britain, as in many other countries around the world, people are still getting fatter.
If government intervention doesn't work, then the policies that the UK government is now hinting that it will implement - from more weighing of schoolkids and examinations of their body mass index, to greater labelling of foods and banning `trans' fats - are highly unlikely to transform Britain into a thin and healthy nation. They may well, however, make chubby schoolchildren feel stigmatised and guilty as they are weighed in the classroom, and ruin the joys of food for the rest of us.
In a sense, it doesn't matter if the latest government campaign doesn't make us all super-healthy - because the recurring panic about obesity doesn't really have anything to do with how much we weigh. Instead, what the Foresight report shows is that there is a template today for social panics. The comparison between obesity and climate change is striking: fears about both of these phenomena spring from the same source, a general sense of anxiety, and both the alleged dangers of obesity and climate change are increasingly framed in a similar way. So like reports on climate change, the Foresight report started out with a literature review; then it created `scenarios' about how the world might change over the next few decades; finally computer models were employed to predict how the disaster might unfold. We're even assured that the report is a product of the work of `250 scientists' - looking uncannily like a poor man's version of the `2,500 scientists' involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is a straight rip-off of the IPCC method of working, with the aim of acquiring the kudos that the recent Nobel Peace Prize-winning organisation has won in recent years.
There are other similarities between the fat and climate panics. According to anti-obesity campaigners, today's spread of flab highlights the essential problem of human greed, even more than global warming does. We want too much - and it's going to come back to haunt us in the future. We must learn to change our ways and the government will jolly well tell us how to do so if we don't make the necessary changes by ourselves. This fearful attitude towards future disaster, a disaster we have apparently brought upon ourselves, seems to float free of any particular issue. Just fill in the gaps with obesity/climate change/bird flu/whatever and you have a ready-made panic, complete with independent, neutral, evidence-based, scientific authority, in response to which Something Must Be Done - usually by the government, because we feckless individuals are too weak to do it ourselves.
A more useful approach to social problems would be to realise that society will face challenges of all sorts in the coming years. Through science, technology and innovation, we have been able not only to solve the immediate problems we face, but also to take society forward in the process. What is evident from the seemingly endless series of panics about the future is that society has lost confidence in its ability to solve problems. This gives rise to a view of the future as being filled with disease and destruction; the future is apparently something we must guard against, by making changes to our behaviour, rather than something we mould through positive human action.
As such, we cannot stop the obesity panic by trying to lose weight, nor allay fears about global warming by emitting less carbon. We can only solve the problem of these recurring panics by regaining confidence in our ability to shape the world rather than just our waistlines
Source
New hope for twisted spine sufferers
A painful and progressive spinal condition could be halted by drugs used to treat another disease, a genetic study has found. The IL23R gene has been found by scientists to be implicated in the development of ankylosing spondylitis, having already been shown to be involved in Crohn's disease.
Michael Brown, of the University of Oxford, said that the identification of the gene was a big breakthrough and meant that there was hope that an existing treatment could be used. "We already know that IL23R is involved in inflammation, but no one had ever thought it was involved in ankylosing spondylitis," Professor Brown said. "A treatment for Crohn's disease that inhibits the activity of this gene is already undergoing human trials. This looks very promising as a potential treatment for ankylosing spondylitis."
The gene was identified with a second, called ARTS1, in a study funded by the Wellcome Trust and the Arthritis Research Campaign. Details have been published in the journal Nature Genetics.
Source
Friday, October 26, 2007
This Could be a Problem for British Leftists
Take away abuse and lies and most of them would be struck dumb:
Must not Notice Skin Color
We read:
The de-moralisation of health care
By Melanie Phillips, writing from Britain
How in God's name have we come to this? In three hospitals in Kent, at least 90 patients have died from a superbug infection caused by filthy conditions with unwashed bedpans, staff `too busy' to clean their hands and - most appalling of all - nurses telling patients with diarrhoea to `go in their beds'. This unspeakable situation reveals not just callousness towards suffering and indifference to human dignity but a breakdown of some of our most basic civilised values.
Nor is this an isolated scandal. Last October, an internal memo warned the Government that virtually every NHS trust was reporting superbug infection. The health service, in other words, is institutionally polluted. The Government's response? To ignore this crisis, and then belatedly to bring forth Gordon Brown's pathetic commitment to a sporadic hospital `deep clean'. What has happened to the duty of care in our flagship public service? What has happened, indeed, to our sense of common humanity?
Two things have combined to cause this awful situation. The first is the Government's Stalinist control of the NHS which directly conflicts with patient care. The Kent hospitals focused on meeting waiting time targets to the exclusion of just about everything else; and the NHS management's byzantine structure ensures an almost total absence of accountability.
But that is far from the full explanation. Much more important is what has happened to the nursing profession, where there has simply been a collapse of that ethic of caring first promulgated by the inventor of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. Of course, it must be said that there are still many dedicated and caring nurses of whom Nightingale would be proud. But in general, her ethic has been all but destroyed.
Nursing is not a job but a vocation. That means it is governed by a sense of moral duty to the patient rather than by the self-interest of the nurse. That sense of vocation lay at the heart of Nightingale's vision. It was no accident that in her seminal Notes On Nursing, published in 1860, she wrote that `the greater part of nursing consists in preserving cleanliness'. It was not just that cleanliness was essential for recovery and health. Keeping both hospital and patients clean meant the nurse needed to have the most elevated of motives to put the care and dignity of her patients first.
Accordingly, lowly functions such as washing, dressing and administering bedpans - where dignity was most fragile - were the functions that in nursing were invested with the highest possible significance. Simply, these were moral acts. Accordingly, wrote Nightingale, if a nurse declined to do these kinds of things for her patient because she was so concerned about her own status, nursing was not her calling. `Women who wait for the housemaid to do this, or for the charwoman to do that, when their patients are suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them.'
Florence Nightingale belongs in the first rank of pioneering Victorian feminists. But the tragedy is that modern feminism has all but destroyed what she stood for. In the 1980s, nursing underwent a revolution. Under the influence of feminist thinking, its leaders decided that nurses were treated like skivvies by doctors, who were mostly men. To achieve equality for women, therefore, nursing had to gain equal status with medicine. So nurse training was taken away from the hospitals and turned into an academic subject taught in universities.
This directly contradicted an explicit warning given by Florence Nightingale herself, that her 'sisters' should steer clear of the `jargon' about the `rights' of women, `which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do.' That, however, was exactly what the nursing establishment proceeded to do. Since caring for patients was demeaning to women, it could no longer be the cardinal principle of nursing. Instead, the primary goal became to realise the potential of the nurse, to deliver equality with the male-dominated medical profession.
In her book The Project 2000 Nurse, Ann Bradshaw, a specialist in palliative care, described how this agenda removed caring, kindness, compassion and dedication from nurse training. Student nurses now studied courses such as sociology, gender studies, politics, psychology, microbiology and management. They were assessed for their communication, management, problem- solving and analytical skills. `Specific clinical nursing skills were not mentioned,' she wrote. In short, nursing ditched its core vocation to care.
I wouldn't have believed this possible had I not been forced to witness how my own mother was treated in a London teaching hospital a few years ago. She suffered under a wretched double burden of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. In that pitiable condition, which meant she could barely walk, she broke her hip and was admitted for surgery to a fracture ward. If I hadn't been on hand every day, she would have starved. After surgery, she was unable to move at all in her bed. Yet the nurses made no attempt to help her to eat; nor did they even deign to move her pillow to make her more comfortable. Yet when I protested, I was told by the senior nurse on duty the bare-faced lie that an hour previously my mother had been 'skipping round the ward'.
It was then that I realised that all the excuses about NHS failure being caused by lack of money were a lie. It was then that I understood that there was, instead, a lack of something infinitely more profound - conscience, kindness, a sense of duty to others - and that the image of the NHS as the embodiment of altruism was a grotesque illusion. If you were old and incapable, it was an encounter to be feared. The memory of my mother's terrible experience still makes me cry; and I weep also for all those poor souls who have died at the hands of the NHS in Kent, and all those other frail and powerless patients who are being treated so abominably in hospitals up and down the country.
What's happened in our hospitals surely reflects a still wider social breakdown. Our society seems to have turned into a Darwinian nightmare in which the fittest prosper mightily while the old and weak are tossed aside as of no value. That's why we starve and dehydrate some elderly people to death. That's why we turn a blind eye to the dreadful conditions in so many old people's homes. And that's why nurses become managers, and preen themselves as expert professionals in meetings and seminars and conferences and away- days while patients in their hospitals are left to die in their own filth.
And what about the Labour Party, for which the NHS is the ultimate symbol of its own superior social conscience? Are Labour MPs agitating about the filth in our hospitals and the deaths it is causing? Dream on. Labour MPs are currently wholly occupied with inspecting their own navel and analysing who is up or down in the Gordon Brown/David Cameron circus. And as for the Health Secretary, while patients are dying as the direct result of the system over which he presides, he appears to think that the biggest threat to the future of the very planet is that people are too fat.
Our NHS is now the symbol of a society that has lost its moral compass along with its heart and soul.
Source
A major Greenie fortress crumbles
"Nature" magazine is the house-journal of the Warmists so their publication of the article below is a big deal -- particularly since they are now parroting the line of -- no, no, it can't be true -- GEORGE BUSH!
TWO British experts have backed the Australian and US governments' refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saying emissions caps are the wrong tool for tackling the problem. "Time to ditch Kyoto," British social scientist Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and leading climate change researcher Steve Rayner of Oxford University, who holds dual US-British citizenship, wrote in the journal Nature. "The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments' concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed," they wrote. They said the world should instead raise spending on clean energy research to tens of billions of dollars a year as part of a broader plan "on a wartime footing".
Governments should view global warming as a strategic challenge, like the US drive to put a man on the moon in 1969 or to help Europe recover after World War Two, and move away from Kyoto-style caps on greenhouse gas emissions, they said.
The 1997 Kyoto pact obliges 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia and the US have refused to sign up to the agreement. But many nations are over target in a sign that Kyoto is no "silver bullet" for slowing climate change, Mr Rayner told Reuters.
The two urged governments to consider carrying out more research instead of tightening Kyoto-style caps. The world's environment ministers will meet in Bali, Indonesia, from December 3-14 to launch negotiations on a successor to Kyoto. "Investment in energy research and development should be placed on a wartime footing," the experts wrote of efforts to create clean energy such as wind and solar power. "It seems reasonable to expect the world's leading economies and emitters to devote as much money to this challenge as they currently spend on military research - in the case of the United States, about $80 billion a year," they said.
They said Kyoto had been modelled on treaties for protecting the ozone layer and curbing acid rain that focused on cuts in a few pollutants. But climate change affected the entire economy and solutions had to be more complex than caps on a few gases.
As part of the answer, they said the world should focus on curbs by top emitters rather than seeking agreement among 176 states that have ratified Kyoto. The top 20, led by the US and China, account for 80 per cent of all emissions.
Mr Prins and Mr Rayner noted that many Kyoto backers had criticised President George W. Bush for bringing major emitters together for talks in Washington last month. But such talks may be a necessary first step to a broader deal, they said. Mr Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001, saying its emissions caps would be too costly and that Kyoto wrongly omitted goals for poor nations. Kyoto backers see it as a tiny first step to slow the effects of climate change such as more floods, heatwaves and rising seas.
But Ben McNeill from the Climate Change Centre at the University Of New South Wales defended Kyoto today, saying the clean development mechanism and targets were important keys to slowing global warming. "Emissions targets dictate for example how effective a carbon emissions trading scheme is. In other words a carbon trading price, and that's a very important part of our strategy in the next decade or so to reduce carbon emissions and combat global warming," Dr McNeill told Radio Australia.
The two experts said the world should create markets in greenhouse gases but efforts so far had failed to produce stable prices high enough to spur a major shift away from the fossil fuels widely blamed for causing global warming. They said that, instead of ordering deeper Kyoto-style cuts in emissions beyond 2012, countries should develop policies only after experimenting with various ideas. "Although a bottom-up approach may seem painfully slow and sprawling, it may be the only way to build credible institutions that markets endorse," they wrote.
Source
Social class effect on health accelerates for British women
Life expectancy for professional women has shot up by 30 months to 85 years in only the last four years, while the gap between the top and bottom classes has widened. Figures from the Office for National Statistics published yesterday show that females in high-status, well-paid jobs such as medicine, law and finance are living longer than ever. Their counterparts in clerical and manual jobs, however, are struggling to keep pace as their lifestyles and life expectancy emulate their male colleagues.
Diet, drinking and smoking are taking their toll on women in the lower social classes but health experts suggest that females at the top are in better shape than ever, have quicker access to healthcare, are no longer dying from breast cancer and can afford better holidays. Some epidemiologists also suggest that women get a psychological boost from a high-status job where they are largely in control.
The figures show that the life expectancy at birth for women in the top social class, or those who married into it, jumped from 82.6 years in 2001 to 85.1 years in 2005, an increase of 2.5years. This rise is at a much faster rate than the rest of the past 30 years where life expectancy has gone up about two years in every ten. During the same period the life expectancy for women in the lowest social class - unskilled workers and labourers - rose from 77.9 to 78.1 years, an increase of only ten weeks.
In male mortality, the opposite appears to be happening. Life expectancy in men has been catching up with women over the past 30 years, but since 2001 the increase has dropped slightly and the gap between the social classes has slightly narrowed. Life expectancy for men in the professional classes rose from 79.5 years in 2001 to 80 years in 2005. At the same time the life span for unskilled workers rose from 71.5 to 72.7 years. A similar picture occurs in life expectancy from the age of 65. A women in Social Class 1 now aged 65 was expected to live to 85 in 2005, but is now expected to carry on to 87. However, the corresponding figures for women in Social Class 5 only rose from 81.9 to 82.7 years.
Eric Brunner, a reader in epidemiology at University College London, could not fully explain the acceleration in life expectancy for woman in the top social classes in the past four years. But he said that access to cash and high self-esteem has a big impact on health and longevity. "Money, wealth and resources, particularly psychological, mean that women feel more in control of their lives." Women are also categorised in Social Class 1 if they are married to men working in the professions, so many of them may be able to take on part-time jobs or not work at all.
Alcohol, smoking, poor diet and better health services in earlier life would all be factors in the widening gap between the social classes. "There are different smoking patterns in men and women over the last 40 years," said Dr Brunner. "The peak mortality rates for men with lung cancer was in the early 1970s while the peak rate for women was in the mid-1990s." In addition, there was a much greater class divide in obesity levels among women, with far more obese females in the lowest classes. There is no significant difference among men.
Professor Mel Bartley, a director of the Economic and Social Research Centre, said that women in the top social classes were more likely to get breast cancer but now less likely to die from it. Better screening techniques and drug treatments such as Tamoxifen had had a huge impact on mortality in recent years.
More here
Take away abuse and lies and most of them would be struck dumb:
"Disgruntled fans of Sheffield Wednesday who vented their dissatisfaction with the football club's bigwigs in anonymous internet postings may face expensive libel claims after the chairman, chief executive and five directors won a high-court ruling last week forcing the owner of a website to reveal their identity.
The case, featuring the website owlstalk.co.uk, is the second within days to highlight the danger of assuming that the apparent cloak of anonymity gives users of internet forums and chatrooms carte blanche to say whatever they like.
In another high court case last week, John Finn, owner of the Sunderland property firm Pallion Housing, admitted just before he was due to be cross-examined that he was responsible for a website hosting a scurrilous internet campaign about a rival housing organisation, Gentoo Group, its employees and owner, Peter Walls.
Exposing the identity of those who post damaging lies in cyberspace is a growth area for libel lawyers.
Source
Must not Notice Skin Color
We read:
"Children were left in tears after they were separated according to their skin colour for school photos. More than 100 boys and girls aged from seven to 11 were lined up from the fairest skinned to the darkest.
But the segregation left several of the pupil so upset they cried to their parents when they got home. One angry mum said: "My 10-year-old was told to go further back in the line as she was not white enough. She came home devastated saying, 'I wish my skin was lighter mummy.'" Another parent, Ann Andrew, 49, said her daughter, Angela, 10, came home in tears and said: "My school's so racist."
Headteacher Val Hughes said pupils had been divided up according to skin tone but claimed it was to make it easier for the photographer. In a letter to Mrs Andrews she said: "Some classes were organised lightest to darkest skin tone and some darkest to lightest. This meant the photographer did not have to keep readjusting his reflector screens."
Source
The de-moralisation of health care
By Melanie Phillips, writing from Britain
How in God's name have we come to this? In three hospitals in Kent, at least 90 patients have died from a superbug infection caused by filthy conditions with unwashed bedpans, staff `too busy' to clean their hands and - most appalling of all - nurses telling patients with diarrhoea to `go in their beds'. This unspeakable situation reveals not just callousness towards suffering and indifference to human dignity but a breakdown of some of our most basic civilised values.
Nor is this an isolated scandal. Last October, an internal memo warned the Government that virtually every NHS trust was reporting superbug infection. The health service, in other words, is institutionally polluted. The Government's response? To ignore this crisis, and then belatedly to bring forth Gordon Brown's pathetic commitment to a sporadic hospital `deep clean'. What has happened to the duty of care in our flagship public service? What has happened, indeed, to our sense of common humanity?
Two things have combined to cause this awful situation. The first is the Government's Stalinist control of the NHS which directly conflicts with patient care. The Kent hospitals focused on meeting waiting time targets to the exclusion of just about everything else; and the NHS management's byzantine structure ensures an almost total absence of accountability.
But that is far from the full explanation. Much more important is what has happened to the nursing profession, where there has simply been a collapse of that ethic of caring first promulgated by the inventor of modern nursing, Florence Nightingale. Of course, it must be said that there are still many dedicated and caring nurses of whom Nightingale would be proud. But in general, her ethic has been all but destroyed.
Nursing is not a job but a vocation. That means it is governed by a sense of moral duty to the patient rather than by the self-interest of the nurse. That sense of vocation lay at the heart of Nightingale's vision. It was no accident that in her seminal Notes On Nursing, published in 1860, she wrote that `the greater part of nursing consists in preserving cleanliness'. It was not just that cleanliness was essential for recovery and health. Keeping both hospital and patients clean meant the nurse needed to have the most elevated of motives to put the care and dignity of her patients first.
Accordingly, lowly functions such as washing, dressing and administering bedpans - where dignity was most fragile - were the functions that in nursing were invested with the highest possible significance. Simply, these were moral acts. Accordingly, wrote Nightingale, if a nurse declined to do these kinds of things for her patient because she was so concerned about her own status, nursing was not her calling. `Women who wait for the housemaid to do this, or for the charwoman to do that, when their patients are suffering, have not the making of a nurse in them.'
Florence Nightingale belongs in the first rank of pioneering Victorian feminists. But the tragedy is that modern feminism has all but destroyed what she stood for. In the 1980s, nursing underwent a revolution. Under the influence of feminist thinking, its leaders decided that nurses were treated like skivvies by doctors, who were mostly men. To achieve equality for women, therefore, nursing had to gain equal status with medicine. So nurse training was taken away from the hospitals and turned into an academic subject taught in universities.
This directly contradicted an explicit warning given by Florence Nightingale herself, that her 'sisters' should steer clear of the `jargon' about the `rights' of women, `which urges women to do all that men do, including the medical and other professions, merely because men do it, and without regard to whether this is the best that women can do.' That, however, was exactly what the nursing establishment proceeded to do. Since caring for patients was demeaning to women, it could no longer be the cardinal principle of nursing. Instead, the primary goal became to realise the potential of the nurse, to deliver equality with the male-dominated medical profession.
In her book The Project 2000 Nurse, Ann Bradshaw, a specialist in palliative care, described how this agenda removed caring, kindness, compassion and dedication from nurse training. Student nurses now studied courses such as sociology, gender studies, politics, psychology, microbiology and management. They were assessed for their communication, management, problem- solving and analytical skills. `Specific clinical nursing skills were not mentioned,' she wrote. In short, nursing ditched its core vocation to care.
I wouldn't have believed this possible had I not been forced to witness how my own mother was treated in a London teaching hospital a few years ago. She suffered under a wretched double burden of multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's disease. In that pitiable condition, which meant she could barely walk, she broke her hip and was admitted for surgery to a fracture ward. If I hadn't been on hand every day, she would have starved. After surgery, she was unable to move at all in her bed. Yet the nurses made no attempt to help her to eat; nor did they even deign to move her pillow to make her more comfortable. Yet when I protested, I was told by the senior nurse on duty the bare-faced lie that an hour previously my mother had been 'skipping round the ward'.
It was then that I realised that all the excuses about NHS failure being caused by lack of money were a lie. It was then that I understood that there was, instead, a lack of something infinitely more profound - conscience, kindness, a sense of duty to others - and that the image of the NHS as the embodiment of altruism was a grotesque illusion. If you were old and incapable, it was an encounter to be feared. The memory of my mother's terrible experience still makes me cry; and I weep also for all those poor souls who have died at the hands of the NHS in Kent, and all those other frail and powerless patients who are being treated so abominably in hospitals up and down the country.
What's happened in our hospitals surely reflects a still wider social breakdown. Our society seems to have turned into a Darwinian nightmare in which the fittest prosper mightily while the old and weak are tossed aside as of no value. That's why we starve and dehydrate some elderly people to death. That's why we turn a blind eye to the dreadful conditions in so many old people's homes. And that's why nurses become managers, and preen themselves as expert professionals in meetings and seminars and conferences and away- days while patients in their hospitals are left to die in their own filth.
And what about the Labour Party, for which the NHS is the ultimate symbol of its own superior social conscience? Are Labour MPs agitating about the filth in our hospitals and the deaths it is causing? Dream on. Labour MPs are currently wholly occupied with inspecting their own navel and analysing who is up or down in the Gordon Brown/David Cameron circus. And as for the Health Secretary, while patients are dying as the direct result of the system over which he presides, he appears to think that the biggest threat to the future of the very planet is that people are too fat.
Our NHS is now the symbol of a society that has lost its moral compass along with its heart and soul.
Source
A major Greenie fortress crumbles
"Nature" magazine is the house-journal of the Warmists so their publication of the article below is a big deal -- particularly since they are now parroting the line of -- no, no, it can't be true -- GEORGE BUSH!
TWO British experts have backed the Australian and US governments' refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saying emissions caps are the wrong tool for tackling the problem. "Time to ditch Kyoto," British social scientist Gwyn Prins of the London School of Economics and leading climate change researcher Steve Rayner of Oxford University, who holds dual US-British citizenship, wrote in the journal Nature. "The Kyoto Protocol is a symbolically important expression of governments' concern about climate change. But as an instrument for achieving emissions reductions, it has failed," they wrote. They said the world should instead raise spending on clean energy research to tens of billions of dollars a year as part of a broader plan "on a wartime footing".
Governments should view global warming as a strategic challenge, like the US drive to put a man on the moon in 1969 or to help Europe recover after World War Two, and move away from Kyoto-style caps on greenhouse gas emissions, they said.
The 1997 Kyoto pact obliges 36 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Australia and the US have refused to sign up to the agreement. But many nations are over target in a sign that Kyoto is no "silver bullet" for slowing climate change, Mr Rayner told Reuters.
The two urged governments to consider carrying out more research instead of tightening Kyoto-style caps. The world's environment ministers will meet in Bali, Indonesia, from December 3-14 to launch negotiations on a successor to Kyoto. "Investment in energy research and development should be placed on a wartime footing," the experts wrote of efforts to create clean energy such as wind and solar power. "It seems reasonable to expect the world's leading economies and emitters to devote as much money to this challenge as they currently spend on military research - in the case of the United States, about $80 billion a year," they said.
They said Kyoto had been modelled on treaties for protecting the ozone layer and curbing acid rain that focused on cuts in a few pollutants. But climate change affected the entire economy and solutions had to be more complex than caps on a few gases.
As part of the answer, they said the world should focus on curbs by top emitters rather than seeking agreement among 176 states that have ratified Kyoto. The top 20, led by the US and China, account for 80 per cent of all emissions.
Mr Prins and Mr Rayner noted that many Kyoto backers had criticised President George W. Bush for bringing major emitters together for talks in Washington last month. But such talks may be a necessary first step to a broader deal, they said. Mr Bush rejected Kyoto in 2001, saying its emissions caps would be too costly and that Kyoto wrongly omitted goals for poor nations. Kyoto backers see it as a tiny first step to slow the effects of climate change such as more floods, heatwaves and rising seas.
But Ben McNeill from the Climate Change Centre at the University Of New South Wales defended Kyoto today, saying the clean development mechanism and targets were important keys to slowing global warming. "Emissions targets dictate for example how effective a carbon emissions trading scheme is. In other words a carbon trading price, and that's a very important part of our strategy in the next decade or so to reduce carbon emissions and combat global warming," Dr McNeill told Radio Australia.
The two experts said the world should create markets in greenhouse gases but efforts so far had failed to produce stable prices high enough to spur a major shift away from the fossil fuels widely blamed for causing global warming. They said that, instead of ordering deeper Kyoto-style cuts in emissions beyond 2012, countries should develop policies only after experimenting with various ideas. "Although a bottom-up approach may seem painfully slow and sprawling, it may be the only way to build credible institutions that markets endorse," they wrote.
Source
Social class effect on health accelerates for British women
Life expectancy for professional women has shot up by 30 months to 85 years in only the last four years, while the gap between the top and bottom classes has widened. Figures from the Office for National Statistics published yesterday show that females in high-status, well-paid jobs such as medicine, law and finance are living longer than ever. Their counterparts in clerical and manual jobs, however, are struggling to keep pace as their lifestyles and life expectancy emulate their male colleagues.
Diet, drinking and smoking are taking their toll on women in the lower social classes but health experts suggest that females at the top are in better shape than ever, have quicker access to healthcare, are no longer dying from breast cancer and can afford better holidays. Some epidemiologists also suggest that women get a psychological boost from a high-status job where they are largely in control.
The figures show that the life expectancy at birth for women in the top social class, or those who married into it, jumped from 82.6 years in 2001 to 85.1 years in 2005, an increase of 2.5years. This rise is at a much faster rate than the rest of the past 30 years where life expectancy has gone up about two years in every ten. During the same period the life expectancy for women in the lowest social class - unskilled workers and labourers - rose from 77.9 to 78.1 years, an increase of only ten weeks.
In male mortality, the opposite appears to be happening. Life expectancy in men has been catching up with women over the past 30 years, but since 2001 the increase has dropped slightly and the gap between the social classes has slightly narrowed. Life expectancy for men in the professional classes rose from 79.5 years in 2001 to 80 years in 2005. At the same time the life span for unskilled workers rose from 71.5 to 72.7 years. A similar picture occurs in life expectancy from the age of 65. A women in Social Class 1 now aged 65 was expected to live to 85 in 2005, but is now expected to carry on to 87. However, the corresponding figures for women in Social Class 5 only rose from 81.9 to 82.7 years.
Eric Brunner, a reader in epidemiology at University College London, could not fully explain the acceleration in life expectancy for woman in the top social classes in the past four years. But he said that access to cash and high self-esteem has a big impact on health and longevity. "Money, wealth and resources, particularly psychological, mean that women feel more in control of their lives." Women are also categorised in Social Class 1 if they are married to men working in the professions, so many of them may be able to take on part-time jobs or not work at all.
Alcohol, smoking, poor diet and better health services in earlier life would all be factors in the widening gap between the social classes. "There are different smoking patterns in men and women over the last 40 years," said Dr Brunner. "The peak mortality rates for men with lung cancer was in the early 1970s while the peak rate for women was in the mid-1990s." In addition, there was a much greater class divide in obesity levels among women, with far more obese females in the lowest classes. There is no significant difference among men.
Professor Mel Bartley, a director of the Economic and Social Research Centre, said that women in the top social classes were more likely to get breast cancer but now less likely to die from it. Better screening techniques and drug treatments such as Tamoxifen had had a huge impact on mortality in recent years.
More here
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Mental illness soars in UK's cannabis hotspots
I think that the claims below are probably broadly right but we must not discount that Britain has more and more blacks and that they tend to live in certain areas, that they are often drug users and that they are more prone to mental illness. These results should really be broken out by race for us to be sure of what is going on. It could just be that we are seeing nothing more than an effect of Britain's ever-increasing immigrant population
The devastating effects of skunk cannabis on the nation's mental health are revealed here for the first time, showing where the drug has hit hardest around the country. Some areas have suffered a tenfold increase in people mentally ill from using the drug. Nationally, skunk smokers are ending up ill in hospital in record numbers, with admissions soaring 73 per cent. The number of adults recorded as suffering mental illness as a result of cannabis use has risen sharply from 430 in 1996 to 743 in 2006. The government data shows how the damaging effects of the drug have swept across England. Hospital hotspots for cannabis abuse include Manchester, London, Cheshire and Merseyside.
And, as the debate over the drug's dangers continues, figures released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Abuse (NTA) show that more than 24,500 people are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis - the highest ever. It is the most commonly misused drug by children, accounting for 75 per cent of those requiring treatment. That's 11,582 under-18s - more than double those in treatment for cannabis abuse in 2005. And more adults (13,087) are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis abuse than for crack or cocaine.
This news comes as pressure grows on the Government to reclassify cannabis to its former class B status, with the fears of police now being echoed by the Forensic Science Service, which says skunk cannabis - a highly potent form of the drug - accounts for 75 per cent of all seizures. Cannabis remains Britain's most commonly used illegal drug, with more than 4,000 kilos confiscated by police and customs officers in the first six months of this year.
Source
A "softer" paternalist
What gives HIM the right to make decisions for other people? Should we say "Sieg heil" to him?
A radical plan to improve the nation's health - including a workplace "exercise hour" - has been unveiled by a leading Government adviser. New figures today show England is the fattest country in the EU. Now Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, hopes to encourage people to improve their diets, give up smoking and exercise more.
He proposed the introduction of a smoking permit, which smokers would be required to show each time they bought tobacco. It is then their choice to go smoke free and not buy a permit.
Companies with more than 500 staff would have an " exercise hour". Employees would have to deliberately choose not to join in. The proposalsare the opposite of the Government's approach which requires people to opt in to healthy lifestyles. Instead it would be up to them to make the unhealthy choice.
In his speech to the Royal Statistical Society last night the professor, a former aide to Tony Blair said: "It is not like banning something, it's a softer form of paternalism."
Source
Permissiveness is degrading English civility
To understand the opening comments below, you need to know that Rugby is a form of football favoured by middle to upper class Brits while "football" (soccer") is working class. The bad behaviour of English soccer fans abroad is notorious. The author, Janet Daley is American born. Her surname is Irish. It is unlikely that an English person would comment on class differences so forthrightly. She is nonetheless a frequent writer in English conservative publications
So the England rugby fans apparently managed to find their way out of Paris without wrecking a single bar, overturning a single car or bottling a single South African supporter - let alone waging a pitched battle on the Champs-Elysees with a squad of armoured police. Even those who arrived without tickets, drank with abandon and were reduced to sleeping rough in the streets - a sure-fire prescription for carnage if this had been a football World Cup - made no trouble for the authorities.
There are a few commentators who staunchly insist that this is not about class: that the difference between what Dave Tattoo and his mates would have done to Paris after losing a football World Cup final, and what the sad but non-violent rugby fans did, is nothing to do with the ugly social divide that still pervades Britain.
Well, delude yourself if you like - but this is about class. What confuses the issue now is that class is not all about money. Many thugs who travel abroad in fervent pursuit of the ultimate football fan's trophy - a charge of grievous bodily harm - are high earners, at least by the standards of their parents' generation. (After all, how else could they afford the trip?)
But what is so devastatingly depressing is that the class barrier in Britain is so immutable that even relative affluence cannot touch what lies at the heart of it. Since I arrived in this country, there has been a succession of optimistic prophesies about the end of the class system. When I got here in the 1960s you were in the midst of one: a great wave of creativity had arisen from the proletarian provinces - John Lennon and David Hockney, John Osborne and Kingsley Amis. Surely this was the dawn of a new age of egalitarian meritocracy in which it was positively fashionable to have working-class roots? Look at the photographs of the England football team who won the World Cup in 1966. How respectable and middle class they appear - and how gentlemanly was their behaviour on the pitch by comparison to the rich sociopaths who now dominate the game.
Whatever happened to the decency and civility that was personified by Bobby Moore and the Charlton brothers? What happened to the desire of young working-class men to rise above the violence and borderline criminality that lay in wait for people of their backgrounds whose self-discipline was allowed to slip?
It disappeared under a new wave of garbage culture and what seemed to me - a shocked outsider - like a positive conspiracy to maintain the separateness of working-class life, engineered jointly by sentimental media hokum and patronising middle-class guilt.
Whole genres of television programmes, whole tranches of truly appalling down-market magazines appeared on the scene, all apparently designed to celebrate the most degrading forms of working-class life. And as cynical and manipulative as these cold-blooded marketing exercises were, to criticise them was to invite charges of snobbery: as if no form of "entertainment", however debased, should be regarded as too low to be an insult to this audience.
Schooling, which should have been the real answer to it all, was dominated by an educational establishment steeped in bourgeois guilt. I can remember having heated arguments with teachers and education officials who were adamant that children's ungrammatical regional dialects should not be corrected. "Correct" English, they insisted, was just a middle-class fetish which should not be imposed on children from "other" backgrounds. So generations of working-class children had their feet set in social and cultural concrete by schools that refused to teach them how to speak and write their own language properly.
It happened again and again: in the 1980s there was another burst of meritocratic aspiration which saw a further wave of people break free from the limitations of their backgrounds - only to be ridiculed as "Essex men" whose vulgar tastes and flashy wives still put them beyond the pale no matter how much they earned.
Now we have a new incarnation of the old division with "chavs" [flashy working class youths] and reborn Sloane Rangers. And a poll at the weekend states that 89 per cent of respondents believe that people in Britain are still judged by their class.
The Labour Government, convinced (rightly) that education is the answer to this, is trying to force universities to accept students whose schooling has been so inadequate that they cannot even achieve the low level of qualification needed to be admitted legitimately. Social engineering is too subtle a term for this distortion of university entrance criteria: it is not so much a bending of the system as a bludgeoning that threatens to devalue what makes higher education so worthwhile. If education is the answer, then it must be allowed to do what only education can do: provide the rite of passage to an examined life.
That life requires an attitude which takes self-respect and the value of personal achievement for granted. Implant and nurture those things and the rest - aspiration, motivation and social mobility - will follow.
In Danny Danziger's book Museum, a collection of essays by people who work at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, there is a revelatory chapter by the head of security. The uniformed guards in the galleries at the Met are all graduates. This may be why they exercise far more discipline over the groups of schoolchildren than their British equivalents do: first, they feel more real commitment to the art, and second, they see no reason why everyone - from whatever background - should not be expected to behave in a museum.
Two of them became so involved with the objects they were guarding that they went back to university to get higher degrees and became museum curators. Ask yourself what the chances would be of that happening here, and even what response there would be to the suggestion that all museum guards should have higher education?
Forgive the homily, but it seems to be necessary to say this: self-respect comes to people from the expectations of others. If you, as a society, do not expect correct speech, decent behaviour and a sense of responsibility from some of your fellow citizens - do not, in other words, demand from them what civilised life requires - then you deny them the chance to enter that life more effectively than if you had barred the gates to every centre of learning in the land.
Source
So health care for the poor is better in England and Canada? Guess again
Post below lifted from Chris Reed. See the original for links
From a new study by Princeton scholars:
Got that? Poor kids fare better in the U.S. system, with all its flaws, than in England with its single-payer system. Oh, but that's England! Canada is what we want to be like! Michael Moore says so! It must be true. Guess again. Here's the summary of a new study by Baruch College scholars:
Got that? Poor people fare slightly better in the U.S. health system than they do in the Canadian system. On a scale of 0 to 100, relevance of these studies to the U.S. health debate: 100.
On a scale of 0 to 100, the likelihood they ever will become part of the U.S. health debate: 0. Just wonderful.
NOTE: The Canadian study above does have some problems. See here. But when one of Canada's leading Leftist politicians goes to the USA for medical treatment that probably tells us more than any statistics. And Stronach is one of many Canadians who go to the USA for treatment that they cannot get in Canada
Man rips out teeth with pliers to beat NHS wait
He was in pain from toothache but was told to wait 3 weeks before he could be treated
A BRITISH man has pulled out seven of his own teeth because he was told to wait three weeks for an appointment to see a National Health Service dentist. Taxi driver Arthur Haupt used pliers and a technique he had learned in the army to carry out the DIY dentistry. He couldn't afford the $170 per tooth treatment he was quoted by a private practice.
"If you can't get anyone else to take your teeth out, you take them out yourself, don't you?" said Mr Haupt, 67, from Melton, in Leicestershire in England's east Midlands. "When they told me to fill out a form and how long I would have to wait I said, 'I've got gob ache now, not in three weeks time'.
Source
Brits beginning to face environmental facts
Ministers are planning a U-turn on Britain's pledges to combat climate change that "effectively abolishes" its targets to rapidly expand the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Gordon Brown will be advised today that the target Tony Blair signed up to this year for 20% of all European energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 is expensive and faces "severe practical difficulties".
According to the papers, John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, will tell Mr Brown that Britain should work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets, before binding commitments are framed in December. It admits that allowing member states to fall short of their renewable targets will be "very hard to negotiate ... and will be very controversial". "The commission, some member states and the European parliament will not want the target to be diluted, though others may be allies for a change," says a draft copy of Mr Hutton's Energy Policy Presentation to the Prime Minister, marked "restricted - policy".
The revelations came as scientists announced that carbon emissions were accumulating in the atmosphere far more quickly than predicted. The sharp increase found by the Global Carbon Project is attributed mainly to Chinese coal-burning and a weakening of the ability of oceans and forests to soak up carbon dioxide.
The leaked papers admit to "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership" if Mr Brown is seen to be driving a plan to let European member states fall short of their renewables targets. They also reveal different priorities across government departments about how to get renewables to 20% of the electricity mix. Although Germany has increased its renewable energy share to 9% in six years, Britain's share is only 2%, with its greenhouse gas emissions rising.
Last night campaigners expressed alarm at the new direction of government policy. "Gordon Brown is now in danger of surrendering any claim to international leadership on climate change and would rather support nuclear power and scupper the European renewable energy target," said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace.
Mr Hutton will tell Mr Brown that there are severe practical difficulties about meeting the 20% target. These include persuading the Ministry of Defence and the shipping industry to accept more offshore wind power, as well as increased research and development costs for marine and tidal power. One of the main objections of government to meeting the renewables target set by Mr Blair is that it will undermine the role of the European emission trading scheme. This scheme was devised by the Treasury under Mr Brown and allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions. "[Meeting the 20% renewables target] crucially undermines the scheme's credibility ... and reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power", say the papers.
The government is clearly worried about its ambition to introduce more nuclear power as soon as possible. Mr Hutton will tell Mr Brown that he expects a second legal challenge by Greenpeace. "[It is] most likely to be on the basis of pre-judgement, concerns about waste, a flawed consultation process or inaccuracies."
Analysis by Mr Hutton's department suggests it could cost the UK 4bn pounds a year to achieve a 9% share of renewable energy by 2020. The shift in stance is due to be discussed at full cabinet next week. Last night a spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "We don't comment on ministerial meetings with the PM.
Source
I think that the claims below are probably broadly right but we must not discount that Britain has more and more blacks and that they tend to live in certain areas, that they are often drug users and that they are more prone to mental illness. These results should really be broken out by race for us to be sure of what is going on. It could just be that we are seeing nothing more than an effect of Britain's ever-increasing immigrant population
The devastating effects of skunk cannabis on the nation's mental health are revealed here for the first time, showing where the drug has hit hardest around the country. Some areas have suffered a tenfold increase in people mentally ill from using the drug. Nationally, skunk smokers are ending up ill in hospital in record numbers, with admissions soaring 73 per cent. The number of adults recorded as suffering mental illness as a result of cannabis use has risen sharply from 430 in 1996 to 743 in 2006. The government data shows how the damaging effects of the drug have swept across England. Hospital hotspots for cannabis abuse include Manchester, London, Cheshire and Merseyside.
And, as the debate over the drug's dangers continues, figures released by the National Treatment Agency for Substance Abuse (NTA) show that more than 24,500 people are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis - the highest ever. It is the most commonly misused drug by children, accounting for 75 per cent of those requiring treatment. That's 11,582 under-18s - more than double those in treatment for cannabis abuse in 2005. And more adults (13,087) are in drug treatment programmes for cannabis abuse than for crack or cocaine.
This news comes as pressure grows on the Government to reclassify cannabis to its former class B status, with the fears of police now being echoed by the Forensic Science Service, which says skunk cannabis - a highly potent form of the drug - accounts for 75 per cent of all seizures. Cannabis remains Britain's most commonly used illegal drug, with more than 4,000 kilos confiscated by police and customs officers in the first six months of this year.
Source
A "softer" paternalist
What gives HIM the right to make decisions for other people? Should we say "Sieg heil" to him?
A radical plan to improve the nation's health - including a workplace "exercise hour" - has been unveiled by a leading Government adviser. New figures today show England is the fattest country in the EU. Now Professor Julian Le Grand, chairman of Health England, hopes to encourage people to improve their diets, give up smoking and exercise more.
He proposed the introduction of a smoking permit, which smokers would be required to show each time they bought tobacco. It is then their choice to go smoke free and not buy a permit.
Companies with more than 500 staff would have an " exercise hour". Employees would have to deliberately choose not to join in. The proposalsare the opposite of the Government's approach which requires people to opt in to healthy lifestyles. Instead it would be up to them to make the unhealthy choice.
In his speech to the Royal Statistical Society last night the professor, a former aide to Tony Blair said: "It is not like banning something, it's a softer form of paternalism."
Source
Permissiveness is degrading English civility
To understand the opening comments below, you need to know that Rugby is a form of football favoured by middle to upper class Brits while "football" (soccer") is working class. The bad behaviour of English soccer fans abroad is notorious. The author, Janet Daley is American born. Her surname is Irish. It is unlikely that an English person would comment on class differences so forthrightly. She is nonetheless a frequent writer in English conservative publications
So the England rugby fans apparently managed to find their way out of Paris without wrecking a single bar, overturning a single car or bottling a single South African supporter - let alone waging a pitched battle on the Champs-Elysees with a squad of armoured police. Even those who arrived without tickets, drank with abandon and were reduced to sleeping rough in the streets - a sure-fire prescription for carnage if this had been a football World Cup - made no trouble for the authorities.
There are a few commentators who staunchly insist that this is not about class: that the difference between what Dave Tattoo and his mates would have done to Paris after losing a football World Cup final, and what the sad but non-violent rugby fans did, is nothing to do with the ugly social divide that still pervades Britain.
Well, delude yourself if you like - but this is about class. What confuses the issue now is that class is not all about money. Many thugs who travel abroad in fervent pursuit of the ultimate football fan's trophy - a charge of grievous bodily harm - are high earners, at least by the standards of their parents' generation. (After all, how else could they afford the trip?)
But what is so devastatingly depressing is that the class barrier in Britain is so immutable that even relative affluence cannot touch what lies at the heart of it. Since I arrived in this country, there has been a succession of optimistic prophesies about the end of the class system. When I got here in the 1960s you were in the midst of one: a great wave of creativity had arisen from the proletarian provinces - John Lennon and David Hockney, John Osborne and Kingsley Amis. Surely this was the dawn of a new age of egalitarian meritocracy in which it was positively fashionable to have working-class roots? Look at the photographs of the England football team who won the World Cup in 1966. How respectable and middle class they appear - and how gentlemanly was their behaviour on the pitch by comparison to the rich sociopaths who now dominate the game.
Whatever happened to the decency and civility that was personified by Bobby Moore and the Charlton brothers? What happened to the desire of young working-class men to rise above the violence and borderline criminality that lay in wait for people of their backgrounds whose self-discipline was allowed to slip?
It disappeared under a new wave of garbage culture and what seemed to me - a shocked outsider - like a positive conspiracy to maintain the separateness of working-class life, engineered jointly by sentimental media hokum and patronising middle-class guilt.
Whole genres of television programmes, whole tranches of truly appalling down-market magazines appeared on the scene, all apparently designed to celebrate the most degrading forms of working-class life. And as cynical and manipulative as these cold-blooded marketing exercises were, to criticise them was to invite charges of snobbery: as if no form of "entertainment", however debased, should be regarded as too low to be an insult to this audience.
Schooling, which should have been the real answer to it all, was dominated by an educational establishment steeped in bourgeois guilt. I can remember having heated arguments with teachers and education officials who were adamant that children's ungrammatical regional dialects should not be corrected. "Correct" English, they insisted, was just a middle-class fetish which should not be imposed on children from "other" backgrounds. So generations of working-class children had their feet set in social and cultural concrete by schools that refused to teach them how to speak and write their own language properly.
It happened again and again: in the 1980s there was another burst of meritocratic aspiration which saw a further wave of people break free from the limitations of their backgrounds - only to be ridiculed as "Essex men" whose vulgar tastes and flashy wives still put them beyond the pale no matter how much they earned.
Now we have a new incarnation of the old division with "chavs" [flashy working class youths] and reborn Sloane Rangers. And a poll at the weekend states that 89 per cent of respondents believe that people in Britain are still judged by their class.
The Labour Government, convinced (rightly) that education is the answer to this, is trying to force universities to accept students whose schooling has been so inadequate that they cannot even achieve the low level of qualification needed to be admitted legitimately. Social engineering is too subtle a term for this distortion of university entrance criteria: it is not so much a bending of the system as a bludgeoning that threatens to devalue what makes higher education so worthwhile. If education is the answer, then it must be allowed to do what only education can do: provide the rite of passage to an examined life.
That life requires an attitude which takes self-respect and the value of personal achievement for granted. Implant and nurture those things and the rest - aspiration, motivation and social mobility - will follow.
In Danny Danziger's book Museum, a collection of essays by people who work at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, there is a revelatory chapter by the head of security. The uniformed guards in the galleries at the Met are all graduates. This may be why they exercise far more discipline over the groups of schoolchildren than their British equivalents do: first, they feel more real commitment to the art, and second, they see no reason why everyone - from whatever background - should not be expected to behave in a museum.
Two of them became so involved with the objects they were guarding that they went back to university to get higher degrees and became museum curators. Ask yourself what the chances would be of that happening here, and even what response there would be to the suggestion that all museum guards should have higher education?
Forgive the homily, but it seems to be necessary to say this: self-respect comes to people from the expectations of others. If you, as a society, do not expect correct speech, decent behaviour and a sense of responsibility from some of your fellow citizens - do not, in other words, demand from them what civilised life requires - then you deny them the chance to enter that life more effectively than if you had barred the gates to every centre of learning in the land.
Source
So health care for the poor is better in England and Canada? Guess again
Post below lifted from Chris Reed. See the original for links
From a new study by Princeton scholars:
This paper reexamines differences found between income gradients in American and English children's health, in results originally published by Case, Lubotsky and Paxson (2002) for the US, and by Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price (2007) for England. We find that, when the English sample is expanded by adding three years of data, and is compared to American data from the same time period, the income gradient in children's health increases with age by the same amount in the two countries.
In addition, we find that Currie, Shields and Wheatley Price's measures of chronic conditions from the Health Survey of England were incorrectly coded. Using correctly coded data, we find that the effects of chronic conditions on health status are larger in the English sample than in the American sample, and that income plays a larger role in buffering children's health from the effects of chronic conditions in England.
We find no evidence that the British National Health Service, with its focus on free services and equal access, prevents the association between health and income from becoming more pronounced as children grow older.
Got that? Poor kids fare better in the U.S. system, with all its flaws, than in England with its single-payer system. Oh, but that's England! Canada is what we want to be like! Michael Moore says so! It must be true. Guess again. Here's the summary of a new study by Baruch College scholars:
Does Canada's publicly funded, single payer health care system deliver better health outcomes and distribute health resources more equitably than the multi-payer heavily private U.S. system? We show that the efficacy of health care systems cannot be usefully evaluated by comparisons of infant mortality and life expectancy. We analyze several alternative measures of health status using JCUSH (The Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health) and other surveys.
We find a somewhat higher incidence of chronic health conditions in the U.S. than in Canada but somewhat greater U.S. access to treatment for these conditions. Moreover, a significantly higher percentage of U.S. women and men are screened for major forms of cancer. Although health status, measured in various ways is similar in both countries, mortality/incidence ratios for various cancers tend to be higher in Canada. The need to ration resources in Canada, where care is delivered "free", ultimately leads to long waits. In the U.S., costs are more often a source of unmet needs.
We also find that Canada has no more abolished the tendency for health status to improve with income than have other countries. Indeed, the health-income gradient is slightly steeper in Canada than it is in the U.S.
Got that? Poor people fare slightly better in the U.S. health system than they do in the Canadian system. On a scale of 0 to 100, relevance of these studies to the U.S. health debate: 100.
On a scale of 0 to 100, the likelihood they ever will become part of the U.S. health debate: 0. Just wonderful.
NOTE: The Canadian study above does have some problems. See here. But when one of Canada's leading Leftist politicians goes to the USA for medical treatment that probably tells us more than any statistics. And Stronach is one of many Canadians who go to the USA for treatment that they cannot get in Canada
Man rips out teeth with pliers to beat NHS wait
He was in pain from toothache but was told to wait 3 weeks before he could be treated
A BRITISH man has pulled out seven of his own teeth because he was told to wait three weeks for an appointment to see a National Health Service dentist. Taxi driver Arthur Haupt used pliers and a technique he had learned in the army to carry out the DIY dentistry. He couldn't afford the $170 per tooth treatment he was quoted by a private practice.
"If you can't get anyone else to take your teeth out, you take them out yourself, don't you?" said Mr Haupt, 67, from Melton, in Leicestershire in England's east Midlands. "When they told me to fill out a form and how long I would have to wait I said, 'I've got gob ache now, not in three weeks time'.
Source
Brits beginning to face environmental facts
Ministers are planning a U-turn on Britain's pledges to combat climate change that "effectively abolishes" its targets to rapidly expand the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show that Gordon Brown will be advised today that the target Tony Blair signed up to this year for 20% of all European energy to come from renewable sources by 2020 is expensive and faces "severe practical difficulties".
According to the papers, John Hutton, the secretary of state for business, will tell Mr Brown that Britain should work with Poland and other governments sceptical about climate change to "help persuade" German chancellor Angela Merkel and others to set lower renewable targets, before binding commitments are framed in December. It admits that allowing member states to fall short of their renewable targets will be "very hard to negotiate ... and will be very controversial". "The commission, some member states and the European parliament will not want the target to be diluted, though others may be allies for a change," says a draft copy of Mr Hutton's Energy Policy Presentation to the Prime Minister, marked "restricted - policy".
The revelations came as scientists announced that carbon emissions were accumulating in the atmosphere far more quickly than predicted. The sharp increase found by the Global Carbon Project is attributed mainly to Chinese coal-burning and a weakening of the ability of oceans and forests to soak up carbon dioxide.
The leaked papers admit to "a potentially significant cost in terms of reduced climate change leadership" if Mr Brown is seen to be driving a plan to let European member states fall short of their renewables targets. They also reveal different priorities across government departments about how to get renewables to 20% of the electricity mix. Although Germany has increased its renewable energy share to 9% in six years, Britain's share is only 2%, with its greenhouse gas emissions rising.
Last night campaigners expressed alarm at the new direction of government policy. "Gordon Brown is now in danger of surrendering any claim to international leadership on climate change and would rather support nuclear power and scupper the European renewable energy target," said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace.
Mr Hutton will tell Mr Brown that there are severe practical difficulties about meeting the 20% target. These include persuading the Ministry of Defence and the shipping industry to accept more offshore wind power, as well as increased research and development costs for marine and tidal power. One of the main objections of government to meeting the renewables target set by Mr Blair is that it will undermine the role of the European emission trading scheme. This scheme was devised by the Treasury under Mr Brown and allows wealthy governments to pay others to reduce emissions. "[Meeting the 20% renewables target] crucially undermines the scheme's credibility ... and reduces the incentives to invest in other carbon technologies like nuclear power", say the papers.
The government is clearly worried about its ambition to introduce more nuclear power as soon as possible. Mr Hutton will tell Mr Brown that he expects a second legal challenge by Greenpeace. "[It is] most likely to be on the basis of pre-judgement, concerns about waste, a flawed consultation process or inaccuracies."
Analysis by Mr Hutton's department suggests it could cost the UK 4bn pounds a year to achieve a 9% share of renewable energy by 2020. The shift in stance is due to be discussed at full cabinet next week. Last night a spokesman for the Department for Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform said: "We don't comment on ministerial meetings with the PM.
Source
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
SCIENCE IS THE PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH, NOT CONSENSUS
Michael Schrage's comment on politics and science (September 26) struck a raw nerve: and provoked an extended response from the president of the UK's Royal Society. Lord Rees advocates that we should base policy on something called "the scientific consensus", while acknowledging that such consensus may be provisional. But this proposal blurs the distinction between politics and science that Lord Rees wants to emphasise. Novelist Michael Crichton may have exaggerated when he wrote that "if it's consensus, it's not science, if it's science, it's not consensus", but only a bit. Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.
Often the argument will continue for ever, and should, because the objective of science is not agreement on a course of action, but the pursuit of truth. Occasionally that pursuit seems to have been successful and the matter is resolved, not by consensus, but by the exhaustion of opposition. We do not say that there is a consensus over the second law of thermodynamics, a consensus that Paris is south of London or that two and two are four. We say that these are the way things are. Nor is there a consensus on evolution since creationists will never be reconciled to that theory. There is no possibility of a compromise, in which Darwinians agree that a few animals went into the ark with Noah and their opponents acknowledge that most species evolved.
Numbers are critical to democracy, but science is not a democracy. If an evangelical Christian converted all members of the Royal Society to creationism, that neither would nor should affect my belief in evolution. Most scientists know no more about climate change, HIV/Aids or the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine than do most lawyers, philosophers or economists, and it is not obvious who is better equipped to assess conflicting claims on these issues. Science is a matter of evidence, not what a majority of scientists think.
It is easy to see why the president of the Royal Society might want to elide that distinction, but in doing so he turns the organisation from a learned society into a trade union. Peer review is a valuable part of the apparatus of scholarship, but carries a danger of establishing self-referential clubs that promote each other's work.
Statements about the world derive their value from the facts and arguments that support them, not from the status and qualifications of the people who assert them. Evidence versus authority was the issue on which Galileo challenged the church. The modern world exists because Galileo won.
But to use the achievements of science to assert the authority of scientists undermines that very process of science. When consumers believe that genetically modified foods are unsafe, mothers intuit that their children's autism is caused by the MMR vaccine and politicians assert that HIV/Aids is a first world conspiracy, the answer that the scientific consensus is otherwise does not convince - nor should it. Such claims are mistaken because there is no evidence for them, not because scientists take a different view: scientists should influence policy by explaining facts and arguments, not by parading their doctorates.
The notion of a monolithic "science", meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the notion of "scientific consensus" actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of "scientific consensus".
Source
Multiculturalism threatens democracy, says leading British Rabbi
Multiculturalism promotes segregation, stifles free speech and threatens liberal democracy, Britain's top Jewish official warned in extracts from his book published Saturday. Jonathan Sacks, Britain's chief rabbi, defined multiculturalism as an attempt to affirm Britain's diverse communities and make ethnic and religious minorities more appreciated and respected. But in his book, "The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society," he said the movement had run its course.
"Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation," Sacks wrote in his book, an extract of which was published in the Times of London. "Liberal democracy is in danger," Sacks said, adding later: "The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear."
Sacks said Britain's politics had been poisoned by the rise of identity politics, as minorities and aggrieved groups jockeyed first for rights, then for special treatment. The process, he said, began with Jews, before being taken up by blacks, women and gays. He said the effect had been "inexorably divisive." "A culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation is greater than that of others," he said.
In an interview with the Times, Sacks said he wanted his book to be "politically incorrect in the highest order." But Sacks defended his strong support for Jewish schools in Britain, saying the promotion of Jewish education was compatible with integration. Photogenic and outspoken, Sacks is highly regarded in Britain and makes frequent appearances on television, radio and in the national press. His reputation among Britain's 260,000-strong Jewish community is more varied. Ultra-orthodox believers were dismayed by the suggestion in Sacks' earlier book, "The Dignity of Difference," that the faith did not contain the absolute truth, according to The Times.
In 1997, he outraged many among his more liberal-minded constituents when he criticized the late leader of the Reform movement as a "destroyer of the faith" in a letter leaked to the media. Sacks also raised hackles when, in 2002, he said in an interview that there were many things that happened in Israel that made him "very uncomfortable as a Jew."
Source
Immigration to increase British population from 60 to 75 milion
The number of people living in the UK is likely to exceed 75 million by the middle of this century, a population expert said. Oxford University professor of demography David Coleman has predicted the population will expand by at least 15 million by 2051, up from last year's figure of 60 million. Prof Coleman, who based his calculations on an updated model for counting migration adopted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said even that figure was likely to be an "underestimate". His projections are expected to be confirmed by Government population experts this week.
The ONS said last month their estimates for the number of people migrating to the UK had increased to 190,000 a year compared with 145,000 in calculations issued two years ago. It was thought the review was mainly due to higher numbers of eastern Europeans coming to Britain since their countries joined the EU.
Prof Coleman's calculations, disclosed in a memo to the House of Lords economic affairs committee, predict the UK population will reach 69 million in 2031 and 75 million in 2051. He has also told peers that the proportion of the UK population classed as non-white was on course to grow from 9% at the last census in 2001 to 29% in 2051.
The projection on population figures represents a significant adjustment to figures released in 2005 predicting the UK population increasing to 69 million by 2051. He said he used the updated ONS model for his calculations but did not factor in improvement in survival "so my figures are probably underestimates by one or two million".
He said: "The absent-minded commitment into which we have drifted, to house a further 15 million people, must be the biggest unintended consequence of government policy of almost any century. As it is by no means unavoidable, being almost entirely dependent upon continued immigration, it might be thought worthy of discussion. In official circles, there has been none."
Source
Big surprise! Diet choices 'written in genes'
Our food likes and dislikes may have more to do with genes than choice, UK researchers believe. Experts from Kings College London compared the eating habits of thousands of pairs of twins. Identical twins were far more likely to share the same dietary patterns - like a penchant for coffee and garlic - suggesting tastes may be inherited.
Identical twins have exactly the same genetic make-up as each other, so scientists, by comparing them to non-identical twins, can work out the likelihood that their characteristics are due to "nature" or "nurture". The Kings College researchers looked at a total of more than 3,000 female twins aged between 18 and 79, working out their broad preferences using five different dietary "groups". These included diets heavy in fruit and vegetables, alcohol, fried meat and potatoes, and low-fat products or low in meat, fish and poultry.
Their results, published in the journal Twin Research and Human Genetics, suggested that between 41% and 48% of a person's leaning towards one of the food groups was influenced by genetics. The strongest link between individual liking and genes involved a taste for garlic and coffee.
Professor Tim Spector, who led the research, said: "For so long we have assumed that our upbringing and social environment determine what we like to eat. "This has blown that theory out of the water - more often than not, our genetic make-up influences our dietary patterns."
The researchers suggested that healthy eating campaigns, such as the government's "five-a-day" fruit and vegetable initiative, might have to be re-thought in light of the findings, as people genetically "programmed" to eat less fruit and vegetables would be more resistant to health messages than thought.
Professor Jane Wardle, from University College, said that the findings, and other similar research, pointed to genetics playing a "moderate" part in the development of preferred foods. She said that it was possible that genes involved with taste, or the "reward" chemicals released by the body in response to certain foods, might play a role. "People have always made the assumption that food choices are all due to environmental factors during life, but it now seems this isn't the case. "It also suggests that what parents do to influence eating habits in childhood are not necessarily as important as we thought - and that a lot of effort may need to be made with young people as they become independent in adolescence to steer them onto the right course."
Source
BBC joins the British crime coverup: "BBC News is to cut coverage of crime stories as part of its cost-saving plans. Up to 490 jobs are to go in the department as the television, radio and on-line operations are integrated, with 155 million pounds due to be saved during the next five years. Morale within the BBC is said to be at an all-time low after Mark Thompson, the Director-General, announced last week that 2,500 jobs would be lost across the corporation. Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, admitted that staff were "unhappy and anxious about some of the efficiencies we are having to make". Explaining where the cuts would fall, she said: "We are talking about deploying fewer stories. For instance, I think there's some middle-ranking crime stories we could do without or think harder about the way we do them."
Michael Schrage's comment on politics and science (September 26) struck a raw nerve: and provoked an extended response from the president of the UK's Royal Society. Lord Rees advocates that we should base policy on something called "the scientific consensus", while acknowledging that such consensus may be provisional. But this proposal blurs the distinction between politics and science that Lord Rees wants to emphasise. Novelist Michael Crichton may have exaggerated when he wrote that "if it's consensus, it's not science, if it's science, it's not consensus", but only a bit. Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
Consensus finds a way through conflicting opinions and interests. Consensus is achieved when the outcome of discussion leaves everyone feeling they have been given enough of what they want. The processes of proper science could hardly be more different. The accomplished politician is a negotiator, a conciliator, finding agreement where none seemed to exist. The accomplished scientist is an original, an extremist, disrupting established patterns of thought. Good science involves perpetual, open debate, in which every objection is aired and dissents are sharpened and clarified, not smoothed over.
Often the argument will continue for ever, and should, because the objective of science is not agreement on a course of action, but the pursuit of truth. Occasionally that pursuit seems to have been successful and the matter is resolved, not by consensus, but by the exhaustion of opposition. We do not say that there is a consensus over the second law of thermodynamics, a consensus that Paris is south of London or that two and two are four. We say that these are the way things are. Nor is there a consensus on evolution since creationists will never be reconciled to that theory. There is no possibility of a compromise, in which Darwinians agree that a few animals went into the ark with Noah and their opponents acknowledge that most species evolved.
Numbers are critical to democracy, but science is not a democracy. If an evangelical Christian converted all members of the Royal Society to creationism, that neither would nor should affect my belief in evolution. Most scientists know no more about climate change, HIV/Aids or the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine than do most lawyers, philosophers or economists, and it is not obvious who is better equipped to assess conflicting claims on these issues. Science is a matter of evidence, not what a majority of scientists think.
It is easy to see why the president of the Royal Society might want to elide that distinction, but in doing so he turns the organisation from a learned society into a trade union. Peer review is a valuable part of the apparatus of scholarship, but carries a danger of establishing self-referential clubs that promote each other's work.
Statements about the world derive their value from the facts and arguments that support them, not from the status and qualifications of the people who assert them. Evidence versus authority was the issue on which Galileo challenged the church. The modern world exists because Galileo won.
But to use the achievements of science to assert the authority of scientists undermines that very process of science. When consumers believe that genetically modified foods are unsafe, mothers intuit that their children's autism is caused by the MMR vaccine and politicians assert that HIV/Aids is a first world conspiracy, the answer that the scientific consensus is otherwise does not convince - nor should it. Such claims are mistaken because there is no evidence for them, not because scientists take a different view: scientists should influence policy by explaining facts and arguments, not by parading their doctorates.
The notion of a monolithic "science", meaning what scientists say, is pernicious and the notion of "scientific consensus" actively so. The route to knowledge is transparency in disagreement and openness in debate. The route to truth is the pluralist expression of conflicting views in which, often not as quickly as we might like, good ideas drive out bad. There is no room in this process for any notion of "scientific consensus".
Source
Multiculturalism threatens democracy, says leading British Rabbi
Multiculturalism promotes segregation, stifles free speech and threatens liberal democracy, Britain's top Jewish official warned in extracts from his book published Saturday. Jonathan Sacks, Britain's chief rabbi, defined multiculturalism as an attempt to affirm Britain's diverse communities and make ethnic and religious minorities more appreciated and respected. But in his book, "The Home We Build Together: Recreating Society," he said the movement had run its course.
"Multiculturalism has led not to integration but to segregation," Sacks wrote in his book, an extract of which was published in the Times of London. "Liberal democracy is in danger," Sacks said, adding later: "The politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear."
Sacks said Britain's politics had been poisoned by the rise of identity politics, as minorities and aggrieved groups jockeyed first for rights, then for special treatment. The process, he said, began with Jews, before being taken up by blacks, women and gays. He said the effect had been "inexorably divisive." "A culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation is greater than that of others," he said.
In an interview with the Times, Sacks said he wanted his book to be "politically incorrect in the highest order." But Sacks defended his strong support for Jewish schools in Britain, saying the promotion of Jewish education was compatible with integration. Photogenic and outspoken, Sacks is highly regarded in Britain and makes frequent appearances on television, radio and in the national press. His reputation among Britain's 260,000-strong Jewish community is more varied. Ultra-orthodox believers were dismayed by the suggestion in Sacks' earlier book, "The Dignity of Difference," that the faith did not contain the absolute truth, according to The Times.
In 1997, he outraged many among his more liberal-minded constituents when he criticized the late leader of the Reform movement as a "destroyer of the faith" in a letter leaked to the media. Sacks also raised hackles when, in 2002, he said in an interview that there were many things that happened in Israel that made him "very uncomfortable as a Jew."
Source
Immigration to increase British population from 60 to 75 milion
The number of people living in the UK is likely to exceed 75 million by the middle of this century, a population expert said. Oxford University professor of demography David Coleman has predicted the population will expand by at least 15 million by 2051, up from last year's figure of 60 million. Prof Coleman, who based his calculations on an updated model for counting migration adopted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), said even that figure was likely to be an "underestimate". His projections are expected to be confirmed by Government population experts this week.
The ONS said last month their estimates for the number of people migrating to the UK had increased to 190,000 a year compared with 145,000 in calculations issued two years ago. It was thought the review was mainly due to higher numbers of eastern Europeans coming to Britain since their countries joined the EU.
Prof Coleman's calculations, disclosed in a memo to the House of Lords economic affairs committee, predict the UK population will reach 69 million in 2031 and 75 million in 2051. He has also told peers that the proportion of the UK population classed as non-white was on course to grow from 9% at the last census in 2001 to 29% in 2051.
The projection on population figures represents a significant adjustment to figures released in 2005 predicting the UK population increasing to 69 million by 2051. He said he used the updated ONS model for his calculations but did not factor in improvement in survival "so my figures are probably underestimates by one or two million".
He said: "The absent-minded commitment into which we have drifted, to house a further 15 million people, must be the biggest unintended consequence of government policy of almost any century. As it is by no means unavoidable, being almost entirely dependent upon continued immigration, it might be thought worthy of discussion. In official circles, there has been none."
Source
Big surprise! Diet choices 'written in genes'
Our food likes and dislikes may have more to do with genes than choice, UK researchers believe. Experts from Kings College London compared the eating habits of thousands of pairs of twins. Identical twins were far more likely to share the same dietary patterns - like a penchant for coffee and garlic - suggesting tastes may be inherited.
Identical twins have exactly the same genetic make-up as each other, so scientists, by comparing them to non-identical twins, can work out the likelihood that their characteristics are due to "nature" or "nurture". The Kings College researchers looked at a total of more than 3,000 female twins aged between 18 and 79, working out their broad preferences using five different dietary "groups". These included diets heavy in fruit and vegetables, alcohol, fried meat and potatoes, and low-fat products or low in meat, fish and poultry.
Their results, published in the journal Twin Research and Human Genetics, suggested that between 41% and 48% of a person's leaning towards one of the food groups was influenced by genetics. The strongest link between individual liking and genes involved a taste for garlic and coffee.
Professor Tim Spector, who led the research, said: "For so long we have assumed that our upbringing and social environment determine what we like to eat. "This has blown that theory out of the water - more often than not, our genetic make-up influences our dietary patterns."
The researchers suggested that healthy eating campaigns, such as the government's "five-a-day" fruit and vegetable initiative, might have to be re-thought in light of the findings, as people genetically "programmed" to eat less fruit and vegetables would be more resistant to health messages than thought.
Professor Jane Wardle, from University College, said that the findings, and other similar research, pointed to genetics playing a "moderate" part in the development of preferred foods. She said that it was possible that genes involved with taste, or the "reward" chemicals released by the body in response to certain foods, might play a role. "People have always made the assumption that food choices are all due to environmental factors during life, but it now seems this isn't the case. "It also suggests that what parents do to influence eating habits in childhood are not necessarily as important as we thought - and that a lot of effort may need to be made with young people as they become independent in adolescence to steer them onto the right course."
Source
BBC joins the British crime coverup: "BBC News is to cut coverage of crime stories as part of its cost-saving plans. Up to 490 jobs are to go in the department as the television, radio and on-line operations are integrated, with 155 million pounds due to be saved during the next five years. Morale within the BBC is said to be at an all-time low after Mark Thompson, the Director-General, announced last week that 2,500 jobs would be lost across the corporation. Helen Boaden, the director of BBC News, admitted that staff were "unhappy and anxious about some of the efficiencies we are having to make". Explaining where the cuts would fall, she said: "We are talking about deploying fewer stories. For instance, I think there's some middle-ranking crime stories we could do without or think harder about the way we do them."
