Sunday, September 30, 2007
Britain: Number of failing schools jumps 18 per cent in a year
The number of all schools judged to be failing rose by 18 per cent between the summer terms last year and this after changes to the inspection regime. Government figures show that 246 schools were in "special measures" by the end of last term, up from 208 at the end of the previous year. The rise was sharpest for primary schools, with 181 in special measures, up from 137 last year. The increase reflects the introduction of an inspection regime that has allowed many more schools to be inspected, to tougher new standards.Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, said that 2.7 per cent of the 6,100 schools inspected had been in special measures, compared with 2.2 per cent of the 8,300 schools inspected this year.
Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said schools in special measures must improve within one year or face closure, but emphasised that fewer schools were failing now than ten years ago. Separate figures showed that hundreds of primary schools were unable to appoint permanent head teachers this year. A government analysis found 520 nursery and primary schools had filled head teacher posts on a temporary basis.
Meanwhile, plans for job-related diplomas to run alongside A levels suffered a setback yesterday when nearly half of the country's leading independent schools said that they would not introduce them. The new specialist diplomas, for 14 to 19-year-olds, have been heralded by the Government as the most important education reform in 40 years. Starting from next September, they will combine practical work experience with academic study.
Ministers and officials have emphasised that the diplomas' credibility rests heavily on their acceptance by employers, universities and parents. But a survey of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference group of independent schools yesterday revealed that only two members were considering them seriously.Private schools have been deterred by widespread concerns that the diplomas will not be ready in time and by flaws in their development.
Source
The number of all schools judged to be failing rose by 18 per cent between the summer terms last year and this after changes to the inspection regime. Government figures show that 246 schools were in "special measures" by the end of last term, up from 208 at the end of the previous year. The rise was sharpest for primary schools, with 181 in special measures, up from 137 last year. The increase reflects the introduction of an inspection regime that has allowed many more schools to be inspected, to tougher new standards.Ofsted, the schools inspectorate, said that 2.7 per cent of the 6,100 schools inspected had been in special measures, compared with 2.2 per cent of the 8,300 schools inspected this year.
Lord Adonis, the Schools Minister, said schools in special measures must improve within one year or face closure, but emphasised that fewer schools were failing now than ten years ago. Separate figures showed that hundreds of primary schools were unable to appoint permanent head teachers this year. A government analysis found 520 nursery and primary schools had filled head teacher posts on a temporary basis.
Meanwhile, plans for job-related diplomas to run alongside A levels suffered a setback yesterday when nearly half of the country's leading independent schools said that they would not introduce them. The new specialist diplomas, for 14 to 19-year-olds, have been heralded by the Government as the most important education reform in 40 years. Starting from next September, they will combine practical work experience with academic study.
Ministers and officials have emphasised that the diplomas' credibility rests heavily on their acceptance by employers, universities and parents. But a survey of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference group of independent schools yesterday revealed that only two members were considering them seriously.Private schools have been deterred by widespread concerns that the diplomas will not be ready in time and by flaws in their development.
Source
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Stupid bird flu hype
Your "objective" BBC again
Somehow I missed it, but a BBC video from June of this year, now available on YouTube, is the most alarmist thing I have seen or read on pandemic avian flu. "If you were a terrorist wanting to design a biologic weapon, you couldn't do better than designing a virus like this," claims Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic within the first few seconds. "This is really nature's bio-terrorism." Later he informs us that, "The best scientific evidence is that one or two mutations will be enough to allow this virus to attach easily to human cells and thereby spread from one human to another."
We know now, from the research of David Finkelstein and his colleagues, it would actually take 11 or 12 mutations. Perhaps news of this research hadn't reached Poland in time, but his "best scientific evidence" is a pure fabrication.
Poland also informs us that what "really sent chills through the spines of virologists and vaccinologists, was the recognition that this virus [avian flu H5N1] had now jumped species from birds into mammals." Doubtful. Birds and non-human mammals (particularly swine, apparently) appear to play a vital role in each year's seasonal influenza. A team of researchers led by St. Jude's Robert Webster wrote in the journal Virology that, "most of the influenza virus genes that have appeared in mammalian gene pools over the past 30 years have been shown ultimately to have an avian origin."
Yes, some people will do or say anything to appear on the "telly."
Repeatedly the fear-umentary makes bizarre personifications of the virus, with the narrator more than once insisting the virus seeks "world domination." A Scots doctor tells us, "The human population has never been faced by a virus like this before. This is an utterly evil virus." Do these tiny pieces of protein come complete with Adolf Hitler mustaches?
The narrator also claims, "The virus has started to jump from birds to humans." Actually, the first reported bird-to-human cases were in 1997. It's said that Europeans have a longer view than Americans, but I suspect even Britons wouldn't consider events of a decade ago to be "just." The only "just" aspect of this video is that it's just plain awful.
Source
Are you sustainability literate?
British universities must now teach students how to live a 'sustainable life'. It sounds nice, until you notice the implications for academic freedom
The three `Rs' are making a comeback in our universities. But far from meaning `reading, writing and arithmetic', they now stand for `reducing, reusing and recycling'. In place of old-fashioned literacy, we have a new goal for education: sustainability literacy. The term was first coined by the environmental consultancy Forum for the Future, an organisation that has worked extensively with the higher education sector in recent years in exploring the implications of sustainable development. They suggest that a sustainability literate person is someone who understands the need for sustainable development, has the abilities to act in favour of it, and can recognise others' decisions and actions that favour it (1).
Leading advocates of sustainability literacy are vague about content, preferring to accentuate the need for people to be `aware' of the agenda and act on it in all aspects of their lives. The influential Centre for Sustainable Futures at Plymouth University, for example, aims for students to `leave with the values and skills and knowledge to drive the sustainability agenda forward in their personal and professional lives'. The vice-chancellor of Bradford University hopes that sustainability literacy will bring about `pro-sustainability behavioural change' amongst students (2).
Sustainability literacy as policy
Though the demand for environmental education began in the early 1990s (3), the process has gathered pace in recent years. Most notably, in 2003 the Department for Education and Skills launched the Sustainable Development Action Plan. Objective one from the plan states that: `all learners will develop the skills, knowledge and value base to be active citizens in creating a more sustainable society' (4).
In 2005, the government-sponsored lecturers' body, the Higher Education Academy (HEA), commissioned research on `embedding education for sustainable development in higher education' (5). The HEA seeks to `assist institutions and subject communities in their development of curricula and pedagogy to equip students with the skills and knowledge to live and work sustainably' (6). Sustainability literacy is now identified as a `core competency' for graduates by government.
A quick look at the `learning outcomes' often quoted for sustainability literacy confirms an emphasis on changing moral attitudes and behaviour rather than improving education. These outcomes comprise: increased caring about the future of society and intergenerational equality; empowerment of students and a heightened belief that they can make a difference; and increased personal willingness to participate in solving societal and environmental problems. Elsewhere, discussions on promoting sustainability literacy feature references to `raising awareness', `changing value bases' and even `winning hearts and minds'. As such, the promotion of sustainability literacy calls into question the character of education on offer in the modern university. Should universities see it as their aim to bring about `behavioural change' through `changing value bases'? Shouldn't students, based on their exposure to ideas, decide such things for themselves?
Sustainability literacy moves seamlessly from `awareness' to prescribing action. For example, the HEA subject centre for history, classics and archaeology expresses a view central to sustainability literacy, that `education about sustainable development should go hand in hand with education for sustainable development'. (7)
Leaving aside what sustainable development has to do with classics, why not simply educate rather than advocate? The overt promotion of sustainability (whatever it might be taken to mean) as the holy grail will only discourage students from raising doubts and differences of opinion because sustainability will be seen as the official line of the university.
The need for a new pedagogy?
Sustainability literacy is often presented as a necessary compensation for the deficiencies of existing disciplines that may not be equipped or may not have moved to address environmental critiques of economic growth (8). The disciplines are argued to be `too narrow' to cope with the broad character of the environmental crisis.
The 1992 United Nations Summit on Environment and Development (the Rio Earth Summit) is widely regarded as the moment when sustainable development become orthodoxy. But well before this point, many disciplines had developed schools of thought that sought to engage with the perception and reality of environmental problems.
For example, within economics, most often criticised for its `narrow' approach to resource use, `ecological economics' was pioneered in the 1970s, as a way to factor the environment into economic calculations. The concept of `natural capital' enabled nature to acquire a value through its non-use, rather than through its consumption in the process of development. Prior to that, the concept of `externalities', and the role of the state in dealing with these, provided a way to examine the environmental impacts of economic activity.
In fact, the growth of concern with the environment has run parallel to a growing set of associated ideas and theories in sociology, geography, management and elsewhere. The triple bottom line of `economy, environment and culture' is already in evidence, across the board, in higher education.
It is therefore disingenuous to say the university, via its curriculum, is a supporter of a narrow outlook. Collegiality and open debate have ensured that the disciplines adapt to, and influence, changing times. It is important that universities remain places where we can argue the toss over issues such as nuclear power, GM food, anti-globalisation protests, the merits of cheap flights, and even the efficacy of sustainable development itself, with neither side requiring the official backing of their institution or of self-appointed guardians of the curriculum.
What of the naysayers?
Advocates of sustainability literacy often argue that those who disagree are naysayers who need to be shown the error of their ways (as opposed to people with ideas to be argued against). One discussion document from the University of Hertfordshire refers (not untypically) to the need for `carrots and sticks' to get backsliders into line (9).
Apart from the patronising tone, this could have implications for academic freedom. `Carrots and sticks' are `bribes and threats' to think the right way and do the right thing. Is that healthy for a university? What about those dissenting voices, that minority of academics (and students) who feel, and are prepared to argue, that the concept of sustainability is problematic, or who feel it represents a backward step rather than progress? What about respected academics who see `consumerism' (frequently cited as a key area for behavioural change by advocates of sustainability literacy) as a good thing, or who do not think that industrial carbon emissions are a significant factor in climate change?
With regard to rural development in the developing world, a subject I have published on myself, I often find myself in the camp of the `backsliders'. In the rural developing world, `sustainable development' often means very little development at all. Perhaps I should attend a workshop to `self-review' my `core standards', a process that has been openly argued for in one University's documentation on developing sustainable literacy.
A new etiquette
One university, as part of launching a drive for sustainability literacy, organised a `sustainable lunch', with food that was local, fairly traded and organic. This small example is typical of the understated but clear agenda of sustainability literacy - small-scale and organic food, especially when sold at farmers markets, are good, whilst genetically modified food and supermarkets are bad. Academics can, and frequently do, take sides on such issues, which is a healthy situation to be in. Yet the etiquette of sustainability literacy marks out some positions as running counter to an educational and social imperative that all universities are to uphold.
It is certainly true that there is a strong consensus around some things that tend to be considered `sustainable development'. For example, the belief that human emissions of greenhouse gases are leading to climate change is widely held, along with the assumption that the proper response is to reduce such emissions. Equally, there are other aspects of sustainability literacy that invite considerable contestation, such as localism, organic agriculture and challenging consumerism.
But even if a position is considered received wisdom for 99 per cent of academics, there are strong reasons to object to universities taking a moral stance on the views and behaviour that graduates should adopt. Universities should teach. They will reflect the prevailing body of knowledge, and they should aim to encourage students to question received wisdoms and orthodoxies. They should trust undergraduates to act and live as they choose, based upon what they have gleaned of the world through their studies and beyond.
And this is where I think that anyone - from the deepest green to the biggest champion of acquisitive growth - should be against the drive for sustainability literacy. Ideas, agendas and moral imperatives should stand or fall through an open ended, rigorous enquiry. The university is the institution that can ensure this takes place. Yet it is clear that for those promoting sustainability literacy, the agenda is about universities, as public institutions, taking a clear position on the political issue of development. Once that is enshrined in the public pronouncements or private articles of a university, then the university has diminished its commitment to open-ended academic enquiry. That bodes no good either for those who take the environmental crisis to be immanent, or for those who suspect that the planet is robust; the majority who accept that global warming is a product of human industry, or those who doubt this wisdom.
Finally, it is worthy of note that the rise of environmental education, most recently in the form of sustainability literacy, seems to parallel a decline in scientific literacy. It is far more likely to be scientists, experts in their respective fields, who produce solutions to environmental problems. A promotion of scientific literacy would be a far more worthy aim for today's academics than moralising about how we should live our lives.
Source
Your "objective" BBC again
Somehow I missed it, but a BBC video from June of this year, now available on YouTube, is the most alarmist thing I have seen or read on pandemic avian flu. "If you were a terrorist wanting to design a biologic weapon, you couldn't do better than designing a virus like this," claims Dr. Gregory Poland of the Mayo Clinic within the first few seconds. "This is really nature's bio-terrorism." Later he informs us that, "The best scientific evidence is that one or two mutations will be enough to allow this virus to attach easily to human cells and thereby spread from one human to another."
We know now, from the research of David Finkelstein and his colleagues, it would actually take 11 or 12 mutations. Perhaps news of this research hadn't reached Poland in time, but his "best scientific evidence" is a pure fabrication.
Poland also informs us that what "really sent chills through the spines of virologists and vaccinologists, was the recognition that this virus [avian flu H5N1] had now jumped species from birds into mammals." Doubtful. Birds and non-human mammals (particularly swine, apparently) appear to play a vital role in each year's seasonal influenza. A team of researchers led by St. Jude's Robert Webster wrote in the journal Virology that, "most of the influenza virus genes that have appeared in mammalian gene pools over the past 30 years have been shown ultimately to have an avian origin."
Yes, some people will do or say anything to appear on the "telly."
Repeatedly the fear-umentary makes bizarre personifications of the virus, with the narrator more than once insisting the virus seeks "world domination." A Scots doctor tells us, "The human population has never been faced by a virus like this before. This is an utterly evil virus." Do these tiny pieces of protein come complete with Adolf Hitler mustaches?
The narrator also claims, "The virus has started to jump from birds to humans." Actually, the first reported bird-to-human cases were in 1997. It's said that Europeans have a longer view than Americans, but I suspect even Britons wouldn't consider events of a decade ago to be "just." The only "just" aspect of this video is that it's just plain awful.
Source
Are you sustainability literate?
British universities must now teach students how to live a 'sustainable life'. It sounds nice, until you notice the implications for academic freedom
The three `Rs' are making a comeback in our universities. But far from meaning `reading, writing and arithmetic', they now stand for `reducing, reusing and recycling'. In place of old-fashioned literacy, we have a new goal for education: sustainability literacy. The term was first coined by the environmental consultancy Forum for the Future, an organisation that has worked extensively with the higher education sector in recent years in exploring the implications of sustainable development. They suggest that a sustainability literate person is someone who understands the need for sustainable development, has the abilities to act in favour of it, and can recognise others' decisions and actions that favour it (1).
Leading advocates of sustainability literacy are vague about content, preferring to accentuate the need for people to be `aware' of the agenda and act on it in all aspects of their lives. The influential Centre for Sustainable Futures at Plymouth University, for example, aims for students to `leave with the values and skills and knowledge to drive the sustainability agenda forward in their personal and professional lives'. The vice-chancellor of Bradford University hopes that sustainability literacy will bring about `pro-sustainability behavioural change' amongst students (2).
Sustainability literacy as policy
Though the demand for environmental education began in the early 1990s (3), the process has gathered pace in recent years. Most notably, in 2003 the Department for Education and Skills launched the Sustainable Development Action Plan. Objective one from the plan states that: `all learners will develop the skills, knowledge and value base to be active citizens in creating a more sustainable society' (4).
In 2005, the government-sponsored lecturers' body, the Higher Education Academy (HEA), commissioned research on `embedding education for sustainable development in higher education' (5). The HEA seeks to `assist institutions and subject communities in their development of curricula and pedagogy to equip students with the skills and knowledge to live and work sustainably' (6). Sustainability literacy is now identified as a `core competency' for graduates by government.
A quick look at the `learning outcomes' often quoted for sustainability literacy confirms an emphasis on changing moral attitudes and behaviour rather than improving education. These outcomes comprise: increased caring about the future of society and intergenerational equality; empowerment of students and a heightened belief that they can make a difference; and increased personal willingness to participate in solving societal and environmental problems. Elsewhere, discussions on promoting sustainability literacy feature references to `raising awareness', `changing value bases' and even `winning hearts and minds'. As such, the promotion of sustainability literacy calls into question the character of education on offer in the modern university. Should universities see it as their aim to bring about `behavioural change' through `changing value bases'? Shouldn't students, based on their exposure to ideas, decide such things for themselves?
Sustainability literacy moves seamlessly from `awareness' to prescribing action. For example, the HEA subject centre for history, classics and archaeology expresses a view central to sustainability literacy, that `education about sustainable development should go hand in hand with education for sustainable development'. (7)
Leaving aside what sustainable development has to do with classics, why not simply educate rather than advocate? The overt promotion of sustainability (whatever it might be taken to mean) as the holy grail will only discourage students from raising doubts and differences of opinion because sustainability will be seen as the official line of the university.
The need for a new pedagogy?
Sustainability literacy is often presented as a necessary compensation for the deficiencies of existing disciplines that may not be equipped or may not have moved to address environmental critiques of economic growth (8). The disciplines are argued to be `too narrow' to cope with the broad character of the environmental crisis.
The 1992 United Nations Summit on Environment and Development (the Rio Earth Summit) is widely regarded as the moment when sustainable development become orthodoxy. But well before this point, many disciplines had developed schools of thought that sought to engage with the perception and reality of environmental problems.
For example, within economics, most often criticised for its `narrow' approach to resource use, `ecological economics' was pioneered in the 1970s, as a way to factor the environment into economic calculations. The concept of `natural capital' enabled nature to acquire a value through its non-use, rather than through its consumption in the process of development. Prior to that, the concept of `externalities', and the role of the state in dealing with these, provided a way to examine the environmental impacts of economic activity.
In fact, the growth of concern with the environment has run parallel to a growing set of associated ideas and theories in sociology, geography, management and elsewhere. The triple bottom line of `economy, environment and culture' is already in evidence, across the board, in higher education.
It is therefore disingenuous to say the university, via its curriculum, is a supporter of a narrow outlook. Collegiality and open debate have ensured that the disciplines adapt to, and influence, changing times. It is important that universities remain places where we can argue the toss over issues such as nuclear power, GM food, anti-globalisation protests, the merits of cheap flights, and even the efficacy of sustainable development itself, with neither side requiring the official backing of their institution or of self-appointed guardians of the curriculum.
What of the naysayers?
Advocates of sustainability literacy often argue that those who disagree are naysayers who need to be shown the error of their ways (as opposed to people with ideas to be argued against). One discussion document from the University of Hertfordshire refers (not untypically) to the need for `carrots and sticks' to get backsliders into line (9).
Apart from the patronising tone, this could have implications for academic freedom. `Carrots and sticks' are `bribes and threats' to think the right way and do the right thing. Is that healthy for a university? What about those dissenting voices, that minority of academics (and students) who feel, and are prepared to argue, that the concept of sustainability is problematic, or who feel it represents a backward step rather than progress? What about respected academics who see `consumerism' (frequently cited as a key area for behavioural change by advocates of sustainability literacy) as a good thing, or who do not think that industrial carbon emissions are a significant factor in climate change?
With regard to rural development in the developing world, a subject I have published on myself, I often find myself in the camp of the `backsliders'. In the rural developing world, `sustainable development' often means very little development at all. Perhaps I should attend a workshop to `self-review' my `core standards', a process that has been openly argued for in one University's documentation on developing sustainable literacy.
A new etiquette
One university, as part of launching a drive for sustainability literacy, organised a `sustainable lunch', with food that was local, fairly traded and organic. This small example is typical of the understated but clear agenda of sustainability literacy - small-scale and organic food, especially when sold at farmers markets, are good, whilst genetically modified food and supermarkets are bad. Academics can, and frequently do, take sides on such issues, which is a healthy situation to be in. Yet the etiquette of sustainability literacy marks out some positions as running counter to an educational and social imperative that all universities are to uphold.
It is certainly true that there is a strong consensus around some things that tend to be considered `sustainable development'. For example, the belief that human emissions of greenhouse gases are leading to climate change is widely held, along with the assumption that the proper response is to reduce such emissions. Equally, there are other aspects of sustainability literacy that invite considerable contestation, such as localism, organic agriculture and challenging consumerism.
But even if a position is considered received wisdom for 99 per cent of academics, there are strong reasons to object to universities taking a moral stance on the views and behaviour that graduates should adopt. Universities should teach. They will reflect the prevailing body of knowledge, and they should aim to encourage students to question received wisdoms and orthodoxies. They should trust undergraduates to act and live as they choose, based upon what they have gleaned of the world through their studies and beyond.
And this is where I think that anyone - from the deepest green to the biggest champion of acquisitive growth - should be against the drive for sustainability literacy. Ideas, agendas and moral imperatives should stand or fall through an open ended, rigorous enquiry. The university is the institution that can ensure this takes place. Yet it is clear that for those promoting sustainability literacy, the agenda is about universities, as public institutions, taking a clear position on the political issue of development. Once that is enshrined in the public pronouncements or private articles of a university, then the university has diminished its commitment to open-ended academic enquiry. That bodes no good either for those who take the environmental crisis to be immanent, or for those who suspect that the planet is robust; the majority who accept that global warming is a product of human industry, or those who doubt this wisdom.
Finally, it is worthy of note that the rise of environmental education, most recently in the form of sustainability literacy, seems to parallel a decline in scientific literacy. It is far more likely to be scientists, experts in their respective fields, who produce solutions to environmental problems. A promotion of scientific literacy would be a far more worthy aim for today's academics than moralising about how we should live our lives.
Source
Friday, September 28, 2007
Orwell lives: 'Rewrite British history to reflect other cultures'
Parts of British history need to be rewritten to emphasise the roles played by other races and religions like Muslims, a prominent race relations campaigner has said. Trevor Philips, the chairman of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, said the history of Britain did not properly reflect the contribution of other cultures. Rewriting the country's history would demonstrate to Britons in the 21st century how other groups apart from Anglo Saxons shaped the nation.
He told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference: "We may need to revisit our national story - we want to rewrite that story to tell the whole story." The rewriting should start with the story of how the English fleet led by Sir Francis Drake fought off the Spanish Armada in 1588, he said. The important role played by the Muslim Turks, who delayed the sailing of the Spanish fleet so that the English ships were better prepared, had been airbrushed out of the story however. Mr Phillips said: "When we talk about the Armada, it was the Turks who saved us because they held up the Armada after a request from Elizabeth I. "Let's rewrite that, so we have an ideal that brings us together so that it can bind us together in stormy times ahead in the next century." [There is in fact no evidence that the Turks took any action to trouble Spain at the time concerned]
Mr Phillips, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, declined to offer any other examples of parts of British history that should be rewritten. He also said that he supported a campaign by the musician Billy Bragg for a new written constitution to define what it means to be British in the 21st century. "We have to have an expression that is native and right for us," he said. "We have to have a more explicit set of understandings under which we can all live together."
Mr Phillips, who was educated at Queen's College Boys School in Guyana, also suggested that there should be a set celebration for when people were given British nationality. Nationality lessons were necessary because people were moving around the country more than ever before, providing less opportunities to integrate. Last year 6.5 million people moved house, he said. Earlier this week Mr Phillips said that economic migrants could be forced to make a bigger contribution to the cost of public services. Mr Phillips said that some migrants who stay in the UK only for a short time should pay more for the use of schools and hospitals.
Source
Another response to Britain's dumbed-down high school examinations
A new alternative to the A level will enable universities and employers better to identify the brightest students by replacing the grade A with three different achievement bands. The Pre-U examination, being developed by Cambridge University amid concern over the suitability of A levels for preparing students for university, will award nine grades or bands, four more than the A to E grades offered by A levels. The Pre-U has already won backing from private schools such as Eton, Rugby and Winchester, which confirmed yesterday that they would introduce it from September next year.
But schools were told yesterday that many universities would not accept the qualification unless it was widely adopted in state schools as well. Michael Whitby, pro vice-chancellor of Warwick University, speaking on behalf of the Russell Group of 20 elite universities and 1994 Group of 19 universities, said that the Pre-U must not be allowed to entrench the considerable advantage that private schools already held over university admissions. "If the Pre-U were to be confined to an elite of private schools, then there would be issues for admission tutors in many universities," he told a conference of head teachers.
Professor Whitby suggested that private schools should work with local state schools, particularly disadvantaged ones, to help them to introduce the Pre-U. "If [the Pre-U] doesn't get spread [to state schools] then we will continue to focus on the A-level A grade and A*," he said. "It is therefore incumbent on CIE [Cambridge International Examinations] and on the Etons of this world to go the extra mile and the extra two miles to bring local state schools on board," he said.
Professor Whitby's comments reflect concerns of some head teachers, who have given warning that the schools system in England is at risk of drifting into "educational apartheid", with different examination systems for pupils in state and independent schools. Kevin Stannard, of CIE, which is developing the new qualification, agreed that the Pre-U could not be justified if it were only available in private schools, adding there was strong interest in it in the state sector.
The Pre-U will involve a return to final exams after two years of study, rather than the bite-sized modules of A levels, which can be endlessly retaken. The Pre-U diploma will be worth the equivalent of 4« A levels and will involve study of three subjects. Students will also have to complete an independent research report and a global perspectives project. Pupils will be able to substitute A-level subjects for two of their three Pre-U subject certificates. Alternatively, any of the 26 Pre-U subjects can be taken separately in much the same way as A Levels.
Pre-U candidates will be expected to put in 400 hours of learning for each subject, 10 per cent more than is expected of pupils for A levels. The extra study time is made possible because pupils will not have to prepare for AS exams half way through their sixth-form studies, as the PreU will be examined at the end of the course in June. Pupils will be awarded one of nine grades: D1 (Distinction 1), D2, D3, M1 (Merit 1), M2, M3, P1 (Pass 1), P2, P3.
Dr Stannard said he expected that only a small minority would gain the top D1 mark, which will be higher even than the new A* grade being introduced in 2010 for A-level candidates who score more than 90 per cent. Details of the new qualification were released yesterday as the Government confirmed that regulation of the exam system in England is to be put in the hands of an independent watchdog to counter criticism that GCSEs and A levels are getting easier. The new body will be split from the existing Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, has announced.
Source
BRITISH GOVERNMENT: BINDING TARGETS FOR USA, FREE RIDE FOR CHINA
Britain pointedly called on the United States yesterday to join other rich nations making binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as dozens of world leaders held a summit on the danger of catastrophic climate change. Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, told the meeting at United Nations headquarters that "the greatest challenge we have ever faced as human beings" required action from every developed nation. "That means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the United States, taking on binding reduction targets," he said. "It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening."
Mr Benn's decision to single out the US during a visit to New York will be regarded in Washington as particularly provocative. President Bush skipped most of the UN meeting yesterday and was planning to attend only a working dinner last night. He has called his own two-day meeting of 15 major economies in Washington later in the week. Although he has abandoned his previous scepticism about man-made climate change and promises to negotiate a "long-term global goal" for cutting emissions, Mr Bush still envisages countries entering framework agreements voluntarily.
"It's our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be," said James Connaughton, the President's chief environmental adviser. The White House remains hostile to international measures such as a cap-and-trade system on emissions, which might increase electricity bills for ordinary Americans, with Mr Connaughton questioning whether a "woman on fixed income in Ohio should pay for carbon dioxide reductions in the oil sector".
European diplomatic sources are complaining privately that Mr Bush's agenda is too limited and threatens to undermine their attempt for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which was never ratified by the US. Some say that they are already looking "beyond Bush" towards the 2008 presidential elections. Elizabeth Bast, spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, said: "The US must join the rest of the world in tackling climate change within the United Nations framework, instead of promoting purely voluntary measures that will not achieve necessary emissions reductions."
The UN has tried to smooth over the potential conflict with Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, accepting an invitation to attend the Washington meeting. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, represented the Bush Administration in the main session of the UN summit. But Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Governor, upstaged her with his own appearance. "It is time we came together in a new international agreement that can be embraced by rich and poor nations alike," he said. "California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action."
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, claimed there was now "universal recognition" that the UN provided the right forum for negotiating global action. "The message is simple: we know enough to act; if we do not act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating."
Mr Benn said that a scheduled UN conference on climate change in Bali in December should start negotiations leading to an agreement by the end of 2009 on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. "The ultimate objective of the UN convention on climate change requires at least a halving of global emissions by the middle of this century," he said. At a breakfast appearance before the summit, the Environment Secretary said that he welcomed the "evolving" thinking on global warming by the United States. But he stopped short of calling for binding emissions targets for China's growing economy. "China in the end will have to decide what they are going to contribute," he said.
Source
GM: where the science doesn't count
Today's climate change activists pose as `defenders of science'. Yet not so long ago, they irrationally rejected the scientific truth about GM crops
Hold the front page: `There is no change in the government's policy towards GM crops', says Hilary Benn of Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Benn's statement was a reaction to yesterday's scaremongering frontpage story in the UK Guardian. The Guardian headline said `The return of GM', and the report claimed that `ministers back moves to grow crops in UK'
It is hard to remember now, but in 2000 environmental campaigners were protesting all over the country, organising meetings and debates and breaking into premises, all to draw the public's attention to the dangers represented by. genetically modified organisms - crops, mainly. Lord Melchett, himself a former Labour cabinet minister turned Greenpeace activist, tore up GM crops. (My grandfather slaved away for his father at Imperial Chemicals Industries, dying young, as many did, because of the way the chemical fumes tended to accelerate your heart rate, leading to the `Tuesday death'. GM crops would help alleviate the need to use these kinds of chemicals.)
The GM debate was remarkable. In quite a short time, environmental campaigners brought to the surface intense public anxieties about the industrialisation of the food chain. Just before the debate about the introduction of GM foods, there had been another public health scare when one government scientist, Dr Robert Lacey, warned that by 1997 one third of Britain could be infected with the debilitating brain illness Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), from eating beef contaminated with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-inducing prions. As it turned out, you were about as likely to die of CJD as you were to be struck by lightning, and there is still no proven link with it and BSE - but public distrust of authority was at an all-time high.
There was no real argument against GM food. But people felt very disconnected from the authorities, having little faith in the public pronouncements that there was no risk. That alone was enough to make most people alarmed. Opportunistically, environmental campaigners realised that they could gain influence by stoking public fears. Activists like journalist Andy Rowell, language-school head Jonathan Matthews of the Norfolk Genetic Interest Network, the Open University academic Mae-Wan Ho, and the Guardian's George Monbiot stirred up a fantastic picture of rogue genes causing all kinds of extraordinary mutations as they passed through the food chain, or as they were carried on the wind from test-beds into `healthy' British meadows.
Of course, there was no scientific evidence whatsoever. The absence of even one example of a negative health impact from the introduction of GM crops in the US put some pressure on the greens. They latched on to examples that really did not demonstrate any danger. Some oil was contaminated, leading to deaths - but it turned out it was nothing to do with GM. And then the Rowett Research Institute's Dr Arpad Pusztai did some experiments on GM lectins in potatoes that seemed to show negative consequences in rats. The press and the environmentalists latched on to the case - except that it only showed that the introduction of poisonous lectins into potatoes was bad for rats. When Pusztai was sacked for overstating the implications of his tests, GM campaigners adopted his case as a cause c,lSbre, only slowly coming to the conclusion that they had indeed overstated the dangers highlighted in Dr Pusztai's tests.
Meanwhile, another hero of the anti-GM lobby, Mae-Wan Ho, who had been involved in biotechnology in the Seventies, was largely preoccupied with the philosophical meaning of genetics rather than hands-on bio-science, and was interested in resurrecting the ideas of the disgraced Soviet biologist Lysenko, and also Bergson's vitalist cult.
GM activists came under pressure from scientists. In a public debate between George Monbiot and biologist Steve Jones, Jones denounced Monbiot as a charlatan (they have since made up). Andy Rowell attacked the scientists for being the mouthpieces of big business. The peer review of Arpad Pusztai's work was denounced as a cover for a hidden agenda to force GM food on an unsuspecting public. Scientific verification was not to be trusted, said the activists, who invoked a higher bar, the `precautionary principle', which puts the onus of proof on those introducing technology that it could do no harm in the future.
Provoking the public's deepest uncertainties about the food chain proved a great success. Supermarkets withdrew GM food from their shelves and made it effectively unmarketable. In 2004, the New Labour government conceded that even the scientific experiments - the rapeseed fields that Melchett had torn down - should be stopped.
The activists, though, were not entirely happy that they had painted themselves into a corner of outright hostility to scientific method. They knew that if their irrational rejection of science and the modern world was made too explicit, people would find it difficult to go along with. On the other hand, the scientists were pretty bruised, too. They were desperate to win back some of the authority they had lost by being portrayed as tools of big business and proto-Frankensteins out to poison the public. Their subsequent pursuit of `public understanding' turned out to mean lots of committees, often full of green activists, seeking to influence the scientists' agenda.
On the issue of climate change, scientists and environmentalists found more to agree on. As the international diplomatic manoeuvres engendered a new science of climate change, there was more influence for those scientists who lent their research to heavy-duty warnings of global catastrophe. The environmentalists were thrilled to find that the one community that had been most resistant to their ideas were now providing the ammunition.
Once environmentalists had routinely attacked science, drawing on the caricatures of the scientific method found in the Frankfurt school of sociology. Now they were defenders of science against the supposedly `irrational' climate change deniers. The radical academic Bruno Latour, who had made a career arguing that science was nothing more than an ideological construct that reflected the interests of the powers-that-be, suddenly changed his mind over the issue of climate change. Protesters against the new runway at Heathrow summed up the activists' changed attitude to science. They marched with a banner that read: `We are armed only with peer-reviewed science.'
The new, more positive attitude to science on the part of the environmentalists, though, is the reason why the previous issue of GM is still unresolved. The pressure for a return to GM testing in Britain comes from the National Farmers Union, which is lobbying to be allowed to introduce the latest biotechnology. Whether a minister did or did not talk to the Guardian over the weekend about reintroducing GM, the government's explicit position is that there will be no return to GM testing.
Still the activists are alarmed. They have an intuitive understanding that they got away with a lot when they committed the UK to outright opposition to GM testing. The decision was an outrage against scientific experimentation. The activists' arguments back then were a lot more hostile to science than they are today. The Guardian suggests that the pro-GM lobbyists, too, think that the debate has moved on, and that GM crops can be defended on grounds that they might be a solution to the problems raised by global warming. But whatever the reason, Britain should be engaged in GM testing - not because it can help with the problems of global warming, but because it is the right thing to do.
Source
NHS rationing rife, say doctors
Rationing of NHS treatments is becoming more widespread, a survey of GPs and hospital doctors suggests. Doctor magazine asked readers about rationing. Of 653 answering questions on consequences, 107 - 16% - said patients had died early as a result. More than half - 349 - said patients had suffered as a result. This compared with one in five in a similar survey conducted nine years ago. The government said decisions had to be made on which treatments to provide.
The magazine asked 12,000 of its readers a variety of questions with between 473 and 857 replying to each one. Doctors said more debate was urgently needed over what should and should not be rationed. They reported not being allowed to prescribe drug treatments including smoking cessation drugs and anti-obesity treatment. They also reported that local NHS trusts had been placing restrictions on fertility treatments, obesity surgery and a host of minor operations, including those for varicose veins.
The magazine said the findings of the latest poll showed rationing was becoming more widespread. A similar survey nine years ago showed that a much smaller proportion - one in five, compared to half - were aware of patients who had suffered due to rationing.
Rationing has become a sensitive subject in the NHS. Independent advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, makes recommendations on new, expensive treatments. But with limited budgets, local trusts are often forced to cut back on other treatments to keep pace with the recommendations. Many experts fear the situation will get worse with increasing demands on the health service made by the ageing population and expected advances in medicines.
Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, said: "There is not much honesty and openness about this. "The NHS could spend whatever you gave it, but it obviously works with a limited budget so we urgently need to have a debate about what can be provided. "Trusts are already being forced into this but the political parties are not talking about it."
And Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents NHS trusts, added: "Rationing is the great unspoken reality. "The only people who refuse to mention the 'r-word' are the media and the politicians, who continue to want to promise everything for everyone in order to win elections."
A Department of Health spokesman said it was not trying to avoid the issue. "The NHS has received an unprecedented funding boost in recent years but finance is not endless and hard decisions will always have to be made about which treatments to provide." But he added: "Doctors and nurses make these clinical decisions with patients - not managers or politicians."
Source
Parts of British history need to be rewritten to emphasise the roles played by other races and religions like Muslims, a prominent race relations campaigner has said. Trevor Philips, the chairman of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights, said the history of Britain did not properly reflect the contribution of other cultures. Rewriting the country's history would demonstrate to Britons in the 21st century how other groups apart from Anglo Saxons shaped the nation.
He told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference: "We may need to revisit our national story - we want to rewrite that story to tell the whole story." The rewriting should start with the story of how the English fleet led by Sir Francis Drake fought off the Spanish Armada in 1588, he said. The important role played by the Muslim Turks, who delayed the sailing of the Spanish fleet so that the English ships were better prepared, had been airbrushed out of the story however. Mr Phillips said: "When we talk about the Armada, it was the Turks who saved us because they held up the Armada after a request from Elizabeth I. "Let's rewrite that, so we have an ideal that brings us together so that it can bind us together in stormy times ahead in the next century." [There is in fact no evidence that the Turks took any action to trouble Spain at the time concerned]
Mr Phillips, the former chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, declined to offer any other examples of parts of British history that should be rewritten. He also said that he supported a campaign by the musician Billy Bragg for a new written constitution to define what it means to be British in the 21st century. "We have to have an expression that is native and right for us," he said. "We have to have a more explicit set of understandings under which we can all live together."
Mr Phillips, who was educated at Queen's College Boys School in Guyana, also suggested that there should be a set celebration for when people were given British nationality. Nationality lessons were necessary because people were moving around the country more than ever before, providing less opportunities to integrate. Last year 6.5 million people moved house, he said. Earlier this week Mr Phillips said that economic migrants could be forced to make a bigger contribution to the cost of public services. Mr Phillips said that some migrants who stay in the UK only for a short time should pay more for the use of schools and hospitals.
Source
Another response to Britain's dumbed-down high school examinations
A new alternative to the A level will enable universities and employers better to identify the brightest students by replacing the grade A with three different achievement bands. The Pre-U examination, being developed by Cambridge University amid concern over the suitability of A levels for preparing students for university, will award nine grades or bands, four more than the A to E grades offered by A levels. The Pre-U has already won backing from private schools such as Eton, Rugby and Winchester, which confirmed yesterday that they would introduce it from September next year.
But schools were told yesterday that many universities would not accept the qualification unless it was widely adopted in state schools as well. Michael Whitby, pro vice-chancellor of Warwick University, speaking on behalf of the Russell Group of 20 elite universities and 1994 Group of 19 universities, said that the Pre-U must not be allowed to entrench the considerable advantage that private schools already held over university admissions. "If the Pre-U were to be confined to an elite of private schools, then there would be issues for admission tutors in many universities," he told a conference of head teachers.
Professor Whitby suggested that private schools should work with local state schools, particularly disadvantaged ones, to help them to introduce the Pre-U. "If [the Pre-U] doesn't get spread [to state schools] then we will continue to focus on the A-level A grade and A*," he said. "It is therefore incumbent on CIE [Cambridge International Examinations] and on the Etons of this world to go the extra mile and the extra two miles to bring local state schools on board," he said.
Professor Whitby's comments reflect concerns of some head teachers, who have given warning that the schools system in England is at risk of drifting into "educational apartheid", with different examination systems for pupils in state and independent schools. Kevin Stannard, of CIE, which is developing the new qualification, agreed that the Pre-U could not be justified if it were only available in private schools, adding there was strong interest in it in the state sector.
The Pre-U will involve a return to final exams after two years of study, rather than the bite-sized modules of A levels, which can be endlessly retaken. The Pre-U diploma will be worth the equivalent of 4« A levels and will involve study of three subjects. Students will also have to complete an independent research report and a global perspectives project. Pupils will be able to substitute A-level subjects for two of their three Pre-U subject certificates. Alternatively, any of the 26 Pre-U subjects can be taken separately in much the same way as A Levels.
Pre-U candidates will be expected to put in 400 hours of learning for each subject, 10 per cent more than is expected of pupils for A levels. The extra study time is made possible because pupils will not have to prepare for AS exams half way through their sixth-form studies, as the PreU will be examined at the end of the course in June. Pupils will be awarded one of nine grades: D1 (Distinction 1), D2, D3, M1 (Merit 1), M2, M3, P1 (Pass 1), P2, P3.
Dr Stannard said he expected that only a small minority would gain the top D1 mark, which will be higher even than the new A* grade being introduced in 2010 for A-level candidates who score more than 90 per cent. Details of the new qualification were released yesterday as the Government confirmed that regulation of the exam system in England is to be put in the hands of an independent watchdog to counter criticism that GCSEs and A levels are getting easier. The new body will be split from the existing Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, has announced.
Source
BRITISH GOVERNMENT: BINDING TARGETS FOR USA, FREE RIDE FOR CHINA
Britain pointedly called on the United States yesterday to join other rich nations making binding cuts in greenhouse gas emissions as dozens of world leaders held a summit on the danger of catastrophic climate change. Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, told the meeting at United Nations headquarters that "the greatest challenge we have ever faced as human beings" required action from every developed nation. "That means all of us, including the largest economy in the world, the United States, taking on binding reduction targets," he said. "It is inconceivable that dangerous climate change can be avoided without this happening."
Mr Benn's decision to single out the US during a visit to New York will be regarded in Washington as particularly provocative. President Bush skipped most of the UN meeting yesterday and was planning to attend only a working dinner last night. He has called his own two-day meeting of 15 major economies in Washington later in the week. Although he has abandoned his previous scepticism about man-made climate change and promises to negotiate a "long-term global goal" for cutting emissions, Mr Bush still envisages countries entering framework agreements voluntarily.
"It's our philosophy that each nation has the sovereign capacity to decide for itself what its own portfolio of policies should be," said James Connaughton, the President's chief environmental adviser. The White House remains hostile to international measures such as a cap-and-trade system on emissions, which might increase electricity bills for ordinary Americans, with Mr Connaughton questioning whether a "woman on fixed income in Ohio should pay for carbon dioxide reductions in the oil sector".
European diplomatic sources are complaining privately that Mr Bush's agenda is too limited and threatens to undermine their attempt for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, which was never ratified by the US. Some say that they are already looking "beyond Bush" towards the 2008 presidential elections. Elizabeth Bast, spokeswoman for Friends of the Earth, said: "The US must join the rest of the world in tackling climate change within the United Nations framework, instead of promoting purely voluntary measures that will not achieve necessary emissions reductions."
The UN has tried to smooth over the potential conflict with Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, accepting an invitation to attend the Washington meeting. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, represented the Bush Administration in the main session of the UN summit. But Arnold Schwarzenegger, the California Governor, upstaged her with his own appearance. "It is time we came together in a new international agreement that can be embraced by rich and poor nations alike," he said. "California is moving the United States beyond debate and doubt to action."
Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, claimed there was now "universal recognition" that the UN provided the right forum for negotiating global action. "The message is simple: we know enough to act; if we do not act now, the impact of climate change will be devastating."
Mr Benn said that a scheduled UN conference on climate change in Bali in December should start negotiations leading to an agreement by the end of 2009 on greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol expires. "The ultimate objective of the UN convention on climate change requires at least a halving of global emissions by the middle of this century," he said. At a breakfast appearance before the summit, the Environment Secretary said that he welcomed the "evolving" thinking on global warming by the United States. But he stopped short of calling for binding emissions targets for China's growing economy. "China in the end will have to decide what they are going to contribute," he said.
Source
GM: where the science doesn't count
Today's climate change activists pose as `defenders of science'. Yet not so long ago, they irrationally rejected the scientific truth about GM crops
Hold the front page: `There is no change in the government's policy towards GM crops', says Hilary Benn of Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Benn's statement was a reaction to yesterday's scaremongering frontpage story in the UK Guardian. The Guardian headline said `The return of GM', and the report claimed that `ministers back moves to grow crops in UK'
It is hard to remember now, but in 2000 environmental campaigners were protesting all over the country, organising meetings and debates and breaking into premises, all to draw the public's attention to the dangers represented by. genetically modified organisms - crops, mainly. Lord Melchett, himself a former Labour cabinet minister turned Greenpeace activist, tore up GM crops. (My grandfather slaved away for his father at Imperial Chemicals Industries, dying young, as many did, because of the way the chemical fumes tended to accelerate your heart rate, leading to the `Tuesday death'. GM crops would help alleviate the need to use these kinds of chemicals.)
The GM debate was remarkable. In quite a short time, environmental campaigners brought to the surface intense public anxieties about the industrialisation of the food chain. Just before the debate about the introduction of GM foods, there had been another public health scare when one government scientist, Dr Robert Lacey, warned that by 1997 one third of Britain could be infected with the debilitating brain illness Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), from eating beef contaminated with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-inducing prions. As it turned out, you were about as likely to die of CJD as you were to be struck by lightning, and there is still no proven link with it and BSE - but public distrust of authority was at an all-time high.
There was no real argument against GM food. But people felt very disconnected from the authorities, having little faith in the public pronouncements that there was no risk. That alone was enough to make most people alarmed. Opportunistically, environmental campaigners realised that they could gain influence by stoking public fears. Activists like journalist Andy Rowell, language-school head Jonathan Matthews of the Norfolk Genetic Interest Network, the Open University academic Mae-Wan Ho, and the Guardian's George Monbiot stirred up a fantastic picture of rogue genes causing all kinds of extraordinary mutations as they passed through the food chain, or as they were carried on the wind from test-beds into `healthy' British meadows.
Of course, there was no scientific evidence whatsoever. The absence of even one example of a negative health impact from the introduction of GM crops in the US put some pressure on the greens. They latched on to examples that really did not demonstrate any danger. Some oil was contaminated, leading to deaths - but it turned out it was nothing to do with GM. And then the Rowett Research Institute's Dr Arpad Pusztai did some experiments on GM lectins in potatoes that seemed to show negative consequences in rats. The press and the environmentalists latched on to the case - except that it only showed that the introduction of poisonous lectins into potatoes was bad for rats. When Pusztai was sacked for overstating the implications of his tests, GM campaigners adopted his case as a cause c,lSbre, only slowly coming to the conclusion that they had indeed overstated the dangers highlighted in Dr Pusztai's tests.
Meanwhile, another hero of the anti-GM lobby, Mae-Wan Ho, who had been involved in biotechnology in the Seventies, was largely preoccupied with the philosophical meaning of genetics rather than hands-on bio-science, and was interested in resurrecting the ideas of the disgraced Soviet biologist Lysenko, and also Bergson's vitalist cult.
GM activists came under pressure from scientists. In a public debate between George Monbiot and biologist Steve Jones, Jones denounced Monbiot as a charlatan (they have since made up). Andy Rowell attacked the scientists for being the mouthpieces of big business. The peer review of Arpad Pusztai's work was denounced as a cover for a hidden agenda to force GM food on an unsuspecting public. Scientific verification was not to be trusted, said the activists, who invoked a higher bar, the `precautionary principle', which puts the onus of proof on those introducing technology that it could do no harm in the future.
Provoking the public's deepest uncertainties about the food chain proved a great success. Supermarkets withdrew GM food from their shelves and made it effectively unmarketable. In 2004, the New Labour government conceded that even the scientific experiments - the rapeseed fields that Melchett had torn down - should be stopped.
The activists, though, were not entirely happy that they had painted themselves into a corner of outright hostility to scientific method. They knew that if their irrational rejection of science and the modern world was made too explicit, people would find it difficult to go along with. On the other hand, the scientists were pretty bruised, too. They were desperate to win back some of the authority they had lost by being portrayed as tools of big business and proto-Frankensteins out to poison the public. Their subsequent pursuit of `public understanding' turned out to mean lots of committees, often full of green activists, seeking to influence the scientists' agenda.
On the issue of climate change, scientists and environmentalists found more to agree on. As the international diplomatic manoeuvres engendered a new science of climate change, there was more influence for those scientists who lent their research to heavy-duty warnings of global catastrophe. The environmentalists were thrilled to find that the one community that had been most resistant to their ideas were now providing the ammunition.
Once environmentalists had routinely attacked science, drawing on the caricatures of the scientific method found in the Frankfurt school of sociology. Now they were defenders of science against the supposedly `irrational' climate change deniers. The radical academic Bruno Latour, who had made a career arguing that science was nothing more than an ideological construct that reflected the interests of the powers-that-be, suddenly changed his mind over the issue of climate change. Protesters against the new runway at Heathrow summed up the activists' changed attitude to science. They marched with a banner that read: `We are armed only with peer-reviewed science.'
The new, more positive attitude to science on the part of the environmentalists, though, is the reason why the previous issue of GM is still unresolved. The pressure for a return to GM testing in Britain comes from the National Farmers Union, which is lobbying to be allowed to introduce the latest biotechnology. Whether a minister did or did not talk to the Guardian over the weekend about reintroducing GM, the government's explicit position is that there will be no return to GM testing.
Still the activists are alarmed. They have an intuitive understanding that they got away with a lot when they committed the UK to outright opposition to GM testing. The decision was an outrage against scientific experimentation. The activists' arguments back then were a lot more hostile to science than they are today. The Guardian suggests that the pro-GM lobbyists, too, think that the debate has moved on, and that GM crops can be defended on grounds that they might be a solution to the problems raised by global warming. But whatever the reason, Britain should be engaged in GM testing - not because it can help with the problems of global warming, but because it is the right thing to do.
Source
NHS rationing rife, say doctors
Rationing of NHS treatments is becoming more widespread, a survey of GPs and hospital doctors suggests. Doctor magazine asked readers about rationing. Of 653 answering questions on consequences, 107 - 16% - said patients had died early as a result. More than half - 349 - said patients had suffered as a result. This compared with one in five in a similar survey conducted nine years ago. The government said decisions had to be made on which treatments to provide.
The magazine asked 12,000 of its readers a variety of questions with between 473 and 857 replying to each one. Doctors said more debate was urgently needed over what should and should not be rationed. They reported not being allowed to prescribe drug treatments including smoking cessation drugs and anti-obesity treatment. They also reported that local NHS trusts had been placing restrictions on fertility treatments, obesity surgery and a host of minor operations, including those for varicose veins.
The magazine said the findings of the latest poll showed rationing was becoming more widespread. A similar survey nine years ago showed that a much smaller proportion - one in five, compared to half - were aware of patients who had suffered due to rationing.
Rationing has become a sensitive subject in the NHS. Independent advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, makes recommendations on new, expensive treatments. But with limited budgets, local trusts are often forced to cut back on other treatments to keep pace with the recommendations. Many experts fear the situation will get worse with increasing demands on the health service made by the ageing population and expected advances in medicines.
Richard Vautrey, deputy chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs committee, said: "There is not much honesty and openness about this. "The NHS could spend whatever you gave it, but it obviously works with a limited budget so we urgently need to have a debate about what can be provided. "Trusts are already being forced into this but the political parties are not talking about it."
And Dr Michael Dixon, chairman of the NHS Alliance, which represents NHS trusts, added: "Rationing is the great unspoken reality. "The only people who refuse to mention the 'r-word' are the media and the politicians, who continue to want to promise everything for everyone in order to win elections."
A Department of Health spokesman said it was not trying to avoid the issue. "The NHS has received an unprecedented funding boost in recent years but finance is not endless and hard decisions will always have to be made about which treatments to provide." But he added: "Doctors and nurses make these clinical decisions with patients - not managers or politicians."
Source
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Wheel rediscovered: "For centuries men believed themselves to be smarter than the fairer sex, who they felt were only equipped for wifely duties. Now a study has revealed that the male of the species is actually more intelligent. But there's a catch - he's also more stupid. When scientists measured the intelligence of more than 2500 brothers and sisters, they found a disproportionate number of men in both the top 2 per cent and the bottom 2 per cent. There were twice as many men as women in the smartest group. But there were also twice as many men among the dunces. The subjects were tested on science, maths, English and mechanical abilities. The average scores of the men were virtually identical to that of the women. Professor Bates, of Scotland's Edinburgh University, said: "The female developmental program may be tilted more towards ensuring survival and the safety of the middle ground."
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
GM: where the science doesn't count
Today's climate change activists pose as `defenders of science'. Yet not so long ago, they irrationally rejected the scientific truth about GM crops
Hold the front page: `There is no change in the government's policy towards GM crops', says Hilary Benn of Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Benn's statement was a reaction to yesterday's scaremongering frontpage story in the UK Guardian. The Guardian headline said `The return of GM', and the report claimed that `ministers back moves to grow crops in UK'
It is hard to remember now, but in 2000 environmental campaigners were protesting all over the country, organising meetings and debates and breaking into premises, all to draw the public's attention to the dangers represented by. genetically modified organisms - crops, mainly. Lord Melchett, himself a former Labour cabinet minister turned Greenpeace activist, tore up GM crops. (My grandfather slaved away for his father at Imperial Chemicals Industries, dying young, as many did, because of the way the chemical fumes tended to accelerate your heart rate, leading to the `Tuesday death'. GM crops would help alleviate the need to use these kinds of chemicals.)
The GM debate was remarkable. In quite a short time, environmental campaigners brought to the surface intense public anxieties about the industrialisation of the food chain. Just before the debate about the introduction of GM foods, there had been another public health scare when one government scientist, Dr Robert Lacey, warned that by 1997 one third of Britain could be infected with the debilitating brain illness Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), from eating beef contaminated with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-inducing prions. As it turned out, you were about as likely to die of CJD as you were to be struck by lightning, and there is still no proven link with it and BSE - but public distrust of authority was at an all-time high.
There was no real argument against GM food. But people felt very disconnected from the authorities, having little faith in the public pronouncements that there was no risk. That alone was enough to make most people alarmed. Opportunistically, environmental campaigners realised that they could gain influence by stoking public fears. Activists like journalist Andy Rowell, language-school head Jonathan Matthews of the Norfolk Genetic Interest Network, the Open University academic Mae-Wan Ho, and the Guardian's George Monbiot stirred up a fantastic picture of rogue genes causing all kinds of extraordinary mutations as they passed through the food chain, or as they were carried on the wind from test-beds into `healthy' British meadows.
Of course, there was no scientific evidence whatsoever. The absence of even one example of a negative health impact from the introduction of GM crops in the US put some pressure on the greens. They latched on to examples that really did not demonstrate any danger. Some oil was contaminated, leading to deaths - but it turned out it was nothing to do with GM. And then the Rowett Research Institute's Dr Arpad Pusztai did some experiments on GM lectins in potatoes that seemed to show negative consequences in rats. The press and the environmentalists latched on to the case - except that it only showed that the introduction of poisonous lectins into potatoes was bad for rats. When Pusztai was sacked for overstating the implications of his tests, GM campaigners adopted his case as a cause c,lSbre, only slowly coming to the conclusion that they had indeed overstated the dangers highlighted in Dr Pusztai's tests.
Meanwhile, another hero of the anti-GM lobby, Mae-Wan Ho, who had been involved in biotechnology in the Seventies, was largely preoccupied with the philosophical meaning of genetics rather than hands-on bio-science, and was interested in resurrecting the ideas of the disgraced Soviet biologist Lysenko, and also Bergson's vitalist cult.
GM activists came under pressure from scientists. In a public debate between George Monbiot and biologist Steve Jones, Jones denounced Monbiot as a charlatan (they have since made up). Andy Rowell attacked the scientists for being the mouthpieces of big business. The peer review of Arpad Pusztai's work was denounced as a cover for a hidden agenda to force GM food on an unsuspecting public. Scientific verification was not to be trusted, said the activists, who invoked a higher bar, the `precautionary principle', which puts the onus of proof on those introducing technology that it could do no harm in the future.
Provoking the public's deepest uncertainties about the food chain proved a great success. Supermarkets withdrew GM food from their shelves and made it effectively unmarketable. In 2004, the New Labour government conceded that even the scientific experiments - the rapeseed fields that Melchett had torn down - should be stopped.
The activists, though, were not entirely happy that they had painted themselves into a corner of outright hostility to scientific method. They knew that if their irrational rejection of science and the modern world was made too explicit, people would find it difficult to go along with. On the other hand, the scientists were pretty bruised, too. They were desperate to win back some of the authority they had lost by being portrayed as tools of big business and proto-Frankensteins out to poison the public. Their subsequent pursuit of `public understanding' turned out to mean lots of committees, often full of green activists, seeking to influence the scientists' agenda.
On the issue of climate change, scientists and environmentalists found more to agree on. As the international diplomatic manoeuvres engendered a new science of climate change, there was more influence for those scientists who lent their research to heavy-duty warnings of global catastrophe. The environmentalists were thrilled to find that the one community that had been most resistant to their ideas were now providing the ammunition.
Once environmentalists had routinely attacked science, drawing on the caricatures of the scientific method found in the Frankfurt school of sociology. Now they were defenders of science against the supposedly `irrational' climate change deniers. The radical academic Bruno Latour, who had made a career arguing that science was nothing more than an ideological construct that reflected the interests of the powers-that-be, suddenly changed his mind over the issue of climate change. Protesters against the new runway at Heathrow summed up the activists' changed attitude to science. They marched with a banner that read: `We are armed only with peer-reviewed science.'
The new, more positive attitude to science on the part of the environmentalists, though, is the reason why the previous issue of GM is still unresolved. The pressure for a return to GM testing in Britain comes from the National Farmers Union, which is lobbying to be allowed to introduce the latest biotechnology. Whether a minister did or did not talk to the Guardian over the weekend about reintroducing GM, the government's explicit position is that there will be no return to GM testing.
Still the activists are alarmed. They have an intuitive understanding that they got away with a lot when they committed the UK to outright opposition to GM testing. The decision was an outrage against scientific experimentation. The activists' arguments back then were a lot more hostile to science than they are today. The Guardian suggests that the pro-GM lobbyists, too, think that the debate has moved on, and that GM crops can be defended on grounds that they might be a solution to the problems raised by global warming. But whatever the reason, Britain should be engaged in GM testing - not because it can help with the problems of global warming, but because it is the right thing to do.
Source
Mobile phones are safe, but let's panic anyway
The experts' schizophrenic message about mobiles captures society's curious love/dread relationship with new technologies
What is it with the mobile phone scare? Study after study has failed to find any evidence that using a mobile phone causes brain cancer (or `fries our brains' as the tabloids like to put it). And yet the authors of all the studies still warn us to be super-careful when it comes to mobiles: to avoid using them too often, and to think twice about giving handsets to our children. You know, just in case these little electronic bundles of bleeps and radiation might cause some unknown harm now or in the future. Like something out of a dimestore horror novel, the scientists' and politicians' message to society seems to be: `Mobile phones are safe.or are they?' (Indeed, Stephen King, the master of horror-writing, depicted the mobile as an evil machine that turns people into flesh-eating zombies and telekinetic psychos in his novel Cell, brilliantly capturing contemporary society's curious love/dread relationship with new technologies.)
Now, just as spiked has launched a new debate on the `mobile footprint' in conjunction with the mobile service provider O2, another study finds, yet again, that mobile phone-use is safe - and it warns, yet again, that we should err on the side of caution anyway. The continuing failure to uncover evidence that mobiles are bad for our health, coupled with the continuous warnings that mobiles might be bad for our health, shows that the mobile phone panic has little to do with science. This is not an `evidence-based' scare, to use the buzzphrase of the moment. Instead, the mobile has become a metaphor for a generalised free-floating feeling of fear, and for today's widespread sentiment that everything should be treated as dangerous unless it has been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt to be 100 per cent impeccably safe.
The latest study, published yesterday by the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, is the work of 28 teams of experts. With a budget of 8.8million, they spent the past six years exploring possible health impacts of mobile phone-use. Their conclusion? That there's no evidence that mobiles cause cancer. The experts said their findings were `reassuring', showing no association between mobile phone-use and brain cancer and `no evidence' of immediate or short-term harms to health from mobile phones. The six-year study also `failed to substantiate' any of the wild claims that have been made about mobile phone masts causing increased cancer rates amongst the communities in which they are erected. As Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesman, said: `This report is good news for the public, phone users and the industry. There is no basis on health grounds for any further tightening of regulations or advice on mobile phone masts or the use of handsets.'
Phew. Except.the authors of the study decided to flag up what they don't know as well as what they do. Professor Lawrie Challis, chairman of the research programme, said: `We cannot rule out the possibility that cancer could appear in a few years' time, both because the epidemiological evidence we have is not strong enough to rule it out and, secondly, because most cancers cannot be detected until 10 years after whatever caused them.' So while the report was `reassuring' on the safety of mobile phone-use now, `we can't reassure people about the long-term use', said Challis. Some of the researchers even pointed out that it took 10 years for anyone to realise there was a link between smoking and cancer. It is true, of course, that it's impossible to rule out some potential future harm from mobile phone-use; it is impossible to prove a negative: that mobiles will never pose any risk at all. But should we really worry that chatting to our mates on a mobile might be doing to our brain what sucking in smoke does to the lungs? Surely health advice should focus on warning people of proven dangers, rather than pushing us to fantasise about hypothetical worst-case scenarios?
As well as talking up future unknowns, the research coordinators threw into the debate what we might call `present unlikelies'. They said there was a `very slight hint' of increased incidences of brain tumours among long-term users of mobiles, which is at `the borderline of statistical significance'. That sounds to my admittedly unscientific mind like a roundabout way of saying there is possibly a statistically insignificant risk of harm to some users.
Consequently, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a study which found no association between mobile phone-use and cancer, and which was welcomed by sensible scientists as a green light for us to continue chatting and texting to our heart's content, has been transformed in some quarters into a document which foretells mankind's diseased doom. `Mobile phones could cause cancer to long-term users', said the London Evening Standard. `Mobile phones: they could cause major cancer explosion in years to come', bellowed an online alternative health magazine. It is a sad sign of the times when even a seemingly airtight scientific study which found no evidence that mobiles are bad for our health can generate handwringing headlines claiming that mobiles are.bad for our health!
A headline in The Times (London) captured the schizophrenic message sent out by this latest research project: `Mobile phones don't cause cancer in the short-term. Long-term, who knows?' This is not the first time that a study has found no evidence of harm yet posited the possibility of harm. `Who knows?' just about sums up officialdom's attitude to new mobile communications and their possible impact on our heads. In 2000, the report Mobile Phones and Health, generally known as the Stewart Report after Sir William Stewart, who chaired the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones that produced it, found that: `The balance of evidence to date suggests that exposures to RF radiation below [official] guidelines do not cause adverse health effects to the general population.' However, the report also said that `it is not possible at present to say that exposure to RF radiation, even at levels below national guidelines, is totally without potential adverse health effects'. So it recommended that `a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phone technologies be adopted until much more detailed and scientifically robust information on any health effects becomes available'.
In January 2005, Sir William Stewart launched a report by the National Radiological Protection Board, the government's advisory board on radiological issues. That report simply restated existing knowledge on mobile phone-use (that there is no evidence of harm to human health), yet Stewart chose the occasion of the report's launch to `speak from the heart'. He said: `I don't think we can put our hands on our hearts and say that mobile phones are totally safe.' Therefore we shouldn't give them to children under eight, he advised. Needless to say, Stewart's heartfelt but non-scientific feeling that mobiles might be bad for little'uns - his elevation of the heart over the mind, one might say - stole headlines away from the fact that, yet again, a report had failed to uncover evidence of mobiles damaging health. Also in 2005, a study published in the British Journal of Cancer, which surveyed data from five European countries and the health of 4,000 people, found that using a mobile for up to 10 years poses no increased risk of acoustic neuroma (a rare tumour of the nerve connecting the ear to the brain). How did the Health Protection Agency in Britain respond to this study? By saying: `This is good news.but we still need to be a bit cautious.'
From Stewart in 2000 to the big new study this week, this is the precautionary principle in action. The fear of mobile communications demonstrates the extent to which super-precaution - the idea that everything should be treated as dangerous until it has been proven safe beyond all doubt - dominates public discussion today. The evidence to date suggests there is nothing inherently dangerous about mobile phones or masts - and yet, precisely because they are so commonplace and now so central to our everyday lives, they have become the focus of general fears about new technologies, invisible signals, radiation, environmental destruction, bullying and just about everything else. This has led to a schism: on one hand, studies suggest mobile phone-use is safe, and sales figures show that people find them extremely useful for both work and play; on the other hand, there is ongoing political and public trepidation about the spread of mobiles and masts and what impact they might have on The Future. Consequently, even as millions of people enjoy the liberating aspect of always being communicado, there is also a lurking sense of unease that contributes to a general anxiety about everyday life, and especially its impacts on our children.
The mobile is the ideal metaphor for today's culture of fear. Society's discomfort with breaking technological boundaries, because of the impact it might have on the environment or human health, is projected on to the mobile and mobile phone masts. So is officialdom's fear of potentially `toxic' human contact. Some seem uncomfortable with the idea of millions of people talking and texting anywhere and anytime they please; witness the numerous shock stories about mobiles being used to bully people, or even to lure them into being kidnapped. This fear of mobiles is likely to be doing more damage than mobiles themselves, certainly in the here and now. While we can be fairly sure that mobile phones are not damaging our health, the precautionary principle is harming society: it is slowing down new technological developments, stunting investment in newer and improved forms of communication, and spreading fear and queasiness amongst the population.
Source
Today's climate change activists pose as `defenders of science'. Yet not so long ago, they irrationally rejected the scientific truth about GM crops
Hold the front page: `There is no change in the government's policy towards GM crops', says Hilary Benn of Britain's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Benn's statement was a reaction to yesterday's scaremongering frontpage story in the UK Guardian. The Guardian headline said `The return of GM', and the report claimed that `ministers back moves to grow crops in UK'
It is hard to remember now, but in 2000 environmental campaigners were protesting all over the country, organising meetings and debates and breaking into premises, all to draw the public's attention to the dangers represented by. genetically modified organisms - crops, mainly. Lord Melchett, himself a former Labour cabinet minister turned Greenpeace activist, tore up GM crops. (My grandfather slaved away for his father at Imperial Chemicals Industries, dying young, as many did, because of the way the chemical fumes tended to accelerate your heart rate, leading to the `Tuesday death'. GM crops would help alleviate the need to use these kinds of chemicals.)
The GM debate was remarkable. In quite a short time, environmental campaigners brought to the surface intense public anxieties about the industrialisation of the food chain. Just before the debate about the introduction of GM foods, there had been another public health scare when one government scientist, Dr Robert Lacey, warned that by 1997 one third of Britain could be infected with the debilitating brain illness Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD), from eating beef contaminated with Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE)-inducing prions. As it turned out, you were about as likely to die of CJD as you were to be struck by lightning, and there is still no proven link with it and BSE - but public distrust of authority was at an all-time high.
There was no real argument against GM food. But people felt very disconnected from the authorities, having little faith in the public pronouncements that there was no risk. That alone was enough to make most people alarmed. Opportunistically, environmental campaigners realised that they could gain influence by stoking public fears. Activists like journalist Andy Rowell, language-school head Jonathan Matthews of the Norfolk Genetic Interest Network, the Open University academic Mae-Wan Ho, and the Guardian's George Monbiot stirred up a fantastic picture of rogue genes causing all kinds of extraordinary mutations as they passed through the food chain, or as they were carried on the wind from test-beds into `healthy' British meadows.
Of course, there was no scientific evidence whatsoever. The absence of even one example of a negative health impact from the introduction of GM crops in the US put some pressure on the greens. They latched on to examples that really did not demonstrate any danger. Some oil was contaminated, leading to deaths - but it turned out it was nothing to do with GM. And then the Rowett Research Institute's Dr Arpad Pusztai did some experiments on GM lectins in potatoes that seemed to show negative consequences in rats. The press and the environmentalists latched on to the case - except that it only showed that the introduction of poisonous lectins into potatoes was bad for rats. When Pusztai was sacked for overstating the implications of his tests, GM campaigners adopted his case as a cause c,lSbre, only slowly coming to the conclusion that they had indeed overstated the dangers highlighted in Dr Pusztai's tests.
Meanwhile, another hero of the anti-GM lobby, Mae-Wan Ho, who had been involved in biotechnology in the Seventies, was largely preoccupied with the philosophical meaning of genetics rather than hands-on bio-science, and was interested in resurrecting the ideas of the disgraced Soviet biologist Lysenko, and also Bergson's vitalist cult.
GM activists came under pressure from scientists. In a public debate between George Monbiot and biologist Steve Jones, Jones denounced Monbiot as a charlatan (they have since made up). Andy Rowell attacked the scientists for being the mouthpieces of big business. The peer review of Arpad Pusztai's work was denounced as a cover for a hidden agenda to force GM food on an unsuspecting public. Scientific verification was not to be trusted, said the activists, who invoked a higher bar, the `precautionary principle', which puts the onus of proof on those introducing technology that it could do no harm in the future.
Provoking the public's deepest uncertainties about the food chain proved a great success. Supermarkets withdrew GM food from their shelves and made it effectively unmarketable. In 2004, the New Labour government conceded that even the scientific experiments - the rapeseed fields that Melchett had torn down - should be stopped.
The activists, though, were not entirely happy that they had painted themselves into a corner of outright hostility to scientific method. They knew that if their irrational rejection of science and the modern world was made too explicit, people would find it difficult to go along with. On the other hand, the scientists were pretty bruised, too. They were desperate to win back some of the authority they had lost by being portrayed as tools of big business and proto-Frankensteins out to poison the public. Their subsequent pursuit of `public understanding' turned out to mean lots of committees, often full of green activists, seeking to influence the scientists' agenda.
On the issue of climate change, scientists and environmentalists found more to agree on. As the international diplomatic manoeuvres engendered a new science of climate change, there was more influence for those scientists who lent their research to heavy-duty warnings of global catastrophe. The environmentalists were thrilled to find that the one community that had been most resistant to their ideas were now providing the ammunition.
Once environmentalists had routinely attacked science, drawing on the caricatures of the scientific method found in the Frankfurt school of sociology. Now they were defenders of science against the supposedly `irrational' climate change deniers. The radical academic Bruno Latour, who had made a career arguing that science was nothing more than an ideological construct that reflected the interests of the powers-that-be, suddenly changed his mind over the issue of climate change. Protesters against the new runway at Heathrow summed up the activists' changed attitude to science. They marched with a banner that read: `We are armed only with peer-reviewed science.'
The new, more positive attitude to science on the part of the environmentalists, though, is the reason why the previous issue of GM is still unresolved. The pressure for a return to GM testing in Britain comes from the National Farmers Union, which is lobbying to be allowed to introduce the latest biotechnology. Whether a minister did or did not talk to the Guardian over the weekend about reintroducing GM, the government's explicit position is that there will be no return to GM testing.
Still the activists are alarmed. They have an intuitive understanding that they got away with a lot when they committed the UK to outright opposition to GM testing. The decision was an outrage against scientific experimentation. The activists' arguments back then were a lot more hostile to science than they are today. The Guardian suggests that the pro-GM lobbyists, too, think that the debate has moved on, and that GM crops can be defended on grounds that they might be a solution to the problems raised by global warming. But whatever the reason, Britain should be engaged in GM testing - not because it can help with the problems of global warming, but because it is the right thing to do.
Source
Mobile phones are safe, but let's panic anyway
The experts' schizophrenic message about mobiles captures society's curious love/dread relationship with new technologies
What is it with the mobile phone scare? Study after study has failed to find any evidence that using a mobile phone causes brain cancer (or `fries our brains' as the tabloids like to put it). And yet the authors of all the studies still warn us to be super-careful when it comes to mobiles: to avoid using them too often, and to think twice about giving handsets to our children. You know, just in case these little electronic bundles of bleeps and radiation might cause some unknown harm now or in the future. Like something out of a dimestore horror novel, the scientists' and politicians' message to society seems to be: `Mobile phones are safe.or are they?' (Indeed, Stephen King, the master of horror-writing, depicted the mobile as an evil machine that turns people into flesh-eating zombies and telekinetic psychos in his novel Cell, brilliantly capturing contemporary society's curious love/dread relationship with new technologies.)
Now, just as spiked has launched a new debate on the `mobile footprint' in conjunction with the mobile service provider O2, another study finds, yet again, that mobile phone-use is safe - and it warns, yet again, that we should err on the side of caution anyway. The continuing failure to uncover evidence that mobiles are bad for our health, coupled with the continuous warnings that mobiles might be bad for our health, shows that the mobile phone panic has little to do with science. This is not an `evidence-based' scare, to use the buzzphrase of the moment. Instead, the mobile has become a metaphor for a generalised free-floating feeling of fear, and for today's widespread sentiment that everything should be treated as dangerous unless it has been shown beyond a shadow of a doubt to be 100 per cent impeccably safe.
The latest study, published yesterday by the UK Mobile Telecommunications and Health Research Programme, is the work of 28 teams of experts. With a budget of 8.8million, they spent the past six years exploring possible health impacts of mobile phone-use. Their conclusion? That there's no evidence that mobiles cause cancer. The experts said their findings were `reassuring', showing no association between mobile phone-use and brain cancer and `no evidence' of immediate or short-term harms to health from mobile phones. The six-year study also `failed to substantiate' any of the wild claims that have been made about mobile phone masts causing increased cancer rates amongst the communities in which they are erected. As Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrats' science spokesman, said: `This report is good news for the public, phone users and the industry. There is no basis on health grounds for any further tightening of regulations or advice on mobile phone masts or the use of handsets.'
Phew. Except.the authors of the study decided to flag up what they don't know as well as what they do. Professor Lawrie Challis, chairman of the research programme, said: `We cannot rule out the possibility that cancer could appear in a few years' time, both because the epidemiological evidence we have is not strong enough to rule it out and, secondly, because most cancers cannot be detected until 10 years after whatever caused them.' So while the report was `reassuring' on the safety of mobile phone-use now, `we can't reassure people about the long-term use', said Challis. Some of the researchers even pointed out that it took 10 years for anyone to realise there was a link between smoking and cancer. It is true, of course, that it's impossible to rule out some potential future harm from mobile phone-use; it is impossible to prove a negative: that mobiles will never pose any risk at all. But should we really worry that chatting to our mates on a mobile might be doing to our brain what sucking in smoke does to the lungs? Surely health advice should focus on warning people of proven dangers, rather than pushing us to fantasise about hypothetical worst-case scenarios?
As well as talking up future unknowns, the research coordinators threw into the debate what we might call `present unlikelies'. They said there was a `very slight hint' of increased incidences of brain tumours among long-term users of mobiles, which is at `the borderline of statistical significance'. That sounds to my admittedly unscientific mind like a roundabout way of saying there is possibly a statistically insignificant risk of harm to some users.
Consequently, and perhaps unsurprisingly, a study which found no association between mobile phone-use and cancer, and which was welcomed by sensible scientists as a green light for us to continue chatting and texting to our heart's content, has been transformed in some quarters into a document which foretells mankind's diseased doom. `Mobile phones could cause cancer to long-term users', said the London Evening Standard. `Mobile phones: they could cause major cancer explosion in years to come', bellowed an online alternative health magazine. It is a sad sign of the times when even a seemingly airtight scientific study which found no evidence that mobiles are bad for our health can generate handwringing headlines claiming that mobiles are.bad for our health!
A headline in The Times (London) captured the schizophrenic message sent out by this latest research project: `Mobile phones don't cause cancer in the short-term. Long-term, who knows?' This is not the first time that a study has found no evidence of harm yet posited the possibility of harm. `Who knows?' just about sums up officialdom's attitude to new mobile communications and their possible impact on our heads. In 2000, the report Mobile Phones and Health, generally known as the Stewart Report after Sir William Stewart, who chaired the Independent Expert Group on Mobile Phones that produced it, found that: `The balance of evidence to date suggests that exposures to RF radiation below [official] guidelines do not cause adverse health effects to the general population.' However, the report also said that `it is not possible at present to say that exposure to RF radiation, even at levels below national guidelines, is totally without potential adverse health effects'. So it recommended that `a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phone technologies be adopted until much more detailed and scientifically robust information on any health effects becomes available'.
In January 2005, Sir William Stewart launched a report by the National Radiological Protection Board, the government's advisory board on radiological issues. That report simply restated existing knowledge on mobile phone-use (that there is no evidence of harm to human health), yet Stewart chose the occasion of the report's launch to `speak from the heart'. He said: `I don't think we can put our hands on our hearts and say that mobile phones are totally safe.' Therefore we shouldn't give them to children under eight, he advised. Needless to say, Stewart's heartfelt but non-scientific feeling that mobiles might be bad for little'uns - his elevation of the heart over the mind, one might say - stole headlines away from the fact that, yet again, a report had failed to uncover evidence of mobiles damaging health. Also in 2005, a study published in the British Journal of Cancer, which surveyed data from five European countries and the health of 4,000 people, found that using a mobile for up to 10 years poses no increased risk of acoustic neuroma (a rare tumour of the nerve connecting the ear to the brain). How did the Health Protection Agency in Britain respond to this study? By saying: `This is good news.but we still need to be a bit cautious.'
From Stewart in 2000 to the big new study this week, this is the precautionary principle in action. The fear of mobile communications demonstrates the extent to which super-precaution - the idea that everything should be treated as dangerous until it has been proven safe beyond all doubt - dominates public discussion today. The evidence to date suggests there is nothing inherently dangerous about mobile phones or masts - and yet, precisely because they are so commonplace and now so central to our everyday lives, they have become the focus of general fears about new technologies, invisible signals, radiation, environmental destruction, bullying and just about everything else. This has led to a schism: on one hand, studies suggest mobile phone-use is safe, and sales figures show that people find them extremely useful for both work and play; on the other hand, there is ongoing political and public trepidation about the spread of mobiles and masts and what impact they might have on The Future. Consequently, even as millions of people enjoy the liberating aspect of always being communicado, there is also a lurking sense of unease that contributes to a general anxiety about everyday life, and especially its impacts on our children.
The mobile is the ideal metaphor for today's culture of fear. Society's discomfort with breaking technological boundaries, because of the impact it might have on the environment or human health, is projected on to the mobile and mobile phone masts. So is officialdom's fear of potentially `toxic' human contact. Some seem uncomfortable with the idea of millions of people talking and texting anywhere and anytime they please; witness the numerous shock stories about mobiles being used to bully people, or even to lure them into being kidnapped. This fear of mobiles is likely to be doing more damage than mobiles themselves, certainly in the here and now. While we can be fairly sure that mobile phones are not damaging our health, the precautionary principle is harming society: it is slowing down new technological developments, stunting investment in newer and improved forms of communication, and spreading fear and queasiness amongst the population.
Source
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Current British immigration policy
A "Times" journalist interviews Trevor Phillips
Last weekend I went for a walk on Hampstead Heath. As we meandered beneath the trees we saw lots of other families just like us; but none of them was speaking English. A few days later I took the bus to Soho – again not one of the many conversations going on around me was in my language. I love the diversity, energy and prosperity that people from all over the world bring to London. But sometimes I get that strange sense of not feeling at home in my own town. And I’m not the only one: last week one of Gordon Brown’s “ask the people” roadshows found the public rate immigration as a more urgent priority than education or terrorism.
And while a plethora of races and cultures is the norm now in Britain’s multi-ethnic cities, the recent influx (in the 1990s 1.2m more people came to live here once those who’ve emigrated are accounted for – and that’s just the official statistics) means that rural areas and smaller towns are having to integrate large foreign populations too. Julie Spence, the chief constable of Cambridgeshire, spoke last week about the cost and cultural clashes of having large numbers of eastern Europeans on her patch.
It is not just the police who are being squeezed, but doctors’ surgeries and schools all over Britain. To get a sense of the scale of the nonplanning, the Home Office estimated that no more than 13,000 eastern Europeans from the accession states would come to Britain annually: 720,000 have registered. And nobody is counting the Iraqis, Kurds and Afghans sneaking in every night through our ports. Or the Chinese smuggled in by people traffickers, the Somali refugees . . . No wonder the public is worried.
So to get a sense of where all of this is going, I went to meet the man who is paid to engender social cohesion, Trevor Phillips, formerly the head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and now in charge of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights which takes over the responsibilities of the CRE, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission next week. A veteran of race politics, it was Phillips who declared that multiculturalism wasn’t working, sounding the death knell for that oh so British doctrine that for 30 years decreed we should live alongside each other, let different communities and races do their own thing and not worry about integration, helping immigrants learn English or inculcating British values. It was a doctrine that died on 7/7 when British-born Muslim suicide bombers murdered their fellow citizens.
Though undoubtedly the right thing to do, Phillips’s condemnation of multiculturalism made him massively unpopular with many of his former brothers – as I found out when I interviewed him about his new job on stage at the CRE’s farewell race convention last year. I was there to talk to him about the role of the new commission. Questions from the floor were hostile. Voices were raised. Many veterans of the race riots of the 1970s saw Phillips as a sell-out, furious that the focus on race was to be lost as the CRE merged into a wider body. Phillips was taken aback by the “bullying” attitudes.
This time we are in his offices in Victoria Street without an audience, but he is still uncompromising on his old comrades. “They have to grow up. That militancy must be consigned to the dustbin of history. The CRE was set up to deal with a different set of circumstances. Now we have to chart a course for how we can deal with difference. We have to be more proactive and more friendly.” Race is, as he puts it, “no longer black and white”. In terms of life chances, a black African girl is likely to do better than a white British boy. A Chinese baby born today will probably be much better paid than his or her white contemporaries. It is no longer the case that ethnic minority kids get a raw deal because of white racism.
But despite such progress, Phillips is aware of the challenges we face to integrate the new arrivals. “We are now in the age of difference, not just in our big cities, but everywhere. We are all struggling to get used to this. But people like Andrew Green at Migrationwatch are saying these new arrivals can’t fit in. I believe that shows contempt for the tolerance of the British people. As a nation, because of being Welsh, Scots, Irish, English and still British we are pretty good at absorbing people. Once we get our brains in gear and stop being frightened about race, we are pretty good in this country at doing the immigration job. We just have to treat it positively. We have to tell immigrants the rules and what we expect.” Tell that to Cambridgeshire police.
He puts much of the anxiety about this down to “bad government planning which has made this all much more difficult. It’s not controlled and not managed. There are definitely issues of competence over the numbers coming here. And many of the problems we are seeing are happening because of that bad management”.
Now, he believes, the government is getting to grips with it. He cites Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, with whom he says he has worked closely on this, (not one for hiding his light under a bushel, Phillips) for going in the right direction. Byrne, he says, has started counting both the number of people coming to Britain and the number leaving. And it was Byrne who this year finally admitted the public was right to be worried about immigration. Labour is realising they have to talk about this which is why Gordon Brown has been banging on about Britishness: expect to hear lots about “identity politics” at the Labour conference this week. Slowly politicians are beginning to grasp the nettle. Why has it taken so long?
“Governments since the 1960s have been terrified of talking about race because of the spectre of Enoch Powell,” says Phillips. “They are scared of raising these issues for fear of being branded racist. But we must be able to have an honest conversation about racial difference and immigration. We must recognise diversity, not pretend it doesn’t exist. It is okay to say ‘I don’t like what you do’, but not okay to say ‘I don’t like what you are’. Many of us don’t know how to talk to each other. My job is to work out how to make it work.”
So what are his proposals? He thinks that in divided communities such as Oldham or Burnley that rather than quotas to mix the races in schools, or bussing pupils from one part of town to another, the key is getting different kinds of kids together for music or sport – or sending them on summer camps (all things his new body will be advocating and funding).
As for the political challenge, Phillips is upbeat. “Gordon is pretty smart on this, he’s seen that there are two great challenges at the moment. 1) How do we live with the planet? 2) How do we live with each other? The one most likely to destroy civilisation in my view is that we can’t live with each other. “Gordon has spotted that what we really fear is the consequence of this rushing tide of turbulence of diversity, which is why he is concentrating on the identity, Britishness, which will form a glue that will keep us together while everything is conspiring to force us apart.”
I’m not so sure that “Britishness” is the superglue he and Brown believe. What is it? Its purest expression is the Rule Britannia fest of the Last Night of the Proms – and there were precious few brown faces there, however hard the BBC tried to find them. But luckily, as well as Britishness, Phillips has some radical prescriptions for our unease. First he says that every immigrant must learn English, that the days of council-funded interpreters and translations on tap are over. “English is a sine qua non. And when we’ve surveyed this, the people who are most keen that immigrants learn English are former immigrants. They know that if you don’t have English you are shut out.”
He tells me about going to Bradford and Oldham and the middle-aged Bangladeshi ladies he’s met learning English alongside their children on a special bus. Looking stern, he says there is no place in society for wives forbidden by their husbands from taking part – these men must “get over it”: it’s official, the “live and let live” attitude to subjugating women, or honour killings or extremism is over. Multiculturalism RIP.
Even more controversially, Phillips is advocating a two-track immigration system. The United Nations says 200m people do not live and work in the country they were born in. “This is not a fearsome tide of refugees, but people coming to find work. We need them.” But, he says, we need to distinguish between those who want to work for a while and go home and those “wanting to be citizens”. Most crucial, he thinks, is “to have a system where, frankly, people can leave easily. One of the reasons people come and they stay is that they are worried that if they leave they won’t get back in . . . I think we should make that entry and exit easier – give people a permit to be a waiter or whatever, rather than coming in on a lorry.” That requires a more flexible and coherent system. “It’s different from 50 years ago when my parents came from Guyana – then it was difficult to go back home. Whereas now people virtually commute from Warsaw. If we are too scared about immigration we force people to be here all the time.”
That would be one track, a kind of semi-citizenship for transitory workers where temporary migrants pay for public services such as health, education and welfare before being entitled to work here. “Then there needs to be another track for people who want to come and be British. There are lots of people who like what we are and want to be part of it. I like proposals that such people should do voluntary work, that they have to display their desire for citizenship. It is all part of the desire for integration.” He is passionate about “equality” – a key part of the new body. White people are part of this too. “It’s not right that whites should be queue-jumped on things like housing.”
Does he think America has lessons for us? “Absolutely not. It’s a myth that they are a nation of immigrants that all muck in together. The US is a racially segregated society. I don’t want that for this country. When I go to America to see my relations I can be there for four or five weeks and never speak to a white person. I hate that.”
Source
A "Times" journalist interviews Trevor Phillips
Last weekend I went for a walk on Hampstead Heath. As we meandered beneath the trees we saw lots of other families just like us; but none of them was speaking English. A few days later I took the bus to Soho – again not one of the many conversations going on around me was in my language. I love the diversity, energy and prosperity that people from all over the world bring to London. But sometimes I get that strange sense of not feeling at home in my own town. And I’m not the only one: last week one of Gordon Brown’s “ask the people” roadshows found the public rate immigration as a more urgent priority than education or terrorism.
And while a plethora of races and cultures is the norm now in Britain’s multi-ethnic cities, the recent influx (in the 1990s 1.2m more people came to live here once those who’ve emigrated are accounted for – and that’s just the official statistics) means that rural areas and smaller towns are having to integrate large foreign populations too. Julie Spence, the chief constable of Cambridgeshire, spoke last week about the cost and cultural clashes of having large numbers of eastern Europeans on her patch.
It is not just the police who are being squeezed, but doctors’ surgeries and schools all over Britain. To get a sense of the scale of the nonplanning, the Home Office estimated that no more than 13,000 eastern Europeans from the accession states would come to Britain annually: 720,000 have registered. And nobody is counting the Iraqis, Kurds and Afghans sneaking in every night through our ports. Or the Chinese smuggled in by people traffickers, the Somali refugees . . . No wonder the public is worried.
So to get a sense of where all of this is going, I went to meet the man who is paid to engender social cohesion, Trevor Phillips, formerly the head of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) and now in charge of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights which takes over the responsibilities of the CRE, the Equal Opportunities Commission and the Disability Rights Commission next week. A veteran of race politics, it was Phillips who declared that multiculturalism wasn’t working, sounding the death knell for that oh so British doctrine that for 30 years decreed we should live alongside each other, let different communities and races do their own thing and not worry about integration, helping immigrants learn English or inculcating British values. It was a doctrine that died on 7/7 when British-born Muslim suicide bombers murdered their fellow citizens.
Though undoubtedly the right thing to do, Phillips’s condemnation of multiculturalism made him massively unpopular with many of his former brothers – as I found out when I interviewed him about his new job on stage at the CRE’s farewell race convention last year. I was there to talk to him about the role of the new commission. Questions from the floor were hostile. Voices were raised. Many veterans of the race riots of the 1970s saw Phillips as a sell-out, furious that the focus on race was to be lost as the CRE merged into a wider body. Phillips was taken aback by the “bullying” attitudes.
This time we are in his offices in Victoria Street without an audience, but he is still uncompromising on his old comrades. “They have to grow up. That militancy must be consigned to the dustbin of history. The CRE was set up to deal with a different set of circumstances. Now we have to chart a course for how we can deal with difference. We have to be more proactive and more friendly.” Race is, as he puts it, “no longer black and white”. In terms of life chances, a black African girl is likely to do better than a white British boy. A Chinese baby born today will probably be much better paid than his or her white contemporaries. It is no longer the case that ethnic minority kids get a raw deal because of white racism.
But despite such progress, Phillips is aware of the challenges we face to integrate the new arrivals. “We are now in the age of difference, not just in our big cities, but everywhere. We are all struggling to get used to this. But people like Andrew Green at Migrationwatch are saying these new arrivals can’t fit in. I believe that shows contempt for the tolerance of the British people. As a nation, because of being Welsh, Scots, Irish, English and still British we are pretty good at absorbing people. Once we get our brains in gear and stop being frightened about race, we are pretty good in this country at doing the immigration job. We just have to treat it positively. We have to tell immigrants the rules and what we expect.” Tell that to Cambridgeshire police.
He puts much of the anxiety about this down to “bad government planning which has made this all much more difficult. It’s not controlled and not managed. There are definitely issues of competence over the numbers coming here. And many of the problems we are seeing are happening because of that bad management”.
Now, he believes, the government is getting to grips with it. He cites Liam Byrne, the immigration minister, with whom he says he has worked closely on this, (not one for hiding his light under a bushel, Phillips) for going in the right direction. Byrne, he says, has started counting both the number of people coming to Britain and the number leaving. And it was Byrne who this year finally admitted the public was right to be worried about immigration. Labour is realising they have to talk about this which is why Gordon Brown has been banging on about Britishness: expect to hear lots about “identity politics” at the Labour conference this week. Slowly politicians are beginning to grasp the nettle. Why has it taken so long?
“Governments since the 1960s have been terrified of talking about race because of the spectre of Enoch Powell,” says Phillips. “They are scared of raising these issues for fear of being branded racist. But we must be able to have an honest conversation about racial difference and immigration. We must recognise diversity, not pretend it doesn’t exist. It is okay to say ‘I don’t like what you do’, but not okay to say ‘I don’t like what you are’. Many of us don’t know how to talk to each other. My job is to work out how to make it work.”
So what are his proposals? He thinks that in divided communities such as Oldham or Burnley that rather than quotas to mix the races in schools, or bussing pupils from one part of town to another, the key is getting different kinds of kids together for music or sport – or sending them on summer camps (all things his new body will be advocating and funding).
As for the political challenge, Phillips is upbeat. “Gordon is pretty smart on this, he’s seen that there are two great challenges at the moment. 1) How do we live with the planet? 2) How do we live with each other? The one most likely to destroy civilisation in my view is that we can’t live with each other. “Gordon has spotted that what we really fear is the consequence of this rushing tide of turbulence of diversity, which is why he is concentrating on the identity, Britishness, which will form a glue that will keep us together while everything is conspiring to force us apart.”
I’m not so sure that “Britishness” is the superglue he and Brown believe. What is it? Its purest expression is the Rule Britannia fest of the Last Night of the Proms – and there were precious few brown faces there, however hard the BBC tried to find them. But luckily, as well as Britishness, Phillips has some radical prescriptions for our unease. First he says that every immigrant must learn English, that the days of council-funded interpreters and translations on tap are over. “English is a sine qua non. And when we’ve surveyed this, the people who are most keen that immigrants learn English are former immigrants. They know that if you don’t have English you are shut out.”
He tells me about going to Bradford and Oldham and the middle-aged Bangladeshi ladies he’s met learning English alongside their children on a special bus. Looking stern, he says there is no place in society for wives forbidden by their husbands from taking part – these men must “get over it”: it’s official, the “live and let live” attitude to subjugating women, or honour killings or extremism is over. Multiculturalism RIP.
Even more controversially, Phillips is advocating a two-track immigration system. The United Nations says 200m people do not live and work in the country they were born in. “This is not a fearsome tide of refugees, but people coming to find work. We need them.” But, he says, we need to distinguish between those who want to work for a while and go home and those “wanting to be citizens”. Most crucial, he thinks, is “to have a system where, frankly, people can leave easily. One of the reasons people come and they stay is that they are worried that if they leave they won’t get back in . . . I think we should make that entry and exit easier – give people a permit to be a waiter or whatever, rather than coming in on a lorry.” That requires a more flexible and coherent system. “It’s different from 50 years ago when my parents came from Guyana – then it was difficult to go back home. Whereas now people virtually commute from Warsaw. If we are too scared about immigration we force people to be here all the time.”
That would be one track, a kind of semi-citizenship for transitory workers where temporary migrants pay for public services such as health, education and welfare before being entitled to work here. “Then there needs to be another track for people who want to come and be British. There are lots of people who like what we are and want to be part of it. I like proposals that such people should do voluntary work, that they have to display their desire for citizenship. It is all part of the desire for integration.” He is passionate about “equality” – a key part of the new body. White people are part of this too. “It’s not right that whites should be queue-jumped on things like housing.”
Does he think America has lessons for us? “Absolutely not. It’s a myth that they are a nation of immigrants that all muck in together. The US is a racially segregated society. I don’t want that for this country. When I go to America to see my relations I can be there for four or five weeks and never speak to a white person. I hate that.”
Source
Monday, September 24, 2007
Collapse of basic education in Scotland -- despite the traditional Scottish love of education
Tens of thousands of children are failing to master the basics of numeracy and literacy in primary and secondary schools, an audit of standards has revealed. Data obtained by The Sunday Times shows that levels of attainment among pupils finishing primary school and about to embark on Standard Grade courses fell in about half of local authorities last year.
The picture of chronic failure has angered parents and politicians, who claim that successive administrations have mishandled education policy. Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Tories, described the findings as “shocking”. He called for head teachers to be given greater power to run schools and restore standards. Glasgow and Inverclyde are among the worst performing areas, as is Fife.
In more than half of Glasgow’s secondary schools, most S2 pupils fail to reach basic standards in writing, while in one in three of its schools more than half of its S2 pupils do not achieve required levels in reading. In Aberdeen, a majority of primary seven pupils failed to reach the Scottish government’s recommended level D standard in writing in nearly 40% of schools. In east Ayrshire the figure is nearly a third. Primary school standards fell in at least one subject (reading, writing or maths) in 11 out of 22 education authorities that provided figures for the past two years and 9 out of 22 at S2 level. In a third of Fife schools, most S2 pupils failed to reach level E standard in maths. Many education authorities, however, improved in some subjects. Glasgow’s secondary schools saw noticeable improvements, especially in maths, as did the Highlands and Falkirk.
The analysis of standards uses data obtained under freedom of information legislation. The SNP administration, like the previous Lib/Lab coalition, opposes the publication of national league tables. Equivalent data for England is readily available. It confirms fears that the transition from primary to secondary school damages the prospects of thousands of pupils, with an attainment gap between children aged 12 and 14. In 3% of Glasgow primary schools, 50% of children (or more) fail to meet reading standards. At secondary level this rises to 30%. The disparity in results is not just within schools in the same council area but within different skills in the same classroom. Most Aberdeenshire S2 pupils achieved level E reading standard, but in 47% of the authority’s secondaries less than half of pupils reached the required grade in writing, compared to 35% the previous year. Writing skills are a particular weakness across Scotland. In half of Inverclyde secondary schools the majority failed to meet the required standard.
Notable success stories include Stirling, where the number of schools with half (or more) of S2 pupils failing in writing fell from 43% to 29%. Similar improvements were made in reading attainment.
Nonetheless, Fraser described the statistics as dismal. “Far too many youngsters are being failed by the system. The Scottish government has yet to recognise the seriousness of the problem or come up with anything to tackle it. Teaching methods need to be looked at and school heads need more control in their own environment.”
Victor Topping, of the NAS-UWT teaching union, suggested too many inexperienced probationer teachers had taken the place of experienced staff. He called for a greater focus on teaching children the three Rs. “For children who are struggling, the curriculum is too cluttered,” said Topping. “If children are in difficulty with maths and English skills, is there any point in trying to do other subjects with them?”
Tina Woolnough, chairman of the education campaign group Parents in Partnership, accused ministers of underfunding additional learning support for struggling pupils. She spoke of the human story of lost children behind the statistics. “We should know what their home life is like, what their diet is like and if they are getting adequate sleep and living normal routines,” she said. “Childcare is probably lacking for a hard core of failing families and we are not making any headway. Often schools don’t have the resources to tackle these problems, they only have resources for the extreme cases. The rest have to muddle on through.”
The Scottish government said it was focusing on early intervention in schools, including smaller class sizes, to drive up standards. [A pity that smaller classes do NOT improve standards. But how can we expect the Scottish exceutive to know what has been known elsewhere for decades?]
Source
Binge drinking is good for you
I think that the inimitable Jeremy Clarkson has a good and serious point after the mockery below
Who are they? The people who decide how we should run our lives. The busybodies who say that we can't smoke foxes or smack our children. The nitwits who say that we should have a new bank holiday to celebrate traffic wardens and social workers. Where do they meet? Who pays their wages? And how do they get their harebrained schemes into the statute books? Honestly? I haven't a clue. But I do know this. It's very obvious that their new target is people who drink alcohol - ie, everyone over the age of eight.
Over the years we've been told that we can't drive a car if we've had a wine and that we should avoid alcohol if we're pregnant. But now they seem to be saying that all people must steer clear of all drinks always. Having told young people that they must stop drinking while on a night out, in case they are stabbed or end up having sex with a pretty girl, they now say that older people, who think it's acceptable to enjoy a bottle of wine with their supper, are clogging up hospital wards that could otherwise be used to treat injured foxes. We are told that alcohol rots your liver, makes you impotent, gives you stomach ulcers and turns your skin into something that looks like a used condom's handbag.
Only last week we were shown photographs of a stick-thin man with a massive stomach who had died at the age of 36 because he'd had too many sherry trifles. The BBC says that if you drink too much your brain stem will break and you will die. The British government tells us that if a man drinks more than two small glasses of white wine a day he will catch chlamydia from the barmaid in the pub garden after closing time. Rubbish. If a man drinks two small glasses of white wine every day it's the barman he needs to worry about.
Me? Well, what I love most of all is binge drinking. Really getting stuck in. Hosing back the cocktails until the room begins to swim and my legs seem to be on backwards. It's not just the recklessness and freedom that result when massive quantities of alcohol unlock the shackles. It's the promise that in the morning you can share your pain with a bunch of other similarly afflicted friends. Normal pain, such as an eye disease or toothache, is a lonely and solitary pursuit, but a group hangover is a problem shared and that seems to bring out the best in us. Like the blitz. Like when you've just stepped off a terrifying rollercoaster ride. Everyone's in it together. And a problem shared is a problem pared.
Of course, the trouble these days is that the binge drinking that is necessary to produce collective hardship is a complete nono. They say that if you go out and get blasted you'll die in a puddle of blood and vomit down a back alley long before you get the chance to catch chlamydia from the barman, and that no one will come to your funeral.
Happily this is rubbish. I've just done a calculation and on holiday this year I drank 55 units of alcohol a day. I would start at 11 o'clock with a beer which, because it was hot, was like trying to irrigate East Anglia with a syringe. So I would have three more. Then I would guzzle wine and mojitos throughout the afternoon, the evening and the night until I fell over somewhere and slept. Am I now dead? No. In fact, because I drank so much I was more relaxed, which means that I'm back at home now feeling fresher and more rested. So there you have it. Serious binge drinking is not only a nice thing to do and jolly good fun, but also - and here's something that you won't get from the mongers of doom - it's good for you, too.
The point of binge drinking is that you drink and then you stop drinking. And this is the key. The real problem is when you drink - and you keep on drinking. This is known as alcoholism and that, so far as I can tell, is the worst thing in the world. There is nothing quite so pitiable and wretched as an alcoholic. I know plenty of people who take drugs, drive too fast and kill foxes. And they're all good company. But honestly, I would rather do time in a Turkish prison than spend time with a drinker. They ramble, they fall over, they think they are 10 times more interesting than is actually the case - and if they get the slightest inkling that you disapprove or are bored a great many become aggressive. These are the people whom the busybodies should be concentrating on. Not with stern words and dire warnings, neither of which will make the slightest bit of difference, but with help and understanding and patience.
Seriously, by telling me that I'm an alcoholic because I binge drink on holiday and share a bottle of wine with my wife over supper every night is the same as persecuting everyone who breaks the speed limit. We need to make a distinction between someone doing 32mph and someone doing 175mph. And it's the same story with child abuse. By telling me that I'm breaking the law every time I smack my children's bottoms, you are taking the pressure off those who lock their kids in a broom cupboard and only let them out to go thieving. My handy hint this morning, then, is simple. Leave the normal people who do normal things alone. Forget about the people who drink for fun and worry only about those who drink to live.
Source
`Quickie' breast surgery on way
WOMEN undergoing a new type of breast enlargement will be able to go out to dinner on the evening of their operation, British plastic surgeons will be told this week. John Tebbetts, a Texan plastic surgeon, will tell the annual meeting of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons the augmentation can be carried out in 30 minutes and will greatly reduce the damage to skin and breast tissue. Tebbetts, based in Dallas, said: "After the surgery we tell the women to go home, have a little nap then get up after two hours, wash their hair, which helps them stretch their muscles, then to go out to dinner. Between 80 and 85% of our patients go out on the evening of their surgery."
The operation, marketed as the "out to dinner" breast augmentation, involves carrying out exact measurements of the breast skin and tissue in advance so that exactly the right size of implant is inserted. Completing the operation in between 30 to 40 minutes means the woman requires low levels of anaesthetic drugs. Tebbetts avoids bleeding by using an extremely precise cutting device. His patients are promised no tubes, no visible bruising and no need for special bras. They can drive on the day of surgery and resume normal activities the next day.
But Tebbetts says women need to be educated out of thinking they require a period of convalescence. "Women have got to get out of the mindset that they are going to be ill after this operation."
Patrick Mallucci, a British consultant plastic surgeon, will this week unveil his formula for the perfectly proportioned breast to an augmentation symposium at the Royal College of Surgeons. Mallucci said the ideal breast has the nipple sitting about 45% from the top, pointing slightly skyward. "An attractive breast has a balanced proportion between the upper half and lower half. All the models I looked at conformed to those parameters."
Source
Batty Britain again: "A radical Muslim cleric banned from his local mosque was allowed to work as a hospital chaplain, according to a BBC London investigation. Usman Ali has been banned from his local mosque in Woolwich, London, after trustees won a court injunction. But the ex-member of banned group Al Muha-ji-roun led prayers for NHS staff at Woolwich's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Hospital staff said they had suspended Mr Ali two days ago after concerns were raised by the police. The 30-year-old British born preacher was banned for life from entering his local mosque in Woolwich after trustees won a county court injunction against him in January. It was an unprecedented step and cost the mosque 30,000 pounds. BBC London has seen the judge's order on the case and found that Ali had shown a video to children in the mosque containing clips of planes flying into the world trade centre during which he chanted "God is great". Mosque trustees said they warned hospital officials about Mr Ali months ago but nothing was done".
Tens of thousands of children are failing to master the basics of numeracy and literacy in primary and secondary schools, an audit of standards has revealed. Data obtained by The Sunday Times shows that levels of attainment among pupils finishing primary school and about to embark on Standard Grade courses fell in about half of local authorities last year.
The picture of chronic failure has angered parents and politicians, who claim that successive administrations have mishandled education policy. Murdo Fraser, deputy leader of the Scottish Tories, described the findings as “shocking”. He called for head teachers to be given greater power to run schools and restore standards. Glasgow and Inverclyde are among the worst performing areas, as is Fife.
In more than half of Glasgow’s secondary schools, most S2 pupils fail to reach basic standards in writing, while in one in three of its schools more than half of its S2 pupils do not achieve required levels in reading. In Aberdeen, a majority of primary seven pupils failed to reach the Scottish government’s recommended level D standard in writing in nearly 40% of schools. In east Ayrshire the figure is nearly a third. Primary school standards fell in at least one subject (reading, writing or maths) in 11 out of 22 education authorities that provided figures for the past two years and 9 out of 22 at S2 level. In a third of Fife schools, most S2 pupils failed to reach level E standard in maths. Many education authorities, however, improved in some subjects. Glasgow’s secondary schools saw noticeable improvements, especially in maths, as did the Highlands and Falkirk.
The analysis of standards uses data obtained under freedom of information legislation. The SNP administration, like the previous Lib/Lab coalition, opposes the publication of national league tables. Equivalent data for England is readily available. It confirms fears that the transition from primary to secondary school damages the prospects of thousands of pupils, with an attainment gap between children aged 12 and 14. In 3% of Glasgow primary schools, 50% of children (or more) fail to meet reading standards. At secondary level this rises to 30%. The disparity in results is not just within schools in the same council area but within different skills in the same classroom. Most Aberdeenshire S2 pupils achieved level E reading standard, but in 47% of the authority’s secondaries less than half of pupils reached the required grade in writing, compared to 35% the previous year. Writing skills are a particular weakness across Scotland. In half of Inverclyde secondary schools the majority failed to meet the required standard.
Notable success stories include Stirling, where the number of schools with half (or more) of S2 pupils failing in writing fell from 43% to 29%. Similar improvements were made in reading attainment.
Nonetheless, Fraser described the statistics as dismal. “Far too many youngsters are being failed by the system. The Scottish government has yet to recognise the seriousness of the problem or come up with anything to tackle it. Teaching methods need to be looked at and school heads need more control in their own environment.”
Victor Topping, of the NAS-UWT teaching union, suggested too many inexperienced probationer teachers had taken the place of experienced staff. He called for a greater focus on teaching children the three Rs. “For children who are struggling, the curriculum is too cluttered,” said Topping. “If children are in difficulty with maths and English skills, is there any point in trying to do other subjects with them?”
Tina Woolnough, chairman of the education campaign group Parents in Partnership, accused ministers of underfunding additional learning support for struggling pupils. She spoke of the human story of lost children behind the statistics. “We should know what their home life is like, what their diet is like and if they are getting adequate sleep and living normal routines,” she said. “Childcare is probably lacking for a hard core of failing families and we are not making any headway. Often schools don’t have the resources to tackle these problems, they only have resources for the extreme cases. The rest have to muddle on through.”
The Scottish government said it was focusing on early intervention in schools, including smaller class sizes, to drive up standards. [A pity that smaller classes do NOT improve standards. But how can we expect the Scottish exceutive to know what has been known elsewhere for decades?]
Source
Binge drinking is good for you
I think that the inimitable Jeremy Clarkson has a good and serious point after the mockery below
Who are they? The people who decide how we should run our lives. The busybodies who say that we can't smoke foxes or smack our children. The nitwits who say that we should have a new bank holiday to celebrate traffic wardens and social workers. Where do they meet? Who pays their wages? And how do they get their harebrained schemes into the statute books? Honestly? I haven't a clue. But I do know this. It's very obvious that their new target is people who drink alcohol - ie, everyone over the age of eight.
Over the years we've been told that we can't drive a car if we've had a wine and that we should avoid alcohol if we're pregnant. But now they seem to be saying that all people must steer clear of all drinks always. Having told young people that they must stop drinking while on a night out, in case they are stabbed or end up having sex with a pretty girl, they now say that older people, who think it's acceptable to enjoy a bottle of wine with their supper, are clogging up hospital wards that could otherwise be used to treat injured foxes. We are told that alcohol rots your liver, makes you impotent, gives you stomach ulcers and turns your skin into something that looks like a used condom's handbag.
Only last week we were shown photographs of a stick-thin man with a massive stomach who had died at the age of 36 because he'd had too many sherry trifles. The BBC says that if you drink too much your brain stem will break and you will die. The British government tells us that if a man drinks more than two small glasses of white wine a day he will catch chlamydia from the barmaid in the pub garden after closing time. Rubbish. If a man drinks two small glasses of white wine every day it's the barman he needs to worry about.
Me? Well, what I love most of all is binge drinking. Really getting stuck in. Hosing back the cocktails until the room begins to swim and my legs seem to be on backwards. It's not just the recklessness and freedom that result when massive quantities of alcohol unlock the shackles. It's the promise that in the morning you can share your pain with a bunch of other similarly afflicted friends. Normal pain, such as an eye disease or toothache, is a lonely and solitary pursuit, but a group hangover is a problem shared and that seems to bring out the best in us. Like the blitz. Like when you've just stepped off a terrifying rollercoaster ride. Everyone's in it together. And a problem shared is a problem pared.
Of course, the trouble these days is that the binge drinking that is necessary to produce collective hardship is a complete nono. They say that if you go out and get blasted you'll die in a puddle of blood and vomit down a back alley long before you get the chance to catch chlamydia from the barman, and that no one will come to your funeral.
Happily this is rubbish. I've just done a calculation and on holiday this year I drank 55 units of alcohol a day. I would start at 11 o'clock with a beer which, because it was hot, was like trying to irrigate East Anglia with a syringe. So I would have three more. Then I would guzzle wine and mojitos throughout the afternoon, the evening and the night until I fell over somewhere and slept. Am I now dead? No. In fact, because I drank so much I was more relaxed, which means that I'm back at home now feeling fresher and more rested. So there you have it. Serious binge drinking is not only a nice thing to do and jolly good fun, but also - and here's something that you won't get from the mongers of doom - it's good for you, too.
The point of binge drinking is that you drink and then you stop drinking. And this is the key. The real problem is when you drink - and you keep on drinking. This is known as alcoholism and that, so far as I can tell, is the worst thing in the world. There is nothing quite so pitiable and wretched as an alcoholic. I know plenty of people who take drugs, drive too fast and kill foxes. And they're all good company. But honestly, I would rather do time in a Turkish prison than spend time with a drinker. They ramble, they fall over, they think they are 10 times more interesting than is actually the case - and if they get the slightest inkling that you disapprove or are bored a great many become aggressive. These are the people whom the busybodies should be concentrating on. Not with stern words and dire warnings, neither of which will make the slightest bit of difference, but with help and understanding and patience.
Seriously, by telling me that I'm an alcoholic because I binge drink on holiday and share a bottle of wine with my wife over supper every night is the same as persecuting everyone who breaks the speed limit. We need to make a distinction between someone doing 32mph and someone doing 175mph. And it's the same story with child abuse. By telling me that I'm breaking the law every time I smack my children's bottoms, you are taking the pressure off those who lock their kids in a broom cupboard and only let them out to go thieving. My handy hint this morning, then, is simple. Leave the normal people who do normal things alone. Forget about the people who drink for fun and worry only about those who drink to live.
Source
`Quickie' breast surgery on way
WOMEN undergoing a new type of breast enlargement will be able to go out to dinner on the evening of their operation, British plastic surgeons will be told this week. John Tebbetts, a Texan plastic surgeon, will tell the annual meeting of the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons the augmentation can be carried out in 30 minutes and will greatly reduce the damage to skin and breast tissue. Tebbetts, based in Dallas, said: "After the surgery we tell the women to go home, have a little nap then get up after two hours, wash their hair, which helps them stretch their muscles, then to go out to dinner. Between 80 and 85% of our patients go out on the evening of their surgery."
The operation, marketed as the "out to dinner" breast augmentation, involves carrying out exact measurements of the breast skin and tissue in advance so that exactly the right size of implant is inserted. Completing the operation in between 30 to 40 minutes means the woman requires low levels of anaesthetic drugs. Tebbetts avoids bleeding by using an extremely precise cutting device. His patients are promised no tubes, no visible bruising and no need for special bras. They can drive on the day of surgery and resume normal activities the next day.
But Tebbetts says women need to be educated out of thinking they require a period of convalescence. "Women have got to get out of the mindset that they are going to be ill after this operation."
Patrick Mallucci, a British consultant plastic surgeon, will this week unveil his formula for the perfectly proportioned breast to an augmentation symposium at the Royal College of Surgeons. Mallucci said the ideal breast has the nipple sitting about 45% from the top, pointing slightly skyward. "An attractive breast has a balanced proportion between the upper half and lower half. All the models I looked at conformed to those parameters."
Source
Batty Britain again: "A radical Muslim cleric banned from his local mosque was allowed to work as a hospital chaplain, according to a BBC London investigation. Usman Ali has been banned from his local mosque in Woolwich, London, after trustees won a court injunction. But the ex-member of banned group Al Muha-ji-roun led prayers for NHS staff at Woolwich's Queen Elizabeth Hospital. Hospital staff said they had suspended Mr Ali two days ago after concerns were raised by the police. The 30-year-old British born preacher was banned for life from entering his local mosque in Woolwich after trustees won a county court injunction against him in January. It was an unprecedented step and cost the mosque 30,000 pounds. BBC London has seen the judge's order on the case and found that Ali had shown a video to children in the mosque containing clips of planes flying into the world trade centre during which he chanted "God is great". Mosque trustees said they warned hospital officials about Mr Ali months ago but nothing was done".
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Disgusting British pseudo-police
They followed their rules even though it meant letting a little boy drown. It is hard to believe that some bureaucrats are human beings -- but no doubt they will be rewarded for their "correct" behaviour
Two police support officers looked on as a boy of ten drowned because they had not been trained to deal with such an emergency. Jordon Lyon had jumped into a pond after his step-sister Bethany Ganderton, eight, got into difficulties while swimming. Emergency services were called and two police community support officers - nicknamed "Blunkett's bobbies" - were the first on the scene on their bikes. But instead of wading in, they stood on the side of the pond and waited for trained officers to turn up.