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Brilliant British crackdown on "obesity"
Make gyms MORE expensive. Yes, you read that right: MORE expensive. The right hand clearly does not know what the left hand is doing
Efforts to tackle the growing obesity problem risk being seriously undermined by a move to claim VAT on public gym memberships held by nearly three million people. While private gyms have to charge VAT on membership at 17.5 per cent, gyms run by leisure centres have enjoyed a partial exemption, allowing them to keep costs down. In addition, most of the not-for-profit trusts that run hundreds of leisure centre gyms on behalf of local authorities have not been charging VAT at all. But after a seemingly obscure court case in Scotland won by Revenue & Customs, tax officials have circulated a warning to all 2,597 public gyms saying that they must levy VAT on their full membership fees.
Experts say that the move will undermine Gordon Brown's attempts to bring obesity under control, with higher fees likely to push thousands of members - and those most at risk of obesity - into giving up going to the gym altogether. Average monthly fees at public gyms are 28.39 pounds , or 340 a year, according to the Leisure Database Company, compared with 42.07 at a private gym. Full VAT on top would increase the annual fee to 400.
Experian, a business consultancy, has analysed the backgrounds of the 2.8 million public gym members and forecast that at least 12 per cent, or 350,000 members, would give up their membership if the cost went up. "If public leisure centre operators are forced to put up gym fees as a result of this initiative, they risk putting prices beyond the reach of the very target groups the Government is trying to get to do more exercise. It will seriously undermine attempts to get the nation more active," said Patrick Gray, senior consultant at Experian. A regional breakdown of the data also indicated that charging full VAT on public gym membership would mean that in some areas, including Bristol and Southampton, they would be more expensive than private gyms.
Craig McAteer, chairman of the Sports and Recreation Trusts Association (SpoRTA), urged the Revenue to reconsider. The body represents 115 leisure trusts that run 550 leisure centres for local authorities. "A significant number of our customers are in the lower socioeconomic groups," he said. "If our public leisure centres are forced to apply VAT, considerably increasing the price, we could see a huge drop-off in visitors which will ultimately damage the Government's vision of increasing participation and tackling rising obesity problems."
The Revenue defended its actions, saying that it had not changed the rules but was simply reminding leisure centres of their VAT liabilities. The case involved the Highlands council, which levied only a small amount of VAT on fees at leisure centres to cover non-sport facilities at the gym, such as the sauna and steam room. The court ruled that since membership was all-inclusive, VAT had to be charged on the full amount.
After its victory, the Revenue dashed out a warning to all leisure centres and trusts. "Quick as a flash after the court case Revenue & Customs made clear that the whole membership payment is subject to VAT and that trusts must also charge VAT if the subscription covers any activity that is not strictly speaking sport, which is of course most gyms these days," said Steve Hodgetts, VAT partner at Baker Tilly, the accountant. "It also made clear it would chase up VAT retrospectively if leisure centres had not been paying it. We calculate a bill of about 20 million."
The Revenue said that it had not changed the guidelines and was only clarifying what should always have been the case.
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Why am I not surprised?
Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were "plucked out of the air" as an "intelligent guess". The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever. Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.
One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.
The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by "a feeling that you had to say something" came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it. He told The Times that the committee's epidemiologist had confessed that "it's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't" because "we don't really have any data whatsoever".
Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. "Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee," he said. Mr Smith's disclosure casts doubt on the accuracy of a report published this week that blamed middle-class wine drinkers for placing some of Britain's most affluent towns at the top of the "hazardous drinking" list. The study, commissioned by the Government, relied on the 1987 guidelines when it suggested that men drinking more than 21 units a week and women consuming more than 14 units put their health "at significant risk".
In a further attack on Britain's drinkers, it was revealed yesterday that a coalition of health organisations is mounting a campaign to force a 10 per cent increase in alcohol taxation. The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians, is also seeking to secure the support of MPs for stricter regulation of the drinks industry and warnings on alcohol advertising. A total of 21 bodies, including Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust, will form the Alcohol Health Alliance, according to Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine.
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Sick Britain: Too dangerous for firefighters to climb ladders
Firefighters have backed out of a long-standing agreement to take down their town's festival bunting because health and safety rules no longer allow them to climb ladders to remove it. Green and white flags are still fluttering over the streets of Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, four months after the annual gala day. The town council has insisted that Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service must go through risk assessment procedures, despite their expertise with ladders. "Yes, it sounds like the world has gone mad," said Graeme Smith, deputy chief fire officer. "Firefighters will climb ladders to rescue people from burning buildings, but not to remove bunting after a festival.
"One is a 999 job, where to save lives we will take calculated risks. The other is a property maintenance job, which is covered by standard health and safety rules that we would have to abide by, the same as everyone else. That could mean closing the road and using a platform to reach the bunting. "Unfortunately, if we went down that route people might ask why we are paying firefighters to use our top-level rescue equipment to remove a few flags, when a local contractor could do the job just as well."
The regulations no longer allow the use of ladders to hang or remove decorations, and the work must be done by technicians using hydraulic platforms. Specialist testing gear must be used to assess the safety of bolts anchoring decorations such as Christmas lights, and lampposts have been deeemed unsuitable for hanging decorations. Mark Smith, a councillor, former mayor and member of Ampthill's festival committee, said in his blog: "The festival committee has always appreciated [the firefighters'] assistance in the past and is working towards getting them down, although I still find them quite cheery."
He had, however, received complaints that the bunting was starting to look tatty. Residents used the online Ampthill Today forum to express their bemusement. Charlie Garth wrote: "What the blazes? I'm sure our brave firemen aren't frightened about falling off a piddling little ladder. They have never looked afraid of heights to me. "After all, they are used to climbing giant turntable ladders with choppers in their hands and rescuing cats from the tops of tall trees."
The costs associated with safety testing and installation of decorations have influenced plans to mount displays of Christmas lights for traders' groups and local councils around the country. An increasingly litigious culture had caused the cost of liability cover to rise, the Association of British Insurers said. In turn, insurers were insisting on sticking to rules by the letter, and rising insurance premiums to cover Christmas decorations were becoming too high for traders and local councils to meet, the Federation of Small Businesses said.
In Clevedon, near Bristol, North Somerset Council told traders that lights could no longer be attached to lampposts or buildings, making a display unworkable. In Sandwell, West Midlands, traders were told that lights could not be hung across roads in case the cables broke. In Bodmin, Cornwall, the council faces a 1,200 pounds bill to train two workers to test all 150 bolts holding lights or cables, using a cherry-picker. On top of that the council must cover wages and the cost of hiring the equipment, and shut town-centre streets while the work is done. In Dereham, Norfolk, traders face a bill of more than 10,000 pounds for Christmas lights. Health and safety issues have contributed heavily to the cost.
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Brits fleeing disastrous government schools
If they are lucky enough to be able to afford to do so. The cost is a considerable burden for many families but keeping their children safe and in an environment where they can learn is a huge priority. Would YOU want your kid to go to a school where some of the black kids are armed with machine pistols?
The middle-class exodus from state schools in London is speeding up, with nearly half of children in some parts of the capital now privately educated. An analysis of government figures suggested a widening of the social class divide in education since the turn of the century. Some of the highest levels of child poverty, as measured by the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM), were found in areas with the greatest proportion of children in independent schools. The figures followed concern from Christine Gilbert, the Chief Inspector of Schools, who said that the school system was dividing children along social and economic lines.
The finding was most striking in [largely black] inner-London boroughs. In Kensington and Chelsea, 45.3 per cent of children are educated in independent schools, yet the borough has the sixth-highest rate in the country for FSM [poor] children, at 37.7 per cent. [What a coincidence!] The national average for FSM is 12 per cent.
In Hammersmith & Fulham, which has the third-highest rate of FSM children in the country at 42.2 per cent, a quarter of children are independently educated. In Westminster, 26.4 per cent go to independent schools, and yet the borough has the eighth-highest rate in the country for FSM children, at 35.8 per cent. Greg Hands, the Conservative MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, obtained the figures from the House of Commons, amid concern about the flight of middle-class families from state schools in his borough. In 2000 22.6 per cent of children in the borough were educated independently. Now the figure is 25.6 per cent. Other inner-London boroughs have seen similar shifts. In Wandsworth, the proportion in independent schools has risen from 15.1 to 18.7 per cent.
These figures come against a nation-wide long-term demographic decline in the number of young people and steady increases in independent school fees to an average of about 11,000 pounds a year.
Mr Hands said: "In Hammersmith & Fulham, we have one of the fastest-rising rates of private school attendance in the country and one of the highest rates of surplus places in [state] secondary schools. "Part of that can be explained by changing demographics in that we now have more parents who can afford to go private. But there is more to it than that. Middle-class parents concerned about standards are opting out of the state system and it's my objective to get them to opt back in. Our local state schools are making themselves better, but the missing element in their bid for improvement is the professional classes."
Sam Friedman, head of the education unit at the Policy Exchange think-tank, said the social divide in education was particularly acute in London [which is now 50% black]. The phenomenon could be attributed in part to its population, which is extremely socially mixed. "In more rural areas, populations tend to segregate naturally. In London, there are pockets of advantage and disadvantage right next to each other and one way they segregate themselves is through school choice."
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Famous British Greenie rejects global warming
David Bellamy:
Am I worried about man-made global warming? The answer is "no" and "yes". No, because the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction has come up against an "inconvenient truth". Its research shows that since 1998 the average temperature of the planet has not risen, even though the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has continued to increase.
Yes, because the self-proclaimed consensus among scientists has detached itself from the questioning rigours of hard science and become a political cause. Those of us who dare to question the dogma of the global-warming doomsters who claim that C not only stands for carbon but also for climate catastrophe are vilified as heretics or worse as deniers.
I am happy to be branded a heretic because throughout history heretics have stood up against dogma based on the bigotry of vested interests. But I don't like being smeared as a denier because deniers don't believe in facts. The truth is that there are no facts that link the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming. Instead of facts, the advocates of man-made climate change trade in future scenarios based on complex and often unreliable computer models.
Name-calling may be acceptable in politics but it should have no place in science; indeed, what is happening smacks of McCarthyism, witch-hunts and all. Scientific understanding, however, is advanced by robust, reasoned argument based on well-researched data. So I turn to simple sets of data that are already in the public domain.
The last peak global temperatures were in 1998 and 1934 and the troughs of low temperature were around 1910 and 1970. The second dip caused pop science and the media to cry wolf about an impending, devastating Ice Age. Our end was nigh! Then, when temperatures took an upward swing in the 1980s, the scaremongers changed their tune. Global warming was the new imminent catastrophe. But the computer model - called "hockey stick" - that predicted the catastrophe of a frying planet proved to be so bent that it "disappeared" from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's armoury of argument in 2007. It was bent because the historical data it used to predict the future dated from only the 1850s, when the world was emerging from the Little Ice Age. Little wonder that temperatures showed an upward trend.
In the Sixties I used to discuss climate change with my undergraduates at Durham University. I would point to the plethora of published scientific evidence that showed the cyclical nature of change - and how, for instance, the latest of a string of ice ages had affected the climate, sea levels and tree lines around the world. Thank goodness the latest crop of glaciers and ice sheets began to wane in earnest about 12,000 years ago; this gave Britain a window of opportunity to lead the industrial revolution.
The Romans grew grapes in York and during the worldwide medieval warm period - when civilizations blossomed across the world - Nordic settlers farmed lowland Greenland (hence its name) and then got wiped out by the Little Ice Age that lasted roughly from the 16th century until about 1850.
There is no escaping the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising for 150 years - and very uniformly since the 1950s. Yet the temperature has not increased in step with CO2. Not only have there been long periods of little change in temperature, but also the year-to-year oscillations are totally unrelated to CO2 change. What is more, the trend lines of glacial shortening and rise in sea level have shown no marked change since the big increase in the use of fossil fuels since 1950.
How can this be explained unless there are other factors at work overriding the greenhouse effect of CO2? There are, of course, many to be found in the peer-reviewed literature: solar cycles, cosmic rays, cloud control and those little rascals, such as El Nino and La Nina, all of which are played down or even ignored by the global-warming brigade.
Let's turn to Al Gore's doom-laden Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. First, what is the point of scaring the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction? Last year Mitchell Taylor, of the US National Biological Service, stated that "of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present."
Why create alarm about a potential increase in the spread of malaria thanks to rising temperatures when this mosquito-borne disease was a major killer of people in Britain and northern Russia throughout the Little Ice Age?
Despite the $50 billion spent on greenwashing propaganda, the sceptics and their inconvenient questions are beginning to make their presence felt. A recent survey of Klaus-Martin Schulte, of Kings College Hospital, of all papers on the subject of climate change that were published between 2004 and February of 2007 found that only 7 per cent explicitly endorsed a "so-called consensus" position that man-made carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic global warming. What is more, James Lovelock, the author and green guru, has changed his mind: he recently stated that neither Earth nor the human race is doomed.
Yes, melting sea ice around Greenland has recently opened up the fabled North West passage. And, yes, the years 2006 and 2007 have seen massive flooding in Europe. However, a quick dip into the records of the Royal Society - which ranked alongside Dr Lovelock as arch doomsters, before his change of mind - shows that dramatic fluctuations happened long before the infernal combustion engine began spewing out carbon dioxide.
The year 1816 went down in history as the "year without a summer", thanks to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia that veiled much of the world with dust, screening out the Sun. Yet in 1817, while still in the grip of the Little Ice Age, the Royal Society was so worried that 2,000 square leagues of sea ice around Greenland had disappeared within two years, and massive flooding was taking place in Germany, that its president wrote to the Admiralty advising of the necessity of an expedition to find out what was the source of this new heat. Perhaps, when similar things are happening 190 years later, the Royal Society should accept that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is unlikely to be the main - or only - driver of "global warming".
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The British National Party solution to high immigration into Britain is non-racial
Despite the common Leftist accusation that they are "Nazis"
Are you happy with the way London is changing? Are you happy about the increase in violent crime, or the shortage of affordable housing, or the congestion, or the shortage of doctors and dentists and the long hospital waiting lists, or the Muslim terrorists, or the change in London's population, or the failing schools, or the falling living standards, or the increases in taxation or the discrimination faced daily by the indigenous, white, British people? These are the changes brought to you, to London and to Britain as a whole, by the Labour and Conservative parties. These are the reasons that more and more people are turning to the British National Party as their only hope for a decent future for them and their children.
The BNP's message - that immigration is out of control and is damaging British society - is now becoming accepted by everyone. Even the government's own report has recently had to admit to the tip of the iceberg. But only the BNP has the courage and the honesty to propose solutions that are sensible, fair and workable. The other parties will make mealy-mouthed weasel-worded promises at election time but they will do nothing.
Excessive immigration is responsible for the housing shortage that has resulted in council housing not being available for British families, while immigrants are allowed to jump the queue because they are deemed to be in greater need; the politically correct politicians seem to have missed the point that these immigrants could have stayed at home in their own countries rather than coming here in the first place.
Immigration has also caused a greater demand for rental accommodation, which has pushed up rents and house prices. It was recently reported that four out of ten homes built in the last 10 years are needed just to house the most recent wave of immigrants.
Excessive immigration has led to increased crime levels. In February a police study identified 169 different gangs operating in London. Some of these gangs have over 100 members. In August it was reported that the number of gangs had increased to over 250! The police have admitted that the largest number of gangs are those made up of Afro-Caribbeans, followed by those made up of members who are Asian. Scotland Yard has also admitted that immigration is fuelling gang crime in London. Gun and knife crime have become daily occurrences. So far this year almost 20 teenagers - some as young as 14 - have been shot or stabbed to death on the streets of London.
Excessive immigration has placed a strain on the health service. The increase in AIDS and TB in Britain is due to immigration, and health tourists cost the NHS up to 2 billion pounds per year. Of course there are lots of doctors and nurses who have come from abroad, but there are also lots of British doctors and nurses, trained at public expense, who cannot get jobs. We do not need to import foreign medical staff - many of whom are poorly trained or cannot communicate easily in English. The pretence that we do is simply designed to con the public. It is also very unfair on those poor third world countries where these staff are genuinely needed.
Excessive immigration is damaging education standards in our schools. The flood of children who do not speak English is placing schools under enormous strain and means that teachers are diverted from teachers native children. Larger class sizes and more disruptive behaviour also reduce the quality of education to British children.
Excessive immigration reduces our quality of life. Congestion on the roads, buses and tubes is increased, homes are built over green land, our neighbourhoods are changed and our traditions are lost.
Excessive immigration increases our taxes. Britain is now officially recognised as one of the highest taxed countries in the world. Are you happy at having to pay ever more income tax, council tax, excise duties and stealth taxes? The pro-immigration fanatics in the LibLabCon parties and in the media realise that the British people are fed up of unrestricted, unlimited immigration and now try to pretend that immigration is good for the economy. We are told that migrant workers add up to œ6 billion to Britain's GDP (Gross Domestic Product), but this is utterly misleading garbage. Let's look at the truth.
Immigrants and ethnic minority communities send vast amounts of money back to their families in their home countries. These monies are known as `remittances' and are estimated to amount to around œ5 billion a year. This is money sucked out of our economy and lost. This means there is less money for local businesses and less money for local workers. These remittances are never included in the government's lies about the `value' of immigration.
The government says that immigration increases GDP, but in any normal economy an increase in population will always lead to an increase in GDP - this is meaningless. It is like saying that Africa's GDP is greater than that of Switzerland, so Africans must be better off - of course they're not! Official figures show that foreign workers make up over 12% of the workforce, but if they only add 6 billion pounds to GDP that means they are only increasing our GDP by less than 0.5%! [The UK's GDP is around 1,250 billion pounds].
Anyway, even if they do increase GDP by 6 billion, this doesn't take into account the cost to the taxpayer of immigration. A quick tally by one newspaper estimated the cost of immigration in terms of crime, healthcare, education and administration as over 8 billion pounds. Since this estimate was produced using official statistics it is likely that the true costs are much higher.
Furthermore, the use of GDP as a measure of economic or national well-being is utterly barmy. Consider this: crime increases GDP - is crime a good thing? If a criminal scumbag smashes your car window and steals your stereo you must then spend money on repairing your car and replacing your stereo. You are therefore injecting money into the economy, employing workers and raising manufacturing output. But has this improved your quality of life? Of course not! GDP is an extremely crude economic measuring tool, and it is next to worthless in telling us about our quality of life.
Excessive immigration increases unemployment and reduces wage levels. There are now over 5 million people in Britain receiving benefits instead of working, and the normal laws of supply and demand result in wages being depressed by the availability of more workers willing to do the jobs for less.
Of course we don't blame or hate the immigrants themselves and we hope nobody does, but the fact is that the current flood of uncontrolled immigration is BAD for Britain, BAD for London and BAD for YOU. Just think about it and you will see this is true. How has the vast number of immigrants flooding into Britain improved YOUR life?
Only the BNP will STOP all further immigration
Only the BNP will stop all further immigration - regardless of race. Only the BNP will target the TWO MILLION illegals in Britain and deport them - regardless of race. Only the BNP will deport all foreign criminals - regardless of race. Only the BNP will make sure that those granted British citizenship in recent years obtained this legitimately - regardless of race. And only the BNP will offer financial help to those immigrants here legally who want to make a better life for themselves in their home countries - regardless of race. These policies are fair, sensible and workable. These policies will improve the quality of life for everyone in Britain.
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Superbug problems worsened by crowding in NHS hospitals
Almost a quarter of hospital trusts are increasing the risk of MSRA and Clostridium difficile by filling wards to “unsafe” levels, The Times can disclose. According to Department of Health figures, 22 trusts in England recorded bed occupancy rates of 95 per cent or more and nearly half 85 per cent or more. But a leaked report by the department suggests that MSRA rates are 42 per cent higher in hospitals where more than 90 per cent of beds are filled than those that fill less than 85 per cent of beds. The Liberal Democrats said the figures showed that many hospitals were effectively full while nurses’ groups blamed the problem on pressure to meet waiting time targets.
The proportion of hospital trusts filling 90 per cent or more of beds has risen from 13 per cent five years ago to 23 per cent. Elderly patients are particularly at risk, with occupancy rates on geriatric wards reaching 91.3 per cent, according to analysis of figures by the Liberal Democrats. Secure learning disability wards had a bed occupancy rate of 94.9 per cent, while mental illness wards had 86.8 per cent. The highest occupancy rate was in East Berkshire Primary Care Trust, which said that all of its 122 available beds were filled during the survey, while the Oxleas Foundation Trust, which provides mental health and disability services for southeast London, said that 453 of its 459 beds were full. The average occupancy rate in 2006-07 was 84.5 per cent, in line with the past five years but a sharp rise since Labour came to power in 1997 when it was 80.7 per cent.
Professor Barry Cookson, an expert on MSRA, said that an 85 per cent bed occupancy was a “safety level above which we start having problems”. A report published this month said that C. difficile caused the deaths of 90 patients and affected hundreds more at Maidstone hospital, Kent, between April 2004 and September last year.
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “These figures mean that for a lot of the time, many hospitals are effectively full - and on red alert. As long as this situation continues, it will undermine efforts to successfully combat hospital-acquired infections. It puts staff under unfair pressure and risks corners being cut in order to get new arrivals admitted on time. The system is under enormous pressure.” The Royal College of Nurses believes the true bed occupancy rate could be even higher. Its own survey found that the average rate was 97 per cent, and that more than half of wards were running at full capacity to meet waiting time targets. The number of death certificates that name MSRA as a contributory factor rose from 51 cases in 1993, the first year of recording, to 1,629 in 2005.
Today the Lib Dems will announce a five-point “Florence Nightingale” charter to combat hospital infections. They suggest copying the Dutch approach in which infected wards are closed, patients transferred and staff sent home. They would also give matrons authority over all staff, including contracted cleaners, and roll out super-bug screening programmes to GPs and care homes.
A Department of Health said that although some trusts had higher occupancy rates they still managed to reduce infection rates significantly.
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Carbon health warnings for all new cars
All advertising for new cars will have to carry cigarette-style "health warnings" about their environmental impact, under a European plan to force manufacturers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Companies that produce the most polluting cars will also have to pay penalties of up to œ5,000 per vehicle, with the proceeds used to reduce the cost of the most efficient cars.Advertisements in newspapers and magazines, will have to devote at least 20 per cent of the space to details about fuel economy and CO2 emissions. At the moment manufacturers have to include only basic mpg and CO2 figures in the small print. They do not have to explain what the numbers mean or provide any comparison.
Car advertisements will have to carry colour-coded emissions labels such as those already displayed on new fridges and washing machines, with bands ranging from dark green to red. The plan, expected to be approved by the European Parliament on Wednesday, has been drawn up in response to the car industry's failure to meet its own voluntary target on reducing CO2 emissions.
The industry agreed in 1998 that the 18 million new cars expected to be sold in Europe in 2008 should emit an average of no more than 140g of CO2 per kilometre. The average last year was 160g/km and emissions fell only 0.2 per cent on the previous year, the lowest reduction on record. Privately manufacturers admit that they have no hope of meeting the target.
A fifth of the European Union's CO2 emissions come from cars and road transport accounts for 60 per cent of all the oil used by member states.
Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West of England, who was appointed by the European Parliament to draw up the plan, said that the car industry had grossly exaggerated the cost of making cars more efficient to avoid taking action.
He said that the German car industry had been particularly obstructive because it was dominated by manufacturers such as Mercedes and BMW, which specialised in larger, more polluting cars. Mr Davies has agreed a compromise, which he expects to be supported by the majority of MEPs, under which manufacturers would be given until 2015 to achieve an average of 125g/km for new cars. He said: "I accept it takes seven years from the design stage to vehicles rolling off the production line. But the new target would be made wiggle-proof and manufacturers who failed to achieve it would pay penalties."
He predicted that some companies would prefer to pay the penalty rather than reduce emissions because they would not want to reduce the power or weight of their cars.He said that the proceeds would be used to reward companies that beat their emissions targets and a grant system to encourage people to trade in their cars for more efficient new ones.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders opposes the idea of giving more space to environmental information. A spokesman said the basic details were already in advertisements: "There's no point in giving this sop to the environmental lobby because most people will ignore it."
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Hope for Britain? "In my U.S. News column this week, I took a look at the sharp change in the political balance in Britain and its implications for the United States. As the week has progressed, it looks like the balance in Britain is changing even more. The latest ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph has a big (43 to 36 percent) lead for the Conservatives-a striking change from the balance over the summer in which Labor led by an average of 9 points. If the popular vote split along these lines, Conservatives would lead Labor 319 to 301 in the House of Commons, with only two for Lib Dems-down from 62 at the present time (hence the forced resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell as lead of the Lib Dems). That would leave Conservatives just seven seats short of an absolute majority, which would mean they could, at least theoretically, govern with the support of the Northern Ireland Unionist parties."
Surprising sense from Britain: "More people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if Britain is to win the fight against violent inner-city gun and knife crime, one of the country's top black police officers has said. Keith Jarrett, president of the National Black Police Association, is expected to make a speech this week calling for an increase in stop-and-searches in black communities. He told The Observer: "A lot of black people want to stop these killings, these knife crimes, and if it means their sons and daughters are going to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police, so be it." The association, which represents thousands of officers from ethnic minorities, has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched. The tactic was blamed for precipitating the race riots of the 1980s"
Make gyms MORE expensive. Yes, you read that right: MORE expensive. The right hand clearly does not know what the left hand is doing
Efforts to tackle the growing obesity problem risk being seriously undermined by a move to claim VAT on public gym memberships held by nearly three million people. While private gyms have to charge VAT on membership at 17.5 per cent, gyms run by leisure centres have enjoyed a partial exemption, allowing them to keep costs down. In addition, most of the not-for-profit trusts that run hundreds of leisure centre gyms on behalf of local authorities have not been charging VAT at all. But after a seemingly obscure court case in Scotland won by Revenue & Customs, tax officials have circulated a warning to all 2,597 public gyms saying that they must levy VAT on their full membership fees.
Experts say that the move will undermine Gordon Brown's attempts to bring obesity under control, with higher fees likely to push thousands of members - and those most at risk of obesity - into giving up going to the gym altogether. Average monthly fees at public gyms are 28.39 pounds , or 340 a year, according to the Leisure Database Company, compared with 42.07 at a private gym. Full VAT on top would increase the annual fee to 400.
Experian, a business consultancy, has analysed the backgrounds of the 2.8 million public gym members and forecast that at least 12 per cent, or 350,000 members, would give up their membership if the cost went up. "If public leisure centre operators are forced to put up gym fees as a result of this initiative, they risk putting prices beyond the reach of the very target groups the Government is trying to get to do more exercise. It will seriously undermine attempts to get the nation more active," said Patrick Gray, senior consultant at Experian. A regional breakdown of the data also indicated that charging full VAT on public gym membership would mean that in some areas, including Bristol and Southampton, they would be more expensive than private gyms.
Craig McAteer, chairman of the Sports and Recreation Trusts Association (SpoRTA), urged the Revenue to reconsider. The body represents 115 leisure trusts that run 550 leisure centres for local authorities. "A significant number of our customers are in the lower socioeconomic groups," he said. "If our public leisure centres are forced to apply VAT, considerably increasing the price, we could see a huge drop-off in visitors which will ultimately damage the Government's vision of increasing participation and tackling rising obesity problems."
The Revenue defended its actions, saying that it had not changed the rules but was simply reminding leisure centres of their VAT liabilities. The case involved the Highlands council, which levied only a small amount of VAT on fees at leisure centres to cover non-sport facilities at the gym, such as the sauna and steam room. The court ruled that since membership was all-inclusive, VAT had to be charged on the full amount.
After its victory, the Revenue dashed out a warning to all leisure centres and trusts. "Quick as a flash after the court case Revenue & Customs made clear that the whole membership payment is subject to VAT and that trusts must also charge VAT if the subscription covers any activity that is not strictly speaking sport, which is of course most gyms these days," said Steve Hodgetts, VAT partner at Baker Tilly, the accountant. "It also made clear it would chase up VAT retrospectively if leisure centres had not been paying it. We calculate a bill of about 20 million."
The Revenue said that it had not changed the guidelines and was only clarifying what should always have been the case.
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Why am I not surprised?
Guidelines on safe alcohol consumption limits that have shaped health policy in Britain for 20 years were "plucked out of the air" as an "intelligent guess". The Times reveals today that the recommended weekly drinking limits of 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 for women, first introduced in 1987 and still in use today, had no firm scientific basis whatsoever. Subsequent studies found evidence which suggested that the safety limits should be raised, but they were ignored by a succession of health ministers.
One found that men drinking between 21 and 30 units of alcohol a week had the lowest mortality rate in Britain. Another concluded that a man would have to drink 63 units a week, or a bottle of wine a day, to face the same risk of death as a teetotaller.
The disclosure that the 1987 recommendation was prompted by "a feeling that you had to say something" came from Richard Smith, a member of the Royal College of Physicians working party that produced it. He told The Times that the committee's epidemiologist had confessed that "it's impossible to say what's safe and what isn't" because "we don't really have any data whatsoever".
Mr Smith, a former Editor of the British Medical Journal, said that members of the working party were so concerned by growing evidence of the chronic damage caused by heavy, long-term drinking that they felt obliged to produce guidelines. "Those limits were really plucked out of the air. They were not based on any firm evidence at all. It was a sort of intelligent guess by a committee," he said. Mr Smith's disclosure casts doubt on the accuracy of a report published this week that blamed middle-class wine drinkers for placing some of Britain's most affluent towns at the top of the "hazardous drinking" list. The study, commissioned by the Government, relied on the 1987 guidelines when it suggested that men drinking more than 21 units a week and women consuming more than 14 units put their health "at significant risk".
In a further attack on Britain's drinkers, it was revealed yesterday that a coalition of health organisations is mounting a campaign to force a 10 per cent increase in alcohol taxation. The group, headed by the Royal College of Physicians, is also seeking to secure the support of MPs for stricter regulation of the drinks industry and warnings on alcohol advertising. A total of 21 bodies, including Alcohol Concern and the British Liver Trust, will form the Alcohol Health Alliance, according to Harpers Wine and Spirit magazine.
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Sick Britain: Too dangerous for firefighters to climb ladders
Firefighters have backed out of a long-standing agreement to take down their town's festival bunting because health and safety rules no longer allow them to climb ladders to remove it. Green and white flags are still fluttering over the streets of Ampthill, in Bedfordshire, four months after the annual gala day. The town council has insisted that Bedfordshire and Luton Fire and Rescue Service must go through risk assessment procedures, despite their expertise with ladders. "Yes, it sounds like the world has gone mad," said Graeme Smith, deputy chief fire officer. "Firefighters will climb ladders to rescue people from burning buildings, but not to remove bunting after a festival.
"One is a 999 job, where to save lives we will take calculated risks. The other is a property maintenance job, which is covered by standard health and safety rules that we would have to abide by, the same as everyone else. That could mean closing the road and using a platform to reach the bunting. "Unfortunately, if we went down that route people might ask why we are paying firefighters to use our top-level rescue equipment to remove a few flags, when a local contractor could do the job just as well."
The regulations no longer allow the use of ladders to hang or remove decorations, and the work must be done by technicians using hydraulic platforms. Specialist testing gear must be used to assess the safety of bolts anchoring decorations such as Christmas lights, and lampposts have been deeemed unsuitable for hanging decorations. Mark Smith, a councillor, former mayor and member of Ampthill's festival committee, said in his blog: "The festival committee has always appreciated [the firefighters'] assistance in the past and is working towards getting them down, although I still find them quite cheery."
He had, however, received complaints that the bunting was starting to look tatty. Residents used the online Ampthill Today forum to express their bemusement. Charlie Garth wrote: "What the blazes? I'm sure our brave firemen aren't frightened about falling off a piddling little ladder. They have never looked afraid of heights to me. "After all, they are used to climbing giant turntable ladders with choppers in their hands and rescuing cats from the tops of tall trees."
The costs associated with safety testing and installation of decorations have influenced plans to mount displays of Christmas lights for traders' groups and local councils around the country. An increasingly litigious culture had caused the cost of liability cover to rise, the Association of British Insurers said. In turn, insurers were insisting on sticking to rules by the letter, and rising insurance premiums to cover Christmas decorations were becoming too high for traders and local councils to meet, the Federation of Small Businesses said.
In Clevedon, near Bristol, North Somerset Council told traders that lights could no longer be attached to lampposts or buildings, making a display unworkable. In Sandwell, West Midlands, traders were told that lights could not be hung across roads in case the cables broke. In Bodmin, Cornwall, the council faces a 1,200 pounds bill to train two workers to test all 150 bolts holding lights or cables, using a cherry-picker. On top of that the council must cover wages and the cost of hiring the equipment, and shut town-centre streets while the work is done. In Dereham, Norfolk, traders face a bill of more than 10,000 pounds for Christmas lights. Health and safety issues have contributed heavily to the cost.
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Brits fleeing disastrous government schools
If they are lucky enough to be able to afford to do so. The cost is a considerable burden for many families but keeping their children safe and in an environment where they can learn is a huge priority. Would YOU want your kid to go to a school where some of the black kids are armed with machine pistols?
The middle-class exodus from state schools in London is speeding up, with nearly half of children in some parts of the capital now privately educated. An analysis of government figures suggested a widening of the social class divide in education since the turn of the century. Some of the highest levels of child poverty, as measured by the proportion of children eligible for free school meals (FSM), were found in areas with the greatest proportion of children in independent schools. The figures followed concern from Christine Gilbert, the Chief Inspector of Schools, who said that the school system was dividing children along social and economic lines.
The finding was most striking in [largely black] inner-London boroughs. In Kensington and Chelsea, 45.3 per cent of children are educated in independent schools, yet the borough has the sixth-highest rate in the country for FSM [poor] children, at 37.7 per cent. [What a coincidence!] The national average for FSM is 12 per cent.
In Hammersmith & Fulham, which has the third-highest rate of FSM children in the country at 42.2 per cent, a quarter of children are independently educated. In Westminster, 26.4 per cent go to independent schools, and yet the borough has the eighth-highest rate in the country for FSM children, at 35.8 per cent. Greg Hands, the Conservative MP for Hammersmith and Fulham, obtained the figures from the House of Commons, amid concern about the flight of middle-class families from state schools in his borough. In 2000 22.6 per cent of children in the borough were educated independently. Now the figure is 25.6 per cent. Other inner-London boroughs have seen similar shifts. In Wandsworth, the proportion in independent schools has risen from 15.1 to 18.7 per cent.
These figures come against a nation-wide long-term demographic decline in the number of young people and steady increases in independent school fees to an average of about 11,000 pounds a year.
Mr Hands said: "In Hammersmith & Fulham, we have one of the fastest-rising rates of private school attendance in the country and one of the highest rates of surplus places in [state] secondary schools. "Part of that can be explained by changing demographics in that we now have more parents who can afford to go private. But there is more to it than that. Middle-class parents concerned about standards are opting out of the state system and it's my objective to get them to opt back in. Our local state schools are making themselves better, but the missing element in their bid for improvement is the professional classes."
Sam Friedman, head of the education unit at the Policy Exchange think-tank, said the social divide in education was particularly acute in London [which is now 50% black]. The phenomenon could be attributed in part to its population, which is extremely socially mixed. "In more rural areas, populations tend to segregate naturally. In London, there are pockets of advantage and disadvantage right next to each other and one way they segregate themselves is through school choice."
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Famous British Greenie rejects global warming
David Bellamy:
Am I worried about man-made global warming? The answer is "no" and "yes". No, because the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction has come up against an "inconvenient truth". Its research shows that since 1998 the average temperature of the planet has not risen, even though the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has continued to increase.
Yes, because the self-proclaimed consensus among scientists has detached itself from the questioning rigours of hard science and become a political cause. Those of us who dare to question the dogma of the global-warming doomsters who claim that C not only stands for carbon but also for climate catastrophe are vilified as heretics or worse as deniers.
I am happy to be branded a heretic because throughout history heretics have stood up against dogma based on the bigotry of vested interests. But I don't like being smeared as a denier because deniers don't believe in facts. The truth is that there are no facts that link the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide with imminent catastrophic global warming. Instead of facts, the advocates of man-made climate change trade in future scenarios based on complex and often unreliable computer models.
Name-calling may be acceptable in politics but it should have no place in science; indeed, what is happening smacks of McCarthyism, witch-hunts and all. Scientific understanding, however, is advanced by robust, reasoned argument based on well-researched data. So I turn to simple sets of data that are already in the public domain.
The last peak global temperatures were in 1998 and 1934 and the troughs of low temperature were around 1910 and 1970. The second dip caused pop science and the media to cry wolf about an impending, devastating Ice Age. Our end was nigh! Then, when temperatures took an upward swing in the 1980s, the scaremongers changed their tune. Global warming was the new imminent catastrophe. But the computer model - called "hockey stick" - that predicted the catastrophe of a frying planet proved to be so bent that it "disappeared" from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's armoury of argument in 2007. It was bent because the historical data it used to predict the future dated from only the 1850s, when the world was emerging from the Little Ice Age. Little wonder that temperatures showed an upward trend.
In the Sixties I used to discuss climate change with my undergraduates at Durham University. I would point to the plethora of published scientific evidence that showed the cyclical nature of change - and how, for instance, the latest of a string of ice ages had affected the climate, sea levels and tree lines around the world. Thank goodness the latest crop of glaciers and ice sheets began to wane in earnest about 12,000 years ago; this gave Britain a window of opportunity to lead the industrial revolution.
The Romans grew grapes in York and during the worldwide medieval warm period - when civilizations blossomed across the world - Nordic settlers farmed lowland Greenland (hence its name) and then got wiped out by the Little Ice Age that lasted roughly from the 16th century until about 1850.
There is no escaping the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been rising for 150 years - and very uniformly since the 1950s. Yet the temperature has not increased in step with CO2. Not only have there been long periods of little change in temperature, but also the year-to-year oscillations are totally unrelated to CO2 change. What is more, the trend lines of glacial shortening and rise in sea level have shown no marked change since the big increase in the use of fossil fuels since 1950.
How can this be explained unless there are other factors at work overriding the greenhouse effect of CO2? There are, of course, many to be found in the peer-reviewed literature: solar cycles, cosmic rays, cloud control and those little rascals, such as El Nino and La Nina, all of which are played down or even ignored by the global-warming brigade.
Let's turn to Al Gore's doom-laden Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. First, what is the point of scaring the families of the world with tales that polar bears are heading for extinction? Last year Mitchell Taylor, of the US National Biological Service, stated that "of the 13 populations of polar bears in Canada, 11 are stable or increasing in number. They are not going extinct, or even appear to be affected at present."
Why create alarm about a potential increase in the spread of malaria thanks to rising temperatures when this mosquito-borne disease was a major killer of people in Britain and northern Russia throughout the Little Ice Age?
Despite the $50 billion spent on greenwashing propaganda, the sceptics and their inconvenient questions are beginning to make their presence felt. A recent survey of Klaus-Martin Schulte, of Kings College Hospital, of all papers on the subject of climate change that were published between 2004 and February of 2007 found that only 7 per cent explicitly endorsed a "so-called consensus" position that man-made carbon dioxide is causing catastrophic global warming. What is more, James Lovelock, the author and green guru, has changed his mind: he recently stated that neither Earth nor the human race is doomed.
Yes, melting sea ice around Greenland has recently opened up the fabled North West passage. And, yes, the years 2006 and 2007 have seen massive flooding in Europe. However, a quick dip into the records of the Royal Society - which ranked alongside Dr Lovelock as arch doomsters, before his change of mind - shows that dramatic fluctuations happened long before the infernal combustion engine began spewing out carbon dioxide.
The year 1816 went down in history as the "year without a summer", thanks to the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia that veiled much of the world with dust, screening out the Sun. Yet in 1817, while still in the grip of the Little Ice Age, the Royal Society was so worried that 2,000 square leagues of sea ice around Greenland had disappeared within two years, and massive flooding was taking place in Germany, that its president wrote to the Admiralty advising of the necessity of an expedition to find out what was the source of this new heat. Perhaps, when similar things are happening 190 years later, the Royal Society should accept that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is unlikely to be the main - or only - driver of "global warming".
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The British National Party solution to high immigration into Britain is non-racial
Despite the common Leftist accusation that they are "Nazis"
Are you happy with the way London is changing? Are you happy about the increase in violent crime, or the shortage of affordable housing, or the congestion, or the shortage of doctors and dentists and the long hospital waiting lists, or the Muslim terrorists, or the change in London's population, or the failing schools, or the falling living standards, or the increases in taxation or the discrimination faced daily by the indigenous, white, British people? These are the changes brought to you, to London and to Britain as a whole, by the Labour and Conservative parties. These are the reasons that more and more people are turning to the British National Party as their only hope for a decent future for them and their children.
The BNP's message - that immigration is out of control and is damaging British society - is now becoming accepted by everyone. Even the government's own report has recently had to admit to the tip of the iceberg. But only the BNP has the courage and the honesty to propose solutions that are sensible, fair and workable. The other parties will make mealy-mouthed weasel-worded promises at election time but they will do nothing.
Excessive immigration is responsible for the housing shortage that has resulted in council housing not being available for British families, while immigrants are allowed to jump the queue because they are deemed to be in greater need; the politically correct politicians seem to have missed the point that these immigrants could have stayed at home in their own countries rather than coming here in the first place.
Immigration has also caused a greater demand for rental accommodation, which has pushed up rents and house prices. It was recently reported that four out of ten homes built in the last 10 years are needed just to house the most recent wave of immigrants.
Excessive immigration has led to increased crime levels. In February a police study identified 169 different gangs operating in London. Some of these gangs have over 100 members. In August it was reported that the number of gangs had increased to over 250! The police have admitted that the largest number of gangs are those made up of Afro-Caribbeans, followed by those made up of members who are Asian. Scotland Yard has also admitted that immigration is fuelling gang crime in London. Gun and knife crime have become daily occurrences. So far this year almost 20 teenagers - some as young as 14 - have been shot or stabbed to death on the streets of London.
Excessive immigration has placed a strain on the health service. The increase in AIDS and TB in Britain is due to immigration, and health tourists cost the NHS up to 2 billion pounds per year. Of course there are lots of doctors and nurses who have come from abroad, but there are also lots of British doctors and nurses, trained at public expense, who cannot get jobs. We do not need to import foreign medical staff - many of whom are poorly trained or cannot communicate easily in English. The pretence that we do is simply designed to con the public. It is also very unfair on those poor third world countries where these staff are genuinely needed.
Excessive immigration is damaging education standards in our schools. The flood of children who do not speak English is placing schools under enormous strain and means that teachers are diverted from teachers native children. Larger class sizes and more disruptive behaviour also reduce the quality of education to British children.
Excessive immigration reduces our quality of life. Congestion on the roads, buses and tubes is increased, homes are built over green land, our neighbourhoods are changed and our traditions are lost.
Excessive immigration increases our taxes. Britain is now officially recognised as one of the highest taxed countries in the world. Are you happy at having to pay ever more income tax, council tax, excise duties and stealth taxes? The pro-immigration fanatics in the LibLabCon parties and in the media realise that the British people are fed up of unrestricted, unlimited immigration and now try to pretend that immigration is good for the economy. We are told that migrant workers add up to œ6 billion to Britain's GDP (Gross Domestic Product), but this is utterly misleading garbage. Let's look at the truth.
Immigrants and ethnic minority communities send vast amounts of money back to their families in their home countries. These monies are known as `remittances' and are estimated to amount to around œ5 billion a year. This is money sucked out of our economy and lost. This means there is less money for local businesses and less money for local workers. These remittances are never included in the government's lies about the `value' of immigration.
The government says that immigration increases GDP, but in any normal economy an increase in population will always lead to an increase in GDP - this is meaningless. It is like saying that Africa's GDP is greater than that of Switzerland, so Africans must be better off - of course they're not! Official figures show that foreign workers make up over 12% of the workforce, but if they only add 6 billion pounds to GDP that means they are only increasing our GDP by less than 0.5%! [The UK's GDP is around 1,250 billion pounds].
Anyway, even if they do increase GDP by 6 billion, this doesn't take into account the cost to the taxpayer of immigration. A quick tally by one newspaper estimated the cost of immigration in terms of crime, healthcare, education and administration as over 8 billion pounds. Since this estimate was produced using official statistics it is likely that the true costs are much higher.
Furthermore, the use of GDP as a measure of economic or national well-being is utterly barmy. Consider this: crime increases GDP - is crime a good thing? If a criminal scumbag smashes your car window and steals your stereo you must then spend money on repairing your car and replacing your stereo. You are therefore injecting money into the economy, employing workers and raising manufacturing output. But has this improved your quality of life? Of course not! GDP is an extremely crude economic measuring tool, and it is next to worthless in telling us about our quality of life.
Excessive immigration increases unemployment and reduces wage levels. There are now over 5 million people in Britain receiving benefits instead of working, and the normal laws of supply and demand result in wages being depressed by the availability of more workers willing to do the jobs for less.
Of course we don't blame or hate the immigrants themselves and we hope nobody does, but the fact is that the current flood of uncontrolled immigration is BAD for Britain, BAD for London and BAD for YOU. Just think about it and you will see this is true. How has the vast number of immigrants flooding into Britain improved YOUR life?
Only the BNP will STOP all further immigration
Only the BNP will stop all further immigration - regardless of race. Only the BNP will target the TWO MILLION illegals in Britain and deport them - regardless of race. Only the BNP will deport all foreign criminals - regardless of race. Only the BNP will make sure that those granted British citizenship in recent years obtained this legitimately - regardless of race. And only the BNP will offer financial help to those immigrants here legally who want to make a better life for themselves in their home countries - regardless of race. These policies are fair, sensible and workable. These policies will improve the quality of life for everyone in Britain.
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Superbug problems worsened by crowding in NHS hospitals
Almost a quarter of hospital trusts are increasing the risk of MSRA and Clostridium difficile by filling wards to “unsafe” levels, The Times can disclose. According to Department of Health figures, 22 trusts in England recorded bed occupancy rates of 95 per cent or more and nearly half 85 per cent or more. But a leaked report by the department suggests that MSRA rates are 42 per cent higher in hospitals where more than 90 per cent of beds are filled than those that fill less than 85 per cent of beds. The Liberal Democrats said the figures showed that many hospitals were effectively full while nurses’ groups blamed the problem on pressure to meet waiting time targets.
The proportion of hospital trusts filling 90 per cent or more of beds has risen from 13 per cent five years ago to 23 per cent. Elderly patients are particularly at risk, with occupancy rates on geriatric wards reaching 91.3 per cent, according to analysis of figures by the Liberal Democrats. Secure learning disability wards had a bed occupancy rate of 94.9 per cent, while mental illness wards had 86.8 per cent. The highest occupancy rate was in East Berkshire Primary Care Trust, which said that all of its 122 available beds were filled during the survey, while the Oxleas Foundation Trust, which provides mental health and disability services for southeast London, said that 453 of its 459 beds were full. The average occupancy rate in 2006-07 was 84.5 per cent, in line with the past five years but a sharp rise since Labour came to power in 1997 when it was 80.7 per cent.
Professor Barry Cookson, an expert on MSRA, said that an 85 per cent bed occupancy was a “safety level above which we start having problems”. A report published this month said that C. difficile caused the deaths of 90 patients and affected hundreds more at Maidstone hospital, Kent, between April 2004 and September last year.
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “These figures mean that for a lot of the time, many hospitals are effectively full - and on red alert. As long as this situation continues, it will undermine efforts to successfully combat hospital-acquired infections. It puts staff under unfair pressure and risks corners being cut in order to get new arrivals admitted on time. The system is under enormous pressure.” The Royal College of Nurses believes the true bed occupancy rate could be even higher. Its own survey found that the average rate was 97 per cent, and that more than half of wards were running at full capacity to meet waiting time targets. The number of death certificates that name MSRA as a contributory factor rose from 51 cases in 1993, the first year of recording, to 1,629 in 2005.
Today the Lib Dems will announce a five-point “Florence Nightingale” charter to combat hospital infections. They suggest copying the Dutch approach in which infected wards are closed, patients transferred and staff sent home. They would also give matrons authority over all staff, including contracted cleaners, and roll out super-bug screening programmes to GPs and care homes.
A Department of Health said that although some trusts had higher occupancy rates they still managed to reduce infection rates significantly.
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Carbon health warnings for all new cars
All advertising for new cars will have to carry cigarette-style "health warnings" about their environmental impact, under a European plan to force manufacturers to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Companies that produce the most polluting cars will also have to pay penalties of up to œ5,000 per vehicle, with the proceeds used to reduce the cost of the most efficient cars.Advertisements in newspapers and magazines, will have to devote at least 20 per cent of the space to details about fuel economy and CO2 emissions. At the moment manufacturers have to include only basic mpg and CO2 figures in the small print. They do not have to explain what the numbers mean or provide any comparison.
Car advertisements will have to carry colour-coded emissions labels such as those already displayed on new fridges and washing machines, with bands ranging from dark green to red. The plan, expected to be approved by the European Parliament on Wednesday, has been drawn up in response to the car industry's failure to meet its own voluntary target on reducing CO2 emissions.
The industry agreed in 1998 that the 18 million new cars expected to be sold in Europe in 2008 should emit an average of no more than 140g of CO2 per kilometre. The average last year was 160g/km and emissions fell only 0.2 per cent on the previous year, the lowest reduction on record. Privately manufacturers admit that they have no hope of meeting the target.
A fifth of the European Union's CO2 emissions come from cars and road transport accounts for 60 per cent of all the oil used by member states.
Chris Davies, the Liberal Democrat MEP for the North West of England, who was appointed by the European Parliament to draw up the plan, said that the car industry had grossly exaggerated the cost of making cars more efficient to avoid taking action.
He said that the German car industry had been particularly obstructive because it was dominated by manufacturers such as Mercedes and BMW, which specialised in larger, more polluting cars. Mr Davies has agreed a compromise, which he expects to be supported by the majority of MEPs, under which manufacturers would be given until 2015 to achieve an average of 125g/km for new cars. He said: "I accept it takes seven years from the design stage to vehicles rolling off the production line. But the new target would be made wiggle-proof and manufacturers who failed to achieve it would pay penalties."
He predicted that some companies would prefer to pay the penalty rather than reduce emissions because they would not want to reduce the power or weight of their cars.He said that the proceeds would be used to reward companies that beat their emissions targets and a grant system to encourage people to trade in their cars for more efficient new ones.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders opposes the idea of giving more space to environmental information. A spokesman said the basic details were already in advertisements: "There's no point in giving this sop to the environmental lobby because most people will ignore it."
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Hope for Britain? "In my U.S. News column this week, I took a look at the sharp change in the political balance in Britain and its implications for the United States. As the week has progressed, it looks like the balance in Britain is changing even more. The latest ICM poll for the Sunday Telegraph has a big (43 to 36 percent) lead for the Conservatives-a striking change from the balance over the summer in which Labor led by an average of 9 points. If the popular vote split along these lines, Conservatives would lead Labor 319 to 301 in the House of Commons, with only two for Lib Dems-down from 62 at the present time (hence the forced resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell as lead of the Lib Dems). That would leave Conservatives just seven seats short of an absolute majority, which would mean they could, at least theoretically, govern with the support of the Northern Ireland Unionist parties."
Surprising sense from Britain: "More people from ethnic minorities must be stopped and searched if Britain is to win the fight against violent inner-city gun and knife crime, one of the country's top black police officers has said. Keith Jarrett, president of the National Black Police Association, is expected to make a speech this week calling for an increase in stop-and-searches in black communities. He told The Observer: "A lot of black people want to stop these killings, these knife crimes, and if it means their sons and daughters are going to be inconvenienced by being stopped by the police, so be it." The association, which represents thousands of officers from ethnic minorities, has previously questioned the high proportion of black people stopped and searched. The tactic was blamed for precipitating the race riots of the 1980s"
Monday, October 22, 2007
One third of 'Londoners' born abroad
One in three people living in London was born abroad and at least another 10,000 foreign-born citizens are settling in the capital each month. Figures released today show that out of a total Greater London population of 7.4 million, about five million were born in Britain. The number of foreign-born Londoners increased from 2.3 million in June last year to almost 2.5 million 12 months later.
The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, show the biggest foreign-born communities include Indians (almost 200,000), Bangladeshis (115,000), Irish (113,000) and Jamaicans (108,000). There are now just over 100,000 Poles living in London and there are also large Nigerian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan populations.
Merrick Cockell, chairman of London Councils, said the true figures could be even higher and called for more funding to help pay for essential services. "London boroughs are struggling to meet the increasing population's demands for services such as social care and waste, while central government reaps all the economic benefits from international migration," he said. "The Government must distribute these benefits in a fairer way." Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Jeremy Browne stressed cultural diversity brought huge benefits to the capital.
"London is a truly international city with a constantly evolving population," he said. "The success of our financial markets and business climate are attracting a wide range of entrepreneurs and workers. "That is creating a social vibrancy but the Government needs to respond to legitimate concerns about pressure on public services in some areas."
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said the amount of foreigners moving to Britain was "completely unacceptable" and called for an annual limit on the number of non-European Union migrants.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We know migration added about œ6billion to our economy last year and London has shared in the benefits." He said the independent Migration Impacts Forum would advise the Government on how migration affects public services and communities, both impact and benefits. A new points system, based on the Australia model, for immigration will be introduced next year.
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UK whites a minority in London classrooms
White British-born children are now the minority in many London schools, official figures showed today. In Tower Hamlets, 15 per cent of primary school pupils are classed as white British, while 63 per cent of their classmates come from Bangladeshi families. Tories said the figures, released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, showed the changes were putting pressure on schools, which had to make sure those who did not speak English learned as soon as possible. Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "If they can't, and they are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, this makes it much harder for teachers to do their job."
While Asians now make up the majority of young children in several areas of London, others remain overwhelmingly white. In Newham, just under 12 per cent of primary pupils are white British, while the figure in Brent's secondaries is seven per cent, compared with 36 per cent who are classed as Asian, and 24 per cent black. Outside London, areas with the highest concentrations of ethnic minority pupils included Bradford, where 53 per cent of the primary school children are classed as white British.
In Blackburn and Manchester, less than 60 per cent of primary pupils were white British and in Birmingham the figure was 43 per cent. In Leicester, 41 per cent were white British, compared with 38 per cent of primary pupils who were Asian. Nationally, 21.9 per cent of primary school children were from ethnic minority backgrounds, up from 20.6 per cent last year. There was a similar rise in secondary schools.
In rural areas, the school population was almost entirely white. In Devon, 95 per cent of primary pupils were white British. The number of primary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language increased by about seven per cent on last year's figures to 447,000, or about one child in seven. Figures at secondary level showed a similar rise in pupils not speaking English as their first language to 342,000 in total.
When special schools are included, 798,110 pupils in England's state schools do not speak English as their first language. This is out of a total of 7.3 million children attending state schools. Schools minister Jim Knight said teachers were being given help to cope with children whose first language is not English.
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NHS pays 225,000 pounds compensation for husband's 'squalid' death
A boy of nine has been given 25,000 pounds compensation after his father died as a result of hospital negligence. Today, the child's mother - who was awarded a further 200,000 - described the squalid conditions in which she claims her husband was treated and the catastrophic medical errors that she believes killed him.
Debra Luck, 44, said medics left her husband Ian to lie in agony for hours before he died from a heart attack after a duodenal ulcer ruptured. Medical experts say emergency surgery would have saved the 37-yearold but instead Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow treated him with drugs. Mr Luck, who was delirious with pain, had been left feeling suicidal by the conditions. A lack of nursing care meant he was forced to vomit on the floor and wet the bed as he lay dying.
He was so appalled by his conditions that he refused to let his son Ben, then four, visit him. The boy was so traumatised by his father's sudden death he had to see a psychologist.
Mrs Luck, from Waltham Abbey, launched a High Court action against the trust after her husband's death. The case was settled when the trust offered the payout without accepting liability. Mrs Luck said she decided to take the money because it would give her son a more secure future. However, she remains horrified by the trust's behaviour. "They never even said sorry and I feel they've got away with murder," she said. "Those last days of his life were a living nightmare I never believed I'd experience in a British hospital. "The lunchtime before he died he called me crying, saying he wanted to jump from the nearest window."
She rushed to see her husband but he urged her to go home to be with Ben. Two hours later she got the call saying he had suffered a heart attack. A trust spokesman said: "The trust is pleased the court has approved a settlement and offers Mrs Luck and her family best wishes for the future." [Smarmy scum!!]
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Martin Amis: Another Leftist who has seen the light
Put your hands up, said Amis, if you think you are morally superior to the Taliban. When a minority of the audience did so, Amis muttered: `About 30 per cent.' His implication is that, in our current relativistic climate, it is taboo to assert your superiority to anything - even the Taliban. Anyone who values freedom, Amis says, should have a problem with Islamism. He graphically went through some of the feudal punishments that the Taliban metes out to women who step out of line. `We're in a pious paralysis when we can't say we're morally superior to the Taliban', he said. His attack on cultural relativism is welcome, and it certainly exposed moral sheepishness amongst the assembled at the ICA. But I couldn't help thinking: is that it? Is that what it means to be `Enlightened' and principled today - to be Not-The-Taliban? Amis didn't go any further on the matter.
Islam, in Amis' view, `is a religion that's having a nervous breakdown'. And Islamism is a variation on a death cult - an `ideology within a religion, a turbo-charge, steroid version of murderous belief'. He made some interesting points about suicide bombing, describing it as a `paltry' act, signifying nothing but a `besplattering' of the self. What the Islamic world needs, he said, is dramatic progress: `Martin Luther, John Calvin. religious wars, then Enlightenment, then you enter the modern world 300 years after that.' He argued that it is the Western world that is giving Islamism its power to commit atrocity, even helping to legitimise that atrocity, by trying to `understand it'. Society does not question or interrogate Islamist values openly out of fear of becoming the target. Amis, however, is the Dirty Harry of the literary world. Come on, mad mullah, make my day. `I want to be a target. There are no Switzerland positions here', he said.
Amis was particularly scathing in his assessment of certain Western liberals who, in the course of `listening' to Islamist grievances, end up treating the views of Osama bin Laden - and those who blow themselves up at his bidding - with respect. Bin Laden, he announced, `is the Che Guevara of the current age, the poster boy for this amoral doctrine'. Amis argued that some admire bin Laden's ascetic lifestyle. `He lives in a cave, drinks contaminated water, suffers.' It's eco-friendly, borderline holy. But in truth, Amis said, Osama and his crew are not only murderous criminals, they are completely ridiculous figures. `At one time', he said, all Osama's henchmen `had one eye. They are tin-legged zealots, amputeed mullahs, they're all in bits. Osama is a very stupid man. But he did at least have the wit to stay in one piece.'
John Pilger, the veteran investigative journalist, also came in for a hiding, as did London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Amis quoted Ken's words: `[T]he Palestinians don't have jet planes, don't have tanks, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In an unfair balance, that's what people use.' Amis then puckered up his lips and blew a fully formed raspberry of disgust. Is blowing yourself up really going to help matters, he asked?
There are many problems with Amis' argument. It is juvenile to melt down Islamism with Nazism and Stalinism into one big cauldron of evil - first, because these are three very different things; and second because violent Islamism, certainly of the al-Qaeda variety, remains a pretty insignificant threat to the Western way of life. Nor can the threat of Islamism simply be countered by Western liberals telling the Islamic world what to do about it (`Luther, Enlightenment, wait 300 years', etc). Indeed, over the past 50 years Western intervention itself - in Egypt, the Middle East, Afghanistan - did a great deal to nurture Islamic zealots as a counterweight to genuinely secular and anti-imperialist mass movements. Some of the very zealots who Amis loves to hate are a product of not-very-Enlightened policies on the part of Western governments. I would rather trust the people of the Islamic world to sort these zealots out, rather than officials in London or Washington or notable authors seated on the stage of the ICA.
And yet, it is important that Amis is allowed to speak as freely and as radically as he pleases. And he is only made to look better by the petty attacks that have recently been launched upon him. Towards the end of the debate at the ICA, a curly-haired member of the back row asked Amis for his views on the Muslim Brotherhood. Was he saying they're all murderers? `I think Islamists subscribe to a murderous ideology', Amis replied. `So you mean they're all murderers?' demanded guerrilla comedian Chris Morris (for it was he!). `No, but I believe the ideology they subscribe to is murderous', Amis restated.
This went on and on - Amis sticking to his guns, while `TV's greatest satirist, the shaggy-haired Swift of our age' got more and more upset. `What about Palestine?' Morris wanted to know. Amis muttered something about Israel being surrounded by hostile countries but was instantly cut off with a wail from Morris: `Oh my God, he's defending Israel now!' It seems that in our era of bland consensus, even liberal medialand can't bear to hear anything that smells like an alternative view.
Source
One in three people living in London was born abroad and at least another 10,000 foreign-born citizens are settling in the capital each month. Figures released today show that out of a total Greater London population of 7.4 million, about five million were born in Britain. The number of foreign-born Londoners increased from 2.3 million in June last year to almost 2.5 million 12 months later.
The figures, from the Office for National Statistics, show the biggest foreign-born communities include Indians (almost 200,000), Bangladeshis (115,000), Irish (113,000) and Jamaicans (108,000). There are now just over 100,000 Poles living in London and there are also large Nigerian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan populations.
Merrick Cockell, chairman of London Councils, said the true figures could be even higher and called for more funding to help pay for essential services. "London boroughs are struggling to meet the increasing population's demands for services such as social care and waste, while central government reaps all the economic benefits from international migration," he said. "The Government must distribute these benefits in a fairer way." Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Jeremy Browne stressed cultural diversity brought huge benefits to the capital.
"London is a truly international city with a constantly evolving population," he said. "The success of our financial markets and business climate are attracting a wide range of entrepreneurs and workers. "That is creating a social vibrancy but the Government needs to respond to legitimate concerns about pressure on public services in some areas."
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said the amount of foreigners moving to Britain was "completely unacceptable" and called for an annual limit on the number of non-European Union migrants.
A Home Office spokesman said: "We know migration added about œ6billion to our economy last year and London has shared in the benefits." He said the independent Migration Impacts Forum would advise the Government on how migration affects public services and communities, both impact and benefits. A new points system, based on the Australia model, for immigration will be introduced next year.
Source
UK whites a minority in London classrooms
White British-born children are now the minority in many London schools, official figures showed today. In Tower Hamlets, 15 per cent of primary school pupils are classed as white British, while 63 per cent of their classmates come from Bangladeshi families. Tories said the figures, released by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, showed the changes were putting pressure on schools, which had to make sure those who did not speak English learned as soon as possible. Conservative immigration spokesman Damian Green said: "If they can't, and they are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, this makes it much harder for teachers to do their job."
While Asians now make up the majority of young children in several areas of London, others remain overwhelmingly white. In Newham, just under 12 per cent of primary pupils are white British, while the figure in Brent's secondaries is seven per cent, compared with 36 per cent who are classed as Asian, and 24 per cent black. Outside London, areas with the highest concentrations of ethnic minority pupils included Bradford, where 53 per cent of the primary school children are classed as white British.
In Blackburn and Manchester, less than 60 per cent of primary pupils were white British and in Birmingham the figure was 43 per cent. In Leicester, 41 per cent were white British, compared with 38 per cent of primary pupils who were Asian. Nationally, 21.9 per cent of primary school children were from ethnic minority backgrounds, up from 20.6 per cent last year. There was a similar rise in secondary schools.
In rural areas, the school population was almost entirely white. In Devon, 95 per cent of primary pupils were white British. The number of primary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language increased by about seven per cent on last year's figures to 447,000, or about one child in seven. Figures at secondary level showed a similar rise in pupils not speaking English as their first language to 342,000 in total.
When special schools are included, 798,110 pupils in England's state schools do not speak English as their first language. This is out of a total of 7.3 million children attending state schools. Schools minister Jim Knight said teachers were being given help to cope with children whose first language is not English.
Source
NHS pays 225,000 pounds compensation for husband's 'squalid' death
A boy of nine has been given 25,000 pounds compensation after his father died as a result of hospital negligence. Today, the child's mother - who was awarded a further 200,000 - described the squalid conditions in which she claims her husband was treated and the catastrophic medical errors that she believes killed him.
Debra Luck, 44, said medics left her husband Ian to lie in agony for hours before he died from a heart attack after a duodenal ulcer ruptured. Medical experts say emergency surgery would have saved the 37-yearold but instead Princess Alexandra Hospital in Harlow treated him with drugs. Mr Luck, who was delirious with pain, had been left feeling suicidal by the conditions. A lack of nursing care meant he was forced to vomit on the floor and wet the bed as he lay dying.
He was so appalled by his conditions that he refused to let his son Ben, then four, visit him. The boy was so traumatised by his father's sudden death he had to see a psychologist.
Mrs Luck, from Waltham Abbey, launched a High Court action against the trust after her husband's death. The case was settled when the trust offered the payout without accepting liability. Mrs Luck said she decided to take the money because it would give her son a more secure future. However, she remains horrified by the trust's behaviour. "They never even said sorry and I feel they've got away with murder," she said. "Those last days of his life were a living nightmare I never believed I'd experience in a British hospital. "The lunchtime before he died he called me crying, saying he wanted to jump from the nearest window."
She rushed to see her husband but he urged her to go home to be with Ben. Two hours later she got the call saying he had suffered a heart attack. A trust spokesman said: "The trust is pleased the court has approved a settlement and offers Mrs Luck and her family best wishes for the future." [Smarmy scum!!]
Source
Martin Amis: Another Leftist who has seen the light
Put your hands up, said Amis, if you think you are morally superior to the Taliban. When a minority of the audience did so, Amis muttered: `About 30 per cent.' His implication is that, in our current relativistic climate, it is taboo to assert your superiority to anything - even the Taliban. Anyone who values freedom, Amis says, should have a problem with Islamism. He graphically went through some of the feudal punishments that the Taliban metes out to women who step out of line. `We're in a pious paralysis when we can't say we're morally superior to the Taliban', he said. His attack on cultural relativism is welcome, and it certainly exposed moral sheepishness amongst the assembled at the ICA. But I couldn't help thinking: is that it? Is that what it means to be `Enlightened' and principled today - to be Not-The-Taliban? Amis didn't go any further on the matter.
Islam, in Amis' view, `is a religion that's having a nervous breakdown'. And Islamism is a variation on a death cult - an `ideology within a religion, a turbo-charge, steroid version of murderous belief'. He made some interesting points about suicide bombing, describing it as a `paltry' act, signifying nothing but a `besplattering' of the self. What the Islamic world needs, he said, is dramatic progress: `Martin Luther, John Calvin. religious wars, then Enlightenment, then you enter the modern world 300 years after that.' He argued that it is the Western world that is giving Islamism its power to commit atrocity, even helping to legitimise that atrocity, by trying to `understand it'. Society does not question or interrogate Islamist values openly out of fear of becoming the target. Amis, however, is the Dirty Harry of the literary world. Come on, mad mullah, make my day. `I want to be a target. There are no Switzerland positions here', he said.
Amis was particularly scathing in his assessment of certain Western liberals who, in the course of `listening' to Islamist grievances, end up treating the views of Osama bin Laden - and those who blow themselves up at his bidding - with respect. Bin Laden, he announced, `is the Che Guevara of the current age, the poster boy for this amoral doctrine'. Amis argued that some admire bin Laden's ascetic lifestyle. `He lives in a cave, drinks contaminated water, suffers.' It's eco-friendly, borderline holy. But in truth, Amis said, Osama and his crew are not only murderous criminals, they are completely ridiculous figures. `At one time', he said, all Osama's henchmen `had one eye. They are tin-legged zealots, amputeed mullahs, they're all in bits. Osama is a very stupid man. But he did at least have the wit to stay in one piece.'
John Pilger, the veteran investigative journalist, also came in for a hiding, as did London Mayor Ken Livingstone. Amis quoted Ken's words: `[T]he Palestinians don't have jet planes, don't have tanks, they only have their bodies to use as weapons. In an unfair balance, that's what people use.' Amis then puckered up his lips and blew a fully formed raspberry of disgust. Is blowing yourself up really going to help matters, he asked?
There are many problems with Amis' argument. It is juvenile to melt down Islamism with Nazism and Stalinism into one big cauldron of evil - first, because these are three very different things; and second because violent Islamism, certainly of the al-Qaeda variety, remains a pretty insignificant threat to the Western way of life. Nor can the threat of Islamism simply be countered by Western liberals telling the Islamic world what to do about it (`Luther, Enlightenment, wait 300 years', etc). Indeed, over the past 50 years Western intervention itself - in Egypt, the Middle East, Afghanistan - did a great deal to nurture Islamic zealots as a counterweight to genuinely secular and anti-imperialist mass movements. Some of the very zealots who Amis loves to hate are a product of not-very-Enlightened policies on the part of Western governments. I would rather trust the people of the Islamic world to sort these zealots out, rather than officials in London or Washington or notable authors seated on the stage of the ICA.