When Sergeant Craig Lippitt, a regular police officer, arrived minutes later, he stripped off his body armour and jumped into the pond in Wigan. Jordon was pulled from the water but, despite attempts to resuscitate him, was pronouced dead in hospital.
The incident is likely to raise further questions over the effectiveness of support officers who have been described as "plastic police" - under-trained and ill-equipped.
Jordon's parents, Tracy and Anthony Ganderton, yesterday condemned the pair for failing to help in the crucial minutes in which their son's life could have been saved. At an inquest into Jordon's death, Mr Ganderton said: "When we got there, the PCSOs just stood there watching. I can't understand it. If I had been walking along and seen a child drowning I would have jumped in."
Detective Chief Inspector Philip Owen of Greater Manchester Police told the inquest: "PCSOs are not trained to the same extent as police officers, so wouldn't have been taught how to deal with a situation like this." But Mr Ganderton retorted: "You don't have to be trained to jump in after a drowning child." He and his wife are demanding to know why the PCSOs did not try to rescue Jordon the second they arrived on the scene, why the officers did not give evidence at the inquest and why their identities were concealed.
The inquest was told Jordon had gone to play in area of open land with his brothers Haydon, eight, Brandon, nine, his stepbrother Anthony, nine, and Bethany on the afternoon of May 3. Fishermen had seen the children collecting tadpoles at the edge of a pond. But moments later Bert Wright, 66, and John Collinson, 63, saw that Bethany had her arms around her stepbrother's neck and he was holding her up, even though his head was under the water. Both men waded in and managed to get hold of the girl, but Jordon had disappeared.
Mr Ganderton had been alerted and he and a friend raced to scene. After seeing the two PCSOs standing at the water's edge, they jumped in, to be joined moments later by Sergeant Lippitt.
In a statement issued after the inquest, Mr Owen said there was initially confusion over the location of the incident. When the support officers arrived, there was no sign of the boy in the water. "Having made an assessment, one of the PCSOs called the Greater Manchester Police control room and an officer was at the scene within five minutes of this. "It would have been inappropriate for PCSOs, who are not trained in water rescue, to enter the pond."
Recording a verdict of accidental death, deputy coroner Alan Walsh said: "This is an inquest of utmost tragedy." There are 14,000 PCSOs who have the power to issue fines for anti-social behaviour, public disorder and motoring offences. They are cheaper to train and to employ than regular officers and were introduced by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2002.
Source
Brits not allowed to prefer British doctors
The threat of unemployment among UK medical graduates is being blamed on the failed computerised recruitment system (MTAS), but an article in this week's BMJ argues that the real problem is government policy on medical immigration.
In the late 1990s UK medical schools produced nearly 5,000 graduates each year, considerably fewer than the NHS needed, writes Graham Winyard, a retired Postgraduate Dean. But in 1997, an expansion of medical school places began and the number of graduate doctors is set to rise to 7,000 in 2010, an increase of 40%.
The planners assumed that UK qualified doctors would replace those from overseas. But Government immigration policies have encouraged thousands of overseas doctors to compete for postgraduate training posts, and it is of course illegal for trusts and deaneries to discriminate on the basis of country of qualification when making appointments. Expanding medical schools makes little sense if extra graduates cannot pursue a career in medicine, says Winyard.
UK trained doctors began to voice concerns about possible unemployment in 2005 and these concerns were dramatically realised this summer, when MTAS was introduced to select doctors for training posts. While there were broadly sufficient posts to accommodate UK applicants, together with those from the rest of the European Economic Area, he argues, the inclusion of thousands of overseas doctors has transformed the prospects for all applicants and has made widespread failure to secure a proper training post inevitable.
The UK urgently needs policy coherence on immigration and medical training, he writes. The direct connection between policy on medical immigration and the likelihood of unemployment for UK medical graduates is inescapable. The most obvious action, he says, would be to suspend the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme - a scheme allowing highly skilled people to migrate to the UK to seek work without a specific job offer - as it applies to doctors, and establish a two stage recruitment process similar to that used in other countries, whereby overseas applications are considered after those of domestic graduates.
The rights of overseas doctors already in the system must be safeguarded, but if decisive action is not taken the situation will be worse next year, he warns. This muddle is in no one's best interests and needs open and honest discussion and clear leadership, however difficult that may be, he concludes.
Source
BRITAIN: IS AL GORE'S GLOBAL WARMING MOVIE BALANCED OR BIASED?
A lorry driver is taking the Government to court over a film that he believes is biased and shouldn't be shown to children in schools. 'The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over." So said David Miliband in February. Mr Miliband, who was then environment secretary, was responding to a report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This left the minister so confident that there was nothing more to say on the matter that he and Alan Johnson, the then education secretary, announced that they would be sending a film about climate change to all 3,385 secondary schools in England.
A neutral, objective assessment of the evidence, perhaps? One that took care to present all sides of the argument so that pupils could make up their own minds? Not at all: it was Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, described by Mr Johnson as "a powerful message about the fragility of our planet". Since ministers regarded the debate as well and truly over, they were "delighted" to send school children a polemic that took as its central thesis the argument that climate change - the increase in global temperatures over the past 50 years - was mainly the result of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. This is indeed the view of the IPCC, and most of the world's climate scientists. But other people disagree.
One of them is Stewart Dimmock, 45, a lorry driver and school governor from Kent. His sons, aged 11 and 14, attend a secondary school in Dover which has presumably received a copy of Mr Gore's film. "I care about the environment as much as the next man," says Mr Dimmock. "However, I am determined to prevent my children from being subjected to political spin in the classroom."
You might think there ought to be a law against this - and there is. Section 406(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996 says that local education authorities, school governing bodies and head teachers "shall forbid... the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school". And if political issues are brought to the attention of pupils while they are at a maintained school, the authority, the governors and the head are required by the next section of the Act to take "such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that... they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views".
What precisely do these words mean? No court has yet ruled on them. But that opportunity will come in a week's time when Mr Dimmock takes legal action against Ed Balls, the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Mr Dimmock's lawyers are trying to prevent the film being shown in schools. At this stage, they are asking for permission to challenge the Schools Secretary's decision to distribute it. This was refused in July after a written application. But if permission is granted at an oral hearing next Thursday, the judge is expected to consider the merits of Mr Dimmock's application for judicial review straight away.
A day in court, with expert evidence, does not come cheap - especially if Mr Dimmock loses and has to pay part or all of the Government's costs. Where will the money come from? "The funding is a private matter for him," says John Day, Mr Dimmock's solicitor. Mr Day will not be drawn further, but he does confirm that his client is an active member of the New Party. Its manifesto says that "political opportunism and alarmism have combined in seizing [the IPCC's] conclusions to push forward an agenda of taxation and controls that may ultimately be ineffective in tackling climate change, but will certainly be damaging to our economy and society".
What, though, of the issues? According to his solicitor, Mr Dimmock accepts that the planet is getting hotter; he is not trying to prevent climate change being taught in schools. What he does not accept is that sending out a 93-minute film made by the former vice-president of the United States is the right way to do it. "Gore has gone on record as saying he believes it is appropriate to over-represent the facts to get his message across," says Mr Day. "One of the very clear inferences from the Gore film is that areas such as Bangladesh will be under water by the end of the century. He is talking about sea levels rising by 20 feet."
But this is not backed up by the IPCC, the solicitor says. Their view is that sea levels will rise by 1.3 feet over the next 100 years. A rise of 20ft would require rising temperatures to continue for millennia.
"This film is a very powerful piece of work, says Mr Day. "There is a real risk that children are going to gulp on this and just digest it and accept it." Michael Sparkes, also from the law firm Malletts, adds that Mr Gore's central premise - that carbon dioxide emissions are causing the recently observed global warming - is taken by the film as proved. "There is no discussion of the fact that the climate is changing naturally all the time, whether warming or cooling," he said. He questions the examples given in the film, suggesting that there are often local causes for shrinking lakes and melting glaciers.
Mr Dimmock's lawyers will therefore argue that distributing this film to schools is either unlawful under section 406 of the 1996 Act or unlawful because it does not offer the balance required by section 407.
But, says the Government, balance is precisely what we are providing. Teachers need only go to a public website called teachernet.gov.uk to download and print - at their schools' expense - a 48-page guidance note. The current version of this note acknowledges that "teachers have a duty to give a balanced presentation of political issues and to avoid political indoctrination". It advises teachers to divide the film into three strands: Areas where there is undisputed scientific consensus, such as the clear evidence that global temperatures are rising; Areas where there is a "strong scientific consensus but where a small minority of scientists do not agree", for example that gas emissions from human activity are the main cause of climate change. "When dealing with such issues teachers may wish to refer to alternative views but make it clear that they do not accord with the weight of scientific opinion," the Government says; and Areas where there is political debate, such as how we should respond to climate change. "When addressing these areas, teachers must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that pupils are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views."
The Schools Department says: "The law does not prevent teachers or schools from showing material which includes expressions of political opinion. But it does require that, when such material is shown, the opinion is presented in a balanced way."
Mr Day says his client is not satisfied with this. "You have a fundamentally flawed film, scientifically and politically, where the onus is being placed on teachers to draw the thorns and to remedy the defects," he says. "Is that fair on teachers?" Whether the written guidance is enough to balance the impact of Mr Gore's undoubtedly political views will no doubt be at the heart of next week's hearing. But is the debate over the science of climate change "well and truly over"? Not a chance.
Source
They followed their rules even though it meant letting a little boy drown. It is hard to believe that some bureaucrats are human beings -- but no doubt they will be rewarded for their "correct" behaviour
Two police support officers looked on as a boy of ten drowned because they had not been trained to deal with such an emergency. Jordon Lyon had jumped into a pond after his step-sister Bethany Ganderton, eight, got into difficulties while swimming. Emergency services were called and two police community support officers - nicknamed "Blunkett's bobbies" - were the first on the scene on their bikes. But instead of wading in, they stood on the side of the pond and waited for trained officers to turn up.
When Sergeant Craig Lippitt, a regular police officer, arrived minutes later, he stripped off his body armour and jumped into the pond in Wigan. Jordon was pulled from the water but, despite attempts to resuscitate him, was pronouced dead in hospital.
The incident is likely to raise further questions over the effectiveness of support officers who have been described as "plastic police" - under-trained and ill-equipped.
Jordon's parents, Tracy and Anthony Ganderton, yesterday condemned the pair for failing to help in the crucial minutes in which their son's life could have been saved. At an inquest into Jordon's death, Mr Ganderton said: "When we got there, the PCSOs just stood there watching. I can't understand it. If I had been walking along and seen a child drowning I would have jumped in."
Detective Chief Inspector Philip Owen of Greater Manchester Police told the inquest: "PCSOs are not trained to the same extent as police officers, so wouldn't have been taught how to deal with a situation like this." But Mr Ganderton retorted: "You don't have to be trained to jump in after a drowning child." He and his wife are demanding to know why the PCSOs did not try to rescue Jordon the second they arrived on the scene, why the officers did not give evidence at the inquest and why their identities were concealed.
The inquest was told Jordon had gone to play in area of open land with his brothers Haydon, eight, Brandon, nine, his stepbrother Anthony, nine, and Bethany on the afternoon of May 3. Fishermen had seen the children collecting tadpoles at the edge of a pond. But moments later Bert Wright, 66, and John Collinson, 63, saw that Bethany had her arms around her stepbrother's neck and he was holding her up, even though his head was under the water. Both men waded in and managed to get hold of the girl, but Jordon had disappeared.
Mr Ganderton had been alerted and he and a friend raced to scene. After seeing the two PCSOs standing at the water's edge, they jumped in, to be joined moments later by Sergeant Lippitt.
In a statement issued after the inquest, Mr Owen said there was initially confusion over the location of the incident. When the support officers arrived, there was no sign of the boy in the water. "Having made an assessment, one of the PCSOs called the Greater Manchester Police control room and an officer was at the scene within five minutes of this. "It would have been inappropriate for PCSOs, who are not trained in water rescue, to enter the pond."
Recording a verdict of accidental death, deputy coroner Alan Walsh said: "This is an inquest of utmost tragedy." There are 14,000 PCSOs who have the power to issue fines for anti-social behaviour, public disorder and motoring offences. They are cheaper to train and to employ than regular officers and were introduced by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett in 2002.
Source
Brits not allowed to prefer British doctors
The threat of unemployment among UK medical graduates is being blamed on the failed computerised recruitment system (MTAS), but an article in this week's BMJ argues that the real problem is government policy on medical immigration.
In the late 1990s UK medical schools produced nearly 5,000 graduates each year, considerably fewer than the NHS needed, writes Graham Winyard, a retired Postgraduate Dean. But in 1997, an expansion of medical school places began and the number of graduate doctors is set to rise to 7,000 in 2010, an increase of 40%.
The planners assumed that UK qualified doctors would replace those from overseas. But Government immigration policies have encouraged thousands of overseas doctors to compete for postgraduate training posts, and it is of course illegal for trusts and deaneries to discriminate on the basis of country of qualification when making appointments. Expanding medical schools makes little sense if extra graduates cannot pursue a career in medicine, says Winyard.
UK trained doctors began to voice concerns about possible unemployment in 2005 and these concerns were dramatically realised this summer, when MTAS was introduced to select doctors for training posts. While there were broadly sufficient posts to accommodate UK applicants, together with those from the rest of the European Economic Area, he argues, the inclusion of thousands of overseas doctors has transformed the prospects for all applicants and has made widespread failure to secure a proper training post inevitable.
The UK urgently needs policy coherence on immigration and medical training, he writes. The direct connection between policy on medical immigration and the likelihood of unemployment for UK medical graduates is inescapable. The most obvious action, he says, would be to suspend the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme - a scheme allowing highly skilled people to migrate to the UK to seek work without a specific job offer - as it applies to doctors, and establish a two stage recruitment process similar to that used in other countries, whereby overseas applications are considered after those of domestic graduates.
The rights of overseas doctors already in the system must be safeguarded, but if decisive action is not taken the situation will be worse next year, he warns. This muddle is in no one's best interests and needs open and honest discussion and clear leadership, however difficult that may be, he concludes.
Source
BRITAIN: IS AL GORE'S GLOBAL WARMING MOVIE BALANCED OR BIASED?
A lorry driver is taking the Government to court over a film that he believes is biased and shouldn't be shown to children in schools. 'The debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over." So said David Miliband in February. Mr Miliband, who was then environment secretary, was responding to a report from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This left the minister so confident that there was nothing more to say on the matter that he and Alan Johnson, the then education secretary, announced that they would be sending a film about climate change to all 3,385 secondary schools in England.
A neutral, objective assessment of the evidence, perhaps? One that took care to present all sides of the argument so that pupils could make up their own minds? Not at all: it was Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, described by Mr Johnson as "a powerful message about the fragility of our planet". Since ministers regarded the debate as well and truly over, they were "delighted" to send school children a polemic that took as its central thesis the argument that climate change - the increase in global temperatures over the past 50 years - was mainly the result of man-made carbon dioxide emissions. This is indeed the view of the IPCC, and most of the world's climate scientists. But other people disagree.
One of them is Stewart Dimmock, 45, a lorry driver and school governor from Kent. His sons, aged 11 and 14, attend a secondary school in Dover which has presumably received a copy of Mr Gore's film. "I care about the environment as much as the next man," says Mr Dimmock. "However, I am determined to prevent my children from being subjected to political spin in the classroom."
You might think there ought to be a law against this - and there is. Section 406(1)(b) of the Education Act 1996 says that local education authorities, school governing bodies and head teachers "shall forbid... the promotion of partisan political views in the teaching of any subject in the school". And if political issues are brought to the attention of pupils while they are at a maintained school, the authority, the governors and the head are required by the next section of the Act to take "such steps as are reasonably practicable to secure that... they are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views".
What precisely do these words mean? No court has yet ruled on them. But that opportunity will come in a week's time when Mr Dimmock takes legal action against Ed Balls, the new Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Mr Dimmock's lawyers are trying to prevent the film being shown in schools. At this stage, they are asking for permission to challenge the Schools Secretary's decision to distribute it. This was refused in July after a written application. But if permission is granted at an oral hearing next Thursday, the judge is expected to consider the merits of Mr Dimmock's application for judicial review straight away.
A day in court, with expert evidence, does not come cheap - especially if Mr Dimmock loses and has to pay part or all of the Government's costs. Where will the money come from? "The funding is a private matter for him," says John Day, Mr Dimmock's solicitor. Mr Day will not be drawn further, but he does confirm that his client is an active member of the New Party. Its manifesto says that "political opportunism and alarmism have combined in seizing [the IPCC's] conclusions to push forward an agenda of taxation and controls that may ultimately be ineffective in tackling climate change, but will certainly be damaging to our economy and society".
What, though, of the issues? According to his solicitor, Mr Dimmock accepts that the planet is getting hotter; he is not trying to prevent climate change being taught in schools. What he does not accept is that sending out a 93-minute film made by the former vice-president of the United States is the right way to do it. "Gore has gone on record as saying he believes it is appropriate to over-represent the facts to get his message across," says Mr Day. "One of the very clear inferences from the Gore film is that areas such as Bangladesh will be under water by the end of the century. He is talking about sea levels rising by 20 feet."
But this is not backed up by the IPCC, the solicitor says. Their view is that sea levels will rise by 1.3 feet over the next 100 years. A rise of 20ft would require rising temperatures to continue for millennia.
"This film is a very powerful piece of work, says Mr Day. "There is a real risk that children are going to gulp on this and just digest it and accept it." Michael Sparkes, also from the law firm Malletts, adds that Mr Gore's central premise - that carbon dioxide emissions are causing the recently observed global warming - is taken by the film as proved. "There is no discussion of the fact that the climate is changing naturally all the time, whether warming or cooling," he said. He questions the examples given in the film, suggesting that there are often local causes for shrinking lakes and melting glaciers.
Mr Dimmock's lawyers will therefore argue that distributing this film to schools is either unlawful under section 406 of the 1996 Act or unlawful because it does not offer the balance required by section 407.
But, says the Government, balance is precisely what we are providing. Teachers need only go to a public website called teachernet.gov.uk to download and print - at their schools' expense - a 48-page guidance note. The current version of this note acknowledges that "teachers have a duty to give a balanced presentation of political issues and to avoid political indoctrination". It advises teachers to divide the film into three strands: Areas where there is undisputed scientific consensus, such as the clear evidence that global temperatures are rising; Areas where there is a "strong scientific consensus but where a small minority of scientists do not agree", for example that gas emissions from human activity are the main cause of climate change. "When dealing with such issues teachers may wish to refer to alternative views but make it clear that they do not accord with the weight of scientific opinion," the Government says; and Areas where there is political debate, such as how we should respond to climate change. "When addressing these areas, teachers must take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that pupils are offered a balanced presentation of opposing views."
The Schools Department says: "The law does not prevent teachers or schools from showing material which includes expressions of political opinion. But it does require that, when such material is shown, the opinion is presented in a balanced way."
Mr Day says his client is not satisfied with this. "You have a fundamentally flawed film, scientifically and politically, where the onus is being placed on teachers to draw the thorns and to remedy the defects," he says. "Is that fair on teachers?" Whether the written guidance is enough to balance the impact of Mr Gore's undoubtedly political views will no doubt be at the heart of next week's hearing. But is the debate over the science of climate change "well and truly over"? Not a chance.
Source
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Islamic abuse in the NHS
A Muslim dentist made a woman wear Islamic dress as the price of accepting her as an NHS patient, it is alleged. Omer Butt is said to have told the patient that unless she wore a headscarf she would have to find another practice. Later this month, Mr Butt will appear before a General Dental Council professional misconduct hearing, which has the power to strike him off. It is claimed that the 31-year-old dentist asked to speak to the woman in private after she turned up for an appointment at his clinic in Bury. According to the charges, he questioned her on whether she was a Muslim and told her that if he was to treat her she would have to wear Islamic dress. He is also said to have read out a number of religious rules to her. He then told his nurse to give the patient her own headscarf to wear, the accusation says. It is not known whether the woman was a Muslim.
The charges to be heard by the General Dental Council say that Mr Butt undermined public confidence in his profession by discriminating against a patient and failed to act in her best interests. Mr Butt is the older brother of former Islamic extremist Hassan Butt, who once declared he had 'no problem' with terror attacks on Britain and who said that September 11 "served the pleasure of Allah". He has since recanted and now calls for all Muslims to abandon violence.
The dentist also featured in immigration hearings involving an asylum seeker suspected of providing a safe house for Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian terrorist jailed for life for stabbing PC Stephen Oake to death in Manchester in 2003. Mr Butt, the immigration hearing was told, was introduced by his brother to the asylum seeker, who at various points claimed three different identities. The tribunal was told that Mr Butt was "a respectable and responsible person who wishes to help devout and practising Muslims in difficulty". He "did not regard the use of false names as unusual for asylum seekers".
The headscarf incident is alleged to have happened in 2005, at a time when between 4,000 and 8,000 people in Bury were unable to find an NHS dentist. According to the charges, Mr Butt "asked to speak to Patient A in private. "In the course of conversation with Patient A you: (a) asked whether she was Muslim; (b) told her words to the effect that, in order to receive treatment from you, she needed to wear appropriate Islamic dress; (c) quoted to her parts of the Ahadith."
The Ahadith is a series of instructions on behaviour attributed to Prophet Mohammed but not written as part of the Koran. The charge continues: "You told Patient A that, if she did not wear a headscarf, she would need to register with another dentist. You instructed your dental nurse to give Patient A her headscarf. "The dental nurse took Patient A to another room where she was given the nurse's headscarf to wear. "In seeking to impose an Islamic dress code on Patient A in order for treatment to be provided you undermined public confidence in the profession by discriminating against Patient A."
If the charges are upheld, the Porsche- driving dentist will be found guilty of serious professional misconduct. Penalties can range from a public warning to suspension and being struck off.
Tory MP Sir Paul Beresford, a former minister and a dentist, said: "When a patient comes to see me I have no concern with their religion. I do not ask Muslim patients to read the Bible. "My practice tries to respect religious belief. For example, during Ramadan we try to help Muslim patients by making sure they do not have to swallow water when they are fasting. We do not ask patients to become Christians."
Women staff at Mr Butt's Bury practice do not routinely wear headscarves while at work. One female patient said: "I think it is a pretty outrageous thing to ask but I have never felt as if I am being discriminated against at this practice as a Western woman. "If I was then I would certainly make a full complaint. If it is true then it shows a reverse prejudice bordering on racism."
Mr Butt was involved in another controversial incident earlier this year when police stopped his Porsche 911 and said they could not read its customised number plate. The dentist recorded the subsequent search of the car on his mobile phone and passed the video to the BBC, which broadcast it on a local news bulletin. It shows Mr Butt asking an officer: "Are you a racist?" The dentist was then arrested for racially aggravated behaviour. There were no charges, and a complaint against the police by Mr Butt is still being considered. Mr Butt was unavailable for comment yesterday. Staff at his practice said he was on holiday.
Source
UK truck driver sues to stop Gore's film in schools:
'I am determined to prevent my children from being subjected to political spin in the classroom'
Excerpt: Mr Dimmock's lawyers will therefore argue that distributing this film to schools is either unlawful under section 406 of the 1996 Act or unlawful because it does not offer the balance required by section 407.... What he does not accept is that sending out a 93-minute film made by the former vice-president of the United States is the right way to do it. "Gore has gone on record as saying he believes it is appropriate to over-represent the facts to get his message across," says Mr Day. "One of the very clear inferences from the Gore film is that areas such as Bangladesh will be under water by the end of the century. He is talking about sea levels rising by 20 feet." But this is not backed up by the IPCC, the solicitor says. Their view is that sea levels will rise by 1.3 feet over the next 100 years. A rise of 20ft would require rising temperatures to continue for millennia. "This film is a very powerful piece of work, says Mr Day. "There is a real risk that children are going to gulp on this and just digest it and accept it."
Source
Climate change as an excuse to 'tax the [bleep] out of us'
Excerpt: Christopher Alleva On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal featured a discussion with Michael O'Leary, CEO of low fare Irish airline, Ryanair. Portrayed as kind of a swashbuckler, O'Leary offered up an interesting array of comments on the airline industry and the regulatory environment, but he saved up his most scathing attacks for the new climate change taxes with which Britain is hitting the airlines. His profanity-laced tirade regarding these taxes is right on the money, literally! Mention airlines and carbon dioxide in the same sentence, and he begins peppering his language with four-letter words.
Earlier this year, before becoming Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown raised taxes on air travel to and from the U.K. The then-Treasury chief's stated purpose was fighting climate change. Mr. O'Leary, whose airline serves more than a dozen British airports, demurs: "He just raised taxes on airlines. It has [bleep]-all to do with climate change! We've written several letters . . . to the Treasury, asking what the money's going to be spent on. We still haven't gotten a reply." They can't reply because that money went straight to the general fund to pay for pensions and the national health system!
O'Leary wasn't done yet, laying bare, the whole global warming business for the fraud that it is. "...the problem with all this environmental claptrap . . . it's a convenient excuse for politicians to just start taxing people. Some of these guilt-laden, middle-class liberals think it's somehow good: 'Oh, that's my contribution to the environment.' It's not. You're just being robbed--it's just highway [bleeping] robbery." He observes that passenger airlines are responsible for only 2% of carbon dioxide emissions world-wide: "It's less than marine transport, and yet I don't see anyone [saying], you know, 'Let's tax the [bleep] out of the ferries.' "
Source
The Beeb finally fires a liar
Post below lifted from American Thinker. See the original for links
Well, you gotta hand it to the BBC -- they have high standards about telling the truth. While that may not be obvious from their endless slanders about the United States, their puff pieces for the fraudulent European Union, their bootlicking of Islamic fascists, their ceaseless promotion of Global Warming superstition, their blind promotion of the UN corruptocracy... Oops! ... where was I? Oh, yes ... the BBC has finally fired a producer for peddling lies on its august airwaves.
The Times Online has the story, headlined in large letters "Socks, the Blue Peter cat who could cost BBC staff their jobs."
But -- this is not the first time the Beeb has admitted to being less than truthful.
The Biased BBC website quotes a BBC insider as explaining,
I'm speechless.
A Muslim dentist made a woman wear Islamic dress as the price of accepting her as an NHS patient, it is alleged. Omer Butt is said to have told the patient that unless she wore a headscarf she would have to find another practice. Later this month, Mr Butt will appear before a General Dental Council professional misconduct hearing, which has the power to strike him off. It is claimed that the 31-year-old dentist asked to speak to the woman in private after she turned up for an appointment at his clinic in Bury. According to the charges, he questioned her on whether she was a Muslim and told her that if he was to treat her she would have to wear Islamic dress. He is also said to have read out a number of religious rules to her. He then told his nurse to give the patient her own headscarf to wear, the accusation says. It is not known whether the woman was a Muslim.
The charges to be heard by the General Dental Council say that Mr Butt undermined public confidence in his profession by discriminating against a patient and failed to act in her best interests. Mr Butt is the older brother of former Islamic extremist Hassan Butt, who once declared he had 'no problem' with terror attacks on Britain and who said that September 11 "served the pleasure of Allah". He has since recanted and now calls for all Muslims to abandon violence.
The dentist also featured in immigration hearings involving an asylum seeker suspected of providing a safe house for Kamel Bourgass, an Algerian terrorist jailed for life for stabbing PC Stephen Oake to death in Manchester in 2003. Mr Butt, the immigration hearing was told, was introduced by his brother to the asylum seeker, who at various points claimed three different identities. The tribunal was told that Mr Butt was "a respectable and responsible person who wishes to help devout and practising Muslims in difficulty". He "did not regard the use of false names as unusual for asylum seekers".
The headscarf incident is alleged to have happened in 2005, at a time when between 4,000 and 8,000 people in Bury were unable to find an NHS dentist. According to the charges, Mr Butt "asked to speak to Patient A in private. "In the course of conversation with Patient A you: (a) asked whether she was Muslim; (b) told her words to the effect that, in order to receive treatment from you, she needed to wear appropriate Islamic dress; (c) quoted to her parts of the Ahadith."
The Ahadith is a series of instructions on behaviour attributed to Prophet Mohammed but not written as part of the Koran. The charge continues: "You told Patient A that, if she did not wear a headscarf, she would need to register with another dentist. You instructed your dental nurse to give Patient A her headscarf. "The dental nurse took Patient A to another room where she was given the nurse's headscarf to wear. "In seeking to impose an Islamic dress code on Patient A in order for treatment to be provided you undermined public confidence in the profession by discriminating against Patient A."
If the charges are upheld, the Porsche- driving dentist will be found guilty of serious professional misconduct. Penalties can range from a public warning to suspension and being struck off.
Tory MP Sir Paul Beresford, a former minister and a dentist, said: "When a patient comes to see me I have no concern with their religion. I do not ask Muslim patients to read the Bible. "My practice tries to respect religious belief. For example, during Ramadan we try to help Muslim patients by making sure they do not have to swallow water when they are fasting. We do not ask patients to become Christians."
Women staff at Mr Butt's Bury practice do not routinely wear headscarves while at work. One female patient said: "I think it is a pretty outrageous thing to ask but I have never felt as if I am being discriminated against at this practice as a Western woman. "If I was then I would certainly make a full complaint. If it is true then it shows a reverse prejudice bordering on racism."
Mr Butt was involved in another controversial incident earlier this year when police stopped his Porsche 911 and said they could not read its customised number plate. The dentist recorded the subsequent search of the car on his mobile phone and passed the video to the BBC, which broadcast it on a local news bulletin. It shows Mr Butt asking an officer: "Are you a racist?" The dentist was then arrested for racially aggravated behaviour. There were no charges, and a complaint against the police by Mr Butt is still being considered. Mr Butt was unavailable for comment yesterday. Staff at his practice said he was on holiday.
Source
UK truck driver sues to stop Gore's film in schools:
'I am determined to prevent my children from being subjected to political spin in the classroom'
Excerpt: Mr Dimmock's lawyers will therefore argue that distributing this film to schools is either unlawful under section 406 of the 1996 Act or unlawful because it does not offer the balance required by section 407.... What he does not accept is that sending out a 93-minute film made by the former vice-president of the United States is the right way to do it. "Gore has gone on record as saying he believes it is appropriate to over-represent the facts to get his message across," says Mr Day. "One of the very clear inferences from the Gore film is that areas such as Bangladesh will be under water by the end of the century. He is talking about sea levels rising by 20 feet." But this is not backed up by the IPCC, the solicitor says. Their view is that sea levels will rise by 1.3 feet over the next 100 years. A rise of 20ft would require rising temperatures to continue for millennia. "This film is a very powerful piece of work, says Mr Day. "There is a real risk that children are going to gulp on this and just digest it and accept it."
Source
Climate change as an excuse to 'tax the [bleep] out of us'
Excerpt: Christopher Alleva On Saturday, the Wall Street Journal featured a discussion with Michael O'Leary, CEO of low fare Irish airline, Ryanair. Portrayed as kind of a swashbuckler, O'Leary offered up an interesting array of comments on the airline industry and the regulatory environment, but he saved up his most scathing attacks for the new climate change taxes with which Britain is hitting the airlines. His profanity-laced tirade regarding these taxes is right on the money, literally! Mention airlines and carbon dioxide in the same sentence, and he begins peppering his language with four-letter words.
Earlier this year, before becoming Britain's prime minister, Gordon Brown raised taxes on air travel to and from the U.K. The then-Treasury chief's stated purpose was fighting climate change. Mr. O'Leary, whose airline serves more than a dozen British airports, demurs: "He just raised taxes on airlines. It has [bleep]-all to do with climate change! We've written several letters . . . to the Treasury, asking what the money's going to be spent on. We still haven't gotten a reply." They can't reply because that money went straight to the general fund to pay for pensions and the national health system!
O'Leary wasn't done yet, laying bare, the whole global warming business for the fraud that it is. "...the problem with all this environmental claptrap . . . it's a convenient excuse for politicians to just start taxing people. Some of these guilt-laden, middle-class liberals think it's somehow good: 'Oh, that's my contribution to the environment.' It's not. You're just being robbed--it's just highway [bleeping] robbery." He observes that passenger airlines are responsible for only 2% of carbon dioxide emissions world-wide: "It's less than marine transport, and yet I don't see anyone [saying], you know, 'Let's tax the [bleep] out of the ferries.' "
Source
The Beeb finally fires a liar
Post below lifted from American Thinker. See the original for links
Well, you gotta hand it to the BBC -- they have high standards about telling the truth. While that may not be obvious from their endless slanders about the United States, their puff pieces for the fraudulent European Union, their bootlicking of Islamic fascists, their ceaseless promotion of Global Warming superstition, their blind promotion of the UN corruptocracy... Oops! ... where was I? Oh, yes ... the BBC has finally fired a producer for peddling lies on its august airwaves.
The Times Online has the story, headlined in large letters "Socks, the Blue Peter cat who could cost BBC staff their jobs."
"The television programme Blue Peter was accused yesterday of deceiving children for the second time in a year as the BBC removed staff blamed for a series of phone-in scandals that have damaged its credibility with the public."
"A former producer on the children's show, Britain's longest-running, has been suspended after it emerged that production staff had ignored the result of a viewer poll to choose a name for the Blue Peter cat last year."
"The suspension was disclosed a day after the BBC dismissed Leona McCambridge, a producer on Liz Kershaw's 6 Music programme, for gross misconduct. One of her bosses, Ric Blaxill, 6 Music head of programmes, is also believed to be under threat."
But -- this is not the first time the Beeb has admitted to being less than truthful.
"In July, the BBC admitted that Liz Kershaw's show ran a fake phone-in using production staff posing as members of the public in a recorded programme that pretended to be live. The fake phone-ins, supposedly featuring listeners competing for prizes, ran from 2005 until December 2006."
The Biased BBC website quotes a BBC insider as explaining,
" The feeling has always been that when alleged deception involves children it is a bit more serious."
I'm speechless.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Immigrants boost crime in Britain
A chief constable today said an increase in immigration had left police struggling to deal with certain offences, including knife crime and drink-driving. Julie Spence, of Cambridgeshire police, said immigrant communities, often from the new EU states, had "different standards" from the UK. She issued an outspoken plea for more government funding to cope with the problems, posed by a sharp rise in immigration over recent years. Between 2003 and 2004 the number of foreign nationals arrested in the county for drink-driving soared from 57 to 966, although it has since fallen by two-thirds.
Mrs Spence also argued officers could take three times as long dealing with an immigrant offender, partly due to language difficulties. She was backed by the chairman of the Cambridgeshire Police Federation, who added many officers' time was also taken up educating new arrivals about British culture and laws. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs Spence she attacked the government for starving the force of funds to deal with the immigration influx. "The profile of the county has changed dramatically and this simply isn't taken into account when government allocates funding," she said. "We are now dealing with people from many different countries, speaking more than 90 different languages."
Mrs Spence said the new communities needed to adjust to British standards of behaviour. "When they arrive they think they can do the same thing as in the country they have come from," she said. "There were a lot of people who ... because they used to carry knives for protection, they think they can carry knives here. "We have worked with the communities because they don't necessarily come to commit crime but they need to be told what you can and can't do. "We can identify a significant rise in drink-drive, which was down to people thinking that what they did where they came from, they could do here." She said immigrants' attitudes to drink-driving were probably what they were in the UK 20 years ago.
"While the economic benefits of growth are clear, we need to maintain the basic public services infrastructure which means increasing the number of officers we have."
Research from the East of England Development Agency showed that between 50,000 and 80,000 of the region's 2.8 million "economically active" people were migrant workers, and they contributed about 360m pounds a year to the regional economy. Many worked in the food-processing and agricultural sectors.
Mrs Spence also said "feuds" between rival foreign gangs could involve investigating officers travelling to other countries to interview witnesses. "We recently had a murder and it was a Lithuanian on Lithuanian and it could easily have happened in Lithuania," she said. "But it didn't, it happened in Wisbech, so one of my staff spent a lot of their time in Lithuania trying to get underneath what was actually happening with the crime and criminality, which brings costs that you wouldn't have had before, which means something else has to give."
Speaking later on Sky News, Mrs Spence said her force had been "short changed" by 15m pounds over the past five years. Last year alone Cambridgeshire police spent 1m on translation - leading to "difficult choices" on where to find the money. "I think there's a London-centric, a metropolitan-centric view which says all the big issues happen in big cities, but we're not a sleepy rural county, if we ever were." She said government statistics underestimated the growth in the county's population and the police force was being denied a "fair slice of the cake".
David Smith, the chairman of Cambridgeshire Police Federation, said officers were becoming so stretched they were spending less time on the beat preventing crime. "Half of migrant workers in the east of England come to Cambridgeshire. That is obviously putting great pressure on resources," he said.
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, accused the government of a "shambolic approach to immigration". "The government estimated that 13,000 people would come from accession countries. At least 700,000 have now arrived," he said. "Labour's open door approach to immigration failed to consider, let alone cater for, the impact of this influx on housing and public services. Senior officers are now providing damning evidence of the strain Labour's shambolic approach has placed on the police and their ability to fight crime."
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: "The way ministers fund local public services, including the police, makes it incredibly difficult for communities to cope with the rapid changes in population that can be caused by immigration. "It takes years for the extra money to come through from the government for areas with high immigration, so it is no wonder the police can find themselves struggling."
The Home Office minister, Liam Byrne, said in a statement: "It's vital that we take the social impact of immigration into account when we make migration decisions. "It's because we want to hear voices like Julie Spence's that I set up the Migration Impacts Forum, so public services can help shape our tough points system which is introduced in around 150 days' time." A Home Office spokesman said spending on police services nationally had risen by nearly 5b from 6.2b to 11b since 1997. A spokesman for Gordon Brown said: "The chief constable has given her views but I think it's important that we keep this in context. "If you look at what's happening to total crime in Cambridgeshire, it's been on a clear downward trend."
Source
A chief constable today said an increase in immigration had left police struggling to deal with certain offences, including knife crime and drink-driving. Julie Spence, of Cambridgeshire police, said immigrant communities, often from the new EU states, had "different standards" from the UK. She issued an outspoken plea for more government funding to cope with the problems, posed by a sharp rise in immigration over recent years. Between 2003 and 2004 the number of foreign nationals arrested in the county for drink-driving soared from 57 to 966, although it has since fallen by two-thirds.
Mrs Spence also argued officers could take three times as long dealing with an immigrant offender, partly due to language difficulties. She was backed by the chairman of the Cambridgeshire Police Federation, who added many officers' time was also taken up educating new arrivals about British culture and laws. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mrs Spence she attacked the government for starving the force of funds to deal with the immigration influx. "The profile of the county has changed dramatically and this simply isn't taken into account when government allocates funding," she said. "We are now dealing with people from many different countries, speaking more than 90 different languages."
Mrs Spence said the new communities needed to adjust to British standards of behaviour. "When they arrive they think they can do the same thing as in the country they have come from," she said. "There were a lot of people who ... because they used to carry knives for protection, they think they can carry knives here. "We have worked with the communities because they don't necessarily come to commit crime but they need to be told what you can and can't do. "We can identify a significant rise in drink-drive, which was down to people thinking that what they did where they came from, they could do here." She said immigrants' attitudes to drink-driving were probably what they were in the UK 20 years ago.
"While the economic benefits of growth are clear, we need to maintain the basic public services infrastructure which means increasing the number of officers we have."
Research from the East of England Development Agency showed that between 50,000 and 80,000 of the region's 2.8 million "economically active" people were migrant workers, and they contributed about 360m pounds a year to the regional economy. Many worked in the food-processing and agricultural sectors.
Mrs Spence also said "feuds" between rival foreign gangs could involve investigating officers travelling to other countries to interview witnesses. "We recently had a murder and it was a Lithuanian on Lithuanian and it could easily have happened in Lithuania," she said. "But it didn't, it happened in Wisbech, so one of my staff spent a lot of their time in Lithuania trying to get underneath what was actually happening with the crime and criminality, which brings costs that you wouldn't have had before, which means something else has to give."
Speaking later on Sky News, Mrs Spence said her force had been "short changed" by 15m pounds over the past five years. Last year alone Cambridgeshire police spent 1m on translation - leading to "difficult choices" on where to find the money. "I think there's a London-centric, a metropolitan-centric view which says all the big issues happen in big cities, but we're not a sleepy rural county, if we ever were." She said government statistics underestimated the growth in the county's population and the police force was being denied a "fair slice of the cake".
David Smith, the chairman of Cambridgeshire Police Federation, said officers were becoming so stretched they were spending less time on the beat preventing crime. "Half of migrant workers in the east of England come to Cambridgeshire. That is obviously putting great pressure on resources," he said.
The shadow home secretary, David Davis, accused the government of a "shambolic approach to immigration". "The government estimated that 13,000 people would come from accession countries. At least 700,000 have now arrived," he said. "Labour's open door approach to immigration failed to consider, let alone cater for, the impact of this influx on housing and public services. Senior officers are now providing damning evidence of the strain Labour's shambolic approach has placed on the police and their ability to fight crime."
The Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman, Nick Clegg, said: "The way ministers fund local public services, including the police, makes it incredibly difficult for communities to cope with the rapid changes in population that can be caused by immigration. "It takes years for the extra money to come through from the government for areas with high immigration, so it is no wonder the police can find themselves struggling."
The Home Office minister, Liam Byrne, said in a statement: "It's vital that we take the social impact of immigration into account when we make migration decisions. "It's because we want to hear voices like Julie Spence's that I set up the Migration Impacts Forum, so public services can help shape our tough points system which is introduced in around 150 days' time." A Home Office spokesman said spending on police services nationally had risen by nearly 5b from 6.2b to 11b since 1997. A spokesman for Gordon Brown said: "The chief constable has given her views but I think it's important that we keep this in context. "If you look at what's happening to total crime in Cambridgeshire, it's been on a clear downward trend."
Source
Thursday, September 20, 2007
GUARDIAN'S CLIMATE HYPE CALLED "MISLEADING AND ALARMIST"
We don't know yet whether melting icecaps play any role, but scare stories don't help, says Jose Rial, professor of geophysics at the department of geological sciences, University of North Carolina [jose_rial@unc.edu]
Your article (Melting icecap triggering earthquakes, September 8) is misleading and alarmist. As a climatologist/seismologist working on glacial seismic activity in the Jakobshavn glacier basin - precisely the area your reporter mentions - I know that local earthquakes (or glacial quakes) are actually fairly common in the area and have been for a long time. I also know that there is no evidence to suggest that these quakes "are happening far faster than ever anticipated" in the region, as Dr Corell of the global change programme at Washington's Heinz Centre is quoted as saying.
Glacial earthquakes in Greenland have been monitored for decades using the global seismic network, and although their number has increased over the last five to six years - likely due to Arctic warming - in Jakobshavn their number has actually decreased since 1996, according to a recent report by G Ekstr”m and V Tsai from Columbia University. However, because these scientists used sensors quite remote from the area, small quakes may have been missed in Jakobshavn, which is not as glacially quake-active as other studied areas in eastern and north-western Greenland.
To take a closer look, in 2006 and again in 2007 I deployed an array of 10 seismic sensors near Swiss Camp, a permanent glaciological station some 50km north of the Jakobshavn glacier, operated by the University of Colorado. The unique data gathered by the close array have given us a better idea of what dynamic processes are involved in glacial quakes, as well as the realisation that it is still too early to know what it all means in terms of the evolution of the Jakobshavn glacier, or the icecap.
It is unfortunate that your article led with the falling-sky statement: "The Greenland icecap is melting so quickly that is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off." Actually, just the opposite seems to happen. As ice melting increases, the number and size of glacial quakes eventually decreases, since there is more water around to lubricate ice motions (quakes occur if there is enough friction to temporarily keep ice from sliding smoothly).
We find that the area where glacial quakes are strongest and most frequent is along the margins of the ice stream that feeds the glacier, where ice rubs against the rock in the deep valley along which the ice stream moves; we find no evidence that the ice has been "fused to the rock for hundreds of years" and is just now breaking apart. Actually, it will take years of continued surveying to know whether anything here is "accelerating" towards catastrophe, as the article claims.
I believe that to battle global climate change effectively we need the strong support of a well-informed, actively engaged public. There is great urgency indeed in all these climate matters and I understand the threat of climate change to society; but the evidence needs to be there before we needlessly alarm the public who sustain our research.
Source
Daily pill may save blood clot patients
A pill taken once a day could save the lives of thousands of the people who die in English hospitals every year from blood clots, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal. Venous thrombo-embolism (VTE) - or blood clot - kills 25,000 people a year in English hospitals, more than the number of people who die from breast cancer, Aids or road traffic accidents.
The current treatment used in hospitals to prevent blood clots after hip replacement surgery is the injection Heparin. Yet a number of elderly patients, often discharged a few days after surgery, could find it difficult to inject themselves or to return to hospital for injections. Data has shown that the pill Dabigatran, taken once a day for an average of 33 days, is as effective as Heparin in preventing blood clots after hip replacement surgery. It will be available early next year and will be the first medicine available as a pill to prevent blood clots in hospital.
Patients undergoing surgery are particularly at risk of getting blood clots - a third of patients who are readmitted are done so because of deep vein thrombosis. Evidence shows that it takes an average of 21 days for a patient who has undergone a total hip replacement to develop a VTE, and that in three quarters of cases this was after they had been discharged from hospital. Guidelines from the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which highlighted the problem, say that at-risk patients should receive treatment for a month following hip replacement surgery. A pill could therefore be more convenient.
Prof Simon Frostick, professor of orthopaedics at the University of Liverpool, who conducted the study, said: "Given the trend for shorter hospital stays following joint replacement surgery, it is becoming increasingly important to have anti-coagulant treatments available which are safe and easy to use. "Once-daily oral Dabigatran may be an attractive alternative to other regimens." This comes after Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England, said there was "room for improvement" in the treatment of patients at risk of blood clots. He said in a foreword to a Department of Health report in March: "The evidence suggested that in England around 25,000 people a year died from VTE in hospitals alone."
Source
We don't know yet whether melting icecaps play any role, but scare stories don't help, says Jose Rial, professor of geophysics at the department of geological sciences, University of North Carolina [jose_rial@unc.edu]
Your article (Melting icecap triggering earthquakes, September 8) is misleading and alarmist. As a climatologist/seismologist working on glacial seismic activity in the Jakobshavn glacier basin - precisely the area your reporter mentions - I know that local earthquakes (or glacial quakes) are actually fairly common in the area and have been for a long time. I also know that there is no evidence to suggest that these quakes "are happening far faster than ever anticipated" in the region, as Dr Corell of the global change programme at Washington's Heinz Centre is quoted as saying.
Glacial earthquakes in Greenland have been monitored for decades using the global seismic network, and although their number has increased over the last five to six years - likely due to Arctic warming - in Jakobshavn their number has actually decreased since 1996, according to a recent report by G Ekstr”m and V Tsai from Columbia University. However, because these scientists used sensors quite remote from the area, small quakes may have been missed in Jakobshavn, which is not as glacially quake-active as other studied areas in eastern and north-western Greenland.
To take a closer look, in 2006 and again in 2007 I deployed an array of 10 seismic sensors near Swiss Camp, a permanent glaciological station some 50km north of the Jakobshavn glacier, operated by the University of Colorado. The unique data gathered by the close array have given us a better idea of what dynamic processes are involved in glacial quakes, as well as the realisation that it is still too early to know what it all means in terms of the evolution of the Jakobshavn glacier, or the icecap.
It is unfortunate that your article led with the falling-sky statement: "The Greenland icecap is melting so quickly that is triggering earthquakes as pieces of ice several cubic kilometres in size break off." Actually, just the opposite seems to happen. As ice melting increases, the number and size of glacial quakes eventually decreases, since there is more water around to lubricate ice motions (quakes occur if there is enough friction to temporarily keep ice from sliding smoothly).
We find that the area where glacial quakes are strongest and most frequent is along the margins of the ice stream that feeds the glacier, where ice rubs against the rock in the deep valley along which the ice stream moves; we find no evidence that the ice has been "fused to the rock for hundreds of years" and is just now breaking apart. Actually, it will take years of continued surveying to know whether anything here is "accelerating" towards catastrophe, as the article claims.
I believe that to battle global climate change effectively we need the strong support of a well-informed, actively engaged public. There is great urgency indeed in all these climate matters and I understand the threat of climate change to society; but the evidence needs to be there before we needlessly alarm the public who sustain our research.
Source
Daily pill may save blood clot patients
A pill taken once a day could save the lives of thousands of the people who die in English hospitals every year from blood clots, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal. Venous thrombo-embolism (VTE) - or blood clot - kills 25,000 people a year in English hospitals, more than the number of people who die from breast cancer, Aids or road traffic accidents.
The current treatment used in hospitals to prevent blood clots after hip replacement surgery is the injection Heparin. Yet a number of elderly patients, often discharged a few days after surgery, could find it difficult to inject themselves or to return to hospital for injections. Data has shown that the pill Dabigatran, taken once a day for an average of 33 days, is as effective as Heparin in preventing blood clots after hip replacement surgery. It will be available early next year and will be the first medicine available as a pill to prevent blood clots in hospital.
Patients undergoing surgery are particularly at risk of getting blood clots - a third of patients who are readmitted are done so because of deep vein thrombosis. Evidence shows that it takes an average of 21 days for a patient who has undergone a total hip replacement to develop a VTE, and that in three quarters of cases this was after they had been discharged from hospital. Guidelines from the Department of Health and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), which highlighted the problem, say that at-risk patients should receive treatment for a month following hip replacement surgery. A pill could therefore be more convenient.
Prof Simon Frostick, professor of orthopaedics at the University of Liverpool, who conducted the study, said: "Given the trend for shorter hospital stays following joint replacement surgery, it is becoming increasingly important to have anti-coagulant treatments available which are safe and easy to use. "Once-daily oral Dabigatran may be an attractive alternative to other regimens." This comes after Sir Liam Donaldson, the chief medical officer for England, said there was "room for improvement" in the treatment of patients at risk of blood clots. He said in a foreword to a Department of Health report in March: "The evidence suggested that in England around 25,000 people a year died from VTE in hospitals alone."
Source
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
BBC bias again
It was Matt Frei that put me right. On Monday afternoon I watched General David Petraeus testify before Congress. I listened as he went through the facts of the military action in Iraq. I learnt as he outlined the improvements brought about in recent months.
But it wasn't until I heard Frei's take on General Petraeus's words that I realised what had really been going on. The BBC Washington correspondent told us that he had listened "very carefully" - as opposed to his usual half-cocked approach, perhaps? - and gleaned what was actually being said: "Having tried to resist the fragmentation, the creeping partition, ethnic cleansing, the White House now seems to have bowed to that." Forget the reams of pages and the hours of testimony about military strategy and dealing with terrorists. The real story of the general's report is that the White House is to start ethnically cleansing Iraqis.
Frei is also possessed of an astonishing ability to look into the future and canvas an entire nation's views. At 5pm Washington time - just a few hours after Gen Petraeus's report was available - he felt able to report that the US public had a negative reaction to it. One can only marvel at his capacity to discern from his perch in DC what countrywide polling agencies will take days to discover.
One should not be surprised by Frei's warped take. His reports from Washington drip with condescension towards Americans and, most of all, Republicans. He recently called the contest for the Republican nomination - a race that is rather more intriguing than usual - a "panic-stricken hunt". Given his penchant for such creative contempt for the people among whom he lives, it's no wonder that he has been nicknamed Stir Frei.
Awful as Frei may be, he fits the BBC's editorial agenda perfectly. The lead report on Monday's Ten O'Clock News, by the corporation's world affairs editor, John Simpson, went two minutes without mentioning anything said by General Petraeus, offering instead clips of opponents of the war attacking the report. Simpson then sneered that President Bush cares not a jot what is actually happening in Iraq, caring only how US voters perceive it. Only at the end were we permitted a tantalising glimpse of what the general said.
So yesterday's Victoria Derbyshire phone-in on BBC 5 Live was par for the course. The question of the day was: "Do you believe the Americans? Are things improving in Iraq?" For the first half-hour, every single caller informed us that Petraeus was lying about military progress. And don't think the airing of such biased calls was anything other than an editorial decision. I called in to suggest that it was unlikely that the entire US military high command was engaged in a conspiracy to lie to the world. And was I put on air? Of course not.
Source
Guinness 'may be good for you' after all
Ignore the "antioxidant" explanation given below. Antioxidants are the medical equivalent of global warming -- used to explain just about anything. The only interesting thing is whether the study was double blind or not. I suspect not but I have been unable to find the journal article behind the report below. It seems to recycle a 2003 report -- perhaps because the 2003 report has finally reached journal publication. The author would appear to be Prof. J.D. Folts but Medline does not yet list the Guinness article. Prof. Folts is normally a grape-juice enthusiast
The old slogan "Guinness is Good For You" may actually be true, according to new medical research that suggests the stout may help prevent heart attacks. University researchers in the US claim that drinking a pint of the black stuff each day may be as effective in preventing heart attacks as an aspirin because it can reduce heart clots.
Trials at the University of Wisconsin used dogs with narrowed arteries similar to those in people with heart disease to compare effects of drinking stout with those of drinking lager. They found Guinness reduced clotting activity but lager did not. The research concluded that the "antioxidant compounds" found in Guinness are similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, making the stout work as well as aspirin in the prevention of heart clots. The researchers said that the most benefit they saw was from taking 24 fluid ounces of Guinness - just over a pint - at meal times.
Blood clots can trigger heart attacks if they lodge in arteries that supply blood to the heart. Many patients at risk of heart attacks are prescribed low-dose aspirin, which reduces the blood's ability blood to form clots.
Guinness was ordered to stop using its famous "Guinness is Good For You" advertising slogan decades ago. The original 1920s campaign stemmed from market research which found that Guinness drinkers felt good after a pint. At one point in England post-operative patients used to be given Guinness, as were blood donors, because of its high iron content. Pregnant women and nursing mothers were also advised to drink the stout - but present advice is against this. Diageo, which now manufactures Guinness said "We never make any medical claims for our drinks" and reiterated their calls for "responsible drinking."
The UK is the largest market in the world for Guinness.
Source
Victorian capitalism unfairly maligned
The plight of child labourers in Victorian Britain is not usually considered to have been a happy one. Writers such as Charles Dickens painted a grim picture of the hardships suffered by young people in the mills, factories and workhouses of the Industrial Revolution. But an official report into the treatment of working children in the 1840s, made available online yesterday for the first time, suggests the situation was not so bad after all.
The frank accounts emerged in interviews with dozens of youngsters conducted for the Children's Employment Commission. The commission was set up by Lord Ashley in 1840 to support his campaign for reducing the working hours of women and children.
Surprisingly, a number of the children interviewed did not complain about their lot -- even though they were questioned away from their workplace and the scrutinising eyes of their employers.
Sub-commissioner Frederick Roper noted in his 1841 investigation of pre-independence Dublin's pin-making establishments: "Notwithstanding their evident poverty ... there is in their countenances an appearance of good health and much cheerfulness."
A report on workers at a factory in Belfast found a 14-year-old boy who earned four shillings a week "would rather be doing something better ... but does not dislike his current employment". The report concluded: "I find all in this factory able to read, and nearly all to write. They are orderly, appear to be well-behaved, and to be very contented."
Source
There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
It was Matt Frei that put me right. On Monday afternoon I watched General David Petraeus testify before Congress. I listened as he went through the facts of the military action in Iraq. I learnt as he outlined the improvements brought about in recent months.
But it wasn't until I heard Frei's take on General Petraeus's words that I realised what had really been going on. The BBC Washington correspondent told us that he had listened "very carefully" - as opposed to his usual half-cocked approach, perhaps? - and gleaned what was actually being said: "Having tried to resist the fragmentation, the creeping partition, ethnic cleansing, the White House now seems to have bowed to that." Forget the reams of pages and the hours of testimony about military strategy and dealing with terrorists. The real story of the general's report is that the White House is to start ethnically cleansing Iraqis.
Frei is also possessed of an astonishing ability to look into the future and canvas an entire nation's views. At 5pm Washington time - just a few hours after Gen Petraeus's report was available - he felt able to report that the US public had a negative reaction to it. One can only marvel at his capacity to discern from his perch in DC what countrywide polling agencies will take days to discover.
One should not be surprised by Frei's warped take. His reports from Washington drip with condescension towards Americans and, most of all, Republicans. He recently called the contest for the Republican nomination - a race that is rather more intriguing than usual - a "panic-stricken hunt". Given his penchant for such creative contempt for the people among whom he lives, it's no wonder that he has been nicknamed Stir Frei.
Awful as Frei may be, he fits the BBC's editorial agenda perfectly. The lead report on Monday's Ten O'Clock News, by the corporation's world affairs editor, John Simpson, went two minutes without mentioning anything said by General Petraeus, offering instead clips of opponents of the war attacking the report. Simpson then sneered that President Bush cares not a jot what is actually happening in Iraq, caring only how US voters perceive it. Only at the end were we permitted a tantalising glimpse of what the general said.