And yet, it is important that Amis is allowed to speak as freely and as radically as he pleases. And he is only made to look better by the petty attacks that have recently been launched upon him. Towards the end of the debate at the ICA, a curly-haired member of the back row asked Amis for his views on the Muslim Brotherhood. Was he saying they're all murderers? `I think Islamists subscribe to a murderous ideology', Amis replied. `So you mean they're all murderers?' demanded guerrilla comedian Chris Morris (for it was he!). `No, but I believe the ideology they subscribe to is murderous', Amis restated.
This went on and on - Amis sticking to his guns, while `TV's greatest satirist, the shaggy-haired Swift of our age' got more and more upset. `What about Palestine?' Morris wanted to know. Amis muttered something about Israel being surrounded by hostile countries but was instantly cut off with a wail from Morris: `Oh my God, he's defending Israel now!' It seems that in our era of bland consensus, even liberal medialand can't bear to hear anything that smells like an alternative view.
Source
Sunday, October 21, 2007
The Persecution of a Truth-Teller Continues
No free speech about blacks in either the USA or the UK:
Note the comments attached to the article excerpted above.
There is also an insightful comment from London's "Evening Standard" below about the silencing of Watson:
Encroaching tyranny
The television chef Prue Leith has called for pupils to be barred from leaving school at lunchtime to prevent them buying junk food. Ms Leith, chairwoman of the School Food Trust, the Government's programme charged with improving school meals in England, argued that locking the school gates would ensure children ate healthier meals or packed lunches rather than burgers or chips. "If you can keep them inside, then you can begin to educate them about eating," she said. "It's a drastic measure but we are facing a drastic situation. We are denying children the real pleasure of eating and cooking good food. She added: "I agree that I am being rather nanny-ish but I think children need some nannying," she added.
She also advised parents to give pocket money to children in one go on a Saturday, rather than in instalments through the week so they would buy a long-lasting item such as a CD or baseball cap rather than snacks or chocolate.
Only 40 per cent of children eat school dinners. The majority opt for packed lunches or street food. Jamie Oliver's high-profile campaign to improve school nutrition during the Channel 4 series in which he exposed notoriously unhealthy Turkey Twizzlers, has not solved the problem. In many cases, hot meals have been replaced by packed lunches which, said Ms Leith, tended to be less healthy because their ingredients had been bought on supermarket shopping trips when parents were swayed by "pester power".
A new drive by the School Food Trust to encourage children to try the healthier meals and raise the number of pupil diners above 50 per cent got under way yesterday. The Million Meals campaign was launched by Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, at St Augustine's Secondary School in Kilburn, north-west London.
Source
Leave working tipplers alone
By John Mortimer (creator of "Rumpole")
The true sickness of our times is not that we eat too much, smoke cigarettes or knock off a bottle of wine in an evening. It is the ever-growing tendency of medical boards, government officials, politicians and other groups who seem to have nothing better to do than tell us how to lead our lives. It is as if we are a nation of miscreant mortals who have to be constantly lectured on how to behave.
We have now been told by the Liverpool's Centre for Public Health that the middle classes consume too much wine in their homes. At dining tables in leafy towns and affluent suburbs, too many hard-working professionals are enjoying "hazardous" if not "harmful" amounts of alcohol night after night. British Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo seized on these findings as another chance to boss us all about. "Most of these are not young people. They are 'everyday' drinkers who have drunk too much for too long," she warns darkly. "This has to stop."
It was in the summer that the Government first suggested it was planning to do something about middle-class drinkers who enjoy a bottle of wine at home in the evening. Now action seems even more likely. What can we expect? An army of local council officials with breathalysers and clipboards knocking on our doors as soon as the sun passes the yardarm, and then returning to see if we are splashing too much cognac about after supper? Perhaps they will kill two birds with one stone, and take advantage of us in our Falstaffian merriment to snoop round our houses. They wouldn't approve of us smoking in our homes, either. Any of us who are caught might be banished from our own drawing rooms into the garden.
The absurdity of a government that allows thousands to become infected and die from superbugs in filthy hospitals, and then worries about how much wine we drink at supper in our homes, should be obvious.
Perhaps the situation needs clarifying. Yes, drinking is a possible danger to your health. But then so is rock climbing, sailing, deep-sea diving, parachuting and motor racing. Are all these activities to be forbidden by law because they are possibly dangerous?
Drinking is legal and the Government must realise that you are entitled to pursue any activity that you enjoy, even if it is at some risk. Nothing seems able to persuade our public officials of the true limits of government. Governments are there to regulate the economy, provide public services and make sure that the drains are working. But we are run by a bunch of snivelling puritans in a government that has made a speciality of poking its nose into every corner of our lives and trampling all over our civil liberties. In my view, many of them would benefit from a drink or two.
It is true that alcohol turns many of us into crashing bores. But a politician who enjoys his drink is likely to be far more fun and relaxed about life. George Brown, Harold Wilson's permanently drunk foreign secretary, may have overdone it, but at least he left us with the story - almost certainly apocryphal - of the evening reception at which he approached a figure in a purple dress for a dance. "There are three reasons why I will not dance with you," came the reply. "One, you are very drunk. Two, they are playing my national anthem. And three, I am the Archbishop of Lima."
But it is not only alcohol that they want to stop us drinking at home. Fresh milk is also out. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs this week said we should be swapping revolting UHT milk for fresh pints - it would save on refrigeration and cut down on carbon emissions. So when the officials come round as we are passing around the peanuts with our pre-dinner drinks, they will want to poke about in our fridge in the national interest.
What else they find will, of course, become the subject of vital inquiry. Eggs, streaky bacon and sausages are serious causes of obesity, which might jeopardise our chances of being treated on the National Health Service.
Is there any reason why being fat should be regarded as some sort of sin? Shakespeare's Julius Caesar had, it seems to me, an extremely sensible view: "Let me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights; Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." Winston Churchill, who brought us through the war, was fat. Fat Falstaff is one of Shakespeare's most memorable and likeable characters.
Food without wine is an unattractive prospect and few people in France or Italy would indulge in it. It is true that the 18th century habit of drinking seven or eight bottles of port after dinner could be thought excessive, but puritanism is not the answer. This behaviour could be avoided if the young of today devoted themselves to the acquisition of some useful life skills, such as the best way to enjoy a bottle of fine wine and how to identify the precise point at which it is time to refuse another glass - a subject that should, I believe, be included in the high school syllabus, with the study of champagne reserved for A-level.
Learning to drink properly can be a painful, although necessary experience. In my first term at Oxford, my friend Henry Winter and I managed to drink several bowls of sherry and then boil blue Bols and creme de menthe in an electric kettle and drink the horrible result. Since then, no gin, lime, Bols, sherry or creme de menthe has passed my lips - champagne has overwhelmingly replaced them in my affections.
But now the government would like to see off my pleasure altogether. Well, I am too old to take any notice. This morning at 6am, I started as I always do with a glass of champagne. I am writing this article with a glass of white wine by my side. And I hope to drink some more at dinner. I have only this to say to our rulers: "Get on with your jobs and leave the rest of us to eat, drink and be merry."
Source
FROM HERO TO ZERO? "LOVELOCK'S TECHNO-FIX WOULD WORSEN GLOBAL WARMING"
In Correspondence in this week's Nature, John Shepherd from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and colleagues challenge the scheme proposed by James Lovelock and Chris Rapley to help the planet cure itself from the disease of global warming.
For those of you who missed it, a couple of weeks ago, Lovelock and Rapley put forward a geo-engineering solution to climate change in Nature, which involves the installation of large vertical pipes in the ocean that would pump nutrient-rich water from depth to the surface. This, they said, would enhance the growth of algae in the upper ocean, which in turn would transport more carbon to the deep sea.
Now, Shepherd and colleagues claim that the proposed scheme is based on false assumptions. They say the scheme would not lead to enhanced storage of carbon in the deep ocean below 1,000m and in deep ocean sediments, which is necessary for effective long term removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Instead, they maintain the scheme could actually worsen global warming by bringing high levels of particulate carbon back to the surface, where it could be released to the atmosphere. The authors also argue that such large scale engineering solutions could harm fragile ecosystems.
Peter Williams from the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University raised some of these same issues on the blog here last week, and also challenged the feasibility of the scheme from an engineering perspective.
Source
Alan Coren RIP. I shed a little tear when I heard of the passing of a wonderful man whom I have often read in the pages of the now also deceased "Punch" magazine. "The Times" says it all. There are a few samples of Coren's gentle humour here
Blair gets it: "Islamist extremism is similar to "rising fascism in the 1920s and 1930s", Tony Blair said last night in his first major speech since leaving office. At a prestigious charity dinner in New York, the former Prime Minister said that public figures who blamed the rise of fundamentalism on the policies of the West were "mistaken". He told the audience, which included New York governor Eliot Spitzer and mayor Michael Bloomberg, that Iran was the biggest exporter of the ideology, and that the Islamic republic was prepared to "back and finance terror" to support it. "Out there in the Middle East, we've seen... the ideology driving this extremism and terror is not exhausted. On the contrary it believes it can and will exhaust us first," he said. "Analogies with the past are never properly accurate, and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but, in pure chronology, I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again. "This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace."
No free speech about blacks in either the USA or the UK:
"The Nobel Laureate who provoked an international row by apparently claiming that black people are less intelligent than whites left Britain in disgrace yesterday after being suspended from his job.
James Watson, in London to promote a new book, was forced to return to New York after Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, relieved him of his duties because of his apparent views. It follows a hellish week for the 79-year-old geneticist who helped to unravel the structure of DNA more than 50 years ago.
Source
Note the comments attached to the article excerpted above.
There is also an insightful comment from London's "Evening Standard" below about the silencing of Watson:
"No contrary arguments or evidence need be offered, and no debate entered into (perhaps precisely because debate is feared?) There's an element of blind panic here. It just must not be so, it must be strictly unthinkable. And that's not science, it's prejudice. The disgrace here falls not on the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA but on the supposed guardians of scientific values in Exhibition Road [where Watson was due to speak]
Encroaching tyranny
The television chef Prue Leith has called for pupils to be barred from leaving school at lunchtime to prevent them buying junk food. Ms Leith, chairwoman of the School Food Trust, the Government's programme charged with improving school meals in England, argued that locking the school gates would ensure children ate healthier meals or packed lunches rather than burgers or chips. "If you can keep them inside, then you can begin to educate them about eating," she said. "It's a drastic measure but we are facing a drastic situation. We are denying children the real pleasure of eating and cooking good food. She added: "I agree that I am being rather nanny-ish but I think children need some nannying," she added.
She also advised parents to give pocket money to children in one go on a Saturday, rather than in instalments through the week so they would buy a long-lasting item such as a CD or baseball cap rather than snacks or chocolate.
Only 40 per cent of children eat school dinners. The majority opt for packed lunches or street food. Jamie Oliver's high-profile campaign to improve school nutrition during the Channel 4 series in which he exposed notoriously unhealthy Turkey Twizzlers, has not solved the problem. In many cases, hot meals have been replaced by packed lunches which, said Ms Leith, tended to be less healthy because their ingredients had been bought on supermarket shopping trips when parents were swayed by "pester power".
A new drive by the School Food Trust to encourage children to try the healthier meals and raise the number of pupil diners above 50 per cent got under way yesterday. The Million Meals campaign was launched by Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, at St Augustine's Secondary School in Kilburn, north-west London.
Source
Leave working tipplers alone
By John Mortimer (creator of "Rumpole")
The true sickness of our times is not that we eat too much, smoke cigarettes or knock off a bottle of wine in an evening. It is the ever-growing tendency of medical boards, government officials, politicians and other groups who seem to have nothing better to do than tell us how to lead our lives. It is as if we are a nation of miscreant mortals who have to be constantly lectured on how to behave.
We have now been told by the Liverpool's Centre for Public Health that the middle classes consume too much wine in their homes. At dining tables in leafy towns and affluent suburbs, too many hard-working professionals are enjoying "hazardous" if not "harmful" amounts of alcohol night after night. British Public Health Minister Dawn Primarolo seized on these findings as another chance to boss us all about. "Most of these are not young people. They are 'everyday' drinkers who have drunk too much for too long," she warns darkly. "This has to stop."
It was in the summer that the Government first suggested it was planning to do something about middle-class drinkers who enjoy a bottle of wine at home in the evening. Now action seems even more likely. What can we expect? An army of local council officials with breathalysers and clipboards knocking on our doors as soon as the sun passes the yardarm, and then returning to see if we are splashing too much cognac about after supper? Perhaps they will kill two birds with one stone, and take advantage of us in our Falstaffian merriment to snoop round our houses. They wouldn't approve of us smoking in our homes, either. Any of us who are caught might be banished from our own drawing rooms into the garden.
The absurdity of a government that allows thousands to become infected and die from superbugs in filthy hospitals, and then worries about how much wine we drink at supper in our homes, should be obvious.
Perhaps the situation needs clarifying. Yes, drinking is a possible danger to your health. But then so is rock climbing, sailing, deep-sea diving, parachuting and motor racing. Are all these activities to be forbidden by law because they are possibly dangerous?
Drinking is legal and the Government must realise that you are entitled to pursue any activity that you enjoy, even if it is at some risk. Nothing seems able to persuade our public officials of the true limits of government. Governments are there to regulate the economy, provide public services and make sure that the drains are working. But we are run by a bunch of snivelling puritans in a government that has made a speciality of poking its nose into every corner of our lives and trampling all over our civil liberties. In my view, many of them would benefit from a drink or two.
It is true that alcohol turns many of us into crashing bores. But a politician who enjoys his drink is likely to be far more fun and relaxed about life. George Brown, Harold Wilson's permanently drunk foreign secretary, may have overdone it, but at least he left us with the story - almost certainly apocryphal - of the evening reception at which he approached a figure in a purple dress for a dance. "There are three reasons why I will not dance with you," came the reply. "One, you are very drunk. Two, they are playing my national anthem. And three, I am the Archbishop of Lima."
But it is not only alcohol that they want to stop us drinking at home. Fresh milk is also out. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs this week said we should be swapping revolting UHT milk for fresh pints - it would save on refrigeration and cut down on carbon emissions. So when the officials come round as we are passing around the peanuts with our pre-dinner drinks, they will want to poke about in our fridge in the national interest.
What else they find will, of course, become the subject of vital inquiry. Eggs, streaky bacon and sausages are serious causes of obesity, which might jeopardise our chances of being treated on the National Health Service.
Is there any reason why being fat should be regarded as some sort of sin? Shakespeare's Julius Caesar had, it seems to me, an extremely sensible view: "Let me have men about me that are fat: Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o'nights; Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous." Winston Churchill, who brought us through the war, was fat. Fat Falstaff is one of Shakespeare's most memorable and likeable characters.
Food without wine is an unattractive prospect and few people in France or Italy would indulge in it. It is true that the 18th century habit of drinking seven or eight bottles of port after dinner could be thought excessive, but puritanism is not the answer. This behaviour could be avoided if the young of today devoted themselves to the acquisition of some useful life skills, such as the best way to enjoy a bottle of fine wine and how to identify the precise point at which it is time to refuse another glass - a subject that should, I believe, be included in the high school syllabus, with the study of champagne reserved for A-level.
Learning to drink properly can be a painful, although necessary experience. In my first term at Oxford, my friend Henry Winter and I managed to drink several bowls of sherry and then boil blue Bols and creme de menthe in an electric kettle and drink the horrible result. Since then, no gin, lime, Bols, sherry or creme de menthe has passed my lips - champagne has overwhelmingly replaced them in my affections.
But now the government would like to see off my pleasure altogether. Well, I am too old to take any notice. This morning at 6am, I started as I always do with a glass of champagne. I am writing this article with a glass of white wine by my side. And I hope to drink some more at dinner. I have only this to say to our rulers: "Get on with your jobs and leave the rest of us to eat, drink and be merry."
Source
FROM HERO TO ZERO? "LOVELOCK'S TECHNO-FIX WOULD WORSEN GLOBAL WARMING"
In Correspondence in this week's Nature, John Shepherd from the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton and colleagues challenge the scheme proposed by James Lovelock and Chris Rapley to help the planet cure itself from the disease of global warming.
For those of you who missed it, a couple of weeks ago, Lovelock and Rapley put forward a geo-engineering solution to climate change in Nature, which involves the installation of large vertical pipes in the ocean that would pump nutrient-rich water from depth to the surface. This, they said, would enhance the growth of algae in the upper ocean, which in turn would transport more carbon to the deep sea.
Now, Shepherd and colleagues claim that the proposed scheme is based on false assumptions. They say the scheme would not lead to enhanced storage of carbon in the deep ocean below 1,000m and in deep ocean sediments, which is necessary for effective long term removal of carbon from the atmosphere. Instead, they maintain the scheme could actually worsen global warming by bringing high levels of particulate carbon back to the surface, where it could be released to the atmosphere. The authors also argue that such large scale engineering solutions could harm fragile ecosystems.
Peter Williams from the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University raised some of these same issues on the blog here last week, and also challenged the feasibility of the scheme from an engineering perspective.
Source
Alan Coren RIP. I shed a little tear when I heard of the passing of a wonderful man whom I have often read in the pages of the now also deceased "Punch" magazine. "The Times" says it all. There are a few samples of Coren's gentle humour here
Blair gets it: "Islamist extremism is similar to "rising fascism in the 1920s and 1930s", Tony Blair said last night in his first major speech since leaving office. At a prestigious charity dinner in New York, the former Prime Minister said that public figures who blamed the rise of fundamentalism on the policies of the West were "mistaken". He told the audience, which included New York governor Eliot Spitzer and mayor Michael Bloomberg, that Iran was the biggest exporter of the ideology, and that the Islamic republic was prepared to "back and finance terror" to support it. "Out there in the Middle East, we've seen... the ideology driving this extremism and terror is not exhausted. On the contrary it believes it can and will exhaust us first," he said. "Analogies with the past are never properly accurate, and analogies especially with the rising fascism can be easily misleading but, in pure chronology, I sometimes wonder if we're not in the 1920s or 1930s again. "This ideology now has a state, Iran, that is prepared to back and finance terror in the pursuit of destabilising countries whose people wish to live in peace."
Saturday, October 20, 2007
Eminent Scientist Censored for Truth-telling
Fury that anybody would say publicly what every single scientific study of the subject has shown
Cautionary note: People have a tendency to see statements about groups as applying to all members of that group. That is rarely so and is certainly not true in this instance. There is no inconsistency in saying that blacks as a whole are less intelligent while also acknowledging that some individual blacks are very intelligent. What is true of most need not be true of all.
Scientists have spent decades looking for holes in the evidence Watson was referring to but all the proposed "holes" have been shown not to be so. There is NO argument against his conclusions that has not been meticulously examined by skeptics already. And all objections have been shown not to hold up. There is an introduction to the studies concerned here
Some commentators have mentioned that old Marxist propagandist, Stephen Jay Gould, as refuting what Watson said. Here is just one comment pointing out what a klutz Gould was. And for an exhaustive scientific refutation of Gould by an expert in the field, see here. Gould's distortions of the facts really are quite breathtaking.
Watson got such a lot of abuse over his comments that he has now denied that he made them. The newspaper that originally reported the comments stands by its story, however.
Brit fined for putting rubbish in rubbish bin
The outcome of the Greenie policy to stop weekly rubbish collections in Britain -- on reasoning that is purely Greenie
A Lincolnshire pensioner was fined 75 pounds for putting a bag of rubbish - in a bin. John Richards, 84, left a neatly parcelled carrier bag in a lamp-post bin rather than wait ten days for his fortnightly waste collection.
But council officials tracked him down and accused him of fly-tipping, reports The Sun. They said he faced a fine of up to 2,500 if he went to court so Mr Richards, of Boston, handed over nearly three-quarters of his weekly pension to pay the 75 pound penalty. He said: "It's just ludicrous. I've never thrown litter in my life. It's only a small house and it would be intolerable to keep rotting food waste indoors until the next collection."
A council spokesman said: "Public bins are there for everyone to use. If one is repeatedly filled by an individual it creates a problem."
Source
Britain's hopeless "NEETs"
No discipline means no education for the less able
More than 200,000 young people aged 16 to 18 have virtually no hope of getting a foot in the door to the world of work after leaving school with no qualifications, the Chief Inspector of Schools said yesterday. Christine Gilbert, head of Ofsted, said the fate of these young people, known as Neets (not in education, employment or training), highlighted the enormous challenge facing society in closing the gap in educational attainment between rich and poor.
Publishing her annual report yesterday, Ms Gilbert said the barren prospect facing these young people, who represent more than ten per cent of all 16 to 18-year-olds, was “alarming and unacceptable”. Her predictions for their immediate future were even more gloomy. It was hard, she said, “to find encouragement from inspection evidence” that things would get better for young people on the cusp of adult life.
In a bold attempt to widen the public debate about educational standards beyond the school gate, Ms Gilbert focused her attention on the “stark” relationship between poverty and educational achievement. “It cannot be right that people from the most disadvantaged groups are least likely to achieve well and to participate in higher levels of education and training,” she said.
Overall, Ofsted reported that just 51 per cent of secondary schools were judged to be good or outstanding, up from 49 per cent last year. Ten per cent of secondaries were classed as inadequate, down from 13 per cent. In primary schools, the proportion of good and outstanding schools rose from 58 to 61 per cent.
Ms Gilbert said that a large proportion of failing schools were in the most deprived areas and that poorer children still had the “odds stacked against them” in education. The road to recovery would be a long one with “no quick fixes”, she added. On the gap between rich and poor, the figures show that only 12 per cent of 16-year-olds in care and just 33 per cent of pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM, the proxy measure for poverty) gained five or more good GCSEs last year, compared with 61 per cent of nonFSM children and a national average of 56 per cent. Among primary pupils, 61 per cent of FSM children achieved the expected level in English, compared with 83 per cent of nonFSM pupils. For maths the figures were 58 and 79 per cent respectively.
Ms Gilbert said that failures in leadership and management and poor practice in the classroom were the primary causes of school failure. But she was critical, too, of the lack of aspiration often displayed by teachers when it came to vocational education. Students often seemed far more enthusiastic about such opportunities than their teachers, she said, blaming this divide on a misguided tendency among teachers to associate vocational teaching with the least able students. Ms Gilbert added that she hoped that Ofsted, having taken over the inspection of children’s services and adult education in the last year, would now have greater leverage across a wide range of services to effect change.
Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, hoped that Ms Gilbert’s comments on the “poverty gap” would act as a rallying cry to those working with young people. “No child should be held back because of poverty and disadvantage, or deterred from going to the best school because of where they live or their family background, their ethnicity or their disability,” he said.
But teachers’ leaders said it was “totally unrealistic” to think that schools could tackle socio-economic disadvantage on their own. Martin Johnson, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Schools cannot compensate for a child’s family background - financial or aspirational poverty – or a local culture of unemployment.” John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that it would not be easy in a society as divided and diverse as England for schools to overcome social inequality on their own. “It requires action from central and local government in areas much wider than education to make this task feasible,” he said.
The report also highlighted concerns over behaviour, which was “just satisfactory” in 29 per cent of secondary schools, and about the failure of schools to give children a clear understanding of “what it means to be British”.
Source
Britain: Veteran Leftist slates 'open door' immigration
The economic benefit of immigration is miniscule compared to the cost argues Frank Field as he lays into Labour's 'open door' policy
The Government's open door policy on immigration has led to an unprecedented level of new arrivals. Over the last three years alone, something like two million newcomers have moved to these shores. Two reports out yesterday showed that the economic benefits are small, compared with the extra costs imposed on social services. While there is no doubt that most recent migrants have come here to work, the beneficial effects on the economy are less certain. A report by the Home Office claims that migrants add 6 billion pounds a year to the nation's income.
But, as MigrationWatch point out, the benefit is miniscule when you consider that this amounts to half a percent of total production and that new arrivals add at least half a percent to the population. So the effect on GDP per head is tiny. Importantly, the Home Office report didn't focus on the effect migration is having on the Government's welfare to work programme. The drive to get British unemployed into work is clearly being hampered by migration. What else can account for the fact that while three million new jobs have been created since 1997, the number of British people on out of work benefits has only fallen from 5.65 to 5.4 million? Most of the new jobs have been taken by immigrant workers. Why should a business bother to recruit and train the young British unemployed when they can get cheap and already qualified labour from abroad?
The second report from the Migration Impacts Forum, established to look at the social costs of migration, re-stated what everybody from the Local Government Association to the Head of Cambridgeshire police have said time and again. Eight different regions took part in a consultation and of these, five reported increased difficulties on crime, six experienced growing pressures with health services and seven drew attention to growing housing problems resulting from immigration.
Everybody is now agreed, after years of mis-management, that the level and rate of immigration needs to be checked and brought in line, not only with the particular business needs, but also with the resources available to deliver high quality social services. The open door policy on immigration should be over. But the Government will be unable to make this work under current EU agreements because new members of the EU have full rights to travel and reside in this country, and apart from temporary restrictions imposed on Bulgaria and Romania, to work here too.
Given that living standards in the old Eastern block are around one third of our own, it is no surprise they want to come here in large numbers. They will continue to do so until their economies catch up. But this will take decades. The Government must therefore begin talks on renegotiating the free movement of labour in the EU.
Source
British 'nurse of the year' leaves for private sector
The "Nurse of the Year" 2007 has quit the NHS after becoming "ground down" by the bureaucrats and excessive paperwork that plague her profession. Justine Whitaker was awarded the Nursing Standard title this year but is leaving East Lancashire Primary Care Trust next month for the private sector and to become a lecturer.
The 36-year-old has told how nursing staff were made to use cheaper bandages and dressings while health bosses wasted money on long meetings that achieved nothing. She yesterday warned that a culture of "mistrust and fear" had crept into the NHS and things were bound to go "completely wrong" in Britain's hospitals if nothing is done. She said: "Sitting in meetings we are constantly being told 'We're going for this cheaper option with this bandage; we're going for that cheaper option with that dressing; we need to be mindful of resources'.
"I'm absolutely fine with that - I run my household like that - but what I see as a waste of resources is when I'm sitting in a big meeting and as a clinician I am the cheapest person there at 35,000 pounds a year and decisions are still being put off to another meeting."
The lymphoedema nurse, who has 14 years of clinical experience, added: "There is no sign the red-tape is being reduced. It all leads to more bureaucracy, which all leads to more form-filling and paperwork. "But as a nurse, I just want to nurse, I want to look after patients. "
Royal College of Nursing secretary Peter Carter said: "It saddens us that such a distinguished nurse is leaving the NHS." A spokesman for the Department of Health promised there would be a dialogue with staff and patients. [More meetings!!!] He said: "The health secretary has acknowledged that too much change can affect morale."
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
Fury that anybody would say publicly what every single scientific study of the subject has shown
"A Nobel prize-winning scientist who reportedly claimed Africans and Europeans had different levels of intelligence is no longer welcome to deliver a lecture at London's Science Museum, the museum said Wednesday.
James Watson, who won the Nobel Prize for co-discovering DNA, drew widespread outrage when he told The Sunday Times that Africans and Europeans did not share the same brain power.
The newspaper quoted the 79-year-old American geneticist as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really."
The comments drew condemnation from British lawmakers, scientists, and equality campaigners.
Watson, who serves as chancellor of the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York, was due to speak Friday at a sold-out event at the Science Museum, but on Wednesday night the institution said Watson's comments had gone too far and the lecture had been canceled
Source
Cautionary note: People have a tendency to see statements about groups as applying to all members of that group. That is rarely so and is certainly not true in this instance. There is no inconsistency in saying that blacks as a whole are less intelligent while also acknowledging that some individual blacks are very intelligent. What is true of most need not be true of all.
Scientists have spent decades looking for holes in the evidence Watson was referring to but all the proposed "holes" have been shown not to be so. There is NO argument against his conclusions that has not been meticulously examined by skeptics already. And all objections have been shown not to hold up. There is an introduction to the studies concerned here
Some commentators have mentioned that old Marxist propagandist, Stephen Jay Gould, as refuting what Watson said. Here is just one comment pointing out what a klutz Gould was. And for an exhaustive scientific refutation of Gould by an expert in the field, see here. Gould's distortions of the facts really are quite breathtaking.
Watson got such a lot of abuse over his comments that he has now denied that he made them. The newspaper that originally reported the comments stands by its story, however.
Brit fined for putting rubbish in rubbish bin
The outcome of the Greenie policy to stop weekly rubbish collections in Britain -- on reasoning that is purely Greenie
A Lincolnshire pensioner was fined 75 pounds for putting a bag of rubbish - in a bin. John Richards, 84, left a neatly parcelled carrier bag in a lamp-post bin rather than wait ten days for his fortnightly waste collection.
But council officials tracked him down and accused him of fly-tipping, reports The Sun. They said he faced a fine of up to 2,500 if he went to court so Mr Richards, of Boston, handed over nearly three-quarters of his weekly pension to pay the 75 pound penalty. He said: "It's just ludicrous. I've never thrown litter in my life. It's only a small house and it would be intolerable to keep rotting food waste indoors until the next collection."
A council spokesman said: "Public bins are there for everyone to use. If one is repeatedly filled by an individual it creates a problem."
Source
Britain's hopeless "NEETs"
No discipline means no education for the less able
More than 200,000 young people aged 16 to 18 have virtually no hope of getting a foot in the door to the world of work after leaving school with no qualifications, the Chief Inspector of Schools said yesterday. Christine Gilbert, head of Ofsted, said the fate of these young people, known as Neets (not in education, employment or training), highlighted the enormous challenge facing society in closing the gap in educational attainment between rich and poor.
Publishing her annual report yesterday, Ms Gilbert said the barren prospect facing these young people, who represent more than ten per cent of all 16 to 18-year-olds, was “alarming and unacceptable”. Her predictions for their immediate future were even more gloomy. It was hard, she said, “to find encouragement from inspection evidence” that things would get better for young people on the cusp of adult life.
In a bold attempt to widen the public debate about educational standards beyond the school gate, Ms Gilbert focused her attention on the “stark” relationship between poverty and educational achievement. “It cannot be right that people from the most disadvantaged groups are least likely to achieve well and to participate in higher levels of education and training,” she said.
Overall, Ofsted reported that just 51 per cent of secondary schools were judged to be good or outstanding, up from 49 per cent last year. Ten per cent of secondaries were classed as inadequate, down from 13 per cent. In primary schools, the proportion of good and outstanding schools rose from 58 to 61 per cent.
Ms Gilbert said that a large proportion of failing schools were in the most deprived areas and that poorer children still had the “odds stacked against them” in education. The road to recovery would be a long one with “no quick fixes”, she added. On the gap between rich and poor, the figures show that only 12 per cent of 16-year-olds in care and just 33 per cent of pupils entitled to free school meals (FSM, the proxy measure for poverty) gained five or more good GCSEs last year, compared with 61 per cent of nonFSM children and a national average of 56 per cent. Among primary pupils, 61 per cent of FSM children achieved the expected level in English, compared with 83 per cent of nonFSM pupils. For maths the figures were 58 and 79 per cent respectively.
Ms Gilbert said that failures in leadership and management and poor practice in the classroom were the primary causes of school failure. But she was critical, too, of the lack of aspiration often displayed by teachers when it came to vocational education. Students often seemed far more enthusiastic about such opportunities than their teachers, she said, blaming this divide on a misguided tendency among teachers to associate vocational teaching with the least able students. Ms Gilbert added that she hoped that Ofsted, having taken over the inspection of children’s services and adult education in the last year, would now have greater leverage across a wide range of services to effect change.
Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, hoped that Ms Gilbert’s comments on the “poverty gap” would act as a rallying cry to those working with young people. “No child should be held back because of poverty and disadvantage, or deterred from going to the best school because of where they live or their family background, their ethnicity or their disability,” he said.
But teachers’ leaders said it was “totally unrealistic” to think that schools could tackle socio-economic disadvantage on their own. Martin Johnson, of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: “Schools cannot compensate for a child’s family background - financial or aspirational poverty – or a local culture of unemployment.” John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said that it would not be easy in a society as divided and diverse as England for schools to overcome social inequality on their own. “It requires action from central and local government in areas much wider than education to make this task feasible,” he said.
The report also highlighted concerns over behaviour, which was “just satisfactory” in 29 per cent of secondary schools, and about the failure of schools to give children a clear understanding of “what it means to be British”.
Source
Britain: Veteran Leftist slates 'open door' immigration
The economic benefit of immigration is miniscule compared to the cost argues Frank Field as he lays into Labour's 'open door' policy
The Government's open door policy on immigration has led to an unprecedented level of new arrivals. Over the last three years alone, something like two million newcomers have moved to these shores. Two reports out yesterday showed that the economic benefits are small, compared with the extra costs imposed on social services. While there is no doubt that most recent migrants have come here to work, the beneficial effects on the economy are less certain. A report by the Home Office claims that migrants add 6 billion pounds a year to the nation's income.
But, as MigrationWatch point out, the benefit is miniscule when you consider that this amounts to half a percent of total production and that new arrivals add at least half a percent to the population. So the effect on GDP per head is tiny. Importantly, the Home Office report didn't focus on the effect migration is having on the Government's welfare to work programme. The drive to get British unemployed into work is clearly being hampered by migration. What else can account for the fact that while three million new jobs have been created since 1997, the number of British people on out of work benefits has only fallen from 5.65 to 5.4 million? Most of the new jobs have been taken by immigrant workers. Why should a business bother to recruit and train the young British unemployed when they can get cheap and already qualified labour from abroad?
The second report from the Migration Impacts Forum, established to look at the social costs of migration, re-stated what everybody from the Local Government Association to the Head of Cambridgeshire police have said time and again. Eight different regions took part in a consultation and of these, five reported increased difficulties on crime, six experienced growing pressures with health services and seven drew attention to growing housing problems resulting from immigration.
Everybody is now agreed, after years of mis-management, that the level and rate of immigration needs to be checked and brought in line, not only with the particular business needs, but also with the resources available to deliver high quality social services. The open door policy on immigration should be over. But the Government will be unable to make this work under current EU agreements because new members of the EU have full rights to travel and reside in this country, and apart from temporary restrictions imposed on Bulgaria and Romania, to work here too.
Given that living standards in the old Eastern block are around one third of our own, it is no surprise they want to come here in large numbers. They will continue to do so until their economies catch up. But this will take decades. The Government must therefore begin talks on renegotiating the free movement of labour in the EU.
Source
British 'nurse of the year' leaves for private sector
The "Nurse of the Year" 2007 has quit the NHS after becoming "ground down" by the bureaucrats and excessive paperwork that plague her profession. Justine Whitaker was awarded the Nursing Standard title this year but is leaving East Lancashire Primary Care Trust next month for the private sector and to become a lecturer.
The 36-year-old has told how nursing staff were made to use cheaper bandages and dressings while health bosses wasted money on long meetings that achieved nothing. She yesterday warned that a culture of "mistrust and fear" had crept into the NHS and things were bound to go "completely wrong" in Britain's hospitals if nothing is done. She said: "Sitting in meetings we are constantly being told 'We're going for this cheaper option with this bandage; we're going for that cheaper option with that dressing; we need to be mindful of resources'.
"I'm absolutely fine with that - I run my household like that - but what I see as a waste of resources is when I'm sitting in a big meeting and as a clinician I am the cheapest person there at 35,000 pounds a year and decisions are still being put off to another meeting."
The lymphoedema nurse, who has 14 years of clinical experience, added: "There is no sign the red-tape is being reduced. It all leads to more bureaucracy, which all leads to more form-filling and paperwork. "But as a nurse, I just want to nurse, I want to look after patients. "
Royal College of Nursing secretary Peter Carter said: "It saddens us that such a distinguished nurse is leaving the NHS." A spokesman for the Department of Health promised there would be a dialogue with staff and patients. [More meetings!!!] He said: "The health secretary has acknowledged that too much change can affect morale."
Source
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
Friday, October 19, 2007
Migrant workers earn more than British
As a group, the Brits are a conspicuously lazy lot by U.S. or Australian standards so it would not be hard to work harder than them and earn more money. What the report below ignores, of course, is WHICH group earns the big money. At a guess I would put Australians, Americans and Germans at the top and Arabs and Africans way down
Immigrant workers are both higher paid and more reliable than their British counterparts and contributed £6 billion to economic growth last year, a Government study said yesterday.
However, a separate paper issued together with the study by the Home Office admitted there were complaints about the impact of immigration on housing and other public services. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said the research showed that ''in the long run, our country and Exchequer are better off with immigration rather than without it".
The report found that in 2006, record immigration pushed the number of foreign workers up to 12.5 per cent – or one eighth – of the labour force, compared to 7.4 per cent a decade ago. Since average output growth over this period was 2.7 per cent a year and migration contributed an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of this, the study estimated a contribution of 6 billion pounds from foreign workers – or 700,000 a day.
However, the figure does not take account of the costs of a growing population, for instance the impact on public services such as health, education and transport. But the overwhelmingly positive findings were last night challenged by academics.
Robert Rowthorn, an emeritus professor of economics at Cambridge University, warned that as well as putting pressure on services, large-scale migration would "undermine the labour market position of the most vulnerable sections of the local workforce". The study, the first official attempt to establish the economic and fiscal impact of the record levels of immigration seen in recent years, states that ''in the long run, it is likely that the net fiscal contribution of an immigrant will be greater than that of a non-immigrant". It also claims there is no evidence of foreign workers pushing British people out of jobs, although it presents no firm evidence for this.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: ''Labour are being disingenuous again. "They are equating the effect of migration on aggregate GDP with its effect on GDP per head. They are also ignoring the fact that relying on immigration to boost the economy is a short-term answer. "What will they do for the million economically inactive under-25s in the country?" [Cut off their government dole?]
Source
Stop feeding the dysfunctional NHS
Whatever you made of the Chancellor's various sleights of hand on Tuesday, lurking beneath his Budget plans was one inescapable fact. The hungry maw of the NHS is swallowing more and more resources, at the expense of virtually everything else. The defence budget is at its lowest since 1930, despite our dwindling troops being dotted across three continents. Prison overcrowding is at such record levels that Jack Straw will have to release even more inmates early in a few weeks' time. But the health service marches relentlessly on, having hoovered up two thirds of the increase in public spending in the past five years.
Even "enterprise" - once one of Mr Brown's favourite words - has been tapped. This week's new taxes on small business seemed unwise, given the fragility of the economy. They were also wholly avoidable, had the NHS been awarded the 3 to 3.5 per cent spending settlement that was expected. But a 4 per cent annual rise for the NHS, raising its budget from o90 billion to almost o110 billion by 2010, seemed to have become a political imperative.
Why? Well, 4 per cent is a nice round number. It is also more than half the 7 per cent annual increases that the service has got used to. But it is also simply very hard to row back once you've built an expanded State. This applies to all public services - which is why I wonder whether Messrs Darling and Brown will actually meet their lower spending targets - but it is particularly acute in health.
The NHS is Britain's last big state monopoly. It is the largest employer in the developed world. Its 1.4 million staff outnumber the private and public healthcare workforce of Germany, a country with 25 per cent more people and better health outcomes. Its powerful unions view any slowdown in spending growth as a "cut". And cut is a deadly word in political terms. The Government had its chance, when it was flush with cash, to demand reform as a quid pro quo for more money. But it did not go far enough.
In the 1990s it was possible to argue that the NHS was starved of cash. But not any more. Britain is now spending at about the European average, but lags behind too many other European countries in terms of results. Far too many cancer patients, babies and stroke victims are still dying needlessly. Far too many patients, particularly the elderly, are treated with a callousness bordering on brutality. Almost everyone I know who has had a baby recently has been told by the nurses to bring their own Jif, and not to set foot in an NHS shower without scrubbing it. World-class that isn't.
Sir Derek Wanless, Gordon Brown's former health guru, reported last month that almost half of the extra o45 billion that has been spent in the past five years has gone on pay and price inflation. The NHS generates its own inflation as though it were a country in its own right. But the slowdown in government spending is not, sadly, due to a realisation that there are diminishing returns to spending in a monolithic health service. It is merely the Government running low on cash.
The real issues are repeatedly obscured by homilies about the NHS being the envy of the world. The latest to fall into this trap is Lord Darzi of Denham, the eminent surgeon who is supposed to be reviewing the structure of the NHS. Thank heavens he is still practising on Thursdays and Fridays. For his interim report last week was little more than an advert for the Government's two populist priorities: extending GP opening hours and tackling MRSA. Until then, the greatest worry about the Darzi review had been that it might delay progress towards much needed reforms. No one had dreamt that he would be coopted into a propaganda exercise. We do not need a top surgeon to tell us to wash our hands. Nor to invent another centralised "Innovation Council" to champion change, a snip at o100 million. The NHS badly needs more innovation. But you cannot impose it. You can only nurture it, by liberating doctors and by introducing competition.
If this simple fact is not obvious to ministers by now, then all is lost. For the limited moves that the last Blair administration made to introduce competition have paid off handsomely. Letting independent providers carry out some procedures has slashed waiting lists for hip replacements, cataracts and heart operations, and has raised the standard for what can be achieved. Payment by results and the NHS tariff have helped to make costs more transparent and to give a wake-up call to poor performers. Giving the best hospitals more freedom as foundation trusts, under a savvy regulator, has injected a new sense of financial rigour.
Yet ministers have always been embarrassed to claim credit for these achievements, which are loathed by the unions. They are in the strange position of presiding over some brave reforms while having to bloviate about minor issues: free health checks (didn't we used to get those at the doctor?) and expanded GP opening hours (which was the norm, until ministers decided to pay them more to do less).
Ministers are too easily persuaded that the battle is between public and private provision. They are ashamed to endorse the private. But the real battle is between those who want to protect their monopolies - including many private hospitals - and those who want competition. Many NHS insiders who believe most fervently in the service are those who are fighting for competition. But they are still an endangered species. It is of no help to them when ministers send ambivalent signals.
No one is quite sure yet how committed the new Prime Minister is to market-based reforms. The opposition parties will not ask him. Labour's largesse has boxed them into a corner. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals dare to make the case for proper reform. That is the real price of having built a bloated State. No one dares speak the truth, because there are so many vested interests to offend. But the writing is on the wall: a tax-funded free healthcare system is looking ever less sustainable. Politicians always fear the "popularity" of our health service. But that popularity will wane if the NHS comes to be seen as the enemy of every other public service.
Source
BRITAIN WANTS MORE OF THOSE NAUGHTY FOSSIL FUELS
The United Kingdom is planning to claim sovereign rights over a vast area of the remote seabed off Antarctica, the Guardian has learned. The submission to the United Nations covers more than 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed, and is likely to signal a quickening of the race for territory around the south pole in the world's least explored continent.
The claim would be in defiance of the spirit of the 1959 Antarctic treaty, to which the UK is a signatory. It specifically states that no new claims shall be asserted on the continent. The treaty was drawn up to prevent territorial disputes.
The Foreign Office, however, has told the Guardian that data is being gathered and processed for a submission to the UN which could extend British oil, gas and mineral exploitation rights up to 350 miles offshore into the Southern Ocean.
Much of the seabed there is at such a depth that extraction of gas, oil or minerals is not yet technically feasible, but the claim may still anger neighbouring South American countries who believe they have more entitlement to the potentially valuable territory. The Antarctic submission reflects the UK's efforts to secure resources for the future as oil and natural gas reserves dwindle over the coming decades.
FULL STORY here
Britain. Revolt against atheist bishops: "The Church of England is facing a rift similar to that in the US Church after hundreds of leading evangelical clergy were told to invite bishops from outside their dioceses to carry out ordinations. Members of the 1,700-strong Reform group were told at their conference that they must not be afraid to ignore the wishes of their diocesan bishop if he refused to ordain conservative evangelical clergy. The advice mirrors the situation in the US, where conservatives have even had their own bishops ordained by evangelical Archbishops from Global South provinces such as Uganda. The Rev Rod Thomas, the group's new chairman, urged his members to resist the Church of England's "increasingly liberal agenda".
Attack on British drinkers: "According to the report, men who drink between 22 and 50 units of alcohol per week, and women who drink between 15 and 35 are most likely to reside in middle-class suburbs such as Harrogate and Runnymede. The news has been followed by the predictable clamouring of society's new high priests – the interventionist scientists – calling for the government to raise alcohol taxes in order to discourage consumption. Fears that the health service will come under unmanageable pressure as a result have been used as arguments for new government intervention to stop this social 'crisis'. It would be refreshing if these scientific puritans would finally realise that the NHS does not exist for their own intellectual titillation, but to serve its customers – the British people. We are not there to make its life easier, but vice versa. To constantly try and mould individuals into a convenient model for a failing health system is both misguided and draconian public policy."
As a group, the Brits are a conspicuously lazy lot by U.S. or Australian standards so it would not be hard to work harder than them and earn more money. What the report below ignores, of course, is WHICH group earns the big money. At a guess I would put Australians, Americans and Germans at the top and Arabs and Africans way down
Immigrant workers are both higher paid and more reliable than their British counterparts and contributed £6 billion to economic growth last year, a Government study said yesterday.
However, a separate paper issued together with the study by the Home Office admitted there were complaints about the impact of immigration on housing and other public services. Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, said the research showed that ''in the long run, our country and Exchequer are better off with immigration rather than without it".
The report found that in 2006, record immigration pushed the number of foreign workers up to 12.5 per cent – or one eighth – of the labour force, compared to 7.4 per cent a decade ago. Since average output growth over this period was 2.7 per cent a year and migration contributed an estimated 15 to 20 per cent of this, the study estimated a contribution of 6 billion pounds from foreign workers – or 700,000 a day.
However, the figure does not take account of the costs of a growing population, for instance the impact on public services such as health, education and transport. But the overwhelmingly positive findings were last night challenged by academics.
Robert Rowthorn, an emeritus professor of economics at Cambridge University, warned that as well as putting pressure on services, large-scale migration would "undermine the labour market position of the most vulnerable sections of the local workforce". The study, the first official attempt to establish the economic and fiscal impact of the record levels of immigration seen in recent years, states that ''in the long run, it is likely that the net fiscal contribution of an immigrant will be greater than that of a non-immigrant". It also claims there is no evidence of foreign workers pushing British people out of jobs, although it presents no firm evidence for this.
David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said: ''Labour are being disingenuous again. "They are equating the effect of migration on aggregate GDP with its effect on GDP per head. They are also ignoring the fact that relying on immigration to boost the economy is a short-term answer. "What will they do for the million economically inactive under-25s in the country?" [Cut off their government dole?]
Source
Stop feeding the dysfunctional NHS
Whatever you made of the Chancellor's various sleights of hand on Tuesday, lurking beneath his Budget plans was one inescapable fact. The hungry maw of the NHS is swallowing more and more resources, at the expense of virtually everything else. The defence budget is at its lowest since 1930, despite our dwindling troops being dotted across three continents. Prison overcrowding is at such record levels that Jack Straw will have to release even more inmates early in a few weeks' time. But the health service marches relentlessly on, having hoovered up two thirds of the increase in public spending in the past five years.
Even "enterprise" - once one of Mr Brown's favourite words - has been tapped. This week's new taxes on small business seemed unwise, given the fragility of the economy. They were also wholly avoidable, had the NHS been awarded the 3 to 3.5 per cent spending settlement that was expected. But a 4 per cent annual rise for the NHS, raising its budget from o90 billion to almost o110 billion by 2010, seemed to have become a political imperative.
Why? Well, 4 per cent is a nice round number. It is also more than half the 7 per cent annual increases that the service has got used to. But it is also simply very hard to row back once you've built an expanded State. This applies to all public services - which is why I wonder whether Messrs Darling and Brown will actually meet their lower spending targets - but it is particularly acute in health.
The NHS is Britain's last big state monopoly. It is the largest employer in the developed world. Its 1.4 million staff outnumber the private and public healthcare workforce of Germany, a country with 25 per cent more people and better health outcomes. Its powerful unions view any slowdown in spending growth as a "cut". And cut is a deadly word in political terms. The Government had its chance, when it was flush with cash, to demand reform as a quid pro quo for more money. But it did not go far enough.
In the 1990s it was possible to argue that the NHS was starved of cash. But not any more. Britain is now spending at about the European average, but lags behind too many other European countries in terms of results. Far too many cancer patients, babies and stroke victims are still dying needlessly. Far too many patients, particularly the elderly, are treated with a callousness bordering on brutality. Almost everyone I know who has had a baby recently has been told by the nurses to bring their own Jif, and not to set foot in an NHS shower without scrubbing it. World-class that isn't.
Sir Derek Wanless, Gordon Brown's former health guru, reported last month that almost half of the extra o45 billion that has been spent in the past five years has gone on pay and price inflation. The NHS generates its own inflation as though it were a country in its own right. But the slowdown in government spending is not, sadly, due to a realisation that there are diminishing returns to spending in a monolithic health service. It is merely the Government running low on cash.
The real issues are repeatedly obscured by homilies about the NHS being the envy of the world. The latest to fall into this trap is Lord Darzi of Denham, the eminent surgeon who is supposed to be reviewing the structure of the NHS. Thank heavens he is still practising on Thursdays and Fridays. For his interim report last week was little more than an advert for the Government's two populist priorities: extending GP opening hours and tackling MRSA. Until then, the greatest worry about the Darzi review had been that it might delay progress towards much needed reforms. No one had dreamt that he would be coopted into a propaganda exercise. We do not need a top surgeon to tell us to wash our hands. Nor to invent another centralised "Innovation Council" to champion change, a snip at o100 million. The NHS badly needs more innovation. But you cannot impose it. You can only nurture it, by liberating doctors and by introducing competition.
If this simple fact is not obvious to ministers by now, then all is lost. For the limited moves that the last Blair administration made to introduce competition have paid off handsomely. Letting independent providers carry out some procedures has slashed waiting lists for hip replacements, cataracts and heart operations, and has raised the standard for what can be achieved. Payment by results and the NHS tariff have helped to make costs more transparent and to give a wake-up call to poor performers. Giving the best hospitals more freedom as foundation trusts, under a savvy regulator, has injected a new sense of financial rigour.
Yet ministers have always been embarrassed to claim credit for these achievements, which are loathed by the unions. They are in the strange position of presiding over some brave reforms while having to bloviate about minor issues: free health checks (didn't we used to get those at the doctor?) and expanded GP opening hours (which was the norm, until ministers decided to pay them more to do less).
Ministers are too easily persuaded that the battle is between public and private provision. They are ashamed to endorse the private. But the real battle is between those who want to protect their monopolies - including many private hospitals - and those who want competition. Many NHS insiders who believe most fervently in the service are those who are fighting for competition. But they are still an endangered species. It is of no help to them when ministers send ambivalent signals.
No one is quite sure yet how committed the new Prime Minister is to market-based reforms. The opposition parties will not ask him. Labour's largesse has boxed them into a corner. Neither Conservatives nor Liberals dare to make the case for proper reform. That is the real price of having built a bloated State. No one dares speak the truth, because there are so many vested interests to offend. But the writing is on the wall: a tax-funded free healthcare system is looking ever less sustainable. Politicians always fear the "popularity" of our health service. But that popularity will wane if the NHS comes to be seen as the enemy of every other public service.
Source
BRITAIN WANTS MORE OF THOSE NAUGHTY FOSSIL FUELS
The United Kingdom is planning to claim sovereign rights over a vast area of the remote seabed off Antarctica, the Guardian has learned. The submission to the United Nations covers more than 1m sq km (386,000 sq miles) of seabed, and is likely to signal a quickening of the race for territory around the south pole in the world's least explored continent.
The claim would be in defiance of the spirit of the 1959 Antarctic treaty, to which the UK is a signatory. It specifically states that no new claims shall be asserted on the continent. The treaty was drawn up to prevent territorial disputes.
The Foreign Office, however, has told the Guardian that data is being gathered and processed for a submission to the UN which could extend British oil, gas and mineral exploitation rights up to 350 miles offshore into the Southern Ocean.
Much of the seabed there is at such a depth that extraction of gas, oil or minerals is not yet technically feasible, but the claim may still anger neighbouring South American countries who believe they have more entitlement to the potentially valuable territory. The Antarctic submission reflects the UK's efforts to secure resources for the future as oil and natural gas reserves dwindle over the coming decades.
FULL STORY here
Britain. Revolt against atheist bishops: "The Church of England is facing a rift similar to that in the US Church after hundreds of leading evangelical clergy were told to invite bishops from outside their dioceses to carry out ordinations. Members of the 1,700-strong Reform group were told at their conference that they must not be afraid to ignore the wishes of their diocesan bishop if he refused to ordain conservative evangelical clergy. The advice mirrors the situation in the US, where conservatives have even had their own bishops ordained by evangelical Archbishops from Global South provinces such as Uganda. The Rev Rod Thomas, the group's new chairman, urged his members to resist the Church of England's "increasingly liberal agenda".
Attack on British drinkers: "According to the report, men who drink between 22 and 50 units of alcohol per week, and women who drink between 15 and 35 are most likely to reside in middle-class suburbs such as Harrogate and Runnymede. The news has been followed by the predictable clamouring of society's new high priests – the interventionist scientists – calling for the government to raise alcohol taxes in order to discourage consumption. Fears that the health service will come under unmanageable pressure as a result have been used as arguments for new government intervention to stop this social 'crisis'. It would be refreshing if these scientific puritans would finally realise that the NHS does not exist for their own intellectual titillation, but to serve its customers – the British people. We are not there to make its life easier, but vice versa. To constantly try and mould individuals into a convenient model for a failing health system is both misguided and draconian public policy."
Thursday, October 18, 2007
BBC bombs again
Yesterday, I put up an article by Roger Harrabin, BBC "Environment Analyst", in which he claimed that Al Gore was "an environmental science graduate". I raised my eyebrows when I saw that but did not have time to follow it up. The Devil's Kitchen has however done so and it appears that the claim is totally false. Gore graduated in Government, in fact.
I have found the following summary of Gore's science education:
Mr. Gore's high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 "terrible," St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 "He didn't do too well in chemistry," Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along.
As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al "earned" a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named "Man's Place in Nature." That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118.
Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer
Fury that anybody would say publicly what every single scientific study of the subject has shown
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks "in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of "scientific racism"....
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
More here
NHS official condemns NHS
Condemns government meddling
The departing chairman of a hospital trust at the centre of an infection scandal has called for a “root and branch” review of all aspects of nursing across the NHS, in an astonishing letter of resignation. James Lee, the chairman of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, yesterday became the latest victim of the scandal following the damning report released last week which found that Clostridium difficile infections had caused the deaths of 90 patients at the trust over a two-year period. Mr Lee offered his resignation by letter to the Health Secretary, which Alan Johnson, in a statement to the House of Commons, later announced had been accepted.
But in a separate letter detailing his reasons for stepping down, the senior manager openly condemned a culture of “command-and-control” in the NHS. The comments made by Mr Lee come after the Healthcare Commission found a “litany” of errors in infection control at all levels in the trust’s three hospitals. He said that the pressure of government targets, the desperate financial position of the trust and failings in nursing care contributed to the spate of infections at Maidstone, Kent & Sussex, and Pembury hospitals.
The target to reduce waiting times was “never really achievable at the trust” while it was “struggling with a state that is pretty close to bankruptcy”, he stated. He added: “I would strongly recommend that the NHS needs to have a root and branch review of all aspects of nursing. I am convinced that something has gone badly wrong.”
His letter started: “Dear Secretary of State, by now you will have received my letter of October 14th, offering you my resignation. “The events described in a report by the Healthcare Commission were nothing short of a tragedy . . . I am writing to you now to help you to understand some aspects of the background to this story. “I am very conscious of the fact that this may seem like an excuse. It is not. There is no excuse for what happened. 90 people died. I simply want to place recent events in their proper context and for us all to learn the lessons.”
Mr Lee went on to explain that the trust’s board had to “devote an inordinate amount of time” to targets and finances, at the expense of managing infections. He concluded: “In my opinion, it was never practical to apply the same uniform target to all trusts, regardless of their starting position, their capability, or the ability of local commissioners to fund the necessary growth in capacity. I strongly urge you to consider making these targets more flexible.” He also recommended that the Department of Health reviews the financial position of health authorities in West Kent.
“We knew that the Treasury was pumping money into the NHS, but quite frankly none of this seemed to be getting to the coal-face,” he added. “I am personally convinced that the formula, which is used to allocate funds to local health economies, is very badly flawed. “I describe these pressures, not to justify or excuse the awful tragedy, which befell our patients, but to help you and the public understand the back story to these terrible events.”
Kent County Council has offered the trust a 5 million pound loan to help to restore public confidence in the hospitals where 1,176 patients were infected with C. difficile during two outbreaks of the infection between April 2004 and September 2006. Of those, at least 345 patients later died.
Mr Johnson described the Healthcare Commission report into the outbreaks at the trust as “a truly shocking document” and apologised to affected patients and relatives on behalf of the Government and the NHS. Rose Gibb, the chief executive of the trust, resigned just days before the publication of the damning report. Mr Johson insisted that “the awful failures” were unrepresentative of the standards of care expected and delivered in hospitals across the country.
But in response, Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that the outbreaks in Kent were not an isolated occurrence. “We have had other cases and the common link between them is that managers in the NHS have been more focused on the Government’s targets and the Government’s imperatives, than they have on patient safety,” he said. “Alan Johnson must accept the reality that the target culture is compromising patient safety.” Glenn Douglas, the new acting chief executive for the trust, has promised “zero tolerance” of C. difficile.
Source
Yesterday, I put up an article by Roger Harrabin, BBC "Environment Analyst", in which he claimed that Al Gore was "an environmental science graduate". I raised my eyebrows when I saw that but did not have time to follow it up. The Devil's Kitchen has however done so and it appears that the claim is totally false. Gore graduated in Government, in fact.
I have found the following summary of Gore's science education:
Mr. Gore's high school performance on the college board achievement tests in physics (488 out of 800 "terrible," St. Albans retired teacher and assistant headmaster John Davis told The Post) and chemistry (519 out of 800 "He didn't do too well in chemistry," Mr. Davis observed) suggests that Mr. Gore would have trouble with science for the rest of his life. At Harvard and Vanderbilt, Mr. Gore continued bumbling along.
As a Harvard sophomore, scholar Al "earned" a D in Natural Sciences 6 in a course presciently named "Man's Place in Nature." That was the year he evidently spent more time smoking cannabis than studying its place among other plants within the ecosystem. His senior year, Mr. Gore received a C+ in Natural Sciences 118.
Africans are less intelligent than Westerners, says DNA pioneer
Fury that anybody would say publicly what every single scientific study of the subject has shown
One of the world's most eminent scientists was embroiled in an extraordinary row last night after he claimed that black people were less intelligent than white people and the idea that "equal powers of reason" were shared across racial groups was a delusion. James Watson, a Nobel Prize winner for his part in the unravelling of DNA who now runs one of America's leading scientific research institutions, drew widespread condemnation for comments he made ahead of his arrival in Britain today for a speaking tour at venues including the Science Museum in London.
The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.
The newly formed Equality and Human Rights Commission, successor to the Commission for Racial Equality, said it was studying Dr Watson's remarks "in full". Dr Watson told The Sunday Times that he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really". He said there was a natural desire that all human beings should be equal but "people who have to deal with black employees find this not true".
His views are also reflected in a book published next week, in which he writes: "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so."
The furore echoes the controversy created in the 1990s by The Bell Curve, a book co-authored by the American political scientist Charles Murray, which suggested differences in IQ were genetic and discussed the implications of a racial divide in intelligence. The work was heavily criticised across the world, in particular by leading scientists who described it as a work of "scientific racism"....
Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."
More here
NHS official condemns NHS
Condemns government meddling
The departing chairman of a hospital trust at the centre of an infection scandal has called for a “root and branch” review of all aspects of nursing across the NHS, in an astonishing letter of resignation. James Lee, the chairman of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, yesterday became the latest victim of the scandal following the damning report released last week which found that Clostridium difficile infections had caused the deaths of 90 patients at the trust over a two-year period. Mr Lee offered his resignation by letter to the Health Secretary, which Alan Johnson, in a statement to the House of Commons, later announced had been accepted.
But in a separate letter detailing his reasons for stepping down, the senior manager openly condemned a culture of “command-and-control” in the NHS. The comments made by Mr Lee come after the Healthcare Commission found a “litany” of errors in infection control at all levels in the trust’s three hospitals. He said that the pressure of government targets, the desperate financial position of the trust and failings in nursing care contributed to the spate of infections at Maidstone, Kent & Sussex, and Pembury hospitals.
The target to reduce waiting times was “never really achievable at the trust” while it was “struggling with a state that is pretty close to bankruptcy”, he stated. He added: “I would strongly recommend that the NHS needs to have a root and branch review of all aspects of nursing. I am convinced that something has gone badly wrong.”
His letter started: “Dear Secretary of State, by now you will have received my letter of October 14th, offering you my resignation. “The events described in a report by the Healthcare Commission were nothing short of a tragedy . . . I am writing to you now to help you to understand some aspects of the background to this story. “I am very conscious of the fact that this may seem like an excuse. It is not. There is no excuse for what happened. 90 people died. I simply want to place recent events in their proper context and for us all to learn the lessons.”
Mr Lee went on to explain that the trust’s board had to “devote an inordinate amount of time” to targets and finances, at the expense of managing infections. He concluded: “In my opinion, it was never practical to apply the same uniform target to all trusts, regardless of their starting position, their capability, or the ability of local commissioners to fund the necessary growth in capacity. I strongly urge you to consider making these targets more flexible.” He also recommended that the Department of Health reviews the financial position of health authorities in West Kent.
“We knew that the Treasury was pumping money into the NHS, but quite frankly none of this seemed to be getting to the coal-face,” he added. “I am personally convinced that the formula, which is used to allocate funds to local health economies, is very badly flawed. “I describe these pressures, not to justify or excuse the awful tragedy, which befell our patients, but to help you and the public understand the back story to these terrible events.”
Kent County Council has offered the trust a 5 million pound loan to help to restore public confidence in the hospitals where 1,176 patients were infected with C. difficile during two outbreaks of the infection between April 2004 and September 2006. Of those, at least 345 patients later died.
Mr Johnson described the Healthcare Commission report into the outbreaks at the trust as “a truly shocking document” and apologised to affected patients and relatives on behalf of the Government and the NHS. Rose Gibb, the chief executive of the trust, resigned just days before the publication of the damning report. Mr Johson insisted that “the awful failures” were unrepresentative of the standards of care expected and delivered in hospitals across the country.
But in response, Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that the outbreaks in Kent were not an isolated occurrence. “We have had other cases and the common link between them is that managers in the NHS have been more focused on the Government’s targets and the Government’s imperatives, than they have on patient safety,” he said. “Alan Johnson must accept the reality that the target culture is compromising patient safety.” Glenn Douglas, the new acting chief executive for the trust, has promised “zero tolerance” of C. difficile.
Source
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
ISLAMIC ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE MIDDLE EAST -- AND ITS NAZI CONNECTIONS
By Matthias Kuentzel
This is the lecture that the University of Leeds tried to suppress. On March 14, 2007, Kuentzel was due to address the University of Leeds in England on the topic ‘Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East.’ However, several hours before the talk was due to take place, the talk was unexpectedly cancelled due to "security concerns," following protest e-mails from some of the university's Muslim students. Excerpts only below. Full text here. Background on Kuentzel here
Despite common misconceptions, Islamism was born not during the 1960s but during the 1930s. Its rise was inspired not by the failure of Nasserism but by the rise of Fascism and of Nazism. It was the Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in Egypt, that established Islamism as a mass movement. The significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas or the group around Sidique Khan.
It is true that British colonial policy produced Islamism, insofar as Islamism viewed itself as a resistance movement against "cultural modernity." Their "liberation struggle", however, had more in common with the "liberation struggle" of the Nazis than with any kind of progressive movement. Thus, the Brotherhood advocated the replacement of Parliamentarianism by an "organic" state order based on the Caliphate. It demanded the abolition of interest and profit in favour of a forcibly imposed community of interests between capital and labour.
At the forefront of the Brotherhood's efforts lay the struggle against all the sensual and "materialistic" temptations of the capitalist and communist world. At the tender age of 13, the pubescent al-Banna had founded a "Society for the Prevention of the Forbidden", and this is in essence what the Brothers were and are - a community of male zealots, whose primary concern is to prevent all the sensual and sexual sins forbidden according to their interpretation of the Koran. Their signature was most clearly apparent when they periodically reduced their local night clubs, brothels and cinemas - constantly identified with Jewish influence - to ashes.
Gripped by this phobia, the Society of Muslim Brothers, from the day of its foundation, provided a haven for any man dedicated to the restoration of male supremacy. At the very time when the liberation of women from the inferiority decreed by Islam was gradually getting under way, the Muslim Brotherhood set itself up as the rallying point for the restoration of patriarchal domination.
It was on the one hand a conservative religious movement: For al-Banna, only a return to orthodox Islam could pave the way for an end to the intolerable conditions and humiliations of Muslims, and newly establish the righteous Islamic order. It was at the same time a revolutionary political movement and as such in many respects a trailblazer. The Brotherhood was the first Islamic organization to put down roots in the cities and to organize a mass movement able in 1948 to muster one million people in Egypt alone. It was a populist and activist, not an elitist movement and it was the first movement that systematically set about building a kind of "Islamist international."
The Islamists' answer to everything was the call for a new order based on Sharia. But the Brotherhood's jihad was not directed primarily against the British. Rather, it focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews. Membership in the Brotherhood shot up from 800 to 200,000 between 1936 and 1938. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted only one major campaign in Egypt, a campaign directed against Zionism and the Jews.
The starting shot for this campaign, which established the Brotherhood as an Anti-Semitic mass movement, was fired by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration and initiated by the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. The Brotherhood organized mass demonstrations in Egyptian cities under the slogans "Down With the Jews!" and "Jews Get Out of Egypt and Palestine!" Their Jew-hatred drew on the one hand on Islamic sources. First, Islamists considered, and still consider, Palestine an Islamic territory, Dar al-Islam, where Jews must not run a single village, let alone a state. Second, Islamists justify their aspiration to eliminate the Jews of Palestine by invoking the example of Muhammad, who in the 7th century not only expelled two Jewish tribes from Medina, but also beheaded the entire male population of a third Jewish tribe, before proceeding to sell all the women and children into slavery. Third, they find support and encouragement for their actions and plans in the Koranic dictum that Jews are to be considered the worst enemy of the believers.
Their Jew-hatred was also inspired by Nazi influences: Leaflets called for a boycott of Jewish goods and Jewish shops, and the Brotherhood's newspaper, al-Nadhir, carried a regular column on "The Danger of the Jews of Egypt," which published the names and addresses of Jewish businessmen and allegedly Jewish newspaper publishers all over the world, attributing every evil, from communism to brothels, to the "Jewish danger."
The Brotherhood's campaign used not only Nazi-like patterns of action and slogans but also German funding. As the historian Brynjar Lia recounts in his monograph on the Brotherhood, "Documents seized in the flat of Wilhelm Stellbogen, the Director of the German News Agency affiliated to the German Legation in Cairo, show that prior to October 1939 the Muslim Brothers received subsidies from this organization. Stellbogen was instrumental in transferring these funds to the Brothers, which were considerably larger than the subsidies offered to other anti-British activists. These transfers appear to have been co-ordinated by Hajj Amin al-Husseini and some of his Palestinian contacts in Cairo.
To summarize our first trip into history: We saw that the rise of Nazism and Islamism took place in the same period. This was no accident, for both movements represented attempts to answer the world economic crisis of 1929 and the crisis of liberal capitalism. However different their answers may have been, they shared a crucial central feature: in both cases the sense of belonging to a homogeneous community was created through mobilizing against the Jews.
Initially, however, European Anti-Semitism had proved to be an ineffective tool in the Arab world. Why? Because the European fantasy of the Jewish world conspiracy was foreign to the original Islamic view of the Jews. Only in the legend of Jesus Christ did the Jews appear as a deadly and powerful force who allegedly went so far as to kill God's only son. Islam was quite a different story. Here it was not the Jews who murdered the Prophet, but the Prophet who in Medina murdered the Jews. As a result, the characteristic features of Christian Anti-Semitism did not develop in the Muslim world. There were no fears of Jewish conspiracy and domination, no charges of diabolic evil. Instead, the Jews were treated with contempt or condescending tolerance. This cultural inheritance made the idea that the Jews of all people could represent a permanent danger for the Muslims and might control the media and politics in league with Freemasons seem absurd. This brings us to our second point: The transfer of European Anti-Semitism to the Muslim world between 1937 and 1945 under the impact of Nazi Propaganda.
Islamism and National Socialism.
Amin al-Husseini, the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, who was closely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, was already seeking an alliance with Nazi Germany as early as spring 1933. At first, however, Berlin was dismissive. On the one hand, Hitler had already stated his belief in the "racial inferiority" of the Arabs in Mein Kampf while, on the other, the Nazis were extremely anxious not to jeopardise British appeasement. In June 1937, however, the Nazis changed course. The trigger was the Peel Plans two-state solution. Berlin wanted at all costs to prevent the birth of a Jewish state and thus welcomed the Muftis advances. Arab antisemitism would now get a powerful new promoter.
A central role in the propaganda offensive was played by a Nazi wireless station, now almost totally forgotten. Since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a village called Zeesen, located to the south of Berlin, had been home to what was at the time the worlds most powerful short-wave radio transmitter. Between April 1939 and April 1945, Radio Zeesen reached out to the illiterate Muslim masses through daily Arabic programmes, which also went out in Persian and Turkish. At that time listening to the radio in the Arab world took place primarily in public squares or bazaars and coffee houses. No other station was more popular than this Nazi Zeesen service, which skilfully mingled Anti-Semitic propaganda with quotations from the Koran, and Arabic music. The Second World War allies were presented as lackeys of the Jews and the picture of the "United Jewish Nations" drummed into the audience. At the same time, the Jews were attacked as the worst enemies of Islam: "The Jew since the time of Muhammad has never been a friend of the Muslim, the Jew is the enemy and it pleases Allah to kill him".
Since 1941, Zeesens Arabic programming had been directed by the Mufti of Jerusalem who had emigrated to Berlin. The Muftis aim was to "unite all the Arab lands in a common hatred of the British and Jews", as he wrote in a letter to Adolf Hitler. Anti-Semitism, based on the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy, however, was not rooted in Islamic tradition but, rather, in European ideological models.
The Mufti therefore seized on the only instrument that really moved the Arab masses: Islam. He invented a new form of Jew-hatred by recasting it in an Islamic mould. He was the first to translate Christian Anti-Semitism into Islamic language, thus creating an "Islamic Anti-Semitism". His first major manifesto bore the title "Islam-Judaism, Appeal of the Grand Mufti to the Islamic World in the Year 1937". This 31-page pamphlet reached the entire Arab world and there are indications that Nazi agents helped draw it up. Let me quote at least a short passage from it:
"The struggle between the Jews and Islam began when Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina. The Jewish methods were, even in those days, the same as now. As always, their weapon was slander. They said that Muhammad was a swindler, they began to ask Muhammad senseless and insoluble questions, and they endeavoured to destroy the Muslims. If the Jews could betray Muhammad in this way, how will they betray Muslims today? The verses from the Koran and Hadith prove to you that the Jews were the fiercest opponents of Islam and are still trying to destroy it."
What we have here is a new popularized form of Jew-hatred, based on the oriental folk tale tradition, which moves constantly back and forth between the seventh and twentieth centuries. This kind of Jew-hatred is used today by the British group Hizb ut-Tahir. In 2002 this organization reproduced a leaflet in its website saying: "The Jews are a people of slander, a treacherous people; they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context. Kill them wherever you find them." .......
Islamism is not motivated by a concept of reason but by a cult of death. It does not strive for emancipation but for oppression. It uses the flag of anti-colonialism to promote Anti-Semitism. It is true that today there is no other anti-capitalist or anti-Western movement that is able to mobilise and influence so many people. Bin Laden's latest message builds on this reality. But it is for this very reason all the more essential for every responsible person to draw an inseparable line between a concept of change that is rooted in the traditions of the Enlightenment and emancipation, and a concept of change that is aimed in a fascist way at destroying the development of societies and the freedom of the individual. You can be in favor of or against Islamism and Fascism, but you cannot be anti-Fascist and pro-Islamist at the same time....
The dumbing down of Britain's teachers
The only real qualification required is willingness to stand up in front of a mob of undisciplined hooligans
A STUDENT was allowed to become a teacher even though it took 28 attempts to pass a basic numeracy test that included questions such as "what is 6.03 multiplied by 100?". Figures released in parliament show that many students retake the basic maths and literacy tests required to join the profession several times. In both 2005 and 2006, there was at least one teacher who needed 28 attempts at the numeracy test; for literacy it was 20 and 19 respectively. In each of the last six years, there was at least one student who had to re-take the basic numeracy test more than 20 times, and the literacy test as many as up to 25 times.
Questions from the tests, which are set by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, included: "A pupil scores 18 marks out of 25. What was the score as a percentage?" In the literacy test, candidates are asked to choose the right answer from four alternative spellings for words such as preference, acknowledge and relieved. Options given included releived, releaved and realived.
The tests were introduced in 2000 and, initially, candidates who failed after four attempts were not allowed to qualify as teachers. This rule was relaxed in 2001 after complaints from the profession and students are now allowed unlimited re-takes. "If they have to do the test nearly 30 times, it's clear they can't read and write and add up. They shouldn't be allowed to teach," said Chris Woodhead, a former chief inspector of schools and a Sunday Times columnist.
Last year the tests were taken by 34,000 aspiring teachers; 700 failed to pass the numeracy test. Students must pass in numeracy, literacy and information and communications to qualify. A spokeswoman for the agency said: "We don't want to deny potential good teachers the opportunity to re-take tests. If you don't pass first time, it does not necessarily make you a bad teacher."
Source
Fresh milk to be banned in Britain
BRITONS may be banned from drinking "traditional milk" in favour of the long-life variety in order to save the environment, according to a government strategy. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in London has recommended the use of long-life UHT milk to limit commercial refrigeration, The Times has reported.
The newspaper said officials have developed a long term goal to reduce the amount of carbon emissions caused by refrigerated milk. They aim to have long-life milk make up 90 per cent of the market by 2020. It has been reported that 93 per cent of milk sold in Britain was the "traditional" fresh type.
According to The Times, a strategy paper has already been sent to dairy industry officials suggesting the changes. "Retail and domestic refrigeration is an area with the potential for significant impact reduction," the paper reportedly said. "The milk chain should enhance the development, marketing and placement of UHT milk products."
The move could see less refrigeration by outlets, but consumers will still have to cool the milk in fridges once the carton has been opened.
Source
Harrabin of the BBC replies
On 14th., I reproduced an internal BBC memo from Roger Harrabin, which put the best possible "spin" on the verdict against Al Gore's movie by the British High Court. The memo was originally circulated by Benny Peiser and Harrabin has now replied to Benny in defence of his memo by drawing attention to the article by him below. He seems to think that the article shows him as a man of balance, despite outright lies such as "the ever-dwindling band of sceptics" and his typically Leftist attack on the motivations and funding of Stuart Dimmock. Leftist are absolute devotees of "ad hominem" arguments, despite their logical irrelevance
The heat and light in global warming
By Roger Harrabin, BBC Environment Analyst
I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change, but when I first watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth I felt a flutter of unease. Not because the central message - that climate change is happening and almost certainly caused by mankind - is untrue; but because in several points of the film, Mr Gore simply goes too far by asserting or implying facts that are contentious. This leaves the film open to attack by the ever-dwindling band of sceptics who do not want to accept that climate change is anything to do with humans, and indeed a successful attack is exactly what has happened in the UK.
Because although Mr Justice Burton agreed in Wednesday's High Court ruling that An Inconvenient Truth is mainly based on consensus science, his judgement will be trumpeted more for finding that the film was studded with green "errors". The judge listed nine areas where Mr Gore had swayed from the scientific consensus position, and it was the "errors" that made the headlines in the media.
The man who brought the complaint, Stuart Dimmock, expressed his delight that this "shockumentary" had been exposed. Mr Dimmock is a member of the "New Party", apparently funded by a businessman with a strong dislike of environmentalists and drink-drive laws. When asked on the BBC's World Tonight programme who had under-written his court costs, he paused long and loud before saying that "someone on the internet" had offered him support.
It always looked likely that Mr Dimmock would make some headway with his court case because, as the judge observed, when the film was first circulated it did not supply teachers with the material needed to help pupils distinguish which of Mr Gore's factoids were still subject to serious mainstream debate.
The film was made as a polemic, not an educational tool for children. The government would have been on safer ground if it had chosen Sir David Attenborough's climate change programme which passed the BBC's own anguished impartiality test.
In the event, ministers seized on the slick, powerful and informative Gore movie as a tool to persuade children, and presumably by extension their parents, to worry about the climate. And this points to the essentially political nature of the film, and the decision to show it in schools.
There is now a strong political consensus throughout Europe that climate change is a dangerous problem needing urgent solutions; but politicians consistently tremble when they tentatively advance any of those solutions towards a public confused by the noisy media debate about climate change. A recent poll by Ipsos Mori showed that 82% of people were personally concerned about climate change, but a majority (56%) believed that many leading experts still question if human activity is contributing to climate change. This latter conclusion is simply wrong - all the world's major scientific institutions believe the man-made climate change theory - but the Gore court judgment will confuse people even more.
So why did the vice-president, who reveals himself in the movie to be a master of factual recall and presentation skill, produce a film in which assumptions became assertions and worst-case scenarios became the norm? The answer lies in the conflicted politics of climate in the US.
Remember that Al Gore, an environmental science graduate, has been trying to alert the public to climate change for a quarter of a century. Along with that other failed Democratic candidate John Kerry, he launched Senate hearings on climate in the 1980s. Then he signed the Kyoto Protocol nine years ago on behalf of the US, only to see President Clinton refuse to back it. He then spent impotent frustrating years in the White House, and later outside it, watching climate sceptics - some well-meaning scientists, but many in the pay of the oil industry - discredit the global warming theory. The sceptics knew that they did not need to win the battle of climate facts, they just needed to keep doubt alive.
An Inconvenient Truth is a response to that often cynical campaign, attempting to put climate change beyond doubt and remove ambiguity from presentation of the scientific facts. The problem is that climate science is a massive and messy field; and although even the White House now accepts that the climate is changing and humankind is more than 90% likely to blame, there are still wrinkles in the science, signposts that point in the opposite direction to the one we expect.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deals with these wrinkles by expressing its prognoses in bands of uncertainty: the climate is likely to warm by between 1.8C and 4.0C by the end of the century. But movies are not made of piffling equivocations like this, so Mr Gore dispenses with many of them.
Mr Justice Burton takes exception with nine such simplifications, or "errors". He notes that Mr Gore attributes to climate change the melting of the snows of Kilimanjaro, the demise of polar bears, the drying of Lake Chad and bleaching of coral reefs. Correctly identifying the scientific consensus, the judge says debate is still open on these issues, as it is over hurricane frequency, also instanced by Mr Gore. The judge says (again taking the IPCC as gospel) that there is little support for Mr Gore's implication that the Gulf Stream will shut down soon, and that the great ice sheets will cause catastrophic sea level rise soon.
Here the judge is on slightly more contentious ground, because the IPCC science is itself out of date on Arctic melting, which is advancing at a pace that many worst-case scenarios had failed to predict.
On the remaining point - Mr Gore's implication that ice core records prove that CO2 rises drove shifts in Ice Ages - the judge is spot on. The vice-president cleverly lures the viewer into making the calculation that CO2 drove historical climate change by presenting graphs and asking the audience if they fit. Well, the graphs do fit - but what Mr Gore fails to mention in the film is that mainstream scientists believe that historically the temperature shifted due to our changing relationship with the Sun, with warmer climes unlocking CO2 from the oceans, which amplified global temperature rise.
I challenged Mr Gore about this in an interview for the BBC's Newsnight programme in March. He responded, accurately, that scientists believe that CO2 is now driving climate change - but that was not what his misleading historical graph showed. And after the interview he and his assistant stood over me shouting that my questions had been scurrilous, and implying that I was some sort of climate-sceptic traitor.
It is miserable when such a vastly important debate is reduced to this. The film and the High Court row are, though, products of their time. If the conservative IPPC forecasts are accurate our children may rue the years we spent squabbling over climate change rather than tackling it.
Source
By Matthias Kuentzel
This is the lecture that the University of Leeds tried to suppress. On March 14, 2007, Kuentzel was due to address the University of Leeds in England on the topic ‘Hitler’s Legacy: Islamic Antisemitism in the Middle East.’ However, several hours before the talk was due to take place, the talk was unexpectedly cancelled due to "security concerns," following protest e-mails from some of the university's Muslim students. Excerpts only below. Full text here. Background on Kuentzel here
Despite common misconceptions, Islamism was born not during the 1960s but during the 1930s. Its rise was inspired not by the failure of Nasserism but by the rise of Fascism and of Nazism. It was the Organization of the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 in Egypt, that established Islamism as a mass movement. The significance of the Brotherhood to Islamism is comparable to that of the Bolshevik party to communism: It was and remains to this day the ideological reference point and organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including al-Qaeda and Hamas or the group around Sidique Khan.
It is true that British colonial policy produced Islamism, insofar as Islamism viewed itself as a resistance movement against "cultural modernity." Their "liberation struggle", however, had more in common with the "liberation struggle" of the Nazis than with any kind of progressive movement. Thus, the Brotherhood advocated the replacement of Parliamentarianism by an "organic" state order based on the Caliphate. It demanded the abolition of interest and profit in favour of a forcibly imposed community of interests between capital and labour.
At the forefront of the Brotherhood's efforts lay the struggle against all the sensual and "materialistic" temptations of the capitalist and communist world. At the tender age of 13, the pubescent al-Banna had founded a "Society for the Prevention of the Forbidden", and this is in essence what the Brothers were and are - a community of male zealots, whose primary concern is to prevent all the sensual and sexual sins forbidden according to their interpretation of the Koran. Their signature was most clearly apparent when they periodically reduced their local night clubs, brothels and cinemas - constantly identified with Jewish influence - to ashes.
Gripped by this phobia, the Society of Muslim Brothers, from the day of its foundation, provided a haven for any man dedicated to the restoration of male supremacy. At the very time when the liberation of women from the inferiority decreed by Islam was gradually getting under way, the Muslim Brotherhood set itself up as the rallying point for the restoration of patriarchal domination.
It was on the one hand a conservative religious movement: For al-Banna, only a return to orthodox Islam could pave the way for an end to the intolerable conditions and humiliations of Muslims, and newly establish the righteous Islamic order. It was at the same time a revolutionary political movement and as such in many respects a trailblazer. The Brotherhood was the first Islamic organization to put down roots in the cities and to organize a mass movement able in 1948 to muster one million people in Egypt alone. It was a populist and activist, not an elitist movement and it was the first movement that systematically set about building a kind of "Islamist international."
The Islamists' answer to everything was the call for a new order based on Sharia. But the Brotherhood's jihad was not directed primarily against the British. Rather, it focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews. Membership in the Brotherhood shot up from 800 to 200,000 between 1936 and 1938. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted only one major campaign in Egypt, a campaign directed against Zionism and the Jews.
The starting shot for this campaign, which established the Brotherhood as an Anti-Semitic mass movement, was fired by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration and initiated by the notorious Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini. The Brotherhood organized mass demonstrations in Egyptian cities under the slogans "Down With the Jews!" and "Jews Get Out of Egypt and Palestine!" Their Jew-hatred drew on the one hand on Islamic sources. First, Islamists considered, and still consider, Palestine an Islamic territory, Dar al-Islam, where Jews must not run a single village, let alone a state. Second, Islamists justify their aspiration to eliminate the Jews of Palestine by invoking the example of Muhammad, who in the 7th century not only expelled two Jewish tribes from Medina, but also beheaded the entire male population of a third Jewish tribe, before proceeding to sell all the women and children into slavery. Third, they find support and encouragement for their actions and plans in the Koranic dictum that Jews are to be considered the worst enemy of the believers.
Their Jew-hatred was also inspired by Nazi influences: Leaflets called for a boycott of Jewish goods and Jewish shops, and the Brotherhood's newspaper, al-Nadhir, carried a regular column on "The Danger of the Jews of Egypt," which published the names and addresses of Jewish businessmen and allegedly Jewish newspaper publishers all over the world, attributing every evil, from communism to brothels, to the "Jewish danger."
The Brotherhood's campaign used not only Nazi-like patterns of action and slogans but also German funding. As the historian Brynjar Lia recounts in his monograph on the Brotherhood, "Documents seized in the flat of Wilhelm Stellbogen, the Director of the German News Agency affiliated to the German Legation in Cairo, show that prior to October 1939 the Muslim Brothers received subsidies from this organization. Stellbogen was instrumental in transferring these funds to the Brothers, which were considerably larger than the subsidies offered to other anti-British activists. These transfers appear to have been co-ordinated by Hajj Amin al-Husseini and some of his Palestinian contacts in Cairo.
To summarize our first trip into history: We saw that the rise of Nazism and Islamism took place in the same period. This was no accident, for both movements represented attempts to answer the world economic crisis of 1929 and the crisis of liberal capitalism. However different their answers may have been, they shared a crucial central feature: in both cases the sense of belonging to a homogeneous community was created through mobilizing against the Jews.
Initially, however, European Anti-Semitism had proved to be an ineffective tool in the Arab world. Why? Because the European fantasy of the Jewish world conspiracy was foreign to the original Islamic view of the Jews. Only in the legend of Jesus Christ did the Jews appear as a deadly and powerful force who allegedly went so far as to kill God's only son. Islam was quite a different story. Here it was not the Jews who murdered the Prophet, but the Prophet who in Medina murdered the Jews. As a result, the characteristic features of Christian Anti-Semitism did not develop in the Muslim world. There were no fears of Jewish conspiracy and domination, no charges of diabolic evil. Instead, the Jews were treated with contempt or condescending tolerance. This cultural inheritance made the idea that the Jews of all people could represent a permanent danger for the Muslims and might control the media and politics in league with Freemasons seem absurd. This brings us to our second point: The transfer of European Anti-Semitism to the Muslim world between 1937 and 1945 under the impact of Nazi Propaganda.
Islamism and National Socialism.
Amin al-Husseini, the infamous Mufti of Jerusalem, who was closely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, was already seeking an alliance with Nazi Germany as early as spring 1933. At first, however, Berlin was dismissive. On the one hand, Hitler had already stated his belief in the "racial inferiority" of the Arabs in Mein Kampf while, on the other, the Nazis were extremely anxious not to jeopardise British appeasement. In June 1937, however, the Nazis changed course. The trigger was the Peel Plans two-state solution. Berlin wanted at all costs to prevent the birth of a Jewish state and thus welcomed the Muftis advances. Arab antisemitism would now get a powerful new promoter.
A central role in the propaganda offensive was played by a Nazi wireless station, now almost totally forgotten. Since the 1936 Berlin Olympics, a village called Zeesen, located to the south of Berlin, had been home to what was at the time the worlds most powerful short-wave radio transmitter. Between April 1939 and April 1945, Radio Zeesen reached out to the illiterate Muslim masses through daily Arabic programmes, which also went out in Persian and Turkish. At that time listening to the radio in the Arab world took place primarily in public squares or bazaars and coffee houses. No other station was more popular than this Nazi Zeesen service, which skilfully mingled Anti-Semitic propaganda with quotations from the Koran, and Arabic music. The Second World War allies were presented as lackeys of the Jews and the picture of the "United Jewish Nations" drummed into the audience. At the same time, the Jews were attacked as the worst enemies of Islam: "The Jew since the time of Muhammad has never been a friend of the Muslim, the Jew is the enemy and it pleases Allah to kill him".
Since 1941, Zeesens Arabic programming had been directed by the Mufti of Jerusalem who had emigrated to Berlin. The Muftis aim was to "unite all the Arab lands in a common hatred of the British and Jews", as he wrote in a letter to Adolf Hitler. Anti-Semitism, based on the notion of a Jewish world conspiracy, however, was not rooted in Islamic tradition but, rather, in European ideological models.
The Mufti therefore seized on the only instrument that really moved the Arab masses: Islam. He invented a new form of Jew-hatred by recasting it in an Islamic mould. He was the first to translate Christian Anti-Semitism into Islamic language, thus creating an "Islamic Anti-Semitism". His first major manifesto bore the title "Islam-Judaism, Appeal of the Grand Mufti to the Islamic World in the Year 1937". This 31-page pamphlet reached the entire Arab world and there are indications that Nazi agents helped draw it up. Let me quote at least a short passage from it:
"The struggle between the Jews and Islam began when Muhammad fled from Mecca to Medina. The Jewish methods were, even in those days, the same as now. As always, their weapon was slander. They said that Muhammad was a swindler, they began to ask Muhammad senseless and insoluble questions, and they endeavoured to destroy the Muslims. If the Jews could betray Muhammad in this way, how will they betray Muslims today? The verses from the Koran and Hadith prove to you that the Jews were the fiercest opponents of Islam and are still trying to destroy it."
What we have here is a new popularized form of Jew-hatred, based on the oriental folk tale tradition, which moves constantly back and forth between the seventh and twentieth centuries. This kind of Jew-hatred is used today by the British group Hizb ut-Tahir. In 2002 this organization reproduced a leaflet in its website saying: "The Jews are a people of slander, a treacherous people; they fabricate lies and twist words from their right context. Kill them wherever you find them." .......
Islamism is not motivated by a concept of reason but by a cult of death. It does not strive for emancipation but for oppression. It uses the flag of anti-colonialism to promote Anti-Semitism. It is true that today there is no other anti-capitalist or anti-Western movement that is able to mobilise and influence so many people. Bin Laden's latest message builds on this reality. But it is for this very reason all the more essential for every responsible person to draw an inseparable line between a concept of change that is rooted in the traditions of the Enlightenment and emancipation, and a concept of change that is aimed in a fascist way at destroying the development of societies and the freedom of the individual. You can be in favor of or against Islamism and Fascism, but you cannot be anti-Fascist and pro-Islamist at the same time....
The dumbing down of Britain's teachers
The only real qualification required is willingness to stand up in front of a mob of undisciplined hooligans
A STUDENT was allowed to become a teacher even though it took 28 attempts to pass a basic numeracy test that included questions such as "what is 6.03 multiplied by 100?". Figures released in parliament show that many students retake the basic maths and literacy tests required to join the profession several times. In both 2005 and 2006, there was at least one teacher who needed 28 attempts at the numeracy test; for literacy it was 20 and 19 respectively. In each of the last six years, there was at least one student who had to re-take the basic numeracy test more than 20 times, and the literacy test as many as up to 25 times.
Questions from the tests, which are set by the Training and Development Agency for Schools, included: "A pupil scores 18 marks out of 25. What was the score as a percentage?" In the literacy test, candidates are asked to choose the right answer from four alternative spellings for words such as preference, acknowledge and relieved. Options given included releived, releaved and realived.
The tests were introduced in 2000 and, initially, candidates who failed after four attempts were not allowed to qualify as teachers. This rule was relaxed in 2001 after complaints from the profession and students are now allowed unlimited re-takes. "If they have to do the test nearly 30 times, it's clear they can't read and write and add up. They shouldn't be allowed to teach," said Chris Woodhead, a former chief inspector of schools and a Sunday Times columnist.
Last year the tests were taken by 34,000 aspiring teachers; 700 failed to pass the numeracy test. Students must pass in numeracy, literacy and information and communications to qualify. A spokeswoman for the agency said: "We don't want to deny potential good teachers the opportunity to re-take tests. If you don't pass first time, it does not necessarily make you a bad teacher."
Source
Fresh milk to be banned in Britain
BRITONS may be banned from drinking "traditional milk" in favour of the long-life variety in order to save the environment, according to a government strategy. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in London has recommended the use of long-life UHT milk to limit commercial refrigeration, The Times has reported.
The newspaper said officials have developed a long term goal to reduce the amount of carbon emissions caused by refrigerated milk. They aim to have long-life milk make up 90 per cent of the market by 2020. It has been reported that 93 per cent of milk sold in Britain was the "traditional" fresh type.
According to The Times, a strategy paper has already been sent to dairy industry officials suggesting the changes. "Retail and domestic refrigeration is an area with the potential for significant impact reduction," the paper reportedly said. "The milk chain should enhance the development, marketing and placement of UHT milk products."
The move could see less refrigeration by outlets, but consumers will still have to cool the milk in fridges once the carton has been opened.
Source
Harrabin of the BBC replies
On 14th., I reproduced an internal BBC memo from Roger Harrabin, which put the best possible "spin" on the verdict against Al Gore's movie by the British High Court. The memo was originally circulated by Benny Peiser and Harrabin has now replied to Benny in defence of his memo by drawing attention to the article by him below. He seems to think that the article shows him as a man of balance, despite outright lies such as "the ever-dwindling band of sceptics" and his typically Leftist attack on the motivations and funding of Stuart Dimmock. Leftist are absolute devotees of "ad hominem" arguments, despite their logical irrelevance
The heat and light in global warming
By Roger Harrabin, BBC Environment Analyst
I have spent much of the last two decades of my journalistic life warning about the potential dangers of climate change, but when I first watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth I felt a flutter of unease. Not because the central message - that climate change is happening and almost certainly caused by mankind - is untrue; but because in several points of the film, Mr Gore simply goes too far by asserting or implying facts that are contentious. This leaves the film open to attack by the ever-dwindling band of sceptics who do not want to accept that climate change is anything to do with humans, and indeed a successful attack is exactly what has happened in the UK.
Because although Mr Justice Burton agreed in Wednesday's High Court ruling that An Inconvenient Truth is mainly based on consensus science, his judgement will be trumpeted more for finding that the film was studded with green "errors". The judge listed nine areas where Mr Gore had swayed from the scientific consensus position, and it was the "errors" that made the headlines in the media.
The man who brought the complaint, Stuart Dimmock, expressed his delight that this "shockumentary" had been exposed. Mr Dimmock is a member of the "New Party", apparently funded by a businessman with a strong dislike of environmentalists and drink-drive laws. When asked on the BBC's World Tonight programme who had under-written his court costs, he paused long and loud before saying that "someone on the internet" had offered him support.
It always looked likely that Mr Dimmock would make some headway with his court case because, as the judge observed, when the film was first circulated it did not supply teachers with the material needed to help pupils distinguish which of Mr Gore's factoids were still subject to serious mainstream debate.
The film was made as a polemic, not an educational tool for children. The government would have been on safer ground if it had chosen Sir David Attenborough's climate change programme which passed the BBC's own anguished impartiality test.
In the event, ministers seized on the slick, powerful and informative Gore movie as a tool to persuade children, and presumably by extension their parents, to worry about the climate. And this points to the essentially political nature of the film, and the decision to show it in schools.
There is now a strong political consensus throughout Europe that climate change is a dangerous problem needing urgent solutions; but politicians consistently tremble when they tentatively advance any of those solutions towards a public confused by the noisy media debate about climate change. A recent poll by Ipsos Mori showed that 82% of people were personally concerned about climate change, but a majority (56%) believed that many leading experts still question if human activity is contributing to climate change. This latter conclusion is simply wrong - all the world's major scientific institutions believe the man-made climate change theory - but the Gore court judgment will confuse people even more.
So why did the vice-president, who reveals himself in the movie to be a master of factual recall and presentation skill, produce a film in which assumptions became assertions and worst-case scenarios became the norm? The answer lies in the conflicted politics of climate in the US.
Remember that Al Gore, an environmental science graduate, has been trying to alert the public to climate change for a quarter of a century. Along with that other failed Democratic candidate John Kerry, he launched Senate hearings on climate in the 1980s. Then he signed the Kyoto Protocol nine years ago on behalf of the US, only to see President Clinton refuse to back it. He then spent impotent frustrating years in the White House, and later outside it, watching climate sceptics - some well-meaning scientists, but many in the pay of the oil industry - discredit the global warming theory. The sceptics knew that they did not need to win the battle of climate facts, they just needed to keep doubt alive.
An Inconvenient Truth is a response to that often cynical campaign, attempting to put climate change beyond doubt and remove ambiguity from presentation of the scientific facts. The problem is that climate science is a massive and messy field; and although even the White House now accepts that the climate is changing and humankind is more than 90% likely to blame, there are still wrinkles in the science, signposts that point in the opposite direction to the one we expect.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deals with these wrinkles by expressing its prognoses in bands of uncertainty: the climate is likely to warm by between 1.8C and 4.0C by the end of the century. But movies are not made of piffling equivocations like this, so Mr Gore dispenses with many of them.
Mr Justice Burton takes exception with nine such simplifications, or "errors". He notes that Mr Gore attributes to climate change the melting of the snows of Kilimanjaro, the demise of polar bears, the drying of Lake Chad and bleaching of coral reefs. Correctly identifying the scientific consensus, the judge says debate is still open on these issues, as it is over hurricane frequency, also instanced by Mr Gore. The judge says (again taking the IPCC as gospel) that there is little support for Mr Gore's implication that the Gulf Stream will shut down soon, and that the great ice sheets will cause catastrophic sea level rise soon.
Here the judge is on slightly more contentious ground, because the IPCC science is itself out of date on Arctic melting, which is advancing at a pace that many worst-case scenarios had failed to predict.
On the remaining point - Mr Gore's implication that ice core records prove that CO2 rises drove shifts in Ice Ages - the judge is spot on. The vice-president cleverly lures the viewer into making the calculation that CO2 drove historical climate change by presenting graphs and asking the audience if they fit. Well, the graphs do fit - but what Mr Gore fails to mention in the film is that mainstream scientists believe that historically the temperature shifted due to our changing relationship with the Sun, with warmer climes unlocking CO2 from the oceans, which amplified global temperature rise.
I challenged Mr Gore about this in an interview for the BBC's Newsnight programme in March. He responded, accurately, that scientists believe that CO2 is now driving climate change - but that was not what his misleading historical graph showed. And after the interview he and his assistant stood over me shouting that my questions had been scurrilous, and implying that I was some sort of climate-sceptic traitor.
It is miserable when such a vastly important debate is reduced to this. The film and the High Court row are, though, products of their time. If the conservative IPPC forecasts are accurate our children may rue the years we spent squabbling over climate change rather than tackling it.
Source
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
A test for British schools
THE tormentors of Al Gore, who last week won a legal victory against his film, An Inconvenient Truth, are to step up their battle by sending British secondary schools a documentary attacking the science of global warming. Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle has become one of the most notorious documentaries of the year, attracting complaints from dozens of scientists and viewers. This weekend, however, the campaigners behind the High Court case said they planned to send copies to 3,400 secondary schools "to counter Gore's flagrant propaganda". Gore is a joint winner of the Nobel peace prize for his efforts to educate the world about climate change. An Inconvenient Truth has also won two Oscars.
The distribution of The Great Global Warming Swindle is being funded by Viscount Monckton, who is part of a counter-campaign to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. Monckton was one of the backers of Stewart Dimmock, the Kent lorry driver and school governor who took the government to court for sending copies of Gore's film to schools. The two are connected through the New party, a right-wing group whose manifesto was written by Monckton and of which Dimmock is a member.
Last week Mr Justice Burton ruled that, although it was broadly correct, An Inconvenient Truth contained at least nine scientific errors and said ministers must send new guidance to teachers before it was screened. The judge said, for example, that Gore was wrong to suggest polar bears were already drowning due to ice melting when this was just a prediction. "That ruling was a fantastic victory," said Monckton, a former Downing Street adviser to Baroness Thatcher. "What we want to do now is send schools material reflecting an alternative point of view so that pupils can make their own minds up."
Dimmock was awarded only two-thirds of his costs and is understood to have a bill of more than œ60,000. Monckton confirmed that he was among his "backers" but refused to confirm if he had financed the case. Monckton has obtained funding from a right-wing Washington think tank, the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), to create a second film that will also be sent to schools. Entitled Apocalypse No, it parodies Gore, showing Monckton presenting a slide show in a vitriolic attack on climate change science.
Bob Ferguson, president of the SPPI, said: "We have filmed Christopher [Monckton] making a presentation to the Cambridge University Union . . . It could be sent out quite soon. We want to inform the public and policy makers that there are different views on climate change." Monckton has also won support from the maker of The Great Global Warming Swindle. Martin Durkin, managing director of WAG TV, said he would be delighted for his film to go to schools. "I have become a proselytiser against the so-called consensus on climate change . . . people can decide for themselves," he said.
Environmentalists say many questions remain about Durkin's film. Channel 4 said that two of the scientists who took part have complained that the editing gave a misleading impression of critical data and their own viewpoints. Ofcom, which regulates broadcast media, is examining other complaints from scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel prize with Gore, is preparing a Synthesis Report. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said the report would show that the earth faced a catastrophic temperature rise within the next century.
George Monbiot, an environmentalist and critic of Monckton, said: "He is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge."
Source
A down to earth British naturalist
This sort of thing never used to happen on Gardeners' World. There was Alan Titchmarsh, strolling though the Shetland Islands while chatting to camera about the Arctic Skua, when whoosh - one of those very birds shot down out of the sky, smacked him across the top of the head then shot off again. Then another did it. And another. Titchmarsh was filming an episode of his new eight-part series for BBC1, The Nature of Britain - and it was turning out to be less cosy than that title suggests ....
One subject gets Titchmarsh more worked up than accusations of blandness, though. Perhaps, coming from a man who loves nature, it's a slightly surprising one: our obsession with global warming.
`I wish we could grow up about it,' he says. `I'm sure we are contributing to global warming, and we must do all we can to reduce that, but our climate has always changed. The Romans had vineyards in Yorkshire. We're all on this bandwagon of `Ban the 4x4 in Fulham'. Why didn't we have global warming during the Industrial Revolution? In those days you couldn't have seen across the street for all the carbon emissions and the crap coming out of the chimneys.' He pauses for breath, then smiles. `Sorry, bit of a tirade there.'
Surely he worries that global warming may threaten some of the species in his series. But this doesn't seem to bother him too much. `We'll lose some, we'll gain others,' he says. `Wildlife is remarkably tenacious. Nature always copes.'
He gives the example of otters, whose numbers in Britain are on the rise. `When I was a lad, you had to go to the Otter Trust in Suffolk to see them. For the series, I went to the river near where I grew up, where I used to fish for tiddlers. And on the banks were otter footprints. If I'd seen those when I was a lad, I'd have died and gone to heaven.'
Source
BBC blinkered, say Scotland Yard
The battering of the BBC continued yesterday with Scotland Yard calling the organisation blinkered and arrogant. The attack came after the Independent Police Complaints Commission cleared the police of claims made in a BBC documentary about Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered at a South London bus stop in 1993. The documentary said that the Metropolitan Police withheld testimony about a corrupt officer from the inquiry into the bungled murder investigation that followed. The commission said: "We have found no evidence in support of the allegations made during the programme."
A senior Scotland Yard insider said: "It was sensationalism, it was arrogant. They became blinkered into believing what they wanted to believe." The BBC, however, released a statement saying it stood by its programme. "We considered it our duty to bring these serious allegations before the public and fully reflect the response of the police."
Mr Lawrence's family offered their support to the BBC yesterday
Source
Many Brits pay twice for dentistry
It's supposed to be provided by their government health insurance
Scores of patients are being forced to pay for private dental treatment because of a continuing lack of NHS dentists, a large survey suggests. Almost a fifth of NHS patients have gone without treatment because of cost. Others are even resorting to extracting their own teeth after the largest shake-up of NHS dentistry in 50 years. According to the Government’s own estimate, more than 2 million people who wish to access NHS dental care are unable to do so. In April last year, ministers introduced a new dental contract, which aimed to increase access and simplify charges.
But the Dentistry Watch survey conducted by Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Forums throughout England suggests that a majority of dentists believe that the quality of patient care has declined since the changes and that huge problems remain in finding dentists who will accept NHS patients. For example, when a new dental practice opened in Portsmouth in April hundreds of people queued around the block to register.
Between July and September this year 5,212 patients and 750 dentists were asked for their views: 78 per cent of private dental patients reported abandoning the NHS because either their dentist stopped treating NHS patients, or because they could not find another one who would. Of those patients not using NHS dental services, 35 per cent said it was because they could not find an NHS dentist close to their homes. Only 15 per cent claimed it was because they believed they could get better treatment. Six per cent of patients said they had treated themselves, including extracting their own teeth, because they were unable to get treatment.
The arrangements under the new contract have been criticised by dentists as a crude, target-driven system, which does not encourage them to treat complicated cases or take on new patients. Of the dentists surveyed, 45 per cent said that they were not accepting any more NHS patients and 58 per cent said that the quality of care patients have received since the introduction of the new dental contracts has got worse. Nearly three quarters said they were aware of patients declining treatment because of the cost. However, 93 per cent of patients receiving NHS treatment said they were were happy with the treatment provided.
Sharon Grant, Chair of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, which organised the survey, said: “These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly. “It appears many are being forced to go private because they don’t want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can’t find a local NHS dentist. This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians.”
Commenting on the findings, the British Dental Association said that the survey highlighted the “serious concerns” about the impact of reforms to NHS dentistry in England. Susie Sanderson, chairman of the association’s executive board, added: “The new contract has done nothing to improve access for patients and failed to allow dentists to deliver the kind of modern, preventive treatment they want to give.”
Source
All schools are equal according to British government socialists
Oxford and Cambridge universities are unlikely to reach their targets for recruiting more students from state schools, analysis of admissions data suggests. Last year the two universities signed agreements with the Office for Fair Access pledging to increase the proportion of students they take from state schools by 2011. But a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research indicates that, at current rates of progress, their targets will not be met at Cambridge until 2012 and at Oxford until 2016.
The institute's analysis suggests that 36 per cent of students who got three A grades at A level went to independent schools, but the independent sector takes up 46 per cent of Oxford places and 43 per cent of Cambridge places.
Lisa Harker, co-director of the institute, said: "Oxford and Cambridge need to be more pro-active. Students getting three A-grade A levels at state schools are significantly under represented at both universities. Oxford and Cambridge must stop blaming a lack of applications for failure to make progress."
Oxford takes 54 per cent of its students from state schools. Its target is for 62 per cent of applications to come from state schools in five years. Cambridge takes 57 per cent of its students from state schools. Its target is for 60 to 63 per cent by 2011.
Admissions officers at both universities said that the analysis was flawed as it wrongly assumed that all A grades were equal and took no account of what subjects students had studied or what courses were on offer at Oxbridge. Geoff Parks, head of admissions at Cambridge, said: "Independent and grammar school students are more likely to have the right subject combinations that we are looking for at Cambridge."
The figures come days after John Denham, the Universities' Minister, said that he wanted the question of bias against pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds settled before a review of university tuition fees in 2009.
Source
Big rise in serious British crime: "Deployments of armed police have increased by 53 per cent in a decade, according to the Home Office. The number of incidents rose from 12,379 in 1996-97 to 18,891 in 2005-06. In London, the number rose from 2,439 to 4,711 while in the West Midlands it went from 270 to 1,044."
THE tormentors of Al Gore, who last week won a legal victory against his film, An Inconvenient Truth, are to step up their battle by sending British secondary schools a documentary attacking the science of global warming. Channel 4's The Great Global Warming Swindle has become one of the most notorious documentaries of the year, attracting complaints from dozens of scientists and viewers. This weekend, however, the campaigners behind the High Court case said they planned to send copies to 3,400 secondary schools "to counter Gore's flagrant propaganda". Gore is a joint winner of the Nobel peace prize for his efforts to educate the world about climate change. An Inconvenient Truth has also won two Oscars.
The distribution of The Great Global Warming Swindle is being funded by Viscount Monckton, who is part of a counter-campaign to undermine the scientific consensus on climate change. Monckton was one of the backers of Stewart Dimmock, the Kent lorry driver and school governor who took the government to court for sending copies of Gore's film to schools. The two are connected through the New party, a right-wing group whose manifesto was written by Monckton and of which Dimmock is a member.
Last week Mr Justice Burton ruled that, although it was broadly correct, An Inconvenient Truth contained at least nine scientific errors and said ministers must send new guidance to teachers before it was screened. The judge said, for example, that Gore was wrong to suggest polar bears were already drowning due to ice melting when this was just a prediction. "That ruling was a fantastic victory," said Monckton, a former Downing Street adviser to Baroness Thatcher. "What we want to do now is send schools material reflecting an alternative point of view so that pupils can make their own minds up."
Dimmock was awarded only two-thirds of his costs and is understood to have a bill of more than œ60,000. Monckton confirmed that he was among his "backers" but refused to confirm if he had financed the case. Monckton has obtained funding from a right-wing Washington think tank, the Science and Public Policy Institute (SPPI), to create a second film that will also be sent to schools. Entitled Apocalypse No, it parodies Gore, showing Monckton presenting a slide show in a vitriolic attack on climate change science.
Bob Ferguson, president of the SPPI, said: "We have filmed Christopher [Monckton] making a presentation to the Cambridge University Union . . . It could be sent out quite soon. We want to inform the public and policy makers that there are different views on climate change." Monckton has also won support from the maker of The Great Global Warming Swindle. Martin Durkin, managing director of WAG TV, said he would be delighted for his film to go to schools. "I have become a proselytiser against the so-called consensus on climate change . . . people can decide for themselves," he said.
Environmentalists say many questions remain about Durkin's film. Channel 4 said that two of the scientists who took part have complained that the editing gave a misleading impression of critical data and their own viewpoints. Ofcom, which regulates broadcast media, is examining other complaints from scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which shared the Nobel prize with Gore, is preparing a Synthesis Report. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said the report would show that the earth faced a catastrophic temperature rise within the next century.
George Monbiot, an environmentalist and critic of Monckton, said: "He is trying to take on the global scientific establishment on the strength of a classics degree from Cambridge."
Source
A down to earth British naturalist
This sort of thing never used to happen on Gardeners' World. There was Alan Titchmarsh, strolling though the Shetland Islands while chatting to camera about the Arctic Skua, when whoosh - one of those very birds shot down out of the sky, smacked him across the top of the head then shot off again. Then another did it. And another. Titchmarsh was filming an episode of his new eight-part series for BBC1, The Nature of Britain - and it was turning out to be less cosy than that title suggests ....
One subject gets Titchmarsh more worked up than accusations of blandness, though. Perhaps, coming from a man who loves nature, it's a slightly surprising one: our obsession with global warming.
`I wish we could grow up about it,' he says. `I'm sure we are contributing to global warming, and we must do all we can to reduce that, but our climate has always changed. The Romans had vineyards in Yorkshire. We're all on this bandwagon of `Ban the 4x4 in Fulham'. Why didn't we have global warming during the Industrial Revolution? In those days you couldn't have seen across the street for all the carbon emissions and the crap coming out of the chimneys.' He pauses for breath, then smiles. `Sorry, bit of a tirade there.'
Surely he worries that global warming may threaten some of the species in his series. But this doesn't seem to bother him too much. `We'll lose some, we'll gain others,' he says. `Wildlife is remarkably tenacious. Nature always copes.'
He gives the example of otters, whose numbers in Britain are on the rise. `When I was a lad, you had to go to the Otter Trust in Suffolk to see them. For the series, I went to the river near where I grew up, where I used to fish for tiddlers. And on the banks were otter footprints. If I'd seen those when I was a lad, I'd have died and gone to heaven.'
Source
BBC blinkered, say Scotland Yard
The battering of the BBC continued yesterday with Scotland Yard calling the organisation blinkered and arrogant. The attack came after the Independent Police Complaints Commission cleared the police of claims made in a BBC documentary about Stephen Lawrence, who was murdered at a South London bus stop in 1993. The documentary said that the Metropolitan Police withheld testimony about a corrupt officer from the inquiry into the bungled murder investigation that followed. The commission said: "We have found no evidence in support of the allegations made during the programme."
A senior Scotland Yard insider said: "It was sensationalism, it was arrogant. They became blinkered into believing what they wanted to believe." The BBC, however, released a statement saying it stood by its programme. "We considered it our duty to bring these serious allegations before the public and fully reflect the response of the police."
Mr Lawrence's family offered their support to the BBC yesterday
Source
Many Brits pay twice for dentistry
It's supposed to be provided by their government health insurance
Scores of patients are being forced to pay for private dental treatment because of a continuing lack of NHS dentists, a large survey suggests. Almost a fifth of NHS patients have gone without treatment because of cost. Others are even resorting to extracting their own teeth after the largest shake-up of NHS dentistry in 50 years. According to the Government’s own estimate, more than 2 million people who wish to access NHS dental care are unable to do so. In April last year, ministers introduced a new dental contract, which aimed to increase access and simplify charges.
But the Dentistry Watch survey conducted by Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Forums throughout England suggests that a majority of dentists believe that the quality of patient care has declined since the changes and that huge problems remain in finding dentists who will accept NHS patients. For example, when a new dental practice opened in Portsmouth in April hundreds of people queued around the block to register.
Between July and September this year 5,212 patients and 750 dentists were asked for their views: 78 per cent of private dental patients reported abandoning the NHS because either their dentist stopped treating NHS patients, or because they could not find another one who would. Of those patients not using NHS dental services, 35 per cent said it was because they could not find an NHS dentist close to their homes. Only 15 per cent claimed it was because they believed they could get better treatment. Six per cent of patients said they had treated themselves, including extracting their own teeth, because they were unable to get treatment.
The arrangements under the new contract have been criticised by dentists as a crude, target-driven system, which does not encourage them to treat complicated cases or take on new patients. Of the dentists surveyed, 45 per cent said that they were not accepting any more NHS patients and 58 per cent said that the quality of care patients have received since the introduction of the new dental contracts has got worse. Nearly three quarters said they were aware of patients declining treatment because of the cost. However, 93 per cent of patients receiving NHS treatment said they were were happy with the treatment provided.
Sharon Grant, Chair of the Commission for Patient and Public Involvement in Health, which organised the survey, said: “These findings indicate that the NHS dental system is letting many patients down very badly. “It appears many are being forced to go private because they don’t want to lose their current trusted and respected dentist or because they just can’t find a local NHS dentist. This is an uncomfortable read for all of us, and poses serious questions to politicians.”
Commenting on the findings, the British Dental Association said that the survey highlighted the “serious concerns” about the impact of reforms to NHS dentistry in England. Susie Sanderson, chairman of the association’s executive board, added: “The new contract has done nothing to improve access for patients and failed to allow dentists to deliver the kind of modern, preventive treatment they want to give.”
Source
All schools are equal according to British government socialists
Oxford and Cambridge universities are unlikely to reach their targets for recruiting more students from state schools, analysis of admissions data suggests. Last year the two universities signed agreements with the Office for Fair Access pledging to increase the proportion of students they take from state schools by 2011. But a study by the Institute for Public Policy Research indicates that, at current rates of progress, their targets will not be met at Cambridge until 2012 and at Oxford until 2016.
The institute's analysis suggests that 36 per cent of students who got three A grades at A level went to independent schools, but the independent sector takes up 46 per cent of Oxford places and 43 per cent of Cambridge places.
Lisa Harker, co-director of the institute, said: "Oxford and Cambridge need to be more pro-active. Students getting three A-grade A levels at state schools are significantly under represented at both universities. Oxford and Cambridge must stop blaming a lack of applications for failure to make progress."
Oxford takes 54 per cent of its students from state schools. Its target is for 62 per cent of applications to come from state schools in five years. Cambridge takes 57 per cent of its students from state schools. Its target is for 60 to 63 per cent by 2011.
Admissions officers at both universities said that the analysis was flawed as it wrongly assumed that all A grades were equal and took no account of what subjects students had studied or what courses were on offer at Oxbridge. Geoff Parks, head of admissions at Cambridge, said: "Independent and grammar school students are more likely to have the right subject combinations that we are looking for at Cambridge."
The figures come days after John Denham, the Universities' Minister, said that he wanted the question of bias against pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds settled before a review of university tuition fees in 2009.
Source
Big rise in serious British crime: "Deployments of armed police have increased by 53 per cent in a decade, according to the Home Office. The number of incidents rose from 12,379 in 1996-97 to 18,891 in 2005-06. In London, the number rose from 2,439 to 4,711 while in the West Midlands it went from 270 to 1,044."
Monday, October 15, 2007
British government still blaming everyone but themselves
It's so easy for a Leftist government to kick business as the cause of childhood obesity instead of blaming real causes -- such as the great reduction in exercise that kids now get at school due to "safety" paranoia. And if you are using totally discredited science about the importance of a low fat diet, who cares? And the identification of trans fats in particular as a cause of obesity is bizarre. Some medical research suggests that very high consumption of them may have a weak link to heart disease but linking them to obesity seems to be a completely unfounded invention of the British government themselves. But Britain's government is Leftist and what Leftist needs evidence for any of their assertions?
The food industry faces a government inquiry into its role in Britain's surging obesity and heart disease rates with ministers considering a ban on trans fats as the first decisive step. Trans fats, which are entirely artificial, have been shown to raise the risk of heart disease and might also have important roles in obesity and diabetes.
The inquiry, ordered by Alan Johnson, the health secretary, follows a series of warnings from successive health ministers that the food industry needed to improve the healthiness of its products - most of which have been ignored. Johnson said: "We know we must act. We cannot afford not to act. For the first time we are clear about the magnitude of the problem: we are facing a potential crisis on the scale of climate change and it is in everybody's interest to turn things around."
The proposed ban on trans fats is being seen as a warning shot to the food industry as well as an important measure in its own right. Trans fats are used widely by the food industry because they are up to 85% cheaper than natural fats such as butter, lard and palm oil. But researchers have repeatedly warned that they act as long-term toxins and have no benefit for consumers.
A recent report from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which will carry out the new inquiry, said: "The trans fats found in food containing hydrogenated vegetable oil are harmful and have no known nutritional benefits. They raise the type of cholesterol in the blood that increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Some evidence suggests that the effects of these trans fats may be worse than saturated fats." However, even though such dangers have been known for nearly two decades, there is no obligation for food manufacturers to display the amount of trans fats on product labels. Johnson's decision to hold an inquiry follows cabinet discussions in which Gordon Brown made it clear that preventive healthcare was one of his top priorities. "There is high-level commitment across government," Johnson said. "We will provide the leadership, vision and sustained commitment required to help to start this cultural and societal shift."
His move follows surveys looking at the rising proportion of the population who are overweight. They show that the British tip the scales as Europe's fattest people, with 60% of adults and 30% of children overweight, defined as more than 25% of their body mass comprising fat tissue. Of these, 20% were obese, meaning their bodies were at least 30% fat. That proportion could reach 40% by 2025. Such changes could, ministers have been warned, threaten the viability of the National Health Service. It already spends between 10% and 20% of its hospital budget on obesity-related diseases such as diabetes.
Johnson's decision could mark a sea change in the government's dealings with the food industry. Until now ministers had accepted manufacturers' claims that the best approach was to educate consumers about sensible eating and let them make their own choices. Johnson seems to be moving towards the views put forward by health campaigners who say the government must take more responsibility for the nation's deteriorating dietary health. They say few people have the time or ability to read complex food labels and design healthy diets and that many such labels are misleading.
Similar changes are already afoot in America where New York last year banned the use of trans fats in city restaurants and the government compelled manufacturers to list trans fat contents on food labels. The British inquiry will consider further action on food advertising. There is already a ban on advertising foods such as crisps and chocolate during children's television programmes. This could be extended to commercial breaks in adult programmes such as The X Factor and Big Brother, which attract many younger viewers.
The Food and Drink Federation, which represents Britain's food manufacturers, accepted that Britons were eating too much saturated fat, but said the government should focus on people with the highest levels of fat intake rather than on regulating the industry. Johnson points out that the problem cannot be solved by government action alone. "There is no single solution for obesity," he said. "We will succeed only if the problem is recognised, owned and addressed at every level of society." His cabinet colleague Ed Balls, the schools secretary, will tomorrow announce measures to increase the amount of sport played by school pupils. Only 50% of schoolchildren do two hours or more of physical exercise or sport every week, well below targets set in 2004.
Source
More on British food follies
Information overload? Forget about it. According to a newly published survey, we can barely satisfy our hunger for the stuff - when we're out shopping, anyway. And to meet this demand, the eggheads in retail engineering have come up with the latest must-have consumer accessory - the `intelligent' supermarket trolley. Now we can find out how our food got made, what's in it, where it came from, and what it will do to us. Since when did buying groceries get so complicated?
"Shopping Choices: Attraction or Distraction?", released this week by the retail technology group EDS and the food and grocery information group IGD (1), is a mixture of opinion poll and focus group evidence that suggests that we are so disconnected from the food we eat, so mistrustful of what goes into it, and so terrified of what it might do to us, that we need a slim volume of nutritional, environmental and ethical information before we'll drop an item into our baskets. Thankfully, according to the report, the two pieces of information people want to know above all are the price and the `best before' date - we haven't gone completely doolally just yet.
Providing lots of information is easy enough on something reasonably large, like a loaf of bread or a family-size pizza. But it's a complete pain when you've got to pack it on to a small packet. That's where the intelligent trolley comes in. With a built-in barcode scanner and a screen, the trolley can tell you anything you want to know about the product before you commit to it. From the point of view of retailers, it will also handily highlight any special offers and discounts available on the aforementioned product and, if you swipe your loyalty card before you use it, the trolley could no doubt feed back lots of juicy data on your preferences. The intelligent trolley not only soothes our food fears, it helps retailers flog stuff, too. Smiles all round, then.
There's a lot of information to pack in. For example, the `traffic light' labelling system used by British food manufacturers details total fat, saturated fat, sugars, salt and calories. For each measure, there's a colour: green is `go ahead', amber is `proceed with caution', and red is `run a mile'. Then you need to be told if the stuff inside the package will set off an allergy. Is it tolerant of your intolerances?
According to the survey, we want ethical information, too: fairtrade, organic, rainforest-conserving, dolphin-friendly. Should we stick the `food miles' on there somewhere? And if we stick all this information on the packaging, will there be. too much packaging, causing more problems for the environment? It's a minefield. It's a wonder that shoppers aren't paralysed by indecision before they get past the fruit and veg.
Now that politics has been left on the shelf, it's the nitty-gritty of our individual experience that seems to feed our imaginations. What we eat has become the bread-and-butter of our personal-is-political lives. This is pretty perverse. The developed world has long since solved the problem of providing enough food to eat, and yet the question of food seems to have become even more central to political life - undeservedly so.
Food can be fuel; food can be an excuse for conversation and bonhomie; if you are so inclined, food can be a vehicle to geek out in just the same manner as people obsess about Star Trek. Thanks to the wide availability of interesting and exotic ingredients (a product, for most of the UK, of the expansion of supermarkets), we can use food to get all creative, too.
Yet today we also treat food with the same level of mistrust as an unexploded hand grenade. All that information on the packet is just to reassure that the contents of our shopping trolley aren't, in fact, a ticking timebomb of ill-health or environmental destruction. Over the last few years, the risks associated with food have become as important in assessing what we eat as the joy we might have in eating it. But food isn't a toxin. Food is highly unlikely to make your children hyperactive; there's no ADD in additives. Food won't make you sick - despite the non-stop hysteria about obesity. Food won't cost the Earth or save the planet. Placing so much importance on what we eat can only destroy the simple pleasure we experience when satisfying our hunger while tantalising our tastebuds.
We should just chill out at the chilled cabinets, feel free at the freezers and proceed at peace to the processed produce. If you want to be a food slob, or a food snob, that's your choice - or at least, it should be. Let's tell the government, the health `experts' and the green campaigners where they can shove their organic, fairtrade, five-a-day ideas. If we allow our pleasure to be ruined by their obsessions, we'll definitely be off our trolleys.
Source
British government doctor training policy diagnosed a failure
Changes to medical training introduced since 2002 have been rushed, poorly led and implemented and are unlikely even to produce very good doctors, according to a new report. Sir John Tooke, who chaired an independent inquiry set up by the Department of Health, said it had been a sorry episode from which nobody emerged with credit.
The new policy, called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), was introduced without clear definition of what it was meant to achieve. Weak development, implementation and governance had made it worse. "Put simply, `good enough' is not good enough," Sir John writes. "Rather, in the interest of the health and wealth of the nation, we should aspire to excellence."
Problems with MMC first became apparent when the computer-based application system used for selecting doctors for higher training failed this year. The Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) had to be abandoned, and the furore about it drew attention to wider defects. The report by Sir John, who is Dean of the Peninsula College of Medicine, will make uncomfortable reading for the department, and for Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, who was the main driving force behind MMC.
Sir John refused to name those directly responsible for the debacle. "The medical profession itself was complicit in MMC, and it is hard to target any individual for responsibility," he said. The policy had failed in its key aim, which was to eliminate the "lost tribe" of senior house officers who did most of the work in NHS hospitals but were regularly denied opportunities to train to become consultants.
When MMC came in, such doctors found that they had to compete with the growing output from British medical schools and doctors from abroad allowed to work in Britain. Despite repeated warnings, the department at first ignored the problem, and its plan to introduce a policy whereby doctors' jobs only went to overseas candidates if there was not a suitable home applicant was stymied in the courts. This meant that 8,352 foreign doctors were free to apply for posts in 2007, along with 1,500 from the EU and 11,994 British citizens.
While acknowledging the "fantastic contribution" made to the NHS by foreign doctors, Sir John said it was not sensible to have a policy which allowed them to compete with doctors trained in Britain at a cost each of o200,000 to o250,000. The department moved to rectify the situation yesterday by announcing a consultation to look at proposals for managing overseas applicants in the future.
Sir John's report suggests that all those successful in getting a place in a medical school should be guaranteed a training place for the year after they graduate. At present, under MMC, this is not guaranteed - which means medical graduates cannot call themselves doctor, or even work as doctors.
He also suggests that the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board should be incorporated into the General Medical Council, which is already responsible for the undergraduate curriculum and for registering doctors. "The management of postgraduate training is currently hampered by unclear principles, a weak contractual base, a lack of cohesion, a fragmented structure and, in England, deficient relationships with academia and service," the report said.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that it laid bare "the shameful mismanagement by the Government of junior doctors' training. Hundreds of junior doctors still need action taken to ensure those who continue to meet the necessary standards will have the training [made] available to them." Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, said that the Government had learnt important lessons from MMC and would consider the report fully.
Source
More BBC deception: "The creative director of the BBC is embroiled in a new crisis over alegations that he presented the film of an American director as his own work. Alan Yentob has been accused of presenting a film about a reclusive 1960s pop star as his own when the interview was in fact conducted by Stephen Kijak, a US film-maker. Viewers who have seen the film on Scott Walker, part of Yentob's Imagine series on BBC1, claim the programme was a "shameful deception" because it left the impression that Yentob had done the interview. The BBC insists Yentob - who has said there can be "artifice without deception" - has done nothing wrong and used standard industry practice by editing Kijak out of his own film. The controversy, however, raises new questions about widespread broadcasting techniques."
There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
It's so easy for a Leftist government to kick business as the cause of childhood obesity instead of blaming real causes -- such as the great reduction in exercise that kids now get at school due to "safety" paranoia. And if you are using totally discredited science about the importance of a low fat diet, who cares? And the identification of trans fats in particular as a cause of obesity is bizarre. Some medical research suggests that very high consumption of them may have a weak link to heart disease but linking them to obesity seems to be a completely unfounded invention of the British government themselves. But Britain's government is Leftist and what Leftist needs evidence for any of their assertions?
The food industry faces a government inquiry into its role in Britain's surging obesity and heart disease rates with ministers considering a ban on trans fats as the first decisive step. Trans fats, which are entirely artificial, have been shown to raise the risk of heart disease and might also have important roles in obesity and diabetes.
The inquiry, ordered by Alan Johnson, the health secretary, follows a series of warnings from successive health ministers that the food industry needed to improve the healthiness of its products - most of which have been ignored. Johnson said: "We know we must act. We cannot afford not to act. For the first time we are clear about the magnitude of the problem: we are facing a potential crisis on the scale of climate change and it is in everybody's interest to turn things around."
The proposed ban on trans fats is being seen as a warning shot to the food industry as well as an important measure in its own right. Trans fats are used widely by the food industry because they are up to 85% cheaper than natural fats such as butter, lard and palm oil. But researchers have repeatedly warned that they act as long-term toxins and have no benefit for consumers.
A recent report from the Food Standards Agency (FSA), which will carry out the new inquiry, said: "The trans fats found in food containing hydrogenated vegetable oil are harmful and have no known nutritional benefits. They raise the type of cholesterol in the blood that increases the risk of coronary heart disease. Some evidence suggests that the effects of these trans fats may be worse than saturated fats." However, even though such dangers have been known for nearly two decades, there is no obligation for food manufacturers to display the amount of trans fats on product labels. Johnson's decision to hold an inquiry follows cabinet discussions in which Gordon Brown made it clear that preventive healthcare was one of his top priorities. "There is high-level commitment across government," Johnson said. "We will provide the leadership, vision and sustained commitment required to help to start this cultural and societal shift."
His move follows surveys looking at the rising proportion of the population who are overweight. They show that the British tip the scales as Europe's fattest people, with 60% of adults and 30% of children overweight, defined as more than 25% of their body mass comprising fat tissue. Of these, 20% were obese, meaning their bodies were at least 30% fat. That proportion could reach 40% by 2025. Such changes could, ministers have been warned, threaten the viability of the National Health Service. It already spends between 10% and 20% of its hospital budget on obesity-related diseases such as diabetes.
Johnson's decision could mark a sea change in the government's dealings with the food industry. Until now ministers had accepted manufacturers' claims that the best approach was to educate consumers about sensible eating and let them make their own choices. Johnson seems to be moving towards the views put forward by health campaigners who say the government must take more responsibility for the nation's deteriorating dietary health. They say few people have the time or ability to read complex food labels and design healthy diets and that many such labels are misleading.
Similar changes are already afoot in America where New York last year banned the use of trans fats in city restaurants and the government compelled manufacturers to list trans fat contents on food labels. The British inquiry will consider further action on food advertising. There is already a ban on advertising foods such as crisps and chocolate during children's television programmes. This could be extended to commercial breaks in adult programmes such as The X Factor and Big Brother, which attract many younger viewers.
The Food and Drink Federation, which represents Britain's food manufacturers, accepted that Britons were eating too much saturated fat, but said the government should focus on people with the highest levels of fat intake rather than on regulating the industry. Johnson points out that the problem cannot be solved by government action alone. "There is no single solution for obesity," he said. "We will succeed only if the problem is recognised, owned and addressed at every level of society." His cabinet colleague Ed Balls, the schools secretary, will tomorrow announce measures to increase the amount of sport played by school pupils. Only 50% of schoolchildren do two hours or more of physical exercise or sport every week, well below targets set in 2004.
Source
More on British food follies
Information overload? Forget about it. According to a newly published survey, we can barely satisfy our hunger for the stuff - when we're out shopping, anyway. And to meet this demand, the eggheads in retail engineering have come up with the latest must-have consumer accessory - the `intelligent' supermarket trolley. Now we can find out how our food got made, what's in it, where it came from, and what it will do to us. Since when did buying groceries get so complicated?
"Shopping Choices: Attraction or Distraction?", released this week by the retail technology group EDS and the food and grocery information group IGD (1), is a mixture of opinion poll and focus group evidence that suggests that we are so disconnected from the food we eat, so mistrustful of what goes into it, and so terrified of what it might do to us, that we need a slim volume of nutritional, environmental and ethical information before we'll drop an item into our baskets. Thankfully, according to the report, the two pieces of information people want to know above all are the price and the `best before' date - we haven't gone completely doolally just yet.
Providing lots of information is easy enough on something reasonably large, like a loaf of bread or a family-size pizza. But it's a complete pain when you've got to pack it on to a small packet. That's where the intelligent trolley comes in. With a built-in barcode scanner and a screen, the trolley can tell you anything you want to know about the product before you commit to it. From the point of view of retailers, it will also handily highlight any special offers and discounts available on the aforementioned product and, if you swipe your loyalty card before you use it, the trolley could no doubt feed back lots of juicy data on your preferences. The intelligent trolley not only soothes our food fears, it helps retailers flog stuff, too. Smiles all round, then.
There's a lot of information to pack in. For example, the `traffic light' labelling system used by British food manufacturers details total fat, saturated fat, sugars, salt and calories. For each measure, there's a colour: green is `go ahead', amber is `proceed with caution', and red is `run a mile'. Then you need to be told if the stuff inside the package will set off an allergy. Is it tolerant of your intolerances?
According to the survey, we want ethical information, too: fairtrade, organic, rainforest-conserving, dolphin-friendly. Should we stick the `food miles' on there somewhere? And if we stick all this information on the packaging, will there be. too much packaging, causing more problems for the environment? It's a minefield. It's a wonder that shoppers aren't paralysed by indecision before they get past the fruit and veg.
Now that politics has been left on the shelf, it's the nitty-gritty of our individual experience that seems to feed our imaginations. What we eat has become the bread-and-butter of our personal-is-political lives. This is pretty perverse. The developed world has long since solved the problem of providing enough food to eat, and yet the question of food seems to have become even more central to political life - undeservedly so.
Food can be fuel; food can be an excuse for conversation and bonhomie; if you are so inclined, food can be a vehicle to geek out in just the same manner as people obsess about Star Trek. Thanks to the wide availability of interesting and exotic ingredients (a product, for most of the UK, of the expansion of supermarkets), we can use food to get all creative, too.
Yet today we also treat food with the same level of mistrust as an unexploded hand grenade. All that information on the packet is just to reassure that the contents of our shopping trolley aren't, in fact, a ticking timebomb of ill-health or environmental destruction. Over the last few years, the risks associated with food have become as important in assessing what we eat as the joy we might have in eating it. But food isn't a toxin. Food is highly unlikely to make your children hyperactive; there's no ADD in additives. Food won't make you sick - despite the non-stop hysteria about obesity. Food won't cost the Earth or save the planet. Placing so much importance on what we eat can only destroy the simple pleasure we experience when satisfying our hunger while tantalising our tastebuds.
We should just chill out at the chilled cabinets, feel free at the freezers and proceed at peace to the processed produce. If you want to be a food slob, or a food snob, that's your choice - or at least, it should be. Let's tell the government, the health `experts' and the green campaigners where they can shove their organic, fairtrade, five-a-day ideas. If we allow our pleasure to be ruined by their obsessions, we'll definitely be off our trolleys.
Source
British government doctor training policy diagnosed a failure
Changes to medical training introduced since 2002 have been rushed, poorly led and implemented and are unlikely even to produce very good doctors, according to a new report. Sir John Tooke, who chaired an independent inquiry set up by the Department of Health, said it had been a sorry episode from which nobody emerged with credit.
The new policy, called Modernising Medical Careers (MMC), was introduced without clear definition of what it was meant to achieve. Weak development, implementation and governance had made it worse. "Put simply, `good enough' is not good enough," Sir John writes. "Rather, in the interest of the health and wealth of the nation, we should aspire to excellence."
Problems with MMC first became apparent when the computer-based application system used for selecting doctors for higher training failed this year. The Medical Training Application Service (MTAS) had to be abandoned, and the furore about it drew attention to wider defects. The report by Sir John, who is Dean of the Peninsula College of Medicine, will make uncomfortable reading for the department, and for Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer, who was the main driving force behind MMC.
Sir John refused to name those directly responsible for the debacle. "The medical profession itself was complicit in MMC, and it is hard to target any individual for responsibility," he said. The policy had failed in its key aim, which was to eliminate the "lost tribe" of senior house officers who did most of the work in NHS hospitals but were regularly denied opportunities to train to become consultants.
When MMC came in, such doctors found that they had to compete with the growing output from British medical schools and doctors from abroad allowed to work in Britain. Despite repeated warnings, the department at first ignored the problem, and its plan to introduce a policy whereby doctors' jobs only went to overseas candidates if there was not a suitable home applicant was stymied in the courts. This meant that 8,352 foreign doctors were free to apply for posts in 2007, along with 1,500 from the EU and 11,994 British citizens.
While acknowledging the "fantastic contribution" made to the NHS by foreign doctors, Sir John said it was not sensible to have a policy which allowed them to compete with doctors trained in Britain at a cost each of o200,000 to o250,000. The department moved to rectify the situation yesterday by announcing a consultation to look at proposals for managing overseas applicants in the future.
Sir John's report suggests that all those successful in getting a place in a medical school should be guaranteed a training place for the year after they graduate. At present, under MMC, this is not guaranteed - which means medical graduates cannot call themselves doctor, or even work as doctors.
He also suggests that the Postgraduate Medical Education and Training Board should be incorporated into the General Medical Council, which is already responsible for the undergraduate curriculum and for registering doctors. "The management of postgraduate training is currently hampered by unclear principles, a weak contractual base, a lack of cohesion, a fragmented structure and, in England, deficient relationships with academia and service," the report said.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that it laid bare "the shameful mismanagement by the Government of junior doctors' training. Hundreds of junior doctors still need action taken to ensure those who continue to meet the necessary standards will have the training [made] available to them." Ben Bradshaw, the Health Minister, said that the Government had learnt important lessons from MMC and would consider the report fully.
Source
More BBC deception: "The creative director of the BBC is embroiled in a new crisis over alegations that he presented the film of an American director as his own work. Alan Yentob has been accused of presenting a film about a reclusive 1960s pop star as his own when the interview was in fact conducted by Stephen Kijak, a US film-maker. Viewers who have seen the film on Scott Walker, part of Yentob's Imagine series on BBC1, claim the programme was a "shameful deception" because it left the impression that Yentob had done the interview. The BBC insists Yentob - who has said there can be "artifice without deception" - has done nothing wrong and used standard industry practice by editing Kijak out of his own film. The controversy, however, raises new questions about widespread broadcasting techniques."
There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
INSIDE THE BBC SAUSAGE FACTORY
A leaked internal BBC memo below. Note the "high" level of literacy: "principle" instead of "principal". Sometimes spellcheckers cannot rescue ignorance -- or is it just that the BBC would not know a principle if it fell over one?
From: Roger Harrabin - Internet
Sent: 12 October 2007 08:12
Subject: Guidance on Gore and Nobel Prize - please publish.
In any future reporting of Gore we should be careful not to suggest that the High Court says Gore was wrong on climate
The judge didn't say that. He said Gore's principle message on climate change was mainstream and uncontroversial. But he asked the government to make it plain in guidance notes to kids that nine points in the film were controversial.