So yesterday's Victoria Derbyshire phone-in on BBC 5 Live was par for the course. The question of the day was: "Do you believe the Americans? Are things improving in Iraq?" For the first half-hour, every single caller informed us that Petraeus was lying about military progress. And don't think the airing of such biased calls was anything other than an editorial decision. I called in to suggest that it was unlikely that the entire US military high command was engaged in a conspiracy to lie to the world. And was I put on air? Of course not.
Source
Guinness 'may be good for you' after all
Ignore the "antioxidant" explanation given below. Antioxidants are the medical equivalent of global warming -- used to explain just about anything. The only interesting thing is whether the study was double blind or not. I suspect not but I have been unable to find the journal article behind the report below. It seems to recycle a 2003 report -- perhaps because the 2003 report has finally reached journal publication. The author would appear to be Prof. J.D. Folts but Medline does not yet list the Guinness article. Prof. Folts is normally a grape-juice enthusiast
The old slogan "Guinness is Good For You" may actually be true, according to new medical research that suggests the stout may help prevent heart attacks. University researchers in the US claim that drinking a pint of the black stuff each day may be as effective in preventing heart attacks as an aspirin because it can reduce heart clots.
Trials at the University of Wisconsin used dogs with narrowed arteries similar to those in people with heart disease to compare effects of drinking stout with those of drinking lager. They found Guinness reduced clotting activity but lager did not. The research concluded that the "antioxidant compounds" found in Guinness are similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, making the stout work as well as aspirin in the prevention of heart clots. The researchers said that the most benefit they saw was from taking 24 fluid ounces of Guinness - just over a pint - at meal times.
Blood clots can trigger heart attacks if they lodge in arteries that supply blood to the heart. Many patients at risk of heart attacks are prescribed low-dose aspirin, which reduces the blood's ability blood to form clots.
Guinness was ordered to stop using its famous "Guinness is Good For You" advertising slogan decades ago. The original 1920s campaign stemmed from market research which found that Guinness drinkers felt good after a pint. At one point in England post-operative patients used to be given Guinness, as were blood donors, because of its high iron content. Pregnant women and nursing mothers were also advised to drink the stout - but present advice is against this. Diageo, which now manufactures Guinness said "We never make any medical claims for our drinks" and reiterated their calls for "responsible drinking."
The UK is the largest market in the world for Guinness.
Source
Victorian capitalism unfairly maligned
The plight of child labourers in Victorian Britain is not usually considered to have been a happy one. Writers such as Charles Dickens painted a grim picture of the hardships suffered by young people in the mills, factories and workhouses of the Industrial Revolution. But an official report into the treatment of working children in the 1840s, made available online yesterday for the first time, suggests the situation was not so bad after all.
The frank accounts emerged in interviews with dozens of youngsters conducted for the Children's Employment Commission. The commission was set up by Lord Ashley in 1840 to support his campaign for reducing the working hours of women and children.
Surprisingly, a number of the children interviewed did not complain about their lot -- even though they were questioned away from their workplace and the scrutinising eyes of their employers.
Sub-commissioner Frederick Roper noted in his 1841 investigation of pre-independence Dublin's pin-making establishments: "Notwithstanding their evident poverty ... there is in their countenances an appearance of good health and much cheerfulness."
A report on workers at a factory in Belfast found a 14-year-old boy who earned four shillings a week "would rather be doing something better ... but does not dislike his current employment". The report concluded: "I find all in this factory able to read, and nearly all to write. They are orderly, appear to be well-behaved, and to be very contented."
Source
There is a big new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly incorrect themes of race and IQ.
Monday, September 17, 2007
NHS getting desperate about superbugs
Useless bureaucrats to be bypassed -- and there's nothing more desperate than that for socialists
THE health secretary, Alan Johnson, is to bypass hospital managers to give nurses and matrons the power to report directly to hospital boards in the fight against superbugs in the National Health Service. Nursing staff will be made accountable for infection control on their wards and promised a “hotline” to the top if management refuses to take ward cleanliness seriously.
Johnson will admit this week that poor infection control in hospitals has displaced waiting lists as the biggest problem facing the NHS and that tackling superbugs is now his priority. His decision to bypass the chain of command reflects frustration at the failure of many trusts to get to grips with infection control. More than 1,600 people die from MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, in England and Wales every year. In addition, more than 3,800 people die from clostridium difficile.
Johnson believes matrons lack the power to take full responsibility for the state of their wards, because they must rely on management for resources. Nurses complain that their pleas for hygiene to be taken more seriously are ignored. Nursing staff will be told to inform trust boards directly if the hospital needs more isolation wards or cleaning equipment. They will be asked to update boards on cleanliness four times a year.
Johnson will make the announcement ahead of a public consultation on Tuesday in which more than 1,000 people across England will be asked how to improve the NHS. He will say fear of catching a hospital superbug has overtaken waiting times as the public’s most pressing concern about the NHS.
The consultation is part of a review being carried out by Lord Darzi, the health minister, at the request of Johnson and Gordon Brown. Darzi has also identified hospital superbugs as a serious problem. Darzi, a world-renowned surgeon at St Mary’s hospital, London, said: “We cannot avoid the challenge of better cleanliness and infection control in hospitals. I know, as a surgeon, that cleanliness and infection control are crucial to quality of care. “It is already clear from what I have found in the past eight weeks that this is a major issue of public concern, too. “We want to send a clear signal to patients that doctors, nurses and other clinical staff take their safety seriously. We want to give more responsibility to matrons and nurses.”
Source
ECONOMY FIRST: BRITISH GOVERNMENT CONCERNED ABOUT UK CAR INDUSTRY
The government's minister for competitiveness is calling on the European Commission to be realistic about new exhaust emissions limits. Stephen Timms MP, speaking at BMW's Oxford factory, said: 'The automotive industry is very well aware of the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.' Referring to the EC proposed limits, likely to take the form of an average figure across a company's whole range of cars, he said: 'We are still at a very early stage in that debate. 'The UK will want to see targets that are demanding, that deliver reduced emissions, but we shall also be asking for achievable targets that take account of the diversity of the sector.' In February the European Commission published its proposal that new vehicles should emit no more than 130g/km of CO2, compared with 162g/km in 2005.
Source
Useless bureaucrats to be bypassed -- and there's nothing more desperate than that for socialists
THE health secretary, Alan Johnson, is to bypass hospital managers to give nurses and matrons the power to report directly to hospital boards in the fight against superbugs in the National Health Service. Nursing staff will be made accountable for infection control on their wards and promised a “hotline” to the top if management refuses to take ward cleanliness seriously.
Johnson will admit this week that poor infection control in hospitals has displaced waiting lists as the biggest problem facing the NHS and that tackling superbugs is now his priority. His decision to bypass the chain of command reflects frustration at the failure of many trusts to get to grips with infection control. More than 1,600 people die from MRSA, or methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, in England and Wales every year. In addition, more than 3,800 people die from clostridium difficile.
Johnson believes matrons lack the power to take full responsibility for the state of their wards, because they must rely on management for resources. Nurses complain that their pleas for hygiene to be taken more seriously are ignored. Nursing staff will be told to inform trust boards directly if the hospital needs more isolation wards or cleaning equipment. They will be asked to update boards on cleanliness four times a year.
Johnson will make the announcement ahead of a public consultation on Tuesday in which more than 1,000 people across England will be asked how to improve the NHS. He will say fear of catching a hospital superbug has overtaken waiting times as the public’s most pressing concern about the NHS.
The consultation is part of a review being carried out by Lord Darzi, the health minister, at the request of Johnson and Gordon Brown. Darzi has also identified hospital superbugs as a serious problem. Darzi, a world-renowned surgeon at St Mary’s hospital, London, said: “We cannot avoid the challenge of better cleanliness and infection control in hospitals. I know, as a surgeon, that cleanliness and infection control are crucial to quality of care. “It is already clear from what I have found in the past eight weeks that this is a major issue of public concern, too. “We want to send a clear signal to patients that doctors, nurses and other clinical staff take their safety seriously. We want to give more responsibility to matrons and nurses.”
Source
ECONOMY FIRST: BRITISH GOVERNMENT CONCERNED ABOUT UK CAR INDUSTRY
The government's minister for competitiveness is calling on the European Commission to be realistic about new exhaust emissions limits. Stephen Timms MP, speaking at BMW's Oxford factory, said: 'The automotive industry is very well aware of the need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.' Referring to the EC proposed limits, likely to take the form of an average figure across a company's whole range of cars, he said: 'We are still at a very early stage in that debate. 'The UK will want to see targets that are demanding, that deliver reduced emissions, but we shall also be asking for achievable targets that take account of the diversity of the sector.' In February the European Commission published its proposal that new vehicles should emit no more than 130g/km of CO2, compared with 162g/km in 2005.
Source
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Golliwogs Lose out this Time
Golliwogs have survived past challenges in both Britain and Australia but not this time. Report from Kenilworth in Warwickshire (central England):
The fact that the protest succeeded this time may show that intolerance is on the increase.
There was another incident last May, near Manchester, England, in which police ordered golliwogs out of a window display but they did not forbid selling the Gollies.
Salt fraudulently linked to higher blood pressure in kids
The journal abstract is here. The finding is that a tiny and clinically insignificant increase in blood pressure was found to be associated with how much salt kids say they sprinkle on their food. I have made some comments in the body of the article below but let me make the usual comments here about this epidemiological crap. It seems likely that the "disobedience" to health directives by working class people is all that is shown here. Working class people are less likely to be scared off salt and it is also known that they tend to have poorer health due to various factors such as lack of exercise -- not excluding genetic factors. So working class kids both say they use more salt and have higher blood pressure. Class is the probable causative factor behind the results, not salt. And research showing that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER is not mentioned, of course. What a crock!
Children and adolescents consuming higher levels of salt in their diets have higher blood pressure, confirms a UK study published today. The new study, based on data collected in the 1997 National Diet and Nutrition Survey for young people in Great Britain (NDNS), will add further urgency to food industry efforts to reduce the salt content of their products.
"Currently, salt intake in young people is unnecessarily high due, in most countries, to hidden salt added to food by the food industry," wrote the authors in The Journal of Human Hypertension
The researchers examined the salt intake and blood pressure of 1,658 children aged between 4 and 18, with salt intake assessed by a seven-day dietary record. The average salt intake, which did not include salt added in cooking or at the table [So they have no idea what the total salt intake was!], was 4.7g/day at the age of 4 years. With increasing age, there was an increase in salt intake, and by the age of 18 years, salt intake was 6.8g/day. The findings revealed that for each extra 1g of salt eaten by the participants, there was a related 0.4mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure.
"This is an important finding which confirms that eating more salt increases blood pressure in childhood and also adds extra weight to the current public health campaign to reduce salt in the UK diet," said Professor Malcolm Law, professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine. "The differences in systolic blood pressure between children with higher and lower salt diets may appear small, but making reductions of this order in childhood is likely to translate into lower levels of blood pressure in adult life, with reduced risk of developing heart disease and stroke and potentially huge gains in public health being possible."
Although increased blood pressure is uncommon in children, blood pressure follows a tracking pattern, which means that individuals who have a higher blood pressure in early life are more likely to develop high blood pressure when they grow older. High blood pressure (hypertension) - a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease - has been repeatedly linked to an increased salt intake, spurring global campaigns to reduce the sodium levels in processed foods.
In the UK, Ireland and the USA, over 80 per cent of salt intake comes from processed food [Which is what the study did NOT examine!], with 20 per cent of salt intake coming from meat and meat products, and about 35 per cent from cereal and cereal products.
The new findings, which are consistent with the findings from a recent meta-analysis of controlled salt reduction trials in children and adolescents, suggest that anything that lowers blood pressure in children is likely to reduce the number of people developing high blood pressure in later life. "The message for parents is to check labels, especially on foods such as breakfast cereals and snack products, which they may not expect to contain high levels of salt, and choose the lower salt options. 1.5g of salt may not sound much, but parents need to know that it is half a six year-old's maximum recommended upper limit of salt for a whole day (3g) and 30 per cent of a ten year-old's (5g)," said Jo Butten, nutritionist for Consensus Action on Salt and Health.
According to the researchers, the strengths of their study are that the data were from a large nationally representative sample of British young people, and that salt intake was estimated from a 7-day dietary record, which could characterize individuals' usual intake more accurately than a dietary record taken over 1-2 days. [Big deal!]
Limitations include that the NDNS is a cross-sectional study, and no cause-effect relationship can be drawn from such a study. In addition, the salt intake estimated from the NDNS underestimated the actual amount of salt consumed by children as it did not include salt added in cooking or at the table.
Source
More propaganda from "Lancet"
Fight climate change, cut down on red meat? If you make dozens of unproven and wrong assumptions, what they say is correct
PEOPLE should limit their meat-eating to just one hamburger per person per day to help stave off global warming, according to Australian scientists. That would be their contribution to a proposed 10 per cent cut in global meat consumption by 2050, a goal that would brake greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture yet also improve health for rich and poor nations alike, it says. The paper has been released online as part of a seminar by the Lancet British medical weekly into the impacts of climate change on global health.
Its authors point out that 22 per cent of the planet's total emissions of greenhouse gases come from agriculture, a tally similar to that of industry and more than that of transport. Livestock production, including transport of livestock and feed, account for nearly 80 per cent of agricultural emissions, mainly in the form of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.
At present, the global average meat consumption is 100g per person per day, which varies from 200-250g in rich countries to 20-25g in poor countries. The global average should be cut to 90g per day by 2050, with rich nations working to progressively scale down their meat consumption to that level while poor nations would do more to boost their consumption, the authors propose. Not more than 50g per day should come from red meat provided by cattle, sheep, goats and other ruminants.
The authors were led by Anthony McMichael, professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra.
"Assuming a 40 per cent increase in global population by 2050 and no advance in livestock-related greenhouse gas reduction practices, global meat consumption would have to fall to an average of 90 grammes per day just to stabilise emissions in this sector,'' the paper said.
"A substantial contract in meat consumption in high-income countries should benefit health, mainly by reducing the risk of ... heart disease... obesity, colorectal cancer and, perhaps some other cancers. An increase in the consumption of animal products in low-intake populations, towards the proposed global mean figure, should also benefit health.''
According to a study published in July by Japanese scientists, a kg of beef generates the equivalent of 36.4kg of carbon dioxide, more than the equivalent of driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home.
Source
Health "Rights"
By Theodore Dalrymple
Public affairs, said Doctor Johnson, vex no man: by which, I suppose, he meant that, if we are honest, only those matters which touch us directly and personally have the power genuinely to move us. The rest is ersatz or assumed emotion that we fake or exaggerate in order to appear more concerned with public affairs than we really are; and true it is that an argument with my wife causes me more genuine upset than a distant war, however bloody, though I am perfectly aware that in the scale of human history the war weighs a million, or a trillion, times more heavily.
This means, or ought to mean, that I should by now have reached such a state of serenity that even the weekly arrival of the medical journals should not upset me. After all, my personal situation is about as satisfactory as it will ever be. I please myself, more or less, what I do; my work is also my pleasure. I am indeed fortunate.
And yet The Lancet in particular, once one of the world's greatest medical journals, never fails to irritate me. Its sanctimony makes Elmer Gantry seem like a self-doubter. It propounds abject nonsense with the self-conceit of the assuredly saved preaching to the assuredly damned. Dickens would have loved to satirise it.
For example, it published a paper at the end of July entitled, "Is access to essential medicines as part of the fulfillment of the right to health enforceable through the courts?" The paper discussed whether, if individuals were denied access to important medicines, they could seek redress via the courts, particularly in Latin America, on the grounds that their rights were being denied.
The right to health was accepted in this paper as if it were a straightforward natural fact, like the roundness of the earth, for example, and no more disputable than the roundness of the earth. Yet the notion of a right to health is plainly ridiculous, at least until man becomes immortal. A man who is dying of incurable cancer is unfortunate, but his rights are not being infringed.
Perhaps the authors of the paper meant by the "right to health the "right to health care." But this is scarcely any better. A right to a material benefit implies someone else's duty to provide it, irrespective of whether he wants to do so or indeed is actually able to do so. This is not to say, of course, that the world would not be a better place if everyone who needed it were able to obtain health care; but the world would not be a better place because everyone's rights had been observed or complied with, but because avoidable suffering had been avoided. There are more and better reasons, after all, to treat people medically than that they have a right to such treatment.
I could not help but notice that among the drugs deemed so essential that not to make them freely available to people who need them amounts to a breach of their rights was buprenorphine, a drug prescribed by doctors to opiate-addicts in the hope that they, the addicts, will thereafter stop talking opiates of their own, and take those of the doctor instead. In a way this was odd, because there was an item in the very same edition of The Lancet entitled "Designer drug Subutex [buprenorphine] takes its toll in Tbilisi [the capital of Georgia]." There, at least, there was no danger that the people's right to burenorphine was being infringed.
The article starts with the following dramatic paragraph: "Crushed on pavements, tossed by the road, or in the corners of apartment-block entrance halls, the used syringes tell a story of rising addiction. The needles seen across Tbilisi are discarded by the addicts of Subutex, a treatment for opiate abuse that has ironically become the country's mostpopular drug."
The drug is manufactured in Britain and exported to France, where gullible doctors prescribe it to addicts who pretend to need it, and who then sell it on to dealers who smuggle it into Georgia at a profit of 600 per cent. Seven tablets in France cost $20, and $120 in Georgia. Among the smugglers of buprenorphine was the honorary consul of the Cote d'Ivoire in Georgia, who brought it into the country in his diplomatic bag. According to The Lancet, the problem is not a small one: 39 per cent of addicts treated in clinics in Georgia were addicted to buprenorphine, and the total number of drug addicts in Georgia was 250,000, which is to say one in twenty of the entire population. This represents an 80 per cent increase since 2003, and is largely due to the importation of buprenorphine.
Five pages later in The Lancet, the very same author wrote an admiring, even hagiographical article, about Dr Vladimir Mendelevich, a doctor who is trying to introduce the treatment of drug addicts in Russia, Georgia's neighbour and historical suzerain, with yes, you've guessed it, buprenorphine (among other drugs). Dr Mendelevich is described as a hero by the author without any hint of irony, or even of awareness of what he had written only five pages previously, or that to introduce yet another drug into a country notorious for its corruption and administrative chaos, contiguous with Georgia, is an idea that needs very careful consideration.
Just how essential is buprenorphine that, not to make it available to all who feel they need it constitutes an attack on their fundamental human rights? This question was in part answered by a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that appeared in the same week as The Lancet that I have cited. The authors, who practised at Yale, wanted to establish whether extra counselling had any effect on the abstention of addicts who were prescribed a tablet containing both burpenorphine and naloxone.
This tablet is an extremely clever one. Naloxone when taken by mouth has no effect, but when taken by injection acts as an antagonist to opiates, and precipitates withdrawal symptoms. Thus its inclusion with buprenorphine discourages buprenorphine abuse (though I have little doubt that, before long, addicts and their acolytes will devise something to circumvent this precaution).
The researchers recruited 497 addicts for their study, but excluded 296 of them because (as addicts in real life tend to do) they took alcohol or other drugs as well as opiates, or behaved in a dangerous and antisocial way. A further 35 dropped out at preliminary stages, leaving only 166 of the original 497 for the experiment.
The 166 were divided, like Gaul, into three: those who received the drug on a once weekly basis, those who received it on a three-times weekly basis, and those who received it on a three-times weekly basis plus extra counselling. In the event, there was no difference in the outcomes between these three groups at 24 weeks.
What was most striking was that only 75 continued the experiment to the 24th week, which is to say that 422 addicts of the original addicts did not get that far: and 24 weeks is not exactly an eternity. The average maximum duration of abstinence from illicit opiates among the 166 sterling citizens who were treated was between five and six weeks. More than half their urine specimens tested positive for the presence of illicit opiates.
Nor is this all. It is well known that the results of clinical trials are better than results obtained in a "natural" environment, that is to say you cannot expect the same degree of success when you transfer a treatment that has been tried experimentally to normal, everyday practice. This is for several reasons, among them the enthusiasm and dedication of the staff involved in the trial, enthusiasm that often communicates itself to the patients who are therefore more optimistic and compliant with treatment than they would otherwise be.
It might well be that the very low compliance rate of the patients was caused by an awareness of the presence of naloxone in the tablets they received. It was precisely because the medication could not be abused, at least until someone devised a method of abusing it, that the compliance rate was so very low. But if so, it must cast in doubt on the motives of the addicts for seeking and accepting treatment in the first place. And it should be borne in mind that the patients were selected among 479 addicts for their relatively "good" behaviour: namely, their absence of additional substance abuse and lack of threatening, violent and criminal conduct. In other words, their prognosis was already better than average among the addicts.
Had the patients been prescribed buprenorphine alone, I think they might well have "complied" with treatment better, but only because it would have had some economic or abuse value to them. The criteria for completion of the study were not exactly stringent: those who did not miss more than three counselling sessions or missed their medication for more than a week were deemed to have completed it.
In short, the whole business was an elaborate and sordid farce, from which the authors drew the conclusion that there is "a need both to measure adherence in future research and to monitor and encourage adherence in practice in order to reduce the potential misuse of the medication and to improve the treatment outcomes." The idea that the whole notion of treatment in a voluntary condition such as addiction might be inappropriate was quite beyond the authors.
But let us return briefly to the question of the supposed right to health. Can it be the right of anyone to obtain a treatment that is marginally effective, if it is effective at all? In fact, this is often the case in modern medical treatment. The chances of anti-hypertensive treatment doing you good rather than harm are small, though the harm it can do you is slight and the good it can do you is enormous. How certain does the good that treatment does you have to be before it becomes a right enshrined in, and actionable at, law?
I am astonished at how quickly the doctrine of rights has colonised minds, like bacteria on a Petri dish. Not long ago, I asked a young patient what she was going to do with her life (I am sufficiently interested in my patients to ask such things). She said she wanted to study law. Any particular branch, I asked, thinking she might want to do criminal law, which is the most interesting, if least lucrative, branch? "I want to go into human rights," she said, with that semi-beatified smile with which a girl of her age might once have claimed to have a vocation.
"Oh yes," I said, "and where do human rights come from?" "What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean, are they just there, like America, waiting to be discovered by someone going out and looking for them, or are they conferred by mere human agency, in which case they can be repealed at the drop of a law?"
She looked appalled, as if I were a deeply wicked man who had suggested that, for example, racial discrimination was just the thing. "You can't ask that," she said.
I didn't explore the question of why not, because a medical consultation is not a dialogue by Plato. But after that, I did begin to think that there was something to Richard Dawkins' conception of a meme, namely an idea that enters minds and spreads from mind to mind as a gene favourable to survival in a population.
The problem with memes, of course, is that they don't have to be good ideas, only ideas that are in someone's, or some group's, advantage. And the ever-expanding concept of human rights is of advantage to regulatory bureaucracies, of course, for how can positive rights be enforced without them? Not coincidentally, the paper in The Lancet with which I began this article emerged from that bureaucracy of bureaucracies, that meta-bureaucracy, the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Source
Golliwogs have survived past challenges in both Britain and Australia but not this time. Report from Kenilworth in Warwickshire (central England):
"This week we feature a resident who found himself somewhat amazed when he came across a gift shop in the town selling Golliwogs. Offence was taken and he accused the shop of being racist for including the toys on the shelves. The man, who did not want to be named, said that Brambles was "risking its reputation" by stocking what he called "a profound symbol of racism and intolerance".
The Smalley Place shop was selling a five and a half inch high soft toy key ring for 2.99 pounds and a smaller plastic golliwog pen at 1.99 in the style of the rag-doll like character created by Florence Kate Upton in the late 19th century.
These products have now been withdrawn from sale after the owners were asked about the toys and informed of the resident's concerns. The shop owners were shocked that someone had taken offence.
Source
The fact that the protest succeeded this time may show that intolerance is on the increase.
There was another incident last May, near Manchester, England, in which police ordered golliwogs out of a window display but they did not forbid selling the Gollies.
Salt fraudulently linked to higher blood pressure in kids
The journal abstract is here. The finding is that a tiny and clinically insignificant increase in blood pressure was found to be associated with how much salt kids say they sprinkle on their food. I have made some comments in the body of the article below but let me make the usual comments here about this epidemiological crap. It seems likely that the "disobedience" to health directives by working class people is all that is shown here. Working class people are less likely to be scared off salt and it is also known that they tend to have poorer health due to various factors such as lack of exercise -- not excluding genetic factors. So working class kids both say they use more salt and have higher blood pressure. Class is the probable causative factor behind the results, not salt. And research showing that people on salt-restricted diets die SOONER is not mentioned, of course. What a crock!
Children and adolescents consuming higher levels of salt in their diets have higher blood pressure, confirms a UK study published today. The new study, based on data collected in the 1997 National Diet and Nutrition Survey for young people in Great Britain (NDNS), will add further urgency to food industry efforts to reduce the salt content of their products.
"Currently, salt intake in young people is unnecessarily high due, in most countries, to hidden salt added to food by the food industry," wrote the authors in The Journal of Human Hypertension
The researchers examined the salt intake and blood pressure of 1,658 children aged between 4 and 18, with salt intake assessed by a seven-day dietary record. The average salt intake, which did not include salt added in cooking or at the table [So they have no idea what the total salt intake was!], was 4.7g/day at the age of 4 years. With increasing age, there was an increase in salt intake, and by the age of 18 years, salt intake was 6.8g/day. The findings revealed that for each extra 1g of salt eaten by the participants, there was a related 0.4mmHg increase in systolic blood pressure.
"This is an important finding which confirms that eating more salt increases blood pressure in childhood and also adds extra weight to the current public health campaign to reduce salt in the UK diet," said Professor Malcolm Law, professor of epidemiology and preventive medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine. "The differences in systolic blood pressure between children with higher and lower salt diets may appear small, but making reductions of this order in childhood is likely to translate into lower levels of blood pressure in adult life, with reduced risk of developing heart disease and stroke and potentially huge gains in public health being possible."
Although increased blood pressure is uncommon in children, blood pressure follows a tracking pattern, which means that individuals who have a higher blood pressure in early life are more likely to develop high blood pressure when they grow older. High blood pressure (hypertension) - a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease - has been repeatedly linked to an increased salt intake, spurring global campaigns to reduce the sodium levels in processed foods.
In the UK, Ireland and the USA, over 80 per cent of salt intake comes from processed food [Which is what the study did NOT examine!], with 20 per cent of salt intake coming from meat and meat products, and about 35 per cent from cereal and cereal products.
The new findings, which are consistent with the findings from a recent meta-analysis of controlled salt reduction trials in children and adolescents, suggest that anything that lowers blood pressure in children is likely to reduce the number of people developing high blood pressure in later life. "The message for parents is to check labels, especially on foods such as breakfast cereals and snack products, which they may not expect to contain high levels of salt, and choose the lower salt options. 1.5g of salt may not sound much, but parents need to know that it is half a six year-old's maximum recommended upper limit of salt for a whole day (3g) and 30 per cent of a ten year-old's (5g)," said Jo Butten, nutritionist for Consensus Action on Salt and Health.
According to the researchers, the strengths of their study are that the data were from a large nationally representative sample of British young people, and that salt intake was estimated from a 7-day dietary record, which could characterize individuals' usual intake more accurately than a dietary record taken over 1-2 days. [Big deal!]
Limitations include that the NDNS is a cross-sectional study, and no cause-effect relationship can be drawn from such a study. In addition, the salt intake estimated from the NDNS underestimated the actual amount of salt consumed by children as it did not include salt added in cooking or at the table.
Source
More propaganda from "Lancet"
Fight climate change, cut down on red meat? If you make dozens of unproven and wrong assumptions, what they say is correct
PEOPLE should limit their meat-eating to just one hamburger per person per day to help stave off global warming, according to Australian scientists. That would be their contribution to a proposed 10 per cent cut in global meat consumption by 2050, a goal that would brake greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture yet also improve health for rich and poor nations alike, it says. The paper has been released online as part of a seminar by the Lancet British medical weekly into the impacts of climate change on global health.
Its authors point out that 22 per cent of the planet's total emissions of greenhouse gases come from agriculture, a tally similar to that of industry and more than that of transport. Livestock production, including transport of livestock and feed, account for nearly 80 per cent of agricultural emissions, mainly in the form of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas.
At present, the global average meat consumption is 100g per person per day, which varies from 200-250g in rich countries to 20-25g in poor countries. The global average should be cut to 90g per day by 2050, with rich nations working to progressively scale down their meat consumption to that level while poor nations would do more to boost their consumption, the authors propose. Not more than 50g per day should come from red meat provided by cattle, sheep, goats and other ruminants.
The authors were led by Anthony McMichael, professor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at the Australian National University, Canberra.
"Assuming a 40 per cent increase in global population by 2050 and no advance in livestock-related greenhouse gas reduction practices, global meat consumption would have to fall to an average of 90 grammes per day just to stabilise emissions in this sector,'' the paper said.
"A substantial contract in meat consumption in high-income countries should benefit health, mainly by reducing the risk of ... heart disease... obesity, colorectal cancer and, perhaps some other cancers. An increase in the consumption of animal products in low-intake populations, towards the proposed global mean figure, should also benefit health.''
According to a study published in July by Japanese scientists, a kg of beef generates the equivalent of 36.4kg of carbon dioxide, more than the equivalent of driving for three hours while leaving all the lights on back home.
Source
Health "Rights"
By Theodore Dalrymple
Public affairs, said Doctor Johnson, vex no man: by which, I suppose, he meant that, if we are honest, only those matters which touch us directly and personally have the power genuinely to move us. The rest is ersatz or assumed emotion that we fake or exaggerate in order to appear more concerned with public affairs than we really are; and true it is that an argument with my wife causes me more genuine upset than a distant war, however bloody, though I am perfectly aware that in the scale of human history the war weighs a million, or a trillion, times more heavily.
This means, or ought to mean, that I should by now have reached such a state of serenity that even the weekly arrival of the medical journals should not upset me. After all, my personal situation is about as satisfactory as it will ever be. I please myself, more or less, what I do; my work is also my pleasure. I am indeed fortunate.
And yet The Lancet in particular, once one of the world's greatest medical journals, never fails to irritate me. Its sanctimony makes Elmer Gantry seem like a self-doubter. It propounds abject nonsense with the self-conceit of the assuredly saved preaching to the assuredly damned. Dickens would have loved to satirise it.
For example, it published a paper at the end of July entitled, "Is access to essential medicines as part of the fulfillment of the right to health enforceable through the courts?" The paper discussed whether, if individuals were denied access to important medicines, they could seek redress via the courts, particularly in Latin America, on the grounds that their rights were being denied.
The right to health was accepted in this paper as if it were a straightforward natural fact, like the roundness of the earth, for example, and no more disputable than the roundness of the earth. Yet the notion of a right to health is plainly ridiculous, at least until man becomes immortal. A man who is dying of incurable cancer is unfortunate, but his rights are not being infringed.
Perhaps the authors of the paper meant by the "right to health the "right to health care." But this is scarcely any better. A right to a material benefit implies someone else's duty to provide it, irrespective of whether he wants to do so or indeed is actually able to do so. This is not to say, of course, that the world would not be a better place if everyone who needed it were able to obtain health care; but the world would not be a better place because everyone's rights had been observed or complied with, but because avoidable suffering had been avoided. There are more and better reasons, after all, to treat people medically than that they have a right to such treatment.
I could not help but notice that among the drugs deemed so essential that not to make them freely available to people who need them amounts to a breach of their rights was buprenorphine, a drug prescribed by doctors to opiate-addicts in the hope that they, the addicts, will thereafter stop talking opiates of their own, and take those of the doctor instead. In a way this was odd, because there was an item in the very same edition of The Lancet entitled "Designer drug Subutex [buprenorphine] takes its toll in Tbilisi [the capital of Georgia]." There, at least, there was no danger that the people's right to burenorphine was being infringed.
The article starts with the following dramatic paragraph: "Crushed on pavements, tossed by the road, or in the corners of apartment-block entrance halls, the used syringes tell a story of rising addiction. The needles seen across Tbilisi are discarded by the addicts of Subutex, a treatment for opiate abuse that has ironically become the country's mostpopular drug."
The drug is manufactured in Britain and exported to France, where gullible doctors prescribe it to addicts who pretend to need it, and who then sell it on to dealers who smuggle it into Georgia at a profit of 600 per cent. Seven tablets in France cost $20, and $120 in Georgia. Among the smugglers of buprenorphine was the honorary consul of the Cote d'Ivoire in Georgia, who brought it into the country in his diplomatic bag. According to The Lancet, the problem is not a small one: 39 per cent of addicts treated in clinics in Georgia were addicted to buprenorphine, and the total number of drug addicts in Georgia was 250,000, which is to say one in twenty of the entire population. This represents an 80 per cent increase since 2003, and is largely due to the importation of buprenorphine.
Five pages later in The Lancet, the very same author wrote an admiring, even hagiographical article, about Dr Vladimir Mendelevich, a doctor who is trying to introduce the treatment of drug addicts in Russia, Georgia's neighbour and historical suzerain, with yes, you've guessed it, buprenorphine (among other drugs). Dr Mendelevich is described as a hero by the author without any hint of irony, or even of awareness of what he had written only five pages previously, or that to introduce yet another drug into a country notorious for its corruption and administrative chaos, contiguous with Georgia, is an idea that needs very careful consideration.
Just how essential is buprenorphine that, not to make it available to all who feel they need it constitutes an attack on their fundamental human rights? This question was in part answered by a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine that appeared in the same week as The Lancet that I have cited. The authors, who practised at Yale, wanted to establish whether extra counselling had any effect on the abstention of addicts who were prescribed a tablet containing both burpenorphine and naloxone.
This tablet is an extremely clever one. Naloxone when taken by mouth has no effect, but when taken by injection acts as an antagonist to opiates, and precipitates withdrawal symptoms. Thus its inclusion with buprenorphine discourages buprenorphine abuse (though I have little doubt that, before long, addicts and their acolytes will devise something to circumvent this precaution).
The researchers recruited 497 addicts for their study, but excluded 296 of them because (as addicts in real life tend to do) they took alcohol or other drugs as well as opiates, or behaved in a dangerous and antisocial way. A further 35 dropped out at preliminary stages, leaving only 166 of the original 497 for the experiment.
The 166 were divided, like Gaul, into three: those who received the drug on a once weekly basis, those who received it on a three-times weekly basis, and those who received it on a three-times weekly basis plus extra counselling. In the event, there was no difference in the outcomes between these three groups at 24 weeks.
What was most striking was that only 75 continued the experiment to the 24th week, which is to say that 422 addicts of the original addicts did not get that far: and 24 weeks is not exactly an eternity. The average maximum duration of abstinence from illicit opiates among the 166 sterling citizens who were treated was between five and six weeks. More than half their urine specimens tested positive for the presence of illicit opiates.
Nor is this all. It is well known that the results of clinical trials are better than results obtained in a "natural" environment, that is to say you cannot expect the same degree of success when you transfer a treatment that has been tried experimentally to normal, everyday practice. This is for several reasons, among them the enthusiasm and dedication of the staff involved in the trial, enthusiasm that often communicates itself to the patients who are therefore more optimistic and compliant with treatment than they would otherwise be.
It might well be that the very low compliance rate of the patients was caused by an awareness of the presence of naloxone in the tablets they received. It was precisely because the medication could not be abused, at least until someone devised a method of abusing it, that the compliance rate was so very low. But if so, it must cast in doubt on the motives of the addicts for seeking and accepting treatment in the first place. And it should be borne in mind that the patients were selected among 479 addicts for their relatively "good" behaviour: namely, their absence of additional substance abuse and lack of threatening, violent and criminal conduct. In other words, their prognosis was already better than average among the addicts.
Had the patients been prescribed buprenorphine alone, I think they might well have "complied" with treatment better, but only because it would have had some economic or abuse value to them. The criteria for completion of the study were not exactly stringent: those who did not miss more than three counselling sessions or missed their medication for more than a week were deemed to have completed it.
In short, the whole business was an elaborate and sordid farce, from which the authors drew the conclusion that there is "a need both to measure adherence in future research and to monitor and encourage adherence in practice in order to reduce the potential misuse of the medication and to improve the treatment outcomes." The idea that the whole notion of treatment in a voluntary condition such as addiction might be inappropriate was quite beyond the authors.
But let us return briefly to the question of the supposed right to health. Can it be the right of anyone to obtain a treatment that is marginally effective, if it is effective at all? In fact, this is often the case in modern medical treatment. The chances of anti-hypertensive treatment doing you good rather than harm are small, though the harm it can do you is slight and the good it can do you is enormous. How certain does the good that treatment does you have to be before it becomes a right enshrined in, and actionable at, law?
I am astonished at how quickly the doctrine of rights has colonised minds, like bacteria on a Petri dish. Not long ago, I asked a young patient what she was going to do with her life (I am sufficiently interested in my patients to ask such things). She said she wanted to study law. Any particular branch, I asked, thinking she might want to do criminal law, which is the most interesting, if least lucrative, branch? "I want to go into human rights," she said, with that semi-beatified smile with which a girl of her age might once have claimed to have a vocation.
"Oh yes," I said, "and where do human rights come from?" "What do you mean?" she asked. "I mean, are they just there, like America, waiting to be discovered by someone going out and looking for them, or are they conferred by mere human agency, in which case they can be repealed at the drop of a law?"
She looked appalled, as if I were a deeply wicked man who had suggested that, for example, racial discrimination was just the thing. "You can't ask that," she said.
I didn't explore the question of why not, because a medical consultation is not a dialogue by Plato. But after that, I did begin to think that there was something to Richard Dawkins' conception of a meme, namely an idea that enters minds and spreads from mind to mind as a gene favourable to survival in a population.
The problem with memes, of course, is that they don't have to be good ideas, only ideas that are in someone's, or some group's, advantage. And the ever-expanding concept of human rights is of advantage to regulatory bureaucracies, of course, for how can positive rights be enforced without them? Not coincidentally, the paper in The Lancet with which I began this article emerged from that bureaucracy of bureaucracies, that meta-bureaucracy, the World Health Organization in Geneva.
Source
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Britain: THE SNOBBERY BEHIND ZAC AND DAVE'S 'TAX THE PLEBS' PLAN
Once, just once, wouldn't it be a joy to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television to find a complete absence of anything to do with politics? The problem is: politicians abhor a vacuum. If there's newsprint or airtime available, they think it is their divine duty to fill it, even at the expense of boring us all to distraction. Not a day goes by without some new crackpot scheme being hatched. Politicians wake up each morning determined to find fresh ways of picking our pockets and intruding still further into our lives. None of it is ever thought through properly.
Take yesterday, for instance. On one page, ministers announce they want to cut prison overcrowding. On the next, they call for motorists using mobile phones on the move to be jailed for two years. Go figure.
The "climate change" hysteria has proved a godsend for prodnoses and punishment freaks. I doubt there is a single country on earth where the entire political class has so completely taken leave of its senses over alleged global warming. Here in Britain, it has been seized upon as an exciting new weapon with which to inflict more taxes, fines and regulations on us. You expect this kind of nonsense from Labour and especially from Gordon Brown, who has never met a tax he doesn't like. Socialists have only ever had a passing acquaintance with the concept of individual liberty and low taxation. But when it comes to banging the climate-change gong, [Conservative leader] Call Me Dave and his gang are obsessed to the point of mental illness.
CMD's latest wheeze for winning power is a plan to put 2,000 pounds on the price of a family car and ban plasma TVs. Brilliant. That should go down well in the marginals, along with his other cunning scheme to make Britain the only place in the world to call a halt to airport expansion. Egged on by his Old Etonian mate Zac Goldsmith, whose dad made part of the family fortune tearing up large chunks of Bolivia, Dave also wants to restrict essential road building. So if your village is crying out for a new by-pass, forget it. Think of all the polar bears whose lives you're saving.
Where does Cameron get the idea that millions of swing voters are desperate to pay even more for their cars than they do already? Or that people will give up their plasma TVs for the sake of some unspecified rainforest? Why pick on plasmas? Are we supposed to go back to cumbersome cathode ray sets? It's not so long ago we were told they were destroying the Earth's crust in landfill sites. Are we supposed to stop watching television altogether?
What about all those people who make a living manufacturing, selling and servicing televisions? What are they to do - go and work in a windmill? Surely the Tories are the party of small government, individual choice and low taxes, or they are nothing. Yet here they are making common cause with "zero growth" eco-loonies who knit their own toilet paper.
More here
Once, just once, wouldn't it be a joy to pick up a newspaper or turn on the television to find a complete absence of anything to do with politics? The problem is: politicians abhor a vacuum. If there's newsprint or airtime available, they think it is their divine duty to fill it, even at the expense of boring us all to distraction. Not a day goes by without some new crackpot scheme being hatched. Politicians wake up each morning determined to find fresh ways of picking our pockets and intruding still further into our lives. None of it is ever thought through properly.
Take yesterday, for instance. On one page, ministers announce they want to cut prison overcrowding. On the next, they call for motorists using mobile phones on the move to be jailed for two years. Go figure.
The "climate change" hysteria has proved a godsend for prodnoses and punishment freaks. I doubt there is a single country on earth where the entire political class has so completely taken leave of its senses over alleged global warming. Here in Britain, it has been seized upon as an exciting new weapon with which to inflict more taxes, fines and regulations on us. You expect this kind of nonsense from Labour and especially from Gordon Brown, who has never met a tax he doesn't like. Socialists have only ever had a passing acquaintance with the concept of individual liberty and low taxation. But when it comes to banging the climate-change gong, [Conservative leader] Call Me Dave and his gang are obsessed to the point of mental illness.
CMD's latest wheeze for winning power is a plan to put 2,000 pounds on the price of a family car and ban plasma TVs. Brilliant. That should go down well in the marginals, along with his other cunning scheme to make Britain the only place in the world to call a halt to airport expansion. Egged on by his Old Etonian mate Zac Goldsmith, whose dad made part of the family fortune tearing up large chunks of Bolivia, Dave also wants to restrict essential road building. So if your village is crying out for a new by-pass, forget it. Think of all the polar bears whose lives you're saving.
Where does Cameron get the idea that millions of swing voters are desperate to pay even more for their cars than they do already? Or that people will give up their plasma TVs for the sake of some unspecified rainforest? Why pick on plasmas? Are we supposed to go back to cumbersome cathode ray sets? It's not so long ago we were told they were destroying the Earth's crust in landfill sites. Are we supposed to stop watching television altogether?
What about all those people who make a living manufacturing, selling and servicing televisions? What are they to do - go and work in a windmill? Surely the Tories are the party of small government, individual choice and low taxes, or they are nothing. Yet here they are making common cause with "zero growth" eco-loonies who knit their own toilet paper.
More here
Friday, September 14, 2007
U.K.: Black Councillor Accused of Homosexual Slurs
Maybe she forgot that homosexuality trumps blackness:
British Broadcast Cowardice
And the article below omits the most recent disgrace, where the BBC explained the 9/11 events entirely from Bin Laden's viewpoint -- a page now taken down under pressure but reproduced in whole or in part on many blogs -- e.g. here
Once upon a war, the British Broadcasting Corporation aired the likes of George Orwell, T. S. Eliot, and Winston Churchill, proudly hailed the valor of the RAF, and extolled the virtues of the Western world. That was then; this is 2007, the epoch of the Beeb, a synonym for mendacity, spinelessness, and political correctness.
Recently, the BBC allowed a blatantly anti-Semitic posting to remain on its website for days. The message from someone using the alias "Iron Naz" read: "Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths." Only after complaints from Jewish organizations was the item removed. Then a popular BBC children's show held a faked phone-in competition. The show led its viewers to believe that the competition was open to the public and that members of the television audience were making the calls. In fact, the winning caller was a member of the production team.
To complete the picture, the BBC presented footage suggesting that Queen Elizabeth II had stormed out of a sitting with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. (Actually, the queen was filmed complaining about her crowded schedule before the two women ever met.) When the gaffe was exposed, the Beeb issued an official statement: "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely. This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. The BBC would like to apologize to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused."
But wait--there's more! Under pressure from BBC suits, a drama called Casualty recently made a chilling alteration to one of its scripts. According to reports, the show's stars "won't be dealing with an explosion caused by Islamic extremists in case it offends Muslims. Now the bomb will be set off by animal rights campaigners instead."
Translation: folks like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be notorious for offensive demonstrations and statements. They famously dumped a dead raccoon on the table of Anna Wintour, Vogue's editor in chief, for promoting the use of fur in fashion, and threw pies at her on various occasions. But they don't detonate bombs in subways, behead those whose beliefs are different, instigate riots and murders because of some impudent cartoons, demand special schools to preach hatred to the young, or condemn those outside their orbit as infidels. Thus, in a strange judo move, the Beeb turned the annoying but nonviolent into murderous villains, and gave the real enemy of Western civilization a pass.
It should come as no surprise, though, to see the BBC in its present state of disgrace. This is, after all, the corporation whose newsreader Anna Ford has just quit because of the Beeb's "atmosphere of fear"; whose Newsnight presenter, Jeremy Paxman, states that his employer suffers from a "catastrophic, collective loss of nerve"; and whose editor, Peter Barron, complains about the BBC's incessant harping on unproved global warming. It is "not the corporation's job to save the planet," he says. The Beeb's future appears to be as bleak as November in London.
Source
Maybe she forgot that homosexuality trumps blackness:
"A Labour politician beat a gay Liberal Democrat opponent in a London local election by making homophobic comments about him to voters, a court has heard.
Nicholas Russell told Waltham Forest magistrates his running mate, Miranda Grell, had a "disgusting attitude". He said Ms Grell told voters her rival Barry Smith claimed to be married yet had a 14-year-old Thai boyfriend.
Ms Grell, 29, denies four counts of making false statements about another candidate to gain electoral advantage.
Mr Smith, 56, who has a long-term 39-year-old Malaysian partner, had served on Waltham Forest Council in east London for three years and was defending a 600-vote majority in last year's elections.
The court heard Mr Smith was devastated by the way he had lost his seat to Ms Grell by 28 votes. He later moved to northern England.
Source
British Broadcast Cowardice
And the article below omits the most recent disgrace, where the BBC explained the 9/11 events entirely from Bin Laden's viewpoint -- a page now taken down under pressure but reproduced in whole or in part on many blogs -- e.g. here
Once upon a war, the British Broadcasting Corporation aired the likes of George Orwell, T. S. Eliot, and Winston Churchill, proudly hailed the valor of the RAF, and extolled the virtues of the Western world. That was then; this is 2007, the epoch of the Beeb, a synonym for mendacity, spinelessness, and political correctness.
Recently, the BBC allowed a blatantly anti-Semitic posting to remain on its website for days. The message from someone using the alias "Iron Naz" read: "Zionism is a racist ideology where jews are given supremacy over all other races and faiths." Only after complaints from Jewish organizations was the item removed. Then a popular BBC children's show held a faked phone-in competition. The show led its viewers to believe that the competition was open to the public and that members of the television audience were making the calls. In fact, the winning caller was a member of the production team.
To complete the picture, the BBC presented footage suggesting that Queen Elizabeth II had stormed out of a sitting with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. (Actually, the queen was filmed complaining about her crowded schedule before the two women ever met.) When the gaffe was exposed, the Beeb issued an official statement: "In this trailer there is a sequence that implies that the Queen left a sitting prematurely. This was not the case and the actual sequence of events was misrepresented. The BBC would like to apologize to both the Queen and Annie Leibovitz for any upset this may have caused."
But wait--there's more! Under pressure from BBC suits, a drama called Casualty recently made a chilling alteration to one of its scripts. According to reports, the show's stars "won't be dealing with an explosion caused by Islamic extremists in case it offends Muslims. Now the bomb will be set off by animal rights campaigners instead."
Translation: folks like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals may be notorious for offensive demonstrations and statements. They famously dumped a dead raccoon on the table of Anna Wintour, Vogue's editor in chief, for promoting the use of fur in fashion, and threw pies at her on various occasions. But they don't detonate bombs in subways, behead those whose beliefs are different, instigate riots and murders because of some impudent cartoons, demand special schools to preach hatred to the young, or condemn those outside their orbit as infidels. Thus, in a strange judo move, the Beeb turned the annoying but nonviolent into murderous villains, and gave the real enemy of Western civilization a pass.
It should come as no surprise, though, to see the BBC in its present state of disgrace. This is, after all, the corporation whose newsreader Anna Ford has just quit because of the Beeb's "atmosphere of fear"; whose Newsnight presenter, Jeremy Paxman, states that his employer suffers from a "catastrophic, collective loss of nerve"; and whose editor, Peter Barron, complains about the BBC's incessant harping on unproved global warming. It is "not the corporation's job to save the planet," he says. The Beeb's future appears to be as bleak as November in London.
Source
Thursday, September 13, 2007
BBC Hits Bottom, Digs
Post below lifted from Ed Driscoll. See the original for links
The BBC decided to set up a website explaining 911 to kids. They have several sections set up to help the kids out on understanding the war on terror the BBC way. In one section they ask, Why Did They Do It? Guess who gets the blame?
That's right! It is the U.S. fault! We offended the world! Read the whole thing and watch your blood boil. Not a single word condemning Al Qeada in the whole thing. In fact it defends them in non judgemental terms. As your blood pressure rises keep in mind this is aimed towards children. Hopefully your head doesn't explode! As Paul at Wizbang says: unfreakinbelievable!
Local prostitutes must be protected!
Only in Britain. Where has the oft-proclaimed Leftist respect for the privacy of the bedroom gone? Is it only homosexuals who are entitled to such privacy?
Men who pay for sex could be prosecuted under new government plans to cut down on prostitution. Ministers are debating whether to make the purchase of sex illegal instead of the sale of sex as is currently the case. Individuals caught kerb-crawling would also be named and shamed as part of the proposals currently under discussion.
The government is trying to stop the growing problem of sex trafficking in the UK with increasing numbers immigrants coming here to work as prostitutes. According to the latest statistics, 85 per cent of women in brothels are from overseas. Senior government figures believe that the only way to reduce these figures is to criminalise clients thereby sending out a message that paying for sex is unacceptable.
A number of female ministers are said to have supported the reforms including Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, Patrica Scotland, the Attorney General, Vera Baird, the Solicitor General and Harriet Harman, Leader of the House. Fiona Mactaggart MP, who used to be in charge of tackling prostitution as a Home Office minister, said: "The price of prostitution is enormously high for women. "The more vulnerable the woman is, the cheaper the price is for men.
"The criminal justice bill that comes back on the first day includes changes to the prostitution strategy. "It would be possible to put into it some amendment which deals with this issue of men who pay for sex," A spokesman for the Home Office said: "There are no current plans to change the law and criminalise paying for sex." "We carefully considered that option as part of a public consultation on prostitution in 2004 but decided not to introduce a new offence."
Under the current laws, it is not illegal to pay for sex even though many of the activities surrounding prostitution are illegal. Men can be prosecuted for using prostitutes in certain circumstances such as kerb-crawling and it is against the law to run a brothel and to solicit or advertise for the purpose of prostitution.
The reforms would follow a law introduced in Sweden eight years ago which made it illegal to pay for sex but legal to sell it. The scheme is said to have reduced the number of brothels and clients in the country as well as cutting-down on the levels of sex trafficking.
Source
Legislating Intolerance: Is Marriage a Dying Institution in England?
There’s a problem at the moment in Britain with our sense of national identity. The problem is a compound of many things, of course: an all-pervasive culture of pop music and TV soaps, muddle about the way history is (or isn’t) taught in schools, a substantial and growing Islamic presence, confusion about our role in the world, an obsession with denouncing the (real and imagined) mistakes and evils of our past. But probably the single most important component is the one that most debates and discussions on the subject overlook: the collapse of marriage and family structures. And new laws that took effect in April this year are going to have a marked impact on all of this.
First, some background. New textbooks on “citizenship” for use in our schools—very much a project of the moment—emphasize sexual options as a fundamental part of “Britishness.” We are meant to assume that having various sexual leanings—heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual—is all part of the culture of “choice” that is our birthright. The idea that a nation is built on families, and that the passing on of family names, along with traditions and history, culture and folklore, is central to the concept of nationhood would be regarded as anathema. I say “would be” because, as far as I know, no one has actually dared to announce it even as a suggestion. Sexual relationships are, in the current parlance, “all about choices,” and it seems now to be regarded as quite wrong to suggest otherwise.
Now for the new laws: Under the new Sexual Orientation Regulations just passed by Parliament, anyone who challenges this notion of “choices” and appears in any way whatsoever to criticize the homosexual lifestyle will be criminalized. And I do mean criminalized: There are to be fines and possibly even custodial sentences for anyone who fails to deliver “goods and services” to people who are actively homosexual—“goods and services” in this instance including, for example, children who must be offered to homosexual couples for adoption from now on. “Britishness,” you see, is all about freedom to choose—not freedom for the child, of course, or for the natural mother giving up her baby for adoption, who might have wanted to specify a male/female married couple. No, “freedom” today is defined by political correctness.
There are many horrible aspects to all of this, one of the saddest being that the secretary of state who steered the legislation through Parliament is a Catholic, Ruth Kelly, whose membership in Opus Dei is much paraded (she’s a supernumerary). Kelly has said that she is proud to have gotten this legislation onto the statute book. She presumably hasn’t read Sacramentum Caritatis, the recent papal exhortation on the Eucharist, which states:
Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter, without consequences for our relationships with others: it demands a public witness to our faith. Evidently, this is true for all the baptised, yet it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values, such as respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one’s children, and the promotion of the common good in all its forms. These values are not negotiable
But irrespective of how Kelly copes with her conscience, Britain now has a problem with its marriage laws. The law establishes the basis of the social relationship of marriage, sets its tone, and confirms its status in the community. I became aware of this in a very particular way. When I married more than 25 years ago, it was in a Catholic Church, but due to a falling-out between the local registration authority and our parish priest, it was necessary for brides from our parish to go to the local register office and arrange personally for someone to attend the ceremony as a legal witness and sign the relevant papers. I expected this to be a quick matter of a phone call, but soon discovered this was not the case. Marriage was taken seriously. On arrival at the registrar’s I was ushered into a rather grand office and asked to take a seat.
The kindly, rather serious official in front of me began: “Now. Marriage under the law of England and Wales is the union of a man and a woman, exclusive of others, for life. Can you confirm that you understand that?” And with a seriousness that I had not known I would feel, and a sense of solemnity about what I was considering to undertake, I answered, “Yes.”
I appreciated then—and appreciate now—the solemnity with which the matter was approached. As he proceeded to explain to me what I needed to know (including the information that, when making my vows, I must speak loudly enough for the registrar, sitting in the front pew, to hear me), I was very much aware that I was embarking on something that was of huge legal and social, as well as personal and spiritual, significance. I have never forgotten it, and that spring day in 1980 at the register office is as etched in my mind as the later September day when Jamie and I made our vows together before God, with all the glory of a Mozart Mass and bridal finery and hugs and tears and fun and joy of a family wedding.
So where’s the problem? It is simply this: Today, by reiterating what I was told by that registrar, let alone what was stated in church and what I know and believe as a Catholic concerning marriage, I could, under certain circumstances, be in legal trouble. As a Catholic journalist and commentator on these issues, I am—or have been up until now—sometimes invited into schools and colleges to take part in conferences and seminars on marriage and related issues. And up until now I have welcomed all such opportunities, indeed relished them.
“Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church proclaims. “In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament” (2360). In explaining the Christian understanding of marriage—and the fact that it echoes the natural law written into the very fabric of our being, which undergirds the law of our country that governs how we are to live—I have been privileged to be part of some excellent classroom discussions, hear some forthright views, and be touched by young people’s statements of their beliefs, hopes, and aspirations.
But under the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which were passed with minimal parliamentary debate (despite a valiant attempt in the House of Lords to tackle them properly), it is going to be difficult for me to talk about marriage in schools anymore, or even be of much use as a visiting Catholic journalist. The new regulations expressly ban my doing anything that might make pupils of homosexual inclinations uncomfortable. Suggesting—let alone firmly stating—that marriage is, by definition, a bond between a man and a woman is going to be rather too antagonistic. Affirming the Catholic Church’s position on other sexual relationships, including the homosexual one, is going to be trickier still unless I am prepared (which I’m not) to state that it is possible that the Church is wrong, or that other opinions on homosexual activity are of equal moral worth and validity, or that I recognize that everyone has the right to affirm his or her own sexual desires in his or her own way.
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, Tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved (CCC 2357).
I have never actually quoted that in a school, and I have no particular desire to do so. In general, I steer well away from the subject. I’m concerned with communicating the facts about the Church’s message on marriage, or my own involvement with this as a Catholic journalist. But if the issue comes up, I am certainly prepared to quote the Catechism and explain that I support its teaching—and I’d probably link the section just quoted with the next, which says, among other things: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition: for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358). I might go on to add that such people are not just a “they”—for among such people are personal friends, people I enormously like and whose company I enjoy.