He used the word "errors" but put it in inverted commas because the issues were not factual errors but issues of scientific debate.
We might say something like: "Al Gore whose film was judged by the High Court to have used some debatable science" or "Al Gore whose film was judged in the High Court to be controversial in parts".
The key is to avoid suggesting that the judge disagreed with the main climate change thesis.
Please pass to presenters because this issue about Gore will arise again.
Student's 'English party' deemed racist
We read:
The only illegitimate culture is mainstream white culture. Rugby is an English upper-class form of football.
Pervasive British antisemitism
Who said this on a visit to America last week ? "When you think how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been . they more or less monopolize American foreign policy, as far as many people can see." Mahmoud Ahamdinejad? No: it was Professor Richard Dawkins, speaking at the Atheist Alliance convention in Crystal City, Virginia.
Mr. Dawkins has embarked on a campaign to give atheists a louder voice in the American public square. He appears to be unaware of the irony involved in his chosen method of attracting attention - which is to repeat the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the Islamic fundamentalists.
As holder of the chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, Mr. Dawkins has even less excuse for holding such opinions than the Islamofascists. After all, Oxford academics, known as "dons," are exposed to a wide range of views, aren't they? They devote their lives to the disinterested pursuit of truth, distinguish between fact and fiction, tolerate dissent, defend freedom of speech and thought, don't they? Well, no, actually:aJewishfriend of mine who taught at Oxford until recently told me that he found the atmosphere there to be oppressive for anybody who did not buy the Palestinian narrative. His colleagues simply weren't interested in hearing the truth. They were tolerant, yes, but only of rabid anti-Semites such as the poet Tom Paulin, who called for "Brooklyn-born settlers" in Israel to be "shot dead." They were intolerant of those whose scholarship treated Zionism objectively. So, sadly, my friend left the university.
This is the context in which the British University and College Union voted to boycott Israeli academics - though last week the union backed off, after legal advice warning its leaders that such a boycott would infringe anti-discrimination laws. But why did the academics require one of the most expensive lawyers in Britain, Anthony Lester, to tell them what their consciences ought to have told them instinctively?
Part of the explanation is that these academics are, like the rest of Europe, busily appeasing the Islamists. Their forms of appeasement are more offensive than, say, the Sainsbury supermarket chain permitting its Muslim checkout staff to refuse to sell alcohol to customers, but the reflex is the same. It matters hugely, of course, when the free circulation of scholarship is stopped by the scholars themselves engaging in a deliberate act of sabotage. Let me give one very striking example. In the September 17 issue of the Weekly Standard, the German academic Matthias Kuentzel wrote a brilliant article on the Nazi roots of Islamism, "Jew-Hatred and Jihad," which I recommend to anyone who wants to understand the pathological motives and ideological provenance of our present enemies.
Readers of this column may recall that last March I wrote about how Mr. Kuentzel was prevented from giving a public lecture on the same topic at Leeds University in England, because the administrators claimed to be worried about "security" - meaning that they had received threats. Even if this had been true, it would have been a shameful capitulation to blackmail, but it emerged that no such threats had, in fact, been received. The Kuentzel case deserves to be a cause celebre in the debate on academic freedom.
Next month Mr. Kuentzel's book, "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11," will be published by Telos Press. In it, he will show that Al Qaeda in general, and especially Mohamed Atta, leader of the Hamburg-based terrorist cell that carried out the attacks on September 11, were motivated by a Nazi belief in Jewish world domination. Atta "considered New York City the center of world Jewry, which was, in his opinion, Enemy No.1."
Amazingly, American and European authorities have completely failed to take cognizance of the anti-Semitic nature of the ideology that led to September 11, despite the wealth of evidence that has emerged since. Yet some of us were warning people about this elephant in the room at the time. On September 11, within hours of the attacks, I was writing the main oped article for the Daily Telegraph, which appeared the next day. This is what I wrote: "Let there be no mistake: global Islamic terrorism is rooted in global anti-Semitism. This was, in many ways, the most vicious blow aimed at the Jewish people since the Holocaust. New York is not only the richest city on earth, the capital of capitalism; it is also the largest Jewish city . The collaboration of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with the Nazis is only the most notorious instance of a long line of Judaeophobic Arab leaders."
Why did the American authors of the "9/11 Commission Report," published in July 2004, fail to notice any of this? Why has the British academic establishment shunned the minority of scholars, such as David Pryce-Jones, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Matthias Kuentzel, and Efraim Karsh, who have consistently warned against this dangerous Islamofascist nexus?
The answer is that anti-Semitism has quietly insinuated itself into British social and cultural life again. On Saturday the chairman of Chelsea Football Club, one of the most famous soccer teams in the world, publicly protested about anti-Semitic abuse by the fans of the new manager and coach, Avram Grant. Mr. Grant had been in the job for just one week. His crime? To be an Israeli and a distinguished former coach of the national team.
This week the word from the White House was that President Bush has given up on Gordon Brown. He prefers Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. Something is rotten in the state of Britain. And I fear that the ugly prejudices of Professor Dawkins are not only typical of Oxford academics, or even of evangelical atheists, but of many more of his - and my - compatriots
Source
No cojones in Britain. They aim to desecrate Christian graves on behalf of Muslims: "A third of a million bodies could be dug up from a historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site. Tower Hamlets council is considering reopening its Cemetery Park in Mile End in response to a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard in the area. The park, off Bow Common Lane, was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by Parliament in 1966, after being deemed full with about 350,000 bodies buried there...."
A leaked internal BBC memo below. Note the "high" level of literacy: "principle" instead of "principal". Sometimes spellcheckers cannot rescue ignorance -- or is it just that the BBC would not know a principle if it fell over one?
From: Roger Harrabin - Internet
Sent: 12 October 2007 08:12
Subject: Guidance on Gore and Nobel Prize - please publish.
In any future reporting of Gore we should be careful not to suggest that the High Court says Gore was wrong on climate
The judge didn't say that. He said Gore's principle message on climate change was mainstream and uncontroversial. But he asked the government to make it plain in guidance notes to kids that nine points in the film were controversial.
He used the word "errors" but put it in inverted commas because the issues were not factual errors but issues of scientific debate.
We might say something like: "Al Gore whose film was judged by the High Court to have used some debatable science" or "Al Gore whose film was judged in the High Court to be controversial in parts".
The key is to avoid suggesting that the judge disagreed with the main climate change thesis.
Please pass to presenters because this issue about Gore will arise again.
Student's 'English party' deemed racist
We read:
"A student at a university that prides itself on being among the most multicultural in Britain has been branded "racist" after distributing invitations to an "English party".
Rugby captain Timothy McLellan has been forced to apologise after pinning up posters around the campus promising the event would have "no bongos, shisha pipes or Arabic music".
The 20-year-old law student had intended the flyer to be a joke poking fun at parties held at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, which typically have an ethnic theme.
Source
The only illegitimate culture is mainstream white culture. Rugby is an English upper-class form of football.
Pervasive British antisemitism
Who said this on a visit to America last week ? "When you think how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been . they more or less monopolize American foreign policy, as far as many people can see." Mahmoud Ahamdinejad? No: it was Professor Richard Dawkins, speaking at the Atheist Alliance convention in Crystal City, Virginia.
Mr. Dawkins has embarked on a campaign to give atheists a louder voice in the American public square. He appears to be unaware of the irony involved in his chosen method of attracting attention - which is to repeat the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories of the Islamic fundamentalists.
As holder of the chair of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, Mr. Dawkins has even less excuse for holding such opinions than the Islamofascists. After all, Oxford academics, known as "dons," are exposed to a wide range of views, aren't they? They devote their lives to the disinterested pursuit of truth, distinguish between fact and fiction, tolerate dissent, defend freedom of speech and thought, don't they? Well, no, actually:aJewishfriend of mine who taught at Oxford until recently told me that he found the atmosphere there to be oppressive for anybody who did not buy the Palestinian narrative. His colleagues simply weren't interested in hearing the truth. They were tolerant, yes, but only of rabid anti-Semites such as the poet Tom Paulin, who called for "Brooklyn-born settlers" in Israel to be "shot dead." They were intolerant of those whose scholarship treated Zionism objectively. So, sadly, my friend left the university.
This is the context in which the British University and College Union voted to boycott Israeli academics - though last week the union backed off, after legal advice warning its leaders that such a boycott would infringe anti-discrimination laws. But why did the academics require one of the most expensive lawyers in Britain, Anthony Lester, to tell them what their consciences ought to have told them instinctively?
Part of the explanation is that these academics are, like the rest of Europe, busily appeasing the Islamists. Their forms of appeasement are more offensive than, say, the Sainsbury supermarket chain permitting its Muslim checkout staff to refuse to sell alcohol to customers, but the reflex is the same. It matters hugely, of course, when the free circulation of scholarship is stopped by the scholars themselves engaging in a deliberate act of sabotage. Let me give one very striking example. In the September 17 issue of the Weekly Standard, the German academic Matthias Kuentzel wrote a brilliant article on the Nazi roots of Islamism, "Jew-Hatred and Jihad," which I recommend to anyone who wants to understand the pathological motives and ideological provenance of our present enemies.
Readers of this column may recall that last March I wrote about how Mr. Kuentzel was prevented from giving a public lecture on the same topic at Leeds University in England, because the administrators claimed to be worried about "security" - meaning that they had received threats. Even if this had been true, it would have been a shameful capitulation to blackmail, but it emerged that no such threats had, in fact, been received. The Kuentzel case deserves to be a cause celebre in the debate on academic freedom.
Next month Mr. Kuentzel's book, "Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11," will be published by Telos Press. In it, he will show that Al Qaeda in general, and especially Mohamed Atta, leader of the Hamburg-based terrorist cell that carried out the attacks on September 11, were motivated by a Nazi belief in Jewish world domination. Atta "considered New York City the center of world Jewry, which was, in his opinion, Enemy No.1."
Amazingly, American and European authorities have completely failed to take cognizance of the anti-Semitic nature of the ideology that led to September 11, despite the wealth of evidence that has emerged since. Yet some of us were warning people about this elephant in the room at the time. On September 11, within hours of the attacks, I was writing the main oped article for the Daily Telegraph, which appeared the next day. This is what I wrote: "Let there be no mistake: global Islamic terrorism is rooted in global anti-Semitism. This was, in many ways, the most vicious blow aimed at the Jewish people since the Holocaust. New York is not only the richest city on earth, the capital of capitalism; it is also the largest Jewish city . The collaboration of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem with the Nazis is only the most notorious instance of a long line of Judaeophobic Arab leaders."
Why did the American authors of the "9/11 Commission Report," published in July 2004, fail to notice any of this? Why has the British academic establishment shunned the minority of scholars, such as David Pryce-Jones, Emanuele Ottolenghi, Matthias Kuentzel, and Efraim Karsh, who have consistently warned against this dangerous Islamofascist nexus?
The answer is that anti-Semitism has quietly insinuated itself into British social and cultural life again. On Saturday the chairman of Chelsea Football Club, one of the most famous soccer teams in the world, publicly protested about anti-Semitic abuse by the fans of the new manager and coach, Avram Grant. Mr. Grant had been in the job for just one week. His crime? To be an Israeli and a distinguished former coach of the national team.
This week the word from the White House was that President Bush has given up on Gordon Brown. He prefers Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel. Something is rotten in the state of Britain. And I fear that the ugly prejudices of Professor Dawkins are not only typical of Oxford academics, or even of evangelical atheists, but of many more of his - and my - compatriots
Source
No cojones in Britain. They aim to desecrate Christian graves on behalf of Muslims: "A third of a million bodies could be dug up from a historic east London cemetery to make way for a new Muslim burial site. Tower Hamlets council is considering reopening its Cemetery Park in Mile End in response to a long-running campaign for a Muslim graveyard in the area. The park, off Bow Common Lane, was deconsecrated as a Church of England cemetery by Parliament in 1966, after being deemed full with about 350,000 bodies buried there...."
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Britain fails to repeal the influence of IQ
Policies based on incorrect theories are bound to fail. Blaming the low ability of kids from poor families on what the poor families do rather than on the low IQ that they transmit genetically to their children will always lead to policies that fail. The proof of the pudding ....
Forty per cent of children struggle to write their own name or to sound out letters to form simple words such as “dog” or “red” by the age of 5, government figures show. The annual assessments of children’s progress during their first year in school also show that more than a fifth of youngsters have problems stringing a coherent sentence together by the time that they enter their reception year. A quarter fail to reach the expected levels of emotional development for their age.
The findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of flagship government schemes such as Sure Start to boost the development of the under-5s, although some critics point out that in many countries children are not expected to start to read or write until they are 7. Around 21 billion pounds [What's a waste of a measly 21 billion between friends?] has been invested in a series of initiatives but the latest results for schools in England show little improvement in children’s language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development.
Sure Start was also supposed to help to narrow the attainment gap between children from poor backgrounds and the rest, but only 35 per cent of children from poor areas reached the expected level of attainment across all measures, compared with 51 per cent of children from other areas. The achievement gap has not moved since last year and the overall levels of achievement, at 45 per cent, are well short of the target of 53 per cent by next year.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for children and families, said that the “yawning gulf” between rich and poor was deeply disturbing. Maria Miller, the Conservative families spokeswoman, said that the data, released by the Office for National Statistics, showed that Sure Start was not working. Beverley Hughes, the Children and Families Minister, conceded that more improvement was needed. She was disappointed that the gap between poor and middle-class children had not narrowed. She added: “Both we and local authorities must focus our efforts on improving the life chances of children who are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.”
The foundation profile targets require five-year-olds to score at least six out of nine points in each of seven areas of learning covering language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development. Girls outstripped boys in every one of them – by 17 percentage points in the case of writing. Only 58 per cent of five-year-olds were reaching a “good level of development” in writing. One in three children (35 per cent) did not reach a good level of development in linking sounds and letters, for example through recognising and saying words such as “red” and “dog” or “pen”. Fifteen per cent could not write “mum”, “dad” or their own first name from memory, while a further 25 per cent struggled to do so.
But the assessments, which are known as the Foundation Stage Profile, were criticised by teaching unions last night. Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, called them “unreliable and unhelpful” because they are based on subjective teacher observations, not tests.
Source
British charity: Pupils risk prosecution for 'gay' slur
Children who call their classmates "gay" risk being arrested for committing a hate crime even if they do not know what the word means, a leading charity warned last night. Under new proposals issued by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, it will be illegal to use threatening words or behaviour on the grounds of sexual orientation. Those convicted would face up to seven years in jail.
But Kidscape, which helps bullied and vulnerable children, said police officers must use "common sense" when called in to investigate whether pupils had broken the proposed law. The charity warned many youngsters who used "gay" as an insult did not even know what it meant. Claude Knights, the charity's training manager, said to many children the word now meant only "the opposite of cool". She insisted the legislation if it reduced true homophobic bullying, but added: "The word is almost at the point where it has become a general insult, the opposite of cool. Children say things like, 'Your trainers are gay.' "It is almost in youth culture now. You get kids in primary school using it and they don't have any idea what the word means. "If we are going to have consequences [to the new law] we have got to have common sense in how it is applied."
The proposed new law would be the first to cover a specific offence of homophobic incitement. To date the 1986 Public Order Act - which makes it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in a way likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress - has been used to arrest people for "homophobic" comments. The new Criminal Justice Act could be used where public order laws fail.
On Monday Mr Straw told MPs the new "gay hate" law would be drafted in such a way to ensure that only those who intend to pose a threat are prosecuted, and not those who mean to be merely abusive, mocking or insulting. However, there have already been cases where children have been arrested for using the word "gay" in the playground. In April four policemen were sent to deal with 11-year-old George Rawlinson from Widnes, Cheshire, after he called one of his schoolfriends "gay". Two were sent to his primary school and two to his home. Cheshire police only dropped the matter when the boy explained he meant his friend was "stupid" rather than as a homophobic insult. Schools have also been told to clampdown on use of the word as a playground slur amid fears it legitimises homophobia.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls published guidance earlier this month designed to clamp down on homophobic bullying, while a survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers showed a huge rise in use of playground insults like "poof" and "lezzie". Mr Balls said: "I reject any notion that addressing homophobic bullying is political correctness for its own sake. "Even casual use of homophobic language in schools can create an atmosphere that isolates young people and can be the forerunner of more serious forms of bullying."
Source
We gays are not so weedy that we can't take insults
Matthew Parris writes
It's tempting to cheer Jack Straw's promise in the Commons this week that incitement to homophobic hatred is to be made a crime, along with incitement to racial or religious hatred. But I'm not so sure. Seriously threatening language - of any kind - is already a crime; but once the law starts limiting free speech in matters of honest opinion, where does it stop?
The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination; God puts the city of Sodom to the torch; the present Pope calls it a "disorder". Such views, however civilly expressed, are inherently hate-inciting, but should their expression be a crime? Then why should we remain free to sneer, in ways inciting hatred, at a person's being Welsh, or Irish?
"Spastic" or "cripple" are hateful expressions that nobody should use as insults, but if the use of "batty boy" or "queer" is to invite prosecution, what is the argument against making disablist insult a matter for the police too? And how about language that incites hatred of women?
Lines of absolute principle are hard to draw, but some groups may be so weak and fragile as to need the law's protection from hateful speech. I'd like to think we gays are no longer among them.
Source
Corrupt NHS hospital
The NHS has become a honeypot for bureaucrats -- particularly if they are incompetent. Sick people are bottom priority
The Health Secretary has instructed an NHS trust at the centre of a super-bug scandal to withhold a redundancy payment to its departing chief executive amid the possibility of a criminal investigation. Rose Gibb left her job as head of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust last Friday, days before a damning report revealed that mismanagement of an outbreak of Clostridium difficile had contributed to more than 90 deaths at the trust. The investigation by the Healthcare Commission, published yesterday, found “significant failings” in infection control at every level of the organisation and was heavily critical of the management regime by Ms Gibb during the worst outbreaks ever recorded of C. difficile.
Alan Johnson made the request to postpone any severance payout amid rumours that Ms Gibb could expect to receive 500,000 pounds or more after serving in her post for four years. Annual accounts showed that she earned around 150,000 in salary, 5,000 in benefits and 12,500 in pension in 2006-07.
Mr Johnson said yesterday morning that the circumstances leading to the deaths had been a “scandal”, before announcing last night: “I have instructed the trust to withhold any severance payment to the former chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, pending legal advice.” The Department of Health said that it was consulting lawyers to confirm whether the Secretary of State had powers to prevent such a payment. “We believe this is an unprecedented case,” a spokeswoman said. “It’s usually up to the trust to decide payments to its staff.”
Meanwhile, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) met Kent Police yesterday to discuss whether to bring criminal charges against the trust or Ms Gibb as an individual. Lawyers said yesterday that the trust or Ms Gibb could be charged under existing criminal or health and safety law, but recent changes to make organisations more accountable for deaths under the new offence of corporate manslaughter will not come into force until April next year. A spokeswoman for the HSE said: “We look for evidence admissible in court whether there has been any breach of law by the corporation. “If you can prove that, then you could also prosecute those in charge, such as the directors or chief executive. There you are looking for evidence that by deliberate action of those in charge, the breach occurred.” Deliberate action would mean that the chief executive or directors knew that people could die or an adverse outcome could occur from a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
A spokesman for Kent Police added: “We are in the process of reviewing the contents of the report given to us by the Healthcare Commission. Until such stage we have digested the contents of the report, we cannot say we are going to fully investigate this. We have got to review it first. The purpose of the review is to see if any criminal acts have taken place.” He said that if any criminality was found, police would gather evidence and liaise with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Appalling hygiene standards at Kent & Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital resulted in C. difficile contributing to 345 deaths, of which it was directly linked to 90. More than 1,100 patients were infected at the hospitals over a two-year period, the Healthcare Commission found.
The trust has refused to disclose how much money Ms Gibb received after leaving, but it is understood that managers in a similar position have been awarded up to 900,000 pounds. A spokesman for the trust said yesterday: “As with any employee, the financial arrangements are confidential.” In a statement last week the trust chairman and Ms Gibb said that they had “agreed that this is the right moment for her to move on”. It said that she was leaving to “pursue new challenges”.
Geoff Martin of the campaign group Health Emergency said that the intervention by Mr Johnson had been “absolutely right and proper”. “A severance payment should never have been considered in the first place,” he said. “I have heard from Maidstone NHS staff this morning that [she] is rumoured to have received a massive payoff from the trust. “If it’s true, we have a right to know how much taxpayers’ money is involved and it would fuel the scandal even more if it turns out that senior managers have walked away from this carnage with their pockets stuffed with NHS cash.”
Source
British libel laws becoming less oppressive : "A journalist who suggested that a former police officer may be corrupt was cleared of libel in the Court of Appeal yesterday. In a victory that strengthens the media's right to report on matters that are in the public interest, the appeal judges said that Graeme McClagan had acted responsibly in his research for the book Bent Coppers. Michael Charman, who was a detective constable in the Metropolitan Police, claimed that it was libellous because it suggested that there were grounds for suspecting him of involvement in corruption. The judges ruled unanimously that Mr McLagan had taken steps to verify the story and that as a result of his honesty, his expertise, his careful research and evaluation of the material, his book was protected by a defence of "public interest". It is thought to be the first time that the defence has been argued successfully for a book".
Policies based on incorrect theories are bound to fail. Blaming the low ability of kids from poor families on what the poor families do rather than on the low IQ that they transmit genetically to their children will always lead to policies that fail. The proof of the pudding ....
Forty per cent of children struggle to write their own name or to sound out letters to form simple words such as “dog” or “red” by the age of 5, government figures show. The annual assessments of children’s progress during their first year in school also show that more than a fifth of youngsters have problems stringing a coherent sentence together by the time that they enter their reception year. A quarter fail to reach the expected levels of emotional development for their age.
The findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of flagship government schemes such as Sure Start to boost the development of the under-5s, although some critics point out that in many countries children are not expected to start to read or write until they are 7. Around 21 billion pounds [What's a waste of a measly 21 billion between friends?] has been invested in a series of initiatives but the latest results for schools in England show little improvement in children’s language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development.
Sure Start was also supposed to help to narrow the attainment gap between children from poor backgrounds and the rest, but only 35 per cent of children from poor areas reached the expected level of attainment across all measures, compared with 51 per cent of children from other areas. The achievement gap has not moved since last year and the overall levels of achievement, at 45 per cent, are well short of the target of 53 per cent by next year.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for children and families, said that the “yawning gulf” between rich and poor was deeply disturbing. Maria Miller, the Conservative families spokeswoman, said that the data, released by the Office for National Statistics, showed that Sure Start was not working. Beverley Hughes, the Children and Families Minister, conceded that more improvement was needed. She was disappointed that the gap between poor and middle-class children had not narrowed. She added: “Both we and local authorities must focus our efforts on improving the life chances of children who are the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.”
The foundation profile targets require five-year-olds to score at least six out of nine points in each of seven areas of learning covering language and literacy and personal, social and emotional development. Girls outstripped boys in every one of them – by 17 percentage points in the case of writing. Only 58 per cent of five-year-olds were reaching a “good level of development” in writing. One in three children (35 per cent) did not reach a good level of development in linking sounds and letters, for example through recognising and saying words such as “red” and “dog” or “pen”. Fifteen per cent could not write “mum”, “dad” or their own first name from memory, while a further 25 per cent struggled to do so.
But the assessments, which are known as the Foundation Stage Profile, were criticised by teaching unions last night. Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, called them “unreliable and unhelpful” because they are based on subjective teacher observations, not tests.
Source
British charity: Pupils risk prosecution for 'gay' slur
Children who call their classmates "gay" risk being arrested for committing a hate crime even if they do not know what the word means, a leading charity warned last night. Under new proposals issued by Justice Secretary Jack Straw, it will be illegal to use threatening words or behaviour on the grounds of sexual orientation. Those convicted would face up to seven years in jail.
But Kidscape, which helps bullied and vulnerable children, said police officers must use "common sense" when called in to investigate whether pupils had broken the proposed law. The charity warned many youngsters who used "gay" as an insult did not even know what it meant. Claude Knights, the charity's training manager, said to many children the word now meant only "the opposite of cool". She insisted the legislation if it reduced true homophobic bullying, but added: "The word is almost at the point where it has become a general insult, the opposite of cool. Children say things like, 'Your trainers are gay.' "It is almost in youth culture now. You get kids in primary school using it and they don't have any idea what the word means. "If we are going to have consequences [to the new law] we have got to have common sense in how it is applied."
The proposed new law would be the first to cover a specific offence of homophobic incitement. To date the 1986 Public Order Act - which makes it an offence to use threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour in a way likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress - has been used to arrest people for "homophobic" comments. The new Criminal Justice Act could be used where public order laws fail.
On Monday Mr Straw told MPs the new "gay hate" law would be drafted in such a way to ensure that only those who intend to pose a threat are prosecuted, and not those who mean to be merely abusive, mocking or insulting. However, there have already been cases where children have been arrested for using the word "gay" in the playground. In April four policemen were sent to deal with 11-year-old George Rawlinson from Widnes, Cheshire, after he called one of his schoolfriends "gay". Two were sent to his primary school and two to his home. Cheshire police only dropped the matter when the boy explained he meant his friend was "stupid" rather than as a homophobic insult. Schools have also been told to clampdown on use of the word as a playground slur amid fears it legitimises homophobia.
Children's Secretary Ed Balls published guidance earlier this month designed to clamp down on homophobic bullying, while a survey by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers showed a huge rise in use of playground insults like "poof" and "lezzie". Mr Balls said: "I reject any notion that addressing homophobic bullying is political correctness for its own sake. "Even casual use of homophobic language in schools can create an atmosphere that isolates young people and can be the forerunner of more serious forms of bullying."
Source
We gays are not so weedy that we can't take insults
Matthew Parris writes
It's tempting to cheer Jack Straw's promise in the Commons this week that incitement to homophobic hatred is to be made a crime, along with incitement to racial or religious hatred. But I'm not so sure. Seriously threatening language - of any kind - is already a crime; but once the law starts limiting free speech in matters of honest opinion, where does it stop?
The Bible says homosexuality is an abomination; God puts the city of Sodom to the torch; the present Pope calls it a "disorder". Such views, however civilly expressed, are inherently hate-inciting, but should their expression be a crime? Then why should we remain free to sneer, in ways inciting hatred, at a person's being Welsh, or Irish?
"Spastic" or "cripple" are hateful expressions that nobody should use as insults, but if the use of "batty boy" or "queer" is to invite prosecution, what is the argument against making disablist insult a matter for the police too? And how about language that incites hatred of women?
Lines of absolute principle are hard to draw, but some groups may be so weak and fragile as to need the law's protection from hateful speech. I'd like to think we gays are no longer among them.
Source
Corrupt NHS hospital
The NHS has become a honeypot for bureaucrats -- particularly if they are incompetent. Sick people are bottom priority
The Health Secretary has instructed an NHS trust at the centre of a super-bug scandal to withhold a redundancy payment to its departing chief executive amid the possibility of a criminal investigation. Rose Gibb left her job as head of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust last Friday, days before a damning report revealed that mismanagement of an outbreak of Clostridium difficile had contributed to more than 90 deaths at the trust. The investigation by the Healthcare Commission, published yesterday, found “significant failings” in infection control at every level of the organisation and was heavily critical of the management regime by Ms Gibb during the worst outbreaks ever recorded of C. difficile.
Alan Johnson made the request to postpone any severance payout amid rumours that Ms Gibb could expect to receive 500,000 pounds or more after serving in her post for four years. Annual accounts showed that she earned around 150,000 in salary, 5,000 in benefits and 12,500 in pension in 2006-07.
Mr Johnson said yesterday morning that the circumstances leading to the deaths had been a “scandal”, before announcing last night: “I have instructed the trust to withhold any severance payment to the former chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, pending legal advice.” The Department of Health said that it was consulting lawyers to confirm whether the Secretary of State had powers to prevent such a payment. “We believe this is an unprecedented case,” a spokeswoman said. “It’s usually up to the trust to decide payments to its staff.”
Meanwhile, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) met Kent Police yesterday to discuss whether to bring criminal charges against the trust or Ms Gibb as an individual. Lawyers said yesterday that the trust or Ms Gibb could be charged under existing criminal or health and safety law, but recent changes to make organisations more accountable for deaths under the new offence of corporate manslaughter will not come into force until April next year. A spokeswoman for the HSE said: “We look for evidence admissible in court whether there has been any breach of law by the corporation. “If you can prove that, then you could also prosecute those in charge, such as the directors or chief executive. There you are looking for evidence that by deliberate action of those in charge, the breach occurred.” Deliberate action would mean that the chief executive or directors knew that people could die or an adverse outcome could occur from a breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act.
A spokesman for Kent Police added: “We are in the process of reviewing the contents of the report given to us by the Healthcare Commission. Until such stage we have digested the contents of the report, we cannot say we are going to fully investigate this. We have got to review it first. The purpose of the review is to see if any criminal acts have taken place.” He said that if any criminality was found, police would gather evidence and liaise with the Crown Prosecution Service.
Appalling hygiene standards at Kent & Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital resulted in C. difficile contributing to 345 deaths, of which it was directly linked to 90. More than 1,100 patients were infected at the hospitals over a two-year period, the Healthcare Commission found.
The trust has refused to disclose how much money Ms Gibb received after leaving, but it is understood that managers in a similar position have been awarded up to 900,000 pounds. A spokesman for the trust said yesterday: “As with any employee, the financial arrangements are confidential.” In a statement last week the trust chairman and Ms Gibb said that they had “agreed that this is the right moment for her to move on”. It said that she was leaving to “pursue new challenges”.
Geoff Martin of the campaign group Health Emergency said that the intervention by Mr Johnson had been “absolutely right and proper”. “A severance payment should never have been considered in the first place,” he said. “I have heard from Maidstone NHS staff this morning that [she] is rumoured to have received a massive payoff from the trust. “If it’s true, we have a right to know how much taxpayers’ money is involved and it would fuel the scandal even more if it turns out that senior managers have walked away from this carnage with their pockets stuffed with NHS cash.”
Source
British libel laws becoming less oppressive : "A journalist who suggested that a former police officer may be corrupt was cleared of libel in the Court of Appeal yesterday. In a victory that strengthens the media's right to report on matters that are in the public interest, the appeal judges said that Graeme McClagan had acted responsibly in his research for the book Bent Coppers. Michael Charman, who was a detective constable in the Metropolitan Police, claimed that it was libellous because it suggested that there were grounds for suspecting him of involvement in corruption. The judges ruled unanimously that Mr McLagan had taken steps to verify the story and that as a result of his honesty, his expertise, his careful research and evaluation of the material, his book was protected by a defence of "public interest". It is thought to be the first time that the defence has been argued successfully for a book".
Friday, October 12, 2007
Judicial wisdom from Britain
Following are the inaccuracies in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as found by a British High Court judge:
The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. Although a full ruling has yet to be given, the Court found that the film was misleading in 11 respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary's advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children. The inaccuracies are:
The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Source
Beware Muslim doctors
Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs. Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity. A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.
The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.
It will intensify the debate sparked last week by the disclosure that Sainsbury's is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers' alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till.
Critics, including many Islamic scholars, see the concessions as a step too far, and say Muslims are reneging on their professional responsibilities.
This weekend, however, it emerged that Sainsbury's is also allowing its Muslim pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill to customers. At a Sainsbury's store in Nottingham, a pharmacist named Ahmed declined to provide the pill to a female reporter posing as a customer. A colleague explained to her that Ahmed did not sell the pill for "ethical reasons". Boots also permits pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill on ethical grounds.
The BMA said it had received reports of Muslim students who did not want to learn anything about alcohol or the effects of overconsumption. "They are so opposed to the consumption of it they don't want to learn anything about it," said a spokesman.
The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could "omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate". Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC's education committee, said: "Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender." He added that "prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients' gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice".
Shazia Ovaisi, a GP in north London, said one of her male Muslim contemporaries at medical school failed to complete his training because he refused to examine a woman patient as part of his final exams. "He was academically gifted, one of the best students, but gradually he got in with certain Islamic groups and started to become more radical," said Ovaisi. "You could see there was a change in his personality as time went by. During the final exams he was supposed to treat a female patient in hospital. He refused to do it, even though it would have been a very basic examination, nothing intrusive. "But he refused and as a result he failed his exams. I was quite shocked and disappointed about it because I don't see there being anything in our religion that prohibits us from examining male and female patients."
Both the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentist Association said they were aware of students opting out but did not support them. Dr Abdul Majid Katme, of the Islamic Medical Association, said: "To learn about alcohol, to learn about sexually transmitted disease, to learn about abortion, it gives us more evidence to campaign against it. There is a difference between learning and practising. "It is obligatory for Muslim doctors and students to learn about everything. The prophet said, `Learn about witchcraft, but don't practise it'."
Source
NHS superbug negligence kills 90
At least 90 patients died and more than 1,100 became infected as hospital managers failed to control the worst outbreaks ever recorded of the super-bug clostridium difficile, a report states today. Inadequate staffing levels, dirty wards and too much focus on cost-cutting and government targets contributed to two serious outbreaks of C difficile in as many years at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, an investigation by the Healthcare Commission found. The Health and Safety Executive and Kent Police are now considering the possibility of criminal charges being brought against the trust or its executives.
The commission found "significant failings" in infection control at three hospitals run by the trust between April 2004 and September last year, including unwashed bedpans, a lack of isolation units, beds being spaced far less than the recommended 3.6 metres apart to stop the spread of infection and nurses telling some patients with diarrhoea to "go in their beds". Pictures taken as recently as February disclosed continuing hygiene concerns. Rose Gibb, the chief executive of the trust, left her job on Friday by mutual agreement with the board.
The failure to contain and treat infections at all levels contributed to 1,176 patients being infected with the bug at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital, Kent, the watchdog said. A total of 345 patients died while infected with the bacterium between April 2004 and September 2006, 21 died as a direct result of infection and for 69 patients it was probably the main cause of death, it added. In addition, C difficile could also be considered a "contributing factor" in as many as 241 of the deaths, although the report said that patients, many of them elderly or frail, may well have died of other causes if they had not acquired the infection. The trust had previously told the Healthcare Commission there had been "no deaths that were definitely caused by C diff" between April 2004 and March 2006.
The first big outbreak was between October and December 2005 but, despite the number of infected patients quickly doubling to 150, the trust did not identify the outbreak. The second significant outbreak was between April and September 2006, in which 258 patients were affected, and was recognised as serious by the trust. But despite these problems, the trust declared itself compliant with national government standards for hygiene and infection in May 2006.
At the time of the outbreaks the trust was carrying out a programme to save 40 million pounds over three years in the face of huge debts. At the end of 2003, the trust had an accumulated deficit of 17.6 million. Last year, it reported a deficit of 4.5 million.
The commission said that there was evidence patients had been moved between several wards, increasing the chance of spreading infection. It said this was partly due to concerns over hitting the Government's targets on waiting times for treatment in A&E.
Anna Walker, the chief executive of the commission, said that the lack of infection control at the trust had been "unacceptable" but that conditions had improved as a result of monitoring by the commission. Improvements included increasing the space between beds, appointing a new director of infection prevention and control and implementing a policy on the use of antibiotics which are known to help C difficile thrive.
"What happened to the patients at this trust was a tragedy," Ms Walker said. "This report fully exposes the reasons for that tragedy, so that the same mistakes are never made again." She called for the NHS to treat C difficile as an illness rather than just an added complication.
Health Protection Agency figures showed that rates of C difficile are now lower than the NHS average last year. A spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive said that it was working with Kent Police to consider the report.
Patients were treated on open wards instead of in isolation. A former children's ward was being used for adults. It contained an uncleaned shower, one wash basin for 12 beds and beds placed only 30cm (less than a foot) apart. A shortage of nurses contributed to the spread of infection "because they were too rushed to undertake hand hygiene, empty and clean commodes, clean mattresses and equipment properly" and wear aprons and gloves. High bed occupancy - over 90 per cent at Maidstone and the Kent and Sussex - led to less time for cleaning. Staff used alcohol wipes, which are ineffective against C. Diff spores, to clean commodes instead of soap and water. Old commodes were used despite the trust agreeing to replace them and setting aside 250,000 pounds to do so
Source
Political stupidity about superbug prevention
Government plans for tackling superbugs, such as MRSA, have been condemned by a leading medical journal for not being based on scientific fact. The Lancet said there was little evidence to support hospital "deep cleans" or short-sleeves for medical staff as recently proposed. Instead of "pandering to populism" politicians should listen to the evidence, the editorial said.
The government said the plans were part of a wide range of preventive measures. On Sunday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans to "deep clean" hospitals ward-by-ward over the next year to return hospitals to the state they were in when they were built. His comments followed proposals from Health Secretary Alan Johnson for a new dress code for NHS staff which would advise against long-sleeved coats and ties for doctors as they can become contaminated.
But The Lancet said a government working group had found no conclusive evidence that uniforms or other work clothes posed a significant hazard in terms of spreading infection. And the focus should be on disinfection of high-touch surfaces rather than deep-cleaning wards to get rid of visible dirt, the journal said.
The editorial said: "Brown also plans to double the number of hospital matrons, to check on ward cleaning, and accost doctors wearing long sleeves. "They would be better employed making sure doctors, nurses and visitors wash their hands properly, the proven way to stop hospital acquired infections," the editorial stated.
Professor Richard James, director of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at the University of Nottingham agreed the evidence on transmission of infection from clothing such as long sleeves was not clear but short sleeves may encourage staff to wash their hands properly. He added: "The main route of transmission of MRSA is person-to-person contact and this will be affected little by deep cleaning.
"In contrast, Clostridium difficile is transmitted by contact with faecal contamination so it may be more effective here." He said in addition to hand washing, other useful strategies would be screening patients for MRSA on admission, regular use of hydrogen peroxide vapour generators to kill bugs in the hospital environment and educating patients and visitors on ways they can reduce risk.
Chief Nursing Officer, Professor Christine Beasley said there was no single solution and the new proposals were part of a wider set of measures to reduce hospital-acquired infections. She agreed that there was no evidence that uniforms themselves pose a significant risk of transmitting infections but said long sleeves and watches "get in the way of washing and decontaminating the hands, wrists and forearms". "Clean and tidy hospitals and staff are very important to patients," she said. "We make no apology for asking hospitals to take every reasonable measure to reduce infection and increase patient confidence that this is an issue the NHS is taking seriously."
Dr Mark Enright, an expert in molecular epidemiology at Imperial College, London said deep cleaning would be a waste of resources and an inconvenience to patients and staff. "MRSA is a major problem in the UK because it is present, mostly unknowingly, in patients and staff. "Interrupting the chain of transmission from these people to new hosts should be the main focus of infection control, not attempts at the sterilisation of floors and windows."
Source
Cheap trainer shoes as good as (or better than) expensive ones
RUNNERS who buy expensive training shoes in the belief they are less likely to cause injury are deluding themselves, according to a new study. Researchers in Scotland tested running shoes, made by three manufacturers, that fell into three price bands - low (40-45 pounds or $90-$102), medium (60-65 pounds) and high (70-75 pounds).
After masking the manufacturer's logo and other tags with tape, the scientists slipped a thin pressure plate, shaped like an insole, into the shoes. The device, called a Pedar, measured the pressure at three points on the sole of the foot: under the heel, across the forefoot and under the big toe. The goal was to get an idea of the effectiveness of the cushioning that manufacturers add to the shoe to dampen the shockwave to the foot. Thus, the higher the pressure, the greater the force that is transmitted to the runner when his or her foot makes contact with the ground.
They then asked 43 young male volunteers to put on the shoes and walk along a 20m walkway in the lab. The volunteers each wore a small backpack which held a box that picked up data signals from the pressure gauge. Nine volunteers then wore the shoes as they ran on a treadmill, to see if this made any difference in sole pressures as compared to walking.
"Plantar pressure was lower overall in low- and medium-cost shoes than in high-cost shoes,'' says their paper, which appears in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. "This may suggest that less expensive running shoes not only provide as much protection from impact forces as expensive running shoes, but that in actual fact they may also provide more.''
The volunteers were also asked to assess the masked shoes for comfort. But their preferences were subjective and bore no relation to the distribution of plantar pressure or the cost of the shoe, the investigators found.
Running is a high-impact activity. With every footfall, a middle-distance runner experiences an impact equal to 2.5 times body weight - and this force increases with speed and fatigue. The impact transmits shock waves that are transmitted by the bones of the foot to the rest of the body, with the potential to cause knee damage, shin splints, muscle tears, Achilles tendonitis and other injuries.
Athletic footwear can reduce the impact by a third through good cushioning, as compared to the impact from walking barefoot, according to the study headed by Rami Abboud of the Institute of Motion Analysis Research at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee.
Source
More irresponsible statin evangelism
No mention of their often disastrous effect on quality of life -- which is WHY alleged "former" takers are focused on. It takes a lot for most people to continue with them. This is obviously such a careless study (see the rubrics and italics below) that I am not even going to bother looking at the abstract
People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs are protected from heart disease and premature death years after they stop taking them, a major study has shown. New research into statins - the world's biggest-selling medication - offers dramatic evidence of their long-lasting ability to halt and even reverse the progression of heart disease. The study, involving 6,500 men, found that those who took statins were still showing benefits of the drugs ten years after they had finished taking them. The chances of suffering a fatal heart attack over the period dropped by more than 25 per cent, the scientists found, while there was no evidence of unexpected side-effects. This remarkable result will increase pressure on GPs to prescribe statins to an even greater number of middle-aged people with raised cholesterol levels.
Professor Stuart Cobbe, of the University of Glasgow, the leading cardiologist on the study, said that he had been extremely surprised. "The benefit appeared to extend to at least ten years after the original trial," he said. The findings do not suggest that people on statins should give up; rather it is better to continue taking them. But even those who do give up continue to enjoy a benefit, Professor Cobbe said.
The results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, come three months after a government adviser suggested statins should be offered to all men over 50 and women over 60 as an effective "shortcut" to prevent heart disease. Statins are currently taken daily by an estimated three million Britons to tackle high chloresterol. Heart disease is Britain's biggest killer, accounting for one in three deaths. The annual cost to the economy is about œ26 billion a year, the bulk of which is treatment costs.
Professor Chris Packard, a co-author of the study, said: "The impact of the statin treatment appeared to persist long after the active phase of the trial. This suggests that the drugs have lasting beneficial effects on the artery wall, possibly by stabilising plaques that might be about to rupture and cause an heart attack." Breakaway plaques can cause attacks by blocking the blood vessels and starving the heart of blood. Statins appear to stabilise the lining of the blood vessels, as well as damping down inflammation.
The original trial, the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (Woscops), was launched between 1989 and 1991. More than 6,500 men aged between 45 and 64 who had not had a heart attack but had elevated cholesterol levels were recruited and divided into two groups. Half were given pravastatin and the other half a placebo. They were followed up for five years, until May 1995. The results showed that the risks of death from heart disease, or of suffering a heart attack, were significantly reduced in the statin users. The new study follows up the same men for another ten years. It compares heart attack and death rates in the original statin group against the original placebo group. Since the trial, both groups have changed. The statin group have tended to give up taking the tablets, while many of those in the placebo group have started to take them. No account was taken of these changes [Thus rendering the implications of the results completely indeterminate. Perhaps the group given a statin placebo have been so disillusioned by "their" statins that moved on to more harmful "natural" remedies], and a simple comparison was made of the 15-year experience of the original statin group against the original placbo group.
Professor Ian Ford, lead author of the study, said: "Remarkably, five years of treatment with a statin resulted in 27 per cent fewer nonfatal heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease over the period of 15 years. There was a significant 12 per cent reduction in deaths over the entire period, with deaths due to heart disease reduced by 22 per cent." The gap between the groups narrowed after the trial ended, and their use of statins tended to converge. But up to the end of the 15-year period, the original statin group did better than the original placebo group, showing a persistence of the effect. [Or showing that most high-risk people end up taking statins for a while; some sooner, some later. And maybe those given it when younger tend to tolerate it better. It is all pure speculation]
Professor Ford said: "The results of the follow-up provide strong support for the safety of five years of statin use. "When fatal and nonfatal heart disease events were studied it was found that, despite the fact that most of the participants were not treated with a statin after the first five years of the trial, there was evidence of the group originally receiving the statin continuing to be at lower risk of having a heart disease event."
Statin prescriptions have risen by 150 per cent in England in the past five years. The trial raises the question of whether they should be given to an even wider group, including younger people in whom heart disease has yet to get a start.
Source
Jagger has more sense than the historians
SCHOOLS should teach proper history, not pop music, Mick Jagger has suggested, after discovering that the Rolling Stones are a topic on the British high school syllabus. Still rolling at 64, Jagger was responding to a Bristol teacher who asked how best to present the cultural importance of the Rolling Stones to a class of eager history students. Despite being the subject of numerous academic works, Jagger said it was only rock 'n' roll and the Stones' importance in the grand scheme of things may have been overstated.
In a BBC News website question-and-answer session, Alison McClean wrote: "I am currently teaching my Year 11 students about the impact of the Rolling Stones in preparation for their GCSE history coursework on Britain in the 1960s. How does Mick feel about being part of the history curriculum and, if he was sitting the exam himself, how would he describe the Stones' impact on Britain?"
Jagger, who passed O-level history at Dartford Grammar School in 1959, was less than impressed. "I suppose pop music was very important in the 1960s, it became perhaps too important. It was one of the things in popular culture," he said. "Alison, I'm sure you're teaching it as part of the whole popular culture movement. I'm sure it's brilliantly accurate - or perhaps not because if you look up a lot of it, it's nonsense."
He was speaking as a concerned parent. "I have a daughter who's doing GCSEs at the moment," he said. "She hasn't got me in her syllabus. She's much more traditional. It's more the cause of World War I, that sort of thing." The best he could say for lessons in dad's role in the 60s cultural revolution was that "it was an interesting historical tipping point".
Jagger benefited from a traditional schooling at Dartford, where Latin was obligatory, masters donned gowns and pupils wore a cap at all times with a regulation blazer with gold trim. His first report in June 1955 placed him 15th out of 30 pupils. His form master, Dick Allen, wrote that he had made "a good start". His academic performance went into steep decline after he discovered "music and girls". Contemporaries recall a lecture young Jagger gave to the school's historical society on the blues.
The high-point of his Dartford career came when the emerging rebel led a protest against the quality of school dinners, which resulted in the dismissal of a kitchen supervisor. "It was probably the greatest contribution to the school I ever made," Jagger said in 2000, before returning to open a performing arts centre in his name. He gained seven O levels and two A levels in June 1961, and won a place at the London School of Economics.
Source
Following are the inaccuracies in Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" as found by a British High Court judge:
The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. Although a full ruling has yet to be given, the Court found that the film was misleading in 11 respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary's advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children. The inaccuracies are:
The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Source
Beware Muslim doctors
Some Muslim medical students are refusing to attend lectures or answer exam questions on alcohol-related or sexually transmitted diseases because they claim it offends their religious beliefs. Some trainee doctors say learning to treat the diseases conflicts with their faith, which states that Muslims should not drink alcohol and rejects sexual promiscuity. A small number of Muslim medical students have even refused to treat patients of the opposite sex. One male student was prepared to fail his final exams rather than carry out a basic examination of a female patient.
The religious objections by students have been confirmed by the British Medical Association (BMA) and General Medical Council (GMC), which both stressed that they did not approve of such actions.
It will intensify the debate sparked last week by the disclosure that Sainsbury's is permitting Muslim checkout operators to refuse to handle customers' alcohol purchases on religious grounds. It means other members of staff have to be called over to scan in wine and beer for them at the till.
Critics, including many Islamic scholars, see the concessions as a step too far, and say Muslims are reneging on their professional responsibilities.
This weekend, however, it emerged that Sainsbury's is also allowing its Muslim pharmacists to refuse to sell the morning-after pill to customers. At a Sainsbury's store in Nottingham, a pharmacist named Ahmed declined to provide the pill to a female reporter posing as a customer. A colleague explained to her that Ahmed did not sell the pill for "ethical reasons". Boots also permits pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill on ethical grounds.
The BMA said it had received reports of Muslim students who did not want to learn anything about alcohol or the effects of overconsumption. "They are so opposed to the consumption of it they don't want to learn anything about it," said a spokesman.
The GMC said it had received requests for guidance over whether students could "omit parts of the medical curriculum and yet still be allowed to graduate". Professor Peter Rubin, chairman of the GMC's education committee, said: "Examples have included a refusal to see patients who are affected by diseases caused by alcohol or sexual activity, or a refusal to examine patients of a particular gender." He added that "prejudicing treatment on the grounds of patients' gender or their responsibility for their condition would run counter to the most basic principles of ethical medical practice".
Shazia Ovaisi, a GP in north London, said one of her male Muslim contemporaries at medical school failed to complete his training because he refused to examine a woman patient as part of his final exams. "He was academically gifted, one of the best students, but gradually he got in with certain Islamic groups and started to become more radical," said Ovaisi. "You could see there was a change in his personality as time went by. During the final exams he was supposed to treat a female patient in hospital. He refused to do it, even though it would have been a very basic examination, nothing intrusive. "But he refused and as a result he failed his exams. I was quite shocked and disappointed about it because I don't see there being anything in our religion that prohibits us from examining male and female patients."
Both the Muslim Council of Britain and Muslim Doctors and Dentist Association said they were aware of students opting out but did not support them. Dr Abdul Majid Katme, of the Islamic Medical Association, said: "To learn about alcohol, to learn about sexually transmitted disease, to learn about abortion, it gives us more evidence to campaign against it. There is a difference between learning and practising. "It is obligatory for Muslim doctors and students to learn about everything. The prophet said, `Learn about witchcraft, but don't practise it'."
Source
NHS superbug negligence kills 90
At least 90 patients died and more than 1,100 became infected as hospital managers failed to control the worst outbreaks ever recorded of the super-bug clostridium difficile, a report states today. Inadequate staffing levels, dirty wards and too much focus on cost-cutting and government targets contributed to two serious outbreaks of C difficile in as many years at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, an investigation by the Healthcare Commission found. The Health and Safety Executive and Kent Police are now considering the possibility of criminal charges being brought against the trust or its executives.
The commission found "significant failings" in infection control at three hospitals run by the trust between April 2004 and September last year, including unwashed bedpans, a lack of isolation units, beds being spaced far less than the recommended 3.6 metres apart to stop the spread of infection and nurses telling some patients with diarrhoea to "go in their beds". Pictures taken as recently as February disclosed continuing hygiene concerns. Rose Gibb, the chief executive of the trust, left her job on Friday by mutual agreement with the board.
The failure to contain and treat infections at all levels contributed to 1,176 patients being infected with the bug at Kent and Sussex Hospital, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital, Kent, the watchdog said. A total of 345 patients died while infected with the bacterium between April 2004 and September 2006, 21 died as a direct result of infection and for 69 patients it was probably the main cause of death, it added. In addition, C difficile could also be considered a "contributing factor" in as many as 241 of the deaths, although the report said that patients, many of them elderly or frail, may well have died of other causes if they had not acquired the infection. The trust had previously told the Healthcare Commission there had been "no deaths that were definitely caused by C diff" between April 2004 and March 2006.
The first big outbreak was between October and December 2005 but, despite the number of infected patients quickly doubling to 150, the trust did not identify the outbreak. The second significant outbreak was between April and September 2006, in which 258 patients were affected, and was recognised as serious by the trust. But despite these problems, the trust declared itself compliant with national government standards for hygiene and infection in May 2006.
At the time of the outbreaks the trust was carrying out a programme to save 40 million pounds over three years in the face of huge debts. At the end of 2003, the trust had an accumulated deficit of 17.6 million. Last year, it reported a deficit of 4.5 million.
The commission said that there was evidence patients had been moved between several wards, increasing the chance of spreading infection. It said this was partly due to concerns over hitting the Government's targets on waiting times for treatment in A&E.
Anna Walker, the chief executive of the commission, said that the lack of infection control at the trust had been "unacceptable" but that conditions had improved as a result of monitoring by the commission. Improvements included increasing the space between beds, appointing a new director of infection prevention and control and implementing a policy on the use of antibiotics which are known to help C difficile thrive.
"What happened to the patients at this trust was a tragedy," Ms Walker said. "This report fully exposes the reasons for that tragedy, so that the same mistakes are never made again." She called for the NHS to treat C difficile as an illness rather than just an added complication.
Health Protection Agency figures showed that rates of C difficile are now lower than the NHS average last year. A spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive said that it was working with Kent Police to consider the report.
Patients were treated on open wards instead of in isolation. A former children's ward was being used for adults. It contained an uncleaned shower, one wash basin for 12 beds and beds placed only 30cm (less than a foot) apart. A shortage of nurses contributed to the spread of infection "because they were too rushed to undertake hand hygiene, empty and clean commodes, clean mattresses and equipment properly" and wear aprons and gloves. High bed occupancy - over 90 per cent at Maidstone and the Kent and Sussex - led to less time for cleaning. Staff used alcohol wipes, which are ineffective against C. Diff spores, to clean commodes instead of soap and water. Old commodes were used despite the trust agreeing to replace them and setting aside 250,000 pounds to do so
Source
Political stupidity about superbug prevention
Government plans for tackling superbugs, such as MRSA, have been condemned by a leading medical journal for not being based on scientific fact. The Lancet said there was little evidence to support hospital "deep cleans" or short-sleeves for medical staff as recently proposed. Instead of "pandering to populism" politicians should listen to the evidence, the editorial said.
The government said the plans were part of a wide range of preventive measures. On Sunday, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans to "deep clean" hospitals ward-by-ward over the next year to return hospitals to the state they were in when they were built. His comments followed proposals from Health Secretary Alan Johnson for a new dress code for NHS staff which would advise against long-sleeved coats and ties for doctors as they can become contaminated.
But The Lancet said a government working group had found no conclusive evidence that uniforms or other work clothes posed a significant hazard in terms of spreading infection. And the focus should be on disinfection of high-touch surfaces rather than deep-cleaning wards to get rid of visible dirt, the journal said.
The editorial said: "Brown also plans to double the number of hospital matrons, to check on ward cleaning, and accost doctors wearing long sleeves. "They would be better employed making sure doctors, nurses and visitors wash their hands properly, the proven way to stop hospital acquired infections," the editorial stated.
Professor Richard James, director of the Centre for Healthcare Associated Infections at the University of Nottingham agreed the evidence on transmission of infection from clothing such as long sleeves was not clear but short sleeves may encourage staff to wash their hands properly. He added: "The main route of transmission of MRSA is person-to-person contact and this will be affected little by deep cleaning.
"In contrast, Clostridium difficile is transmitted by contact with faecal contamination so it may be more effective here." He said in addition to hand washing, other useful strategies would be screening patients for MRSA on admission, regular use of hydrogen peroxide vapour generators to kill bugs in the hospital environment and educating patients and visitors on ways they can reduce risk.
Chief Nursing Officer, Professor Christine Beasley said there was no single solution and the new proposals were part of a wider set of measures to reduce hospital-acquired infections. She agreed that there was no evidence that uniforms themselves pose a significant risk of transmitting infections but said long sleeves and watches "get in the way of washing and decontaminating the hands, wrists and forearms". "Clean and tidy hospitals and staff are very important to patients," she said. "We make no apology for asking hospitals to take every reasonable measure to reduce infection and increase patient confidence that this is an issue the NHS is taking seriously."
Dr Mark Enright, an expert in molecular epidemiology at Imperial College, London said deep cleaning would be a waste of resources and an inconvenience to patients and staff. "MRSA is a major problem in the UK because it is present, mostly unknowingly, in patients and staff. "Interrupting the chain of transmission from these people to new hosts should be the main focus of infection control, not attempts at the sterilisation of floors and windows."
Source
Cheap trainer shoes as good as (or better than) expensive ones
RUNNERS who buy expensive training shoes in the belief they are less likely to cause injury are deluding themselves, according to a new study. Researchers in Scotland tested running shoes, made by three manufacturers, that fell into three price bands - low (40-45 pounds or $90-$102), medium (60-65 pounds) and high (70-75 pounds).
After masking the manufacturer's logo and other tags with tape, the scientists slipped a thin pressure plate, shaped like an insole, into the shoes. The device, called a Pedar, measured the pressure at three points on the sole of the foot: under the heel, across the forefoot and under the big toe. The goal was to get an idea of the effectiveness of the cushioning that manufacturers add to the shoe to dampen the shockwave to the foot. Thus, the higher the pressure, the greater the force that is transmitted to the runner when his or her foot makes contact with the ground.
They then asked 43 young male volunteers to put on the shoes and walk along a 20m walkway in the lab. The volunteers each wore a small backpack which held a box that picked up data signals from the pressure gauge. Nine volunteers then wore the shoes as they ran on a treadmill, to see if this made any difference in sole pressures as compared to walking.
"Plantar pressure was lower overall in low- and medium-cost shoes than in high-cost shoes,'' says their paper, which appears in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. "This may suggest that less expensive running shoes not only provide as much protection from impact forces as expensive running shoes, but that in actual fact they may also provide more.''
The volunteers were also asked to assess the masked shoes for comfort. But their preferences were subjective and bore no relation to the distribution of plantar pressure or the cost of the shoe, the investigators found.
Running is a high-impact activity. With every footfall, a middle-distance runner experiences an impact equal to 2.5 times body weight - and this force increases with speed and fatigue. The impact transmits shock waves that are transmitted by the bones of the foot to the rest of the body, with the potential to cause knee damage, shin splints, muscle tears, Achilles tendonitis and other injuries.
Athletic footwear can reduce the impact by a third through good cushioning, as compared to the impact from walking barefoot, according to the study headed by Rami Abboud of the Institute of Motion Analysis Research at Ninewells Hospital and Medical School, Dundee.
Source
More irresponsible statin evangelism
No mention of their often disastrous effect on quality of life -- which is WHY alleged "former" takers are focused on. It takes a lot for most people to continue with them. This is obviously such a careless study (see the rubrics and italics below) that I am not even going to bother looking at the abstract
People who take cholesterol-lowering drugs are protected from heart disease and premature death years after they stop taking them, a major study has shown. New research into statins - the world's biggest-selling medication - offers dramatic evidence of their long-lasting ability to halt and even reverse the progression of heart disease. The study, involving 6,500 men, found that those who took statins were still showing benefits of the drugs ten years after they had finished taking them. The chances of suffering a fatal heart attack over the period dropped by more than 25 per cent, the scientists found, while there was no evidence of unexpected side-effects. This remarkable result will increase pressure on GPs to prescribe statins to an even greater number of middle-aged people with raised cholesterol levels.
Professor Stuart Cobbe, of the University of Glasgow, the leading cardiologist on the study, said that he had been extremely surprised. "The benefit appeared to extend to at least ten years after the original trial," he said. The findings do not suggest that people on statins should give up; rather it is better to continue taking them. But even those who do give up continue to enjoy a benefit, Professor Cobbe said.
The results, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, come three months after a government adviser suggested statins should be offered to all men over 50 and women over 60 as an effective "shortcut" to prevent heart disease. Statins are currently taken daily by an estimated three million Britons to tackle high chloresterol. Heart disease is Britain's biggest killer, accounting for one in three deaths. The annual cost to the economy is about œ26 billion a year, the bulk of which is treatment costs.
Professor Chris Packard, a co-author of the study, said: "The impact of the statin treatment appeared to persist long after the active phase of the trial. This suggests that the drugs have lasting beneficial effects on the artery wall, possibly by stabilising plaques that might be about to rupture and cause an heart attack." Breakaway plaques can cause attacks by blocking the blood vessels and starving the heart of blood. Statins appear to stabilise the lining of the blood vessels, as well as damping down inflammation.
The original trial, the West of Scotland Coronary Prevention Study (Woscops), was launched between 1989 and 1991. More than 6,500 men aged between 45 and 64 who had not had a heart attack but had elevated cholesterol levels were recruited and divided into two groups. Half were given pravastatin and the other half a placebo. They were followed up for five years, until May 1995. The results showed that the risks of death from heart disease, or of suffering a heart attack, were significantly reduced in the statin users. The new study follows up the same men for another ten years. It compares heart attack and death rates in the original statin group against the original placebo group. Since the trial, both groups have changed. The statin group have tended to give up taking the tablets, while many of those in the placebo group have started to take them. No account was taken of these changes [Thus rendering the implications of the results completely indeterminate. Perhaps the group given a statin placebo have been so disillusioned by "their" statins that moved on to more harmful "natural" remedies], and a simple comparison was made of the 15-year experience of the original statin group against the original placbo group.
Professor Ian Ford, lead author of the study, said: "Remarkably, five years of treatment with a statin resulted in 27 per cent fewer nonfatal heart attacks or deaths due to heart disease over the period of 15 years. There was a significant 12 per cent reduction in deaths over the entire period, with deaths due to heart disease reduced by 22 per cent." The gap between the groups narrowed after the trial ended, and their use of statins tended to converge. But up to the end of the 15-year period, the original statin group did better than the original placebo group, showing a persistence of the effect. [Or showing that most high-risk people end up taking statins for a while; some sooner, some later. And maybe those given it when younger tend to tolerate it better. It is all pure speculation]
Professor Ford said: "The results of the follow-up provide strong support for the safety of five years of statin use. "When fatal and nonfatal heart disease events were studied it was found that, despite the fact that most of the participants were not treated with a statin after the first five years of the trial, there was evidence of the group originally receiving the statin continuing to be at lower risk of having a heart disease event."
Statin prescriptions have risen by 150 per cent in England in the past five years. The trial raises the question of whether they should be given to an even wider group, including younger people in whom heart disease has yet to get a start.
Source
Jagger has more sense than the historians
SCHOOLS should teach proper history, not pop music, Mick Jagger has suggested, after discovering that the Rolling Stones are a topic on the British high school syllabus. Still rolling at 64, Jagger was responding to a Bristol teacher who asked how best to present the cultural importance of the Rolling Stones to a class of eager history students. Despite being the subject of numerous academic works, Jagger said it was only rock 'n' roll and the Stones' importance in the grand scheme of things may have been overstated.
In a BBC News website question-and-answer session, Alison McClean wrote: "I am currently teaching my Year 11 students about the impact of the Rolling Stones in preparation for their GCSE history coursework on Britain in the 1960s. How does Mick feel about being part of the history curriculum and, if he was sitting the exam himself, how would he describe the Stones' impact on Britain?"
Jagger, who passed O-level history at Dartford Grammar School in 1959, was less than impressed. "I suppose pop music was very important in the 1960s, it became perhaps too important. It was one of the things in popular culture," he said. "Alison, I'm sure you're teaching it as part of the whole popular culture movement. I'm sure it's brilliantly accurate - or perhaps not because if you look up a lot of it, it's nonsense."
He was speaking as a concerned parent. "I have a daughter who's doing GCSEs at the moment," he said. "She hasn't got me in her syllabus. She's much more traditional. It's more the cause of World War I, that sort of thing." The best he could say for lessons in dad's role in the 60s cultural revolution was that "it was an interesting historical tipping point".
Jagger benefited from a traditional schooling at Dartford, where Latin was obligatory, masters donned gowns and pupils wore a cap at all times with a regulation blazer with gold trim. His first report in June 1955 placed him 15th out of 30 pupils. His form master, Dick Allen, wrote that he had made "a good start". His academic performance went into steep decline after he discovered "music and girls". Contemporaries recall a lecture young Jagger gave to the school's historical society on the blues.
The high-point of his Dartford career came when the emerging rebel led a protest against the quality of school dinners, which resulted in the dismissal of a kitchen supervisor. "It was probably the greatest contribution to the school I ever made," Jagger said in 2000, before returning to open a performing arts centre in his name. He gained seven O levels and two A levels in June 1961, and won a place at the London School of Economics.
Source
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Britain moves to ban Bible
We read:
Looks like the British socialists are trying to make the Bible illegal in Britain. Read this: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13). If that doesn't "incite hate", I don't know what would.
But the bill may not make it into law. Here's why:
Must not upset Muslims.
IS THIS A JOKE?
No wonder this research is described as "unfunded"! They say that two ailments have a common cause but out of more than 900 patients with either condition, they found only FOUR cases of overlap! Better proof that the ailments are NOT related would be hard to come by. Another pet theory bites the dust. Popular summary followed by journal abstract below
MULTIPLE sclerosis (MS) and ulcerative colitis (UC) -- a type of inflammatory bowel disease that causes colon ulcers and diarrhoea -- may have common causes, according to new Australian research published in the Internal Medicine Journal. Led by Dr Christopher Pokorny from Liverpool Hospital and the University of NSW in Sydney, the research team examined medical records at Liverpool Hospital dated between 1996 and 2006 and identified 496 patients with MS and 414 patients with UC. There were four patients with both UC and MS, two of whom developed UC after they were diagnosed with MS. Given that some treatments for UC can damage the protective covering of brain cells -- the same process that occurs in MS -- the authors claim that common underlying causes of the two diseases should be further investigated.
Source
Association between ulcerative colitis and multiple sclerosis
By C. S. Pokorny et al.
An association between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and multiple sclerosis (MS) has been described. The current study was undertaken to explore this association further. Personal records of patients with IBD and MS were reviewed. In addition, a search of medical records at a large tertiary teaching hospital in Sydney was carried out for the years 1996-2006. Four patients (three women and one man) with both ulcerative colitis and MS were identified. MS did not occur in any of our patients with Crohn's disease. The association between ulcerative colitis and MS appears to be real and may help identify common factors involved in the cause of these two diseases. No association was found in this study between MS and Crohn's disease, sparking consideration why such difference should occur. With the increasing use of biological therapies in IBD and their reported propensity to cause demyelination, recognition of an association is all the more important.
Internal Medicine Journal, Volume 37 Issue 10 Page 721-724, October 2007
Still some old-style patriotism left in Britain -- just not in the chattering classes
Botham is a man of great fame and accomplishment. Something the chatterers would like to be but are not
Early yesterday morning, as the fast train from Darlington clattered towards London, Ian Botham seemed unusually thoughtful. His words were carefully measured and savoured as he remembered his very first train journey to London 36 years ago. In August 1971, at the age of 15 and on his way for a trial to join the ground staff at Lord's, he had travelled with his mum.
"They offered me a place immediately and I was back down again, on my own, the following Monday. That's when my adult life started - leaving home to become a professional cricketer. And that's what makes it so special to have my mum coming back to London this week to join us when me and [my wife] Kath and our grandsons go to the Palace."
Tomorrow morning, plain old Beefy will arise as Sir Ian Terence Botham after he receives his knighthood and, yesterday, noticing the perspiration in the creases of his brow, I asked him if he was nervous. "I'm actually excited," he grinned. "It will be the greatest day of my life. When I think how far I've come these 36 years I feel extraordinarily honoured."
Botham flicked away a bead of sweat with the old nonchalance. "They're coming up with all kinds of names for me now and Sirloin of Beef was the first good one. I don't mind. The monarchy stands for everything that makes me proud to be English. I'm a massive royalist." My eyes, presumably, had begun to glaze at that point because a Beefy fist came crashing down. "I listen to all these republicans," Botham thundered, "and if it was down to me I'd hang 'em! I honestly would. It's a traitor's game for me."
Botham's candour, however, can be moving rather than just amusing. He contemplated, with rare seriousness, the prickly selfishness and contrasting selflessness which underpin not so much his knighthood as his life. In sporting terms Botham is an undisputed colossus and his cricketing success was built on the back of a single-minded belief, and sheer selfishness, that hurt his family terribly. But, for all his faults and failings, he has also raised 10m pounds for research into leukaemia.
In his new autobiography he details the pain he caused Kath for decades. "We've been married 30 years and I put Kath through hell. Brian Close was one of the first people we told we were getting married and he was perceptive. He knew how tough it would be for Kath. He could see I had the narrow-mindedness to get to where I wanted to be as a cricketer and Kath did not stand a chance against that - and her sufferance of my selfishness, her patience, her bringing up three children I hardly saw, could only have been endured by an exceptionally strong person. We're still together - and that's down to Kath. I hold my hand up. I screwed up and nearly lost the person who was the best mate I ever had. But I don't believe in regret because I think everything happens for a reason." Would Kath feel the same? "I'm not sure I'd want to ask Kath that question. But from my point of view we're stronger and closer than ever."
Botham insists that his generous charity is not linked to a subconscious guilt about his sporting ego. "I really don't think so. I just came across four young boys dying of leukaemia in a hospital ward in 1977. I was ignorant and couldn't believe these kids would soon be dead. I'd also just broken the bone in my foot so my mind was off cricket. Maybe that's why I became so absorbed and asked all these questions. And one of the qualities I do have is that when I start something I finish it. I'm as heavily involved in leukaemia as ever. It feels like my life's work."