So what am I to do? I’m probably not going to be asked to speak about marriage or relationships much anymore. I have benefited from some—though not many—schools’ attempts to present “both sides” of the debate on relationships, which does offer a little more than the usual school-nurse-with-contraceptives deal. But it now seems likely that this will slowly dry up or cease altogether.
Will there be a test case to get the legislation examined in the courts? When details of the Sexual Orientation Regulations were announced, the Catholic bishops publicly expressed worry about the position of Church adoption agencies that cannot, while remaining true to the Church, offer children to homosexual couples who, by their lifestyle, openly oppose Catholic teaching. It simply makes the whole idea of having a Catholic adoption agency pointless. It remains to be seen what, if any, legal steps the bishops decide to take. But there are other, much wider implications of the regulations.
The stated idea is that people of various “sexual orientations” should not be denied “goods or services.” It was made clear to the bishops that adoptive children are, in this instance, to be regarded as “good and services” and must be offered to practicing homosexuals under the law. And denial of goods and services is linked to the notion that people must be free from any sort of harassment—which could include being told, in a classroom, that certain activities are “intrinsically disordered,” or that a “marriage” with a person of the same sex is simply not recognized by the Catholic Church. And what about, for example, a retirement home run by a Christian group that does not want to treat lesbian and homosexual couples as married?
Speaking in schools is only a small part of my work, and journalistic talents can be flexible. I might decide to open up a new area of work by producing materials for weddings—helping with Orders of Service, choosing nice quotes for wedding programs or menus. If I am then approached by a lesbian couple and politely decline to do business with them, I could be prosecuted, even if I simply find some polite excuse and express it in a pleasant and friendly way, designed not to give offense. If I were helping to run a publication, and we chose not to have an advertisement from some organization promoting homosexual marriage, there could be similar legal consequences. And so on.
A few bishops have already expressed their concerns. Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop of Westminster, protested the denial of democracy: “My fear is that, under the guise of legislating for what is said to be tolerance, we are legislating for intolerance. Once this begins, it is hard to see where it ends. The question is whether the threads holding together pluralist democracy have begun to unravel.” And Scotland’s Keith Cardinal O’Brien said, “The role of the state is overreached when it tramples legitimate moral freedoms and when it imposes values which are without rational and sociological merit.”
The plain fact is that the law now clashes directly with religious freedom, and no exemptions have been granted for Church schools, or for independent ones, so the denial of good and wholesome debate on a crucial subject is being imposed on all.
What do I do? What do any of us do? Shrug, I suppose, and admit that male/female marriage is now a personal thing. Something to be spoken of with confidence only within the confines of our churches (they are protected under the law—an echo of the old Soviet legislation that confined all religious activity to church buildings, with penalties for anyone who took part in Christian activities beyond those walls); something to be affirmed as a private belief, for those who like that sort of thing. Technically, for the time being at least, the law of England and Wales will continue to affirm that marriage is a lifelong bond between a man and a woman—but will a registrar have quite the same confidence in uttering those words as that nice chap had in saying them to me a quarter of a century ago? He has presumably long since retired, and I expect his successor has been fully trained in officiating at civil unions—homosexual marriage in all but name. (Incidentally, a Catholic, according to a detailed and useful statement issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, should not officiate at such a ceremony. But is it likely that any Catholic in modern Britain who tried to affirm his conscientious objection to such duty would get very far?)
In teaching children about “Britishness,” I suppose schools will emphasize freedom, rights, the idea that ours is a country where we can make choices and live by them. I am not at all sure that this is an adequate summary of what being British is all about, but even if it were, it is not the case. The most profoundly important decisions are, and always have been, about things that matter not only to us but to others, and therefore include community responsibilities and obligations that sometimes (and correctly) involve the law of the land.
But that law no longer affirms marriage between a man and a woman as the fundamental and irreplaceable basis for our society, and hence for our nation. There can be no “Britishness” now that this has occurred, and none will return until it is corrected. Only then will we be able to face our very considerable social problems—our sense of isolation from our own history, our loss of community and neighborly spirit, the recent and rapidly growing presence of Islam in what was once a Christian nation, and more—and regain some sort of confidence in our future.
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Scottish Archbishop Urges Faithful to Resist Threat of Secularism
Says "Things abhorred a generation ago are now inscribed in the statute books of society"
This past Sunday, the Catholic faithful in Scotland was called upon to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first ever papal visit to Scotland. Archbishop Conti of Glasgow seized upon the opportunity to deliver a heartfelt sermon to encourage the faithful of his diocese to defy the mounting trend of secularism in Scotland.
Conti gave the sermon at Carfin Grotto in Lanarkshire, Scotland on the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit in 1982. The message of Conti's sermon was very similar to the themes addressed in the talks given by John Paul II so many years ago.
The Herald quoted Conti's sermon, "At a distance of 25 years, we need to reflect on the Holy Father's words: In so many areas of life the most fundamental principles of our Christian life are not only questioned, but ridiculed and threatened with sanction. Individualism has come to predominate. The growth in the quest for individual rights has taken precedence over what is right."
Conti referred to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex unions and "repeated attacks on our Catholic schools, unjustly accusing them of fostering sectarianism" as some of the dangers that must be faced by the faithful in today's society.
According to The Herald, Conti reiterated many of the same warnings first given in John Paul II's 1982 sermons, "We find it harder to follow Christ today than appears to have been the case before. Witnessing to him in modern life means a daily contest. As believers we are constantly exposed to pressures by modern society, which would compel us to conform to the standards of this secular age, substitute new priorities, restrict our aspirations at the risk of compromising our Christian conscience."
"Things abhorred a generation ago are now inscribed in the statute books of society. These are issues of the utmost gravity to which a simple answer cannot be given; neither are they answered by being ignored."
Similar to John Paul II, Archbishop Conti addressed his sermon to all the faithful but in a special way to the youth of the land. Such an outreach goes hand in hand with last week's nation-wide Christian effort to ensure that Christian values were recognized and included in the new curriculum being designed for Scottish schools. This effort was enacted to combat a bitter campaign by secularists to eliminate faith-based education on the grounds that it is divisive.
This is not the first time that Archbishop Conti has taken a public stand for orthodoxy over the secular forces of his country. Just last year the Archbishop openly defended the Scottish firefighters who were penalized for refusing to hand out pamphlets at a Pride event.
In 2003, the Archbishop wrote a newspaper column on Remembrance Day commemorating the heroic sacrifice of the men and women who gave their life for their country in war. He also wrote, "However, I cannot refrain from pointing out that another loss continues, every day of the week in our land, a sacrifice of silent victims. The victims of abortion."
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NHS WASTED 43 Billion pounds
The money poured into the NHS has failed to produce a more efficient service, or to reduce unhealthy lifestyles. As a result even more cash will be needed in the future, says a new review by Sir Derek Wanless. It was published yesterday, five years after his review for the Treasury paved the way for the extra 43.2 billion pounds that the Government has since spent on the NHS.
Sir Derek, a former chief executive of NatWest bank, sees some improvements in the service, but also identifies a range of failings, including mismanaged structural changes; generous pay deals that failed to produce an obvious return; and a neglect of public health. He said at the publication of his report that the extra resources had undoubtedly improved patient care over the past five years. “But what is equally clear from this review is that we are not on course to deliver the sustainable and world-class healthcare system, and ultimately the healthier nation, that we all desire,” he said. Sir Derek would have liked the Government to have commissioned the review, but it showed no enthusiasm for doing so. The King’s Fund stepped in, enabling him to produce this report.
He states that more money will be needed over the next two decades unless steps are taken to deal with pressing concerns. That could undermine the current widespread political support for the NHS “and raise questions about its long-term future”, he says.
Of the more than 43 billion extra that has been spent, pay and price inflation have accounted for 18.9 billion, he concludes. New contracts for consultants, GPs and other staff have been introduced, but “there is very little robust evidence so far to demonstrate significant benefits arising from the new pay deals”. Staff numbers have risen far above the targets set in the NHS Plan of 2000, with targets for consultants exceeded by 16 per cent, for GPs by 166 per cent, for nurses by 272 per cent, and for therapists by 102 per cent. The biggest increase in NHS activity has been in accident and emergency departments, where attendances have grown by more than a third since 2002-03. This is hard to explain, but is probably caused by changes in behaviour, shorter waiting times and changes in GPs’ out-of-hours arrangements, the report says.
Public health budgets, aimed at tackling issues such as obesity and smoking, had been raided to bridge financial problems in the NHS, he said. It was impossible to track trends in public health spending or health promotion in the past five years because no official figures were kept. Sir Derek said: “It is also indicative of the relatively low priority given to public health that, while nonpublic health medical staff numbers have increased by nearly 60 per cent since 1997, the number of public health consultants and registrars has gone down overall.”
Sir Derek said at the publication of the report that there were “lots of positives” in his study. These included reduced waiting times, the use of less expensive statins and extra staff. He said that the framework introduced by the Government should remain in place for the next few years to minimise further disruption. He said in his report, however, that the restructuring had been expensive and had taken managers’ eyes off the priority of running the service.
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, will call today for direct intervention to encourage healthier lifestyles after the report’s warning of spiralling obesity levels. The future of the NHS depends on encouraging people to take care of themselves, he will tell members of the New Health Network. “Government simply cannot afford to be the passive observers of unhealthy lifestyles, only intervening when chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or lung cancer are already well established,” he will argue. “Public health issues must be elevated to the top of the national agenda by a Department for Health which takes an even more active role in encouraging healthy lifestyles.”
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “This report is a damning critique of the Government’s failure to get value for money out of all the extra investment in the NHS. Ministers cannot ignore these recommendations as they did with last year’s report by Sir Derek into social care.”
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Even Gordon Brown’s own adviser thinks he has mismanaged the NHS. Labour have invested lots and achieved too little. Gordon Brown is obsessed with pursuing top-down reorganisation instead of delivering genuine reform, which gives power to professionals and better healthcare to patients.” He added: “Public health budgets have been robbed to pay off huge deficits despite warnings about the strain that spiralling obesity levels will have on the NHS. Labour’s ignorance belies their arrogance.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “We welcome this report and its recognition that the Government’s investment and reform have improved patient care. We agree that more has to be done to improve NHS productivity and to tackle some lifestyle issues like obesity. We also agree that spending on healthcare will need to continue to grow above inflation if we are to meet patients’ growing expectations. “These issues will be central to decisions made in the next few weeks as part of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review and the long-term review of the health service being conducted by Lord Darzi.”
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"The Pill" is back in favour!
As with all epidemiological data, this must be taken with a large grain of salt. The women who took the pill might have been healthier to start with and almost certainly led less risky lives (drug-taking etc.). The amazing thing is that official positions are being taken on the basis of these findings
Taking the Pill reduces the risks of a woman getting cancer later in life, according to one of the largest studies ever undertaken. The conclusion will reassure millions of women who took the Pill 30 or 40 years ago and are now of an age when the risks are growing. The study found that overall cancer risk was up to 12 per cent lower for women who took the Pill for less than eight years. But, for the minority of women who took it for more than eight years, the news was less good: for them, the risk of cancer increased by 22 per cent. The risk of developing bowel and rectal, uterine and ovarian cancers was most reduced. There was no evidence that the risk of developing breast cancer either increased or decreased with short-term usage.
“Many women, especially those who used the first generation of oral contraceptives many years ago, are likely to be reassured by our results,” the authors of the new study say. “The cancer benefits of oral contraception outweigh the risks.” Maria Leadbeater, of Breast Cancer Care, said: “The findings of this research will be welcomed by the thousands of women across the UK who have used, or are currently using, an oral contraceptive.”
The team, from the University of Aberdeen, used data gathered by the Royal College of Physicians since 1968, which asked 1,400 GPs to provide information on women who were taking the Pill, and a matched group who were not. A total of 46,000 women were recruited, aged 29 on average. All were married or in a stable relationship. The women were then monitored until 2004, and any cancers they developed were recorded. The team also had more limited data up to 1996 provided by the women’s GPs, giving them two sets of statistics from which to work.
The results, reported in the British Medical Journal, show that the Pill reduced the overall risks of cancer for most women, though the degree of benefit depended on which dataset was used. Using the main dataset, the team found a reduction of 12 per cent in the risk of getting any cancer. That represents one fewer case of cancer for every 2,200 women who have used the Pill for a year. The smaller dataset also showed a benefit, but a smaller one: a 3 per cent reduction in overall risk, equivalent to one fewer case for every 10,000 women per year.
The exception was for women who used the Pill for more than eight years – about a quarter of Pill-users. Their risk of cancer was significantly increased. The average Pill user in the research took the contraceptive for 44 months. Professor Philip Hannaford, who led the research team, said: “These results show that, in this UK cohort, the contraceptive Pill was not associated with an overall increased risk of any cancer; indeed it may produce an important net public health gain.” About three million women use the Pill each year in Britain and 100 million around the world. More than 300 million women have used the Pill since its launch in 1961.
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British immigrants in France
We are gathered on a sunny Normandy afternoon in a county council meeting room to discuss the "British problem". Except that there is no "problem", of course. Everyone is very careful not to use the word "problem" - especially as there are a couple of Brits in the room. Instead, we are "nos amis Britanniques" (marginally less cumbersome than "les sujets de sa gracieuse majeste" so beloved of the local newspapers). And there is not a problem, but a situation.
The situation is that we are arriving in ever-increasing numbers, but without a clue how to register with a doctor or enroll the children into school or join the French health and social security system. Or, points out the lugubrious representative from the departmental tax office, file a tax declaration. "I would certainly like to help nos amis understand how to fill out their tax returns," he sighs.
Through sheer ignorance, usually, we fail to our homework or get the right bits of paper before converting our barns or building our extensions, and we carry on driving around with UK numberplates because we can't follow the complex rules for re-registration. Despite huge efforts to oblige, we still make a mess of filling in forms or requests for information and don't turn up for PTA meetings because we can't understand the notes the children bring home from school. A few of us - and yes, I know people who do this - simply bin anything that comes through the letter box that is written in French.
"Didn't EDF warn you that they were going to cut you off for not paying the bills?" I asked a hysterical compatriot recently. He thought for a minute. "There was something from EDF in the post," he conceded. "But it was in French. I didn't understand it." So? "I threw it away."
I have been invited to this meeting as editor of the Rendezvous, the monthly English-language magazine for Normandy. The woman at my side has been invited as a shining example of active integration, having co-organised the region's annual Franco-British Bonfire Nights for the past couple of years (with a diplomatic lack of emphasis on the burning-a-Catholic bit). We are here to have our brains picked.
The assembled French officials represent schools, job centres, social workers, tax officers, local communes and health authorities, and they are tearing their hair out. How can they treat people who don't have the right forms? How can they stop Brits employing other Brits on the black market and encourage them to use registered artisans or set up legal businesses instead? Or, on a kindly note, encourage incomers to come to tea dances or join the gardening club or take advantage of the daytime OAP rates at the local swimming pool?
But before we get down to business, there is that burning question that bewildered French people never tire of asking and the woman from the mayor's office can resist no longer: why are so many British coming to live here? The numbers are indeed extraordinary: in Lower Normandy alone, official statistics show more than 9,000 registered British households. And there are plenty of unregistered households: those who remain "officially" domiciled in Britain for whatever reason as well as those who simply fail to declare their arrival to anybody. The Rendezvous has more than 20,000 readers already. Even when British incomers give up and go home, there is a queue of other Brits waiting to buy their houses; indeed, nowadays there are as many British vendors - often moving to their second French property - as buyers.
"We are not here to discuss whether this immigration is a good or a bad thing," says the chairman. "We are here not to ask 'why?' but to accept the situation and decide how we accommodate it. How do we help these incomers become part of the system?"
We British incomers to France don't tend to liken ourselves to East European plumbers or Asian brides newly arrived in Britain, but all this "outreach" talk has a vaguely familiar ring to it. Although we are not economic migrants in the sense of being after better-paid jobs, we are nevertheless migrants in search of something better: "quality of life" or, as I have also heard us referred to, "affordable space migrants" (cheaper, bigger houses with bigger gardens, in other words). In any case, "integration" is the buzz word on local lips and as Normandy is not the banlieue of Paris, this means Brits rather than Poles or North Africans.
"Tea?" asks the charming woman from the local council. "This is a meeting about the English, after all!" she titters. Indeed, even if it is only a bag of herbal tea wafted near a mug of warm water, it is still the only meeting I have attended in France where refreshment is offered during, rather than at the end of, business.
So, over tea and biscuits, we decide to produce a brochure called Bienvenue chez vous! (Welcome home! - ie, to your new home) with chapter headings such as: "Do I have to Register with a GP?" and "What Help is Available for Mature Citizens?" It will run through everything the immigrant needs to know about settling into France and I am particularly intrigued by the audacious section heading: "How France Works".
"Crikey! Will the budget stretch that far?" I ask.
There is a moment's silence while it is ascertained that there has been no insult of the Fifth Republic and that I only meant that this might be a rather large topic for one meagre chapter. It is, everyone concludes happily, an example of "British humour".
And, in fact, the budget can stretch as far as we like. This, it turns out, is a Europe-funded project, so the coffers are virtually bottomless. Having mortgaged the house to start the Rendezvous, I can only wilt with envy. On the subject of integration, how, exactly, do I get a slice of this pie?
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Post below lifted from Ed Driscoll. See the original for links
The BBC decided to set up a website explaining 911 to kids. They have several sections set up to help the kids out on understanding the war on terror the BBC way. In one section they ask, Why Did They Do It? Guess who gets the blame?
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.
In the past, al-Qaeda leaders have declared a holy war - called a jihad - against the US. As part of this jihad, al-Qaeda members believe attacking US targets is something they should do.
When the attacks happened in 2001, there were a number of US troops in a country called Saudi Arabia, and the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, said he wanted them to leave.
That's right! It is the U.S. fault! We offended the world! Read the whole thing and watch your blood boil. Not a single word condemning Al Qeada in the whole thing. In fact it defends them in non judgemental terms. As your blood pressure rises keep in mind this is aimed towards children. Hopefully your head doesn't explode! As Paul at Wizbang says: unfreakinbelievable!
Local prostitutes must be protected!
Only in Britain. Where has the oft-proclaimed Leftist respect for the privacy of the bedroom gone? Is it only homosexuals who are entitled to such privacy?
Men who pay for sex could be prosecuted under new government plans to cut down on prostitution. Ministers are debating whether to make the purchase of sex illegal instead of the sale of sex as is currently the case. Individuals caught kerb-crawling would also be named and shamed as part of the proposals currently under discussion.
The government is trying to stop the growing problem of sex trafficking in the UK with increasing numbers immigrants coming here to work as prostitutes. According to the latest statistics, 85 per cent of women in brothels are from overseas. Senior government figures believe that the only way to reduce these figures is to criminalise clients thereby sending out a message that paying for sex is unacceptable.
A number of female ministers are said to have supported the reforms including Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, Patrica Scotland, the Attorney General, Vera Baird, the Solicitor General and Harriet Harman, Leader of the House. Fiona Mactaggart MP, who used to be in charge of tackling prostitution as a Home Office minister, said: "The price of prostitution is enormously high for women. "The more vulnerable the woman is, the cheaper the price is for men.
"The criminal justice bill that comes back on the first day includes changes to the prostitution strategy. "It would be possible to put into it some amendment which deals with this issue of men who pay for sex," A spokesman for the Home Office said: "There are no current plans to change the law and criminalise paying for sex." "We carefully considered that option as part of a public consultation on prostitution in 2004 but decided not to introduce a new offence."
Under the current laws, it is not illegal to pay for sex even though many of the activities surrounding prostitution are illegal. Men can be prosecuted for using prostitutes in certain circumstances such as kerb-crawling and it is against the law to run a brothel and to solicit or advertise for the purpose of prostitution.
The reforms would follow a law introduced in Sweden eight years ago which made it illegal to pay for sex but legal to sell it. The scheme is said to have reduced the number of brothels and clients in the country as well as cutting-down on the levels of sex trafficking.
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Legislating Intolerance: Is Marriage a Dying Institution in England?
There’s a problem at the moment in Britain with our sense of national identity. The problem is a compound of many things, of course: an all-pervasive culture of pop music and TV soaps, muddle about the way history is (or isn’t) taught in schools, a substantial and growing Islamic presence, confusion about our role in the world, an obsession with denouncing the (real and imagined) mistakes and evils of our past. But probably the single most important component is the one that most debates and discussions on the subject overlook: the collapse of marriage and family structures. And new laws that took effect in April this year are going to have a marked impact on all of this.
First, some background. New textbooks on “citizenship” for use in our schools—very much a project of the moment—emphasize sexual options as a fundamental part of “Britishness.” We are meant to assume that having various sexual leanings—heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual—is all part of the culture of “choice” that is our birthright. The idea that a nation is built on families, and that the passing on of family names, along with traditions and history, culture and folklore, is central to the concept of nationhood would be regarded as anathema. I say “would be” because, as far as I know, no one has actually dared to announce it even as a suggestion. Sexual relationships are, in the current parlance, “all about choices,” and it seems now to be regarded as quite wrong to suggest otherwise.
Now for the new laws: Under the new Sexual Orientation Regulations just passed by Parliament, anyone who challenges this notion of “choices” and appears in any way whatsoever to criticize the homosexual lifestyle will be criminalized. And I do mean criminalized: There are to be fines and possibly even custodial sentences for anyone who fails to deliver “goods and services” to people who are actively homosexual—“goods and services” in this instance including, for example, children who must be offered to homosexual couples for adoption from now on. “Britishness,” you see, is all about freedom to choose—not freedom for the child, of course, or for the natural mother giving up her baby for adoption, who might have wanted to specify a male/female married couple. No, “freedom” today is defined by political correctness.
There are many horrible aspects to all of this, one of the saddest being that the secretary of state who steered the legislation through Parliament is a Catholic, Ruth Kelly, whose membership in Opus Dei is much paraded (she’s a supernumerary). Kelly has said that she is proud to have gotten this legislation onto the statute book. She presumably hasn’t read Sacramentum Caritatis, the recent papal exhortation on the Eucharist, which states:
Worship pleasing to God can never be a purely private matter, without consequences for our relationships with others: it demands a public witness to our faith. Evidently, this is true for all the baptised, yet it is especially incumbent upon those who, by virtue of their social or political position, must make decisions regarding fundamental values, such as respect for human life, its defense from conception to natural death, the family built upon marriage between a man and a woman, the freedom to educate one’s children, and the promotion of the common good in all its forms. These values are not negotiable
But irrespective of how Kelly copes with her conscience, Britain now has a problem with its marriage laws. The law establishes the basis of the social relationship of marriage, sets its tone, and confirms its status in the community. I became aware of this in a very particular way. When I married more than 25 years ago, it was in a Catholic Church, but due to a falling-out between the local registration authority and our parish priest, it was necessary for brides from our parish to go to the local register office and arrange personally for someone to attend the ceremony as a legal witness and sign the relevant papers. I expected this to be a quick matter of a phone call, but soon discovered this was not the case. Marriage was taken seriously. On arrival at the registrar’s I was ushered into a rather grand office and asked to take a seat.
The kindly, rather serious official in front of me began: “Now. Marriage under the law of England and Wales is the union of a man and a woman, exclusive of others, for life. Can you confirm that you understand that?” And with a seriousness that I had not known I would feel, and a sense of solemnity about what I was considering to undertake, I answered, “Yes.”
I appreciated then—and appreciate now—the solemnity with which the matter was approached. As he proceeded to explain to me what I needed to know (including the information that, when making my vows, I must speak loudly enough for the registrar, sitting in the front pew, to hear me), I was very much aware that I was embarking on something that was of huge legal and social, as well as personal and spiritual, significance. I have never forgotten it, and that spring day in 1980 at the register office is as etched in my mind as the later September day when Jamie and I made our vows together before God, with all the glory of a Mozart Mass and bridal finery and hugs and tears and fun and joy of a family wedding.
So where’s the problem? It is simply this: Today, by reiterating what I was told by that registrar, let alone what was stated in church and what I know and believe as a Catholic concerning marriage, I could, under certain circumstances, be in legal trouble. As a Catholic journalist and commentator on these issues, I am—or have been up until now—sometimes invited into schools and colleges to take part in conferences and seminars on marriage and related issues. And up until now I have welcomed all such opportunities, indeed relished them.
“Sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman,” the Catechism of the Catholic Church proclaims. “In marriage the physical intimacy of the spouses becomes a sign and pledge of spiritual communion. Marriage bonds between baptized persons are sanctified by the sacrament” (2360). In explaining the Christian understanding of marriage—and the fact that it echoes the natural law written into the very fabric of our being, which undergirds the law of our country that governs how we are to live—I have been privileged to be part of some excellent classroom discussions, hear some forthright views, and be touched by young people’s statements of their beliefs, hopes, and aspirations.
But under the Sexual Orientation Regulations, which were passed with minimal parliamentary debate (despite a valiant attempt in the House of Lords to tackle them properly), it is going to be difficult for me to talk about marriage in schools anymore, or even be of much use as a visiting Catholic journalist. The new regulations expressly ban my doing anything that might make pupils of homosexual inclinations uncomfortable. Suggesting—let alone firmly stating—that marriage is, by definition, a bond between a man and a woman is going to be rather too antagonistic. Affirming the Catholic Church’s position on other sexual relationships, including the homosexual one, is going to be trickier still unless I am prepared (which I’m not) to state that it is possible that the Church is wrong, or that other opinions on homosexual activity are of equal moral worth and validity, or that I recognize that everyone has the right to affirm his or her own sexual desires in his or her own way.
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, Tradition has always declared that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.” They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved (CCC 2357).
I have never actually quoted that in a school, and I have no particular desire to do so. In general, I steer well away from the subject. I’m concerned with communicating the facts about the Church’s message on marriage, or my own involvement with this as a Catholic journalist. But if the issue comes up, I am certainly prepared to quote the Catechism and explain that I support its teaching—and I’d probably link the section just quoted with the next, which says, among other things: “The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. They do not choose their homosexual condition: for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided” (CCC 2358). I might go on to add that such people are not just a “they”—for among such people are personal friends, people I enormously like and whose company I enjoy.
So what am I to do? I’m probably not going to be asked to speak about marriage or relationships much anymore. I have benefited from some—though not many—schools’ attempts to present “both sides” of the debate on relationships, which does offer a little more than the usual school-nurse-with-contraceptives deal. But it now seems likely that this will slowly dry up or cease altogether.
Will there be a test case to get the legislation examined in the courts? When details of the Sexual Orientation Regulations were announced, the Catholic bishops publicly expressed worry about the position of Church adoption agencies that cannot, while remaining true to the Church, offer children to homosexual couples who, by their lifestyle, openly oppose Catholic teaching. It simply makes the whole idea of having a Catholic adoption agency pointless. It remains to be seen what, if any, legal steps the bishops decide to take. But there are other, much wider implications of the regulations.
The stated idea is that people of various “sexual orientations” should not be denied “goods or services.” It was made clear to the bishops that adoptive children are, in this instance, to be regarded as “good and services” and must be offered to practicing homosexuals under the law. And denial of goods and services is linked to the notion that people must be free from any sort of harassment—which could include being told, in a classroom, that certain activities are “intrinsically disordered,” or that a “marriage” with a person of the same sex is simply not recognized by the Catholic Church. And what about, for example, a retirement home run by a Christian group that does not want to treat lesbian and homosexual couples as married?
Speaking in schools is only a small part of my work, and journalistic talents can be flexible. I might decide to open up a new area of work by producing materials for weddings—helping with Orders of Service, choosing nice quotes for wedding programs or menus. If I am then approached by a lesbian couple and politely decline to do business with them, I could be prosecuted, even if I simply find some polite excuse and express it in a pleasant and friendly way, designed not to give offense. If I were helping to run a publication, and we chose not to have an advertisement from some organization promoting homosexual marriage, there could be similar legal consequences. And so on.
A few bishops have already expressed their concerns. Cormac Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor, archbishop of Westminster, protested the denial of democracy: “My fear is that, under the guise of legislating for what is said to be tolerance, we are legislating for intolerance. Once this begins, it is hard to see where it ends. The question is whether the threads holding together pluralist democracy have begun to unravel.” And Scotland’s Keith Cardinal O’Brien said, “The role of the state is overreached when it tramples legitimate moral freedoms and when it imposes values which are without rational and sociological merit.”
The plain fact is that the law now clashes directly with religious freedom, and no exemptions have been granted for Church schools, or for independent ones, so the denial of good and wholesome debate on a crucial subject is being imposed on all.
What do I do? What do any of us do? Shrug, I suppose, and admit that male/female marriage is now a personal thing. Something to be spoken of with confidence only within the confines of our churches (they are protected under the law—an echo of the old Soviet legislation that confined all religious activity to church buildings, with penalties for anyone who took part in Christian activities beyond those walls); something to be affirmed as a private belief, for those who like that sort of thing. Technically, for the time being at least, the law of England and Wales will continue to affirm that marriage is a lifelong bond between a man and a woman—but will a registrar have quite the same confidence in uttering those words as that nice chap had in saying them to me a quarter of a century ago? He has presumably long since retired, and I expect his successor has been fully trained in officiating at civil unions—homosexual marriage in all but name. (Incidentally, a Catholic, according to a detailed and useful statement issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, should not officiate at such a ceremony. But is it likely that any Catholic in modern Britain who tried to affirm his conscientious objection to such duty would get very far?)
In teaching children about “Britishness,” I suppose schools will emphasize freedom, rights, the idea that ours is a country where we can make choices and live by them. I am not at all sure that this is an adequate summary of what being British is all about, but even if it were, it is not the case. The most profoundly important decisions are, and always have been, about things that matter not only to us but to others, and therefore include community responsibilities and obligations that sometimes (and correctly) involve the law of the land.
But that law no longer affirms marriage between a man and a woman as the fundamental and irreplaceable basis for our society, and hence for our nation. There can be no “Britishness” now that this has occurred, and none will return until it is corrected. Only then will we be able to face our very considerable social problems—our sense of isolation from our own history, our loss of community and neighborly spirit, the recent and rapidly growing presence of Islam in what was once a Christian nation, and more—and regain some sort of confidence in our future.
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Scottish Archbishop Urges Faithful to Resist Threat of Secularism
Says "Things abhorred a generation ago are now inscribed in the statute books of society"
This past Sunday, the Catholic faithful in Scotland was called upon to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first ever papal visit to Scotland. Archbishop Conti of Glasgow seized upon the opportunity to deliver a heartfelt sermon to encourage the faithful of his diocese to defy the mounting trend of secularism in Scotland.
Conti gave the sermon at Carfin Grotto in Lanarkshire, Scotland on the 25th anniversary of Pope John Paul II's visit in 1982. The message of Conti's sermon was very similar to the themes addressed in the talks given by John Paul II so many years ago.
The Herald quoted Conti's sermon, "At a distance of 25 years, we need to reflect on the Holy Father's words: In so many areas of life the most fundamental principles of our Christian life are not only questioned, but ridiculed and threatened with sanction. Individualism has come to predominate. The growth in the quest for individual rights has taken precedence over what is right."
Conti referred to abortion, euthanasia, same-sex unions and "repeated attacks on our Catholic schools, unjustly accusing them of fostering sectarianism" as some of the dangers that must be faced by the faithful in today's society.
According to The Herald, Conti reiterated many of the same warnings first given in John Paul II's 1982 sermons, "We find it harder to follow Christ today than appears to have been the case before. Witnessing to him in modern life means a daily contest. As believers we are constantly exposed to pressures by modern society, which would compel us to conform to the standards of this secular age, substitute new priorities, restrict our aspirations at the risk of compromising our Christian conscience."
"Things abhorred a generation ago are now inscribed in the statute books of society. These are issues of the utmost gravity to which a simple answer cannot be given; neither are they answered by being ignored."
Similar to John Paul II, Archbishop Conti addressed his sermon to all the faithful but in a special way to the youth of the land. Such an outreach goes hand in hand with last week's nation-wide Christian effort to ensure that Christian values were recognized and included in the new curriculum being designed for Scottish schools. This effort was enacted to combat a bitter campaign by secularists to eliminate faith-based education on the grounds that it is divisive.
This is not the first time that Archbishop Conti has taken a public stand for orthodoxy over the secular forces of his country. Just last year the Archbishop openly defended the Scottish firefighters who were penalized for refusing to hand out pamphlets at a Pride event.
In 2003, the Archbishop wrote a newspaper column on Remembrance Day commemorating the heroic sacrifice of the men and women who gave their life for their country in war. He also wrote, "However, I cannot refrain from pointing out that another loss continues, every day of the week in our land, a sacrifice of silent victims. The victims of abortion."
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NHS WASTED 43 Billion pounds
The money poured into the NHS has failed to produce a more efficient service, or to reduce unhealthy lifestyles. As a result even more cash will be needed in the future, says a new review by Sir Derek Wanless. It was published yesterday, five years after his review for the Treasury paved the way for the extra 43.2 billion pounds that the Government has since spent on the NHS.
Sir Derek, a former chief executive of NatWest bank, sees some improvements in the service, but also identifies a range of failings, including mismanaged structural changes; generous pay deals that failed to produce an obvious return; and a neglect of public health. He said at the publication of his report that the extra resources had undoubtedly improved patient care over the past five years. “But what is equally clear from this review is that we are not on course to deliver the sustainable and world-class healthcare system, and ultimately the healthier nation, that we all desire,” he said. Sir Derek would have liked the Government to have commissioned the review, but it showed no enthusiasm for doing so. The King’s Fund stepped in, enabling him to produce this report.
He states that more money will be needed over the next two decades unless steps are taken to deal with pressing concerns. That could undermine the current widespread political support for the NHS “and raise questions about its long-term future”, he says.
Of the more than 43 billion extra that has been spent, pay and price inflation have accounted for 18.9 billion, he concludes. New contracts for consultants, GPs and other staff have been introduced, but “there is very little robust evidence so far to demonstrate significant benefits arising from the new pay deals”. Staff numbers have risen far above the targets set in the NHS Plan of 2000, with targets for consultants exceeded by 16 per cent, for GPs by 166 per cent, for nurses by 272 per cent, and for therapists by 102 per cent. The biggest increase in NHS activity has been in accident and emergency departments, where attendances have grown by more than a third since 2002-03. This is hard to explain, but is probably caused by changes in behaviour, shorter waiting times and changes in GPs’ out-of-hours arrangements, the report says.
Public health budgets, aimed at tackling issues such as obesity and smoking, had been raided to bridge financial problems in the NHS, he said. It was impossible to track trends in public health spending or health promotion in the past five years because no official figures were kept. Sir Derek said: “It is also indicative of the relatively low priority given to public health that, while nonpublic health medical staff numbers have increased by nearly 60 per cent since 1997, the number of public health consultants and registrars has gone down overall.”
Sir Derek said at the publication of the report that there were “lots of positives” in his study. These included reduced waiting times, the use of less expensive statins and extra staff. He said that the framework introduced by the Government should remain in place for the next few years to minimise further disruption. He said in his report, however, that the restructuring had been expensive and had taken managers’ eyes off the priority of running the service.
Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, will call today for direct intervention to encourage healthier lifestyles after the report’s warning of spiralling obesity levels. The future of the NHS depends on encouraging people to take care of themselves, he will tell members of the New Health Network. “Government simply cannot afford to be the passive observers of unhealthy lifestyles, only intervening when chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease or lung cancer are already well established,” he will argue. “Public health issues must be elevated to the top of the national agenda by a Department for Health which takes an even more active role in encouraging healthy lifestyles.”
Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “This report is a damning critique of the Government’s failure to get value for money out of all the extra investment in the NHS. Ministers cannot ignore these recommendations as they did with last year’s report by Sir Derek into social care.”
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said: “Even Gordon Brown’s own adviser thinks he has mismanaged the NHS. Labour have invested lots and achieved too little. Gordon Brown is obsessed with pursuing top-down reorganisation instead of delivering genuine reform, which gives power to professionals and better healthcare to patients.” He added: “Public health budgets have been robbed to pay off huge deficits despite warnings about the strain that spiralling obesity levels will have on the NHS. Labour’s ignorance belies their arrogance.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Health said: “We welcome this report and its recognition that the Government’s investment and reform have improved patient care. We agree that more has to be done to improve NHS productivity and to tackle some lifestyle issues like obesity. We also agree that spending on healthcare will need to continue to grow above inflation if we are to meet patients’ growing expectations. “These issues will be central to decisions made in the next few weeks as part of the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review and the long-term review of the health service being conducted by Lord Darzi.”
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"The Pill" is back in favour!
As with all epidemiological data, this must be taken with a large grain of salt. The women who took the pill might have been healthier to start with and almost certainly led less risky lives (drug-taking etc.). The amazing thing is that official positions are being taken on the basis of these findings
Taking the Pill reduces the risks of a woman getting cancer later in life, according to one of the largest studies ever undertaken. The conclusion will reassure millions of women who took the Pill 30 or 40 years ago and are now of an age when the risks are growing. The study found that overall cancer risk was up to 12 per cent lower for women who took the Pill for less than eight years. But, for the minority of women who took it for more than eight years, the news was less good: for them, the risk of cancer increased by 22 per cent. The risk of developing bowel and rectal, uterine and ovarian cancers was most reduced. There was no evidence that the risk of developing breast cancer either increased or decreased with short-term usage.
“Many women, especially those who used the first generation of oral contraceptives many years ago, are likely to be reassured by our results,” the authors of the new study say. “The cancer benefits of oral contraception outweigh the risks.” Maria Leadbeater, of Breast Cancer Care, said: “The findings of this research will be welcomed by the thousands of women across the UK who have used, or are currently using, an oral contraceptive.”
The team, from the University of Aberdeen, used data gathered by the Royal College of Physicians since 1968, which asked 1,400 GPs to provide information on women who were taking the Pill, and a matched group who were not. A total of 46,000 women were recruited, aged 29 on average. All were married or in a stable relationship. The women were then monitored until 2004, and any cancers they developed were recorded. The team also had more limited data up to 1996 provided by the women’s GPs, giving them two sets of statistics from which to work.
The results, reported in the British Medical Journal, show that the Pill reduced the overall risks of cancer for most women, though the degree of benefit depended on which dataset was used. Using the main dataset, the team found a reduction of 12 per cent in the risk of getting any cancer. That represents one fewer case of cancer for every 2,200 women who have used the Pill for a year. The smaller dataset also showed a benefit, but a smaller one: a 3 per cent reduction in overall risk, equivalent to one fewer case for every 10,000 women per year.
The exception was for women who used the Pill for more than eight years – about a quarter of Pill-users. Their risk of cancer was significantly increased. The average Pill user in the research took the contraceptive for 44 months. Professor Philip Hannaford, who led the research team, said: “These results show that, in this UK cohort, the contraceptive Pill was not associated with an overall increased risk of any cancer; indeed it may produce an important net public health gain.” About three million women use the Pill each year in Britain and 100 million around the world. More than 300 million women have used the Pill since its launch in 1961.
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British immigrants in France
We are gathered on a sunny Normandy afternoon in a county council meeting room to discuss the "British problem". Except that there is no "problem", of course. Everyone is very careful not to use the word "problem" - especially as there are a couple of Brits in the room. Instead, we are "nos amis Britanniques" (marginally less cumbersome than "les sujets de sa gracieuse majeste" so beloved of the local newspapers). And there is not a problem, but a situation.
The situation is that we are arriving in ever-increasing numbers, but without a clue how to register with a doctor or enroll the children into school or join the French health and social security system. Or, points out the lugubrious representative from the departmental tax office, file a tax declaration. "I would certainly like to help nos amis understand how to fill out their tax returns," he sighs.
Through sheer ignorance, usually, we fail to our homework or get the right bits of paper before converting our barns or building our extensions, and we carry on driving around with UK numberplates because we can't follow the complex rules for re-registration. Despite huge efforts to oblige, we still make a mess of filling in forms or requests for information and don't turn up for PTA meetings because we can't understand the notes the children bring home from school. A few of us - and yes, I know people who do this - simply bin anything that comes through the letter box that is written in French.
"Didn't EDF warn you that they were going to cut you off for not paying the bills?" I asked a hysterical compatriot recently. He thought for a minute. "There was something from EDF in the post," he conceded. "But it was in French. I didn't understand it." So? "I threw it away."
I have been invited to this meeting as editor of the Rendezvous, the monthly English-language magazine for Normandy. The woman at my side has been invited as a shining example of active integration, having co-organised the region's annual Franco-British Bonfire Nights for the past couple of years (with a diplomatic lack of emphasis on the burning-a-Catholic bit). We are here to have our brains picked.
The assembled French officials represent schools, job centres, social workers, tax officers, local communes and health authorities, and they are tearing their hair out. How can they treat people who don't have the right forms? How can they stop Brits employing other Brits on the black market and encourage them to use registered artisans or set up legal businesses instead? Or, on a kindly note, encourage incomers to come to tea dances or join the gardening club or take advantage of the daytime OAP rates at the local swimming pool?
But before we get down to business, there is that burning question that bewildered French people never tire of asking and the woman from the mayor's office can resist no longer: why are so many British coming to live here? The numbers are indeed extraordinary: in Lower Normandy alone, official statistics show more than 9,000 registered British households. And there are plenty of unregistered households: those who remain "officially" domiciled in Britain for whatever reason as well as those who simply fail to declare their arrival to anybody. The Rendezvous has more than 20,000 readers already. Even when British incomers give up and go home, there is a queue of other Brits waiting to buy their houses; indeed, nowadays there are as many British vendors - often moving to their second French property - as buyers.
"We are not here to discuss whether this immigration is a good or a bad thing," says the chairman. "We are here not to ask 'why?' but to accept the situation and decide how we accommodate it. How do we help these incomers become part of the system?"
We British incomers to France don't tend to liken ourselves to East European plumbers or Asian brides newly arrived in Britain, but all this "outreach" talk has a vaguely familiar ring to it. Although we are not economic migrants in the sense of being after better-paid jobs, we are nevertheless migrants in search of something better: "quality of life" or, as I have also heard us referred to, "affordable space migrants" (cheaper, bigger houses with bigger gardens, in other words). In any case, "integration" is the buzz word on local lips and as Normandy is not the banlieue of Paris, this means Brits rather than Poles or North Africans.
"Tea?" asks the charming woman from the local council. "This is a meeting about the English, after all!" she titters. Indeed, even if it is only a bag of herbal tea wafted near a mug of warm water, it is still the only meeting I have attended in France where refreshment is offered during, rather than at the end of, business.
So, over tea and biscuits, we decide to produce a brochure called Bienvenue chez vous! (Welcome home! - ie, to your new home) with chapter headings such as: "Do I have to Register with a GP?" and "What Help is Available for Mature Citizens?" It will run through everything the immigrant needs to know about settling into France and I am particularly intrigued by the audacious section heading: "How France Works".
"Crikey! Will the budget stretch that far?" I ask.
There is a moment's silence while it is ascertained that there has been no insult of the Fifth Republic and that I only meant that this might be a rather large topic for one meagre chapter. It is, everyone concludes happily, an example of "British humour".
And, in fact, the budget can stretch as far as we like. This, it turns out, is a Europe-funded project, so the coffers are virtually bottomless. Having mortgaged the house to start the Rendezvous, I can only wilt with envy. On the subject of integration, how, exactly, do I get a slice of this pie?
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Queen may be scrapped from UK passports
Anything to undermine a British identity
References to the Queen could be taken out of British passports in a bid to make them more European, it has emerged. The new documents, which could be in place as early as 2010, would bear reference to the EU constitution in order to remind UK citizens that they are part of Europe.
The first page of the British passport has historically featured the royal coat of arms with a message from the Queen beginning: "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State". The words go on to outline that the citizen has a right to travel freely and has the right to protection and assistance.
Under new changes, however, it has been suggested that the coat of arms are scrapped and replaced by the EU emblem of 12 stars with the message underneath reading: "Every citizen of the Union".
The new version has been taken from Article 20 of the EU Constitution, the treaty that was discredited two years ago after it was rejected by member states including France and the Netherlands. This particular section of the treaty reminded citizens that they were part of Europe and had rights as an EU citizen.
A spokesman from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "The changes relate to Article 20 of the EU Treaty which proposes EU language to be inserted into British passports. "It's still under consideration and no decision has been taken yet."
The proposals were criticised by the Tories as yet another example of the EU gaining more power over British citizens. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "People want to be proud to be British and their passports should have a clear association with that. There is no good reason to change the traditional presentation of our passports. "These proposals are yet another illustration of how the British people must be given their say in a referendum before any new powers are signed over to the EU under a proposed new treaty."
The British passports have born reference to the monarch since 1915 when the first blue hardback booklets were handed out to citizens. They remained the same until 20 years ago when they were replaced by smaller burgundy booklets with the words European Union printed across the cover.
Now, the new versions of the passport would state that Britain is obliged to look after the citizens of other EU countries on the same basis as its own nationals. Article 20 of the treaty, on which the revised wording would be based, states that if an EU citizen does not have his own government to look after him he can expect assistance from any other EU state he chooses.
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Non-smokers suffer fewer heart attacks after ban
This could be just a statistical blip but it is an interesting straw in the wind
The ban on smoking in public places in Scotland is already beginning to have an impact on the nation's health, a conference in Edinburgh heard yesterday. The number of nonsmokers admitted to hospital after heart attacks fell by 20 per cent in the ten months after the ban came into force in March 2006, compared with the same ten months in the year before, Jill Pell, of Glasgow University, said. Other studies have shown that children's exposure to secondhand smoke has fallen, except among children whose mothers smoke, or those with two parents who smoke.
Professor Pell's study covered nine hospitals, which between them account for two thirds of all hospital admissions for heart attacks in Scotland. In the ten months of the year leading up to the ban, there were 3,235 admissions, while in the matching period after the ban, the figure was 2,684. Patients were asked if they were smokers or nonsmokers, and their answers double-checked through blood tests to detect levels of cotinine, the product into which nicotine is converted by the body. In nonsmokers, the fall in heart attack admissions was higher, at 20 per cent.
Professor Pell said that the reduction among nonsmokers was biologically plausible, because smoke contained a lot of toxins that could trigger heart attacks in people with coronary heart disease. "The difference between our study and earlier ones is that we have been able to show an effect in people who have never smoked. That can only be due to lower levels of passive smoke," she said.
Rates of heart disease are falling everywhere, but not as fast as this. Over the same period of ten months after the ban, admissions in England fell by 4 per cent, and the reduction rate in Scotland over the decade before the ban was 3 per cent per year. Sally Haw, principal public health adviser to NHS Scotland, who collaborated in the study, said she was confident that the figures were reliable. "It's a large study, we have confirmed people's smoking status, and we have used a robust definition to count admissions" she said.
Sir Richard Peto, of Oxford University, an expert in the epidemiology of smoking, said many things could affect admissions for heart attacks, including the weather. Fewer people suffer heart attacks when the weather is mild. "I'd be surprised if this drop were due solely to the smoking ban," he said. "I would like to see cigarette sales figures, to see if there has been any fall."
Jon Ayres, head of the University of Aberdeen environmental and occupational medicine department, said: "It's very difficult to believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with the results. I think the 20 per cent figure is good. If you look at the figures month to month, the effect seems to creep up since last year. This also suggests that the important thing was the smoking ban."
The study has yet to be published, but the conference coincided with the publication online by the British Medical Journal of three other studies. One found a reduction of 39 per cent in exposure to secondhand smoke in 11-year-olds and a similar decrease among adult nonsmokers. Cotinine levels in blood were used to measure exposure, and showed that most children have benefited. But in those with two parents who smoke, or with a mother who is a smoker, the drop was not statistically significant.
A study by Aberdeen University of nearly 400 staff at 72 pubs in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh also found health improvements in bar staff. The two-day conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre has attracted an international audience of health experts and policymakers.
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THINGS ONLY CLIMATE CHANGE CAN DO
An email from John A [climateaudit@gmail.com] of Climate Audit
As you've noted, the BBC have declined to bore the license-payers into submission with "Planet Relief" although I think that its a shame that we don't get to save the environment by switching it off and doing something else instead. I think they might not have covered the costs of the "artists" fees let alone paid the cameramen, but that's just me.
So Richard Black and his merry band of "consciousness raisers" (what cute names they have for propagandists these days) will have to fall on the old standbys of reporting every extreme weather event as if it were the last portent of doom and every climate model as the definitive future of the planet. And to round off the good work, peppering every science or nature article with ridiculous non-sequiturs and flourishes of anti-science designed to bamboozle.
So in what can only be described as "Things only climate change can do" we have this story of hope where black-throated and red-throated divers are recovering in numbers in Scotland thanks to some artificial floating rafts. But this being a nature story there has to be a climate change angle and so right at the end a Dr Mark Eaton ends with this chilling warning:
Dr Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said: "We feared the numbers of red-throated divers might drop because the warming of the North Sea seems to be reducing stocks of the fish they feed on. "The black-throated diver could also be at risk in the future, despite the recent increases. If climate change causes loch temperatures to rise, the small fish the birds feed on could grow too large to eat."
So there we have it. Climate change reduces the number of fish in the North Sea, but might make fish thrive in the lochs so much that they become too large to swallow. It's a double-edge sword of doom is climate change. I'm only grateful that in the last few million years climate hasn't changed by anything like the horrendous changes we see today, leaving the poor birds unable to cope. Obviously Dr Eaton is an expert in these matters, which is why nobody will call him on it. Certainly not the BBC.
Bush as Hitler poster in BBC newsroom: "Robin Aitken, author of Can We Trust the BBC?, talks about the fact that a depiction of George W Bush as Adolf Hitler was posted in the main current affairs office of the BBC and no-one objected. Mr Aitken, a BBC journalist for 25 years, discusses the contrasting BBC treatment of George W Bush and Bill Clinton.
British red tape stifles science: "One of Britain's leading scientists has been forced to move groundbreaking organ transplant research to the United States, after he was blocked by red tape from conducting a key experiment in this country. Restrictions on animal research have prevented a company set up by Lord Winston, the fertility specialist, from breeding pigs using a new genetic engineering technique that has the potential to produce "humanised" animal organs for transplant. Instead, the work will take place in Missouri. The ban on the work proposed by Atazoa has raised fresh concern that the brain drain to the US is being revived by an excessive bureaucracy attached to British science. It is also a blow to Gordon Brown's attempts to ensure that British medical research is commercially exploited in this country rather than abroad."
Anything to undermine a British identity
References to the Queen could be taken out of British passports in a bid to make them more European, it has emerged. The new documents, which could be in place as early as 2010, would bear reference to the EU constitution in order to remind UK citizens that they are part of Europe.
The first page of the British passport has historically featured the royal coat of arms with a message from the Queen beginning: "Her Britannic Majesty's Secretary of State". The words go on to outline that the citizen has a right to travel freely and has the right to protection and assistance.
Under new changes, however, it has been suggested that the coat of arms are scrapped and replaced by the EU emblem of 12 stars with the message underneath reading: "Every citizen of the Union".
The new version has been taken from Article 20 of the EU Constitution, the treaty that was discredited two years ago after it was rejected by member states including France and the Netherlands. This particular section of the treaty reminded citizens that they were part of Europe and had rights as an EU citizen.
A spokesman from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said: "The changes relate to Article 20 of the EU Treaty which proposes EU language to be inserted into British passports. "It's still under consideration and no decision has been taken yet."
The proposals were criticised by the Tories as yet another example of the EU gaining more power over British citizens. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "People want to be proud to be British and their passports should have a clear association with that. There is no good reason to change the traditional presentation of our passports. "These proposals are yet another illustration of how the British people must be given their say in a referendum before any new powers are signed over to the EU under a proposed new treaty."
The British passports have born reference to the monarch since 1915 when the first blue hardback booklets were handed out to citizens. They remained the same until 20 years ago when they were replaced by smaller burgundy booklets with the words European Union printed across the cover.
Now, the new versions of the passport would state that Britain is obliged to look after the citizens of other EU countries on the same basis as its own nationals. Article 20 of the treaty, on which the revised wording would be based, states that if an EU citizen does not have his own government to look after him he can expect assistance from any other EU state he chooses.
Source
Non-smokers suffer fewer heart attacks after ban
This could be just a statistical blip but it is an interesting straw in the wind
The ban on smoking in public places in Scotland is already beginning to have an impact on the nation's health, a conference in Edinburgh heard yesterday. The number of nonsmokers admitted to hospital after heart attacks fell by 20 per cent in the ten months after the ban came into force in March 2006, compared with the same ten months in the year before, Jill Pell, of Glasgow University, said. Other studies have shown that children's exposure to secondhand smoke has fallen, except among children whose mothers smoke, or those with two parents who smoke.
Professor Pell's study covered nine hospitals, which between them account for two thirds of all hospital admissions for heart attacks in Scotland. In the ten months of the year leading up to the ban, there were 3,235 admissions, while in the matching period after the ban, the figure was 2,684. Patients were asked if they were smokers or nonsmokers, and their answers double-checked through blood tests to detect levels of cotinine, the product into which nicotine is converted by the body. In nonsmokers, the fall in heart attack admissions was higher, at 20 per cent.
Professor Pell said that the reduction among nonsmokers was biologically plausible, because smoke contained a lot of toxins that could trigger heart attacks in people with coronary heart disease. "The difference between our study and earlier ones is that we have been able to show an effect in people who have never smoked. That can only be due to lower levels of passive smoke," she said.
Rates of heart disease are falling everywhere, but not as fast as this. Over the same period of ten months after the ban, admissions in England fell by 4 per cent, and the reduction rate in Scotland over the decade before the ban was 3 per cent per year. Sally Haw, principal public health adviser to NHS Scotland, who collaborated in the study, said she was confident that the figures were reliable. "It's a large study, we have confirmed people's smoking status, and we have used a robust definition to count admissions" she said.
Sir Richard Peto, of Oxford University, an expert in the epidemiology of smoking, said many things could affect admissions for heart attacks, including the weather. Fewer people suffer heart attacks when the weather is mild. "I'd be surprised if this drop were due solely to the smoking ban," he said. "I would like to see cigarette sales figures, to see if there has been any fall."
Jon Ayres, head of the University of Aberdeen environmental and occupational medicine department, said: "It's very difficult to believe there is anything fundamentally wrong with the results. I think the 20 per cent figure is good. If you look at the figures month to month, the effect seems to creep up since last year. This also suggests that the important thing was the smoking ban."
The study has yet to be published, but the conference coincided with the publication online by the British Medical Journal of three other studies. One found a reduction of 39 per cent in exposure to secondhand smoke in 11-year-olds and a similar decrease among adult nonsmokers. Cotinine levels in blood were used to measure exposure, and showed that most children have benefited. But in those with two parents who smoke, or with a mother who is a smoker, the drop was not statistically significant.
A study by Aberdeen University of nearly 400 staff at 72 pubs in Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh also found health improvements in bar staff. The two-day conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre has attracted an international audience of health experts and policymakers.
Source
THINGS ONLY CLIMATE CHANGE CAN DO
An email from John A [climateaudit@gmail.com] of Climate Audit
As you've noted, the BBC have declined to bore the license-payers into submission with "Planet Relief" although I think that its a shame that we don't get to save the environment by switching it off and doing something else instead. I think they might not have covered the costs of the "artists" fees let alone paid the cameramen, but that's just me.
So Richard Black and his merry band of "consciousness raisers" (what cute names they have for propagandists these days) will have to fall on the old standbys of reporting every extreme weather event as if it were the last portent of doom and every climate model as the definitive future of the planet. And to round off the good work, peppering every science or nature article with ridiculous non-sequiturs and flourishes of anti-science designed to bamboozle.
So in what can only be described as "Things only climate change can do" we have this story of hope where black-throated and red-throated divers are recovering in numbers in Scotland thanks to some artificial floating rafts. But this being a nature story there has to be a climate change angle and so right at the end a Dr Mark Eaton ends with this chilling warning:
Dr Mark Eaton, an RSPB scientist, said: "We feared the numbers of red-throated divers might drop because the warming of the North Sea seems to be reducing stocks of the fish they feed on. "The black-throated diver could also be at risk in the future, despite the recent increases. If climate change causes loch temperatures to rise, the small fish the birds feed on could grow too large to eat."
So there we have it. Climate change reduces the number of fish in the North Sea, but might make fish thrive in the lochs so much that they become too large to swallow. It's a double-edge sword of doom is climate change. I'm only grateful that in the last few million years climate hasn't changed by anything like the horrendous changes we see today, leaving the poor birds unable to cope. Obviously Dr Eaton is an expert in these matters, which is why nobody will call him on it. Certainly not the BBC.
Bush as Hitler poster in BBC newsroom: "Robin Aitken, author of Can We Trust the BBC?, talks about the fact that a depiction of George W Bush as Adolf Hitler was posted in the main current affairs office of the BBC and no-one objected. Mr Aitken, a BBC journalist for 25 years, discusses the contrasting BBC treatment of George W Bush and Bill Clinton.