This comes from a man who cheerfully admits that at school in Yeovil he was called Bungalow - "Meaning," Botham grins as he taps his head, "nothing upstairs". Yet his poignant friendship with John Arlott, a man as bright and cultured as Botham could be crude and reactionary, contains some of the most affecting pages in his book. "I met John when I was 17 and took his picnic basket up to the commentary box. There were four bottles of Beaujolais in that basket. Being a cider-boy I thought wine was a namby-pamby drink. But I was gripped as John started talking to me, this dumb yokel, about wine. His command of English just rolled off him. He got out some cheese and said this goes best with that wine. 'Go on,' he'd say, 'have a taste.' Our incredible friendship started and he became my mentor. These days they call 'em 'life-gurus' or some such crap."
It is hard to imagine Kevin Pietersen befriending a man as different to him and Botham as the former Guardian writer. "But John was a proper person. In the last seven years of his life when we both had places on Alderney I had two meals a day with him whenever I was on the island. At six minutes past nine every morning the phone would ring. John would say, 'C'mon over - and bring your thirst with you.' "At the end when the emphysema took over and he was struggling with speech he had an oxygen mask and I often had to empty his bag for him. But he liked me being there because I knew to wait and let him finish his sentences between gasps. I didn't try to say the words for him because I knew how much they mattered. That was strange for me - to be patient and quiet. But I always wanted to listen to John."
Arlott's one cricketing regret was retiring from commentary a year before the Ashes Test of Headingley in 1981 and Botham's miraculous innings of 149 just after resigning the captaincy. "There was some anger in that knock because when I announced my resignation Alec Bedser [the chairman of selectors] said, 'We were about to fire him.' I thought 'You plonker!' To be brutal, the establishment was never happy some guy from an ordinary school in Somerset was captaining England. They were glad to see the back of me.
"When the press asked me who should take over I said 'Bring back Mike Brearley.' They listened to me but bloody Bedser took the praise for that. The cheek of the tosser! How did he ever get a knighthood? So at Headingley I put up my finger at the establishment and the press and I came back into the dressing room after the fourth day, having scored my century [off 87 balls], and got out a cigar and had a smoke. I was knackered but, as for Bedser and that lot, I thought bollocks to you. I don't need any of you."
That streak of rebellious genius remained. Botham played an even better innings of 118 at Old Trafford later that summer and in subsequent years he would conjure up other unlikely feats - returning from a three-month ban for admitting smoking cannabis to take a wicket with his first long-hop of a ball back in Test cricket. His final delivery, as a professional cricketer, was equally Bothamesque. "I was playing for Durham, against the Aussies, and David Boon faced my last-ever ball. Booney was struggling for his Test place and was deadly serious. But he just about fell over laughing and shouted, 'Beefy, you can't do this to me.' I was midway though my run-up and he'd spotted that I'd unzipped my fly and hauled out the meat and two veg. The old man was dangling in the wind as I steamed in. If I'd got it on target I would've bowled him. I thought it was a nice way to go out."
It is not an anecdote he will share with the Queen. "I'll be on my best behaviour. She actually invited me for tea in 1981. It was a bit like me and John Arlott. I sat and listened. To be honest she probably would've preferred spending time with one of her racehorses rather than me, but I loved it. [Tomorrow] will be even better. "When Kath picked up our grandsons from school and told them that grandad was going to become a knight she asked if they wanted to come to the Palace. The one boy, James, was very thoughtful. He said, 'Is that when she uses the sword?' Kath said yes and he asked, 'Is it a sharp sword?' Kath looked at him but he kept going: 'What if the Queen slips? Would she cut off grandad's head?' Kath said, 'I don't think so, James.' He didn't say anything for 30 seconds but then he looked up and said, 'Yes, I will come. Just in case.'"
Source
We read:
"Inciting homophobic hatred will become illegal, the justice secretary, Jack Straw, announced last night, following a campaign by gay rights groups. The introduction of an offence of rallying hatred against gays and lesbians follows similar measures to tackle religious hate crime, which were passed earlier this year after lengthy rows over freedom of speech.
"It is a measure of how far we have come as a society in the last 10 years that we are now appalled by hatred and invective directed at people on the basis of their sexuality. It is time for the law to recognise this," said Mr Straw, introducing the second reading of the criminal justice and immigration bill.
Source
Looks like the British socialists are trying to make the Bible illegal in Britain. Read this: "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Leviticus 20:13). If that doesn't "incite hate", I don't know what would.
But the bill may not make it into law. Here's why:
"On Tuesday, Muslim groups vented further outrage, with Massoud Shadjareh of the Islamic Human Rights Commission posing the question to The Daily Express, "If someone is reading the Bible and calls homosexuality an abomination, is that going to be incitement?"
Source
Must not upset Muslims.
IS THIS A JOKE?
No wonder this research is described as "unfunded"! They say that two ailments have a common cause but out of more than 900 patients with either condition, they found only FOUR cases of overlap! Better proof that the ailments are NOT related would be hard to come by. Another pet theory bites the dust. Popular summary followed by journal abstract below
MULTIPLE sclerosis (MS) and ulcerative colitis (UC) -- a type of inflammatory bowel disease that causes colon ulcers and diarrhoea -- may have common causes, according to new Australian research published in the Internal Medicine Journal. Led by Dr Christopher Pokorny from Liverpool Hospital and the University of NSW in Sydney, the research team examined medical records at Liverpool Hospital dated between 1996 and 2006 and identified 496 patients with MS and 414 patients with UC. There were four patients with both UC and MS, two of whom developed UC after they were diagnosed with MS. Given that some treatments for UC can damage the protective covering of brain cells -- the same process that occurs in MS -- the authors claim that common underlying causes of the two diseases should be further investigated.
Source
Association between ulcerative colitis and multiple sclerosis
By C. S. Pokorny et al.
An association between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and multiple sclerosis (MS) has been described. The current study was undertaken to explore this association further. Personal records of patients with IBD and MS were reviewed. In addition, a search of medical records at a large tertiary teaching hospital in Sydney was carried out for the years 1996-2006. Four patients (three women and one man) with both ulcerative colitis and MS were identified. MS did not occur in any of our patients with Crohn's disease. The association between ulcerative colitis and MS appears to be real and may help identify common factors involved in the cause of these two diseases. No association was found in this study between MS and Crohn's disease, sparking consideration why such difference should occur. With the increasing use of biological therapies in IBD and their reported propensity to cause demyelination, recognition of an association is all the more important.
Internal Medicine Journal, Volume 37 Issue 10 Page 721-724, October 2007
Still some old-style patriotism left in Britain -- just not in the chattering classes
Botham is a man of great fame and accomplishment. Something the chatterers would like to be but are not
Early yesterday morning, as the fast train from Darlington clattered towards London, Ian Botham seemed unusually thoughtful. His words were carefully measured and savoured as he remembered his very first train journey to London 36 years ago. In August 1971, at the age of 15 and on his way for a trial to join the ground staff at Lord's, he had travelled with his mum.
"They offered me a place immediately and I was back down again, on my own, the following Monday. That's when my adult life started - leaving home to become a professional cricketer. And that's what makes it so special to have my mum coming back to London this week to join us when me and [my wife] Kath and our grandsons go to the Palace."
Tomorrow morning, plain old Beefy will arise as Sir Ian Terence Botham after he receives his knighthood and, yesterday, noticing the perspiration in the creases of his brow, I asked him if he was nervous. "I'm actually excited," he grinned. "It will be the greatest day of my life. When I think how far I've come these 36 years I feel extraordinarily honoured."
Botham flicked away a bead of sweat with the old nonchalance. "They're coming up with all kinds of names for me now and Sirloin of Beef was the first good one. I don't mind. The monarchy stands for everything that makes me proud to be English. I'm a massive royalist." My eyes, presumably, had begun to glaze at that point because a Beefy fist came crashing down. "I listen to all these republicans," Botham thundered, "and if it was down to me I'd hang 'em! I honestly would. It's a traitor's game for me."
Botham's candour, however, can be moving rather than just amusing. He contemplated, with rare seriousness, the prickly selfishness and contrasting selflessness which underpin not so much his knighthood as his life. In sporting terms Botham is an undisputed colossus and his cricketing success was built on the back of a single-minded belief, and sheer selfishness, that hurt his family terribly. But, for all his faults and failings, he has also raised 10m pounds for research into leukaemia.
In his new autobiography he details the pain he caused Kath for decades. "We've been married 30 years and I put Kath through hell. Brian Close was one of the first people we told we were getting married and he was perceptive. He knew how tough it would be for Kath. He could see I had the narrow-mindedness to get to where I wanted to be as a cricketer and Kath did not stand a chance against that - and her sufferance of my selfishness, her patience, her bringing up three children I hardly saw, could only have been endured by an exceptionally strong person. We're still together - and that's down to Kath. I hold my hand up. I screwed up and nearly lost the person who was the best mate I ever had. But I don't believe in regret because I think everything happens for a reason." Would Kath feel the same? "I'm not sure I'd want to ask Kath that question. But from my point of view we're stronger and closer than ever."
Botham insists that his generous charity is not linked to a subconscious guilt about his sporting ego. "I really don't think so. I just came across four young boys dying of leukaemia in a hospital ward in 1977. I was ignorant and couldn't believe these kids would soon be dead. I'd also just broken the bone in my foot so my mind was off cricket. Maybe that's why I became so absorbed and asked all these questions. And one of the qualities I do have is that when I start something I finish it. I'm as heavily involved in leukaemia as ever. It feels like my life's work."
This comes from a man who cheerfully admits that at school in Yeovil he was called Bungalow - "Meaning," Botham grins as he taps his head, "nothing upstairs". Yet his poignant friendship with John Arlott, a man as bright and cultured as Botham could be crude and reactionary, contains some of the most affecting pages in his book. "I met John when I was 17 and took his picnic basket up to the commentary box. There were four bottles of Beaujolais in that basket. Being a cider-boy I thought wine was a namby-pamby drink. But I was gripped as John started talking to me, this dumb yokel, about wine. His command of English just rolled off him. He got out some cheese and said this goes best with that wine. 'Go on,' he'd say, 'have a taste.' Our incredible friendship started and he became my mentor. These days they call 'em 'life-gurus' or some such crap."
It is hard to imagine Kevin Pietersen befriending a man as different to him and Botham as the former Guardian writer. "But John was a proper person. In the last seven years of his life when we both had places on Alderney I had two meals a day with him whenever I was on the island. At six minutes past nine every morning the phone would ring. John would say, 'C'mon over - and bring your thirst with you.' "At the end when the emphysema took over and he was struggling with speech he had an oxygen mask and I often had to empty his bag for him. But he liked me being there because I knew to wait and let him finish his sentences between gasps. I didn't try to say the words for him because I knew how much they mattered. That was strange for me - to be patient and quiet. But I always wanted to listen to John."
Arlott's one cricketing regret was retiring from commentary a year before the Ashes Test of Headingley in 1981 and Botham's miraculous innings of 149 just after resigning the captaincy. "There was some anger in that knock because when I announced my resignation Alec Bedser [the chairman of selectors] said, 'We were about to fire him.' I thought 'You plonker!' To be brutal, the establishment was never happy some guy from an ordinary school in Somerset was captaining England. They were glad to see the back of me.
"When the press asked me who should take over I said 'Bring back Mike Brearley.' They listened to me but bloody Bedser took the praise for that. The cheek of the tosser! How did he ever get a knighthood? So at Headingley I put up my finger at the establishment and the press and I came back into the dressing room after the fourth day, having scored my century [off 87 balls], and got out a cigar and had a smoke. I was knackered but, as for Bedser and that lot, I thought bollocks to you. I don't need any of you."
That streak of rebellious genius remained. Botham played an even better innings of 118 at Old Trafford later that summer and in subsequent years he would conjure up other unlikely feats - returning from a three-month ban for admitting smoking cannabis to take a wicket with his first long-hop of a ball back in Test cricket. His final delivery, as a professional cricketer, was equally Bothamesque. "I was playing for Durham, against the Aussies, and David Boon faced my last-ever ball. Booney was struggling for his Test place and was deadly serious. But he just about fell over laughing and shouted, 'Beefy, you can't do this to me.' I was midway though my run-up and he'd spotted that I'd unzipped my fly and hauled out the meat and two veg. The old man was dangling in the wind as I steamed in. If I'd got it on target I would've bowled him. I thought it was a nice way to go out."
It is not an anecdote he will share with the Queen. "I'll be on my best behaviour. She actually invited me for tea in 1981. It was a bit like me and John Arlott. I sat and listened. To be honest she probably would've preferred spending time with one of her racehorses rather than me, but I loved it. [Tomorrow] will be even better. "When Kath picked up our grandsons from school and told them that grandad was going to become a knight she asked if they wanted to come to the Palace. The one boy, James, was very thoughtful. He said, 'Is that when she uses the sword?' Kath said yes and he asked, 'Is it a sharp sword?' Kath looked at him but he kept going: 'What if the Queen slips? Would she cut off grandad's head?' Kath said, 'I don't think so, James.' He didn't say anything for 30 seconds but then he looked up and said, 'Yes, I will come. Just in case.'"
Source
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
New attack on free speech in Britain
Post below lifted from Midnight Sun. See the original for links
Worldwide suppression of free speech - is it possible? On the first of this month (October) in Great Britain, an upgrade to existing `hate crime' legislation came into effect by which a British blogger can be imprisoned for seven years and slapped with an unlimited fine for criticizing any religion, which of course means Islam.
Basically the original law was introduced. It was protested by free speech advocates (joined by `Mr Bean' - Rowan Atkinson) so the government amended it. While they seem to be making it fairer, they've actually added more provisos. Lawyers say it leaves room for free speech: There is a wide exemption for freedom of speech. The Act states:
Sounds pretty subjective and open to interpretation and manipulation to me. And why are they making this kind of law to start with? Something is changing and if you're following global trends, it's certain to be another step downhill.
Here's how I think it's going to play out. The law has been changed to include `discrimination' against Muslims. There are plenty of British blogs which would fall into this category. They'll pick on the most politically incorrect ones first, possibly the BNP connected ones, and this will break down any community resistance. Then it's going to game on for all right wing blogs (which they always connect with `racism' anyway both politically and in the broader community). British bloggers will run for higher ground as Belgian bloggers have done and move their blogs to international servers to avoid detection.
Sooner or later, the E.U. will opt for standardization across the board in Europe. Then, as the E.U. pushes for more power as they have been lately, they will push for variations of the same law to be enacted worldwide. The governments we have right now might resist, but elections are coming up. What will future governments do?
Now add to that the rise of Jihadi gangs in prisons and their attitude towards those incarcerated for religious `vilification' and you've got a time bomb the implications of which don't bear thinking about. Now I've got myself into trouble making predictions in the past and I could be wrong here, but I'm just setting out a hypothetical scenario.
Hats now incorrect
According to a report in London listing magazine Time Out, a growing number of London establishments are enforcing a `hat ban' on customers wishing to drink on their premises. It is one thing for pot-bellied landlords to tell customers they've had `too much to drink' and `clear off home'. It's another thing serving up strong sartorial diktat. Just who do they think they are? Don't they want our hard-earned cash and custom?
`We operate a smart casual dress code', a barmaid told me at the busy Porterhouse pub in Covent Garden in central London. `And that means no hats allowed in the pub.' Surely a nice trilby hat or a cream fedora hat fits the criteria of `smart casual'? She replied with unblinking primness: `We can't have one hat rule for some and one hat rule for others.' In other words, whether you are sporting a chavtastic Burberry cap or some designer item of millinery straight out of Royal Ascot, you won't be heading to the bar in a hurry. If Rat Pack stars like Frank Sinatra were around today, they would no doubt be turfed out of such premises for their anti-social headgear, no matter how much cash they were prepared to put across the bar.
Needless to say, the `smart casual' policy at the Porterhouse and some branches of All Bar One in central London is not really the justification for this ludicrous hat ban. It seems publicans have taken their cue from shopping centres such as Bluewater on the outskirts of London. Security staff there ban shoppers from wearing hoodies on the basis that any covering of the face prevents the wearer from being identified on closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV). `Yes, that's true', says the Porterhouse pub's barmaid, agreeing with Bluewater's policy on hooded tops. `Hats do obscure someone's face and CCTVs need to see them in case there's any trouble.' She's not alone with this explanation either. A barman at an All Bar One told Time Out: `We don't allow hats to be worn in the bar. We absolutely don't allow it. We need all faces to be seen by the CCTV.' (1)
Whilst such nit-picking bans might be a shock to the good liberals at Time Out, it seems this development has been in operation throughout the country for a while now. In March 2006, retired teacher Betty Wilbraham was told by staff at The Hereward pub in Ely, Cambridgeshire, to remove her black rain hat because `its CCTV camera would not be able to see her face clearly enough'. Pub licensee Tony Love said it was pub policy to always ask people to remove their hats. `It's all to do with the CCTV. We have 13 cameras inside the pub and we cannot be seen to be discriminating between the youths and the elderly people.' (2) Elsewhere at The Wheatsheaves in Frome, Somerset, one publican failed to get into the Christmas spirit last year by banning anyone who wore Santa Claus hats for the same reason. The Wheatsheaves' publican, Sam Ingram, proved that the deadhand of Scrooge was alive and kicking by bluntly stating: `Just because they're dressed up as Santa doesn't mean they couldn't start a riot.' (3) No doubt Ingram spends his time behind the bar on Christmas Day crying `Humbug!' to anyone who'll listen.
Is it really the case that hats of any description obscure someone's face? If so, what will be next? Will Amy Winehouse be refused entry into pubs because her perfectly coiffured beehive obscures her face? Will bowl-headed indie kids be ordered to have their fringes cut before they can get served? And why does it matter if someone's face is obscured anyway? Why this poisonous presumption that pub dwellers are automatically out to cause trouble?
The enforcement of such a bizarre rule as the `hat ban' may be an attempt to assert control in the name of tackling crime - there has always been a `Little Hitler' tendency among door staff and publicans. But the fact that such a ban seems to have been accepted at all shows how a demand for security and safety permeates society at present. It's interesting that while respectable pensioners have kicked up a fuss at the hat ban, younger people have tended to acquiesce to the demand to remove their headgear. In fact, surveillance is more or less seen as acceptable if it leads to a greater sense of security. And if that means toning down the headgear in the name of peace and quiet, then so be it. The way landlords justify the ban is also a kind of artificial `zero tolerance' policy where bouncers or staff are seen to flex their authority by telling a customer what is and what isn't permissible. A barman from an All Bar One branch in Soho told me, `a customer would think twice about causing trouble if a doorman has already told them off. The hat ban acts as a deterrent.'
What lies behind such demand for safety and security is a perception that individual autonomy is problematic in and of itself. Thus all individuals need some kind of rules and regulation because anyone can suddenly `get out of hand'. Forcing pub goers to remove their personal choice of headgear is done to constrain someone's free will and independence, lest that free will leads to aggro and arguments - the dress code implies a behaviour code, too. Indeed, there is something servile about forcing customers to `remove their hats', with ugly echoes of the `doffing your cap' reverence to society's supposed `betters' in the past. In this case, it's a reverence to New Britain's principles of authority, order and knowing-your-place. At root lies nothing but contempt for pub-going folk, as the aforementioned `I predict a riot' publican makes abundantly clear.
To be fair, other establishments are strongly against this growing fad for hat bans in pubs. As one barman from Bar Soho told me: `In this pub we leave it up to the individual to think for themselves. It's not our job to tell people what they should or should not wear.' Nevertheless, the fact that there's a growing number of pubs operating a hat ban at all reveals much about the overwhelming Culture of Unfreedom in the UK. It's not simply the property of a crudely authoritarian government like New Labour, but something that influences all aspects of society.
So the government hasn't made wearing hats in pubs illegal (yet), nor have the authorities adopted the logo of Eighties one-hit-wonders Men Without Hats and stuck it in all pub windows. But despite the smoking ban, pubs are still relatively unregulated public spaces and so jumpy landlords and bouncers apparently feel the need to issue such daft rules. When such a ban is introduced, even in a few establishments, it invites further and more heavy-handed intervention from the authorities, too. How long before a politician proposes on-the-spot fines for wearing hats `in closed public places'? Making people take their hats off isn't the end of the world - but it fits into a corrosive, creeping process of restricting our freedoms, large and small. One of these days, this endless procession of Looney Tunes restrictions on our liberties will deprive us of any meaningful rights - or as Bugs Bunny might say: `Hat's all, folks!'
Source
Brits getting poorer under socialism
While the average household gross income has climbed over the past decade from 34,796 to 53,835 pounds, people have far less of that money to spend each month after they have paid essential bills. In 1997, when Labour came to power, people were left with 34.5 per cent of their gross income once they had paid taxes, national insurance, mortgage or rent. Now they are left with 32.6 per cent, says a report by uSwitch, a price comparison website.
It is the latest survey to highlight how millions of households have failed to benefit from the strong economy because of rising taxes and escalating bills. Ernst & Young, the accountants, calculated this year that the average family had 838 pounds left to spend each month, compared to 899 four years ago. The uSwitch report makes clear that many household bills have actually risen more modestly than people's salaries, including the monthly, electricity, water and gas bills.
Increases have hit four key areas in the past 10 years. Petrol [gasoline] - often the biggest cost for a family after their housing - has increased by 55 per cent and phone and internet bills have risen 77 per cent as millions more use broadband and mobile phones. The cost of getting on to the housing ladder has more than tripled, but taxes are perhaps the most significant cost. Council tax rose from an average of 688 a year to 1,321 - an increase of 92 per cent, or three times the rate of inflation.
Mike Warburton, one of the City's most senior accountants, said: "The Government can argue that tax rates have not gone up and that they are merely benefiting from people's rising incomes. But a lot of indirect taxes have gone up, especially council tax. This is why pensioners - on fixed incomes - are so badly hit. The squeeze is definitely on." The report from uSwitch comes a week after it emerged that stamp duty had risen by more than 40 per cent in the past year alone, as the Government cashed in on ballooning house prices.
More here
On scientific medicine
When doctors attack alternative medicine or appear sceptical to its much-trumpeted claims, we are often accused of being bigots with closed minds, protecting a closed shop. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it has taken a layman, the late, great John Diamond, to find the words to set the record straight. For that reason, I would like to quote from his posthumously published book Snake Oil and other Preoccupations (1). Diamond wrote: `I am not an academic and this is not an academic book, even though the facts I list in it have a perfectly good scientific basis to them but when it comes to human motivation I am working blind. I can only guess why most people seem to prefer the unproven to the proven, the anecdotal to the rigorously demonstrated, and the so-called natural to the scientific.' There is much within that passage on the nature of proof, the nature of the scientific method, and the use and abuse of anecdotal evidence.
The alternative practitioner can trace his roots back to Galen in the second century, and a metaphysical belief system based on the balance of natural humours. For example, Galen believed that breast cancer was due to an excess of black bile (melancholia). Inductive support for this belief came from the observation that breast cancer was more common in post-menopausal women than pre-menopausal women, and this was thought to be because the menstrual flux in pre-menopausal women got rid of the putative excess of black bile. The therapeutic consequences of this belief therefore were purgation and venesection (bloodletting). The inductive `proof' that this approach worked were the anecdotes about women with breast cancer who were treated by purgation and venesection, and who lived for several years after diagnosis. Those who died were the victims of the blood-letter who didn't have the courage of his convictions, or the patient herself who lacked the constitutional vigour to sustain prolonged bloodletting.
There is a neo-Galenic doctrine, based on the view that breast cancer is indeed due to an imbalance of nature, only substituting energy fields for the natural humours. According to this view, to restore perfect health you have to restore the balance of these metaphysical energy fields. This might be achieved by acupuncture balancing out the yin and the yang, homeopathy (simularis simulabum curantur), or strange balancing diets.
The Gerson diet, in particular, is very fashionable. In fact, one of my patients, seeking to improve my education, gave me a book describing this approach (2). The first half of the book formulates the hypothesis why this strange diet should improve the balance of the immune system, and the second half of the book consisted of 50 anecdotes of patients with cancer, who were only given six months to live by the medical profession, and who took to the diet and lived for a long time.
The trouble with that kind of evidence is that although we know the numerator (50) we don't know the denominator - for example, 50 out of 1,000 cases treated by neglect could indeed live for many years while the indolent disease progresses on the chest wall. Furthermore, from the evidence available in the book, some of the diagnoses were a little bit shaky and the author neglects to mention whether or not these patients receive conventional treatment at the same time as the magic diet. Finally, I know of no oncologist who gives a patient six months to live. We may say that the median survival for a group with advanced cancer is six months, but among this group certain individuals may lie at extremes of survival. These individuals are the substance of the anecdote.
Perhaps I should leave the last word on this subject to Robert Parks, author of the wonderful book Voodoo Science. Parks wrote: `Alternative seems to define a culture rather than a field of medicine - a culture that is not scientifically demanding. It is a culture in which ancient accretions are given more weight than biological science and anecdotes are preferred over clinical trials. Alternative therapies steadfastly resist change often for centuries or even millennia, unaffected by scientific advances in the understanding of physiology or disease.' (3) If that is the case, then who are the bigots and the ones with the closed minds?
Deductive logic and the randomised controlled trial
The alternative to alternative medicine should be scientific medicine, not `orthodoxy'. By science I mean the application of deductive logic. The deductive approach starts with the formulation of the hypothesis, but for a start the hypothesis must be rational in its explanation of the disease process or therapeutic intervention. By `rational' I mean built upon the growth of knowledge of human biology and physiology from the past 100 years or so, without invoking magic or metaphysical principles.
Even so, the new hypothesis is still perceived as a fictional account of reality and subjected to rigorous test by the design of experiments challenging the new theory with the `hazard of refutation'. These experiments in medical or surgical therapeutics must have control groups treated by observation, placebo or `best available therapy'. Without the control group, we merely have a series of anecdotal reports. What I have just described is in fact a randomised controlled trial.
Breast cancer and the randomised controlled trial
As I have mentioned, up until the eighteenth century, if breast cancer was treated at all it was treated according to the principles of Galen. It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that it became widely accepted that cancer was a disease of cellular pathology originating within the breast and spreading centrifugally along the lymphatic system. The therapeutic consequence of this belief led surgeons to embark on radical surgery that involved removing the breast and all the regional lymphatics. It was left to William Halsted in the 1890s to refine the operation into the classic radical mastectomy, with the intention of ridding the body of the primary cancer and its lymph node secondaries. Sadly, the only support for this radical treatment was anecdotal. If the patient survived it was due to the success of the surgeon. If the patient died it was either because the patient came too late or the surgeon lacked the courage of his convictions to complete a truly radical operation.
It was only when Dr Bernard Fisher in the 1960s challenged the conceptual model of the disease that progress started to be made. In other words an antithesis was constructed to challenge the prevailing dogma. Fisher taught that contrary to popular belief, breast cancer cells spread throughout the body through the venous drainage of the breast, and at the time of clinical presentation of the disease, the majority of breast cancers were in fact systemic disorders. If that was indeed the case then there are two therapeutic consequences. Firstly, that radical surgery is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Therefore the role of local therapy is local control, which would equally well be achieved by breast-conserving techniques such as lumpectomy and radiotherapy. The second therapeutic corollary is that if indeed the disease is systemic at the time of diagnosis, then the only way to improve cure rates is through chemotherapy or hormone therapy.
However, the greatness of Dr Fisher, ably supported by surgical acolytes all around the world, was not simply to accept a new set of beliefs in place of an old set of beliefs, but to challenge the new paradigm using deductive logic: in other words, through randomised controlled trials. One of the great success stories of modern medicine has been the painstaking series of randomised controlled trials in the management of early breast cancer over the past 30 years. We now know with extreme confidence that breast conservation is a safe alternative to radical mastectomy; although not in itself improving cure rates, it greatly enhances the patient's quality of life. We also know with extreme confidence that treatment using either endocrine or cytotoxic regimens will improve survival. The final demonstration of that truth has been the dramatic fall in breast cancer mortality in the UK and North America since 1985, following the first publication of the world overview of trials (4).
Using breast cancer as an example, we can demonstrate that the philosophy of science that underpins the randomised controlled trials has led to the dramatic improvement in length of life and quality of life for women inflicted with this dread disease. However, this isn't the end of the story, as new biological hypotheses are being generated with new therapeutic consequences, all of which will be tested in the randomised controlled trial, which is now accepted as the most scientific and ethical way of conducting medicine in times of uncertainty.
The impact of government interference
For both political and humane reasons, governments of all persuasions like to meddle in this process and add guidelines, targets and unwelcome advice on top of our carefully collected evidence. Two examples from the recent past illustrate the dangerous law of unintended consequences when well-meaning meddling is applied on top of clinical science. The first is teaching the practice of breast self-examination (BSE) and the second, applying the two-week target for the urgent diagnosis of cases suspected of having breast cancer.
BSE is superficially attractive in making it the responsibility of women themselves to `catch their breast cancers early' and thus reduce breast cancer mortality. It's a good theory and was introduced as policy in many countries, and also provides an excuse for the women's magazines to publish photographs of beautiful young women fondling their own breasts (which in itself gives out the wrong message that breast cancer is a disease of young women). However, the important point to note is that the advice is based on an assumption - not on evidence. Over the past 10 years, three large randomised controlled trials have compared the outcomes of women who have been intensively trained in BSE with a matched population of women left to their own devices. The outcomes of all three studies were counterintuitive. There was no difference in breast cancer mortality, but those women practising BSE were twice as likely to experience false alarms and unnecessary surgery. This prompted the Canadian Medical Association to issue a warning against the practice!
A more recent example is the two-week rule. Primary care doctors in the NHS were advised to prioritise women with breast symptoms as urgent or not urgent. Those in the former group had to be seen within two weeks and the rest could take their turn. Note the two false assumptions in these guidelines: a) breast cancer is an emergency and even a few weeks can affect outcome; and b) women with breast symptoms atypical of breast cancer can happily wait for up to 12 weeks. Pretty much as predicted, the law of unintended consequences kicked in. So many worried-well pushy middle-class women were seen as emergencies, and so many cancers appeared in the non-urgent group that the net result was a greater delay in cancers being diagnosed than before (6).
Finally, I wish to illustrate the extreme folly of the two-week target for seeing patients suspected of cancer, with an anecdote about a patient I saw recently. The patient who attended my NHS clinic was a charming and sensible woman in her early fifties, with a family history of breast cancer. Three weeks before, she had seen her GP complaining of passing bright red blood at stool. He referred her urgently under the two-week `target' rule to the colo-rectal clinic. The referral was flagged up by some clerical officer in the audit department and the clock started its countdown. Since the colo-rectal clinics are overwhelmed with patients with lower bowel symptoms, nurse-led clinics were set up to take the pressure off the specialist surgeons. The nurse ticked the boxes and the patient was referred for colonoscopy. This examination showed haemorrhoids (piles), the commonest cause of bleeding at stool, and no signs of cancer. Her next appointment followed soon afterwards and she had a CT scan of her abdomen and chest. This was reported as showing a secondary cancer in her right lung. She was then referred for positron emitting tomography, which suggested that she might have cancer in her right breast not her right lung. Note that at no time had anyone actually examined her.
By the time she came to see me she was a confused nervous wreck. After taking a careful history I asked her to disrobe and sit up on the couch. One glance was enough to confirm the breast cancer from the dimple in the lower outer quadrant on the right side. Palpation and biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. After counselling at length she was booked for the next vacant slot on the operating list, which was just over two weeks off. She went off satisfied, but the audit office was not. Apparently we were in breach of the two-week target for cancer.
So in the end, all these delays and unnecessary investigations wasted about 3,000 pounds, and caused substantial anxiety for the patient - and yet they passed the two-week target rule. At the point when the patient is diagnosed and treatment ordered, the computer finds that targets have not been met. This upside-down logic shows the unintended consequences of ill-considered and non-evidence-based political interference.
Conclusion
I hope those examples illustrate the dangers of government intervention in the practice of evidence-based medicine. This is what I choose to describe as ignorance-based interference (IBI). Other examples of IBI include so-called `patient's choice', censoring the right of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to evaluate alternative medicine, and the constant `re-disorganisation' of the NHS (7). My call to the government is this: provide us with the tools to practice evidence-based medicine and then please leave us alone.
Source
Post below lifted from Midnight Sun. See the original for links
Worldwide suppression of free speech - is it possible? On the first of this month (October) in Great Britain, an upgrade to existing `hate crime' legislation came into effect by which a British blogger can be imprisoned for seven years and slapped with an unlimited fine for criticizing any religion, which of course means Islam.
The new Act was passed to close a loophole: To date, only Jews and Sikhs were protected by the provisions of incitement to racial hatred. According to the Government, some extremists exploited this loophole, using religious terms to identify victims whom they would have previously identified using racial terms. From next month, the law will extend protection to followers of all religions.
However, the Act is a diluted version of the bill that was first introduced by the Government to Parliament after a high-profile campaign by free speech advocates including comic actor Rowan Atkinson.
The bill originally outlawed words and behavior that insulted or abused religious groups. The House of Lords removed those provisions and limited the offense to those who used threatening words or behavior only. They also removed the `reckless' element of the offense, restricting it to intentional offenses. The Government's failure to overturn these amendments was blamed on miscalculations by Government whips, who had not called in sufficient MPs to win the vote.
The new offense can be committed by broadcasting, writing in a blog or on a website, recording sounds which are threatening, or in the performance of a play if there is an intent to stir up religious hatred. Offenses can be punished by a prison term of up to seven years and an unlimited fine.
Basically the original law was introduced. It was protested by free speech advocates (joined by `Mr Bean' - Rowan Atkinson) so the government amended it. While they seem to be making it fairer, they've actually added more provisos. Lawyers say it leaves room for free speech: There is a wide exemption for freedom of speech. The Act states:
"Nothing in this Part shall be read or given effect in a way which prohibits or restricts discussion, criticism or expressions of antipathy, dislike, ridicule, insult or abuse of particular religions or the beliefs or practices of their adherents, or of any other belief system or the beliefs or practices of its adherents, or proselytizing or urging adherents of a different religion or belief system to cease practicing their religion or belief system."
Sounds pretty subjective and open to interpretation and manipulation to me. And why are they making this kind of law to start with? Something is changing and if you're following global trends, it's certain to be another step downhill.
Here's how I think it's going to play out. The law has been changed to include `discrimination' against Muslims. There are plenty of British blogs which would fall into this category. They'll pick on the most politically incorrect ones first, possibly the BNP connected ones, and this will break down any community resistance. Then it's going to game on for all right wing blogs (which they always connect with `racism' anyway both politically and in the broader community). British bloggers will run for higher ground as Belgian bloggers have done and move their blogs to international servers to avoid detection.
Sooner or later, the E.U. will opt for standardization across the board in Europe. Then, as the E.U. pushes for more power as they have been lately, they will push for variations of the same law to be enacted worldwide. The governments we have right now might resist, but elections are coming up. What will future governments do?
Now add to that the rise of Jihadi gangs in prisons and their attitude towards those incarcerated for religious `vilification' and you've got a time bomb the implications of which don't bear thinking about. Now I've got myself into trouble making predictions in the past and I could be wrong here, but I'm just setting out a hypothetical scenario.
Hats now incorrect
According to a report in London listing magazine Time Out, a growing number of London establishments are enforcing a `hat ban' on customers wishing to drink on their premises. It is one thing for pot-bellied landlords to tell customers they've had `too much to drink' and `clear off home'. It's another thing serving up strong sartorial diktat. Just who do they think they are? Don't they want our hard-earned cash and custom?
`We operate a smart casual dress code', a barmaid told me at the busy Porterhouse pub in Covent Garden in central London. `And that means no hats allowed in the pub.' Surely a nice trilby hat or a cream fedora hat fits the criteria of `smart casual'? She replied with unblinking primness: `We can't have one hat rule for some and one hat rule for others.' In other words, whether you are sporting a chavtastic Burberry cap or some designer item of millinery straight out of Royal Ascot, you won't be heading to the bar in a hurry. If Rat Pack stars like Frank Sinatra were around today, they would no doubt be turfed out of such premises for their anti-social headgear, no matter how much cash they were prepared to put across the bar.
Needless to say, the `smart casual' policy at the Porterhouse and some branches of All Bar One in central London is not really the justification for this ludicrous hat ban. It seems publicans have taken their cue from shopping centres such as Bluewater on the outskirts of London. Security staff there ban shoppers from wearing hoodies on the basis that any covering of the face prevents the wearer from being identified on closed-circuit television cameras (CCTV). `Yes, that's true', says the Porterhouse pub's barmaid, agreeing with Bluewater's policy on hooded tops. `Hats do obscure someone's face and CCTVs need to see them in case there's any trouble.' She's not alone with this explanation either. A barman at an All Bar One told Time Out: `We don't allow hats to be worn in the bar. We absolutely don't allow it. We need all faces to be seen by the CCTV.' (1)
Whilst such nit-picking bans might be a shock to the good liberals at Time Out, it seems this development has been in operation throughout the country for a while now. In March 2006, retired teacher Betty Wilbraham was told by staff at The Hereward pub in Ely, Cambridgeshire, to remove her black rain hat because `its CCTV camera would not be able to see her face clearly enough'. Pub licensee Tony Love said it was pub policy to always ask people to remove their hats. `It's all to do with the CCTV. We have 13 cameras inside the pub and we cannot be seen to be discriminating between the youths and the elderly people.' (2) Elsewhere at The Wheatsheaves in Frome, Somerset, one publican failed to get into the Christmas spirit last year by banning anyone who wore Santa Claus hats for the same reason. The Wheatsheaves' publican, Sam Ingram, proved that the deadhand of Scrooge was alive and kicking by bluntly stating: `Just because they're dressed up as Santa doesn't mean they couldn't start a riot.' (3) No doubt Ingram spends his time behind the bar on Christmas Day crying `Humbug!' to anyone who'll listen.
Is it really the case that hats of any description obscure someone's face? If so, what will be next? Will Amy Winehouse be refused entry into pubs because her perfectly coiffured beehive obscures her face? Will bowl-headed indie kids be ordered to have their fringes cut before they can get served? And why does it matter if someone's face is obscured anyway? Why this poisonous presumption that pub dwellers are automatically out to cause trouble?
The enforcement of such a bizarre rule as the `hat ban' may be an attempt to assert control in the name of tackling crime - there has always been a `Little Hitler' tendency among door staff and publicans. But the fact that such a ban seems to have been accepted at all shows how a demand for security and safety permeates society at present. It's interesting that while respectable pensioners have kicked up a fuss at the hat ban, younger people have tended to acquiesce to the demand to remove their headgear. In fact, surveillance is more or less seen as acceptable if it leads to a greater sense of security. And if that means toning down the headgear in the name of peace and quiet, then so be it. The way landlords justify the ban is also a kind of artificial `zero tolerance' policy where bouncers or staff are seen to flex their authority by telling a customer what is and what isn't permissible. A barman from an All Bar One branch in Soho told me, `a customer would think twice about causing trouble if a doorman has already told them off. The hat ban acts as a deterrent.'
What lies behind such demand for safety and security is a perception that individual autonomy is problematic in and of itself. Thus all individuals need some kind of rules and regulation because anyone can suddenly `get out of hand'. Forcing pub goers to remove their personal choice of headgear is done to constrain someone's free will and independence, lest that free will leads to aggro and arguments - the dress code implies a behaviour code, too. Indeed, there is something servile about forcing customers to `remove their hats', with ugly echoes of the `doffing your cap' reverence to society's supposed `betters' in the past. In this case, it's a reverence to New Britain's principles of authority, order and knowing-your-place. At root lies nothing but contempt for pub-going folk, as the aforementioned `I predict a riot' publican makes abundantly clear.
To be fair, other establishments are strongly against this growing fad for hat bans in pubs. As one barman from Bar Soho told me: `In this pub we leave it up to the individual to think for themselves. It's not our job to tell people what they should or should not wear.' Nevertheless, the fact that there's a growing number of pubs operating a hat ban at all reveals much about the overwhelming Culture of Unfreedom in the UK. It's not simply the property of a crudely authoritarian government like New Labour, but something that influences all aspects of society.
So the government hasn't made wearing hats in pubs illegal (yet), nor have the authorities adopted the logo of Eighties one-hit-wonders Men Without Hats and stuck it in all pub windows. But despite the smoking ban, pubs are still relatively unregulated public spaces and so jumpy landlords and bouncers apparently feel the need to issue such daft rules. When such a ban is introduced, even in a few establishments, it invites further and more heavy-handed intervention from the authorities, too. How long before a politician proposes on-the-spot fines for wearing hats `in closed public places'? Making people take their hats off isn't the end of the world - but it fits into a corrosive, creeping process of restricting our freedoms, large and small. One of these days, this endless procession of Looney Tunes restrictions on our liberties will deprive us of any meaningful rights - or as Bugs Bunny might say: `Hat's all, folks!'
Source
Brits getting poorer under socialism
While the average household gross income has climbed over the past decade from 34,796 to 53,835 pounds, people have far less of that money to spend each month after they have paid essential bills. In 1997, when Labour came to power, people were left with 34.5 per cent of their gross income once they had paid taxes, national insurance, mortgage or rent. Now they are left with 32.6 per cent, says a report by uSwitch, a price comparison website.
It is the latest survey to highlight how millions of households have failed to benefit from the strong economy because of rising taxes and escalating bills. Ernst & Young, the accountants, calculated this year that the average family had 838 pounds left to spend each month, compared to 899 four years ago. The uSwitch report makes clear that many household bills have actually risen more modestly than people's salaries, including the monthly, electricity, water and gas bills.
Increases have hit four key areas in the past 10 years. Petrol [gasoline] - often the biggest cost for a family after their housing - has increased by 55 per cent and phone and internet bills have risen 77 per cent as millions more use broadband and mobile phones. The cost of getting on to the housing ladder has more than tripled, but taxes are perhaps the most significant cost. Council tax rose from an average of 688 a year to 1,321 - an increase of 92 per cent, or three times the rate of inflation.
Mike Warburton, one of the City's most senior accountants, said: "The Government can argue that tax rates have not gone up and that they are merely benefiting from people's rising incomes. But a lot of indirect taxes have gone up, especially council tax. This is why pensioners - on fixed incomes - are so badly hit. The squeeze is definitely on." The report from uSwitch comes a week after it emerged that stamp duty had risen by more than 40 per cent in the past year alone, as the Government cashed in on ballooning house prices.
More here
On scientific medicine
When doctors attack alternative medicine or appear sceptical to its much-trumpeted claims, we are often accused of being bigots with closed minds, protecting a closed shop. Nothing could be further from the truth, but it has taken a layman, the late, great John Diamond, to find the words to set the record straight. For that reason, I would like to quote from his posthumously published book Snake Oil and other Preoccupations (1). Diamond wrote: `I am not an academic and this is not an academic book, even though the facts I list in it have a perfectly good scientific basis to them but when it comes to human motivation I am working blind. I can only guess why most people seem to prefer the unproven to the proven, the anecdotal to the rigorously demonstrated, and the so-called natural to the scientific.' There is much within that passage on the nature of proof, the nature of the scientific method, and the use and abuse of anecdotal evidence.
The alternative practitioner can trace his roots back to Galen in the second century, and a metaphysical belief system based on the balance of natural humours. For example, Galen believed that breast cancer was due to an excess of black bile (melancholia). Inductive support for this belief came from the observation that breast cancer was more common in post-menopausal women than pre-menopausal women, and this was thought to be because the menstrual flux in pre-menopausal women got rid of the putative excess of black bile. The therapeutic consequences of this belief therefore were purgation and venesection (bloodletting). The inductive `proof' that this approach worked were the anecdotes about women with breast cancer who were treated by purgation and venesection, and who lived for several years after diagnosis. Those who died were the victims of the blood-letter who didn't have the courage of his convictions, or the patient herself who lacked the constitutional vigour to sustain prolonged bloodletting.
There is a neo-Galenic doctrine, based on the view that breast cancer is indeed due to an imbalance of nature, only substituting energy fields for the natural humours. According to this view, to restore perfect health you have to restore the balance of these metaphysical energy fields. This might be achieved by acupuncture balancing out the yin and the yang, homeopathy (simularis simulabum curantur), or strange balancing diets.
The Gerson diet, in particular, is very fashionable. In fact, one of my patients, seeking to improve my education, gave me a book describing this approach (2). The first half of the book formulates the hypothesis why this strange diet should improve the balance of the immune system, and the second half of the book consisted of 50 anecdotes of patients with cancer, who were only given six months to live by the medical profession, and who took to the diet and lived for a long time.
The trouble with that kind of evidence is that although we know the numerator (50) we don't know the denominator - for example, 50 out of 1,000 cases treated by neglect could indeed live for many years while the indolent disease progresses on the chest wall. Furthermore, from the evidence available in the book, some of the diagnoses were a little bit shaky and the author neglects to mention whether or not these patients receive conventional treatment at the same time as the magic diet. Finally, I know of no oncologist who gives a patient six months to live. We may say that the median survival for a group with advanced cancer is six months, but among this group certain individuals may lie at extremes of survival. These individuals are the substance of the anecdote.
Perhaps I should leave the last word on this subject to Robert Parks, author of the wonderful book Voodoo Science. Parks wrote: `Alternative seems to define a culture rather than a field of medicine - a culture that is not scientifically demanding. It is a culture in which ancient accretions are given more weight than biological science and anecdotes are preferred over clinical trials. Alternative therapies steadfastly resist change often for centuries or even millennia, unaffected by scientific advances in the understanding of physiology or disease.' (3) If that is the case, then who are the bigots and the ones with the closed minds?
Deductive logic and the randomised controlled trial
The alternative to alternative medicine should be scientific medicine, not `orthodoxy'. By science I mean the application of deductive logic. The deductive approach starts with the formulation of the hypothesis, but for a start the hypothesis must be rational in its explanation of the disease process or therapeutic intervention. By `rational' I mean built upon the growth of knowledge of human biology and physiology from the past 100 years or so, without invoking magic or metaphysical principles.
Even so, the new hypothesis is still perceived as a fictional account of reality and subjected to rigorous test by the design of experiments challenging the new theory with the `hazard of refutation'. These experiments in medical or surgical therapeutics must have control groups treated by observation, placebo or `best available therapy'. Without the control group, we merely have a series of anecdotal reports. What I have just described is in fact a randomised controlled trial.
Breast cancer and the randomised controlled trial
As I have mentioned, up until the eighteenth century, if breast cancer was treated at all it was treated according to the principles of Galen. It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that it became widely accepted that cancer was a disease of cellular pathology originating within the breast and spreading centrifugally along the lymphatic system. The therapeutic consequence of this belief led surgeons to embark on radical surgery that involved removing the breast and all the regional lymphatics. It was left to William Halsted in the 1890s to refine the operation into the classic radical mastectomy, with the intention of ridding the body of the primary cancer and its lymph node secondaries. Sadly, the only support for this radical treatment was anecdotal. If the patient survived it was due to the success of the surgeon. If the patient died it was either because the patient came too late or the surgeon lacked the courage of his convictions to complete a truly radical operation.
It was only when Dr Bernard Fisher in the 1960s challenged the conceptual model of the disease that progress started to be made. In other words an antithesis was constructed to challenge the prevailing dogma. Fisher taught that contrary to popular belief, breast cancer cells spread throughout the body through the venous drainage of the breast, and at the time of clinical presentation of the disease, the majority of breast cancers were in fact systemic disorders. If that was indeed the case then there are two therapeutic consequences. Firstly, that radical surgery is shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Therefore the role of local therapy is local control, which would equally well be achieved by breast-conserving techniques such as lumpectomy and radiotherapy. The second therapeutic corollary is that if indeed the disease is systemic at the time of diagnosis, then the only way to improve cure rates is through chemotherapy or hormone therapy.
However, the greatness of Dr Fisher, ably supported by surgical acolytes all around the world, was not simply to accept a new set of beliefs in place of an old set of beliefs, but to challenge the new paradigm using deductive logic: in other words, through randomised controlled trials. One of the great success stories of modern medicine has been the painstaking series of randomised controlled trials in the management of early breast cancer over the past 30 years. We now know with extreme confidence that breast conservation is a safe alternative to radical mastectomy; although not in itself improving cure rates, it greatly enhances the patient's quality of life. We also know with extreme confidence that treatment using either endocrine or cytotoxic regimens will improve survival. The final demonstration of that truth has been the dramatic fall in breast cancer mortality in the UK and North America since 1985, following the first publication of the world overview of trials (4).
Using breast cancer as an example, we can demonstrate that the philosophy of science that underpins the randomised controlled trials has led to the dramatic improvement in length of life and quality of life for women inflicted with this dread disease. However, this isn't the end of the story, as new biological hypotheses are being generated with new therapeutic consequences, all of which will be tested in the randomised controlled trial, which is now accepted as the most scientific and ethical way of conducting medicine in times of uncertainty.
The impact of government interference
For both political and humane reasons, governments of all persuasions like to meddle in this process and add guidelines, targets and unwelcome advice on top of our carefully collected evidence. Two examples from the recent past illustrate the dangerous law of unintended consequences when well-meaning meddling is applied on top of clinical science. The first is teaching the practice of breast self-examination (BSE) and the second, applying the two-week target for the urgent diagnosis of cases suspected of having breast cancer.
BSE is superficially attractive in making it the responsibility of women themselves to `catch their breast cancers early' and thus reduce breast cancer mortality. It's a good theory and was introduced as policy in many countries, and also provides an excuse for the women's magazines to publish photographs of beautiful young women fondling their own breasts (which in itself gives out the wrong message that breast cancer is a disease of young women). However, the important point to note is that the advice is based on an assumption - not on evidence. Over the past 10 years, three large randomised controlled trials have compared the outcomes of women who have been intensively trained in BSE with a matched population of women left to their own devices. The outcomes of all three studies were counterintuitive. There was no difference in breast cancer mortality, but those women practising BSE were twice as likely to experience false alarms and unnecessary surgery. This prompted the Canadian Medical Association to issue a warning against the practice!
A more recent example is the two-week rule. Primary care doctors in the NHS were advised to prioritise women with breast symptoms as urgent or not urgent. Those in the former group had to be seen within two weeks and the rest could take their turn. Note the two false assumptions in these guidelines: a) breast cancer is an emergency and even a few weeks can affect outcome; and b) women with breast symptoms atypical of breast cancer can happily wait for up to 12 weeks. Pretty much as predicted, the law of unintended consequences kicked in. So many worried-well pushy middle-class women were seen as emergencies, and so many cancers appeared in the non-urgent group that the net result was a greater delay in cancers being diagnosed than before (6).
Finally, I wish to illustrate the extreme folly of the two-week target for seeing patients suspected of cancer, with an anecdote about a patient I saw recently. The patient who attended my NHS clinic was a charming and sensible woman in her early fifties, with a family history of breast cancer. Three weeks before, she had seen her GP complaining of passing bright red blood at stool. He referred her urgently under the two-week `target' rule to the colo-rectal clinic. The referral was flagged up by some clerical officer in the audit department and the clock started its countdown. Since the colo-rectal clinics are overwhelmed with patients with lower bowel symptoms, nurse-led clinics were set up to take the pressure off the specialist surgeons. The nurse ticked the boxes and the patient was referred for colonoscopy. This examination showed haemorrhoids (piles), the commonest cause of bleeding at stool, and no signs of cancer. Her next appointment followed soon afterwards and she had a CT scan of her abdomen and chest. This was reported as showing a secondary cancer in her right lung. She was then referred for positron emitting tomography, which suggested that she might have cancer in her right breast not her right lung. Note that at no time had anyone actually examined her.
By the time she came to see me she was a confused nervous wreck. After taking a careful history I asked her to disrobe and sit up on the couch. One glance was enough to confirm the breast cancer from the dimple in the lower outer quadrant on the right side. Palpation and biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. After counselling at length she was booked for the next vacant slot on the operating list, which was just over two weeks off. She went off satisfied, but the audit office was not. Apparently we were in breach of the two-week target for cancer.
So in the end, all these delays and unnecessary investigations wasted about 3,000 pounds, and caused substantial anxiety for the patient - and yet they passed the two-week target rule. At the point when the patient is diagnosed and treatment ordered, the computer finds that targets have not been met. This upside-down logic shows the unintended consequences of ill-considered and non-evidence-based political interference.
Conclusion
I hope those examples illustrate the dangers of government intervention in the practice of evidence-based medicine. This is what I choose to describe as ignorance-based interference (IBI). Other examples of IBI include so-called `patient's choice', censoring the right of the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) to evaluate alternative medicine, and the constant `re-disorganisation' of the NHS (7). My call to the government is this: provide us with the tools to practice evidence-based medicine and then please leave us alone.
Source
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
Marriage is good for you
Or maybe it is better-functioning people who marry
Marriage may be out of fashion but it still confers considerable benefits to adults and children, according to a comprehensive study on the state of the family. The Office for National Statistics has published definitive proof that married couples live longer, enjoy better health and can rely on more home care in old age than their divorced, widowed, single and cohabiting peers. Children who live with their married parents are also healthier, and can expect to stay in full-time education for longer, whatever their economic background.
It has always been thought that marriage had a positive effect on health, but the findings are the most solid evidence yet that, despite rapidly changing social attitudes and an end to the stigma of divorce and lone-parenting, marriage is still good for you. It will add fuel to an already heated political debate on the family. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has promised tax cuts for married couples, and to change the tax credit system so that couples with children receive as much as single parents. Labour has said that the money should be directed to the poorest families regardless of whether they are married, divorced or headed by single parents.
The ONS study, Focus on Families, suggests that married couples will be outnumbered by cohabiting couples and single-parent households within a generation if present trends continue. It found that the number of cohabiting couples had risen by 65 per cent in the past ten years to 2.3 million, while single-parent families increased by 8 per cent to 2.6 million. Over the same period, the number of married couples fell by 4 per cent to 12.1 million.
When the data on family structure was merged with health statistics, it emerged that widowed men and single mothers had the worst health, suffering more acute and chronic conditions. Married people of both sexes enjoyed the best health.
Mortality rates are also greatly affected by marital status. The mortality rate among single men under 34 is about 2r times higher than that for young married men. Widowed and divorced men over 80 have a mortality rate one third higher than married men. Single, widowed and divorced older women all have higher mortality rates than their married peers.
Children who have married parents, no matter their social background, are more likely to be in full-time education at 17 than any other group. Children's risk of long-term illness was highest in the care system, and in single-parent households. It was lowest in married-couple households.
The benefits of marriage are also marked when it comes to care in illness and old age. Across all age groups, the provision of unpaid care by married adults for sick or elderly relatives and disabled children was higher than for cohabiting couples.
Experts said that that had profound implications for government plans, since the present system relied on unpaid relatives providing most care. Mike Murphy, Professor of Demography at the London School of Economics and one of the authors of the report, said he had expected that society's greater acceptance of divorce and single-parenthood would have eroded the benefits of marriage, on health in particular, but this did not appear to be so. "The evidence of both mortality and morbidity data suggest the link between health and the family remain strong," Professor Murphy said. "Some of the benefits of marriage can be explained by wealth, as the marriage rate is higher in higher socio-economic groups. But all the evidence shows that there is something in marriage itself that is a benefit."
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who heads the party's Commission for Social Justice, said that the ONS study confirmed his findings. "In the two reports we have published we have noted that marriage confers enormous benefits on adults and children. There is a higher rate of break-up among cohabiting couples with young children compared to their married equivalents, and higher rates of crime, drug abuse and debt are strongly lined to family breakdown," he said. "The decline of marriage is a difficult social trend to reverse. It would be too simplistic to argue that a tax break will reverse this trend and we have made 29 recommendations on the subject, including more education on how to sustain relationships."
Most of the data used by the ONS predates the introduction of civil partnerships in 2005. In any case, the effects of civil partnerships on health have yet to filter through.
Source
In search of eco-salvation
Many religions are now more likely to preach about saving the planet than saving souls.
These days, moralisers find it easier to make people feel guilty about their impact on the environment than about committing one of the seven deadly sins. Not surprisingly, many religious institutions are busy reinventing themselves by promoting ecological virtues and preaching against the eco-sins of polluters. On occasions, the attempt to recycle traditional theological concerns in a green form becomes a caricature of itself. In August, Dom Anthony Sutch, a Benedictine monk, announced that he would hear eco-confessions of sins against the environment at the Waveney Greenpeace festival, in a confessional booth carefully constructed from recycled materials. The good monk clearly practices what he preaches. He tries ‘very hard’ to live a green lifestyle and is proud of his principal achievement – reducing his electricity bill by 30 per cent. This mock ritual is unlikely to offer penitents’ salvation or redemption, but their ‘awareness’ will be raised. And these days being ‘aware’ is recognised as akin to being virtuous.
Sometime back in the 1980s, Western societies gave up on the project of rescuing ‘traditional values’ and morality. From time to time, conservative politicians and moral entrepreneurs have attempted to launch back-to-basics crusades promoting ‘family values’. However, their lack of popular appeal has only exposed society’s estrangement from these traditions. Indeed by the Eighties, even religious institutions found it difficult to uphold their own authority with conviction. Instead of influencing society many churches began to internalise the attitudes associated with the lifestyles of their increasingly individualised consumerist flock. The last quarter century has seen a steady diminishing of religious authority in Western societies. Debates about the role of women priests, homosexuality and marriage indicated that religious institutions have become confused about their own relationship to traditional values.
One consequence of the erosion of religious authority was that the church became exposed to the critical scrutiny of the public. A dramatic manifestation of the loss of religious authority is the spate of child abuse scandals that have incriminated church leaders. In many places Catholic officials were forced to respond to the public’s mistrust of their conduct by banning priests from any private contact with children. For example, Australian guidelines, drawn up with the approval of the Vatican, insisted that confessionals had to be fitted with glass viewing panels. Priests are also banned from seeing any child alone with the door closed (1). The readiness with which the clergy is prepared to modify the ritual of confession is testimony to its ambiguity and defensiveness about its own tradition.
Forced on to the defensive and sensitive to the charge of being out of touch with public concerns, Western religions have looked for new ways of rebuilding their authority. As I have argued elsewhere, some church officials attempted to associate themselves with the authority enjoyed by psychology and therapy and reinvented themselves as counsellors and therapists (2). As the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey noted, ‘Christ the Saviour is becoming Christ the counsellor’ (3).
In recent years, some in the church have sought to gain the public’s ear through the greening of traditional doctrines, and Christ the Saviour is fast becoming Christ the environmental activist. Western society is continually in search of rituals and symbols through which moral probity can be affirmed. It appears that, for many church leaders, the project of saving the planet offers more opportunities for reconstituting rituals and symbols than the saving of souls.
It is not just the odd priest offering absolution through the ritual of eco-confession. Church leaders have embraced the rituals of eco-morality to demonstrate their commitment to a higher good. Absolution through carbon offsets appears to be the way forward.
Pope Benedict XVI has called for the upholding of ‘green culture’, and the Vatican has announced that it will soon become the world’s first carbon neutral state. A Hungarian entrepreneur plans to plant trees on a denuded island in the Tisza River to offset the Papal carbon emissions. The newly planted 37 acres of holy land, to be renamed the Vatican Climate Forest, is supposed to absorb as much carbon dioxide as the Vatican emits. At a ceremony publicising the initiative, Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, noted that ‘the book of Genesis tells us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful’ (4). As far as some Vatican leaders are concerned, offsetting carbon emissions plays a role analogous to that of fasting or self-mortification in previous times. Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Council for Culture, argues that ‘one can emit less CO2 by not using heating and not driving a car, or one can do penance by intervening to offset emissions, in this case by planting trees’.
The Catholic Church appears to take the view that it can revitalise its relationship with people through preaching the virtues of environmental responsibility. According to press reports, the Pope will use his first address to the United Nations to warn the world against global warming and promote saving the planet as a moral duty for Catholics (5). In recent months, the Pope has actively sought to associate himself with green issues. ‘Before it is too late, it is necessary to make courageous decisions that reflect knowing how to re-create a strong alliance between man and the earth’, he told a rally of young people.
The assimilation of eco-morality into the idiom of theology and liturgy is not confined to Catholicism. In the USA, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment unites the US Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life and the Evangelical Environmental Network in a crusade to save the earth. Through an implicit reinterpretation of classical dogma, the sanctity of nature and all creation displaces the traditional focus on the sanctity of human beings. The Eco-Kosher network celebrates food that is ‘ecologically benign’ and ‘promotes values that appeal to a wide variety of people, including Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, vegetarians, and health conscious individuals’. There are many attempts to rebrand Judaism as an environmentalist religion. ‘You cannot be a conscious Jew without being conscious of the environment’ argues Jonathan Helfand, a professor in the Jewish Studies Department at City University of New York (6).
In 2006, the Church of England launched an eco-crusade entitled ‘Shrinking the Footprint’. The Archbishop of Canterbury complained that ‘early modern religion contributed to the idea that the fate of nature is for it to be bossed around by a detached sovereign will, whether divine or human’. It seems possible that those misguided early modern religionists received that idea from the Book of Genesis, where God gives Man dominion ‘over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth’. Now the head of the Anglican church protests about nature being ‘bossed around’ not only by Man, but by God. This year, the Church of England launched a booklet of green tips for the faithful entitled How Many Christians Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? Its eco-commandments include: share cars on the road to church, use virtuous low-energy lightbulbs but cast out junk mail, and do not flush the loo at night.
Eco-Congregation Scotland has produced a ‘Church Check-Up’ to see whether a local church’s environmental practices are up to scratch. Its check-up is designed to help churches ‘identify and affirm their existing environmental ministry’. It asks questions like ‘How regularly during the year are environmental concerns included in worship?’, ‘In your Church’s prayer do you “Say sorry for the harm done to the environment”?’, ‘Does your Church sing hymns or songs that celebrate the wonder of creation and express the calling to care for the environment?’ The aim of the ‘check-up’ is to encourage churches to embrace environmental concerns as the focus for worship.
Eco-spirituality is also seen as a moral resource that can transcend cultural and religious differences. This summer, the 9th Islamic Fayre in Bristol promoted an eco theme. ‘Islam is a religion of peace but is also known as a religion of nature’, stated Rizwan Ahmed, the event’s organiser. And Farooq Siddique, community development officer of the British Muslim Cultural Society noted that the ‘event is also about bringing communities together’. The hope that the appeal of eco-spirituality could counteract the influence of radical jihadist sentiments has encouraged British officialdom to support such initiatives.
The appeal of eco-spirituality to so many different religions is a testimony to the powerful influence that environmentalism exercises over contemporary culture. At a time when traditional institutions find it difficult to connect with popular concerns, environmentalism is still able to transmit ideas about human responsibility through appealing to a sense of right and wrong. That is why the authors of children’s books and school officials also use environmentalism as a vehicle for socialising youngsters.
However, eco-spirituality cannot really compensate for the loss of traditional moral authority. Indeed the very embrace of the environmentalist agenda can only accelerate the decline of institutions that cannot give meaning to the religious doctrines on which they were founded. The shift away from God towards nature inevitably leads to a world where the pronouncements of environmentalist experts trump those of the priesthood. It will be interesting to see what will remain of traditional religion as prophecy and revelation is displaced by computerised climate models.
Source
Tories crow, as Brown loses his bottle: "BRITAIN'S Gordon Brown is facing the gravest crisis of his brief prime ministership after a Conservative surge in opinion polls forced him to scrap plans for an early election to win his own mandate from voters. After two months of letting speculation run that he would call a poll in the autumn, Mr Brown told the BBC yesterday that there would be no election because he wanted time to show Britons his "vision" rather than merely his "competence". But as some cabinet members privately expressed disquiet over Mr Brown's handling of the issue, an elated Conservative leader, David Cameron, said the Prime Minister had "shown great weakness and indecision". [For non-Brits, the Cockney term "bottle" translates roughly as "courage"]
Or maybe it is better-functioning people who marry
Marriage may be out of fashion but it still confers considerable benefits to adults and children, according to a comprehensive study on the state of the family. The Office for National Statistics has published definitive proof that married couples live longer, enjoy better health and can rely on more home care in old age than their divorced, widowed, single and cohabiting peers. Children who live with their married parents are also healthier, and can expect to stay in full-time education for longer, whatever their economic background.
It has always been thought that marriage had a positive effect on health, but the findings are the most solid evidence yet that, despite rapidly changing social attitudes and an end to the stigma of divorce and lone-parenting, marriage is still good for you. It will add fuel to an already heated political debate on the family. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, has promised tax cuts for married couples, and to change the tax credit system so that couples with children receive as much as single parents. Labour has said that the money should be directed to the poorest families regardless of whether they are married, divorced or headed by single parents.
The ONS study, Focus on Families, suggests that married couples will be outnumbered by cohabiting couples and single-parent households within a generation if present trends continue. It found that the number of cohabiting couples had risen by 65 per cent in the past ten years to 2.3 million, while single-parent families increased by 8 per cent to 2.6 million. Over the same period, the number of married couples fell by 4 per cent to 12.1 million.
When the data on family structure was merged with health statistics, it emerged that widowed men and single mothers had the worst health, suffering more acute and chronic conditions. Married people of both sexes enjoyed the best health.
Mortality rates are also greatly affected by marital status. The mortality rate among single men under 34 is about 2r times higher than that for young married men. Widowed and divorced men over 80 have a mortality rate one third higher than married men. Single, widowed and divorced older women all have higher mortality rates than their married peers.
Children who have married parents, no matter their social background, are more likely to be in full-time education at 17 than any other group. Children's risk of long-term illness was highest in the care system, and in single-parent households. It was lowest in married-couple households.
The benefits of marriage are also marked when it comes to care in illness and old age. Across all age groups, the provision of unpaid care by married adults for sick or elderly relatives and disabled children was higher than for cohabiting couples.
Experts said that that had profound implications for government plans, since the present system relied on unpaid relatives providing most care. Mike Murphy, Professor of Demography at the London School of Economics and one of the authors of the report, said he had expected that society's greater acceptance of divorce and single-parenthood would have eroded the benefits of marriage, on health in particular, but this did not appear to be so. "The evidence of both mortality and morbidity data suggest the link between health and the family remain strong," Professor Murphy said. "Some of the benefits of marriage can be explained by wealth, as the marriage rate is higher in higher socio-economic groups. But all the evidence shows that there is something in marriage itself that is a benefit."
Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who heads the party's Commission for Social Justice, said that the ONS study confirmed his findings. "In the two reports we have published we have noted that marriage confers enormous benefits on adults and children. There is a higher rate of break-up among cohabiting couples with young children compared to their married equivalents, and higher rates of crime, drug abuse and debt are strongly lined to family breakdown," he said. "The decline of marriage is a difficult social trend to reverse. It would be too simplistic to argue that a tax break will reverse this trend and we have made 29 recommendations on the subject, including more education on how to sustain relationships."
Most of the data used by the ONS predates the introduction of civil partnerships in 2005. In any case, the effects of civil partnerships on health have yet to filter through.
Source
In search of eco-salvation
Many religions are now more likely to preach about saving the planet than saving souls.
These days, moralisers find it easier to make people feel guilty about their impact on the environment than about committing one of the seven deadly sins. Not surprisingly, many religious institutions are busy reinventing themselves by promoting ecological virtues and preaching against the eco-sins of polluters. On occasions, the attempt to recycle traditional theological concerns in a green form becomes a caricature of itself. In August, Dom Anthony Sutch, a Benedictine monk, announced that he would hear eco-confessions of sins against the environment at the Waveney Greenpeace festival, in a confessional booth carefully constructed from recycled materials. The good monk clearly practices what he preaches. He tries ‘very hard’ to live a green lifestyle and is proud of his principal achievement – reducing his electricity bill by 30 per cent. This mock ritual is unlikely to offer penitents’ salvation or redemption, but their ‘awareness’ will be raised. And these days being ‘aware’ is recognised as akin to being virtuous.
Sometime back in the 1980s, Western societies gave up on the project of rescuing ‘traditional values’ and morality. From time to time, conservative politicians and moral entrepreneurs have attempted to launch back-to-basics crusades promoting ‘family values’. However, their lack of popular appeal has only exposed society’s estrangement from these traditions. Indeed by the Eighties, even religious institutions found it difficult to uphold their own authority with conviction. Instead of influencing society many churches began to internalise the attitudes associated with the lifestyles of their increasingly individualised consumerist flock. The last quarter century has seen a steady diminishing of religious authority in Western societies. Debates about the role of women priests, homosexuality and marriage indicated that religious institutions have become confused about their own relationship to traditional values.
One consequence of the erosion of religious authority was that the church became exposed to the critical scrutiny of the public. A dramatic manifestation of the loss of religious authority is the spate of child abuse scandals that have incriminated church leaders. In many places Catholic officials were forced to respond to the public’s mistrust of their conduct by banning priests from any private contact with children. For example, Australian guidelines, drawn up with the approval of the Vatican, insisted that confessionals had to be fitted with glass viewing panels. Priests are also banned from seeing any child alone with the door closed (1). The readiness with which the clergy is prepared to modify the ritual of confession is testimony to its ambiguity and defensiveness about its own tradition.
Forced on to the defensive and sensitive to the charge of being out of touch with public concerns, Western religions have looked for new ways of rebuilding their authority. As I have argued elsewhere, some church officials attempted to associate themselves with the authority enjoyed by psychology and therapy and reinvented themselves as counsellors and therapists (2). As the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey noted, ‘Christ the Saviour is becoming Christ the counsellor’ (3).