British red tape stifles science: "One of Britain's leading scientists has been forced to move groundbreaking organ transplant research to the United States, after he was blocked by red tape from conducting a key experiment in this country. Restrictions on animal research have prevented a company set up by Lord Winston, the fertility specialist, from breeding pigs using a new genetic engineering technique that has the potential to produce "humanised" animal organs for transplant. Instead, the work will take place in Missouri. The ban on the work proposed by Atazoa has raised fresh concern that the brain drain to the US is being revived by an excessive bureaucracy attached to British science. It is also a blow to Gordon Brown's attempts to ensure that British medical research is commercially exploited in this country rather than abroad."
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The unbelievably stupid Brits want to keep out SKILLED immigrants
While allowing huge numbers of unskilled illegals and refugees to live there
The British Government will announce that more immigrants from outside the European Union will have to learn English proficiently, in a move that cut the intake of skilled migrants from 95,000 to 60,000. The Government says that around a third of the skilled migrants who entered the UK from outside the European Union last year would not have been able to show that they they could speak English well enough to pass the equivalent of a high school exam. In the past, this test applied only to workers in the highly-skilled category.
The move will be announced in a speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Ministers say that in the future they are looking to extend the test to low-skilled workers as well.
The Conservative Opposition say the move will do little to cut immigration. International footballers will be exempt from the new test.
Source
Prominent UK Tory Politician Says Support for Civil Unions "Insults Intelligence" of British
Critical of Tory leader Cameron's attempt to shift party to left and re-brand it as "heirs to Blair"
One of the most senior MP's in the UK's Tory party, Michael Ancram, Member of Parliament for Devizes, has criticized the government's policy of treating homosexual partnerings as the equivalent to marriage. In a pamphlet published by the Daily Telegraph, Ancram calls on the party to remember its "conservative soul."
With the possibility of a snap general election still being discussed, the Conservatives have been putting forth policy statements. Cameron has laid out Tory plans to curb uncontrolled immigration and overcome Britain's rising rate of violent crime among "feral" youths. He has said that the problem of youth crime stems from the erosion of the family.
In his 36-page pamphlet, "Still a Conservative", Ancram said, "For instance it does not wash for politicians to say at one moment that they are for marriage and the family and will financially support them, and then with the next breath pledge the same support to civil unions. It insults the intelligence of the British people."
Citing the public perception that the Conservatives are "lacking an overall sense of vision and direction", Ancram said, "Change for change's sake is a vacuous process, swiftly seen through by the electorate." The document amounts to an alternative policy manifesto and could serve as a rallying point for Tory traditionalists who have been strongly critical of what is seen as Cameron's attempt to shift the party to the left and re-brand it as the "heirs to Blair".
Ancram calls for a return to "values-based politics", insisting that no matter what policies Cameron adopts for the party, they must be presented within "the solid and unalterable foundations of Conservatism which have historically been the key to our electoral success."
Ancram, a Catholic who is the 13th Marquess of Lothian and has served as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, said it is a mistake for the party to abandon the deep principles of conservatism that won the party the government under Margaret Thatcher.
When David Cameron won the leadership of the Tory party in 2005, Ancram stepped down from his position as Shadow Cabinet Secretary of Defence in order to allow himself greater freedom to express his own views and to give "advice without strings" to his party leadership. He has been a sitting MP since 1970.
Source
The British conservatives get religion
The Conservatives will unveil tough regulations on televisions, fridges and other household appliances this week as part of a plan to make Britain a world leader in energy-efficiency, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. Under the proposals, caps would be set on how much energy all electrical appliances can use. Goods exceeding those limits would be banned from sale after a set date. Household electrical goods would also have to be fitted with labels that would allow consumers to see at point of sale how much energy the device will typically use in a year and how it compares with its peers.
The Tories also plan to pull the plug on the "stand-by" function on many electrical goods, which accounts for more than 2 per cent of Britain's electricity use. Electrical goods that could be kept on stand-by indefinitely would also be banned from sale after a set date. The proposals are to be unveiled in the Conservatives' Quality of Life report, the last of the party's eight policy reviews.
Led by the millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith and the former cabinet minister John Gummer, the report examines transport, housing, urban planning, public spaces, energy, waste and pollution. "Reducing our energy use through a massive commitment to energy efficiency in our homes should be the first priority of a government committed to tackling climate change," said a Tory source. The report says that while some progress has been made on making electronic goods more efficient, these gains have been largely undermined by the sharp increase in household goods in recent years. It is said that if all of Britain's 25 million mobile phone chargers were left switched off, the unused energy could power 66,000 homes for a year.
The review is also expected to unveil a series of green taxes, such as VAT on domestic flights and a "per-flight tax" on airlines. The report will also call for a moratorium on airport expansion and incentives for domestic air passengers to switch to trains. Higher taxes on 4x4 vehicles are also expected to be discussed, along with proposals to make cycling more -attractive.
Source
While allowing huge numbers of unskilled illegals and refugees to live there
The British Government will announce that more immigrants from outside the European Union will have to learn English proficiently, in a move that cut the intake of skilled migrants from 95,000 to 60,000. The Government says that around a third of the skilled migrants who entered the UK from outside the European Union last year would not have been able to show that they they could speak English well enough to pass the equivalent of a high school exam. In the past, this test applied only to workers in the highly-skilled category.
The move will be announced in a speech by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Ministers say that in the future they are looking to extend the test to low-skilled workers as well.
The Conservative Opposition say the move will do little to cut immigration. International footballers will be exempt from the new test.
Source
Prominent UK Tory Politician Says Support for Civil Unions "Insults Intelligence" of British
Critical of Tory leader Cameron's attempt to shift party to left and re-brand it as "heirs to Blair"
One of the most senior MP's in the UK's Tory party, Michael Ancram, Member of Parliament for Devizes, has criticized the government's policy of treating homosexual partnerings as the equivalent to marriage. In a pamphlet published by the Daily Telegraph, Ancram calls on the party to remember its "conservative soul."
With the possibility of a snap general election still being discussed, the Conservatives have been putting forth policy statements. Cameron has laid out Tory plans to curb uncontrolled immigration and overcome Britain's rising rate of violent crime among "feral" youths. He has said that the problem of youth crime stems from the erosion of the family.
In his 36-page pamphlet, "Still a Conservative", Ancram said, "For instance it does not wash for politicians to say at one moment that they are for marriage and the family and will financially support them, and then with the next breath pledge the same support to civil unions. It insults the intelligence of the British people."
Citing the public perception that the Conservatives are "lacking an overall sense of vision and direction", Ancram said, "Change for change's sake is a vacuous process, swiftly seen through by the electorate." The document amounts to an alternative policy manifesto and could serve as a rallying point for Tory traditionalists who have been strongly critical of what is seen as Cameron's attempt to shift the party to the left and re-brand it as the "heirs to Blair".
Ancram calls for a return to "values-based politics", insisting that no matter what policies Cameron adopts for the party, they must be presented within "the solid and unalterable foundations of Conservatism which have historically been the key to our electoral success."
Ancram, a Catholic who is the 13th Marquess of Lothian and has served as Deputy Leader of the Conservative Party, said it is a mistake for the party to abandon the deep principles of conservatism that won the party the government under Margaret Thatcher.
When David Cameron won the leadership of the Tory party in 2005, Ancram stepped down from his position as Shadow Cabinet Secretary of Defence in order to allow himself greater freedom to express his own views and to give "advice without strings" to his party leadership. He has been a sitting MP since 1970.
Source
The British conservatives get religion
The Conservatives will unveil tough regulations on televisions, fridges and other household appliances this week as part of a plan to make Britain a world leader in energy-efficiency, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal. Under the proposals, caps would be set on how much energy all electrical appliances can use. Goods exceeding those limits would be banned from sale after a set date. Household electrical goods would also have to be fitted with labels that would allow consumers to see at point of sale how much energy the device will typically use in a year and how it compares with its peers.
The Tories also plan to pull the plug on the "stand-by" function on many electrical goods, which accounts for more than 2 per cent of Britain's electricity use. Electrical goods that could be kept on stand-by indefinitely would also be banned from sale after a set date. The proposals are to be unveiled in the Conservatives' Quality of Life report, the last of the party's eight policy reviews.
Led by the millionaire environmentalist Zac Goldsmith and the former cabinet minister John Gummer, the report examines transport, housing, urban planning, public spaces, energy, waste and pollution. "Reducing our energy use through a massive commitment to energy efficiency in our homes should be the first priority of a government committed to tackling climate change," said a Tory source. The report says that while some progress has been made on making electronic goods more efficient, these gains have been largely undermined by the sharp increase in household goods in recent years. It is said that if all of Britain's 25 million mobile phone chargers were left switched off, the unused energy could power 66,000 homes for a year.
The review is also expected to unveil a series of green taxes, such as VAT on domestic flights and a "per-flight tax" on airlines. The report will also call for a moratorium on airport expansion and incentives for domestic air passengers to switch to trains. Higher taxes on 4x4 vehicles are also expected to be discussed, along with proposals to make cycling more -attractive.
Source
Monday, September 10, 2007
Don't have an accident in Britain
A teenage climber dialled 999 [Britain's emergency no.] when he was left clinging for his life to the side of a cliff - and was put on hold.
Terry Price, 16, was stuck more than an hour after seeing his mate Roy Williams, 18, plunge 40ft to the ground. He called 999 from the cliff in Uphill, Somerset but was connected to police in South Wales and Nottinghamshire before finally being put through to local cops.
Terry, of Weston-super-Mare, said: "I was hanging on for my life and they put me on hold when I rang 999. "It was half-an-hour before I was put through to the right person and another hour until they arrived. I couldn't believe it. It felt like I was clinging on for ages - it was my worst nightmare."
Roy suffered a fractured thumb, broken tooth and facial injuries and was badly shaken up.
BT spokesman Jason Mann said: "We are very sorry that this happened. "When we get a 999 call from a mobile, the operator can see which mast the call came through and identify which area's emergency department they should put the caller through to. "It appears the young man's signal was picked up by a mast in South Wales instead of one in Somerset. That can happen if a mast in the specific area is down."
Source
Is carbon-offsetting just eco-enslavement?
In offsetting his flights by sponsoring `eco-friendly' hard labour in India, David Cameron has exposed the essence of environmentalism
If you thought that the era of British bigwigs keeping Indians as personal servants came to an end with the fall of the Raj in 1947, then you must have had a rude awakening last week. In a feature about carbon offsetting in The Times (London), it was revealed that the leader of the UK Conservative Party, David Cameron, offsets his carbon emissions by effectively keeping brown people in a state of bondage. Whenever he takes a flight to some foreign destination, Cameron donates to a carbon-offsetting company that encourages people in the developing world to ditch modern methods of farming in favour of using their more eco-friendly manpower to plough the land. So Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the basis that, thousands of miles away, Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon. Welcome to the era of eco-enslavement.
The details of this carbon-offsetting scheme are disturbing. Cameron offsets his flights by donating to Climate Care. The latest wheeze of this carbon-offsetting company is to provide `treadle pumps' to poor rural families in India so that they can get water on to their land without having to use polluting diesel power. Made from bamboo, plastic and steel, the treadle pumps work like `step machines in a gym', according to some reports, where poor family members step on the pedals for hours in order to draw up groundwater which is used to irrigate farmland (1). These pumps were abolished in British prisons a century ago. It seems that what was considered an unacceptable form of punishment for British criminals in the past is looked upon as a positive eco-alternative to machinery for Indian peasants today.
What might once have been referred to as `back-breaking labour' is now spun as `human energy'. According to Climate Care, the use of labour-intensive treadle pumps, rather than labour-saving diesel-powered pumps, saves 0.65 tonnes of carbon a year per farming family. And well-off Westerners - including Cameron, and Prince Charles, Land Rover and the Cooperative Bank, who are also clients of Climate Care - can purchase this saved carbon in order to continue living the high life without becoming consumed by eco-guilt. They effectively salve their moral consciences by paying poor people to live the harsh simple life on their behalf.
Climate Care celebrates the fact that it encourages the Indian poor to use their own bodies rather than machines to irrigate the land. Its website declares: `Sometimes the best source of renewable energy is the human body itself. With some lateral thinking, and some simple materials, energy solutions can often be found which replace fossil fuels with muscle-power.' (2) To show that muscle power is preferable to machine power, the Climate Care website features a cartoon illustration of smiling naked villagers pedalling on a treadle pump next to a small house that has an energy-efficient light bulb and a stove made from `local materials at minimal cost'. Climate Care points out that even children can use treadle pumps: `One person - man, woman or even child - can operate the pump by manipulating his/her body weight on two treadles and by holding a bamboo or wooden frame for support.' (3)
Feeling guilty about your two-week break in Barbados, when you flew thousands of miles and lived it up with cocktails on sunlit beaches? Well, offset that guilt by sponsoring eco-friendly child labour in the developing world! Let an eight-year-old peasant pedal away your eco-remorse.
Climate Care has other carbon-offsetting schemes. One involves encouraging poor people who live near the Ranthambhore National Park, a tiger reserve in Rajasthan, India, to stop using firewood for their stoves, and instead to collect cowpats and water and put them into something called a `biogas digester', which creates a renewable form of fuel that can be used for cooking and the provision of heat. One of the aims of this scheme is to protect the trees of the national park, as tigers are reliant on the trees. It seems that in the carbon-offsetting world, beast comes before man.
In these various scandalous schemes, we can glimpse the iron fist that lurks within environmentalism's green velvet glove. `Cutting back carbon emissions' is the goal to which virtually every Western politician, celebrity and youthful activist has committed himself. Yet for the poorest people around the world, `reducing carbon output' means saying no to machinery and instead getting your family to do hard physical labour, or it involves collecting cow dung and burning it in an eco-stove in order to keep yourself warm. It is not only Climate Care that pushes through such patronising initiatives. Other carbon-offsetting companies have encouraged Kenyans to use dung-powered generators and Indians to replace kerosene lamps with solar-powered lamps, while carbon-offsetting tree-planting projects in Guatemala, Ecuador and Uganda have reportedly disrupted local communities' water supplies, led to the eviction of thousands of villagers from their land, and cheated local people of their promised income for the upkeep of these Western conscience-salving trees (4).
The criticism of these carbon-offsetting schemes has been limited indeed. Since The Times revealed the treadle pump story last week, many have criticised carbon offsetting on the rather blinkered basis that it doesn't do enough to rein in mankind's overall emissions of carbon. Some talk about `carbon offsetting cowboys', as if carbon offsetting itself is fine and it's only those carbon-offsetting companies who go too far in their exploitation of people in the developing world who are a problem. In truth, it is the relationships that are codified by the whole idea of carbon offsetting - whereby the needs and desires of people in the developing world are subordinated to the narcissistic eco-worries of rich Westerners - that are the real, grotesque problem here.
More radical eco-activists argue that carbon offsetting is a distraction from the need for us simply to stop flying and producing and consuming. They claim that carbon-offsetting gives people in Western societies the false impression that it's okay to emit carbon so long as you pay someone else to clean it up for you. They would rather that we all lived like those treadle-pumping, shit-burning peasants. A group of young deep greens protested at the Oxford offices of Climate Care dressed as red herrings (on the basis that carbon offsetting is a `red herring'), arguing that: `Climate Care is misleading the public, making them believe that offsetting does some good.' (5) The protest provided a striking snapshot of the warped, misanthropic priorities of green youthful activism today: instead of criticising Climate Care, and others, for encouraging poor Indians to stop using machinery and to burn cow dung, the protesters slated it for giving a green light to Westerners to continue living comfortable lives.
Carbon offsetting is not some cowboy activity, or an aberration, or a distraction from `true environmentalist goals' - rather it expresses the very essence of environmentalism. In its project of transforming vast swathes of the developing world into guilt-massaging zones for comfortable Westerners, where trees are planted or farmers' work is made tougher and more time-consuming in order to offset the activities of Americans and Europeans, carbon offsetting perfectly captures both the narcissistic and anti-development underpinnings of the politics of environmentalism. Where traditional imperialism conquered poor nations in order to exploit their labour and resources, today's global environmentalist consensus is increasingly using the Third World as a place in which to work out the West's moral hang-ups.
The rise of the carbon-offsetting industry shows that a key driving force behind environmentalism is self-indulgent Western guilt. It is Western consumers' own discomfort with their sometimes lavish lifestyles - with all those holidays, big homes, fast cars and cheap nutritious foods - that nurtures today's green outlook, in which consumption has come to be seen as destructive and a new morality of eco-ethics and offsetting (formerly known as penance) has emerged to deal with it (6). It is no accident that the wealthiest people are frequently the most eco-conscious. British environmental campaign groups and publications are peppered with the sons and daughters of the aristocracy, while in America ridiculously super-rich celebrities (Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt) lead the charge for more eco-aware forms of consumption and play. The very nature of carbon offsetting - where the emphasis is on paying money to offset one's own lifestyle, in much the same way that wealthy people in the Middle Ages would pay for `Indulgences' that forgave them their sins - highlights the individuated and self-regarding streak in the Politics of Being Green.
Carbon-offsetting also shines a light on the dangerously anti-development sentiment in environmentalism. As the British journalist Ross Clark has argued, the success of carbon-offsetting relies on the continuing failure of Third World communities to develop. Clark writes: `Carbon-offset schemes.only work if the recipients [in the Third World] continue to live in very basic conditions. Once they aspire to Western, fossil fuel-powered lifestyles, then the scheme is undone.' Delegates to the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005 offset the carbon cost of their flights by donating to a charity that replaced the tin roofs of huts in a shantytown in Cape Town with a more insulating material, thus reducing the level of heat that escapes and protecting the environment. It sounds good, but as Clark points out: `The carbon emitted by delegates' flights will only continue to be offset for as long as the occupants of the huts carry on living in shantytown conditions.' If they were to improve their lives, and replace their insulated shacks with `much more power-hungry bungalows', then the carbon-offsetting scheme will have failed, says Clark. The shantytown-dwellers will have reneged on their side of the bargain, which is to remain poor and humble so that wealthy Western leaders can fly around the world in peace of mind (7).
Again, this is not `cowboyism' - it is mainstream environmentalism in action. From the increasingly hysterical attacks on China for daring to develop, to the emphasis on `fair trade' and `sustainable development' in the work of the myriad NGOs that are swarming around the Third World, the green message is this: poor people simply cannot have what we in the West have, because if they did the planet would burn. The treadle-pump scandal revealed in The Times only shows in a more direct form the way in which today's environmentalist agenda forces the poor of the developing world to adapt to poverty, accommodate to hardship, and effectively remain enslaved for the benefit of morally-tortured Westerners.
It is time to end this eco-enslavement, and put forward arguments for progress and equality across the globe. I would never pick up shit and use it to warm my home, or spend hours on a treadmill in order to raise water. Would you? Then why should we expect anyone else to do such things, especially in the name of making some rich snots feel better about themselves?
Source
BBC is still pro-warming
At first sight, the BBC's decision to scrap its much-heralded Planet Relief is puzzling. Planet Relief would have been presented by Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross, and was set to bring together numerous celebrities to raise awareness about climate change amongst the British viewing public. The BBC has justified its decision to scrap the programme on the basis that it is not the BBC's job to promote a crusade and `lead opinion on climate change'.
The notion that the BBC only presents the facts, rather than `raising public awareness' about climate change, is contradicted by its record. Virtually every BBC news item on climate change comes across like a health warning about the impending catastrophe facing humanity. Anyone who watches BBC News will be left in no doubt that virtually every flood, earthquake, drought or unusual natural occurrence around the world is a direct consequence of global warming.
That the BBC is less then fervently committed to balance on the issue of climate change was confirmed by one of its spokespeople: she said that the cancellation of Planet Relief was not due to concerns over impartiality. Some observers believe that poor viewing figures for July's Live Earth concert, which was shown on the BBC, may have influenced the decision to pull Planet Relief. And some BBC executives have noted that the public does not like being `lectured' to about climate change and other fashionable causes.
Myself, I would rather that Planet Relief was not cancelled. There is nothing wrong with giving campaigners the opportunity to `raise consciousness' about a problem they feel passionate about. I am far more concerned by the increasing trend to have items of consciousness-raising masquerading as news on national television. It is very difficult to have a grown-up discussion when a moral crusade, such as the one around climate change, is presented to the public as factual news.
The hysterical reaction of the moral crusaders on climate change to the scrapping of Planet Relief bears all the hallmarks of medieval religious zealotry. With their fondness for conspiracy theories, the crusaders claim that the scrapping of this programme was brought about by the nefarious activities of a `small but powerful cabal of climate change deniers' (1). One of the crusaders' arguments is that no one - including the BBC - can remain impartial on the issue of climate change. In other words, there can be only one legitimate and morally righteous view on the subject. The mildest hint of scepticism is denounced as morally unacceptable; thus the BBC has been attacked by one green writer for taking a `morally bankrupt decision' in shelving Planet Relief (2).
This idea that the `debate on climate change is over', and thus no dissent on the issue can be tolerated, is not confined to a tiny group of isolated illiberal fanatics. In February, Britain's former minister for the environment declared that `climate change deniers' had better shut up `since the debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over' (3).
Shutting down debate on climate change is one of the principal objectives of many of today's environmentalist crusaders. They have written numerous tracts denouncing the ideals of journalistic balance and objectivity, since applying such ideals to climate change assumes that there is more than one legitimate viewpoint on the subject. Journalists who seek balance on climate change are labelled `cowards' for refusing to take a stand against Evil. One writer has accused the BBC of putting balance before the `responsibility that we all share to avert the catastrophe that is unfolding' (4).
Exhorting the media to take sides on climate change, instead of upholding balance, green crusaders resort to cheap and superficial comparisons between climate change and slavery or the Holocaust. The implication is that anyone who thinks it is legitimate to have an open debate on climate change is a moral coward, or worse, someone who would have refused to take sides during the Holocaust.
Unfortunately, the BBC's decision to scrap Planet Relief does not represent a brave stand against the powerful current of illiberalism towards open discussion on climate change. It's simply a pragmatic decision motivated by the BBC's desire to maintain its present share of the viewing public.
Source
A teenage climber dialled 999 [Britain's emergency no.] when he was left clinging for his life to the side of a cliff - and was put on hold.
Terry Price, 16, was stuck more than an hour after seeing his mate Roy Williams, 18, plunge 40ft to the ground. He called 999 from the cliff in Uphill, Somerset but was connected to police in South Wales and Nottinghamshire before finally being put through to local cops.
Terry, of Weston-super-Mare, said: "I was hanging on for my life and they put me on hold when I rang 999. "It was half-an-hour before I was put through to the right person and another hour until they arrived. I couldn't believe it. It felt like I was clinging on for ages - it was my worst nightmare."
Roy suffered a fractured thumb, broken tooth and facial injuries and was badly shaken up.
BT spokesman Jason Mann said: "We are very sorry that this happened. "When we get a 999 call from a mobile, the operator can see which mast the call came through and identify which area's emergency department they should put the caller through to. "It appears the young man's signal was picked up by a mast in South Wales instead of one in Somerset. That can happen if a mast in the specific area is down."
Source
Is carbon-offsetting just eco-enslavement?
In offsetting his flights by sponsoring `eco-friendly' hard labour in India, David Cameron has exposed the essence of environmentalism
If you thought that the era of British bigwigs keeping Indians as personal servants came to an end with the fall of the Raj in 1947, then you must have had a rude awakening last week. In a feature about carbon offsetting in The Times (London), it was revealed that the leader of the UK Conservative Party, David Cameron, offsets his carbon emissions by effectively keeping brown people in a state of bondage. Whenever he takes a flight to some foreign destination, Cameron donates to a carbon-offsetting company that encourages people in the developing world to ditch modern methods of farming in favour of using their more eco-friendly manpower to plough the land. So Cameron can fly around the world with a guilt-free conscience on the basis that, thousands of miles away, Indian villagers, bent over double, are working by hand rather than using machines that emit carbon. Welcome to the era of eco-enslavement.
The details of this carbon-offsetting scheme are disturbing. Cameron offsets his flights by donating to Climate Care. The latest wheeze of this carbon-offsetting company is to provide `treadle pumps' to poor rural families in India so that they can get water on to their land without having to use polluting diesel power. Made from bamboo, plastic and steel, the treadle pumps work like `step machines in a gym', according to some reports, where poor family members step on the pedals for hours in order to draw up groundwater which is used to irrigate farmland (1). These pumps were abolished in British prisons a century ago. It seems that what was considered an unacceptable form of punishment for British criminals in the past is looked upon as a positive eco-alternative to machinery for Indian peasants today.
What might once have been referred to as `back-breaking labour' is now spun as `human energy'. According to Climate Care, the use of labour-intensive treadle pumps, rather than labour-saving diesel-powered pumps, saves 0.65 tonnes of carbon a year per farming family. And well-off Westerners - including Cameron, and Prince Charles, Land Rover and the Cooperative Bank, who are also clients of Climate Care - can purchase this saved carbon in order to continue living the high life without becoming consumed by eco-guilt. They effectively salve their moral consciences by paying poor people to live the harsh simple life on their behalf.
Climate Care celebrates the fact that it encourages the Indian poor to use their own bodies rather than machines to irrigate the land. Its website declares: `Sometimes the best source of renewable energy is the human body itself. With some lateral thinking, and some simple materials, energy solutions can often be found which replace fossil fuels with muscle-power.' (2) To show that muscle power is preferable to machine power, the Climate Care website features a cartoon illustration of smiling naked villagers pedalling on a treadle pump next to a small house that has an energy-efficient light bulb and a stove made from `local materials at minimal cost'. Climate Care points out that even children can use treadle pumps: `One person - man, woman or even child - can operate the pump by manipulating his/her body weight on two treadles and by holding a bamboo or wooden frame for support.' (3)
Feeling guilty about your two-week break in Barbados, when you flew thousands of miles and lived it up with cocktails on sunlit beaches? Well, offset that guilt by sponsoring eco-friendly child labour in the developing world! Let an eight-year-old peasant pedal away your eco-remorse.
Climate Care has other carbon-offsetting schemes. One involves encouraging poor people who live near the Ranthambhore National Park, a tiger reserve in Rajasthan, India, to stop using firewood for their stoves, and instead to collect cowpats and water and put them into something called a `biogas digester', which creates a renewable form of fuel that can be used for cooking and the provision of heat. One of the aims of this scheme is to protect the trees of the national park, as tigers are reliant on the trees. It seems that in the carbon-offsetting world, beast comes before man.
In these various scandalous schemes, we can glimpse the iron fist that lurks within environmentalism's green velvet glove. `Cutting back carbon emissions' is the goal to which virtually every Western politician, celebrity and youthful activist has committed himself. Yet for the poorest people around the world, `reducing carbon output' means saying no to machinery and instead getting your family to do hard physical labour, or it involves collecting cow dung and burning it in an eco-stove in order to keep yourself warm. It is not only Climate Care that pushes through such patronising initiatives. Other carbon-offsetting companies have encouraged Kenyans to use dung-powered generators and Indians to replace kerosene lamps with solar-powered lamps, while carbon-offsetting tree-planting projects in Guatemala, Ecuador and Uganda have reportedly disrupted local communities' water supplies, led to the eviction of thousands of villagers from their land, and cheated local people of their promised income for the upkeep of these Western conscience-salving trees (4).
The criticism of these carbon-offsetting schemes has been limited indeed. Since The Times revealed the treadle pump story last week, many have criticised carbon offsetting on the rather blinkered basis that it doesn't do enough to rein in mankind's overall emissions of carbon. Some talk about `carbon offsetting cowboys', as if carbon offsetting itself is fine and it's only those carbon-offsetting companies who go too far in their exploitation of people in the developing world who are a problem. In truth, it is the relationships that are codified by the whole idea of carbon offsetting - whereby the needs and desires of people in the developing world are subordinated to the narcissistic eco-worries of rich Westerners - that are the real, grotesque problem here.
More radical eco-activists argue that carbon offsetting is a distraction from the need for us simply to stop flying and producing and consuming. They claim that carbon-offsetting gives people in Western societies the false impression that it's okay to emit carbon so long as you pay someone else to clean it up for you. They would rather that we all lived like those treadle-pumping, shit-burning peasants. A group of young deep greens protested at the Oxford offices of Climate Care dressed as red herrings (on the basis that carbon offsetting is a `red herring'), arguing that: `Climate Care is misleading the public, making them believe that offsetting does some good.' (5) The protest provided a striking snapshot of the warped, misanthropic priorities of green youthful activism today: instead of criticising Climate Care, and others, for encouraging poor Indians to stop using machinery and to burn cow dung, the protesters slated it for giving a green light to Westerners to continue living comfortable lives.
Carbon offsetting is not some cowboy activity, or an aberration, or a distraction from `true environmentalist goals' - rather it expresses the very essence of environmentalism. In its project of transforming vast swathes of the developing world into guilt-massaging zones for comfortable Westerners, where trees are planted or farmers' work is made tougher and more time-consuming in order to offset the activities of Americans and Europeans, carbon offsetting perfectly captures both the narcissistic and anti-development underpinnings of the politics of environmentalism. Where traditional imperialism conquered poor nations in order to exploit their labour and resources, today's global environmentalist consensus is increasingly using the Third World as a place in which to work out the West's moral hang-ups.
The rise of the carbon-offsetting industry shows that a key driving force behind environmentalism is self-indulgent Western guilt. It is Western consumers' own discomfort with their sometimes lavish lifestyles - with all those holidays, big homes, fast cars and cheap nutritious foods - that nurtures today's green outlook, in which consumption has come to be seen as destructive and a new morality of eco-ethics and offsetting (formerly known as penance) has emerged to deal with it (6). It is no accident that the wealthiest people are frequently the most eco-conscious. British environmental campaign groups and publications are peppered with the sons and daughters of the aristocracy, while in America ridiculously super-rich celebrities (Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt) lead the charge for more eco-aware forms of consumption and play. The very nature of carbon offsetting - where the emphasis is on paying money to offset one's own lifestyle, in much the same way that wealthy people in the Middle Ages would pay for `Indulgences' that forgave them their sins - highlights the individuated and self-regarding streak in the Politics of Being Green.
Carbon-offsetting also shines a light on the dangerously anti-development sentiment in environmentalism. As the British journalist Ross Clark has argued, the success of carbon-offsetting relies on the continuing failure of Third World communities to develop. Clark writes: `Carbon-offset schemes.only work if the recipients [in the Third World] continue to live in very basic conditions. Once they aspire to Western, fossil fuel-powered lifestyles, then the scheme is undone.' Delegates to the G8 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland in 2005 offset the carbon cost of their flights by donating to a charity that replaced the tin roofs of huts in a shantytown in Cape Town with a more insulating material, thus reducing the level of heat that escapes and protecting the environment. It sounds good, but as Clark points out: `The carbon emitted by delegates' flights will only continue to be offset for as long as the occupants of the huts carry on living in shantytown conditions.' If they were to improve their lives, and replace their insulated shacks with `much more power-hungry bungalows', then the carbon-offsetting scheme will have failed, says Clark. The shantytown-dwellers will have reneged on their side of the bargain, which is to remain poor and humble so that wealthy Western leaders can fly around the world in peace of mind (7).
Again, this is not `cowboyism' - it is mainstream environmentalism in action. From the increasingly hysterical attacks on China for daring to develop, to the emphasis on `fair trade' and `sustainable development' in the work of the myriad NGOs that are swarming around the Third World, the green message is this: poor people simply cannot have what we in the West have, because if they did the planet would burn. The treadle-pump scandal revealed in The Times only shows in a more direct form the way in which today's environmentalist agenda forces the poor of the developing world to adapt to poverty, accommodate to hardship, and effectively remain enslaved for the benefit of morally-tortured Westerners.
It is time to end this eco-enslavement, and put forward arguments for progress and equality across the globe. I would never pick up shit and use it to warm my home, or spend hours on a treadmill in order to raise water. Would you? Then why should we expect anyone else to do such things, especially in the name of making some rich snots feel better about themselves?
Source
BBC is still pro-warming
At first sight, the BBC's decision to scrap its much-heralded Planet Relief is puzzling. Planet Relief would have been presented by Ricky Gervais and Jonathan Ross, and was set to bring together numerous celebrities to raise awareness about climate change amongst the British viewing public. The BBC has justified its decision to scrap the programme on the basis that it is not the BBC's job to promote a crusade and `lead opinion on climate change'.
The notion that the BBC only presents the facts, rather than `raising public awareness' about climate change, is contradicted by its record. Virtually every BBC news item on climate change comes across like a health warning about the impending catastrophe facing humanity. Anyone who watches BBC News will be left in no doubt that virtually every flood, earthquake, drought or unusual natural occurrence around the world is a direct consequence of global warming.
That the BBC is less then fervently committed to balance on the issue of climate change was confirmed by one of its spokespeople: she said that the cancellation of Planet Relief was not due to concerns over impartiality. Some observers believe that poor viewing figures for July's Live Earth concert, which was shown on the BBC, may have influenced the decision to pull Planet Relief. And some BBC executives have noted that the public does not like being `lectured' to about climate change and other fashionable causes.
Myself, I would rather that Planet Relief was not cancelled. There is nothing wrong with giving campaigners the opportunity to `raise consciousness' about a problem they feel passionate about. I am far more concerned by the increasing trend to have items of consciousness-raising masquerading as news on national television. It is very difficult to have a grown-up discussion when a moral crusade, such as the one around climate change, is presented to the public as factual news.
The hysterical reaction of the moral crusaders on climate change to the scrapping of Planet Relief bears all the hallmarks of medieval religious zealotry. With their fondness for conspiracy theories, the crusaders claim that the scrapping of this programme was brought about by the nefarious activities of a `small but powerful cabal of climate change deniers' (1). One of the crusaders' arguments is that no one - including the BBC - can remain impartial on the issue of climate change. In other words, there can be only one legitimate and morally righteous view on the subject. The mildest hint of scepticism is denounced as morally unacceptable; thus the BBC has been attacked by one green writer for taking a `morally bankrupt decision' in shelving Planet Relief (2).
This idea that the `debate on climate change is over', and thus no dissent on the issue can be tolerated, is not confined to a tiny group of isolated illiberal fanatics. In February, Britain's former minister for the environment declared that `climate change deniers' had better shut up `since the debate over the science of climate change is well and truly over' (3).
Shutting down debate on climate change is one of the principal objectives of many of today's environmentalist crusaders. They have written numerous tracts denouncing the ideals of journalistic balance and objectivity, since applying such ideals to climate change assumes that there is more than one legitimate viewpoint on the subject. Journalists who seek balance on climate change are labelled `cowards' for refusing to take a stand against Evil. One writer has accused the BBC of putting balance before the `responsibility that we all share to avert the catastrophe that is unfolding' (4).
Exhorting the media to take sides on climate change, instead of upholding balance, green crusaders resort to cheap and superficial comparisons between climate change and slavery or the Holocaust. The implication is that anyone who thinks it is legitimate to have an open debate on climate change is a moral coward, or worse, someone who would have refused to take sides during the Holocaust.
Unfortunately, the BBC's decision to scrap Planet Relief does not represent a brave stand against the powerful current of illiberalism towards open discussion on climate change. It's simply a pragmatic decision motivated by the BBC's desire to maintain its present share of the viewing public.
Source
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Left-wing cant and the indefensible
There's a special sort of piece that appears only in The Guardian (or The New York Times) that deserves to be recognised as a journalistic genre in its own right. They masquerade as balanced and judicious profiles of individuals. But in fact they are vigorous defences, or at least pleas in mitigation, for people who cannot be allowed to be seen as guilty of any great sin because they're On The Left.
We had two this weekend. We discovered last week that the playwright Arthur Miller, who abandoned his disabled son after the child was born because he was, in Miller's words, "a mongoloid", avoided all contact with the child until they met, to the playwright's surprise, at a meeting where Miller was championing a better deal for disabled people. This sort of behaviour is beyond satire. To seek applause for your stance on behalf of suffering in general, while being so indifferent to the fate of individual suffering, is the quintessence of canting left-wingery. But for The Guardian Miller was as much the victim as anyone.
But their treatment of Miller was positively caustic besides their lionising of one of Britain's most shameless intellectual apologists for evil. A fawning tribute to the Eric Hobsbawm, 90, made light of his championing of Soviet communism and his support for Stalin, the gulag and totalitarian tyranny. I'm happy to leave the old devil in peace to enjoy his dotage. But can we at least be spared any more laying of garlands at the feet of this man who supported mass murder?
Source
Another bad hair day for the NHS
One task this blog has undertaken is to challenge the illusions and myths of nationalized health care. Which is not to argue that the US system is the ideal alternative. That is a different issue. The main myth we try to address is the idea that there is universal health coverage under socialized medicine. Much like we know that socialism doesn’t feed everyone—witness the politically induced famines in the Ukraine in the Thirties and in China in the 50s — we know it doesn’t give medical care to all either.
Socialism has always relied upon the political allocation of scarce goods, meaning that some groups or classes of people are intentionally denied access. And since socialism has proven itself very poor at the creation of those goods and services, its allocations are, by necessity, made from a smaller pool. There is no “universal” coverage under “universal health insurance”.
It may be that everyone can get an aspirin if they want it, or a doctor’s appointment if they can wait long enough. But the serious medical requirements, the ones most people worry about, are not available to everyone by any stretch of the imagination. They are often denied in a calculated manner to bolster the second main claim of socialized health care -- that it is cheaper. Obviously if you refuse to give people care that is costly, you can have cheaper care. Deny all care and the cost is zero. “Cheaper” can be obtained in any system if you limit consumption intentionally. That is not necessarily a good thing.
To illustrate this point we take a snapshot look at the much praised (by the nationalizers) National Health Service in the United Kingdom. This service is often held up as a model for the world to emulate. The argument given by some is that it provides more service, better service and cheaper service. Nationalized care gives more of one kind of service, over small things, and lots less of other services for serious illnesses. Add it all together and there is a lot less health care. The service is better if you are worried about small issues but worse if you are concerned about serious ones. So “better” is determined by whether there is a minor problem with your health or something major. Cheaper it is, but the lower cost is induced by the denial of care on a routine basis for more costly problems.
What is wrong with a snapshot, using British news reports on the NHS over a few days, is that perhaps the NHS was having “a bad hair day”. There are just some days when even the super models look pretty awful. So regular snapshots are needed. In fact, a portfolio of photos is usually required to make a decent judgment.
Here are a few other snapshots taken from British news sources for the last few days. We are not accumulating random incidents over a long period of time, but numerous incidents over a very short period of time. These are in no particular order to this issues.
The National Health Service says that they will have a 983 million pound surplus (almost 2 billion dollars) this year. That is after a 547 million deficit last year. Twenty-two of the local trusts, which provide the actual care, are in debt and for 13 of them the debt is growing rapidly. This is not as bad as last year but still serious. Sounds good. Of course one way to get rid of a deficit, or lower it, is to spend less which in this case means to cut health care.
The general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr. Peter Carter, raised that issue. “We have to ask at what cost this has been achieved.” Carter says one way this was done was to increase workloads of doctors and nurses even more. The Telegraph for August 30 reports:
Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said “this year’s surplus” was created by “dreadful cuts in key services” last year. One such cost savings has been in the way junior doctors have been treated. Many are simply left unemployed as the NHS trusts try to cut costs by reducing the number of physicians they have to pay.
For instance, Dr. Kapil Lad was working at one hospital which blocks access to personal email during work hours. When he got home that evening he found an email which said he had a few hours to respond as to whether he wanted to take a one month job. Non-response during that time was considered a rejection. Yet the time limit had passed because he was actually in the hospital caring for patients. Now he finds himself unemployed as a physician. He is now considering employment options outside the UK and says that he feels that if takes a foreign job it is unlikely he’ll return to the UK.
Trainee doctors are easy for the NHS to dismiss or ignore so they have. The country has 33,000 of them but is offering only 22,000 training posts. The rest are left out in the cold. With about a third of all junior doctors getting screwed over it is no surprise that many of them took to the streets to protest as the accompanying photo shows.
Hip replacements under the NHS are notoriously slow. But 79-year-old Thembi Nobadula finally received the replacement she needed and then was sent home without the follow up care required. She ends up sleeping sitting up in a chair and has been unable to take a bath for months. All she needed was one piece of equipment that would allow her to get in and out of the tub but NHS wasn’t listening. Her condition was considered bad enough that the NHS sent her to hospital appointments by ambulance but no one would listen to her needs. Only after the local Islington newspaper got involved did they suddenly listen and promise she would get the equipment she needed in about a week’s time.
Thelma Nixon has a serious eye condition that will lead to blindness unless treated -- wet macular degeneration. Injections of Lucentis into the eye are needed. But the NHS told her she can’t have them. They were more expensive than guidelines allowed. Thelma remortgaged her home to cover the cost of injections herself through private care. The York Press campaigned on her behalf and so did the Royal National Institute for the Blind -- without the publicity it is unlikely she would have received the NHS treatment.
A local businessman funded some of her injections and two other readers of the original newspaper article also were donating funds toward further injections. But with the bad publicity in this case the local NHS trust relented. But Thelma was warned that if she sought any further private treatment it would jeopardize the funding she would received.
William Foreman, 66, of Suffolk, needed a hip replacement. The NHS told him he would have to wait. And when it comes to hip replacements the elderly wait, and wait, and wait. Foreman didn’t wait. He took 6,400 of his savings and flew to Poland. That covered his flight, the hip replacement, and three weeks or rehabilitation. From the time he was told he needed the hip replacement to the surgery itself was a total of two weeks. For this price he got a private room and twice daily sessions with a physiotherapist.
Foreman is just one of thousands of people from the UK who become “medical tourists”. Medical tourism is a booming business that helps individuals who can’t get timely treatment, or treatment at all, from the NHS obtain the same treatment overseas. One study indicates that 50,000 people leave the UK every year for medical treatment elsewhere. If they didn't the waiting lists would be even longer. And the money these people spend to get the care they aren't receiving from the NHS is not counted toward health care costs for the NHS.
Russ Jones needs the drug Sutent because he has a gastrointestinal stromal tumor. The NHS has refused to supply it because it is too costly and they question whether it is effective. Jones is now depleting his savings to pay for the drugs himself. The problem Jones has is very rare which is why there is little research on the drug which would prove whether it is effective or not. But in some parts of the UK Sutent is available while in others it is routinely denied. This has lead to what some are calling a “postcode lottery”. People who live in certain favored areas receive treatment that is routinely denied to everyone else.
Cancer patients in Northern Ireland, part of the UK and under the NHS, are unhappy. Those suffering from asbestos cancer have been told they will have to wait until 2009 at the earliest before they can receive the drug Alimta. This form of lung cancer is incurable and Belfast is one of the UK hotspots for the disease. While Alimta does not cure the disease it relieves symptoms and increases life expectancy. Waiting two years for treatment is a death sentence since most patients with the disease die within one year. The drug is available in other parts of the UK by the NHS just not to people in the “hotspot” of Northern Ireland.
Brigitte Stankovic has worked her entire life as a hair dresser. Now 42 she runs a busy hair salon. She has kidney problems and high blood pressure and needs regular medical attention. But to seek that treatment means taking hours off of work at a loss of personal income -- and lost income is not counted in health care costs. Brigitte explained her problem:
She said that with the NHS it was impossible to get treatment without losing work time and income. Brigitte now uses the first private GP practice to open in Wales. Dr. Jo Longstaffe sent up Independent General Practice three years ago and now has three offices with a fourth opening shortly. She has six doctors working for her and three more on the way.
Our final snapshot of the NHS for the last few days covers the phenomenon of “hidden” waiting lists. It is widely known that socialized health care often results in very long waiting lists. These lists prove a constant embarrassment to the advocates of the system. One way of addressing the problem is to cut the lists. This doesn’t mean that people receive treatment. It just means they are removed from the official waiting list and put on a waiting list for the waiting list. This means they no longer have “guaranteed” treatment within a specific period of time.
The Scotsman reports that “5000 Lothian patients have been switched from main waiting lists on to the ‘availability status code’ list” instead. And while these secondary waiting lists had seen some reductions in recent years they are growing once again. The reason for the growth is that fewer surgeries than needed are provided.
In Scotland alone the “hidden” waiting list has 25,000 people on it who are merely waiting to be moved to the official waiting list. Public Health Minister Shona Robison promises that no one will wait “more than 16 weeks for treatment” and that they will get “rid of hidden waiting lists” -- next year. Apparently it’s another bad hair day for the NHS.
Source
U.K.: Many degrees not worth it
The expansion of university education has reduced the value of some degrees to zero, as more young people join the workforce as graduates, research suggests. Recent male graduates in arts and humanities are earning no more than those who left education after A levels High School], a study from the Institute of Education has found. The results will add to pressure from universities to be allowed to set student tuition fees according to how much a degree subject is valued by employers. At present the majority of universities charge 3,000 pounds a year, the maximum permitted by the Government. Research universities have pressed for a minimum of 6,000.
The research also calls into question the Government’s long-term aim of increasing university participation to 50 per cent of the adult population, up from 43 per cent at present. Anna Vignoles, Reader in Economics of Education in the department of economic, social and human development at the Institute of Education, who led the study, said that a university degree still had a high value in the labour market. However, a surplus of graduates in some nonscientific subjects could mean that those with degrees in the arts or humanities may soon find that they are not able to earn enough to compensate for the amount that they paid for their university education.
“New graduates in these subject areas are earning similar amounts to those with just A levels High school diploma],” she said. “Some graduates in highly valued subjects, such as accountancy, will continue to profit from the amount they spent on their degrees. But others may gain only a small, or even a nil, return to their investment in higher education.” She added that graduates in arts and humanities subjects, such as history, art, French or English literature, had among the lowest earnings.
Accountancy graduates were earning at least 40 per cent more than them over the course of a lifetime. Dr Vignoles, who will present her findings to the annual conference of the British Educational Research Association in London today, suggested that tuition fees should vary according to subject and institution in order to make students realise what different subjects are worth.
The study draws together a number of research papers into the subject, notably a study of graduate earnings by Professor Peter Sloane and Dr Nigel O’Leary at Swansea University. Dr Vignoles’s findings follow earlier research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the consultant, which found that the average university leaver can expect to make 160,000 more between the age of 21 and 60 than those who enter the job market with only A levels. Those with degrees in medicine have the highest earnings premium at 340,315, engineering graduates can expect to make 243,730 more, while those with degrees in geography or history make 51,549 more.
But the PWC report also found that with government grants, bursaries, low interest rates and long repayments, graduates could still expect an average financial return on their investment in their degree of 13.2 per cent a year. Bill Rammell, the Minister for Higher Education, said that despite the expansion of higher education, the financial returns to graduates were high by international standards. “Independent analysis suggests the average premium over a working life remains comfortably over 100,000 (before tax) in today’s valuation,” he said. “I’m glad that potential students are increasingly aware of their likely earnings when choosing a course, but it’s also right that they consider the wider nonfinancial benefits like job satisfaction.”
Source
There's a special sort of piece that appears only in The Guardian (or The New York Times) that deserves to be recognised as a journalistic genre in its own right. They masquerade as balanced and judicious profiles of individuals. But in fact they are vigorous defences, or at least pleas in mitigation, for people who cannot be allowed to be seen as guilty of any great sin because they're On The Left.
We had two this weekend. We discovered last week that the playwright Arthur Miller, who abandoned his disabled son after the child was born because he was, in Miller's words, "a mongoloid", avoided all contact with the child until they met, to the playwright's surprise, at a meeting where Miller was championing a better deal for disabled people. This sort of behaviour is beyond satire. To seek applause for your stance on behalf of suffering in general, while being so indifferent to the fate of individual suffering, is the quintessence of canting left-wingery. But for The Guardian Miller was as much the victim as anyone.
But their treatment of Miller was positively caustic besides their lionising of one of Britain's most shameless intellectual apologists for evil. A fawning tribute to the Eric Hobsbawm, 90, made light of his championing of Soviet communism and his support for Stalin, the gulag and totalitarian tyranny. I'm happy to leave the old devil in peace to enjoy his dotage. But can we at least be spared any more laying of garlands at the feet of this man who supported mass murder?
Source
Another bad hair day for the NHS
One task this blog has undertaken is to challenge the illusions and myths of nationalized health care. Which is not to argue that the US system is the ideal alternative. That is a different issue. The main myth we try to address is the idea that there is universal health coverage under socialized medicine. Much like we know that socialism doesn’t feed everyone—witness the politically induced famines in the Ukraine in the Thirties and in China in the 50s — we know it doesn’t give medical care to all either.
Socialism has always relied upon the political allocation of scarce goods, meaning that some groups or classes of people are intentionally denied access. And since socialism has proven itself very poor at the creation of those goods and services, its allocations are, by necessity, made from a smaller pool. There is no “universal” coverage under “universal health insurance”.
It may be that everyone can get an aspirin if they want it, or a doctor’s appointment if they can wait long enough. But the serious medical requirements, the ones most people worry about, are not available to everyone by any stretch of the imagination. They are often denied in a calculated manner to bolster the second main claim of socialized health care -- that it is cheaper. Obviously if you refuse to give people care that is costly, you can have cheaper care. Deny all care and the cost is zero. “Cheaper” can be obtained in any system if you limit consumption intentionally. That is not necessarily a good thing.
To illustrate this point we take a snapshot look at the much praised (by the nationalizers) National Health Service in the United Kingdom. This service is often held up as a model for the world to emulate. The argument given by some is that it provides more service, better service and cheaper service. Nationalized care gives more of one kind of service, over small things, and lots less of other services for serious illnesses. Add it all together and there is a lot less health care. The service is better if you are worried about small issues but worse if you are concerned about serious ones. So “better” is determined by whether there is a minor problem with your health or something major. Cheaper it is, but the lower cost is induced by the denial of care on a routine basis for more costly problems.
What is wrong with a snapshot, using British news reports on the NHS over a few days, is that perhaps the NHS was having “a bad hair day”. There are just some days when even the super models look pretty awful. So regular snapshots are needed. In fact, a portfolio of photos is usually required to make a decent judgment.
Here are a few other snapshots taken from British news sources for the last few days. We are not accumulating random incidents over a long period of time, but numerous incidents over a very short period of time. These are in no particular order to this issues.
The National Health Service says that they will have a 983 million pound surplus (almost 2 billion dollars) this year. That is after a 547 million deficit last year. Twenty-two of the local trusts, which provide the actual care, are in debt and for 13 of them the debt is growing rapidly. This is not as bad as last year but still serious. Sounds good. Of course one way to get rid of a deficit, or lower it, is to spend less which in this case means to cut health care.
The general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Dr. Peter Carter, raised that issue. “We have to ask at what cost this has been achieved.” Carter says one way this was done was to increase workloads of doctors and nurses even more. The Telegraph for August 30 reports:
... Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the BMA GPs' committee, said the cuts were "thinly disguised forms of rationing" patient care. "At the end of last year we saw services to patients being cut, with operations delayed, outpatient clinics cancelled, and referral management schemes," he said. "There are still hospitals that are threatening to lay off hundreds of staff in order to break even." Only last week, plans to downgrade A & E services and maternity services in Greater Manchester sparked protests from the Tories. Maternity services will shut at four hospitals, the A & E at one hospital will be downgraded and intensive care for premature babies will move from another.
Liberal Democrat health spokesman, Norman Lamb, said “this year’s surplus” was created by “dreadful cuts in key services” last year. One such cost savings has been in the way junior doctors have been treated. Many are simply left unemployed as the NHS trusts try to cut costs by reducing the number of physicians they have to pay.
For instance, Dr. Kapil Lad was working at one hospital which blocks access to personal email during work hours. When he got home that evening he found an email which said he had a few hours to respond as to whether he wanted to take a one month job. Non-response during that time was considered a rejection. Yet the time limit had passed because he was actually in the hospital caring for patients. Now he finds himself unemployed as a physician. He is now considering employment options outside the UK and says that he feels that if takes a foreign job it is unlikely he’ll return to the UK.
Trainee doctors are easy for the NHS to dismiss or ignore so they have. The country has 33,000 of them but is offering only 22,000 training posts. The rest are left out in the cold. With about a third of all junior doctors getting screwed over it is no surprise that many of them took to the streets to protest as the accompanying photo shows.
Hip replacements under the NHS are notoriously slow. But 79-year-old Thembi Nobadula finally received the replacement she needed and then was sent home without the follow up care required. She ends up sleeping sitting up in a chair and has been unable to take a bath for months. All she needed was one piece of equipment that would allow her to get in and out of the tub but NHS wasn’t listening. Her condition was considered bad enough that the NHS sent her to hospital appointments by ambulance but no one would listen to her needs. Only after the local Islington newspaper got involved did they suddenly listen and promise she would get the equipment she needed in about a week’s time.
Thelma Nixon has a serious eye condition that will lead to blindness unless treated -- wet macular degeneration. Injections of Lucentis into the eye are needed. But the NHS told her she can’t have them. They were more expensive than guidelines allowed. Thelma remortgaged her home to cover the cost of injections herself through private care. The York Press campaigned on her behalf and so did the Royal National Institute for the Blind -- without the publicity it is unlikely she would have received the NHS treatment.
A local businessman funded some of her injections and two other readers of the original newspaper article also were donating funds toward further injections. But with the bad publicity in this case the local NHS trust relented. But Thelma was warned that if she sought any further private treatment it would jeopardize the funding she would received.
William Foreman, 66, of Suffolk, needed a hip replacement. The NHS told him he would have to wait. And when it comes to hip replacements the elderly wait, and wait, and wait. Foreman didn’t wait. He took 6,400 of his savings and flew to Poland. That covered his flight, the hip replacement, and three weeks or rehabilitation. From the time he was told he needed the hip replacement to the surgery itself was a total of two weeks. For this price he got a private room and twice daily sessions with a physiotherapist.
Foreman is just one of thousands of people from the UK who become “medical tourists”. Medical tourism is a booming business that helps individuals who can’t get timely treatment, or treatment at all, from the NHS obtain the same treatment overseas. One study indicates that 50,000 people leave the UK every year for medical treatment elsewhere. If they didn't the waiting lists would be even longer. And the money these people spend to get the care they aren't receiving from the NHS is not counted toward health care costs for the NHS.
Russ Jones needs the drug Sutent because he has a gastrointestinal stromal tumor. The NHS has refused to supply it because it is too costly and they question whether it is effective. Jones is now depleting his savings to pay for the drugs himself. The problem Jones has is very rare which is why there is little research on the drug which would prove whether it is effective or not. But in some parts of the UK Sutent is available while in others it is routinely denied. This has lead to what some are calling a “postcode lottery”. People who live in certain favored areas receive treatment that is routinely denied to everyone else.
Cancer patients in Northern Ireland, part of the UK and under the NHS, are unhappy. Those suffering from asbestos cancer have been told they will have to wait until 2009 at the earliest before they can receive the drug Alimta. This form of lung cancer is incurable and Belfast is one of the UK hotspots for the disease. While Alimta does not cure the disease it relieves symptoms and increases life expectancy. Waiting two years for treatment is a death sentence since most patients with the disease die within one year. The drug is available in other parts of the UK by the NHS just not to people in the “hotspot” of Northern Ireland.
Brigitte Stankovic has worked her entire life as a hair dresser. Now 42 she runs a busy hair salon. She has kidney problems and high blood pressure and needs regular medical attention. But to seek that treatment means taking hours off of work at a loss of personal income -- and lost income is not counted in health care costs. Brigitte explained her problem:
With the NHS I just couldn’t get an appointment to suit me or the phone was constantly engaged and when I did get an appointment you would be sitting for ages in cramped conditions and then rarely see the same doctor. I have worked all my life, since I was 15-years-old and running a hairdressing salon is a job where time is money and I couldn’t afford to go on like that.
She said that with the NHS it was impossible to get treatment without losing work time and income. Brigitte now uses the first private GP practice to open in Wales. Dr. Jo Longstaffe sent up Independent General Practice three years ago and now has three offices with a fourth opening shortly. She has six doctors working for her and three more on the way.
Our final snapshot of the NHS for the last few days covers the phenomenon of “hidden” waiting lists. It is widely known that socialized health care often results in very long waiting lists. These lists prove a constant embarrassment to the advocates of the system. One way of addressing the problem is to cut the lists. This doesn’t mean that people receive treatment. It just means they are removed from the official waiting list and put on a waiting list for the waiting list. This means they no longer have “guaranteed” treatment within a specific period of time.
The Scotsman reports that “5000 Lothian patients have been switched from main waiting lists on to the ‘availability status code’ list” instead. And while these secondary waiting lists had seen some reductions in recent years they are growing once again. The reason for the growth is that fewer surgeries than needed are provided.
Separately, NHS Lothian was also unable to secure all the surgery time it wanted for patients with coronary heart disease - one of the biggest killers in the region. Local health chiefs asked the Golden Jubilee for four weekly sessions, but were only granted two, later increased to three. Another issue in tackling the level of ASC codes in the Lothians is the need to provide more orthopaedic surgery, such as hip and knee operations. More than 300 plastic surgery and orthopaedic patients have now been sent to the private Murrayfield Hospital instead.
In Scotland alone the “hidden” waiting list has 25,000 people on it who are merely waiting to be moved to the official waiting list. Public Health Minister Shona Robison promises that no one will wait “more than 16 weeks for treatment” and that they will get “rid of hidden waiting lists” -- next year. Apparently it’s another bad hair day for the NHS.
Source
U.K.: Many degrees not worth it
The expansion of university education has reduced the value of some degrees to zero, as more young people join the workforce as graduates, research suggests. Recent male graduates in arts and humanities are earning no more than those who left education after A levels High School], a study from the Institute of Education has found. The results will add to pressure from universities to be allowed to set student tuition fees according to how much a degree subject is valued by employers. At present the majority of universities charge 3,000 pounds a year, the maximum permitted by the Government. Research universities have pressed for a minimum of 6,000.
The research also calls into question the Government’s long-term aim of increasing university participation to 50 per cent of the adult population, up from 43 per cent at present. Anna Vignoles, Reader in Economics of Education in the department of economic, social and human development at the Institute of Education, who led the study, said that a university degree still had a high value in the labour market. However, a surplus of graduates in some nonscientific subjects could mean that those with degrees in the arts or humanities may soon find that they are not able to earn enough to compensate for the amount that they paid for their university education.
“New graduates in these subject areas are earning similar amounts to those with just A levels High school diploma],” she said. “Some graduates in highly valued subjects, such as accountancy, will continue to profit from the amount they spent on their degrees. But others may gain only a small, or even a nil, return to their investment in higher education.” She added that graduates in arts and humanities subjects, such as history, art, French or English literature, had among the lowest earnings.
Accountancy graduates were earning at least 40 per cent more than them over the course of a lifetime. Dr Vignoles, who will present her findings to the annual conference of the British Educational Research Association in London today, suggested that tuition fees should vary according to subject and institution in order to make students realise what different subjects are worth.
The study draws together a number of research papers into the subject, notably a study of graduate earnings by Professor Peter Sloane and Dr Nigel O’Leary at Swansea University. Dr Vignoles’s findings follow earlier research by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the consultant, which found that the average university leaver can expect to make 160,000 more between the age of 21 and 60 than those who enter the job market with only A levels. Those with degrees in medicine have the highest earnings premium at 340,315, engineering graduates can expect to make 243,730 more, while those with degrees in geography or history make 51,549 more.
But the PWC report also found that with government grants, bursaries, low interest rates and long repayments, graduates could still expect an average financial return on their investment in their degree of 13.2 per cent a year. Bill Rammell, the Minister for Higher Education, said that despite the expansion of higher education, the financial returns to graduates were high by international standards. “Independent analysis suggests the average premium over a working life remains comfortably over 100,000 (before tax) in today’s valuation,” he said. “I’m glad that potential students are increasingly aware of their likely earnings when choosing a course, but it’s also right that they consider the wider nonfinancial benefits like job satisfaction.”
Source
Saturday, September 08, 2007
BBC BIAS AND THE POWER OF BLOGGERS
The BBC has abandoned plans for Planet Relief, a 'telethon' to raise awareness about climate change, which was being touted as a cross between Comic Relief (an annual BBC cringe-fest in which people give money to various good causes because comedians tell them to) and Al Gore's mega-flop Live Earth.
The report says: "The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change." Which is exactly what they've been doing for the past several years - so what's changed? The report admits that: "...against the backdrop of intense internal debates about impartiality, senior news editors expressed misgivings that Planet Relief was too "campaigning" in nature and would have left the Corporation open to the charge of bias."
There has indeed been intense internal debate, with various senior BBC figures criticising the corporation for 'editorialising' on climate change - and this in the wake of a report by the BBC itself which essentially acknowledged that it was infected with a left-liberal culture. The BBC claims it scrapped Planet Relief because audiences 'prefer factual output on climate change'. This is a non-sequitor of course, because the BBC's factual programmes on climate change are every bit as biased as Planet Relief promised to be.
The real reason for the decision appears to be that the BBC realises the public is becoming sick of hysterical media coverage of the subject, as the failure of Live Earth demonstrated, so the BBC has decided it can have more influence on public opinion by dressing its editorialising up as 'factual' programming. Not surprisingly, environmentalists have slammed the BBC's decision as "cowardice", (damn, foiled by those pesky well-funded deniers again!). The report adds: "A number of right-wing commentators such as the Daily Mail's Keith Waterhouse also criticised the idea." The writer, environment correspondent and global warming doomsayer Richard Black, is clearly allowing his frustration to get to him here.
You'll notice that you'll rarely, if ever, see a commentator referred to as 'left-wing' by the BBC. Interestingly, however, Black adds that 'Many blogs run by climate skeptics groups regularly accuse the BBC of bias', and I think this is the really interesting point in all of this. Bloggers, have, of course been at the forefront of the resistance to claims that the debate is over, and have enabled research by skeptical scientists, which previously would have been confined to science magazines and easily suppressed by a hostile media, to be seen by millions.
Another area where bloggers have led the way is in exposing media bias. A few years ago it was almost impossible for the public to complain about biased reporting by the BBC. You could write to them, or phone them, and your complaint would be duly noted before disappearing into the system. Only a few 'right-wing' journalists and Tory MPs were able to draw attention to dishonest or misleading reports with any effect.
Blogs have changed all that, and brought together thousands of people who have been quietly seething at the BBC for years, but felt they were powerless to do anything about it; complaints about bias now appear daily, both on dedicated 'Beeb-watch' sites and mainstream blogs, and every omission, half-truth and lie is quickly thrown back in the faces of those responsible. There are clearly decent people in the BBC who are truly committed to impartiality, but I think we can chalk this one up to the bloggers.
Source
When healthcare becomes a privilege rather than something that you buy
'NHS should not treat those with unhealthy lifestyles' say Tories
David Cameron is considering NHS Health Miles Cards to reward clean living. Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans. Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings. Like a supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority for other public services - such as jumping the queue for council housing.
But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act. Those who abused the system - by calling an ambulance when a trip to the GP would be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries - could also be penalised. The report calls for a greater emphasis on the "citizen's responsibility" to be healthy and says no one should expect taxpayers to fund their unhealthy lifestyles.
Yet while the Health Miles Card would award points for giving up smoking and losing weight, it could penalise those who are already fit and well because they would receive no benefits under the scheme. Also, the NHS already demands that obese patients lose weight before receiving hip replacements. And any moves to impose compulsory cards on patients would provoke a backlash from civil liberties groups.
The Dorrell report also calls for a consultation on raising the smoking age to 18 and for shops to be stripped of their licences if they sell tobacco and alcohol to minors. It proposes a fully-trained nurse to be made available to every school to offer advice on sexual health - but Tory officials stressed they would not be offering children contraceptives. Ministers should divert more attention and funding to public health epidemics which are costing the NHS billions a year, the report says.
Source
Antisemitism rampant in Britain: "More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt."
Greenies send bread prices skyrocketing in Britain: "Premier Foods will force shoppers to pay up to 8p more for a loaf of Hovis after raising the price of bread for the second time this year because of an "unprecedented" surge in wheat costs. The company, which makes Hovis, Mothers Pride and Homepride bread, said that it had no choice but to push through an increase given that wheat prices had doubled in the past 12 months after poor harvests around the world and the UK's dismal summer.... ..Mr Schofield warned that other food products were also facing inflationary pressure, in part because of the desire by governments to give over more farmland to biofuel products. He said: "Everyone is focusing on wheat and bread prices at the moment but there is a general inflation that hasn't been with us since the 1990s. "As long as governments are going to grow fuel there will be in effect an environmental tax on food."
British Yachtsman Who Counted On Global Warming to Cross Arctic Now Trapped by Ice: "In one of the most hilarious cases of being tripped up by dubious scientific hype, British yachtsman Adrian Flanagan attempted to be the first to sail across the arctic north of Russia. He based his hope on the fact that he believed in the Global Warming propaganda that the arctic is rapidly losing its ice thus making his trip possible. One little problem. Cold cruel reality has crushed the Global Warming hype and now Flanagan's boat is trapped by ice in the arctic. Besides the arctic ice, Wrong Way Flanagan now appears to have another problem. Remember those polar bears that Global Warming activists were warning us were endangered? Well, it now seems that the tables have been turned and those endangered polar bears are now endangering Flanagan"
The BBC has abandoned plans for Planet Relief, a 'telethon' to raise awareness about climate change, which was being touted as a cross between Comic Relief (an annual BBC cringe-fest in which people give money to various good causes because comedians tell them to) and Al Gore's mega-flop Live Earth.
The report says: "The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change." Which is exactly what they've been doing for the past several years - so what's changed? The report admits that: "...against the backdrop of intense internal debates about impartiality, senior news editors expressed misgivings that Planet Relief was too "campaigning" in nature and would have left the Corporation open to the charge of bias."
There has indeed been intense internal debate, with various senior BBC figures criticising the corporation for 'editorialising' on climate change - and this in the wake of a report by the BBC itself which essentially acknowledged that it was infected with a left-liberal culture. The BBC claims it scrapped Planet Relief because audiences 'prefer factual output on climate change'. This is a non-sequitor of course, because the BBC's factual programmes on climate change are every bit as biased as Planet Relief promised to be.
The real reason for the decision appears to be that the BBC realises the public is becoming sick of hysterical media coverage of the subject, as the failure of Live Earth demonstrated, so the BBC has decided it can have more influence on public opinion by dressing its editorialising up as 'factual' programming. Not surprisingly, environmentalists have slammed the BBC's decision as "cowardice", (damn, foiled by those pesky well-funded deniers again!). The report adds: "A number of right-wing commentators such as the Daily Mail's Keith Waterhouse also criticised the idea." The writer, environment correspondent and global warming doomsayer Richard Black, is clearly allowing his frustration to get to him here.
You'll notice that you'll rarely, if ever, see a commentator referred to as 'left-wing' by the BBC. Interestingly, however, Black adds that 'Many blogs run by climate skeptics groups regularly accuse the BBC of bias', and I think this is the really interesting point in all of this. Bloggers, have, of course been at the forefront of the resistance to claims that the debate is over, and have enabled research by skeptical scientists, which previously would have been confined to science magazines and easily suppressed by a hostile media, to be seen by millions.
Another area where bloggers have led the way is in exposing media bias. A few years ago it was almost impossible for the public to complain about biased reporting by the BBC. You could write to them, or phone them, and your complaint would be duly noted before disappearing into the system. Only a few 'right-wing' journalists and Tory MPs were able to draw attention to dishonest or misleading reports with any effect.
Blogs have changed all that, and brought together thousands of people who have been quietly seething at the BBC for years, but felt they were powerless to do anything about it; complaints about bias now appear daily, both on dedicated 'Beeb-watch' sites and mainstream blogs, and every omission, half-truth and lie is quickly thrown back in the faces of those responsible. There are clearly decent people in the BBC who are truly committed to impartiality, but I think we can chalk this one up to the bloggers.
Source
When healthcare becomes a privilege rather than something that you buy
'NHS should not treat those with unhealthy lifestyles' say Tories
David Cameron is considering NHS Health Miles Cards to reward clean living. Failing to follow a healthy lifestyle could lead to free NHS treatment being denied under the Tory plans. Patients would be handed "NHS Health Miles Cards" allowing them to earn reward points for losing weight, giving up smoking, receiving immunisations or attending regular health screenings. Like a supermarket loyalty card, the points could be redeemed as discounts on gym membership and fresh fruit and vegetables, or even give priority for other public services - such as jumping the queue for council housing.
But heavy smokers, the obese and binge drinkers who were a drain on the NHS could be denied some routine treatments such as hip replacements until they cleaned up their act. Those who abused the system - by calling an ambulance when a trip to the GP would be sufficient, or telephoning out of hours with needless queries - could also be penalised. The report calls for a greater emphasis on the "citizen's responsibility" to be healthy and says no one should expect taxpayers to fund their unhealthy lifestyles.
Yet while the Health Miles Card would award points for giving up smoking and losing weight, it could penalise those who are already fit and well because they would receive no benefits under the scheme. Also, the NHS already demands that obese patients lose weight before receiving hip replacements. And any moves to impose compulsory cards on patients would provoke a backlash from civil liberties groups.
The Dorrell report also calls for a consultation on raising the smoking age to 18 and for shops to be stripped of their licences if they sell tobacco and alcohol to minors. It proposes a fully-trained nurse to be made available to every school to offer advice on sexual health - but Tory officials stressed they would not be offering children contraceptives. Ministers should divert more attention and funding to public health epidemics which are costing the NHS billions a year, the report says.
Source
Antisemitism rampant in Britain: "More worrisome was what we described as anti-Jewish discourse, a mood and tone whenever Jews are discussed, whether in the media, at universities, among the liberal media elite or at dinner parties of modish London. To express any support for Israel or any feeling for the right of a Jewish state to exist produces denunciation, even contempt."
Greenies send bread prices skyrocketing in Britain: "Premier Foods will force shoppers to pay up to 8p more for a loaf of Hovis after raising the price of bread for the second time this year because of an "unprecedented" surge in wheat costs. The company, which makes Hovis, Mothers Pride and Homepride bread, said that it had no choice but to push through an increase given that wheat prices had doubled in the past 12 months after poor harvests around the world and the UK's dismal summer.... ..Mr Schofield warned that other food products were also facing inflationary pressure, in part because of the desire by governments to give over more farmland to biofuel products. He said: "Everyone is focusing on wheat and bread prices at the moment but there is a general inflation that hasn't been with us since the 1990s. "As long as governments are going to grow fuel there will be in effect an environmental tax on food."
British Yachtsman Who Counted On Global Warming to Cross Arctic Now Trapped by Ice: "In one of the most hilarious cases of being tripped up by dubious scientific hype, British yachtsman Adrian Flanagan attempted to be the first to sail across the arctic north of Russia. He based his hope on the fact that he believed in the Global Warming propaganda that the arctic is rapidly losing its ice thus making his trip possible. One little problem. Cold cruel reality has crushed the Global Warming hype and now Flanagan's boat is trapped by ice in the arctic. Besides the arctic ice, Wrong Way Flanagan now appears to have another problem. Remember those polar bears that Global Warming activists were warning us were endangered? Well, it now seems that the tables have been turned and those endangered polar bears are now endangering Flanagan"
Friday, September 07, 2007
IT'S THE JOOOOS WHO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR GLOBAL WARMING!
I wondered when the fruitcakes would get around to this. It took a British fruitcake
Israel is an apartheid state," was the most often-heard charge, closely followed by calls for a boycott. The West should cut its economic ties with the Jewish state, the speakers urged, and engage the "democratically elected" Islamists now running Gaza.
No, this was not a Hamas rally somewhere in the Palestinian territories. This was Brussels, where the European Parliament last week played host to the "United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace." If the conference title's inversion of the truth is reminiscent of Communist-style propaganda, this is no coincidence. The meeting was organized by the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a Soviet-era body founded around the time of the 1975 U.N. "Zionism is racism" resolution.
That anti-Semitic resolution was revoked in 1991 but the committee continued its activities in the resolution's original spirit. Speaker after speaker at the European Parliament on Thursday and Friday presented the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an exclusively Palestinian perspective. Israel was accused of human rights violations while Palestinian terrorism and incitement went unmentioned.
The delegates invoked the Israeli occupation as the underlying cause for the conflict without mentioning the Palestinian rejectionism and violence that prevent further Israeli withdrawals. The "right of return" of millions of Palestinians, which would lead to the demographic destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, was upheld despite the official claim to favor a two-state solution.
Amid this standard-Israel-bashing, a few delegates managed to come up with a few innovative charges against the Jewish state. There was Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and Secretary for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair until she resigned in 2003 over the Iraq war. Claiming that Israel is actually "much worse than the original apartheid state" and accusing it of "killing (Palestinian) political leaders," Ms. Short charged the Jewish state with the ultimate crime: Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming."
According to Ms. Short, the Middle East conflict distracts the world from the real problem: man-made climate change. If extreme weather will lead to the "end of the human race," as Ms. Short warned it could, add this to the list of the crimes of Israel.
FULL STORY here
BBC bows to demands for objectivity
The BBC has scrapped plans for "Planet Relief", a TV special on climate change
The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change. Celebrities such as Ricky Gervais were said to be interested in presenting the show, which would have involved viewers in a mass "switch-off" to save energy. The BBC says it cut the special because audiences prefer factual output on climate change.
Environmentalists slammed the decision as "cowardice". "This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face," said activist and writer Mark Lynas.
Source
Britain launches global healthcare plan for poor countries
Talk about the blind leading the blind!
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched an international initiative, which aims to improve healthcare and sweep away killer diseases in some of the world's poorest countries. The International Health Partnership (IHP) is bidding to help developing countries make better use of foreign aid by cutting bureaucracy and building stronger national healthcare systems. "We could be the generation that is able to say that we conquered these diseases and that, I think, places a moral duty on us to work together," Mr Brown told a press conference at his Downing Street office. "There is no greater cause than that every child in the world should be given the benefit of healthcare - that a life free from the scourge of preventable disease, a gift that was perhaps unimaginable even 10 years ago, is a gift that today can be achieved and would enrich us all."
Mr Brown said that his ultimate goal was to wipe out diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio, tuberculosis and measles. The IHP brings together bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the governments of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal. It is being launched to give new impetus to efforts to meet United Nations Millennium Development Goals on issues like child mortality and the number of mothers dying in childhood.
In July, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the international community was "seriously off-track" on some of the goals, which were set in 2000 and are due to be met in 2015. The first wave of developing countries which will hook up with the IHP includes Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Cambodia and Nepal. But Mr Brown said he expected other nations, both donors and developing countries, will get involved as the IHP evolves.
Officials say that over the next couple of years, the first seven countries will identify particular problems in their national health care systems before working with international partners to address them. The developing countries have committed to prioritising healthcare issues, while the donor countries have pledged to work together more - freeing up resources to fight diseases by slashing red tape - as well as providing more long-term and predictable funding.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenburg, who worked with Mr Brown on the plan, illustrated the need for more coordination between donor countries. "There are so many different countries, so many different donors, so many different UN agencies, so many different NGOs working in the same countries with the same issues but without any coordination," he said. "So it is a big problem that in many developing countries, they have to do a lot of bureaucratic work."
The project does not involve new funding, but the British Government disputes claims that this could limit its impact, saying that global aid for health has doubled since 2000. "This is about making what we do more effective, adding up to greater than the sum of its parts... It's about getting a bigger bang for your buck," a senior British Government source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Oxfam director Barbara Stocking welcomed the launch of the IHP, but said it needed extra cash to achieve its goals. "This initiative will only succeed if enough countries get behind it and if it mobilises additional aid to provide coordinated and expanded state health provision," she said. Major economies including the United States and Japan have not signed up for the IHP.
Source
Negligent cancer screening in the NHS
A patient who found out that she had breast cancer after she was allegedly given the all-clear by a consultant told a medical disciplinary hearing that she did not want other women to suffer the same fate. Jane Andrews, from Winchester, was giving evidence at a General Medical Council hearing in Manchester yesterday into allegations that Lan Keng Lun failed to carry out breast screening assessments to the required standards at the Epping NHS Breast Screening Service at St Margaret’s Hospital.
It is alleged that eight other patients were affected by below-standard screenings at the service run by The Princess Alexandra NHS Trust. Dr Lan had been the consultant radiologist at the service since April 1998 and director of breast screening since March 2003. The hearing was told that Ms Andrews was recalled to the service after a mammogram on March 10, 2003, revealed issues, such as an abnormal lymph node, that needed further assessment. She was seen by Dr Lan on March 26, when he examined her breasts clinically and by ultrasound scan, but is alleged to have failed to take an ultrasound image of the abnormal lymph node. Ms Andrews told the hearing that Dr Lan said she had three cysts that had all yielded aspirate. However, in a letter to Ms Andrews’s GP, Dr Lan said that only two of three cysts yielded aspirate and there was a definite lump felt in the outer part of the left breast, which he claims he told her to keep an eye on.
Ms Andrews, who is in her late 50s, said Dr Lan suggested that she return after three years but advised her to continue to check her breasts in that time. She said: “As far as I was concerned the clinical outcome was satisfactory for both of us, I didn’t have any doubts I had healthy breasts.” But months later Ms Andrews felt an ache under her arm when moving furniture and discovered the lump a short time afterwards, which was diagnosed as cancer. She claims that an earlier diagnosis could have increased her chances of survival.
Source
THE FOOD ADDITIVE PUTSCH
The food additive warriors have obviously got desperate but their last fling has won them the publicity battle by fraud. The extraordinary study below (Summary from The Times plus journal abstract) tells us NOTHING about actual food. Prior studies have not given the adverse effects hypothesized so this time they just gave kids cocktails of chemicals in fruit juice. And some kids were slightly affected by some of the cocktails.
But the procedure is scientifically amazing. Components of any complex process must be examined in situ if we are to draw any bottom-line conclusions -- witness the poor transferability of in vitro to in vivo results. It is entirely possible for a chemical to be deleterious in one situation or combination and not in another. And it is known that the interaction of chemicals in food is very complex. So this research tells us nothing about what effects the chemicals would have in their normal applications.
Furthermore, the practice of giving a cocktail of chemicals also renders the whole exercise a virtual nullity. For all we know, the adverse effects could all have been caused by just one chemical in the mix! Normal scientific procedure is one of control. We try to vary NOTHING BUT the one variable under examination. That is the only way we can be sure that any given variable has some effect. So this study tells us nothing about any of the variables concerned.
It is of course possible that the various chemicals have to interact to produce a deleterious effect but that just underlines how negligent it was not to test their effect in situ. If interactions are important, it is important to show that the interactions being examined are real-life ones.
Sadly, however, despite its scientific nullity, the study would seem to have given the food fanatics the ammunition to get banned many useful additives that make food safer and more attractive. That they published such irresponsible rubbish is however another blot on the escutcheon of Lancet and shows again what a political propaganda outfit they have become. The irrational Greenie nature-worshippers have been facilitated in another one of their Quixotic crusades.
A partial halt to "social promotion" in Britain?
Underachieving children could be forced to spend an extra year in primary school under proposals unveiled by the Conservatives. Eleven-year-old pupils would be compelled to resit their final year with children a year younger, while their peers started secondary school. David Cameron claimed that this could be part of a "genuine schools" revolution aiming to raise literacy and numeracy standards.
The Conservative leader vied for the spotlight yesterday with Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, with rival announcements timed to coincide with the start of the school year. Mr Balls admitted that improvements in education had slowed in the last year and that schools still had "some way to go to deliver a world class education".
He is writing to all primary and secondary school head teachers for the first time in his tenure, asking them to redouble their efforts, particularly with basic skills and discipline. The letter will focus on the Government's "personalisation agenda", under which individual children can be targeted and taught at a level suited to their ability. As with Mr Cameron's plans, this could result in pupils moving on to key stages at different ages from their peer group.
During the autumn term, up to 500 schools will trial new personalised approaches to assessment and testing, backed by one-to-one tuition for pupils at risk of making slow progress. A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: "Mr Balls will be looking closely at the experience of these schools and will not hesitate to accelerate national roll-out where personalised teaching techniques, one-on-one coaching and catchup classes are proving to work."
Mr Cameron's comments will be expounded in tomorrow's launch of a review by his party's public services improvement policy group. The report will propose that the worst performers in year six should be made either to catch up at summer classes or to repeat the whole academic year. Mr Cameron promised to "look carefully" at the measure, which is already used in the US and some European countries. He also supported giving extra money to schools for each pupil they take from a disadvantaged background, and said there should be a "bonfire of controls" to free teachers from bureaucracy and targets.
Mr Cameron pledged to stop the closure of special needs schools and to give schools the final say over whether pupils were expelled.
The report also suggests that A/S levels should be scrapped so that students can concentrate on their A-level exams. It proposes that ability sets should be introduced across the curriculum, and that league tables should be simplified and restructured.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, said that making 11-year-olds stay back rather than go on to secondary schools would be "very much a backstop". He added: "We can't have children going from primary school into secondary school without the skills necessary to make the most of what they are going to be taught in secondary schools."
But Mr Cameron's announcement was criticised by the Government. Jim McKnight, the Schools Minister, said: "Proposals for what the Tories have called a `remedial year' would stigmatise the very children who need extra help. They would increase class sizes and make it difficult for teachers and parents to plan ahead."
Source
Sir Edward Elgar now politically incorrect but still great
The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Edward Elgar's birth fell on June 2, 2007. This anniversary has been the spur for some strange commentaries in Britain: Elgar's music isn't modern enough; its tub-thumping pomp and circumstance state music doesn't reflect contemporary, multicultural Britain. How symbolic, some say, that Elgar's face has just disappeared from the twenty pound note to be replaced by that of sensible Scottish economist Adam Smith.
This is political correctness gone barking. It is sobering to see that true greatness of spirit can still be blithely consigned, by some, to an imaginary junk heap of artistic detritus. Sensibly, the general public won't have a bar of these musings, and no doubt Elgar's music will continue to be comprehensively celebrated and performed.
Australian artists, for many years on the receiving end of condescension from points north, can relate to Elgar's long struggle to establish himself as composer and artist in a hostile cultural environment. Anyone who tries this face-to-face on Australians these days is in for a rude surprise, though there really isn't any cure for parochialism and snobbery, which are without end. However, in some parts hereabouts, there is now, somewhat inevitably, an Australia-first campaign whereby anything English is hammered-they think-into the ground-psychic punishment for past colonial sins of omission. Percy Grainger, for example, is held up a preferable alternative to Elgar.
As a republican, I have no desire to linger in antique realms, but I'm not going to be bludgeoned into rejecting greatness when it is there before me. English critics are partly to blame for Elgar's reputation abroad with their endless references to Elgar's Englishness. Elgar's music belongs to the world, not just to England. (There is a specific Australian connection in Elgar's music. He sets Adam Lindsay Gordon's poem `The Swimmer' as the last song in Sea Pictures-`O brave white horses! you gather and gallop, / The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins . . .') If I stand on Bondi beach on a wild afternoon, hearing the surge of Alassio in my head, or, in mourning, recall that last restatement of the `Spirit of Delight' theme at the end of the Second Symphony (`the passionate pilgrimage of a soul'), this is not reflux nostalgia. Here is the music equal to the depth of life. If you want, there are certainly plenty of alternatives to choose from.
Grandeur of spirit, and passion, in art, will never be consigned to a use-by date. Elgar's story is a remarkable one of persistence through the awfulness of the English class system to the creation of great music, the first Britain had experienced since the time of Purcell. Elgar had a large chip on his shoulder because he, and his wife Alice, had to pay heavy dues in getting to this position of eminence. If, as I read, Elgar tried to wangle a peerage for himself, it would have been only what he deserved. Such splendour in the Malvern grass-the symphonies, the Violin Concerto, the Cello Concerto, the Enigma Variations, The Dream of Gerontius, Falstaff, the mass of ceremonial, occasional and salon music: all this music speaks of the seriousness and loveliness of the world, often with nobility, sometimes with wistfulness and melancholy.
You don't have to be Roman Catholic to enjoy The Dream of Gerontius. What sort of mindset is it that can't enjoy music of this kind because it doesn't fit the listener's prescriptive personal agenda. There are people who claim to be living, mentally, always in the present moment. The radical, the cutting edge, are what they crave. When you have the pile of bicycle parts waiting for you at the Whitney Biennial, why go mooning over some Degas? How tedious to sit through hours of Tristan when some hipster rap group is about to let loose at the latest in venue. But what if Elgar or Degas or Wagner are, emotionally and creatively, more radical and cutting edge, than they they have ever begun to conceive. I live only in, and for, the present moment. Too bad if the present moment is dullness enbalmed and then overhyped by the usual organs of capitalist increase.
Thus do some go their weary way, unaware of the marvels about them, forever out of reach because of ideological posturing or just plain ignorance. Well, I'm not forsaking Elgar for any whim of contemporary fashion and, if you don't know the music of this composer, do yourself a favour that will repay you in kind one hundredfold.
Knowing he had composed a masterpiece, Elgar wrote at the end of the score of Gerontius the following words of Ruskin: `This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as a vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.' However much these words apply to Gerontius, they also apply to the whole. The grocer's daughter who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once told the nation, in very different circumstances, to rejoice; and we may well say of the piano tuner's son who became a composer of world renown: rejoice that such a person may triumph, and that such music can be.
Source
Britain: Politically correct attitude betrays little kids: "Council chiefs let gay foster parents sexually abuse children in their care because they were scared of being seen to discriminate against them, a report has concluded. Managers and social workers at Wakefield Council, West Yorkshire, were reluctant to investigate Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey despite concerns about their behaviour, the inquiry report by the former Surrey social services chief, Brian Parrott, said. Faunch and Wathey, of Pontefract, were jailed for six and five years respectively in June 2006 for sexual offences against four boys in their care. The report said that the children were let down by “failures in performance”. Faunch and Wathey had 18 children placed with them in 18 months. Suspicions were raised when Faunch photographed one of the victims urinating. But social workers decided that the men had been simply “naive and silly”, a trial at Leeds Crown Court had heard. “The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive,” concluded the report."
More brilliant British bureaucracy: "Almost 500 million pounds of taxpayers' money will be spent on covering the costs of the bungled implementation of a new payment system to English farmers, a parliamentary inquiry reports today. The Single Farm Payment Scheme, introduced two years ago, aimed to pay farmers for their stewardship of the land rather than the number of animals they reared for meat. But farmers have faced severe financial hardship as they waited months for their cash, and it may take another 18 months for the system to be running smoothly. By the payment deadline of March 2006 only 15 per cent of the 1.5 billion due to English farmers had been made. Even in May this year 24 farmers were waiting for their 2005 subsidies. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which ensures that public spending is value for money, say that the Government's handling of the Common Agricultural Policy reform is a textbook case of how not to set policy.... MPs are also concerned that the Government pressed ahead with a "highly risky project" at a time when the Rural Payments Agency was making 1,000 of its 2,800 staff redundant. The agency then had to bring in casual staff to process the claims. Farmers were frustrated because they were unable to get any information from officials about the status of their claims."
Brits to hand over more control of their lives to the EU whether they like it or not: "Gordon Brown's refusal to hold a referendum on the European reform treaty will face a fresh challenge today, with the start of an official cross-party campaign calling for a public vote. The Prime Minister is determined to avoid a referendum, which ministers believe would almost certainly be lost ? not necessarily because of the issue but because of the low esteem in which the EU is held by the public. But he has issued two clear warnings this week that any attempt by the rest of Europe to water down the opt-outs from the treaty secured by Britain at the Brussels summit in June would mean that he could not sign up."
I wondered when the fruitcakes would get around to this. It took a British fruitcake
Israel is an apartheid state," was the most often-heard charge, closely followed by calls for a boycott. The West should cut its economic ties with the Jewish state, the speakers urged, and engage the "democratically elected" Islamists now running Gaza.
No, this was not a Hamas rally somewhere in the Palestinian territories. This was Brussels, where the European Parliament last week played host to the "United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace." If the conference title's inversion of the truth is reminiscent of Communist-style propaganda, this is no coincidence. The meeting was organized by the U.N. Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a Soviet-era body founded around the time of the 1975 U.N. "Zionism is racism" resolution.
That anti-Semitic resolution was revoked in 1991 but the committee continued its activities in the resolution's original spirit. Speaker after speaker at the European Parliament on Thursday and Friday presented the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from an exclusively Palestinian perspective. Israel was accused of human rights violations while Palestinian terrorism and incitement went unmentioned.
The delegates invoked the Israeli occupation as the underlying cause for the conflict without mentioning the Palestinian rejectionism and violence that prevent further Israeli withdrawals. The "right of return" of millions of Palestinians, which would lead to the demographic destruction of Israel as a Jewish state, was upheld despite the official claim to favor a two-state solution.
Amid this standard-Israel-bashing, a few delegates managed to come up with a few innovative charges against the Jewish state. There was Clare Short, a member of the British Parliament and Secretary for International Development under Prime Minister Tony Blair until she resigned in 2003 over the Iraq war. Claiming that Israel is actually "much worse than the original apartheid state" and accusing it of "killing (Palestinian) political leaders," Ms. Short charged the Jewish state with the ultimate crime: Israel "undermines the international community's reaction to global warming."
According to Ms. Short, the Middle East conflict distracts the world from the real problem: man-made climate change. If extreme weather will lead to the "end of the human race," as Ms. Short warned it could, add this to the list of the crimes of Israel.
FULL STORY here
BBC bows to demands for objectivity
The BBC has scrapped plans for "Planet Relief", a TV special on climate change
The decision comes after executives said it was not the BBC's job to lead opinion on climate change. Celebrities such as Ricky Gervais were said to be interested in presenting the show, which would have involved viewers in a mass "switch-off" to save energy. The BBC says it cut the special because audiences prefer factual output on climate change.
Environmentalists slammed the decision as "cowardice". "This decision shows a real poverty of understanding among senior BBC executives about the gravity of the situation we face," said activist and writer Mark Lynas.
Source
Britain launches global healthcare plan for poor countries
Talk about the blind leading the blind!
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched an international initiative, which aims to improve healthcare and sweep away killer diseases in some of the world's poorest countries. The International Health Partnership (IHP) is bidding to help developing countries make better use of foreign aid by cutting bureaucracy and building stronger national healthcare systems. "We could be the generation that is able to say that we conquered these diseases and that, I think, places a moral duty on us to work together," Mr Brown told a press conference at his Downing Street office. "There is no greater cause than that every child in the world should be given the benefit of healthcare - that a life free from the scourge of preventable disease, a gift that was perhaps unimaginable even 10 years ago, is a gift that today can be achieved and would enrich us all."
Mr Brown said that his ultimate goal was to wipe out diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, polio, tuberculosis and measles. The IHP brings together bodies including the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation with the governments of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Portugal. It is being launched to give new impetus to efforts to meet United Nations Millennium Development Goals on issues like child mortality and the number of mothers dying in childhood.
In July, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned that the international community was "seriously off-track" on some of the goals, which were set in 2000 and are due to be met in 2015. The first wave of developing countries which will hook up with the IHP includes Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Cambodia and Nepal. But Mr Brown said he expected other nations, both donors and developing countries, will get involved as the IHP evolves.
Officials say that over the next couple of years, the first seven countries will identify particular problems in their national health care systems before working with international partners to address them. The developing countries have committed to prioritising healthcare issues, while the donor countries have pledged to work together more - freeing up resources to fight diseases by slashing red tape - as well as providing more long-term and predictable funding.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenburg, who worked with Mr Brown on the plan, illustrated the need for more coordination between donor countries. "There are so many different countries, so many different donors, so many different UN agencies, so many different NGOs working in the same countries with the same issues but without any coordination," he said. "So it is a big problem that in many developing countries, they have to do a lot of bureaucratic work."
The project does not involve new funding, but the British Government disputes claims that this could limit its impact, saying that global aid for health has doubled since 2000. "This is about making what we do more effective, adding up to greater than the sum of its parts... It's about getting a bigger bang for your buck," a senior British Government source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Oxfam director Barbara Stocking welcomed the launch of the IHP, but said it needed extra cash to achieve its goals. "This initiative will only succeed if enough countries get behind it and if it mobilises additional aid to provide coordinated and expanded state health provision," she said. Major economies including the United States and Japan have not signed up for the IHP.
Source
Negligent cancer screening in the NHS
A patient who found out that she had breast cancer after she was allegedly given the all-clear by a consultant told a medical disciplinary hearing that she did not want other women to suffer the same fate. Jane Andrews, from Winchester, was giving evidence at a General Medical Council hearing in Manchester yesterday into allegations that Lan Keng Lun failed to carry out breast screening assessments to the required standards at the Epping NHS Breast Screening Service at St Margaret’s Hospital.
It is alleged that eight other patients were affected by below-standard screenings at the service run by The Princess Alexandra NHS Trust. Dr Lan had been the consultant radiologist at the service since April 1998 and director of breast screening since March 2003. The hearing was told that Ms Andrews was recalled to the service after a mammogram on March 10, 2003, revealed issues, such as an abnormal lymph node, that needed further assessment. She was seen by Dr Lan on March 26, when he examined her breasts clinically and by ultrasound scan, but is alleged to have failed to take an ultrasound image of the abnormal lymph node. Ms Andrews told the hearing that Dr Lan said she had three cysts that had all yielded aspirate. However, in a letter to Ms Andrews’s GP, Dr Lan said that only two of three cysts yielded aspirate and there was a definite lump felt in the outer part of the left breast, which he claims he told her to keep an eye on.
Ms Andrews, who is in her late 50s, said Dr Lan suggested that she return after three years but advised her to continue to check her breasts in that time. She said: “As far as I was concerned the clinical outcome was satisfactory for both of us, I didn’t have any doubts I had healthy breasts.” But months later Ms Andrews felt an ache under her arm when moving furniture and discovered the lump a short time afterwards, which was diagnosed as cancer. She claims that an earlier diagnosis could have increased her chances of survival.
Source
THE FOOD ADDITIVE PUTSCH
The food additive warriors have obviously got desperate but their last fling has won them the publicity battle by fraud. The extraordinary study below (Summary from The Times plus journal abstract) tells us NOTHING about actual food. Prior studies have not given the adverse effects hypothesized so this time they just gave kids cocktails of chemicals in fruit juice. And some kids were slightly affected by some of the cocktails.
But the procedure is scientifically amazing. Components of any complex process must be examined in situ if we are to draw any bottom-line conclusions -- witness the poor transferability of in vitro to in vivo results. It is entirely possible for a chemical to be deleterious in one situation or combination and not in another. And it is known that the interaction of chemicals in food is very complex. So this research tells us nothing about what effects the chemicals would have in their normal applications.
Furthermore, the practice of giving a cocktail of chemicals also renders the whole exercise a virtual nullity. For all we know, the adverse effects could all have been caused by just one chemical in the mix! Normal scientific procedure is one of control. We try to vary NOTHING BUT the one variable under examination. That is the only way we can be sure that any given variable has some effect. So this study tells us nothing about any of the variables concerned.
It is of course possible that the various chemicals have to interact to produce a deleterious effect but that just underlines how negligent it was not to test their effect in situ. If interactions are important, it is important to show that the interactions being examined are real-life ones.
Sadly, however, despite its scientific nullity, the study would seem to have given the food fanatics the ammunition to get banned many useful additives that make food safer and more attractive. That they published such irresponsible rubbish is however another blot on the escutcheon of Lancet and shows again what a political propaganda outfit they have become. The irrational Greenie nature-worshippers have been facilitated in another one of their Quixotic crusades.
Britain's food watchdog is warning all parents today of a clear link between additives and hyperactive behaviour in children. Research for the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and published in The Lancet has established the "deleterious effects" of taking a mixture of artifical extras that are added to drinks, sweets and processed foods. It has led the FSA to issue the advice to parents who believe their children to be hyperactive that they should cut out foods containing the E numbers analysed in the study.
Scientists from the University of Southampton, who carried out research on three-year-old and eight-year-old children, believe that their findings could have a "substantial" impact on the regulation of food additives in Britain. But the FSA has been accused of missing an opportunity to protect children and all consumers by failing to impose a deadline on manufacturers to remove additives such as Sunshine Yellow and Tartrazine from their products.
In the biggest study of its kind the researchers recorded the responses of 153 three-year-olds and 144 eight to nine-year-olds to different drinks. None suffered from a hyperactivity disorder. The children drank a mix of additives that reflected the average daily additive intake of a British child. The mixture was not a product currently on sale.
After consuming the drinks - a cocktail of controversial E numbers and the preservative sodium benzoate - the children were found to become boisterous and lose concentration. They were unable to play with one toy or complete one task, and they engaged in unusually impulsive behaviour. The older group were unable to complete a 15-minute computer exercise. Results varied between different children but the study found that poor behaviour was observed in children who had no record of hyperactivity or attention deficit disorder.
The results are certain to cause concern and it is likely many parents will remove or cut down on food and drink products that might provoke such reactions in their children. The problem for many parents will be how to police children's eating; although most foods are labelled, some sweets are sold loose in shops and school canteens. Schools can now expect to be inundated with requests for the ingredients of food and drink on offer to their pupils to be made known.
Jim Stevenson, head of psychology at the University of Southampton, who led the research, said yesterday that he thought there could be swift action against artificial colourants but that it could take longer to phase out use of the preservative sodium benzoate. At a briefing to publicise the results, however, he said that the FSA's advice was the most sensible course of action at present. Hyperactive behaviour was also caused by genetic, developmental and emotional factors and a change of diet was not a panacea.
But Richard Watts, food campaigner for the pressure group Sustain, said that the advice would cause confusion. "The agency needs to toughen up the rules quickly. I don't know why they did not give food companies a deadline to remove the additives. I think as an urgent next step any food with these additives should be classed as junk food and banned from TV advertising to children." He was also concerned about soft drinks available in schools and wanted the School Foods Trust to review the use of sodium benzoate. Ian Tokelove, spokesman for the Food Commission, said: "Manufacturers should clean up their act and remove these additives, which are neither needed or wanted in our food".
The FSA defended its stance and said the matter had to be resolved by the European Commission. Dr Clare Baynton, of the FSA, made it clear that the additives were safe and approved for use in food, and that further assessment was required. She put the onus on parents to monitor their children's diet. "It is for a parent to know what foods their children are susceptible to and whether their children react to to specific types of food."
The study builds on tests conducted on the Isle of Wight in 2002 which were inconclusive about links between additives and hyperactivity. Julian Hunt, of the Food and Drink Federation said: "It is important to reassure consumers that the Southampton study does not suggest there is a safety issue with the use of these additives. In addition, the way in which the additives were tested as a mixture is not how they are used in everyday products.
Source
Food additives and hyperactive behaviour in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the community: a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial
By Donna McCann et al.
Background: We undertook a randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover trial to test whether intake of artificial food colour and additives (AFCA) affected childhood behaviour.
Methods: 153 3-year-old and 144 8/9-year-old children were included in the study. The challenge drink contained sodium benzoate and one of two AFCA mixes (A or B) or a placebo mix. The main outcome measure was a global hyperactivity aggregate (GHA), based on aggregated z-scores of observed behaviours and ratings by teachers and parents, plus, for 8/9-year-old children, a computerised test of attention. This clinical trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials (registration number ISRCTN74481308). Analysis was per protocol.
Findings: 16 3-year-old children and 14 8/9-year-old children did not complete the study, for reasons unrelated to childhood behaviour. Mix A had a significantly adverse effect compared with placebo in GHA for all 3-year-old children (effect size 0ú20 [95% CI 0ú01-0ú39], p=0ú044) but not mix B versus placebo. This result persisted when analysis was restricted to 3-year-old children who consumed more than 85% of juice and had no missing data (0ú32 [0ú05-0ú60], p=0ú02). 8/9-year-old children showed a significantly adverse effect when given mix A (0ú12 [0ú02-0ú23], p=0ú023) or mix B (0ú17 [0ú07-0ú28], p=0ú001) when analysis was restricted to those children consuming at least 85% of drinks with no missing data.
Interpretation: Artificial colours or a sodium benzoate preservative (or both) in the diet result in increased hyperactivity in 3-year-old and 8/9-year-old children in the general population.
The Lancet, September, 2007
A partial halt to "social promotion" in Britain?
Underachieving children could be forced to spend an extra year in primary school under proposals unveiled by the Conservatives. Eleven-year-old pupils would be compelled to resit their final year with children a year younger, while their peers started secondary school. David Cameron claimed that this could be part of a "genuine schools" revolution aiming to raise literacy and numeracy standards.
The Conservative leader vied for the spotlight yesterday with Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, with rival announcements timed to coincide with the start of the school year. Mr Balls admitted that improvements in education had slowed in the last year and that schools still had "some way to go to deliver a world class education".
He is writing to all primary and secondary school head teachers for the first time in his tenure, asking them to redouble their efforts, particularly with basic skills and discipline. The letter will focus on the Government's "personalisation agenda", under which individual children can be targeted and taught at a level suited to their ability. As with Mr Cameron's plans, this could result in pupils moving on to key stages at different ages from their peer group.
During the autumn term, up to 500 schools will trial new personalised approaches to assessment and testing, backed by one-to-one tuition for pupils at risk of making slow progress. A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: "Mr Balls will be looking closely at the experience of these schools and will not hesitate to accelerate national roll-out where personalised teaching techniques, one-on-one coaching and catchup classes are proving to work."
Mr Cameron's comments will be expounded in tomorrow's launch of a review by his party's public services improvement policy group. The report will propose that the worst performers in year six should be made either to catch up at summer classes or to repeat the whole academic year. Mr Cameron promised to "look carefully" at the measure, which is already used in the US and some European countries. He also supported giving extra money to schools for each pupil they take from a disadvantaged background, and said there should be a "bonfire of controls" to free teachers from bureaucracy and targets.
Mr Cameron pledged to stop the closure of special needs schools and to give schools the final say over whether pupils were expelled.
The report also suggests that A/S levels should be scrapped so that students can concentrate on their A-level exams. It proposes that ability sets should be introduced across the curriculum, and that league tables should be simplified and restructured.
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children, Schools and Families Secretary, said that making 11-year-olds stay back rather than go on to secondary schools would be "very much a backstop". He added: "We can't have children going from primary school into secondary school without the skills necessary to make the most of what they are going to be taught in secondary schools."
But Mr Cameron's announcement was criticised by the Government. Jim McKnight, the Schools Minister, said: "Proposals for what the Tories have called a `remedial year' would stigmatise the very children who need extra help. They would increase class sizes and make it difficult for teachers and parents to plan ahead."
Source
Sir Edward Elgar now politically incorrect but still great
The one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Edward Elgar's birth fell on June 2, 2007. This anniversary has been the spur for some strange commentaries in Britain: Elgar's music isn't modern enough; its tub-thumping pomp and circumstance state music doesn't reflect contemporary, multicultural Britain. How symbolic, some say, that Elgar's face has just disappeared from the twenty pound note to be replaced by that of sensible Scottish economist Adam Smith.
This is political correctness gone barking. It is sobering to see that true greatness of spirit can still be blithely consigned, by some, to an imaginary junk heap of artistic detritus. Sensibly, the general public won't have a bar of these musings, and no doubt Elgar's music will continue to be comprehensively celebrated and performed.
Australian artists, for many years on the receiving end of condescension from points north, can relate to Elgar's long struggle to establish himself as composer and artist in a hostile cultural environment. Anyone who tries this face-to-face on Australians these days is in for a rude surprise, though there really isn't any cure for parochialism and snobbery, which are without end. However, in some parts hereabouts, there is now, somewhat inevitably, an Australia-first campaign whereby anything English is hammered-they think-into the ground-psychic punishment for past colonial sins of omission. Percy Grainger, for example, is held up a preferable alternative to Elgar.
As a republican, I have no desire to linger in antique realms, but I'm not going to be bludgeoned into rejecting greatness when it is there before me. English critics are partly to blame for Elgar's reputation abroad with their endless references to Elgar's Englishness. Elgar's music belongs to the world, not just to England. (There is a specific Australian connection in Elgar's music. He sets Adam Lindsay Gordon's poem `The Swimmer' as the last song in Sea Pictures-`O brave white horses! you gather and gallop, / The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins . . .') If I stand on Bondi beach on a wild afternoon, hearing the surge of Alassio in my head, or, in mourning, recall that last restatement of the `Spirit of Delight' theme at the end of the Second Symphony (`the passionate pilgrimage of a soul'), this is not reflux nostalgia. Here is the music equal to the depth of life. If you want, there are certainly plenty of alternatives to choose from.
Grandeur of spirit, and passion, in art, will never be consigned to a use-by date. Elgar's story is a remarkable one of persistence through the awfulness of the English class system to the creation of great music, the first Britain had experienced since the time of Purcell. Elgar had a large chip on his shoulder because he, and his wife Alice, had to pay heavy dues in getting to this position of eminence. If, as I read, Elgar tried to wangle a peerage for himself, it would have been only what he deserved. Such splendour in the Malvern grass-the symphonies, the Violin Concerto, the Cello Concerto, the Enigma Variations, The Dream of Gerontius, Falstaff, the mass of ceremonial, occasional and salon music: all this music speaks of the seriousness and loveliness of the world, often with nobility, sometimes with wistfulness and melancholy.
You don't have to be Roman Catholic to enjoy The Dream of Gerontius. What sort of mindset is it that can't enjoy music of this kind because it doesn't fit the listener's prescriptive personal agenda. There are people who claim to be living, mentally, always in the present moment. The radical, the cutting edge, are what they crave. When you have the pile of bicycle parts waiting for you at the Whitney Biennial, why go mooning over some Degas? How tedious to sit through hours of Tristan when some hipster rap group is about to let loose at the latest in venue. But what if Elgar or Degas or Wagner are, emotionally and creatively, more radical and cutting edge, than they they have ever begun to conceive. I live only in, and for, the present moment. Too bad if the present moment is dullness enbalmed and then overhyped by the usual organs of capitalist increase.
Thus do some go their weary way, unaware of the marvels about them, forever out of reach because of ideological posturing or just plain ignorance. Well, I'm not forsaking Elgar for any whim of contemporary fashion and, if you don't know the music of this composer, do yourself a favour that will repay you in kind one hundredfold.
Knowing he had composed a masterpiece, Elgar wrote at the end of the score of Gerontius the following words of Ruskin: `This is the best of me; for the rest, I ate, and drank, and slept, loved and hated, like another; my life was as a vapour, and is not; but this I saw and knew; this, if anything of mine, is worth your memory.' However much these words apply to Gerontius, they also apply to the whole. The grocer's daughter who became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom once told the nation, in very different circumstances, to rejoice; and we may well say of the piano tuner's son who became a composer of world renown: rejoice that such a person may triumph, and that such music can be.
Source
Britain: Politically correct attitude betrays little kids: "Council chiefs let gay foster parents sexually abuse children in their care because they were scared of being seen to discriminate against them, a report has concluded. Managers and social workers at Wakefield Council, West Yorkshire, were reluctant to investigate Craig Faunch and Ian Wathey despite concerns about their behaviour, the inquiry report by the former Surrey social services chief, Brian Parrott, said. Faunch and Wathey, of Pontefract, were jailed for six and five years respectively in June 2006 for sexual offences against four boys in their care. The report said that the children were let down by “failures in performance”. Faunch and Wathey had 18 children placed with them in 18 months. Suspicions were raised when Faunch photographed one of the victims urinating. But social workers decided that the men had been simply “naive and silly”, a trial at Leeds Crown Court had heard. “The fear of being discriminatory led them to fail to discriminate between the appropriate and the abusive,” concluded the report."
More brilliant British bureaucracy: "Almost 500 million pounds of taxpayers' money will be spent on covering the costs of the bungled implementation of a new payment system to English farmers, a parliamentary inquiry reports today. The Single Farm Payment Scheme, introduced two years ago, aimed to pay farmers for their stewardship of the land rather than the number of animals they reared for meat. But farmers have faced severe financial hardship as they waited months for their cash, and it may take another 18 months for the system to be running smoothly. By the payment deadline of March 2006 only 15 per cent of the 1.5 billion due to English farmers had been made. Even in May this year 24 farmers were waiting for their 2005 subsidies. MPs on the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which ensures that public spending is value for money, say that the Government's handling of the Common Agricultural Policy reform is a textbook case of how not to set policy.... MPs are also concerned that the Government pressed ahead with a "highly risky project" at a time when the Rural Payments Agency was making 1,000 of its 2,800 staff redundant. The agency then had to bring in casual staff to process the claims. Farmers were frustrated because they were unable to get any information from officials about the status of their claims."
Brits to hand over more control of their lives to the EU whether they like it or not: "Gordon Brown's refusal to hold a referendum on the European reform treaty will face a fresh challenge today, with the start of an official cross-party campaign calling for a public vote. The Prime Minister is determined to avoid a referendum, which ministers believe would almost certainly be lost ? not necessarily because of the issue but because of the low esteem in which the EU is held by the public. But he has issued two clear warnings this week that any attempt by the rest of Europe to water down the opt-outs from the treaty secured by Britain at the Brussels summit in June would mean that he could not sign up."
Thursday, September 06, 2007
UK PUBLIC 'WARY OF GREEN TAX MOTIVES'
Nearly two-thirds of the public believe ministers are using environmental fears as an excuse to raise tax revenue, according to a poll. And research suggests their cynicism is justified - with green taxes raking in œ10 billion more for the Treasury than it would cost to offset the entire UK's carbon footprint. The figures are contained in a dossier compiled by pressure group the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA). The document is likely to provide grim reading for politicians of all colours - including Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron - who are committed to making individuals pay for habits which damage the environment. A survey carried out by YouGov for the TPA found that only a fifth of people thought politicians were genuinely trying to change behaviours using the tax system. In contrast, 63% believed they were using the issue as an excuse to pull in more cash. ... Using previous international research into climate change, the report estimated that covering the social cost of carbon emissions would have cost œ11.7 billion in 2005. But receipts from green taxes such as fuel duty, road tax and the Climate Change Levy totalled œ21.9 billion. On average every household in the UK paid œ400 more in levies than it cost to cover their own footprint, the TPA claimed.
FULL STORY here
"The Guardian" really is disgusting. They have here an absolute hymn of praise to the murderous thug Che Guevara.
Nearly two-thirds of the public believe ministers are using environmental fears as an excuse to raise tax revenue, according to a poll. And research suggests their cynicism is justified - with green taxes raking in œ10 billion more for the Treasury than it would cost to offset the entire UK's carbon footprint. The figures are contained in a dossier compiled by pressure group the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA). The document is likely to provide grim reading for politicians of all colours - including Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron - who are committed to making individuals pay for habits which damage the environment. A survey carried out by YouGov for the TPA found that only a fifth of people thought politicians were genuinely trying to change behaviours using the tax system. In contrast, 63% believed they were using the issue as an excuse to pull in more cash. ... Using previous international research into climate change, the report estimated that covering the social cost of carbon emissions would have cost œ11.7 billion in 2005. But receipts from green taxes such as fuel duty, road tax and the Climate Change Levy totalled œ21.9 billion. On average every household in the UK paid œ400 more in levies than it cost to cover their own footprint, the TPA claimed.
FULL STORY here
"The Guardian" really is disgusting. They have here an absolute hymn of praise to the murderous thug Che Guevara.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
THE BRITISH GRASSHOPPER
HOW IT USED TO BE:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold
HOW IT IS NOW:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge or squirrels to enter inner London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and redistributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.
The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.
Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug 'illness'.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost 10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The asylum-seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.
The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom. The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
Another British "social work" horror
Threat by secret court to take new-born. Big Brother knows best
A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.
Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.
Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself. Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services' request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day. From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.
Miss Lyon, from Hexham, who is five months pregnant, is seeking a judicial review of the decision about Molly, as she calls her baby. She described it as "barbaric and draconian", and said it was "scandalous" that social services had not accepted submissions supporting her case. "The paediatrician has never met me," she said. "He is not a psychiatrist and cannot possibly make assertions about my current or future mental health. Yet his letter was the only one considered in the case conference on August 16 which lasted just 10 minutes." Northumberland County Council insists that two highly experienced doctors - another consultant paediatrician and a medical consultant - attended the case conference.
The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last year, three times the number 10 years ago. Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption "targets".
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the Justice for Families campaign group, said the case showed "exactly what is wrong with public family law". He added: "There is absolutely no evidence that Fran would harm her child. However, a vague letter from a paediatrician who has never met her has been used in a decision to remove her baby at birth, while evidence from professionals treating her, that she would have no problems has been ignored." Mr Hemming was concerned that "vague assertions" of Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy - now known as "fabricated and invented illness" - had been used to remove a number of children from parents in the North-East.
Miss Lyon came under scrutiny because she had a mental health problem when she was 16 after being physically and emotionally abused by her father and raped by a stranger. She suffered eating disorders and self-harm but, after therapy, graduated from Edinburgh University and now works for two mental health charities, Borderline and Personality Plus.
Dr Stella Newrith, a consultant psychiatrist, who treated Miss Lyon for her childhood trauma for a year, wrote to Northumberland social services stating: "There has never been any clinical evidence to suggest that Fran would put herself or others at risk, and there is certainly no evidence to suggest that she would put a child at risk of emotional, physical or sexual harm."
Despite this support, endorsed by other psychiatrists and Miss Lyon's GP, social services based their recommendation partly on a letter from Dr Martin Ward Platt, a consultant paediatrician, who was unable to attend the meeting. He wrote: "Even in the absence of a psychological assessment, if the professionals were concerned on the evidence available that Miss Holton (as Miss Lyon was briefly known), probably does fabricate or induce illness, there would be no option but the precautionary principle of taking the baby into foster care at birth, pending a post-natal forensic psychological assessment."
Miss Lyon said she was determined to fight the decision. "I know I can be a good mother to Molly. I just want the chance to prove it," she said. The council said the recommendation would be subject to further assessment and review. "When making such difficult decisions, safeguarding children is our foremost priority," a spokesman said.