In recent years, some in the church have sought to gain the public’s ear through the greening of traditional doctrines, and Christ the Saviour is fast becoming Christ the environmental activist. Western society is continually in search of rituals and symbols through which moral probity can be affirmed. It appears that, for many church leaders, the project of saving the planet offers more opportunities for reconstituting rituals and symbols than the saving of souls.
It is not just the odd priest offering absolution through the ritual of eco-confession. Church leaders have embraced the rituals of eco-morality to demonstrate their commitment to a higher good. Absolution through carbon offsets appears to be the way forward.
Pope Benedict XVI has called for the upholding of ‘green culture’, and the Vatican has announced that it will soon become the world’s first carbon neutral state. A Hungarian entrepreneur plans to plant trees on a denuded island in the Tisza River to offset the Papal carbon emissions. The newly planted 37 acres of holy land, to be renamed the Vatican Climate Forest, is supposed to absorb as much carbon dioxide as the Vatican emits. At a ceremony publicising the initiative, Cardinal Paul Poupard, head of the Pontifical Council for Culture, noted that ‘the book of Genesis tells us of a beginning in which God placed man as guardian over the earth to make it fruitful’ (4). As far as some Vatican leaders are concerned, offsetting carbon emissions plays a role analogous to that of fasting or self-mortification in previous times. Monsignor Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, an official at the Council for Culture, argues that ‘one can emit less CO2 by not using heating and not driving a car, or one can do penance by intervening to offset emissions, in this case by planting trees’.
The Catholic Church appears to take the view that it can revitalise its relationship with people through preaching the virtues of environmental responsibility. According to press reports, the Pope will use his first address to the United Nations to warn the world against global warming and promote saving the planet as a moral duty for Catholics (5). In recent months, the Pope has actively sought to associate himself with green issues. ‘Before it is too late, it is necessary to make courageous decisions that reflect knowing how to re-create a strong alliance between man and the earth’, he told a rally of young people.
The assimilation of eco-morality into the idiom of theology and liturgy is not confined to Catholicism. In the USA, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment unites the US Catholic Conference, the National Council of Churches, the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life and the Evangelical Environmental Network in a crusade to save the earth. Through an implicit reinterpretation of classical dogma, the sanctity of nature and all creation displaces the traditional focus on the sanctity of human beings. The Eco-Kosher network celebrates food that is ‘ecologically benign’ and ‘promotes values that appeal to a wide variety of people, including Muslims, Seventh Day Adventists, vegetarians, and health conscious individuals’. There are many attempts to rebrand Judaism as an environmentalist religion. ‘You cannot be a conscious Jew without being conscious of the environment’ argues Jonathan Helfand, a professor in the Jewish Studies Department at City University of New York (6).
In 2006, the Church of England launched an eco-crusade entitled ‘Shrinking the Footprint’. The Archbishop of Canterbury complained that ‘early modern religion contributed to the idea that the fate of nature is for it to be bossed around by a detached sovereign will, whether divine or human’. It seems possible that those misguided early modern religionists received that idea from the Book of Genesis, where God gives Man dominion ‘over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth’. Now the head of the Anglican church protests about nature being ‘bossed around’ not only by Man, but by God. This year, the Church of England launched a booklet of green tips for the faithful entitled How Many Christians Does it Take to Change a Lightbulb? Its eco-commandments include: share cars on the road to church, use virtuous low-energy lightbulbs but cast out junk mail, and do not flush the loo at night.
Eco-Congregation Scotland has produced a ‘Church Check-Up’ to see whether a local church’s environmental practices are up to scratch. Its check-up is designed to help churches ‘identify and affirm their existing environmental ministry’. It asks questions like ‘How regularly during the year are environmental concerns included in worship?’, ‘In your Church’s prayer do you “Say sorry for the harm done to the environment”?’, ‘Does your Church sing hymns or songs that celebrate the wonder of creation and express the calling to care for the environment?’ The aim of the ‘check-up’ is to encourage churches to embrace environmental concerns as the focus for worship.
Eco-spirituality is also seen as a moral resource that can transcend cultural and religious differences. This summer, the 9th Islamic Fayre in Bristol promoted an eco theme. ‘Islam is a religion of peace but is also known as a religion of nature’, stated Rizwan Ahmed, the event’s organiser. And Farooq Siddique, community development officer of the British Muslim Cultural Society noted that the ‘event is also about bringing communities together’. The hope that the appeal of eco-spirituality could counteract the influence of radical jihadist sentiments has encouraged British officialdom to support such initiatives.
The appeal of eco-spirituality to so many different religions is a testimony to the powerful influence that environmentalism exercises over contemporary culture. At a time when traditional institutions find it difficult to connect with popular concerns, environmentalism is still able to transmit ideas about human responsibility through appealing to a sense of right and wrong. That is why the authors of children’s books and school officials also use environmentalism as a vehicle for socialising youngsters.
However, eco-spirituality cannot really compensate for the loss of traditional moral authority. Indeed the very embrace of the environmentalist agenda can only accelerate the decline of institutions that cannot give meaning to the religious doctrines on which they were founded. The shift away from God towards nature inevitably leads to a world where the pronouncements of environmentalist experts trump those of the priesthood. It will be interesting to see what will remain of traditional religion as prophecy and revelation is displaced by computerised climate models.
Source
Tories crow, as Brown loses his bottle: "BRITAIN'S Gordon Brown is facing the gravest crisis of his brief prime ministership after a Conservative surge in opinion polls forced him to scrap plans for an early election to win his own mandate from voters. After two months of letting speculation run that he would call a poll in the autumn, Mr Brown told the BBC yesterday that there would be no election because he wanted time to show Britons his "vision" rather than merely his "competence". But as some cabinet members privately expressed disquiet over Mr Brown's handling of the issue, an elated Conservative leader, David Cameron, said the Prime Minister had "shown great weakness and indecision". [For non-Brits, the Cockney term "bottle" translates roughly as "courage"]
Monday, October 08, 2007
BBC fed youngsters Al Qaeda propaganda
Britain's former spy chief accused the BBC of "parroting" Al Qaeda propaganda to children as young as six. Dame Pauline Neville Jones, who is also a former BBC governor, is infuriated at the stance the corporation's Newsround programme took on the September 11 attacks. She accused the flagship children's news bulletin of feeding an "ugly undercurrent" which suggests the terrorist outrage was somehow justifiable.
Newsround is aimed at viewers aged between six and 12. On its website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."
After the public complained, the text was amended. It now reads: "Al Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East. "People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries."
Dame Pauline, who headed the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee and is described as the most formidable female diplomat Britain has produced, said the new version was even worse. "It still says it's all America's fault, and now for daring to be involved in the Middle East at all," she said. "It wasn't 'people linked to' al Qaeda who killed 3,000 people that day, it was al Qaeda itself. "Osama bin Laden even boasted of the attacks. Is the BBC really saying that if you're 'unhappy' it's quite normal behaviour to murder people? "Is the BBC so naive as to take al Qaeda's propaganda at face value? Or is there something more sinister at work here?"
Dame Pauline, who is now a shadow security spokesman, added: "Al Qaeda make the manifestly false claim that America is part of an enormous Jewish-Christian conspiracy to dominate the world and kill Muslims. "This is no secret - Osama bin Laden has said as much himself. "We know that in the long run the struggle against terrorists is a battle for hearts and minds. "How can we expect to win when our national broadcaster is parroting their line to our own children? "There is only one set of people who are ever to blame for terrorist attacks and that's the perpetrators themselves."
Dame Pauline said the BBC was a "national treasure" and she had been proud to serve as a governor. "But from time to time I have found myself asking questions about BBC's attitude to terrorism. It even orders its journalists not to use the word terrorist," she added. "Although almost everyone in Britain quite rightly reacted with horror to the attacks of September 11, there was an ugly undercurrent that blamed America for being attacked. "Just two days after the attacks the BBC screened an edition of the Question Time programme where they invited an anti-American audience that laid into the American ambassador, leaving him close to tears. In fairness, the BBC apologised for that outrage. "Even though this was an appalling example of knee-jerk prejudice, at least it was meant for adults. "I never imagined the rot would spread to the BBC's children's programmes. I was wrong."
Dame Pauline has complained to the BBC's head of journalism Mark Byford, who is understood to have defended the text as "clear and concise". Sinead Rocks, editor of the Newsround programme, said the first version of the text was several years old and should no longer have been available. But she defended the new version, insisting it was not an attempt to "justify" the events of September 11. "We feel it is entirely legitimate to question the motives of the people who carried out the attacks," she said. "Our contact with our audience has shown that their understanding is helped by events being put into some kind of context. "We often have to translate complex and emotive issues into language appropriate for children. It's a responsibility we take very seriously."
Source
Britain's former spy chief accused the BBC of "parroting" Al Qaeda propaganda to children as young as six. Dame Pauline Neville Jones, who is also a former BBC governor, is infuriated at the stance the corporation's Newsround programme took on the September 11 attacks. She accused the flagship children's news bulletin of feeding an "ugly undercurrent" which suggests the terrorist outrage was somehow justifiable.
Newsround is aimed at viewers aged between six and 12. On its website it answered the question concerning 9/11, "Why did they do it" by saying: "The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al Qaeda - who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks."
After the public complained, the text was amended. It now reads: "Al Qaeda is unhappy with America and other countries getting involved in places like the Middle East. "People linked to al Qaeda have used violence to make this point in the U.S.A, and in other countries."
Dame Pauline, who headed the Government's Joint Intelligence Committee and is described as the most formidable female diplomat Britain has produced, said the new version was even worse. "It still says it's all America's fault, and now for daring to be involved in the Middle East at all," she said. "It wasn't 'people linked to' al Qaeda who killed 3,000 people that day, it was al Qaeda itself. "Osama bin Laden even boasted of the attacks. Is the BBC really saying that if you're 'unhappy' it's quite normal behaviour to murder people? "Is the BBC so naive as to take al Qaeda's propaganda at face value? Or is there something more sinister at work here?"
Dame Pauline, who is now a shadow security spokesman, added: "Al Qaeda make the manifestly false claim that America is part of an enormous Jewish-Christian conspiracy to dominate the world and kill Muslims. "This is no secret - Osama bin Laden has said as much himself. "We know that in the long run the struggle against terrorists is a battle for hearts and minds. "How can we expect to win when our national broadcaster is parroting their line to our own children? "There is only one set of people who are ever to blame for terrorist attacks and that's the perpetrators themselves."
Dame Pauline said the BBC was a "national treasure" and she had been proud to serve as a governor. "But from time to time I have found myself asking questions about BBC's attitude to terrorism. It even orders its journalists not to use the word terrorist," she added. "Although almost everyone in Britain quite rightly reacted with horror to the attacks of September 11, there was an ugly undercurrent that blamed America for being attacked. "Just two days after the attacks the BBC screened an edition of the Question Time programme where they invited an anti-American audience that laid into the American ambassador, leaving him close to tears. In fairness, the BBC apologised for that outrage. "Even though this was an appalling example of knee-jerk prejudice, at least it was meant for adults. "I never imagined the rot would spread to the BBC's children's programmes. I was wrong."
Dame Pauline has complained to the BBC's head of journalism Mark Byford, who is understood to have defended the text as "clear and concise". Sinead Rocks, editor of the Newsround programme, said the first version of the text was several years old and should no longer have been available. But she defended the new version, insisting it was not an attempt to "justify" the events of September 11. "We feel it is entirely legitimate to question the motives of the people who carried out the attacks," she said. "Our contact with our audience has shown that their understanding is helped by events being put into some kind of context. "We often have to translate complex and emotive issues into language appropriate for children. It's a responsibility we take very seriously."
Source
Sunday, October 07, 2007
British firemen demoted and fined for shining torch on outdoor homosexual activity
Disrupt lawbreaking in Britain and YOU will get prosecuted, not the lawbreakers
Firemen who shone their torches at four men they found having sex in bushes have been disciplined by their bosses. The crew spotted the men engaged in illegal 'dogging' - outdoor sexual activity with strangers - on parkland known as the Downs in Bristol late one night. After embarrassing the men by pointing their torches at them, the crew continued on their way to their fire station.
But one of the 'doggers' complained to Avon Fire and Rescue, ultimately accusing the four-man crew of being homophobic. The firemen, who have 26 years of service between them, were then suspended on full pay for three months during an internal investigation. Yesterday it emerged that two have been fined œ1,000 each, another demoted to a rank which will see him forfeit a similar amount of money, while a fourth has received a stern written warning.
It is believed Avon Fire and Rescue plans to give the money raised from the fines to a gay rights charity. Among those being considered is the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays. The crew have been transferred to other stations and ordered to attend an equality course. But no action has been taken against any of the men believed to have been involved in the dogging. The one who complained is said to be 'happy' at the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings in which the firemen were charged with bringing the service into disrepute and misuse of fire equipment.
The firemen, formerly members of Avon Fire Service's Blue Watch at Avonmouth station in Bristol, have been banned from discussing the incident, which took place at about 10.30pm on June 27. But one of their colleagues said yesterday: 'This is a complete farce. All four officers have been let down by their senior officers when they needed their support the most. 'They have been treated as the criminals and it has been forgotten that they witnessed criminal activity occurring in a public place.'
Another fireman said: 'There are a lot of firefighters in Avon who feel the four involved have been treated very unfairly so the service can be seen as being politically correct.' Fire chiefs were alerted to the incident by the Terrence Higgins Trust, which has supported the man allegedly seen performing the sex act. Simon Nelson, the charity's acting regional manager, said: 'The member of the public simply wanted to know why the fire service was on the Downs at that time of day. We passed on that complaint.'
Avon's chief fire officer Kevin Pearson said: 'There was no justifiable reason for that appliance to be in that location at that time. They should not have been there and there was no operational justification for their actions. 'We received a complaint about the behaviour of our staff and a full inquiry was conducted as a consequence. 'We investigated and the crew were found to be in breach of our internal policies.' He added that the investigation would have had the same outcome if the complainant had been heterosexual. The police confirmed they had not been made aware of the incident.
Source
Halt immigration call
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has put immigration at the heart of his party's policy agenda ahead of a possible November General Election. Mr Farage said he wanted to see all immigration to the UK halted for the next five years in a bid to take the strain off public services. Addressing the Ukip annual conference in Limehouse, east London, he warned that immigration, which he said was an "absolute mess", was leading to an increase in community tension.
Britain had always been "tolerant" and had "easily absorbed" migrations, but the current movement of people, particularly from Eastern Europe, "dwarfed" anything seen previously. And he launched a scathing attack on the political class in the UK, who he said were only interested in "self perpetuation". Those who supported demands for a referendum on the EU Treaty were "fair-weather friends" who would "melt away" over the real issue of Britain remaining in the EU, he claimed.
Mr Farage, in a 22-minute speech delivered in the unscripted style seen from David Cameron in Blackpool, admitted his party was not ready for an autumn poll. He said: "We are not ready to fight a snap General Election, which is why you should...tell us that if you are needed you will put your name down and you will stand for us in that snap General Election." The party had to fight the election because Ukip were the only party that believed that the best people to govern Britain were "the British people themselves."
On the subject of immigration, Mr Farage said "pressure" was being placed on public services and it was "putting an unfair burden on the citizen." To cheers he said: "...we believe that there now needs to be a five-year moratorium on any new immigration to this country. We need that time to assess who is here legally and who is here illegally."
Source
KIDS OF SMOKERS DO BADLY AT SCHOOL
That's not the least bit surprising -- as smokers tend to be lower class anyhow and class is a strong predictor of school success. The interesting thing is that there is an effect that goes beyond class. What might it be? IQ, I suspect. Smokers are less likely to be bright and IQ is highly hereditary. This study is therefore NO evidence that secondhand smoke is harmful (though it may be). It probably shows simply that dumber parents have dumber kids. Popular summary below followed by journal abstract
Smoking parents may not only affect their children's health with secondhand smoke, they may also damage their academic performance
Surprising findings in the Journal of Adolescent Health this week show that exposure to secondhand smoke at home decreases the chances of passing school exams by 30 per cent. The study was based on information from 6380 pregnant women and their children. Academic performance was measured on the British Ordinary Level (O-Level) and Advanced Level (A-Level) exams, usually taken at age 16 and 18, respectively. Information was gathered on children's exposure to smoking prior to birth and as teenagers, as well as their gender and socio-economic status. Even after accounting for these other factors, passive smoking at home still increased the chances of failing exams. The findings should further encourage parents to stop smoking around their children, or quit altogether, say the authors.
Source
Adolescent Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure Predicts Academic Achievement Test Failure
By Bradley N. Collins et al.
Purpose: Research has linked prenatal tobacco exposure to neurocognitive and behavioral problems that can disrupt learning and school performance in childhood. Less is known about its effects on academic achievement in adolescence when controlling for known confounding factors (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke [ETS]). We hypothesized that prenatal tobacco exposure would decrease the likelihood of passing academic achievement tests taken at 16 and 18 years of age.
Methods: This study was a longitudinal analysis of birth cohort data including 6,380 pregnant women and offspring from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). Academic pass/fail performance was measured on British standardized achievement tests ("Ordinary Level" [O-Level] and Advanced Level: [A-Level]). Prenatal tobacco exposure plus controlling variables (ETS, teen offspring smoking and gender, maternal age at pregnancy, maternal smoking before pregnancy, and socioeconomic status) were included in regression models predicting O- and A-Level test failure.
Results: Significant predictors of test failure in the O-Level model included exposure to maternal (OR = 0.71, p < .0001) and paternal (OR = 0.70, p < .0001) ETS, as well as teen smoking, female gender, and lower SES. Prenatal tobacco exposure did not influence failure. Similar factors emerged in the A-Level model except that male gender contributed to likelihood of failure. Prenatal exposure remained nonsignificant.
Conclusions: Our model suggests that adolescent exposure to ETS, not prenatal tobacco exposure, predicted failure on both O- and A-Level achievement tests when controlling for other factors known to influence achievement. Although this study has limitations, results bolster growing evidence of academic-related ETS consequences in adolescence.
J Adolesc Health 2007;41:363-370
How stupid can an Archbishop get? "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has launched a renewed attack on the war in Iraq and called for "urgent attention" to stabilise the country. [And just how does he propose to do that?]
BBC admits goof: "Peter Fincham, the Controller of BBC One, resigned yesterday after the publication of a damning report outlining a litany of errors that led him to release inaccurately edited footage of the Queen. Following him was Stephen Lambert, the producer of the footage, which purported to show the Queen storming out of a photoshoot when she was actually walking in. Accused of "cavalier" editing, Mr Lambert was forced to quit his job as chief creative officer of RDF Media - the production company also behind Faking It. A three-month inquiry by Will Wyatt, a former senior BBC executive, concluded that the incident revealed "misjudgments, poor practice and ineffective systems", with BBC employees described as "naive" although nobody "consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen". [I doubt that there was anything unintentional about it. Lots of BBC types are anti the monarchy]
Decency prevails at last in Britain: "Iraqi interpreters and other key support staff who have risked their lives to work for Britain are to be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, The Times has learnt. Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle. After a two-month campaign by The Times, Gordon Brown is set to announce that interpreters who have worked for the British Government for 12 months will be given the opportunity of asylum in Britain. The offer also applies retrospectively to interpreters who worked for the Government but have ceased to do so. Government sources have disclosed that a few hundred vital support staff would also be helped, although they declined to give details."
Disrupt lawbreaking in Britain and YOU will get prosecuted, not the lawbreakers
Firemen who shone their torches at four men they found having sex in bushes have been disciplined by their bosses. The crew spotted the men engaged in illegal 'dogging' - outdoor sexual activity with strangers - on parkland known as the Downs in Bristol late one night. After embarrassing the men by pointing their torches at them, the crew continued on their way to their fire station.
But one of the 'doggers' complained to Avon Fire and Rescue, ultimately accusing the four-man crew of being homophobic. The firemen, who have 26 years of service between them, were then suspended on full pay for three months during an internal investigation. Yesterday it emerged that two have been fined œ1,000 each, another demoted to a rank which will see him forfeit a similar amount of money, while a fourth has received a stern written warning.
It is believed Avon Fire and Rescue plans to give the money raised from the fines to a gay rights charity. Among those being considered is the Jamaican Forum for Lesbians All-Sexuals and Gays. The crew have been transferred to other stations and ordered to attend an equality course. But no action has been taken against any of the men believed to have been involved in the dogging. The one who complained is said to be 'happy' at the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings in which the firemen were charged with bringing the service into disrepute and misuse of fire equipment.
The firemen, formerly members of Avon Fire Service's Blue Watch at Avonmouth station in Bristol, have been banned from discussing the incident, which took place at about 10.30pm on June 27. But one of their colleagues said yesterday: 'This is a complete farce. All four officers have been let down by their senior officers when they needed their support the most. 'They have been treated as the criminals and it has been forgotten that they witnessed criminal activity occurring in a public place.'
Another fireman said: 'There are a lot of firefighters in Avon who feel the four involved have been treated very unfairly so the service can be seen as being politically correct.' Fire chiefs were alerted to the incident by the Terrence Higgins Trust, which has supported the man allegedly seen performing the sex act. Simon Nelson, the charity's acting regional manager, said: 'The member of the public simply wanted to know why the fire service was on the Downs at that time of day. We passed on that complaint.'
Avon's chief fire officer Kevin Pearson said: 'There was no justifiable reason for that appliance to be in that location at that time. They should not have been there and there was no operational justification for their actions. 'We received a complaint about the behaviour of our staff and a full inquiry was conducted as a consequence. 'We investigated and the crew were found to be in breach of our internal policies.' He added that the investigation would have had the same outcome if the complainant had been heterosexual. The police confirmed they had not been made aware of the incident.
Source
Halt immigration call
UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage has put immigration at the heart of his party's policy agenda ahead of a possible November General Election. Mr Farage said he wanted to see all immigration to the UK halted for the next five years in a bid to take the strain off public services. Addressing the Ukip annual conference in Limehouse, east London, he warned that immigration, which he said was an "absolute mess", was leading to an increase in community tension.
Britain had always been "tolerant" and had "easily absorbed" migrations, but the current movement of people, particularly from Eastern Europe, "dwarfed" anything seen previously. And he launched a scathing attack on the political class in the UK, who he said were only interested in "self perpetuation". Those who supported demands for a referendum on the EU Treaty were "fair-weather friends" who would "melt away" over the real issue of Britain remaining in the EU, he claimed.
Mr Farage, in a 22-minute speech delivered in the unscripted style seen from David Cameron in Blackpool, admitted his party was not ready for an autumn poll. He said: "We are not ready to fight a snap General Election, which is why you should...tell us that if you are needed you will put your name down and you will stand for us in that snap General Election." The party had to fight the election because Ukip were the only party that believed that the best people to govern Britain were "the British people themselves."
On the subject of immigration, Mr Farage said "pressure" was being placed on public services and it was "putting an unfair burden on the citizen." To cheers he said: "...we believe that there now needs to be a five-year moratorium on any new immigration to this country. We need that time to assess who is here legally and who is here illegally."
Source
KIDS OF SMOKERS DO BADLY AT SCHOOL
That's not the least bit surprising -- as smokers tend to be lower class anyhow and class is a strong predictor of school success. The interesting thing is that there is an effect that goes beyond class. What might it be? IQ, I suspect. Smokers are less likely to be bright and IQ is highly hereditary. This study is therefore NO evidence that secondhand smoke is harmful (though it may be). It probably shows simply that dumber parents have dumber kids. Popular summary below followed by journal abstract
Smoking parents may not only affect their children's health with secondhand smoke, they may also damage their academic performance
Surprising findings in the Journal of Adolescent Health this week show that exposure to secondhand smoke at home decreases the chances of passing school exams by 30 per cent. The study was based on information from 6380 pregnant women and their children. Academic performance was measured on the British Ordinary Level (O-Level) and Advanced Level (A-Level) exams, usually taken at age 16 and 18, respectively. Information was gathered on children's exposure to smoking prior to birth and as teenagers, as well as their gender and socio-economic status. Even after accounting for these other factors, passive smoking at home still increased the chances of failing exams. The findings should further encourage parents to stop smoking around their children, or quit altogether, say the authors.
Source
Adolescent Environmental Tobacco Smoke Exposure Predicts Academic Achievement Test Failure
By Bradley N. Collins et al.
Purpose: Research has linked prenatal tobacco exposure to neurocognitive and behavioral problems that can disrupt learning and school performance in childhood. Less is known about its effects on academic achievement in adolescence when controlling for known confounding factors (e.g., environmental tobacco smoke [ETS]). We hypothesized that prenatal tobacco exposure would decrease the likelihood of passing academic achievement tests taken at 16 and 18 years of age.
Methods: This study was a longitudinal analysis of birth cohort data including 6,380 pregnant women and offspring from the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS). Academic pass/fail performance was measured on British standardized achievement tests ("Ordinary Level" [O-Level] and Advanced Level: [A-Level]). Prenatal tobacco exposure plus controlling variables (ETS, teen offspring smoking and gender, maternal age at pregnancy, maternal smoking before pregnancy, and socioeconomic status) were included in regression models predicting O- and A-Level test failure.
Results: Significant predictors of test failure in the O-Level model included exposure to maternal (OR = 0.71, p < .0001) and paternal (OR = 0.70, p < .0001) ETS, as well as teen smoking, female gender, and lower SES. Prenatal tobacco exposure did not influence failure. Similar factors emerged in the A-Level model except that male gender contributed to likelihood of failure. Prenatal exposure remained nonsignificant.
Conclusions: Our model suggests that adolescent exposure to ETS, not prenatal tobacco exposure, predicted failure on both O- and A-Level achievement tests when controlling for other factors known to influence achievement. Although this study has limitations, results bolster growing evidence of academic-related ETS consequences in adolescence.
J Adolesc Health 2007;41:363-370
How stupid can an Archbishop get? "The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has launched a renewed attack on the war in Iraq and called for "urgent attention" to stabilise the country. [And just how does he propose to do that?]
BBC admits goof: "Peter Fincham, the Controller of BBC One, resigned yesterday after the publication of a damning report outlining a litany of errors that led him to release inaccurately edited footage of the Queen. Following him was Stephen Lambert, the producer of the footage, which purported to show the Queen storming out of a photoshoot when she was actually walking in. Accused of "cavalier" editing, Mr Lambert was forced to quit his job as chief creative officer of RDF Media - the production company also behind Faking It. A three-month inquiry by Will Wyatt, a former senior BBC executive, concluded that the incident revealed "misjudgments, poor practice and ineffective systems", with BBC employees described as "naive" although nobody "consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen". [I doubt that there was anything unintentional about it. Lots of BBC types are anti the monarchy]
Decency prevails at last in Britain: "Iraqi interpreters and other key support staff who have risked their lives to work for Britain are to be allowed to settle in the United Kingdom, The Times has learnt. Hundreds of interpreters and their families are to be given assistance to leave Iraq, where they live under fear of death squads because they collaborated with British forces. Those wishing to remain in Iraq or relocate to neighbouring countries will be helped to resettle. After a two-month campaign by The Times, Gordon Brown is set to announce that interpreters who have worked for the British Government for 12 months will be given the opportunity of asylum in Britain. The offer also applies retrospectively to interpreters who worked for the Government but have ceased to do so. Government sources have disclosed that a few hundred vital support staff would also be helped, although they declined to give details."
Saturday, October 06, 2007
British teachers 'fear evolution lessons' because of Muslims
The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning. Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally. This could leave pupils with gaps in their scientific knowledge, he says.
Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools. He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families. "That's one reason why it's more of an issue in schools."
Prof Reiss estimates that one in 10 people in the UK now believes in creationism - whether it be based on the Biblical story or one in the Koran. Many more teachers he met at scientific meetings were telling him they now encountered more pupils who believed in literal interpretations of these religious texts, he said. "The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins."
Instead, teachers should tackle the issue head-on, whilst trying not to alienate students by dismissing their beliefs out of hand, he argues in a new book. "While it is unlikely that they will help students who have a conflict between science and their religious beliefs to resolve the conflict, good science teaching can help them to manage it - and to learn more science. "By not dismissing their beliefs, we can ensure that these students learn what evolutionary theory really says - and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others," he added.
His book; Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism, gives science teachers advice on how to deal with the "dilemma". He supports new government guidelines which say creationism should not be discussed in science classes unless it is raised by pupils. But Prof Reiss argues that there is an educational value in comparing creationist ideas with scientific theories like Darwin's theory of evolution because they demonstrate how science, unlike religious beliefs, can be tested. The scientist, who is also a Church of England priest, adds that any teaching should not give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically. "They are not," he said.
Dr Hilary Leevers, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said science teachers would be teaching evolution not creationism and so should not need a book to tell them how to "delicately handle controversy between a scientific theory and a belief". "The author suggests that science teachers cannot ignore creationism when teaching origins, but the opposite is true," she said. "Science teachers are there to teach the scientific theory of evolution. If a student initiates discussion about creationism in a science lesson, it provides an opportunity for the teacher to discuss how it differs from a scientific theory.
"Further discussion of creationism should occur in religious education as it is a belief system, not one based on science."
Source
Some skepticism in Britain
No matter what Zac Goldsmith and David Cameron may say, there is one corner of the Conservative party that is forever sceptical about global warming. That corner gathered in a small studio above the Grand Theatre in Blackpool last night, where the Freedom Association was holding a meeting provocatively titled "Let Cooler Heads Prevail". The Freedom Association's rampant lion - or should that be lion rampant? - was on display. Delegates cooled themselves with climate-sceptic fans. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
"You either believe it or you don't," Roger Helmer, the eurosceptic MEP, told them. "And in my case, I don't!" Cheers. "This whole issue has got completely out of hand. It has become a new religion. You have to believe it. If you do not believe it, you are a heretic. They would like to burn us at the stake - using recycled faggots!"
Zac Goldsmith had apparently criticised him for not reading the Quality of Life report. Well, he wasn't going to! It was 500 pages long and a waste of paper!
Helmer introduced Russell Lewis, the former director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs. That meant we could trust him, Mr Helmer explained. "My real reason for coming here tonight is to cheer you up," Lewis told delegates. "I have two messages. First, I am sceptical about the whole official theory of global warming. Second, I think if it does happen it will do us a world of good."
One by one, he exposed the myths peddled by the environmental movement. The rise in temperature over recent years was "tiny - well within the range of natural variation". Scientists were using thermometers on land rather than in the sea, and everyone knew that urban development raised temperatures. Antarctica and Greenland were only melting around the edges - in the middle, the ice was getting thicker.
The population of polar bears was "exploding" and had risen by 25% in the past decade. As for penguins, they are "very adaptable creatures, and certain penguins are flourishing in the tropical Galapagos islands." Global warming would not increase malaria: it used to be endemic in Westminster.
"It is not the planet that is in danger. It is freedom... Don't worry about global warming - it's a myth," he concluded. The audience roared.
Next up was Iain Murray of the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Murray took a more measured view. Using the estimates in the Stern report, he explained the impact that cutting emissions would have on the GDP of developed countries and the prospects of poorer nations. "Half a century of stagnation, not just for the US ... If you still think that we need to do something about global warming," he said, "don't go down the route of emissions reduction."
Needless to say, no one in the shadow cabinet would be seen dead at a Freedom Association meeting. The official debates happen at the Climate Clinic, a series of events sponsored by companies like Ecover. Last night's was dedicated to a controversial report by a number of environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the RSPB and Friends of the Earth, which criticised all three parties' green policies....
Source
British food Fascism failing
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's school dinners revolution, aimed at encouraging healthy eating habits in children, has backfired, British inspectors say. Oliver was the driving force behind a campaign to have junk food banned from school canteens and to teach pupils about the benefits of a healthy diet. But Ofsted, the government body responsible for inspecting British schools, said fewer pupils were eating school meals in 19 of the 27 primary and secondary schools they visited to assess the success of the healthy eating push. Some pupils felt the healthier meals were too expensive while others simply preferred to go to the chip shop at lunchtime, Ofsted said.
Ofsted's assessment comes a year after new rules came into force banning school canteens from selling junk food in the wake of Oliver's TV campaign, Jamie's School Dinners. "The take-up of school meals had fallen overall since the introduction of the new food standards," the report said. "Reasons for this decline are complex and include lack of consultation with pupils and parents about the new arrangements in schools; poor marketing of the new menus; the high costs for low-income families and a lack of choice in what is offered. "If this trend continues, the impact of the Government's food policies will have limited effect. "Several headteachers believed that the cost of a meal was prohibitive."
The report said some pupils were simply taking unhealthy packed lunches into school or going shopping for junk food. One teenager quipped to inspectors that he had "become far fitter as a result of regular walks to the nearby chip shop", the report said.
Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said schools should take notice of Ofsted's report, and the issue of childhood obesity was not going to go away. "We are in this for the long-term," he said. "Cutting childhood obesity and unhealthy eating needs the backing of every local authority, school, teacher and parent in England. "We are urging schools to make the most of our STG477 million ($A1.1 billion) investment in raising nutritional standards and keeping prices down."
Source
MORE FLAILING AT THE AIR OVER THE NHS
1.3 million employees and less than 70,000 of them doctors. Blind Freddy could see what is wrong with that. But there are none so blind as those who will not see
Take a blank canvas. Talk to 1,500 NHS staff. Spend 12 weeks thinking hard. And then come up with the ideas you first thought of. That, in a nutshell, is a brutal but not inaccurate summary of the review of the NHS by Lord Darzi of Denham, published yesterday. Astonishingly, it identified as problems exactly the same things the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have themselves been talking about for months: access to family doctors out of hours (Gordon Brown) and MRSA (Alan Johnson). Surely, in a system that now costs 90 billion a year, employs 1.3 million people and treats a million patients a day, Lord Darzi might have identified issues not already flagged up in a hundred tired political speeches?
To a tiny degree, he did. He correctly points out the glacial slowness of the NHS to adopt new ideas or buy into new technologies. He then goes on to propose the wrong solution, a centralised health innovation council to “champion” change. Such bodies have come and gone as swiftly as the dew on an autumn morning. Remember the NHS Modernisation Agency? Or the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement? (One of them is still around, not that you’d notice.) In a document that says local NHS organisations have the responsibility for change, Lord Darzi has proposed another top-down, London-based, all-the-usual-names body in a misguided attempt to impose it.
The NHS does not change because the incentives are not there. Managers who innovate take risks. If they go wrong, cost money, or produce headlines in the newspapers, the Department of Health can be relied upon to provide no backing. The trick of survival as a NHS manager is to change nothing and balance the books.
Lord Darzi also correctly identified stroke as a disease where the NHS has failed, miserably. He might have added allergy, liver diseases, osteoporosis or a host of other equally deserving conditions. The system is fundamentally unresponsive unless it is kicked. And kicking is no longer in fashion, so heaven knows how change will occur in future. His report also mentions health inequalities, which are widespread and growing. But both he and Alan Johnson appear to believe that such inequalities can be put right by a greater provision of healthcare.
Of course it is right that everybody should have roughly the same chance of seeing a GP. But evidence over many years shows that the actual provision of doctors has little impact on inequalities. In the new NHS, which is supposed to be evidence-based, Lord Darzi has ignored all this evidence, which points to the need for better education, nutrition and antenatal care, among other things. Instead we will have GP clinics open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to satisfy the Prime Minister, while the gaps between rich and poor in expectation of life continue to widen.
Perhaps the most depressing thing of all is not what the report says, but the reaction to it. Almost all the great and the good who have backed every half-baked intitiative for the past decade emerged to say how pleased they were. Not only has the NHS stifled good healthcare; it has bought off those who are supposed to act as candid friends, and made them complicit in perpetuating its failures.
Source
The teaching of evolution is becoming increasingly difficult in UK schools because of the rise of creationism, a leading scientist is warning. Head of science at London's Institute of Education Professor Michael Reiss says some teachers, fearful of entering the debate, avoid the subject totally. This could leave pupils with gaps in their scientific knowledge, he says.
Prof Reiss says the rise of creationism is partly down to the large increase in Muslim pupils in UK schools. He said: "The number of Muslim students has grown considerably in the last 10 to 20 years and a higher proportion of Muslim families do not accept evolutionary theory compared with Christian families. "That's one reason why it's more of an issue in schools."
Prof Reiss estimates that one in 10 people in the UK now believes in creationism - whether it be based on the Biblical story or one in the Koran. Many more teachers he met at scientific meetings were telling him they now encountered more pupils who believed in literal interpretations of these religious texts, he said. "The days have long gone when science teachers could ignore creationism when teaching about origins."
Instead, teachers should tackle the issue head-on, whilst trying not to alienate students by dismissing their beliefs out of hand, he argues in a new book. "While it is unlikely that they will help students who have a conflict between science and their religious beliefs to resolve the conflict, good science teaching can help them to manage it - and to learn more science. "By not dismissing their beliefs, we can ensure that these students learn what evolutionary theory really says - and give everyone the understanding to respect the views of others," he added.
His book; Teaching about Scientific Origins: Taking Account of Creationism, gives science teachers advice on how to deal with the "dilemma". He supports new government guidelines which say creationism should not be discussed in science classes unless it is raised by pupils. But Prof Reiss argues that there is an educational value in comparing creationist ideas with scientific theories like Darwin's theory of evolution because they demonstrate how science, unlike religious beliefs, can be tested. The scientist, who is also a Church of England priest, adds that any teaching should not give the impression that creationism and the theory of evolution are equally valid scientifically. "They are not," he said.
Dr Hilary Leevers, of the Campaign for Science and Engineering, said science teachers would be teaching evolution not creationism and so should not need a book to tell them how to "delicately handle controversy between a scientific theory and a belief". "The author suggests that science teachers cannot ignore creationism when teaching origins, but the opposite is true," she said. "Science teachers are there to teach the scientific theory of evolution. If a student initiates discussion about creationism in a science lesson, it provides an opportunity for the teacher to discuss how it differs from a scientific theory.
"Further discussion of creationism should occur in religious education as it is a belief system, not one based on science."
Source
Some skepticism in Britain
No matter what Zac Goldsmith and David Cameron may say, there is one corner of the Conservative party that is forever sceptical about global warming. That corner gathered in a small studio above the Grand Theatre in Blackpool last night, where the Freedom Association was holding a meeting provocatively titled "Let Cooler Heads Prevail". The Freedom Association's rampant lion - or should that be lion rampant? - was on display. Delegates cooled themselves with climate-sceptic fans. They were thoroughly enjoying themselves.
"You either believe it or you don't," Roger Helmer, the eurosceptic MEP, told them. "And in my case, I don't!" Cheers. "This whole issue has got completely out of hand. It has become a new religion. You have to believe it. If you do not believe it, you are a heretic. They would like to burn us at the stake - using recycled faggots!"
Zac Goldsmith had apparently criticised him for not reading the Quality of Life report. Well, he wasn't going to! It was 500 pages long and a waste of paper!
Helmer introduced Russell Lewis, the former director-general of the Institute of Economic Affairs. That meant we could trust him, Mr Helmer explained. "My real reason for coming here tonight is to cheer you up," Lewis told delegates. "I have two messages. First, I am sceptical about the whole official theory of global warming. Second, I think if it does happen it will do us a world of good."
One by one, he exposed the myths peddled by the environmental movement. The rise in temperature over recent years was "tiny - well within the range of natural variation". Scientists were using thermometers on land rather than in the sea, and everyone knew that urban development raised temperatures. Antarctica and Greenland were only melting around the edges - in the middle, the ice was getting thicker.
The population of polar bears was "exploding" and had risen by 25% in the past decade. As for penguins, they are "very adaptable creatures, and certain penguins are flourishing in the tropical Galapagos islands." Global warming would not increase malaria: it used to be endemic in Westminster.
"It is not the planet that is in danger. It is freedom... Don't worry about global warming - it's a myth," he concluded. The audience roared.
Next up was Iain Murray of the Competitiveness Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Murray took a more measured view. Using the estimates in the Stern report, he explained the impact that cutting emissions would have on the GDP of developed countries and the prospects of poorer nations. "Half a century of stagnation, not just for the US ... If you still think that we need to do something about global warming," he said, "don't go down the route of emissions reduction."
Needless to say, no one in the shadow cabinet would be seen dead at a Freedom Association meeting. The official debates happen at the Climate Clinic, a series of events sponsored by companies like Ecover. Last night's was dedicated to a controversial report by a number of environmental organisations, including Greenpeace, the RSPB and Friends of the Earth, which criticised all three parties' green policies....
Source
British food Fascism failing
Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's school dinners revolution, aimed at encouraging healthy eating habits in children, has backfired, British inspectors say. Oliver was the driving force behind a campaign to have junk food banned from school canteens and to teach pupils about the benefits of a healthy diet. But Ofsted, the government body responsible for inspecting British schools, said fewer pupils were eating school meals in 19 of the 27 primary and secondary schools they visited to assess the success of the healthy eating push. Some pupils felt the healthier meals were too expensive while others simply preferred to go to the chip shop at lunchtime, Ofsted said.
Ofsted's assessment comes a year after new rules came into force banning school canteens from selling junk food in the wake of Oliver's TV campaign, Jamie's School Dinners. "The take-up of school meals had fallen overall since the introduction of the new food standards," the report said. "Reasons for this decline are complex and include lack of consultation with pupils and parents about the new arrangements in schools; poor marketing of the new menus; the high costs for low-income families and a lack of choice in what is offered. "If this trend continues, the impact of the Government's food policies will have limited effect. "Several headteachers believed that the cost of a meal was prohibitive."
The report said some pupils were simply taking unhealthy packed lunches into school or going shopping for junk food. One teenager quipped to inspectors that he had "become far fitter as a result of regular walks to the nearby chip shop", the report said.
Children's Minister Kevin Brennan said schools should take notice of Ofsted's report, and the issue of childhood obesity was not going to go away. "We are in this for the long-term," he said. "Cutting childhood obesity and unhealthy eating needs the backing of every local authority, school, teacher and parent in England. "We are urging schools to make the most of our STG477 million ($A1.1 billion) investment in raising nutritional standards and keeping prices down."
Source
MORE FLAILING AT THE AIR OVER THE NHS
1.3 million employees and less than 70,000 of them doctors. Blind Freddy could see what is wrong with that. But there are none so blind as those who will not see
Take a blank canvas. Talk to 1,500 NHS staff. Spend 12 weeks thinking hard. And then come up with the ideas you first thought of. That, in a nutshell, is a brutal but not inaccurate summary of the review of the NHS by Lord Darzi of Denham, published yesterday. Astonishingly, it identified as problems exactly the same things the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary have themselves been talking about for months: access to family doctors out of hours (Gordon Brown) and MRSA (Alan Johnson). Surely, in a system that now costs 90 billion a year, employs 1.3 million people and treats a million patients a day, Lord Darzi might have identified issues not already flagged up in a hundred tired political speeches?
To a tiny degree, he did. He correctly points out the glacial slowness of the NHS to adopt new ideas or buy into new technologies. He then goes on to propose the wrong solution, a centralised health innovation council to “champion” change. Such bodies have come and gone as swiftly as the dew on an autumn morning. Remember the NHS Modernisation Agency? Or the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement? (One of them is still around, not that you’d notice.) In a document that says local NHS organisations have the responsibility for change, Lord Darzi has proposed another top-down, London-based, all-the-usual-names body in a misguided attempt to impose it.
The NHS does not change because the incentives are not there. Managers who innovate take risks. If they go wrong, cost money, or produce headlines in the newspapers, the Department of Health can be relied upon to provide no backing. The trick of survival as a NHS manager is to change nothing and balance the books.
Lord Darzi also correctly identified stroke as a disease where the NHS has failed, miserably. He might have added allergy, liver diseases, osteoporosis or a host of other equally deserving conditions. The system is fundamentally unresponsive unless it is kicked. And kicking is no longer in fashion, so heaven knows how change will occur in future. His report also mentions health inequalities, which are widespread and growing. But both he and Alan Johnson appear to believe that such inequalities can be put right by a greater provision of healthcare.
Of course it is right that everybody should have roughly the same chance of seeing a GP. But evidence over many years shows that the actual provision of doctors has little impact on inequalities. In the new NHS, which is supposed to be evidence-based, Lord Darzi has ignored all this evidence, which points to the need for better education, nutrition and antenatal care, among other things. Instead we will have GP clinics open 12 hours a day, seven days a week, to satisfy the Prime Minister, while the gaps between rich and poor in expectation of life continue to widen.
Perhaps the most depressing thing of all is not what the report says, but the reaction to it. Almost all the great and the good who have backed every half-baked intitiative for the past decade emerged to say how pleased they were. Not only has the NHS stifled good healthcare; it has bought off those who are supposed to act as candid friends, and made them complicit in perpetuating its failures.
Source
Friday, October 05, 2007
Gore film OK for British students
Former US vice-president Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate change documentary can be shown in English schools, a judge said yesterday, even though he believes it promotes partisan political views. Educational authorities are making Mr Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, available to all English secondary schools, a decision challenged in court by a part-time school official who claims the the film is inaccurate and biased.
High Court judge Michael Burton said the movie could be shown if the written guidance for teachers bundled with the program was changed to prevent Mr Gore's views from being promoted to children. Earlier yesterday, the Government said it was rewriting its advice. "With the guidance as now amended, it will not be unlawful for the film to be shown," Justice Burton said. The judge said, however, that he felt the film promoted "partisan political views". He did not elaborate.
Justice Burton's comments, following a four-day hearing, were not an official ruling and he said a final judgment would probably be announced next week. He said he decided to indicate what his decision would be because he felt schools needed to know in what circumstances they could show the film. During the case, schools were not required to stop showing the documentary.
It was a partial victory for claimant Stewart Dimmock, a truck driver from Dover, a port city in southeastern England, who works part-time on a school board. Mr Dimmock has said he is fighting to have his children educated in an environment "free from bias and political spin".
While An Inconvenient Truth will still be shown, the judge said British teachers would have to be careful not to endorse Mr Gore's political views when they present it to pupils. [And how likely is that?]
Source
An atheist who believes -- in Jewish conspiracy theory!: "A renowned atheist cited the "Jewish lobby" as a model for his campaign to promote atheism in the United States. Richard Dawkins said he wanted to gain the same kind of influence as the Jewish lobby, saying it "monopolizes" U.S. foreign policy. "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see," Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist who advocates atheism, told the Guardian newspaper. "So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." Dawkins, an Oxford professor who wrote the best-seller "The God Delusion," told the Guardian that he wants to organize American atheists to counter the influence of religious groups." [For someone as hostile as Dawkins it does figure. The man is just a hater].
Former US vice-president Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate change documentary can be shown in English schools, a judge said yesterday, even though he believes it promotes partisan political views. Educational authorities are making Mr Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, available to all English secondary schools, a decision challenged in court by a part-time school official who claims the the film is inaccurate and biased.
High Court judge Michael Burton said the movie could be shown if the written guidance for teachers bundled with the program was changed to prevent Mr Gore's views from being promoted to children. Earlier yesterday, the Government said it was rewriting its advice. "With the guidance as now amended, it will not be unlawful for the film to be shown," Justice Burton said. The judge said, however, that he felt the film promoted "partisan political views". He did not elaborate.
Justice Burton's comments, following a four-day hearing, were not an official ruling and he said a final judgment would probably be announced next week. He said he decided to indicate what his decision would be because he felt schools needed to know in what circumstances they could show the film. During the case, schools were not required to stop showing the documentary.
It was a partial victory for claimant Stewart Dimmock, a truck driver from Dover, a port city in southeastern England, who works part-time on a school board. Mr Dimmock has said he is fighting to have his children educated in an environment "free from bias and political spin".
While An Inconvenient Truth will still be shown, the judge said British teachers would have to be careful not to endorse Mr Gore's political views when they present it to pupils. [And how likely is that?]
Source
An atheist who believes -- in Jewish conspiracy theory!: "A renowned atheist cited the "Jewish lobby" as a model for his campaign to promote atheism in the United States. Richard Dawkins said he wanted to gain the same kind of influence as the Jewish lobby, saying it "monopolizes" U.S. foreign policy. "When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see," Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist who advocates atheism, told the Guardian newspaper. "So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place." Dawkins, an Oxford professor who wrote the best-seller "The God Delusion," told the Guardian that he wants to organize American atheists to counter the influence of religious groups." [For someone as hostile as Dawkins it does figure. The man is just a hater].
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Britain: Muslim immigrants are the chief parasites
Labour's favourite thinktank yesterday named the migrant groups which are a drain on the taxpayer. Immigrants from Somalia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran are most likely to be out of work and claiming state benefits, it said. There tend to be high numbers of asylum seekers among those groups who have failed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Britain's open economy, a study found. But immigrants from many countries do better than people born in the UK in terms of the proportion who work, their level of earnings and the school performance of their children.
The report was produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which has close links to Downing Street. The institute has always in the past been supportive of Government immigration policy and its work has focused on the benefits rather than the downside of largescale migration. The report's results, which are based on an analysis of government figures, were produced for a Dispatches programme called Immigrants: The Inconvenient Truth. It is being broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm this evening. They figures show that Somalis in Britain are the worst- off migrant group. Fewer than one in five has a job and four out of five live in subsidised council or housing association homes.
The report also confirms the widespread perception that Polish-immigrants work hard for less money than most British-born workers would accept. Australians are the only nationality in Britain more likely to have a job than the Poles. In the hours they work Poles are second only to the notoriously workaholic Americans. However, Poles earn on average the lowest hourly wage, 7.30 pounds.
The institute report said: 'There are some immigrant communities who rank consistently lower on most indicators than the UK average. "In some cases, these relatively lowranking communities are predominantly made up of people who have come to the UK for non-economic reasons, for example to join family members who are already in the UK or to seek asylum. "These communities may be made up of large numbers of people whose admission into the UK is not based on their potential economic contribution to the UK." The report added: 'Some immigrant communities are clearly faring less well in the UK and are unable to contribute as much as others because of the poor socio-economic situations they find themselves in. "Many in these groups are present in the UK because they are fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries and require our protection."
The institute's latest findings come in the wake of Whitehall's revision of the expected levels of future immigration to almost two million in the next decade and the declaration by a Home Office minister of 'the need for swift and sweeping changes to the immigration system'. Gordon Brown has spoken of 'British jobs for British workers' and is bringing in a points-based immigration system, which will give priority to those with education, skills and high earnings. The institute report said almost all migrant groups have children who spend longer in the education system than the children of British-born parents.
But some migrant groups have failed to turn educational success into economic success. Groups whose children have not done well in school include Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Turks and Somalis. Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Sri Lankan and Iranian children all do better than average in school, the report said.
State statistics over the past 15 years have identified recent migrant groups who have done best in economic and education terms. Generally speaking, Asians who came from East Africa in the 1970s and Chinese are counted the most successful, followed by Indians. Some groups do better than others. For example, black Caribbean girls do well in school and earn more on average than white counterparts, while black Caribbean boys are more likely to fail.
Source
Strange questions in the British citizenship quiz too
Do you know what ESOL is? Do you know how the process of housebuying is different in Scotland than it is in England? Do you know the proportion of British people that say they have a religion, and how many attend religious services? Are you up to speed on the British cultural calendar, such as when saints’ days are celebrated?
These are all questions that immigrants will be asked before they can become full citizens of the United Kingdom. There is a notable gap between life in the UK and Life in the UK – the official government handbook to prepare immigrants for taking their British citizenship test. There is Britain as it is lived, in all the richness of work and play. And then there is this otherworldly version of Britain on which would-be citizens must be tried and tested.
It was in response to this gap between real life and government-imposed testing that a group of Manifesto Club members proposed holding a citizenship test as a pub quiz, that quintessentially British activity. They got the idea after overhearing a chance conversation in a pub:
‘A Japanese woman, who we figured had been living in the UK for about 10 years, presently studying for an MA, was recounting to her British friends some of the questions in the citizenship test she had sat earlier that day. She started recalling some of the questions to see if her friends knew the answers. Nobody seemed to have direct answers, a few guesses were offered, but the main response was further questions: “What’s that got to do with anything?” and “Why would you need to know that?” Towards the end of their conversation, the Japanese woman said, “It’s alright for you, you don’t have to do this...how would you like it?”’
The Life in the UK website tells would-be citizens that the test will ‘give you the practical knowledge you need to live in this country and to take part in society’. The Amazon version of the handbook is sold with the exclusive accolade: ‘Pass the Citizenship Test with Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship - the only official test book and study guide edited by the Home Office and members of the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration.’
The test may be sanctioned at the highest level, but nobody could fail to notice that it contains a strange set of questions, part Trivial Pursuit, part Citizens’ Advice Bureau information. The questions have their origins in the strange political process that was initiated by then home secretary David Blunkett in 2003. This was an elite operation (Blunkett picked his former university tutor Sir Bernard Crick as the test-master), and it was motivated by particular elite concerns: the need to improve ‘social cohesion’, and strengthen people’s sense of connection and loyalty to Britain.
The citizenship discussion is restricted to a very particular group of people. Seminar rooms and political conference halls are alive with deliberation about the meaning of citizenship; the pubs and streets of Britain, however, are not. Politicians and think-tanks are constantly discussing how best to define British identity and how to make Britishness matter, and many will come up with their list of three or four values that they call their ‘British values’. And unluckily for migrants, they have ended up as the guinea pigs in this often quite desperate attempt to define Britishness.
There is something of an aristocratic bent to this fashion for ‘defining British citizenship’, or ‘making citizenship meaningful’. Citizens – as opposed to subjects – were supposed to be free men, a self-constituting body of people who came together in association with one another. Whereas subjects were an extension of the personality of the king or lord, citizens defined themselves. Most citizenship tests – in America, for instance – had their roots in some kind of citizens’ movement. By contrast, the new British citizenship test, full of dull and bizarre questions about buying homes and attending church, has its origins in the elite’s sense of confusion about what its nation stands for today.
Citizenship is increasingly an identity that is defined from above, rather than by your real relationships and contribution to society. So would-be citizens spend their evenings in classes learning about ‘Life in the UK’ according to the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration, when they could be out on the streets really learning about life. Prime minister Gordon Brown recently said that new migrants would have to prove that they could speak English before they could enter the country. Yet surely living in a country is the best way to learn its language, in context and in response to real needs.
Brown is erecting a hurdle that immigrants must leap over in order to prove their commitment to Britain. Yet for decades immigrants have learnt and improved their English-speaking skills while resident in the UK – while building up real relationships of commitment at work, in communities, in social environments. As with the citizenship test, the demand that immigrants learn English before coming here looks like another attempt by our leaders to work out their own angst about what makes a Briton a Briton by imposing arbitrary tests on newcomers to our shores.
Source
Britain: Creationism can be a topic in class
Teachers have been given permission to discuss the controversial theory of creationism in science lessons. Pupils should be able to ask questions about the theory provided teachers emphasise it has "no underpinning scientific principles", new Government guidance says. If the subject is raised teachers will be expected to contrast the strict Biblical belief that the Earth was created by God in six days between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Teachers are told to respond "positively and educationally" to such questions and be "respectful of students' views, religious or otherwise".
But the document – drawn up to clarify the rules after Christian academics challenged the teaching of Darwinism in GCSE biology – makes it clear that such beliefs are not "scientifically testable" and are not valid scientific theories.
It is hoped the guidance will help avoid the situation in the United States where some schools – under pressure from the religious Right – have compelled science teachers to introduce lessons in intelligent design, a creationist off-shoot.
The guidance says schools must teach the broad outlines of evolutionary theory to pupils aged five to 14, and focus clearly on the "nature of, and evidence for, evolution" at GCSE and A-level. Questions about creationism should provide an "opportunity to explain or explore why they are not considered to be scientific theories".
Source
Labour's favourite thinktank yesterday named the migrant groups which are a drain on the taxpayer. Immigrants from Somalia, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran are most likely to be out of work and claiming state benefits, it said. There tend to be high numbers of asylum seekers among those groups who have failed to take advantage of the opportunities offered by Britain's open economy, a study found. But immigrants from many countries do better than people born in the UK in terms of the proportion who work, their level of earnings and the school performance of their children.
The report was produced by the Institute for Public Policy Research, which has close links to Downing Street. The institute has always in the past been supportive of Government immigration policy and its work has focused on the benefits rather than the downside of largescale migration. The report's results, which are based on an analysis of government figures, were produced for a Dispatches programme called Immigrants: The Inconvenient Truth. It is being broadcast on Channel 4 at 8pm this evening. They figures show that Somalis in Britain are the worst- off migrant group. Fewer than one in five has a job and four out of five live in subsidised council or housing association homes.
The report also confirms the widespread perception that Polish-immigrants work hard for less money than most British-born workers would accept. Australians are the only nationality in Britain more likely to have a job than the Poles. In the hours they work Poles are second only to the notoriously workaholic Americans. However, Poles earn on average the lowest hourly wage, 7.30 pounds.
The institute report said: 'There are some immigrant communities who rank consistently lower on most indicators than the UK average. "In some cases, these relatively lowranking communities are predominantly made up of people who have come to the UK for non-economic reasons, for example to join family members who are already in the UK or to seek asylum. "These communities may be made up of large numbers of people whose admission into the UK is not based on their potential economic contribution to the UK." The report added: 'Some immigrant communities are clearly faring less well in the UK and are unable to contribute as much as others because of the poor socio-economic situations they find themselves in. "Many in these groups are present in the UK because they are fleeing persecution and violence in their home countries and require our protection."
The institute's latest findings come in the wake of Whitehall's revision of the expected levels of future immigration to almost two million in the next decade and the declaration by a Home Office minister of 'the need for swift and sweeping changes to the immigration system'. Gordon Brown has spoken of 'British jobs for British workers' and is bringing in a points-based immigration system, which will give priority to those with education, skills and high earnings. The institute report said almost all migrant groups have children who spend longer in the education system than the children of British-born parents.
But some migrant groups have failed to turn educational success into economic success. Groups whose children have not done well in school include Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, Turks and Somalis. Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Sri Lankan and Iranian children all do better than average in school, the report said.
State statistics over the past 15 years have identified recent migrant groups who have done best in economic and education terms. Generally speaking, Asians who came from East Africa in the 1970s and Chinese are counted the most successful, followed by Indians. Some groups do better than others. For example, black Caribbean girls do well in school and earn more on average than white counterparts, while black Caribbean boys are more likely to fail.
Source
Strange questions in the British citizenship quiz too
Do you know what ESOL is? Do you know how the process of housebuying is different in Scotland than it is in England? Do you know the proportion of British people that say they have a religion, and how many attend religious services? Are you up to speed on the British cultural calendar, such as when saints’ days are celebrated?
These are all questions that immigrants will be asked before they can become full citizens of the United Kingdom. There is a notable gap between life in the UK and Life in the UK – the official government handbook to prepare immigrants for taking their British citizenship test. There is Britain as it is lived, in all the richness of work and play. And then there is this otherworldly version of Britain on which would-be citizens must be tried and tested.
It was in response to this gap between real life and government-imposed testing that a group of Manifesto Club members proposed holding a citizenship test as a pub quiz, that quintessentially British activity. They got the idea after overhearing a chance conversation in a pub:
‘A Japanese woman, who we figured had been living in the UK for about 10 years, presently studying for an MA, was recounting to her British friends some of the questions in the citizenship test she had sat earlier that day. She started recalling some of the questions to see if her friends knew the answers. Nobody seemed to have direct answers, a few guesses were offered, but the main response was further questions: “What’s that got to do with anything?” and “Why would you need to know that?” Towards the end of their conversation, the Japanese woman said, “It’s alright for you, you don’t have to do this...how would you like it?”’
The Life in the UK website tells would-be citizens that the test will ‘give you the practical knowledge you need to live in this country and to take part in society’. The Amazon version of the handbook is sold with the exclusive accolade: ‘Pass the Citizenship Test with Life in the United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship - the only official test book and study guide edited by the Home Office and members of the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration.’
The test may be sanctioned at the highest level, but nobody could fail to notice that it contains a strange set of questions, part Trivial Pursuit, part Citizens’ Advice Bureau information. The questions have their origins in the strange political process that was initiated by then home secretary David Blunkett in 2003. This was an elite operation (Blunkett picked his former university tutor Sir Bernard Crick as the test-master), and it was motivated by particular elite concerns: the need to improve ‘social cohesion’, and strengthen people’s sense of connection and loyalty to Britain.
The citizenship discussion is restricted to a very particular group of people. Seminar rooms and political conference halls are alive with deliberation about the meaning of citizenship; the pubs and streets of Britain, however, are not. Politicians and think-tanks are constantly discussing how best to define British identity and how to make Britishness matter, and many will come up with their list of three or four values that they call their ‘British values’. And unluckily for migrants, they have ended up as the guinea pigs in this often quite desperate attempt to define Britishness.
There is something of an aristocratic bent to this fashion for ‘defining British citizenship’, or ‘making citizenship meaningful’. Citizens – as opposed to subjects – were supposed to be free men, a self-constituting body of people who came together in association with one another. Whereas subjects were an extension of the personality of the king or lord, citizens defined themselves. Most citizenship tests – in America, for instance – had their roots in some kind of citizens’ movement. By contrast, the new British citizenship test, full of dull and bizarre questions about buying homes and attending church, has its origins in the elite’s sense of confusion about what its nation stands for today.
Citizenship is increasingly an identity that is defined from above, rather than by your real relationships and contribution to society. So would-be citizens spend their evenings in classes learning about ‘Life in the UK’ according to the Advisory Board on Naturalisation and Integration, when they could be out on the streets really learning about life. Prime minister Gordon Brown recently said that new migrants would have to prove that they could speak English before they could enter the country. Yet surely living in a country is the best way to learn its language, in context and in response to real needs.
Brown is erecting a hurdle that immigrants must leap over in order to prove their commitment to Britain. Yet for decades immigrants have learnt and improved their English-speaking skills while resident in the UK – while building up real relationships of commitment at work, in communities, in social environments. As with the citizenship test, the demand that immigrants learn English before coming here looks like another attempt by our leaders to work out their own angst about what makes a Briton a Briton by imposing arbitrary tests on newcomers to our shores.
Source
Britain: Creationism can be a topic in class
Teachers have been given permission to discuss the controversial theory of creationism in science lessons. Pupils should be able to ask questions about the theory provided teachers emphasise it has "no underpinning scientific principles", new Government guidance says. If the subject is raised teachers will be expected to contrast the strict Biblical belief that the Earth was created by God in six days between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Teachers are told to respond "positively and educationally" to such questions and be "respectful of students' views, religious or otherwise".
But the document – drawn up to clarify the rules after Christian academics challenged the teaching of Darwinism in GCSE biology – makes it clear that such beliefs are not "scientifically testable" and are not valid scientific theories.
It is hoped the guidance will help avoid the situation in the United States where some schools – under pressure from the religious Right – have compelled science teachers to introduce lessons in intelligent design, a creationist off-shoot.
The guidance says schools must teach the broad outlines of evolutionary theory to pupils aged five to 14, and focus clearly on the "nature of, and evidence for, evolution" at GCSE and A-level. Questions about creationism should provide an "opportunity to explain or explore why they are not considered to be scientific theories".
Source
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
INSTANT DENTISTRY: EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT, BRITS
A personal message from Australia
I developed a problem with one of the fillings in my teeth over the weekend so first thing on Monday, I rang a few dentists listed in the phone book and got an appointment NEXT DAY at a dentist less than 15 minutes drive from where I live.
I arrived on time at 2.30pm, was in the chair within 10 minutes, and out of the chair with my filling fixed in another 10 minutes. It cost me $50 (about the price of 4 packets of cigarettes) and I was home again within 45 minutes of setting out.
And a small but pleasant bonus: The dental receptionist was a real stunner -- pushup bra and all.
I even had time for a chat with the dentist about the "evils" of the old amalgam fillings, of which I have several. He pointed out that the dentists who were handling daily the mercury used to make up the amalgam should have been the ones most at risk but that there was no evidence that they were affected.
In Britain, a large part of the population rely on NHS dentistry but just cannot get the service that is supposedly available. Some have even resorted to pulling their own teeth out with pliers etc.
In Australia, people have always seen dentistry as a private expenditure which can be included in your private health insurance (up to a point) if desired. There is a "free" government service but the wait for it stretches into the years and it is therefore seen as only for the very poor.
If Britain had a voucher system for dentistry instead of the present dysfunctional system, all Brits could have the sort of rapid relief from discomfort that I experienced.
The destructive British class system
Which has become more entrenched under Labour, despite their inflated rhetoric. Why? Because the Labour party has done its best to block the best route to upward mobility -- the Grammar (selective) schools. A Grammar School graduate comments:
I recently met a bright 17-year-old from a working-class background who attended his local comprehensive in London. He was funny and articulate. I asked whether he or anyone at his school had considered applying to Oxford or Cambridge. He laughed: "We don't think it's for people like us." It is a reaction I hear often and helps to explain a sad waste of talent in Britain today. Last week a study showed that just 200 elite schools accounted for one third of admissions to the top dozen universities and half of all places at Oxford and Cambridge. The remaining 3,500 schools and colleges account for the other half. It is neither fair nor sensible.
While others are tempted to pin the blame on biased universities, I believe there is something more deep-rooted at work - a culture of low aspirations shared not just by students, but in many cases by their parents and teachers, too. There are many excellent teachers doing their best for the students, but it is a disturbing fact that some bright pupils are actively discouraged from reaching for the top.
I have long taken a personal interest in this question. Last week's university research was carried out by the Sutton Trust, the educational charity that I founded and chair, in an attempt to widen the circle of opportunity. I know first-hand how important aiming high can be. I grew up on a council estate in Yorkshire where I was lucky enough to pass the 11-plus [Grammar School admission]. Until this point nobody had suggested I might go to university. My parents encouraged me to work hard, but university was a world away from their own experiences. My father found a better job and we moved to a detached house in Surrey and I went to Reigate grammar school where, if you did well, you were encouraged to go on to university. Then, in another upwardly mobile shift, we moved again and I ended up at Cheltenham grammar, where bright boys were encouraged to aim for Oxbridge.
If my family had stayed in Yorkshire I would almost certainly not have gone to university. If we had stayed in Surrey I would not have gone to Oxford. Higher aspirations changed my life. Oxford led on to the London Business School, to a career in consulting and private equity. I never looked back. That was decades ago; I would have hoped that things had improved. But they have got worse. Sadly, in Britain today, aspirations are rooted in class. According to our research, parents in professional and managerial occupations believe that their children will go on to take A-levels, to attend good universities and end up in high-paying careers. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those in lower-paid jobs, by contrast, are likely to think that their children will leave school at 16 and go into routine employment.
You might think the classroom would act as a corrective. But all too often low expectations are reinforced by our socially selective school system. The Sutton Trust has surveyed 20% of the teachers in state schools who advise students on university - and more than 80% of them said they thought their pupils would find it difficult to fit into the top universities, particularly Oxbridge. Hard-pressed teachers face many other pressures and in some cases lack the confidence and know-how. Parents, meanwhile, are frustrated. Some even tell of instances where their children have been told not to bother applying to Oxford or Cambridge, despite being qualified.
That is why the Sutton Trust has announced that, together with its partners, it will spend 10 million pounds over the next five years to expand its sponsorship of outreach programmes such as summer schools to dispel the myths around the top universities. Even then it can be an uphill struggle. There is a shortage of applications from boys (less than a third). Many of those who do come hide it from their peers for fear of being branded a "swot".
This could not be more different from the attitudes of young people from independent schools. Their classmates are aiming to be bankers, lawyers and doctors. These children are articulate and confident. They have every reason to be. They have spent summers travelling overseas and undertaking internships at prestigious firms, not stacking shelves. Going to Oxford or Bristol or Durham is the natural next step.
It is no wonder that social mobility has declined in Britain and we languish at the bottom of the international league table. Also, the relationship between children's educational performance and their family background is stronger here than anywhere else in the developed world. If you are born poor, your qualifications will reflect the fact and you will remain poor.
Raising the aspirations of young people - as well as parents and teachers - is half the battle. The Sutton Trust is trying. We work with children in the early years, through school and into further and higher education, to provide the sort of support and encouragement to nonprivileged youngsters that better-off families and high-achieving schools provide as a matter of course. More is needed. Why not open up leading private and state schools to those from nonprivileged backgrounds, as has been done successfully at the Belvedere school in Liverpool and Pate's in Cheltenham? We should learn from successful schools and extend the opportunities they offer to all.
Children's futures should not be down to luck: we must ensure that all young people have access to real educational opportunities. That is a very modest ambition for a country that prides itself on fair play.
Source
Peanut policy 'wrong'
Hmmmm.... The House of Lords is well-known for independent thinking so the conclusions of their expert committees deserve much respect. It seems to me however that societies who expose children to peanut products from an early age might simply be killing off the susceptible ones -- with the outcome misattributed to cot death etc. Peanuts are absolutely pervasive in Southeast Asian cuisine (Thai, Vietnamese etc.) so I supect that any peanut allergies there must have been bred out of the population (by killing off susceptible infants) long ago
PARENTS who shield their children from peanut products may be fuelling the peanut allergy epidemic. Repeated exposure of a child's immune system to peanut allergen at an early age might result in tolerance and prevent the development of a dangerous allergy, research suggests.
Peanut allergy rose 117 per cent between 2001 and 2005 in Britain, despite guidelines advising pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as children up to age two, to avoid nuts. The dramatic rise is echoed in Australia, with one in 200 infants having a peanut allergy.
Commenting on the research, provided to the influential British House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, Australian experts are divided about whether avoidance or consumption reduces the risk of an allergy. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy said although avoiding all nuts and shellfish may be recommended until age two in most children, and until age four in children with a family history of allergy or those born premature, there is no evidence to support this. It said avoiding certain foods during pregnancy and breastfeeding has not been shown to cut the risk of allergic disease.
President of Anaphylaxis Australia Maria Said said many mothers without a history of allergy were unnecessarily avoiding nut products because they had been scared by stories of children dying from severe reactions....
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who chaired the House of Lords committee's investigation, said: "Academics and clinicians have told us that a growing body of evidence has suggested this guidance may not only be failing to prevent peanut allergy, but might possibly even be counterproductive." The committee supported a Learning About Peanut Allergy study, which is investigating a theory that repeatedly exposing a child's immune system to peanut at an early age teaches their body to tolerate peanut proteins.
In parts of Africa, where peanuts are made into soup for weaning babies, and Israel, where they are incorporated into a babies' rusk, allergy levels are low or non-existent. However, University of Sydney clinical immunologist Rob Loblay said "there are big dangers in extrapolating from one community to another".
Source
A new moral panic in Britain
Families endangered by do-gooders again. Note that in one of my more widely-cited papers, I found no relationship between attitude to animals and attitude to people
Does harming an animal suggest that you would harm a child? Many people wouldn’t think that one kind of behaviour would necessarily be linked to the other. Yet, it is claimed that agencies are now taking children away from their parents based on this very thinking, which appears to have become remarkably mainstream in academic and professional thought.
This latest development has echoes of the Satanic abuse moral panic of the late Eighties and early Nineties, when a substantial number of children were removed from their homes on the basis of allegations of ritual abuse - arguably on the basis of panic rather than evidence. Some cases of ritual abuse, then and since, are real, but the frequency of such reports has not been maintained, which suggests that the incidence of Satanic abuse at that time was as much perceived as real. In a BBC documentary broadcast in 2006, Real Story: When Satan Came to Town, the agencies responsible stated that such a sequence of events could ‘not be repeated [as] in the intervening years the whole landscape of child protection has changed’, citing better line-management; improved inter-agency co-operation; and a more professionalized work force.
For all that, it is now claimed that a small number of children have been removed from their families by professional agencies because an ‘abused’ animal is living in the same house. Meanwhile, vets are encouraged to check animals for sex abuse, a practice suggested to be fairly widespread (1). The assumption behind these actions is that violence is linked (and therefore predictable), and an abused animal indicates the likely presence of abused children. This new ‘moral panic’ resembles the earlier one, and the confidence of those claiming ‘it could never happen again’ appears misplaced.
Satanic panic
The concept of a moral panic was developed by Stanley Cohen in 1972. It is understood as a pattern of mass behaviour, based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behaviour or group of people, frequently a subculture, is deviant and a menace to society. Moral panics are fuelled by media coverage, framed in terms of morality, and expressed as outrage rather than fear. They often revolve around issues of sex or violence, and involve elements of legend.
However moral panics are theorised, contemporary ones have a tendency to cluster or ‘stick’ to other panics sharing overarching concerns, which makes it much more difficult to identify them at an early stage and to argue against them coherently. So, the ‘paedophile panic’ (2), and ‘child killer’ panic (3), co-exist with both the Satanic and the ‘links’ panic.
The idea of a highly organised cult of Satanists intent on the sexual abuse and murder of children appeared in the early 1980s. Child sexual abuse is an obvious candidate for contemporary moral panics, being defined not merely as a social ill, but as evil. The Satanic panic, based on the belief that children were being subjected to ritualised sexual abuse, can be traced back to a nursery in California. A psychiatrist, Lawrence Pazder, was writing a book about a patient (later his wife) who had reported abuse by a Satanic cult earlier in her life. The story of the nursery was reported by the media, which eventually led to Lawrence Pazder being invited to comment. Padzer claimed that the accused nursery worker was central to an international Satanic conspiracy. The Satanic panic was launched, but while there were many twists and tales in this story, the nursery worker was later cleared of all accusations.
At the time, many professionals readily believed that organized networks of Satanists were engaged in brainwashing and abusing victims. Others judged it wise to downplay Satan’s role, but still thought it likely that networks of ritualised abuse were commonplace. While some elements of the story seem bizarre (involving sharks and dragons killing children, babies cooked in ovens etc), over a short period social workers on both sides of the Atlantic took large numbers of children ‘into care’. Specialist teams were formed (with 80-90 such cases across the UK), and within a relatively short time many groups of social workers and others were convinced that children were caught up in a conspiracy involving, among others, freemasons and police officers. Britain’s major child protection charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) published so-called ‘Satanic indicators’, to help case workers identify a likely profile (4).
Eventually, cases in the UK (and elsewhere) died away and few today consider them to have the credibility they were once granted. This is not to deny the fact that children are abused, that abuse in some cases is ritualistic, and that some children remained in care for perfectly good reasons. But it is no accident that the huge majority of the families caught up in this panic lived in relative poverty, leading some to describe it as a ‘penalisation of the poor’. Although the responsible agencies claim to have learned from these mistakes, today in the same countries many now seek a cross-reporting protocol aimed at ensuring children can be removed from their families if an ‘abused’ animal lives in their household.
Links panic
There are similarities between the Satanic panic and this more recent manifestation which is based on the cultural myth that ‘violence breeds violence’. Causal links have been elaborated in the ‘cycles of abuse’ model of family therapeutic literature and, although the hypothesis is highly contested, it has acquired the status of a truism. Many accept uncritically that all violence is linked: thus adults who harm animals also harm children, and such relationships are clear cut, consistent, and predictable.
However, there are a number of difficulties with this approach. There is evidence that people deal with the experience of violence in diverse and unpredictable ways. The language of abuse fails to acknowledge that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ varies between classes, cultures and sometimes sexes. Harming animals is morally complex and culturally ambiguous, yet research and practice tends to treat it as simple and unproblematic. Few studies provide a satisfactory definition of what is to be classified as animal abuse and this is compounded by disputes about what counts as child abuse.
The UK’s main animal welfare organisation, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), currently prosecutes up to 1,000 people a year, but the majority of these cases involve neglect not violence. To assume that neglecting an animal can be linked to violence towards a child appears even more spurious. Accounts often report the same few infamous criminals (Jeffrey Dahmer, Fred West, the Boston Strangler, Jamie Bulger’s killers) who have admitted to harming animals, but such sensationalist ‘evidence’ cannot hide the absence of serious base-line data. The links panic is reliant on the kind of consequential fallacy which would be noticed by most undergraduate philosophy students: all serial killers have mothers but not everyone who has a mother is a serial killer.
The problem is further compounded by whether the kind of people sampled in this research are likely to be telling the truth. Owning up to harming animals is difficult but a criminal sample, with a hard image to maintain, will readily admit to such behaviour. The essentially individualistic approach that characterises most of the links and cycles arguments emphasises individual pathology. As before, the NSPCC have produced guidelines (5). Broader issues concerning the socio-economic context of violence towards animals are disregarded – and again families caught up in this panic tend to be poor.
The links panic also has its origins in the US. A small number of academics have promoted ‘the links’, mainly via conferences, since the mid-1990s. Belief in the argument is now so strong that to publish academic papers to the contrary in most US or UK violence-orientated journals is challenging, as most of the likely referees take links for granted. The missionary zeal stands comparison with those who supported the earlier Satanic panic.
As a participant at the first such conference held in England (Making the Links, NSPCC and RSPCA, February 2001), I attempted to distribute a brief questionnaire asking participants (mainly animal and child welfare workers) to specify their occupation, and to note down the worst thing (if any) they had done to an animal, and to post their anonymous responses in a box at the back of the conference room (a similar exercise with groups of trainee social workers had proved informative). This was prohibited at the last moment, in spite of prior permission having been granted. Given that the links argument relies on the assumption that harming animals is a predictive variable in indicating an individual who is likely to be exceptionally violent towards people in the future, suppressing such information is suspect, and suggests doubts about research funded by organisations with a particular brief. Yet such agencies seek ‘a cross-reporting protocol’ between animal welfare and child protection agencies, an idea and practice based on a presumption of links.
Vetting
The UK government has recently reviewed the risks of employing sex offenders and has determined that the category of people requiring ‘vetting’ should be extended to cover anybody ‘whose work… places them in a position of trust in relation to children’ (6). This could reasonably be expected to include bus drivers, shop workers, cinema ushers, and even other children’s parents. Some aspects of the UK’s current vetting includes ‘soft’ intelligence (eg, police information on convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings and even allegations) as if all these are equally significant (7). If cross-reporting procedures are extended to include information of those cautioned and/or prosecuted for neglecting an animal, the potential for major miscarriages of justice is apparent.
As a result of previous research and publication, I have been approached by a number of individuals and representatives of a self-help group for those experiencing difficulties with the RSPCA. They claim: ‘Very often people who come to our help-line say that the RSPCA turn up on their doorstep in the morning and take their animals, and social services arrive in the afternoon to take their children, saying that they have been informed of the studies linking the two abuses. ’ If this is the case, this seems perilously close to similar actions during the Satanic panic. However, these processes go unreported in the UK context, because while reporting animal abuse is widespread, child care proceedings remain sub judice.
While it would be foolish to claim that there is never a ‘link’ between violent behaviours, extreme or exotic cases cannot provide secure foundations for generalised arguments, predictions, or policies that can safely or ethically be applied to the mass of the population. Recent discussions have treated the Satanic panic as a modern day witch-hunt with little foundation, and I suggest that, in retrospect, similar comments will be directed at simplified forms of the links argument and the panic it has induced.
How many under-resourced individuals and families will have their lives disrupted or ruined in the meantime? How many children will have their lives wrecked by those very vetting procedures which it is claimed are in place to protect them? How much collateral damage is acceptable?
Source
A personal message from Australia
I developed a problem with one of the fillings in my teeth over the weekend so first thing on Monday, I rang a few dentists listed in the phone book and got an appointment NEXT DAY at a dentist less than 15 minutes drive from where I live.
I arrived on time at 2.30pm, was in the chair within 10 minutes, and out of the chair with my filling fixed in another 10 minutes. It cost me $50 (about the price of 4 packets of cigarettes) and I was home again within 45 minutes of setting out.
And a small but pleasant bonus: The dental receptionist was a real stunner -- pushup bra and all.
I even had time for a chat with the dentist about the "evils" of the old amalgam fillings, of which I have several. He pointed out that the dentists who were handling daily the mercury used to make up the amalgam should have been the ones most at risk but that there was no evidence that they were affected.
In Britain, a large part of the population rely on NHS dentistry but just cannot get the service that is supposedly available. Some have even resorted to pulling their own teeth out with pliers etc.
In Australia, people have always seen dentistry as a private expenditure which can be included in your private health insurance (up to a point) if desired. There is a "free" government service but the wait for it stretches into the years and it is therefore seen as only for the very poor.
If Britain had a voucher system for dentistry instead of the present dysfunctional system, all Brits could have the sort of rapid relief from discomfort that I experienced.
The destructive British class system
Which has become more entrenched under Labour, despite their inflated rhetoric. Why? Because the Labour party has done its best to block the best route to upward mobility -- the Grammar (selective) schools. A Grammar School graduate comments:
I recently met a bright 17-year-old from a working-class background who attended his local comprehensive in London. He was funny and articulate. I asked whether he or anyone at his school had considered applying to Oxford or Cambridge. He laughed: "We don't think it's for people like us." It is a reaction I hear often and helps to explain a sad waste of talent in Britain today. Last week a study showed that just 200 elite schools accounted for one third of admissions to the top dozen universities and half of all places at Oxford and Cambridge. The remaining 3,500 schools and colleges account for the other half. It is neither fair nor sensible.
While others are tempted to pin the blame on biased universities, I believe there is something more deep-rooted at work - a culture of low aspirations shared not just by students, but in many cases by their parents and teachers, too. There are many excellent teachers doing their best for the students, but it is a disturbing fact that some bright pupils are actively discouraged from reaching for the top.
I have long taken a personal interest in this question. Last week's university research was carried out by the Sutton Trust, the educational charity that I founded and chair, in an attempt to widen the circle of opportunity. I know first-hand how important aiming high can be. I grew up on a council estate in Yorkshire where I was lucky enough to pass the 11-plus [Grammar School admission]. Until this point nobody had suggested I might go to university. My parents encouraged me to work hard, but university was a world away from their own experiences. My father found a better job and we moved to a detached house in Surrey and I went to Reigate grammar school where, if you did well, you were encouraged to go on to university. Then, in another upwardly mobile shift, we moved again and I ended up at Cheltenham grammar, where bright boys were encouraged to aim for Oxbridge.
If my family had stayed in Yorkshire I would almost certainly not have gone to university. If we had stayed in Surrey I would not have gone to Oxford. Higher aspirations changed my life. Oxford led on to the London Business School, to a career in consulting and private equity. I never looked back. That was decades ago; I would have hoped that things had improved. But they have got worse. Sadly, in Britain today, aspirations are rooted in class. According to our research, parents in professional and managerial occupations believe that their children will go on to take A-levels, to attend good universities and end up in high-paying careers. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Those in lower-paid jobs, by contrast, are likely to think that their children will leave school at 16 and go into routine employment.
You might think the classroom would act as a corrective. But all too often low expectations are reinforced by our socially selective school system. The Sutton Trust has surveyed 20% of the teachers in state schools who advise students on university - and more than 80% of them said they thought their pupils would find it difficult to fit into the top universities, particularly Oxbridge. Hard-pressed teachers face many other pressures and in some cases lack the confidence and know-how. Parents, meanwhile, are frustrated. Some even tell of instances where their children have been told not to bother applying to Oxford or Cambridge, despite being qualified.
That is why the Sutton Trust has announced that, together with its partners, it will spend 10 million pounds over the next five years to expand its sponsorship of outreach programmes such as summer schools to dispel the myths around the top universities. Even then it can be an uphill struggle. There is a shortage of applications from boys (less than a third). Many of those who do come hide it from their peers for fear of being branded a "swot".
This could not be more different from the attitudes of young people from independent schools. Their classmates are aiming to be bankers, lawyers and doctors. These children are articulate and confident. They have every reason to be. They have spent summers travelling overseas and undertaking internships at prestigious firms, not stacking shelves. Going to Oxford or Bristol or Durham is the natural next step.
It is no wonder that social mobility has declined in Britain and we languish at the bottom of the international league table. Also, the relationship between children's educational performance and their family background is stronger here than anywhere else in the developed world. If you are born poor, your qualifications will reflect the fact and you will remain poor.
Raising the aspirations of young people - as well as parents and teachers - is half the battle. The Sutton Trust is trying. We work with children in the early years, through school and into further and higher education, to provide the sort of support and encouragement to nonprivileged youngsters that better-off families and high-achieving schools provide as a matter of course. More is needed. Why not open up leading private and state schools to those from nonprivileged backgrounds, as has been done successfully at the Belvedere school in Liverpool and Pate's in Cheltenham? We should learn from successful schools and extend the opportunities they offer to all.
Children's futures should not be down to luck: we must ensure that all young people have access to real educational opportunities. That is a very modest ambition for a country that prides itself on fair play.
Source
Peanut policy 'wrong'
Hmmmm.... The House of Lords is well-known for independent thinking so the conclusions of their expert committees deserve much respect. It seems to me however that societies who expose children to peanut products from an early age might simply be killing off the susceptible ones -- with the outcome misattributed to cot death etc. Peanuts are absolutely pervasive in Southeast Asian cuisine (Thai, Vietnamese etc.) so I supect that any peanut allergies there must have been bred out of the population (by killing off susceptible infants) long ago
PARENTS who shield their children from peanut products may be fuelling the peanut allergy epidemic. Repeated exposure of a child's immune system to peanut allergen at an early age might result in tolerance and prevent the development of a dangerous allergy, research suggests.
Peanut allergy rose 117 per cent between 2001 and 2005 in Britain, despite guidelines advising pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as children up to age two, to avoid nuts. The dramatic rise is echoed in Australia, with one in 200 infants having a peanut allergy.
Commenting on the research, provided to the influential British House of Lords Science and Technology Committee, Australian experts are divided about whether avoidance or consumption reduces the risk of an allergy. The Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy said although avoiding all nuts and shellfish may be recommended until age two in most children, and until age four in children with a family history of allergy or those born premature, there is no evidence to support this. It said avoiding certain foods during pregnancy and breastfeeding has not been shown to cut the risk of allergic disease.
President of Anaphylaxis Australia Maria Said said many mothers without a history of allergy were unnecessarily avoiding nut products because they had been scared by stories of children dying from severe reactions....
Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who chaired the House of Lords committee's investigation, said: "Academics and clinicians have told us that a growing body of evidence has suggested this guidance may not only be failing to prevent peanut allergy, but might possibly even be counterproductive." The committee supported a Learning About Peanut Allergy study, which is investigating a theory that repeatedly exposing a child's immune system to peanut at an early age teaches their body to tolerate peanut proteins.
In parts of Africa, where peanuts are made into soup for weaning babies, and Israel, where they are incorporated into a babies' rusk, allergy levels are low or non-existent. However, University of Sydney clinical immunologist Rob Loblay said "there are big dangers in extrapolating from one community to another".
Source
A new moral panic in Britain
Families endangered by do-gooders again. Note that in one of my more widely-cited papers, I found no relationship between attitude to animals and attitude to people
Does harming an animal suggest that you would harm a child? Many people wouldn’t think that one kind of behaviour would necessarily be linked to the other. Yet, it is claimed that agencies are now taking children away from their parents based on this very thinking, which appears to have become remarkably mainstream in academic and professional thought.
This latest development has echoes of the Satanic abuse moral panic of the late Eighties and early Nineties, when a substantial number of children were removed from their homes on the basis of allegations of ritual abuse - arguably on the basis of panic rather than evidence. Some cases of ritual abuse, then and since, are real, but the frequency of such reports has not been maintained, which suggests that the incidence of Satanic abuse at that time was as much perceived as real. In a BBC documentary broadcast in 2006, Real Story: When Satan Came to Town, the agencies responsible stated that such a sequence of events could ‘not be repeated [as] in the intervening years the whole landscape of child protection has changed’, citing better line-management; improved inter-agency co-operation; and a more professionalized work force.
For all that, it is now claimed that a small number of children have been removed from their families by professional agencies because an ‘abused’ animal is living in the same house. Meanwhile, vets are encouraged to check animals for sex abuse, a practice suggested to be fairly widespread (1). The assumption behind these actions is that violence is linked (and therefore predictable), and an abused animal indicates the likely presence of abused children. This new ‘moral panic’ resembles the earlier one, and the confidence of those claiming ‘it could never happen again’ appears misplaced.
Satanic panic
The concept of a moral panic was developed by Stanley Cohen in 1972. It is understood as a pattern of mass behaviour, based on the false or exaggerated perception that some cultural behaviour or group of people, frequently a subculture, is deviant and a menace to society. Moral panics are fuelled by media coverage, framed in terms of morality, and expressed as outrage rather than fear. They often revolve around issues of sex or violence, and involve elements of legend.
However moral panics are theorised, contemporary ones have a tendency to cluster or ‘stick’ to other panics sharing overarching concerns, which makes it much more difficult to identify them at an early stage and to argue against them coherently. So, the ‘paedophile panic’ (2), and ‘child killer’ panic (3), co-exist with both the Satanic and the ‘links’ panic.
The idea of a highly organised cult of Satanists intent on the sexual abuse and murder of children appeared in the early 1980s. Child sexual abuse is an obvious candidate for contemporary moral panics, being defined not merely as a social ill, but as evil. The Satanic panic, based on the belief that children were being subjected to ritualised sexual abuse, can be traced back to a nursery in California. A psychiatrist, Lawrence Pazder, was writing a book about a patient (later his wife) who had reported abuse by a Satanic cult earlier in her life. The story of the nursery was reported by the media, which eventually led to Lawrence Pazder being invited to comment. Padzer claimed that the accused nursery worker was central to an international Satanic conspiracy. The Satanic panic was launched, but while there were many twists and tales in this story, the nursery worker was later cleared of all accusations.
At the time, many professionals readily believed that organized networks of Satanists were engaged in brainwashing and abusing victims. Others judged it wise to downplay Satan’s role, but still thought it likely that networks of ritualised abuse were commonplace. While some elements of the story seem bizarre (involving sharks and dragons killing children, babies cooked in ovens etc), over a short period social workers on both sides of the Atlantic took large numbers of children ‘into care’. Specialist teams were formed (with 80-90 such cases across the UK), and within a relatively short time many groups of social workers and others were convinced that children were caught up in a conspiracy involving, among others, freemasons and police officers. Britain’s major child protection charity, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) published so-called ‘Satanic indicators’, to help case workers identify a likely profile (4).
Eventually, cases in the UK (and elsewhere) died away and few today consider them to have the credibility they were once granted. This is not to deny the fact that children are abused, that abuse in some cases is ritualistic, and that some children remained in care for perfectly good reasons. But it is no accident that the huge majority of the families caught up in this panic lived in relative poverty, leading some to describe it as a ‘penalisation of the poor’. Although the responsible agencies claim to have learned from these mistakes, today in the same countries many now seek a cross-reporting protocol aimed at ensuring children can be removed from their families if an ‘abused’ animal lives in their household.
Links panic
There are similarities between the Satanic panic and this more recent manifestation which is based on the cultural myth that ‘violence breeds violence’. Causal links have been elaborated in the ‘cycles of abuse’ model of family therapeutic literature and, although the hypothesis is highly contested, it has acquired the status of a truism. Many accept uncritically that all violence is linked: thus adults who harm animals also harm children, and such relationships are clear cut, consistent, and predictable.
However, there are a number of difficulties with this approach. There is evidence that people deal with the experience of violence in diverse and unpredictable ways. The language of abuse fails to acknowledge that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ varies between classes, cultures and sometimes sexes. Harming animals is morally complex and culturally ambiguous, yet research and practice tends to treat it as simple and unproblematic. Few studies provide a satisfactory definition of what is to be classified as animal abuse and this is compounded by disputes about what counts as child abuse.
The UK’s main animal welfare organisation, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA), currently prosecutes up to 1,000 people a year, but the majority of these cases involve neglect not violence. To assume that neglecting an animal can be linked to violence towards a child appears even more spurious. Accounts often report the same few infamous criminals (Jeffrey Dahmer, Fred West, the Boston Strangler, Jamie Bulger’s killers) who have admitted to harming animals, but such sensationalist ‘evidence’ cannot hide the absence of serious base-line data. The links panic is reliant on the kind of consequential fallacy which would be noticed by most undergraduate philosophy students: all serial killers have mothers but not everyone who has a mother is a serial killer.
The problem is further compounded by whether the kind of people sampled in this research are likely to be telling the truth. Owning up to harming animals is difficult but a criminal sample, with a hard image to maintain, will readily admit to such behaviour. The essentially individualistic approach that characterises most of the links and cycles arguments emphasises individual pathology. As before, the NSPCC have produced guidelines (5). Broader issues concerning the socio-economic context of violence towards animals are disregarded – and again families caught up in this panic tend to be poor.
The links panic also has its origins in the US. A small number of academics have promoted ‘the links’, mainly via conferences, since the mid-1990s. Belief in the argument is now so strong that to publish academic papers to the contrary in most US or UK violence-orientated journals is challenging, as most of the likely referees take links for granted. The missionary zeal stands comparison with those who supported the earlier Satanic panic.
As a participant at the first such conference held in England (Making the Links, NSPCC and RSPCA, February 2001), I attempted to distribute a brief questionnaire asking participants (mainly animal and child welfare workers) to specify their occupation, and to note down the worst thing (if any) they had done to an animal, and to post their anonymous responses in a box at the back of the conference room (a similar exercise with groups of trainee social workers had proved informative). This was prohibited at the last moment, in spite of prior permission having been granted. Given that the links argument relies on the assumption that harming animals is a predictive variable in indicating an individual who is likely to be exceptionally violent towards people in the future, suppressing such information is suspect, and suggests doubts about research funded by organisations with a particular brief. Yet such agencies seek ‘a cross-reporting protocol’ between animal welfare and child protection agencies, an idea and practice based on a presumption of links.
Vetting
The UK government has recently reviewed the risks of employing sex offenders and has determined that the category of people requiring ‘vetting’ should be extended to cover anybody ‘whose work… places them in a position of trust in relation to children’ (6). This could reasonably be expected to include bus drivers, shop workers, cinema ushers, and even other children’s parents. Some aspects of the UK’s current vetting includes ‘soft’ intelligence (eg, police information on convictions, cautions, reprimands, warnings and even allegations) as if all these are equally significant (7). If cross-reporting procedures are extended to include information of those cautioned and/or prosecuted for neglecting an animal, the potential for major miscarriages of justice is apparent.
As a result of previous research and publication, I have been approached by a number of individuals and representatives of a self-help group for those experiencing difficulties with the RSPCA. They claim: ‘Very often people who come to our help-line say that the RSPCA turn up on their doorstep in the morning and take their animals, and social services arrive in the afternoon to take their children, saying that they have been informed of the studies linking the two abuses. ’ If this is the case, this seems perilously close to similar actions during the Satanic panic. However, these processes go unreported in the UK context, because while reporting animal abuse is widespread, child care proceedings remain sub judice.
While it would be foolish to claim that there is never a ‘link’ between violent behaviours, extreme or exotic cases cannot provide secure foundations for generalised arguments, predictions, or policies that can safely or ethically be applied to the mass of the population. Recent discussions have treated the Satanic panic as a modern day witch-hunt with little foundation, and I suggest that, in retrospect, similar comments will be directed at simplified forms of the links argument and the panic it has induced.
How many under-resourced individuals and families will have their lives disrupted or ruined in the meantime? How many children will have their lives wrecked by those very vetting procedures which it is claimed are in place to protect them? How much collateral damage is acceptable?
Source
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
British bar staff "healthier" since smoking ban (NOT)
What utter crap! Why could these pathetic individuals not do some REAL research? Why not examine disease incidence or symptom incidence? All they have shown is that people who are less exposed to smoking show signs of being less exposed to smoking! D'oh!
Bar staff have seen huge health benefits from the ban on smoking in public places, a study by the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre in Warwick - funded by Cancer Research UK - has found. Researchers tested the air quality in 40 pubs, bars and restaurants across the country and measured the level of cotinine - the metabolic byproduct of nicotine - in the blood of those who worked there.
Today they will tell the National Cancer Research Institute Conference in Birmingham that staff have four times less cotinine in their blood than they did in June and thatair quality, measured by the number of particles in the air from cigarette smoke, dropped from near hazardous levels in June to levels that are similar to the outside air in August.
Hilary Wareing, co-director of the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre, said: "This study proves beyond doubt that smokefree workplaces are helping to improve the health of the nation's hospitality workers."
Source
Britain: Israel boycott collapses
UCU announced today that, after seeking legal advice, an academic boycott of Israel would be unlawful and cannot be implemented. Members of the union's strategy and finance committee unanimously accepted a recommendation from UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, that the union should immediately inform branches and members that:
* A boycott call would be unlawful and cannot be implemented
* UCU members' opinions cannot be tested at local meetings
* The proposed regional tour cannot go ahead under current arrangements and is therefore suspended.
The union had passed a motion at its congress in May calling for the circulation and debate of a call to boycott. Since then UCU has sought extensive legal advice in order to try to implement congress policy while protecting the position of members and of the union itself. The legal advice makes it clear that making a call to boycott Israeli institutions would run a serious risk of infringing discrimination legislation. The call to boycott is also considered to be outside the aims and objects of the UCU.
The union has been told that while UCU is at liberty to debate the pros and cons of Israeli policies, it cannot spend members' resources on seeking to test opinion on something which is in itself unlawful and cannot be implemented. The union will now explore the best ways to implement the non-boycott elements of the motion passed at congress.
The legal advice states: 'It would be beyond the union's powers and unlawful for the union, directly or indirectly, to call for, or to implement, a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions; and that the use of union funds directly or indirectly to further such a boycott would also be unlawful.' The advice also says that 'to ensure that the union acts lawfully, meetings should not be used to ascertain the level of support for such a boycott.'
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Since congress our first priority has always been to keep the union, and its members, safe during what has been a very difficult time. I hope this decision will allow all to move forwards and focus on what is our primary objective, the representation of our members. 'I believe if we do this we may also, where possible, play a positive role in supporting Palestinian and Israeli educators and in promoting a just peace in the Middle East.'
Source
Absurd pandering to Muslim attention-seekers in Britain
MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers' bottles and cans of drink. Islamic workers at Sainsbury's who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them. [What a useless employee!] Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.
Sainsbury's said this weekend it was keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff but some Islamic scholars condemned the practice, saying Muslims who refused to sell alcohol were reneging on their agreements with the store. Islam states that Muslims should not consume alcohol, but opinion is divided on whether it is permissible to be involved in the sale of it. Mustapha, a Muslim checkout worker at the company's store in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, interrupts his work to ensure that he does not have to sell or handle alcohol. Each time a bottle or can of alcohol comes along the conveyor belt in front of him, Mustapha either swaps places discreetly with a neighbouring attendant or raises his hand so that another member of staff can come over and pass the offending items in front of the scanner before he resumes work.
Some of the staff delegated to handle the drink for Mustapha are themselves obviously Muslim, including women in hijab head coverings. However, a staff member at the store told a reporter that two other employees had asked to be given alternative duties after objecting to stacking drinks shelves. Mustapha told one customer: "I can't sell the alcohol because of my religion. It is Ramadan at the moment."
His customers did not appear to have any objection to his polite refusal to work with alcohol. One said: "I have no issues with it at all, it really doesn't bother me."
However, some senior Muslims were less approving. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute and leader of the Muslim parliament, said: "This is some kind of overenthusiasm. One expects professional behaviour from people working in a professional capacity and this shows a lack of maturity. "Sainsbury's is being very good, they are trying to accommodate the wishes of their employees and we commend that. The fault lies with the employee who is exploiting and misusing their goodwill. It makes no difference if it is only happening over Ramadan."
Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said: "Muslim employees should look at the allowances within Muslim law to enable them to be better operating employees and not be seen as rather difficult to cater for."
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's, confirming Mustapha's stance, said: "At the application stage we ask the relevant questions regarding any issues about handling different products and where we can we will try and accommodate any requirements people have, but it depends on the needs of the particular store."
Source
WHY IS INTERVENTION GOOD FOR DARFUR BUT BAD FOR IRAQ?
Spotted on the London Underground: an Amnesty sticker demanding "Stop raping Darfur". Who was that aimed at: commuting Sudanese militiamen? Or was it just there to turn our work journey into another guilt trip?
Some of those on Sunday's London march for action on Darfur wore blindfolds, supposedly to symbolise the West's refusal to face the truth. To me it rather symbolised the blind ignorance of the pro-intervention lobby. Why are those who protest against the disastrous intervention in Iraq demanding more of the same for Sudan? Do they really think it will be all right if Brown and Sarkozy lead the charge instead of Bush and Blair? Duhh-fur!
The crusaders won't learn the lesson that such interventions do not work. They perpetuate conflicts, turn civil wars into international theatres where local actors compete to win outside support, and impose hopeless states. Never mind Iraq, look at "success stories" such as Kosovo or East Timor.
The pro-interventionists drown out these inconvenient truths with pop videos and atrocity stories. As Professor Mahmood Mamdani, of Columbia University, points out, their presentation of the Darfur conflict looks more like a voyeuristic "pornography of violence", spiced up with promiscuous claims of deaths - now 120,000, now a quarter of million, now 400,000.
But then, the liberal crusaders for Darfur are really driven more by events over here, seeking a foreign cause to provide a sense of outraged moral righteousness. They are drawn to Africa as a stage on which to strike dramatic poses and draw the clear line between Good and Evil that seems elusive at home. So the interventionist script reduces the historical and political complexities of the Darfur conflict to a fairytale.
As George Clooney informs us: "It's not a political issue. There is only right and wrong." Or as a bloke from the British pop group Travis, who went to Darfur for Save the Children, writes: "Africa is a very complex place, but the Darfur crisis is quite simple." Thanks for the analysis - send in the troops!
I have been among those few on the Left who opposed such self-serving moral crusades, from Bosnia to Darfur, because turning these crises into moral melodramas can only make matters worse for those on the receiving end of compassionate militarism. It is not so easy to get a bandwagon rolling after Iraq. Mr Brown will support the UNAfrican Union forces, but won't be Gordon of Khartoum. Yet the crusaders maintain the imperial illusion that is "our" job to save Africa from itself. "Don't look away now" is their campaign slogan. For once, they have a point. Let's not look away, but face up to the hard truth about interventions and conclude, as they say: never again.
Source
Some sense on immigration in the British Conservative party
Glance at the agenda for this week's Tory conference and debates on the environment, the broken society and public services are advertised in bold. But where is immigration, the issue that once defined the Conservative Party? The answer: nowhere to be seen. Dogged by accusations that Tories have been obsessed for decades with the arrival of foreigners on our shores, David Cameron has tried his best to keep quiet on the topic in his quest to remould the Tories as the embraceable, "nice" party....
The first skirmishes in the war between modernisers and traditionalists for the soul of the Tory party will take place on the fringes of this week's Tory conference. In a sign that a shift back to core Tory values is in the offing and that the omerta on discussing immigration may be on the verge of crumbling, one of Mr Cameron's most trusted lieutenants has broken her silence - in a spectacular fashion.
Sayeeda Warsi, given a peerage by David Cameron to enable her to join his front bench as spokesman on cohesion, has taken on the issue head on, volunteering her view that immigration has been "out of control" and that people feel "uneasy" about the pace of immigration into Britain. Her intervention has outraged black groups who say she is using the language of the BNP. It also threatens to derail Mr Cameron's attempts to shake off the Conservatives' "nasty-party" image, while exposing divisions between left and right.
"What this country has a problem with is not people of different kinds coming into this country and making a contribution, but the problem that nobody knows who is coming in, who is going out - the fact that we don't have a border police; we don't have proper checks; we don't have any idea how many people are here, who are unaccounted for," she says. "It's that lack of control and not knowing that makes people feel uneasy, not the fact that somebody of a different colour or a different religion or a different origin is coming into our country." As her press officer squirms in his chair, she continues: "The control of immigration impacts upon a cohesive Britain."
Warming to her theme, she declares that the decision to house large groups of migrants on estates in the north of England "overnight" has led to tension in local communities. Similar tensions have been found in the London in Barking and Dagenham, where the far right has been making political in-roads. "The pace of change unsettles communities," she says.
Lady Warsi's outspoken intervention is somewhat surprising as she is the daughter of immigrants herself. Her father is a former Labour-supporting mill-worker from Pakistan who, after making a fortune in the bed and mattress trade, switched his allegiance to the Tories. The lawyer, 36, who is married with a nine-year-old daughter, devoted her early career to improving race relations, helping to launch Operation Black Vote in Yorkshire and sitting on various racial justice committees. So her analysis of race relations on the eve of the Tory conference cannot be dismissed as a right-wing rant.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Lady Warsi claims that the conspiracy of silence on the subject of immigration plays into the hands of the far-right British National Party. "The BNP will look at what issue it is locally that they can exploit and the other political parties are not seen to be dealing with and they will play to that," she says. Far from ignoring the issue of immigration, she thinks it should be confronted head on. "I think we need to have the debate. One of the problems why the BNP has been allowed to grow is sometimes certainly the Labour Party took the view that if we ignore them they will just go away," she says.
But while BNP supporters, including the English National Ballet dancer Simone Clarke, have been sharply criticised for backing a racist party, Lady Warsi says that BNP voters should be listened to. "The BNP and what they represent, they clearly have a race agenda; they clearly have a hate agenda. But there are a lot of people out there who are voting for the British National Party and it's those people that we mustn't just write off and say 'well, we won't bother because they are voting BNP or we won't engage with them'," she says. Indeed, she says, people who back the extreme-right party, criticised for its racist and homophobic agenda, may even have a point. "They have some very legitimate views. People who say 'we are concerned about crime and justice in our communities - we are concerned about immigration in our communities'," she said.
Lady Warsi's remarks are bound to embarrass David Cameron and to open up old wounds over race in the Conservative Party that her leader has worked hard to heal. Mr Cameron has been outspoken in his support for a multi-ethnic Britain and has been uncompromising with MPs who have made racially inflammatory comments. He forced Patrick Mercer, a frontbench MP, to resign after he said he had met "a lot" of "idle and useless" ethnic-minority soldiers.
Last night black groups accused her of making a major misjudgement and of using "BNP language" and pandering to far-right views. Operation Black Vote, with whom Lady Warsi used to work, said it was "grotesque" to give credence to the views of people who vote BNP. "Pandering to racist views peddled by the BNP and bought by BNP voters is grotesque," said Simon Woolley, head of OBV. "The fact of the matter is that this country would collapse if it wasn't for migrant workers. This is BNP language she is using."
Lady Warsi's challenge to engage with BNP supporters will be considered all the more surprising because, as a practising Muslim, she became a BNP hate figure when she stood in the Yorkshire target seat of Dewsbury at the last election. Far-right extremists are not the only reactionaries she has done battle with. She was told to put on her headscarf by a radical Islamist during a Newsnight interview. And in her speech to conference she will unveil an uncompromising message for hard-line preachers who want to subvert British values. "We can't allow people to come into our country which will actually divide our country," she says. She also thinks imams should speak in English and not use a "language which is from the Indian subcontinent" that British children may not be able to understand.
But it is her outspoken message on immigration that will prove most resonant. It will chime with many rank-and-file Tories who believe Mr Cameron has been spending too much time with the ueber-modernisers....
More here
Another triumph of British bureaucracy: "The government has paid out a record 450,000 pounds for an end-of-terrace house in one of the Victorian streets being bulldozed across northern England to make way for modern housing developments. A Cheshire-based property investor picked up the payout, which is more than double the price that any other property has fetched on the same road in the last two years. Property experts said it could be completely refurbished for less than 100,000 pounds. [Governments have always done housing badly]
What utter crap! Why could these pathetic individuals not do some REAL research? Why not examine disease incidence or symptom incidence? All they have shown is that people who are less exposed to smoking show signs of being less exposed to smoking! D'oh!
Bar staff have seen huge health benefits from the ban on smoking in public places, a study by the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre in Warwick - funded by Cancer Research UK - has found. Researchers tested the air quality in 40 pubs, bars and restaurants across the country and measured the level of cotinine - the metabolic byproduct of nicotine - in the blood of those who worked there.
Today they will tell the National Cancer Research Institute Conference in Birmingham that staff have four times less cotinine in their blood than they did in June and thatair quality, measured by the number of particles in the air from cigarette smoke, dropped from near hazardous levels in June to levels that are similar to the outside air in August.
Hilary Wareing, co-director of the Tobacco Control Collaborating Centre, said: "This study proves beyond doubt that smokefree workplaces are helping to improve the health of the nation's hospitality workers."
Source
Britain: Israel boycott collapses
UCU announced today that, after seeking legal advice, an academic boycott of Israel would be unlawful and cannot be implemented. Members of the union's strategy and finance committee unanimously accepted a recommendation from UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, that the union should immediately inform branches and members that:
* A boycott call would be unlawful and cannot be implemented
* UCU members' opinions cannot be tested at local meetings
* The proposed regional tour cannot go ahead under current arrangements and is therefore suspended.
The union had passed a motion at its congress in May calling for the circulation and debate of a call to boycott. Since then UCU has sought extensive legal advice in order to try to implement congress policy while protecting the position of members and of the union itself. The legal advice makes it clear that making a call to boycott Israeli institutions would run a serious risk of infringing discrimination legislation. The call to boycott is also considered to be outside the aims and objects of the UCU.
The union has been told that while UCU is at liberty to debate the pros and cons of Israeli policies, it cannot spend members' resources on seeking to test opinion on something which is in itself unlawful and cannot be implemented. The union will now explore the best ways to implement the non-boycott elements of the motion passed at congress.
The legal advice states: 'It would be beyond the union's powers and unlawful for the union, directly or indirectly, to call for, or to implement, a boycott by the union and its members of any kind of Israeli universities and other academic institutions; and that the use of union funds directly or indirectly to further such a boycott would also be unlawful.' The advice also says that 'to ensure that the union acts lawfully, meetings should not be used to ascertain the level of support for such a boycott.'
UCU general secretary, Sally Hunt, said: 'Since congress our first priority has always been to keep the union, and its members, safe during what has been a very difficult time. I hope this decision will allow all to move forwards and focus on what is our primary objective, the representation of our members. 'I believe if we do this we may also, where possible, play a positive role in supporting Palestinian and Israeli educators and in promoting a just peace in the Middle East.'
Source
Absurd pandering to Muslim attention-seekers in Britain
MUSLIM supermarket checkout staff who refuse to sell alcohol are being allowed to opt out of handling customers' bottles and cans of drink. Islamic workers at Sainsbury's who object to alcohol on religious grounds are told to raise their hands when encountering any drink at their till so that a colleague can temporarily take their place or scan items for them. [What a useless employee!] Other staff have refused to work stacking shelves with wine, beer and spirits and have been found alternative roles in the company.
Sainsbury's said this weekend it was keen to accommodate the religious beliefs of all staff but some Islamic scholars condemned the practice, saying Muslims who refused to sell alcohol were reneging on their agreements with the store. Islam states that Muslims should not consume alcohol, but opinion is divided on whether it is permissible to be involved in the sale of it. Mustapha, a Muslim checkout worker at the company's store in Swiss Cottage, northwest London, interrupts his work to ensure that he does not have to sell or handle alcohol. Each time a bottle or can of alcohol comes along the conveyor belt in front of him, Mustapha either swaps places discreetly with a neighbouring attendant or raises his hand so that another member of staff can come over and pass the offending items in front of the scanner before he resumes work.
Some of the staff delegated to handle the drink for Mustapha are themselves obviously Muslim, including women in hijab head coverings. However, a staff member at the store told a reporter that two other employees had asked to be given alternative duties after objecting to stacking drinks shelves. Mustapha told one customer: "I can't sell the alcohol because of my religion. It is Ramadan at the moment."
His customers did not appear to have any objection to his polite refusal to work with alcohol. One said: "I have no issues with it at all, it really doesn't bother me."
However, some senior Muslims were less approving. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, director of the Muslim Institute and leader of the Muslim parliament, said: "This is some kind of overenthusiasm. One expects professional behaviour from people working in a professional capacity and this shows a lack of maturity. "Sainsbury's is being very good, they are trying to accommodate the wishes of their employees and we commend that. The fault lies with the employee who is exploiting and misusing their goodwill. It makes no difference if it is only happening over Ramadan."
Ibrahim Mogra, chairman of the inter-faith committee of the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB), said: "Muslim employees should look at the allowances within Muslim law to enable them to be better operating employees and not be seen as rather difficult to cater for."
A spokeswoman for Sainsbury's, confirming Mustapha's stance, said: "At the application stage we ask the relevant questions regarding any issues about handling different products and where we can we will try and accommodate any requirements people have, but it depends on the needs of the particular store."
Source
WHY IS INTERVENTION GOOD FOR DARFUR BUT BAD FOR IRAQ?
Spotted on the London Underground: an Amnesty sticker demanding "Stop raping Darfur". Who was that aimed at: commuting Sudanese militiamen? Or was it just there to turn our work journey into another guilt trip?
Some of those on Sunday's London march for action on Darfur wore blindfolds, supposedly to symbolise the West's refusal to face the truth. To me it rather symbolised the blind ignorance of the pro-intervention lobby. Why are those who protest against the disastrous intervention in Iraq demanding more of the same for Sudan? Do they really think it will be all right if Brown and Sarkozy lead the charge instead of Bush and Blair? Duhh-fur!
The crusaders won't learn the lesson that such interventions do not work. They perpetuate conflicts, turn civil wars into international theatres where local actors compete to win outside support, and impose hopeless states. Never mind Iraq, look at "success stories" such as Kosovo or East Timor.
The pro-interventionists drown out these inconvenient truths with pop videos and atrocity stories. As Professor Mahmood Mamdani, of Columbia University, points out, their presentation of the Darfur conflict looks more like a voyeuristic "pornography of violence", spiced up with promiscuous claims of deaths - now 120,000, now a quarter of million, now 400,000.
But then, the liberal crusaders for Darfur are really driven more by events over here, seeking a foreign cause to provide a sense of outraged moral righteousness. They are drawn to Africa as a stage on which to strike dramatic poses and draw the clear line between Good and Evil that seems elusive at home. So the interventionist script reduces the historical and political complexities of the Darfur conflict to a fairytale.
As George Clooney informs us: "It's not a political issue. There is only right and wrong." Or as a bloke from the British pop group Travis, who went to Darfur for Save the Children, writes: "Africa is a very complex place, but the Darfur crisis is quite simple." Thanks for the analysis - send in the troops!
I have been among those few on the Left who opposed such self-serving moral crusades, from Bosnia to Darfur, because turning these crises into moral melodramas can only make matters worse for those on the receiving end of compassionate militarism. It is not so easy to get a bandwagon rolling after Iraq. Mr Brown will support the UNAfrican Union forces, but won't be Gordon of Khartoum. Yet the crusaders maintain the imperial illusion that is "our" job to save Africa from itself. "Don't look away now" is their campaign slogan. For once, they have a point. Let's not look away, but face up to the hard truth about interventions and conclude, as they say: never again.
Source
Some sense on immigration in the British Conservative party
Glance at the agenda for this week's Tory conference and debates on the environment, the broken society and public services are advertised in bold. But where is immigration, the issue that once defined the Conservative Party? The answer: nowhere to be seen. Dogged by accusations that Tories have been obsessed for decades with the arrival of foreigners on our shores, David Cameron has tried his best to keep quiet on the topic in his quest to remould the Tories as the embraceable, "nice" party....
The first skirmishes in the war between modernisers and traditionalists for the soul of the Tory party will take place on the fringes of this week's Tory conference. In a sign that a shift back to core Tory values is in the offing and that the omerta on discussing immigration may be on the verge of crumbling, one of Mr Cameron's most trusted lieutenants has broken her silence - in a spectacular fashion.
Sayeeda Warsi, given a peerage by David Cameron to enable her to join his front bench as spokesman on cohesion, has taken on the issue head on, volunteering her view that immigration has been "out of control" and that people feel "uneasy" about the pace of immigration into Britain. Her intervention has outraged black groups who say she is using the language of the BNP. It also threatens to derail Mr Cameron's attempts to shake off the Conservatives' "nasty-party" image, while exposing divisions between left and right.
"What this country has a problem with is not people of different kinds coming into this country and making a contribution, but the problem that nobody knows who is coming in, who is going out - the fact that we don't have a border police; we don't have proper checks; we don't have any idea how many people are here, who are unaccounted for," she says. "It's that lack of control and not knowing that makes people feel uneasy, not the fact that somebody of a different colour or a different religion or a different origin is coming into our country." As her press officer squirms in his chair, she continues: "The control of immigration impacts upon a cohesive Britain."
Warming to her theme, she declares that the decision to house large groups of migrants on estates in the north of England "overnight" has led to tension in local communities. Similar tensions have been found in the London in Barking and Dagenham, where the far right has been making political in-roads. "The pace of change unsettles communities," she says.
Lady Warsi's outspoken intervention is somewhat surprising as she is the daughter of immigrants herself. Her father is a former Labour-supporting mill-worker from Pakistan who, after making a fortune in the bed and mattress trade, switched his allegiance to the Tories. The lawyer, 36, who is married with a nine-year-old daughter, devoted her early career to improving race relations, helping to launch Operation Black Vote in Yorkshire and sitting on various racial justice committees. So her analysis of race relations on the eve of the Tory conference cannot be dismissed as a right-wing rant.
In an interview with The Independent on Sunday, Lady Warsi claims that the conspiracy of silence on the subject of immigration plays into the hands of the far-right British National Party. "The BNP will look at what issue it is locally that they can exploit and the other political parties are not seen to be dealing with and they will play to that," she says. Far from ignoring the issue of immigration, she thinks it should be confronted head on. "I think we need to have the debate. One of the problems why the BNP has been allowed to grow is sometimes certainly the Labour Party took the view that if we ignore them they will just go away," she says.
But while BNP supporters, including the English National Ballet dancer Simone Clarke, have been sharply criticised for backing a racist party, Lady Warsi says that BNP voters should be listened to. "The BNP and what they represent, they clearly have a race agenda; they clearly have a hate agenda. But there are a lot of people out there who are voting for the British National Party and it's those people that we mustn't just write off and say 'well, we won't bother because they are voting BNP or we won't engage with them'," she says. Indeed, she says, people who back the extreme-right party, criticised for its racist and homophobic agenda, may even have a point. "They have some very legitimate views. People who say 'we are concerned about crime and justice in our communities - we are concerned about immigration in our communities'," she said.
Lady Warsi's remarks are bound to embarrass David Cameron and to open up old wounds over race in the Conservative Party that her leader has worked hard to heal. Mr Cameron has been outspoken in his support for a multi-ethnic Britain and has been uncompromising with MPs who have made racially inflammatory comments. He forced Patrick Mercer, a frontbench MP, to resign after he said he had met "a lot" of "idle and useless" ethnic-minority soldiers.
Last night black groups accused her of making a major misjudgement and of using "BNP language" and pandering to far-right views. Operation Black Vote, with whom Lady Warsi used to work, said it was "grotesque" to give credence to the views of people who vote BNP. "Pandering to racist views peddled by the BNP and bought by BNP voters is grotesque," said Simon Woolley, head of OBV. "The fact of the matter is that this country would collapse if it wasn't for migrant workers. This is BNP language she is using."
Lady Warsi's challenge to engage with BNP supporters will be considered all the more surprising because, as a practising Muslim, she became a BNP hate figure when she stood in the Yorkshire target seat of Dewsbury at the last election. Far-right extremists are not the only reactionaries she has done battle with. She was told to put on her headscarf by a radical Islamist during a Newsnight interview. And in her speech to conference she will unveil an uncompromising message for hard-line preachers who want to subvert British values. "We can't allow people to come into our country which will actually divide our country," she says. She also thinks imams should speak in English and not use a "language which is from the Indian subcontinent" that British children may not be able to understand.
But it is her outspoken message on immigration that will prove most resonant. It will chime with many rank-and-file Tories who believe Mr Cameron has been spending too much time with the ueber-modernisers....
More here
Another triumph of British bureaucracy: "The government has paid out a record 450,000 pounds for an end-of-terrace house in one of the Victorian streets being bulldozed across northern England to make way for modern housing developments. A Cheshire-based property investor picked up the payout, which is more than double the price that any other property has fetched on the same road in the last two years. Property experts said it could be completely refurbished for less than 100,000 pounds. [Governments have always done housing badly]
Monday, October 01, 2007
British "Education"
Inspired by Dr. Joseph Goebbels
A reader has sent me deeply disturbing evidence of the indoctrination into hatred and lies being perpetrated in at least one of our schools. This is a questionnaire that was distributed to pupils at a large mixed comprehensive school in Britain (the reader has asked me not to identify the school for personal reasons). The seven questions included litter, racism, refugees, a petition against `British attacks on Iraq', dolphin friendly tuna, racism again and then the last question:
This travesty is being perpetrated in `citizenship' lessons. The teacher who devised this question clearly is completely ignorant of international law, within which Israel acts, and is merely recycling the ideological equivalent of saloon-bar bigotry that passes for discourse about the Middle East in Britain. Thus the calibre of those entrusted to pass on to the next generation a sense of national identity grounded in the values of this country. Once, these values included truthfulness, integrity and academic rigour. No more. We are now a country where the uninformed are instructed by the bigoted. From the Olympian heights of Britain's once unsurpassed education system, which produced the fairest, gentlest and most rational society on earth, Britain's children are now being equipped instead to inhabit Planet Virulence, where ignorance, irrationality and injustice rule.
I warned from the very introduction of these `citizenship' lessons that they would become a vehicle for crude propaganda. So it has proved. The irony is that the government introduced them in the first place because it was so alarmed that British identity and values were being eroded from within in the face of the threat to the nation from without. Now we can see the result. British citizenship includes hatred of Israel by way of the propaganda of one of the Big Lies of history - the very same Big Lie that is fuelling the murderous onslaught on the western world.
Source
HURRAY! THE BBC'S NEW IMPARTIAL CLIMATE REPORTING
See it below:
US President George W Bush infuriated his critics by professing world leadership on climate change at his meeting of the top 16 world economies - while offering no new substantive policy and implicitly rejecting binding emissions controls. Mr Bush, who has been sceptical of climate change, said at the forum in Washington that our understanding of the science had moved on. He agreed that energy security and climate change were major challenges and pledged to solve both problems - but dismissed notions of despair. The American president said clean technologies like nuclear power and clean coal would protect the economy as well as the environment. He said the US wanted to work with the United Nations towards a long-term goal on greenhouse gases. He also proposed a new global fund from the US, Japan and Europe to channel clean technology to developing countries.
But some visiting delegates were outraged by what they said was a stream of spin running through the speech. One (who understandably asked not to be named) said: "This is a total charade. "The president has said he will lead on climate change but he won't agree binding emissions, while other nations will. "He says he will lead on technology but then he asks other countries to contribute funds, without saying how much he'll contribute himself. "It's humiliating for him - a total humiliation."
Some delegates were particularly upset by the extravagant invitation by Mr Bush for other nations to follow the US lead in cutting emissions while increasing the economy. Emissions did indeed buck the upward trend by dropping a fraction of 1% in the US during 2006 - but even the American government admits this was due to a warm winter, cool summer and an oil price they considered far too high.
Significantly, some of the visiting delegates indicated they were already planning for Mr Bush's departure from the White House. The Germans said they had spent the past two days in productive meetings with US Democrats. More diplomatically, the British said the issue of climate change stretched beyond any political cycle so it was natural to look ahead.
Certainly the Democrats are hoping to push an energy bill through the US Congress soon - maybe within the next few months. Mr Bush would then be forced to veto it to prevent it passing. And this may not prove popular as opinion polls in the US suggest the American people are more concerned about climate change than ever before.
Delegates, though, are not dismissing the Washington meeting out of hand. They say all talks on climate change bringing together the major economic powers are useful in some way - forging personal relationships and building trust. A number of delegates said the Chinese were becoming less defensive with every international meeting on climate - and that will be vital if China is to be helped to deal with its booming emissions.
And some said it was useful - albeit tedious - to hear American officials lecturing them with the very facts of climate change that they had been ignoring for years. The US has offered to continue this Washington process of discussions if it is deemed helpful by the United Nations. Mr Bush himself says he is organising a summit of world leaders next summer. Privately, some European delegates are already saying they hope their political leaders are not invited.
BBC News, 29 September 2007
Schools show the new make-up of Britain
White British schoolchildren are now a minority in parts of England, and make up just one in ten pupils in some areas, according to new government figures. The data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families reveals the extraordinary demographic changes that are taking place in 21st-century England and highlight dramatic variations in the ethnic make-up of the school population across England. They also show that more than one in ten pupils in primary and secondary schools in England do not have English as their mother tongue. This rises to more than half of primary pupils (53 per cent) in Central London.
As the numbers of nonwhite and non-native-speaking pupils are much higher in primary than in secondary schools, the figures also suggest that the full extent of current demographic changes in England's schools have yet to make themselves felt.
Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, said that the changes were putting an extra burden on teachers. What was important, he said, was whether or not these children arrived in school able to speak English. "If they can't, and they are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, this makes it much harder for teachers to do their job." The Conservatives have complained that schools do not always intervene early enough to teach pupils English, often preferring to teach them in their own languages initially.
The latest figures, from January 2007, show that more than a fifth of pupils are now of ethnic minority origin. Nationally, 21.9 per cent of primary school children are from ethnic minority backgrounds, up from 20.6 per cent in 2006. There was a similar rise in secondary schools. The figures also show that the number of primary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language increased by about 7 per cent on the 2006 figures to 447,000, or 13.5 per cent of the total. Figures for secondary schools showed a similar rise in the number of pupils not speaking English as their first language, to 342,000 or 10.5 per cent of the total.
The Government has said that English should be the main language of teaching in schools, and children should become fluent as quickly as possible. Research suggests that although pupils who are not native speakers struggle at first, most make up any lost ground by the time they reach secondary school.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that the Government had put guidance in place to help teachers to support children who have English as an additional language. He said that a new statutory duty on schools to promote community cohesion had focused the minds of head teachers on these issues. "Schools are the building blocks of our communities so it's vital that they promote tolerance, respect and understanding across society," Mr Knight said.
Source
NHS failure on allegies
An epidemic of allergic diseases is sweeping Britain while treatments languish and people's lives are blighted, according to an influential House of Lords committee. Britain is "the laughing stock of Europe" for its neglect of treatments that work and are routinely used elsewhere, said Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who chaired an investigation by the Science and Technology Committee.
Allergies - which include hay fever, asthma, some skin conditions and peanut allergy - are often poorly diagnosed by GPs, who lack facilities to which they can refer patients for proper testing. As a result, many allergy patients go untreated while others go through life convinced that they are suffering from allergies they do not have. Waiting lists for the few allergy clinics that exist are long, and would be longer still if the many neglected patients could be referred to them.
Teachers are poorly trained to deal with allergic emergencies, the food industry is lax about labelling foods that have the potential to kill and advice given by the Department of Health to pregnant women to avoid peanuts is baseless - and could even be making the situation worse.
Lady Finlay said that her committee was extremely alarmed by the advice to pregnant women, and to children from families with a history of allergy, to avoid peanuts. "Academics and clinicians have told us that a growing body of evidence suggested this guidance may not only be failing to prevent peanut allergy, but might even be counterproductive," she said.
It was possible that exposure to peanuts in the womb or when young could prevent peanut allergy rather than cause it. The evidence did not justify the advice the department was giving, and it should be withdrawn. In parts of the developing world where groundnuts were used in a "soup" for weaning babies, there had not been the explosion in the number of people allergic to peanuts, she said.
The committee recommended setting up a network of centres headed by an allergist and staffed by other specialists such as immunologists, dermatologists, paediatricians, gastroenterologists and chest medicine specialists. It also called for an overhaul of food labelling regulations to improve on "vague and defensive" information such as "may contain nuts".
Allergies cost the NHS in England 1 billion a year for drugs and treatment, and the cost to the economy of asthma alone is o2.3 billion a year. Millions of people suffer allergies: 3.3 million suffer hay fever at some time in their lives and 5.7 million have asthma. Food allergies kill about 20 people a year through the severe reaction called anaphylactic shock.
Lady Finlay called for increased funding for research. The recommendation was welcomed by Stephen Holgate, of the University of Southampton, a leading expert. He said: "We need new environmental research, trying to find out what it is about our environment that causes allergies. We need to set up proper studies. This is the fourth report in recent years to criticise UK allergy treatments."
The National Allergy Strategy Group said that the four reports had said much the same. "But the department has not acted to bring about change. Unless strategic health authorities and primary care trusts are directed to develop services, patient care will not improve." The committee said more use should be made of immuno-therapy, where people are exposed to small doses of the substance that causes a reaction to "desensitise" them.
Source
British Leftists to destroy the navy that Napoleon and Hitler could not: "Ministers have drawn up confidential proposals to slash the number of ships in the Royal Navy, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. The expected reductions follow a fierce row between Service chiefs and the Treasury over defence spending. The Ministry of Defence has produced a plan to decommission five warships from next April, which would reduce the Navy's capability to the level where it could carry out only "one small-scale operation".
Inspired by Dr. Joseph Goebbels
A reader has sent me deeply disturbing evidence of the indoctrination into hatred and lies being perpetrated in at least one of our schools. This is a questionnaire that was distributed to pupils at a large mixed comprehensive school in Britain (the reader has asked me not to identify the school for personal reasons). The seven questions included litter, racism, refugees, a petition against `British attacks on Iraq', dolphin friendly tuna, racism again and then the last question:
`You know that Israel's actions against Palestinian civilians go against international law. Which of the following do you decide?
a) People like us in Britain should stop buying goods made in Israel, to help put pressure on Israel to stop attacking Palestinians (3)
b) This conflict has nothing to do with us and there is nothing we can do (1)
c) Our government should put pressure on Israel to do what international law says, and cut down its occupation of Palestine (2)
d) We need to find out more about the conflict between Israel and Palestine before we say what we do (3)'
The numbers in brackets indicate the score a student would receive for their answer - the higher the better. The week before they had a number of photos they had to group together - one was an Israeli tank and a Palestinian boy that was put under `Oppression.'
This travesty is being perpetrated in `citizenship' lessons. The teacher who devised this question clearly is completely ignorant of international law, within which Israel acts, and is merely recycling the ideological equivalent of saloon-bar bigotry that passes for discourse about the Middle East in Britain. Thus the calibre of those entrusted to pass on to the next generation a sense of national identity grounded in the values of this country. Once, these values included truthfulness, integrity and academic rigour. No more. We are now a country where the uninformed are instructed by the bigoted. From the Olympian heights of Britain's once unsurpassed education system, which produced the fairest, gentlest and most rational society on earth, Britain's children are now being equipped instead to inhabit Planet Virulence, where ignorance, irrationality and injustice rule.
I warned from the very introduction of these `citizenship' lessons that they would become a vehicle for crude propaganda. So it has proved. The irony is that the government introduced them in the first place because it was so alarmed that British identity and values were being eroded from within in the face of the threat to the nation from without. Now we can see the result. British citizenship includes hatred of Israel by way of the propaganda of one of the Big Lies of history - the very same Big Lie that is fuelling the murderous onslaught on the western world.
Source
HURRAY! THE BBC'S NEW IMPARTIAL CLIMATE REPORTING
See it below:
US President George W Bush infuriated his critics by professing world leadership on climate change at his meeting of the top 16 world economies - while offering no new substantive policy and implicitly rejecting binding emissions controls. Mr Bush, who has been sceptical of climate change, said at the forum in Washington that our understanding of the science had moved on. He agreed that energy security and climate change were major challenges and pledged to solve both problems - but dismissed notions of despair. The American president said clean technologies like nuclear power and clean coal would protect the economy as well as the environment. He said the US wanted to work with the United Nations towards a long-term goal on greenhouse gases. He also proposed a new global fund from the US, Japan and Europe to channel clean technology to developing countries.
But some visiting delegates were outraged by what they said was a stream of spin running through the speech. One (who understandably asked not to be named) said: "This is a total charade. "The president has said he will lead on climate change but he won't agree binding emissions, while other nations will. "He says he will lead on technology but then he asks other countries to contribute funds, without saying how much he'll contribute himself. "It's humiliating for him - a total humiliation."
Some delegates were particularly upset by the extravagant invitation by Mr Bush for other nations to follow the US lead in cutting emissions while increasing the economy. Emissions did indeed buck the upward trend by dropping a fraction of 1% in the US during 2006 - but even the American government admits this was due to a warm winter, cool summer and an oil price they considered far too high.
Significantly, some of the visiting delegates indicated they were already planning for Mr Bush's departure from the White House. The Germans said they had spent the past two days in productive meetings with US Democrats. More diplomatically, the British said the issue of climate change stretched beyond any political cycle so it was natural to look ahead.
Certainly the Democrats are hoping to push an energy bill through the US Congress soon - maybe within the next few months. Mr Bush would then be forced to veto it to prevent it passing. And this may not prove popular as opinion polls in the US suggest the American people are more concerned about climate change than ever before.
Delegates, though, are not dismissing the Washington meeting out of hand. They say all talks on climate change bringing together the major economic powers are useful in some way - forging personal relationships and building trust. A number of delegates said the Chinese were becoming less defensive with every international meeting on climate - and that will be vital if China is to be helped to deal with its booming emissions.
And some said it was useful - albeit tedious - to hear American officials lecturing them with the very facts of climate change that they had been ignoring for years. The US has offered to continue this Washington process of discussions if it is deemed helpful by the United Nations. Mr Bush himself says he is organising a summit of world leaders next summer. Privately, some European delegates are already saying they hope their political leaders are not invited.
BBC News, 29 September 2007
Schools show the new make-up of Britain
White British schoolchildren are now a minority in parts of England, and make up just one in ten pupils in some areas, according to new government figures. The data from the Department for Children, Schools and Families reveals the extraordinary demographic changes that are taking place in 21st-century England and highlight dramatic variations in the ethnic make-up of the school population across England. They also show that more than one in ten pupils in primary and secondary schools in England do not have English as their mother tongue. This rises to more than half of primary pupils (53 per cent) in Central London.
As the numbers of nonwhite and non-native-speaking pupils are much higher in primary than in secondary schools, the figures also suggest that the full extent of current demographic changes in England's schools have yet to make themselves felt.
Damian Green, the Conservative immigration spokesman, said that the changes were putting an extra burden on teachers. What was important, he said, was whether or not these children arrived in school able to speak English. "If they can't, and they are being taught in overcrowded classrooms, this makes it much harder for teachers to do their job." The Conservatives have complained that schools do not always intervene early enough to teach pupils English, often preferring to teach them in their own languages initially.
The latest figures, from January 2007, show that more than a fifth of pupils are now of ethnic minority origin. Nationally, 21.9 per cent of primary school children are from ethnic minority backgrounds, up from 20.6 per cent in 2006. There was a similar rise in secondary schools. The figures also show that the number of primary school pupils who do not speak English as their first language increased by about 7 per cent on the 2006 figures to 447,000, or 13.5 per cent of the total. Figures for secondary schools showed a similar rise in the number of pupils not speaking English as their first language, to 342,000 or 10.5 per cent of the total.
The Government has said that English should be the main language of teaching in schools, and children should become fluent as quickly as possible. Research suggests that although pupils who are not native speakers struggle at first, most make up any lost ground by the time they reach secondary school.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, said that the Government had put guidance in place to help teachers to support children who have English as an additional language. He said that a new statutory duty on schools to promote community cohesion had focused the minds of head teachers on these issues. "Schools are the building blocks of our communities so it's vital that they promote tolerance, respect and understanding across society," Mr Knight said.
Source
NHS failure on allegies
An epidemic of allergic diseases is sweeping Britain while treatments languish and people's lives are blighted, according to an influential House of Lords committee. Britain is "the laughing stock of Europe" for its neglect of treatments that work and are routinely used elsewhere, said Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, who chaired an investigation by the Science and Technology Committee.
Allergies - which include hay fever, asthma, some skin conditions and peanut allergy - are often poorly diagnosed by GPs, who lack facilities to which they can refer patients for proper testing. As a result, many allergy patients go untreated while others go through life convinced that they are suffering from allergies they do not have. Waiting lists for the few allergy clinics that exist are long, and would be longer still if the many neglected patients could be referred to them.
Teachers are poorly trained to deal with allergic emergencies, the food industry is lax about labelling foods that have the potential to kill and advice given by the Department of Health to pregnant women to avoid peanuts is baseless - and could even be making the situation worse.
Lady Finlay said that her committee was extremely alarmed by the advice to pregnant women, and to children from families with a history of allergy, to avoid peanuts. "Academics and clinicians have told us that a growing body of evidence suggested this guidance may not only be failing to prevent peanut allergy, but might even be counterproductive," she said.
It was possible that exposure to peanuts in the womb or when young could prevent peanut allergy rather than cause it. The evidence did not justify the advice the department was giving, and it should be withdrawn. In parts of the developing world where groundnuts were used in a "soup" for weaning babies, there had not been the explosion in the number of people allergic to peanuts, she said.
The committee recommended setting up a network of centres headed by an allergist and staffed by other specialists such as immunologists, dermatologists, paediatricians, gastroenterologists and chest medicine specialists. It also called for an overhaul of food labelling regulations to improve on "vague and defensive" information such as "may contain nuts".
Allergies cost the NHS in England 1 billion a year for drugs and treatment, and the cost to the economy of asthma alone is o2.3 billion a year. Millions of people suffer allergies: 3.3 million suffer hay fever at some time in their lives and 5.7 million have asthma. Food allergies kill about 20 people a year through the severe reaction called anaphylactic shock.
Lady Finlay called for increased funding for research. The recommendation was welcomed by Stephen Holgate, of the University of Southampton, a leading expert. He said: "We need new environmental research, trying to find out what it is about our environment that causes allergies. We need to set up proper studies. This is the fourth report in recent years to criticise UK allergy treatments."
The National Allergy Strategy Group said that the four reports had said much the same. "But the department has not acted to bring about change. Unless strategic health authorities and primary care trusts are directed to develop services, patient care will not improve." The committee said more use should be made of immuno-therapy, where people are exposed to small doses of the substance that causes a reaction to "desensitise" them.
Source
British Leftists to destroy the navy that Napoleon and Hitler could not: "Ministers have drawn up confidential proposals to slash the number of ships in the Royal Navy, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose. The expected reductions follow a fierce row between Service chiefs and the Treasury over defence spending. The Ministry of Defence has produced a plan to decommission five warships from next April, which would reduce the Navy's capability to the level where it could carry out only "one small-scale operation".