* A recording of social workers threatening to take a newborn into care has been removed from the YouTube website after Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire started legal action, claiming the Data Protection Act was breached. Vanessa Brookes, 34, taped social workers telling her and her husband that they would seek to place the baby, due next month, in care, while admitting there was "no immediate risk to the child."
Source
"Healthier" British school meals 'a failure'
Thousands of pupils have been shunning school meals since the Jamie Oliver inspired crusade to make them healthier, it was claimed. Atotal of 428,000 children rejected food cooked at school in the two years after the campaign was launched in 2005, according to the Liberal Democrats. They said two-thirds of secondary and 60 per cent of primary school pupils do not now eat meals provided by schools. The Government launched the crusade after TV chef Oliver attacked school meals for being junk-food based.
Lib Dem schools spokesman David Laws said: 'These figures show the English school meals service is in meltdown. 'The new standards for healthier school meals have been introduced too quickly, too inflexibly and with too little education of pupils and parents.' He added that prices of school meals 'have been rising too quickly'.
Kevin Brennan, the minister responsible for school meals, defended the scheme. 'It is true there has been a dip in take-up in some secondary schools, but some have actually seen an increase,' he said.
Source
Happiness lessons: What crap
The latest looniness from Britain. Anything that is not objectively assessable they love. After all, they are extraordinarily bad at teaching things that ARE objectively assessable, like the "3Rs"
Feeling down today? OK, let's talk about how you feel and start again. With this touchy-feely approach, the Government is hoping to bring about a revolution in the classroom. Today Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, will announce that lessons in happiness, wellbeing and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools. The initiative follows an extensive pilot of a programme called Seal (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) in primary schools, which has been found to boost both academic performance and discipline by helping children to better understand their emotions.
[Assessed under "double-blind" conditions? Not if it is like most educational "research". So any benefit was probably a "Hawthorne Effect". It now seems generally agreed that there was no Hawthorne effect at the Hawthorne plant but we know something close to it as the placebo effect -- possibly the best documented therapeutic effect in medicine. The basic lesson of the Hawthorne study was that any changes made with enthusiasm had some benefit.]
The adoption of "wellbeing" classes by state schools suggests that emotional intelligence - a term coined in 1995 by psychologists in Britain - has now become entrenched firmly in the educational mainstream. Ministers are convinced that teaching children to express their feelings, manage their anger and empathise with other people makes for a calmer school and boosts concentration and motivation.
It is not just the pupils that benefit. Research published today by the Institute of Education (IoE) into the effect of Seal in primary schools indicates that it is equally beneficial for teachers, reducing their stress levels and boosting their enthusiasm for study. The approach includes wellbeing assemblies and one-to-one sessions in which pupils may, for example, be told a story about a personal conflict that they are then encouraged to discuss.
The wellbeing ethos will be incorporated into all lessons and even into playtime through the use of positive phrases and ideas, such as "OK, let's start again" and "people like me succeed". Susan Hallam, author of the IoE research, suggested that the Seal programme was the perfect antidote to the intense pressure imposed on schools by the testing regime and exam league tables. "Most of the effort in recent years has been on academic work. Seal gives teachers and pupils permission to think about things that are not academic. It allows them to take time to consider how they think about themselves and others," she said.
Professor Hallam evaluated the impact of the Seal in a sample of primary schools from 25 local authorities that used the programme between 2003 and 2005. The programme had seven themes including, "good to be me", "getting on and falling out" and "relationships". Finding that the programme helped them to understand their pupils, teachers noticed that they were shouting less and resolving conflicts more easily. Queues of naughty children outside the head teachers' offices diminished or disappeared entirely. Because the children were more relaxed, their learning, motivation, willing to interact with those from different backgrounds and cultures," Professor Hallam said. Children's behaviour at home also changed: they tidied up without being asked and had fewer confrontations with their siblings.
Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College in Berkshire, who has pioneered wellbeing classes in the independent school sector, said the approach was based on hard evidence. "We know much more about how to teach children to be emotionally resilient and self-reliant and to be able to manage their emotions than we did. Even ten years ago there was no empirical evidence to support this approach, but now there is," he said.
Oli Marjot, 16, who took wellbeing lessons at Wellington last year, said: "The wellbeing lessons were a pool of calm. They don't teach you to be happy all the time. They teach you about how to deal with things when you are not happy." But Seal does have its critics. Frank Furedi, Professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Therapy Culture, has cautioned that children are more likely to develop emotional problems if they are encouraged to become obsessed with their emotions.
Source
CLIMATE HYSTERIA TEARING BRITISH TORIES APART
A ROW has broken out between leading Conservatives over plans to impose taxes on air travel, gas-guzzling cars and other environmentally damaging forms of transport. The proposals are contained in the party's long-awaited Quality of Life report, which will inform the Conservatives' policies on the environment, transport, food, energy and waste. It is expected to recommend the imposition of VAT [sales tax] on fuel for domestic flights and incentives to persuade air passengers to switch to trains for trips around Britain and northern Europe. It will also promote a big increase in cycling by making local authorities provide more cycle lanes and offering free bikes in cities.
The report, drawn up by Zac Goldsmith and John Gummer, is not due for publication until next week but John Redwood, a leading rightwinger, will launch an opening salvo today against some of its expected proposals, warning Gummer and Goldsmith "they need to steer a very careful course".
In an interview with GMTV, he will warn against a freeze on airport expansion, saying: "Airports are particularly important to Britain's economic growth." He will also attack plans to tax air travel, arguing that such taxes would cause "an economic loss" without "a green gain" since travellers could choose to fly from foreign airports. "You need to accept that there is going to be some airport and air travel growth and if it doesn't happen here, it'll happen elsewhere."
Goldsmith's supporters make it clear that the real differences between them and Redwood go much further than aviation. They are about the party's core beliefs in an era when climate change and quality of life rival the economy in importance. "We need to strike a new balance on these issues," said shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth. "We need a grown-up debate to work out how to reconcile competition with protecting the environment."
FULL STORY here
NHS fiddles the books
The health service is set to record a surplus of nearly 1 billion pounds this year after desperate measures turned its finances around. David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, has predicted a surplus of 983 million in 2007-08, up from 510 million in 2006-07. It is a rapid turnaround from the 54 million deficit recorded in 2005-06 that blighted Patricia Hewitt’s term as Health Secretary.
The number of NHS organisations in deficit has fallen sharply, with only 22 of 341 expecting not to show a surplus by the end of the year. However, some of these 22 organisations have seen their deficits grow. Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust, for example, is expecting a 22.7 million deficit at the end of 2007-08, up from 17.8 million the previous year. A few organisations, including the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and the East of England Strategic Health Authority, are expected to slip into the red for the first time.
The forecast 983 million surplus would be ploughed back into patient care, Mr Nicholson said. The NHS gross deficit - the total deficit of individual organisations - is expected to be £204 million this financial year, down from 911 million in 2006-07. The Prime Minister said that the turnaround meant that the Government could now put money into other areas of the NHS. Gordon Brown said: “We are talking about more access, more money to tackle hospital infections and measures to ensure people get the best personal care. “People know that the health service has 80,000 more nurses and 20,000 more doctors and we are building more hospitals. Some have already been completed. People do understand the health service is getting better but it is going to get even better.” Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, said: “We have to stay within budgets. This means we have got a surplus of 1.3 per cent of the total budget, which is just about where it should be. We can spend that money on additional services. That money belongs to the NHS.”
But critics said that the Government should also count the cost of getting back into balance. Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “In our view, freezing and deleting health workers’ posts, cutting services to patients and raiding training budgets is not the right way to balance the books. “We now have a curious situation where the NHS is forecasting a surplus of nearly 1 billion but is unable to find jobs for thousands of newly qualified nurses desperate to put their skills and commitment to work. “At the same time, nurses already working on hospital wards and in the community have seen their workloads increase as they are expected to do ever more with even fewer resources. “If there is taxpayers’ money lying idle in NHS banks accounts, let us put it to good use by investing it in front-line staff and getting thousands of newly qualified nurses into work.”
Stephen O’Brien, the Shadow Health Minister, said: “How can it be right for strategic health authorities to hold back money from local hospitals when they are fighting to keep services open?” Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, said: “The question now is, what is going to be done with the surplus? We would like crucial budgets to be restored, and longer-term, cost-effective policies to be adopted. In future, it’s important that we don’t go through a further turmoil of boom and bust.”
Source
HOW IT USED TO BE:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold
HOW IT IS NOW:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food. The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome". Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge or squirrels to enter inner London.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.
The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and redistributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home.
The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain's apparent love of dogs. The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody.
Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people's credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug 'illness'.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery. A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost 10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased.
The asylum-seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Britain's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats. The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose.
The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom. The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
Another British "social work" horror
Threat by secret court to take new-born. Big Brother knows best
A pregnant woman has been told that her baby will be taken from her at birth because she is deemed capable of "emotional abuse", even though psychiatrists treating her say there is no evidence to suggest that she will harm her child in any way.
Social services' recommendation that the baby should be taken from Fran Lyon, a 22-year-old charity worker who has five A-levels and a degree in neuroscience, was based in part on a letter from a paediatrician she has never met.
Hexham children's services, part of Northumberland County Council, said the decision had been made because Miss Lyon was likely to suffer from Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy, a condition unproven by science in which a mother will make up an illness in her child, or harm it, to draw attention to herself. Under the plan, a doctor will hand the newborn to a social worker, provided there are no medical complications. Social services' request for an emergency protection order - these are usually granted - will be heard in secret in the family court at Hexham magistrates on the same day. From then on, anyone discussing the case, including Miss Lyon, will be deemed to be in contempt of the court.
Miss Lyon, from Hexham, who is five months pregnant, is seeking a judicial review of the decision about Molly, as she calls her baby. She described it as "barbaric and draconian", and said it was "scandalous" that social services had not accepted submissions supporting her case. "The paediatrician has never met me," she said. "He is not a psychiatrist and cannot possibly make assertions about my current or future mental health. Yet his letter was the only one considered in the case conference on August 16 which lasted just 10 minutes." Northumberland County Council insists that two highly experienced doctors - another consultant paediatrician and a medical consultant - attended the case conference.
The case adds to growing concern, highlighted in a series of articles in The Sunday Telegraph, over a huge rise in the number of babies under a year old being taken from parents. The figure was 2,000 last year, three times the number 10 years ago. Critics say councils are taking more babies from parents to help them meet adoption "targets".
John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of the Justice for Families campaign group, said the case showed "exactly what is wrong with public family law". He added: "There is absolutely no evidence that Fran would harm her child. However, a vague letter from a paediatrician who has never met her has been used in a decision to remove her baby at birth, while evidence from professionals treating her, that she would have no problems has been ignored." Mr Hemming was concerned that "vague assertions" of Munchausen's Syndrome by proxy - now known as "fabricated and invented illness" - had been used to remove a number of children from parents in the North-East.
Miss Lyon came under scrutiny because she had a mental health problem when she was 16 after being physically and emotionally abused by her father and raped by a stranger. She suffered eating disorders and self-harm but, after therapy, graduated from Edinburgh University and now works for two mental health charities, Borderline and Personality Plus.
Dr Stella Newrith, a consultant psychiatrist, who treated Miss Lyon for her childhood trauma for a year, wrote to Northumberland social services stating: "There has never been any clinical evidence to suggest that Fran would put herself or others at risk, and there is certainly no evidence to suggest that she would put a child at risk of emotional, physical or sexual harm."
Despite this support, endorsed by other psychiatrists and Miss Lyon's GP, social services based their recommendation partly on a letter from Dr Martin Ward Platt, a consultant paediatrician, who was unable to attend the meeting. He wrote: "Even in the absence of a psychological assessment, if the professionals were concerned on the evidence available that Miss Holton (as Miss Lyon was briefly known), probably does fabricate or induce illness, there would be no option but the precautionary principle of taking the baby into foster care at birth, pending a post-natal forensic psychological assessment."
Miss Lyon said she was determined to fight the decision. "I know I can be a good mother to Molly. I just want the chance to prove it," she said. The council said the recommendation would be subject to further assessment and review. "When making such difficult decisions, safeguarding children is our foremost priority," a spokesman said.
* A recording of social workers threatening to take a newborn into care has been removed from the YouTube website after Calderdale Council in West Yorkshire started legal action, claiming the Data Protection Act was breached. Vanessa Brookes, 34, taped social workers telling her and her husband that they would seek to place the baby, due next month, in care, while admitting there was "no immediate risk to the child."
Source
"Healthier" British school meals 'a failure'
Thousands of pupils have been shunning school meals since the Jamie Oliver inspired crusade to make them healthier, it was claimed. Atotal of 428,000 children rejected food cooked at school in the two years after the campaign was launched in 2005, according to the Liberal Democrats. They said two-thirds of secondary and 60 per cent of primary school pupils do not now eat meals provided by schools. The Government launched the crusade after TV chef Oliver attacked school meals for being junk-food based.
Lib Dem schools spokesman David Laws said: 'These figures show the English school meals service is in meltdown. 'The new standards for healthier school meals have been introduced too quickly, too inflexibly and with too little education of pupils and parents.' He added that prices of school meals 'have been rising too quickly'.
Kevin Brennan, the minister responsible for school meals, defended the scheme. 'It is true there has been a dip in take-up in some secondary schools, but some have actually seen an increase,' he said.
Source
Happiness lessons: What crap
The latest looniness from Britain. Anything that is not objectively assessable they love. After all, they are extraordinarily bad at teaching things that ARE objectively assessable, like the "3Rs"
Feeling down today? OK, let's talk about how you feel and start again. With this touchy-feely approach, the Government is hoping to bring about a revolution in the classroom. Today Ed Balls, the Education Secretary, will announce that lessons in happiness, wellbeing and good manners are to be introduced in all state secondary schools. The initiative follows an extensive pilot of a programme called Seal (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) in primary schools, which has been found to boost both academic performance and discipline by helping children to better understand their emotions.
[Assessed under "double-blind" conditions? Not if it is like most educational "research". So any benefit was probably a "Hawthorne Effect". It now seems generally agreed that there was no Hawthorne effect at the Hawthorne plant but we know something close to it as the placebo effect -- possibly the best documented therapeutic effect in medicine. The basic lesson of the Hawthorne study was that any changes made with enthusiasm had some benefit.]
The adoption of "wellbeing" classes by state schools suggests that emotional intelligence - a term coined in 1995 by psychologists in Britain - has now become entrenched firmly in the educational mainstream. Ministers are convinced that teaching children to express their feelings, manage their anger and empathise with other people makes for a calmer school and boosts concentration and motivation.
It is not just the pupils that benefit. Research published today by the Institute of Education (IoE) into the effect of Seal in primary schools indicates that it is equally beneficial for teachers, reducing their stress levels and boosting their enthusiasm for study. The approach includes wellbeing assemblies and one-to-one sessions in which pupils may, for example, be told a story about a personal conflict that they are then encouraged to discuss.
The wellbeing ethos will be incorporated into all lessons and even into playtime through the use of positive phrases and ideas, such as "OK, let's start again" and "people like me succeed". Susan Hallam, author of the IoE research, suggested that the Seal programme was the perfect antidote to the intense pressure imposed on schools by the testing regime and exam league tables. "Most of the effort in recent years has been on academic work. Seal gives teachers and pupils permission to think about things that are not academic. It allows them to take time to consider how they think about themselves and others," she said.
Professor Hallam evaluated the impact of the Seal in a sample of primary schools from 25 local authorities that used the programme between 2003 and 2005. The programme had seven themes including, "good to be me", "getting on and falling out" and "relationships". Finding that the programme helped them to understand their pupils, teachers noticed that they were shouting less and resolving conflicts more easily. Queues of naughty children outside the head teachers' offices diminished or disappeared entirely. Because the children were more relaxed, their learning, motivation, willing to interact with those from different backgrounds and cultures," Professor Hallam said. Children's behaviour at home also changed: they tidied up without being asked and had fewer confrontations with their siblings.
Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College in Berkshire, who has pioneered wellbeing classes in the independent school sector, said the approach was based on hard evidence. "We know much more about how to teach children to be emotionally resilient and self-reliant and to be able to manage their emotions than we did. Even ten years ago there was no empirical evidence to support this approach, but now there is," he said.
Oli Marjot, 16, who took wellbeing lessons at Wellington last year, said: "The wellbeing lessons were a pool of calm. They don't teach you to be happy all the time. They teach you about how to deal with things when you are not happy." But Seal does have its critics. Frank Furedi, Professor of sociology at Kent University and author of Therapy Culture, has cautioned that children are more likely to develop emotional problems if they are encouraged to become obsessed with their emotions.
Source
CLIMATE HYSTERIA TEARING BRITISH TORIES APART
A ROW has broken out between leading Conservatives over plans to impose taxes on air travel, gas-guzzling cars and other environmentally damaging forms of transport. The proposals are contained in the party's long-awaited Quality of Life report, which will inform the Conservatives' policies on the environment, transport, food, energy and waste. It is expected to recommend the imposition of VAT [sales tax] on fuel for domestic flights and incentives to persuade air passengers to switch to trains for trips around Britain and northern Europe. It will also promote a big increase in cycling by making local authorities provide more cycle lanes and offering free bikes in cities.
The report, drawn up by Zac Goldsmith and John Gummer, is not due for publication until next week but John Redwood, a leading rightwinger, will launch an opening salvo today against some of its expected proposals, warning Gummer and Goldsmith "they need to steer a very careful course".
In an interview with GMTV, he will warn against a freeze on airport expansion, saying: "Airports are particularly important to Britain's economic growth." He will also attack plans to tax air travel, arguing that such taxes would cause "an economic loss" without "a green gain" since travellers could choose to fly from foreign airports. "You need to accept that there is going to be some airport and air travel growth and if it doesn't happen here, it'll happen elsewhere."
Goldsmith's supporters make it clear that the real differences between them and Redwood go much further than aviation. They are about the party's core beliefs in an era when climate change and quality of life rival the economy in importance. "We need to strike a new balance on these issues," said shadow environment secretary Peter Ainsworth. "We need a grown-up debate to work out how to reconcile competition with protecting the environment."
FULL STORY here
NHS fiddles the books
The health service is set to record a surplus of nearly 1 billion pounds this year after desperate measures turned its finances around. David Nicholson, the chief executive of the NHS, has predicted a surplus of 983 million in 2007-08, up from 510 million in 2006-07. It is a rapid turnaround from the 54 million deficit recorded in 2005-06 that blighted Patricia Hewitt’s term as Health Secretary.
The number of NHS organisations in deficit has fallen sharply, with only 22 of 341 expecting not to show a surplus by the end of the year. However, some of these 22 organisations have seen their deficits grow. Leicestershire County and Rutland Primary Care Trust, for example, is expecting a 22.7 million deficit at the end of 2007-08, up from 17.8 million the previous year. A few organisations, including the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust and the East of England Strategic Health Authority, are expected to slip into the red for the first time.
The forecast 983 million surplus would be ploughed back into patient care, Mr Nicholson said. The NHS gross deficit - the total deficit of individual organisations - is expected to be £204 million this financial year, down from 911 million in 2006-07. The Prime Minister said that the turnaround meant that the Government could now put money into other areas of the NHS. Gordon Brown said: “We are talking about more access, more money to tackle hospital infections and measures to ensure people get the best personal care. “People know that the health service has 80,000 more nurses and 20,000 more doctors and we are building more hospitals. Some have already been completed. People do understand the health service is getting better but it is going to get even better.” Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, said: “We have to stay within budgets. This means we have got a surplus of 1.3 per cent of the total budget, which is just about where it should be. We can spend that money on additional services. That money belongs to the NHS.”
But critics said that the Government should also count the cost of getting back into balance. Peter Carter, general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, said: “In our view, freezing and deleting health workers’ posts, cutting services to patients and raiding training budgets is not the right way to balance the books. “We now have a curious situation where the NHS is forecasting a surplus of nearly 1 billion but is unable to find jobs for thousands of newly qualified nurses desperate to put their skills and commitment to work. “At the same time, nurses already working on hospital wards and in the community have seen their workloads increase as they are expected to do ever more with even fewer resources. “If there is taxpayers’ money lying idle in NHS banks accounts, let us put it to good use by investing it in front-line staff and getting thousands of newly qualified nurses into work.”
Stephen O’Brien, the Shadow Health Minister, said: “How can it be right for strategic health authorities to hold back money from local hospitals when they are fighting to keep services open?” Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association, said: “The question now is, what is going to be done with the surplus? We would like crucial budgets to be restored, and longer-term, cost-effective policies to be adopted. In future, it’s important that we don’t go through a further turmoil of boom and bust.”
Source
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
British class hate underlies many "environmental" causes
I wonder would British snobs be able to relate to the triumphant working-class culture here. They would be pathetic human beings to sneer at it but I suspect that they would sneer. Just the compere's hat would be deeply offensive to them. I suspect that a lot of American environmentalism is snobbish too. The Hollywood version does come to mind
This column is ... about the hate that dare not speak its name: class hatred. It is about hate-by-proxy: the distaste (I share it) for Dianamania, the dislike of supermarkets, the hatred (I'm not immune to it) of redtops [popular newspapers], the shudder (mine, sometimes) at low-cost airlines . . . all these allergens in the very air the top half of society must breathe have something in common. They remind us of the mob. I submit that, however weak or strong the justifications we may offer for our disapproval of a variety of features of what might be called mass culture, these various antipathies are inflamed by a single, secret anxiety, as old as the French Revolution, which in modern democracy we find it hard to acknowledge: fear of the common people.
Let's start with supermarkets: a touchy subject in modern Britain. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. "Supermarkets -- love 'em or loathe 'em" ran the intro to Jon Manel's series of discussions on the BBC Today programme, running all week. You'd have thought we were encountering one of the great questions of our time, the kind of debate that pits village against village and tears families apart: slavery, the Irish Question, Suez, Iraq, and Tesco.
Which is odd, because the series featured a specially commissioned poll whose most notable finding was that 79 per cent of respondents liked supermarkets. Among a curmudgeonly public it doesn't get much better than this: chocolate-covered cream puffs, Mother Teresa or a beach holiday in the Caribbean would be unlikely to outperform the British supermarket industry's 79 per cent approval-rating. So why, like a recurring theme through public debate in recent decades, does "down with supermarkets" keep elbowing its way into commentary and news? If I hadn't guessed already, a packed public meeting in Andover (where the radio programme took us) protesting against a proposed Tesco warehouse development, gave the game away to any listener with an ear for English accents.
People at the Andover meeting sounded posh. We heard none speaking with anything other than Received Pronunciation. Odd, for I know Andover; my nana lived there, and she had nothing against Tesco. But she was called Nana, not Gran, and that should alert you to something about the majority not present. Nana wasn't, and they aren't, posh. I have checked my hunch with locals and it was right: the driving force behind opposition to this development comes from the better-off: from the villages around the town; not from the estates and housing developments in the town itself.
Dislike of supermarkets is an overwhelmingly middle-to-upper-middle-class phenomenon. All classes use supermarkets, but it is the top half of society that voices (and genuinely feels) a distaste for them. Why? The same question may be asked about the wave of revulsion (I share it) that swept the middle-to-upper echelons of society after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when images of public grief and crowd sentimentality dominated the news. Little had changed yesterday, ten years on. The accents among the crowds were rough. Those voicing distaste for Dianamania were well spoken. This was a well-born woman but the common people loved her and mourned her loss, and the Establishment dislikes both their love and their grief. Why?
And do you remember the arrival in Britain of satellite television? At first its big selling point was sport - football and boxing - plus American cartoons like The Simpsons; and its initial market penetration was stronger on council estates than country estates. With it came satellite dishes: inoffensive objects, a good deal more tasteful and less prominent than the ugly metal TV aerials already on almost every roof. Yet there were endless complaints and letters to broadsheet newspapers, and in some places the dishes were for a while banned as aesthetically unacceptable. Why?
Today we have low-cost airlines like Ryanair and easyJet. With them has come cheap-flight-phobia. My observation as a frequent Ryanair flier is that the better-off use these flights more or less in proportion to our comparative numbers, and a flight to Perpignan or Girona is typically a fair cross-section of British society. It is also, typically, full, with minimum leg-room and restricted luggage, and therefore (in pints of fuel per pound of flesh) the second-most-environmentally friendly form of flight (after hang-gliding) known to man. This has not prevented an often scathing campaign against the whole idea of cheap flights. Among voices raised in this cause I have yet to hear a working-class accent.
Luton is a more efficient and less bothersome airport than Heathrow, yet people I know affect disdain at the idea of flying from there. Why? You have only to remind yourself of the horror expressed by the educated in the 19th century at the advent of railways (Wordsworth shudders at the idea that any fool in Bakewell could be in Buxton in half an hour, and vice versa) to understand their modern counterparts' excess of eco-sensitivity in the face of cheap flying.
You have only to read the 18th-century coffee shop derision at the mass hysteria of the grieving London mob at the hanging of the Rev Dr Dodd to understand modern Highgate's horror of Dianamania. To understand today's snootiness about Tesco, recall the early 20th century's snootiness about the very idea of cooperative stores. Popular newssheets have appalled the well-bred since popular newssheets began. The Hillsborough tragedy brought mountains of wreaths nearly a decade before Diana.
Diana's death did not change Britain. It reminded the modern Establishment of its deep insecurity in the face of the English mob: an object of fear, wonder and distaste since long before Spanish travellers returned to the imperial court in Madrid with horror stories of rough and volatile crowds who shouted in public and kissed and embraced each other in front of strangers. Ever since the French Revolution the top half of English society has glanced nervously at the crowd outside the window and muttered "could it happen here?".
We don't really trust democracy. We don't really like our countrymen. We no longer dare say so, not directly. So we sneer at their shops, shudder at their newspapers, disapprove of their means of mobility, find their joys tasteless and recoil even from their grief.
Mock tacky TV soap-opera all you like - and then tune in to The Archers; joke about shell suits [jogging gear] then fork out for silk; bemoan the greenhouse gas emissions of a cheap flight then emit four times as much flying business class. But don't pretend this is about quality or worth, the environment, taste or even beauty. It's partly about class. It always has been. It still is.
Source
NHS too busy treating foreigners to treat Brits promptly
British maternity services are notoriously deficient -- with far too few staff for the demand. Is it any wonder when so many foreigners come to Britain to give birth at no charge?
A confidential internal report on health tourism estimates that the bill for treating foreign patients amounts to at least 62 million pounds a year, The Times has learnt. The figure is “bound to be an underestimate” since new rules intended to prevent the abuse of the NHS by foreign patients are being ignored, according to the report. A survey has found that NHS managers are failing to ensure patients are asked to prove their eligibility and are chasing only around half of the debts owed. The findings suggest that taxpayers are picking up hospital bills for foreign patients that come to more than 30 million a year. Some of the 62 million is paid back by the patients.
The Government promised a crack-down three years ago. Hospitals were told to charge patients who were found not to be resident in Britain or from countries with reciprocal arrangements. John Hutton, when he was a health minister, said in April 2004: “I expect trusts to make enforcement of the regulations part of their core business.” Ministers have repeatedly refused to answer questions on how much health tourism costs the NHS, claiming that statistics are not collected on the number of patients treated who are not entitled to free care.
The scale of abuse was estimated internally following the introduction of the new regulations. The Department of Health last week lost an 18-month battle to suppress findings of an internal report when they were released to the Conservative MP Ben Wallace under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to the first official estimates the documentbears out previously anecdotal suggestions that maternity and HIV services are being targeted. “Maternity . . . was frequently mentioned as an issue,” the report states. The problem uncovered by the survey, carried out in late 2004 to early 2005, was so acute that officials suggested that the Government contacted air-lines to ask them to prevent heavily pregnant women from flying to the UK from Nigeria, India or Pakistan.
Treatment for HIV was “widely recognised to be a problem area” with clinicians “hostile” to the idea of charging foreign patients. Department of Health officials found that the manager responsible for checking eligibility “was not welcome” in one hospital’s HIV ward. “We are currently being criticised by the the Terrence Higgins Trust without actually charging many people or collecting the money,” the official notes.
Last night a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said that it refused to accept the findings of its own report, insisting that it was based on a sample of only 12 trusts. She claimed that the “situation is much better than it was three years ago” but conceded that the department could not produce figures to prove it. She added: “We are in the middle of a review with the Home Office, which is looking at tightening up enforcement of the regulations.”
Mr Wallace, who uncovered the report, said: “This Government is conniving at a ‘Don’t ask, don’t charge and don’t chase’ policy that is leaving the NHS wide open to abuse.”
Source
Cheap drug could save diabetics' lives
The effect sounds very weak. May not be real at all
Thousands of lives could be saved in Britain if a blood pressure treatment that costs 50p a day was used to treat obese patients with type 2 diabetes, an international research team said yesterday.The drug also has virtually no unwanted side-effects. [Unlikely to have any main effects, then]
A study of more than 11,000 patients with type 2 diabetes found that patients who were put on Coversyl Plus were 18 per cent less likely to die from heart-related illnesses than if they were not taking the drug.
There are two million people with type 2 diabetes in Britain. The condition is caused mainly by obesity [What crap. It's mostly genetic] and the number of sufferers is expected to increase. The study, presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Cardiology in Vienna, suggested that if all British patients with type 2 diabetes were placed on the drug, 22,500 deaths could be prevented within the next five years.
Researchers said that if the drug were given to half of the sufferers of type 2 diabetes worldwide, more than a million deaths could be avoided in the same period.
Source
Oppressive Leftist contempt for the morality of mainstream people
Post below lifted from David Thompson. See the original for links
Further to this and the comments following this post, I mentioned the mismatch of certain leftist moral markers with aspects of traditional working class / bourgeois morality:
There's another illustration in today's Observer, in John Lloyd's review of Andrew Anthony's book, "The Fall-Out: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence":
What's interesting here, and illustrative of a much wider phenomenon, is Jowell's apparent readiness to frame the issue in terms of racism, and Anthony's own apprehension regarding how a person might seem in certain kinds of company. And, again, there's something grimly amusing about those who most loudly profess to care for "the proletariat" showing sneery disregard for the views and moral values of that same group of people.
BOOK REVIEW of "The Fall-Out: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence" by Andrew Anthony
This is the book of an angry man who, in early middle age, has discovered that much of what he wrote, spoke about and believed that he believed has become hollow. Andrew Anthony's belief was in that set of instincts, reactions and responses that is usually described as left-liberalism, held, with varying degrees of tenacity, by a very large proportion of the British population, especially the educated middle class.
This belief is amorphous: it does not have the relatively sharp lineaments of a definite ideology, such as the various forms of revolutionary socialism. Marxism, and the regimes that ruled in its name, were by the Eighties clearly failing and often horrific, at least in their unacknowledged pasts. They were also easy to define, with fairly precise contours.
Liberal leftism, by contrast, is a state of mind, a social marker, a moral attitude. It is thus more difficult to hold up to the light, to examine what should be retained, what jettisoned. Former communists could and often did embrace a robust form of liberalism as a relief from excusing actual dictatorships or endorsing future ones. Because they had been communists, they had been constrained to accept at least a proxy responsibility for the actions of tyrannies and most of them, at least by the Eighties, when even general secretaries of the Communist party of the Soviet Union were pointing out past atrocities, wanted out.
But liberal leftism has no gulags, corrective psychiatric wards or re-education centres on its conscience: indeed, it recoils from such things. It has no party, no country, nothing that can tie it down and nothing for which it can be blamed. Until the last few years, it was not challenged from within. Now, with such recent works as Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, Nick Cohen's What's Left? and Christopher Hitchens passim, it has some accounting to make of itself. Andrew Anthony's book takes its place with these, on their level for intelligence and intensity.
Left liberals are not now, for the most part, socialists in any organisational sense, but they at least admire those who still call themselves so, and are prepared to extend understanding to the former Soviet Union as to the present regimes in China, Cuba and Venezuela (North Korea is going a bit far). In one of the many vivid passages in this coruscating book, Anthony describes an idealistic working holiday in Nicaragua in 1988, some years after the Marxist-led Sandinistas took power. By now a fully fledged left liberal, he was nevertheless uneasily aware of problems which were not merely ascribable to poverty and the brutality of the former Somoza dictatorship, but were those of a new government which had made the peasants' economic lot in some ways worse through collectivisation, which encouraged mob justice and which committed and denied many atrocities.
At the same time, the Sandinistas had defeated a foul dictatorship, given ordinary people dignity and purpose and defied an America supporting its local bastard in the shape of Somoza. What Anthony dimly recognised, and what was to finally be driven home to him by 9/11 and its aftermath, was that here was a contradictory experience: the Sandinistas were in some ways better, in some ways worse, in some ways the same as the old regime. But that observable common sense was and is, for his former brand of politics, a forbidden conclusion. 'To question your friends was by definition to aid the enemy,' he writes.
Anthony uses an account of his early years as a vivid, emotively charged account of a working class-born, council house-raised and comprehensive school-educated boy who came to question his parents' outlook. In one instance cited, his mother asked her local councillor why it was that she, a model tenant for many years, had become a much lower priority for rehousing than a newly arrived immigrant family. The councillor to whom Mrs Anthony complained was Tessa Jowell, until recently Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; she gave her complaining constituent 'a brusque lecture on racism'.
This vignette recalls progressive, especially London, politics of the Seventies and Eighties, where largely middle-class politicians of the left did do good, did keep the local machines going, but with an overlay of moralising political correctness which assumed prejudice on the part of a white working class and innocence on the part of those with darker skins. In a comment which must be a painful memory, Anthony observes that at university, his 'enlightened concern was that she [his mother] didn't do or say anything that could be construed as racist ... I was now outside, like an anthropologist, looking in'.
With a similar, if rural, experience of growing up, getting out and looking back with contempt, I was hugely impressed and moved by the sad delicacy of his recreation of his mother, the regret that she should have been a victim of his newly adopted radical disapproval.
Two issues loom large. One is the Evil Empire. For the liberal left, America has become the 'prejudice of choice for those who pride themselves on their lack of prejudice'. He gets at Americanophobia through an Americanophobic who is American: film-maker and writer Michael Moore, whose depressingly manipulative Fahrenheit 9/11 was lauded all over Europe. Moore, whom he has interviewed, emerges as a boastful, bloated and hypocritical figure, who excuses every contradiction by the formula: 'I'm from the working class.'
Like Chomsky, Moore plays to and helps to organise world opinion against his country, on the basis of cartoon-like pastiches of its nature and actions. Anthony asks liberals to pose themselves this (the correct) question: 'What would the world look like with a different superpower?' And gives his answer: 'If we look at the real world alternatives the 20th century threw up - the British and French empires, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union [and now, he might have added, the growing power of China] - then the US begins to look quite benign'.
The second large issue is Islam. Anthony has interviewed a range of Islamic figures, including Yusuf Islam, the former pop singer Cat Stevens, who has poured some of his wealth into a Muslim school whose stated aim is to give its pupils an all-enveloping Islamic education, so that its pupils will be Muslim first and last.
For Anthony, this sealing off of the Muslim experience, the at best ambiguous, sometimes joyous, reactions to 9/11 and 7/7, the insistence of many Muslims of seeing themselves as victims - all point to a leadership of European Islam which is not, or too little, concerned with integration, understanding and the genuine multiculturalism which includes frank examination and discussion of differing cultures.
He keeps his anger level high by reminding himself and us of the attitudes of the clan from which he has defected: the guilty liberals. His constant argument, running through the book, is with other liberal-leftist journalists, especially on the Guardian, such as Madeleine Bunting, Seumas Milne and Gary Younge, writers who still believe what he once did. Guilt, he says, has eviscerated their liberalism - and turned it into a permanent form of appeasement of ideologies, personalities and actions which are, by true liberals' own lights, insupportable.
'European liberalism,' he concludes, 'is again confronted with the threat of religious censorship and, moreover, violence. Sometimes, it seems as if the struggle for the Enlightenment will have to be fought all over again, but that's only because too many liberals appear too cowed or constrained by the diktats of post-colonial discourse [translation: guilt] to assert the importance of reason and robust intellectual debate.'
Anthony came to feel, quite properly, a different kind of guilt: the guilt of one who, in turning his back on his upbringing, had closed off what was of value in it for himself or, at least, what should have excited sympathetic understanding, if not always agreement. The guilty liberalism he excoriates, in a book that retains a force and a passion and an insistence that you examine the thoughts you think that you think through some 300 finely written pages, is not a definition of the contemporary left, but a barrier to its development.
Source
David Cameron wobbled, but didn't fall
By Iain Dale
During the last general election campaign, the Conservatives deployed a series of billboard posters with the slogan: "It's not racist to talk about immigration".
Never a truer word spoken, but all the same I thought it was reprehensible that a Tory poster should have the word "racist" on it, as it appeared to give some credence to Labour's accusation that they were somehow extreme, or closet racists. I made myself very unpopular with Conservative Central Office when I told them that, if they put it up in the constituency I was standing in, I would personally rip it down.
So to wake up yesterday to headlines of "Cameron gets tough on immigration" was a slight shock. I have no problem with being tough on immigration and taking measures to secure our borders, and I have no problem with David Cameron saying so either. But the way it was being reported you'd have thought Michael Howard was back in charge. "Return to the core vote" and "lurch to the Right" were just two of the more colourful phrases being used. And all because Cameron had the temerity to answer a reasonable question on Newsnight in a reasonable way. He made the rational point that our borders need to be secure and that insecure borders led to mass immigration, which our public services infrastructure has found difficult to cope with. He also said that new transitional measures may be needed to cope with further influxes from new EU members.
He was asked about Margaret Thatcher's use of the phrase "swamped" to describe immigration in the 1970s and said he would not have used that phrase. He was calm, collected and rational in all his answers. A lurch to the Right? I don't think so.
The Dizzy Thinks blog reckons that framing new immigration within the prism of public services is a masterstroke of "Clintonian" triangulation. It makes it very difficult for the Left to criticise what Cameron is saying, as it would appear that it doesn't care about the quality of public services. No dog whistles there, because the tactic enables Cameron to sound eminently reasonable to centre-ground voters and refute the persistent Labour accusation that any Tory who dares to talk about immigration must by definition be a racist. So, in a week when Cameron has announced tough proposals on law and order, reiterated his support for a European referendum and talked about immigration, it might be easy to see all this as falling into the trap of talking to an audience of Tory supporters. This is to misread what he is doing.
Crime will be one of the top three issues at the election. Talking tough on crime, but at the same time looking at social policies that can help the most deprived areas in our country, is what Mark Oaten used to call "tough liberalism", but David Davis prefers to call "tough love". It's also another classic piece of political triangulation, in that it appeals to people whose instincts might be to support another political party, but makes them sit up and think. This strategy is already working with GPs and hospital doctors, 48 per cent of whom now intend to vote Conservative. When Stephen Dorrell's public services commission report is published on Tuesday, expect to see a similar strategy relating to teachers and other public servants. The public sector has grown to such an extent over the past decade that any politician who wants to win an election needs the public sector vote, too.
The main lesson to draw from recent events is that David Cameron is a politician of remarkable tenacity. There used to be an advert for a children's toy called a Weeble. It was impossible to knock over and the slogan its owners used was: "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down". No one would deny that there has been a wobble over the summer, but if the past 10 days are anything to go by, David Cameron has grabbed back the initiative from a remarkably silent Gordon Brown. He has also displayed great resilience, and that should be of great comfort to Conservatives who were beginning to lose heart.
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I wonder would British snobs be able to relate to the triumphant working-class culture here. They would be pathetic human beings to sneer at it but I suspect that they would sneer. Just the compere's hat would be deeply offensive to them. I suspect that a lot of American environmentalism is snobbish too. The Hollywood version does come to mind
This column is ... about the hate that dare not speak its name: class hatred. It is about hate-by-proxy: the distaste (I share it) for Dianamania, the dislike of supermarkets, the hatred (I'm not immune to it) of redtops [popular newspapers], the shudder (mine, sometimes) at low-cost airlines . . . all these allergens in the very air the top half of society must breathe have something in common. They remind us of the mob. I submit that, however weak or strong the justifications we may offer for our disapproval of a variety of features of what might be called mass culture, these various antipathies are inflamed by a single, secret anxiety, as old as the French Revolution, which in modern democracy we find it hard to acknowledge: fear of the common people.
Let's start with supermarkets: a touchy subject in modern Britain. Or so the conventional wisdom goes. "Supermarkets -- love 'em or loathe 'em" ran the intro to Jon Manel's series of discussions on the BBC Today programme, running all week. You'd have thought we were encountering one of the great questions of our time, the kind of debate that pits village against village and tears families apart: slavery, the Irish Question, Suez, Iraq, and Tesco.
Which is odd, because the series featured a specially commissioned poll whose most notable finding was that 79 per cent of respondents liked supermarkets. Among a curmudgeonly public it doesn't get much better than this: chocolate-covered cream puffs, Mother Teresa or a beach holiday in the Caribbean would be unlikely to outperform the British supermarket industry's 79 per cent approval-rating. So why, like a recurring theme through public debate in recent decades, does "down with supermarkets" keep elbowing its way into commentary and news? If I hadn't guessed already, a packed public meeting in Andover (where the radio programme took us) protesting against a proposed Tesco warehouse development, gave the game away to any listener with an ear for English accents.
People at the Andover meeting sounded posh. We heard none speaking with anything other than Received Pronunciation. Odd, for I know Andover; my nana lived there, and she had nothing against Tesco. But she was called Nana, not Gran, and that should alert you to something about the majority not present. Nana wasn't, and they aren't, posh. I have checked my hunch with locals and it was right: the driving force behind opposition to this development comes from the better-off: from the villages around the town; not from the estates and housing developments in the town itself.
Dislike of supermarkets is an overwhelmingly middle-to-upper-middle-class phenomenon. All classes use supermarkets, but it is the top half of society that voices (and genuinely feels) a distaste for them. Why? The same question may be asked about the wave of revulsion (I share it) that swept the middle-to-upper echelons of society after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, when images of public grief and crowd sentimentality dominated the news. Little had changed yesterday, ten years on. The accents among the crowds were rough. Those voicing distaste for Dianamania were well spoken. This was a well-born woman but the common people loved her and mourned her loss, and the Establishment dislikes both their love and their grief. Why?
And do you remember the arrival in Britain of satellite television? At first its big selling point was sport - football and boxing - plus American cartoons like The Simpsons; and its initial market penetration was stronger on council estates than country estates. With it came satellite dishes: inoffensive objects, a good deal more tasteful and less prominent than the ugly metal TV aerials already on almost every roof. Yet there were endless complaints and letters to broadsheet newspapers, and in some places the dishes were for a while banned as aesthetically unacceptable. Why?
Today we have low-cost airlines like Ryanair and easyJet. With them has come cheap-flight-phobia. My observation as a frequent Ryanair flier is that the better-off use these flights more or less in proportion to our comparative numbers, and a flight to Perpignan or Girona is typically a fair cross-section of British society. It is also, typically, full, with minimum leg-room and restricted luggage, and therefore (in pints of fuel per pound of flesh) the second-most-environmentally friendly form of flight (after hang-gliding) known to man. This has not prevented an often scathing campaign against the whole idea of cheap flights. Among voices raised in this cause I have yet to hear a working-class accent.
Luton is a more efficient and less bothersome airport than Heathrow, yet people I know affect disdain at the idea of flying from there. Why? You have only to remind yourself of the horror expressed by the educated in the 19th century at the advent of railways (Wordsworth shudders at the idea that any fool in Bakewell could be in Buxton in half an hour, and vice versa) to understand their modern counterparts' excess of eco-sensitivity in the face of cheap flying.
You have only to read the 18th-century coffee shop derision at the mass hysteria of the grieving London mob at the hanging of the Rev Dr Dodd to understand modern Highgate's horror of Dianamania. To understand today's snootiness about Tesco, recall the early 20th century's snootiness about the very idea of cooperative stores. Popular newssheets have appalled the well-bred since popular newssheets began. The Hillsborough tragedy brought mountains of wreaths nearly a decade before Diana.
Diana's death did not change Britain. It reminded the modern Establishment of its deep insecurity in the face of the English mob: an object of fear, wonder and distaste since long before Spanish travellers returned to the imperial court in Madrid with horror stories of rough and volatile crowds who shouted in public and kissed and embraced each other in front of strangers. Ever since the French Revolution the top half of English society has glanced nervously at the crowd outside the window and muttered "could it happen here?".
We don't really trust democracy. We don't really like our countrymen. We no longer dare say so, not directly. So we sneer at their shops, shudder at their newspapers, disapprove of their means of mobility, find their joys tasteless and recoil even from their grief.
Mock tacky TV soap-opera all you like - and then tune in to The Archers; joke about shell suits [jogging gear] then fork out for silk; bemoan the greenhouse gas emissions of a cheap flight then emit four times as much flying business class. But don't pretend this is about quality or worth, the environment, taste or even beauty. It's partly about class. It always has been. It still is.
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NHS too busy treating foreigners to treat Brits promptly
British maternity services are notoriously deficient -- with far too few staff for the demand. Is it any wonder when so many foreigners come to Britain to give birth at no charge?
A confidential internal report on health tourism estimates that the bill for treating foreign patients amounts to at least 62 million pounds a year, The Times has learnt. The figure is “bound to be an underestimate” since new rules intended to prevent the abuse of the NHS by foreign patients are being ignored, according to the report. A survey has found that NHS managers are failing to ensure patients are asked to prove their eligibility and are chasing only around half of the debts owed. The findings suggest that taxpayers are picking up hospital bills for foreign patients that come to more than 30 million a year. Some of the 62 million is paid back by the patients.
The Government promised a crack-down three years ago. Hospitals were told to charge patients who were found not to be resident in Britain or from countries with reciprocal arrangements. John Hutton, when he was a health minister, said in April 2004: “I expect trusts to make enforcement of the regulations part of their core business.” Ministers have repeatedly refused to answer questions on how much health tourism costs the NHS, claiming that statistics are not collected on the number of patients treated who are not entitled to free care.
The scale of abuse was estimated internally following the introduction of the new regulations. The Department of Health last week lost an 18-month battle to suppress findings of an internal report when they were released to the Conservative MP Ben Wallace under the Freedom of Information Act. In addition to the first official estimates the documentbears out previously anecdotal suggestions that maternity and HIV services are being targeted. “Maternity . . . was frequently mentioned as an issue,” the report states. The problem uncovered by the survey, carried out in late 2004 to early 2005, was so acute that officials suggested that the Government contacted air-lines to ask them to prevent heavily pregnant women from flying to the UK from Nigeria, India or Pakistan.
Treatment for HIV was “widely recognised to be a problem area” with clinicians “hostile” to the idea of charging foreign patients. Department of Health officials found that the manager responsible for checking eligibility “was not welcome” in one hospital’s HIV ward. “We are currently being criticised by the the Terrence Higgins Trust without actually charging many people or collecting the money,” the official notes.
Last night a spokeswoman for the Department of Health said that it refused to accept the findings of its own report, insisting that it was based on a sample of only 12 trusts. She claimed that the “situation is much better than it was three years ago” but conceded that the department could not produce figures to prove it. She added: “We are in the middle of a review with the Home Office, which is looking at tightening up enforcement of the regulations.”
Mr Wallace, who uncovered the report, said: “This Government is conniving at a ‘Don’t ask, don’t charge and don’t chase’ policy that is leaving the NHS wide open to abuse.”
Source
Cheap drug could save diabetics' lives
The effect sounds very weak. May not be real at all
Thousands of lives could be saved in Britain if a blood pressure treatment that costs 50p a day was used to treat obese patients with type 2 diabetes, an international research team said yesterday.The drug also has virtually no unwanted side-effects. [Unlikely to have any main effects, then]
A study of more than 11,000 patients with type 2 diabetes found that patients who were put on Coversyl Plus were 18 per cent less likely to die from heart-related illnesses than if they were not taking the drug.
There are two million people with type 2 diabetes in Britain. The condition is caused mainly by obesity [What crap. It's mostly genetic] and the number of sufferers is expected to increase. The study, presented at the annual conference of the European Society of Cardiology in Vienna, suggested that if all British patients with type 2 diabetes were placed on the drug, 22,500 deaths could be prevented within the next five years.
Researchers said that if the drug were given to half of the sufferers of type 2 diabetes worldwide, more than a million deaths could be avoided in the same period.
Source
Oppressive Leftist contempt for the morality of mainstream people
Post below lifted from David Thompson. See the original for links
Further to this and the comments following this post, I mentioned the mismatch of certain leftist moral markers with aspects of traditional working class / bourgeois morality:
"When seen in context, Thatcher's `society' quote actually chimes quite strongly with traditional working class / bourgeois morality regarding personal and familial responsibility. A similar moral aspect becomes apparent in discussions of immigration, where many working class people take the view that a person should generally pay into a benefit system before taking from it. This tends to conflict with the view, most common among middle-class leftists, that a newcomer from country X can arrive and immediately make several claims without having contributed via taxation, etc. I've read more than one Guardian commentator dismiss the former view as `typical of racist little Englanders', which rather misses the point of contention. Wherever you stand on the issue, and whatever exceptions one might imagine, my point is that quite a few middle-class leftwing commentators have casually dismissed as `racist' a moral argument based on reciprocity and a sense of community."
There's another illustration in today's Observer, in John Lloyd's review of Andrew Anthony's book, "The Fall-Out: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence":
"Anthony uses an account of his early years as a vivid, emotively charged account of a working class-born, council house-raised and comprehensive school-educated boy who came to question his parents' outlook. In one instance cited, his mother asked her local councillor why it was that she, a model tenant for many years, had become a much lower priority for rehousing than a newly arrived immigrant family. The councillor to whom Mrs Anthony complained was Tessa Jowell, until recently Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; she gave her complaining constituent `a brusque lecture on racism'.
This vignette recalls progressive, especially London, politics of the Seventies and Eighties. with an overlay of moralising political correctness which assumed prejudice on the part of a white working class and innocence on the part of those with darker skins. In a comment which must be a painful memory, Anthony observes that at university, his `enlightened concern was that [his mother] didn't do or say anything that could be construed as racist ... I was now outside, like an anthropologist, looking in'."
What's interesting here, and illustrative of a much wider phenomenon, is Jowell's apparent readiness to frame the issue in terms of racism, and Anthony's own apprehension regarding how a person might seem in certain kinds of company. And, again, there's something grimly amusing about those who most loudly profess to care for "the proletariat" showing sneery disregard for the views and moral values of that same group of people.
BOOK REVIEW of "The Fall-Out: How a Guilty Liberal Lost His Innocence" by Andrew Anthony
This is the book of an angry man who, in early middle age, has discovered that much of what he wrote, spoke about and believed that he believed has become hollow. Andrew Anthony's belief was in that set of instincts, reactions and responses that is usually described as left-liberalism, held, with varying degrees of tenacity, by a very large proportion of the British population, especially the educated middle class.
This belief is amorphous: it does not have the relatively sharp lineaments of a definite ideology, such as the various forms of revolutionary socialism. Marxism, and the regimes that ruled in its name, were by the Eighties clearly failing and often horrific, at least in their unacknowledged pasts. They were also easy to define, with fairly precise contours.
Liberal leftism, by contrast, is a state of mind, a social marker, a moral attitude. It is thus more difficult to hold up to the light, to examine what should be retained, what jettisoned. Former communists could and often did embrace a robust form of liberalism as a relief from excusing actual dictatorships or endorsing future ones. Because they had been communists, they had been constrained to accept at least a proxy responsibility for the actions of tyrannies and most of them, at least by the Eighties, when even general secretaries of the Communist party of the Soviet Union were pointing out past atrocities, wanted out.
But liberal leftism has no gulags, corrective psychiatric wards or re-education centres on its conscience: indeed, it recoils from such things. It has no party, no country, nothing that can tie it down and nothing for which it can be blamed. Until the last few years, it was not challenged from within. Now, with such recent works as Paul Berman's Terror and Liberalism, Nick Cohen's What's Left? and Christopher Hitchens passim, it has some accounting to make of itself. Andrew Anthony's book takes its place with these, on their level for intelligence and intensity.
Left liberals are not now, for the most part, socialists in any organisational sense, but they at least admire those who still call themselves so, and are prepared to extend understanding to the former Soviet Union as to the present regimes in China, Cuba and Venezuela (North Korea is going a bit far). In one of the many vivid passages in this coruscating book, Anthony describes an idealistic working holiday in Nicaragua in 1988, some years after the Marxist-led Sandinistas took power. By now a fully fledged left liberal, he was nevertheless uneasily aware of problems which were not merely ascribable to poverty and the brutality of the former Somoza dictatorship, but were those of a new government which had made the peasants' economic lot in some ways worse through collectivisation, which encouraged mob justice and which committed and denied many atrocities.
At the same time, the Sandinistas had defeated a foul dictatorship, given ordinary people dignity and purpose and defied an America supporting its local bastard in the shape of Somoza. What Anthony dimly recognised, and what was to finally be driven home to him by 9/11 and its aftermath, was that here was a contradictory experience: the Sandinistas were in some ways better, in some ways worse, in some ways the same as the old regime. But that observable common sense was and is, for his former brand of politics, a forbidden conclusion. 'To question your friends was by definition to aid the enemy,' he writes.
Anthony uses an account of his early years as a vivid, emotively charged account of a working class-born, council house-raised and comprehensive school-educated boy who came to question his parents' outlook. In one instance cited, his mother asked her local councillor why it was that she, a model tenant for many years, had become a much lower priority for rehousing than a newly arrived immigrant family. The councillor to whom Mrs Anthony complained was Tessa Jowell, until recently Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport; she gave her complaining constituent 'a brusque lecture on racism'.
This vignette recalls progressive, especially London, politics of the Seventies and Eighties, where largely middle-class politicians of the left did do good, did keep the local machines going, but with an overlay of moralising political correctness which assumed prejudice on the part of a white working class and innocence on the part of those with darker skins. In a comment which must be a painful memory, Anthony observes that at university, his 'enlightened concern was that she [his mother] didn't do or say anything that could be construed as racist ... I was now outside, like an anthropologist, looking in'.
With a similar, if rural, experience of growing up, getting out and looking back with contempt, I was hugely impressed and moved by the sad delicacy of his recreation of his mother, the regret that she should have been a victim of his newly adopted radical disapproval.
Two issues loom large. One is the Evil Empire. For the liberal left, America has become the 'prejudice of choice for those who pride themselves on their lack of prejudice'. He gets at Americanophobia through an Americanophobic who is American: film-maker and writer Michael Moore, whose depressingly manipulative Fahrenheit 9/11 was lauded all over Europe. Moore, whom he has interviewed, emerges as a boastful, bloated and hypocritical figure, who excuses every contradiction by the formula: 'I'm from the working class.'
Like Chomsky, Moore plays to and helps to organise world opinion against his country, on the basis of cartoon-like pastiches of its nature and actions. Anthony asks liberals to pose themselves this (the correct) question: 'What would the world look like with a different superpower?' And gives his answer: 'If we look at the real world alternatives the 20th century threw up - the British and French empires, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union [and now, he might have added, the growing power of China] - then the US begins to look quite benign'.
The second large issue is Islam. Anthony has interviewed a range of Islamic figures, including Yusuf Islam, the former pop singer Cat Stevens, who has poured some of his wealth into a Muslim school whose stated aim is to give its pupils an all-enveloping Islamic education, so that its pupils will be Muslim first and last.
For Anthony, this sealing off of the Muslim experience, the at best ambiguous, sometimes joyous, reactions to 9/11 and 7/7, the insistence of many Muslims of seeing themselves as victims - all point to a leadership of European Islam which is not, or too little, concerned with integration, understanding and the genuine multiculturalism which includes frank examination and discussion of differing cultures.
He keeps his anger level high by reminding himself and us of the attitudes of the clan from which he has defected: the guilty liberals. His constant argument, running through the book, is with other liberal-leftist journalists, especially on the Guardian, such as Madeleine Bunting, Seumas Milne and Gary Younge, writers who still believe what he once did. Guilt, he says, has eviscerated their liberalism - and turned it into a permanent form of appeasement of ideologies, personalities and actions which are, by true liberals' own lights, insupportable.
'European liberalism,' he concludes, 'is again confronted with the threat of religious censorship and, moreover, violence. Sometimes, it seems as if the struggle for the Enlightenment will have to be fought all over again, but that's only because too many liberals appear too cowed or constrained by the diktats of post-colonial discourse [translation: guilt] to assert the importance of reason and robust intellectual debate.'
Anthony came to feel, quite properly, a different kind of guilt: the guilt of one who, in turning his back on his upbringing, had closed off what was of value in it for himself or, at least, what should have excited sympathetic understanding, if not always agreement. The guilty liberalism he excoriates, in a book that retains a force and a passion and an insistence that you examine the thoughts you think that you think through some 300 finely written pages, is not a definition of the contemporary left, but a barrier to its development.
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David Cameron wobbled, but didn't fall
By Iain Dale
During the last general election campaign, the Conservatives deployed a series of billboard posters with the slogan: "It's not racist to talk about immigration".
Never a truer word spoken, but all the same I thought it was reprehensible that a Tory poster should have the word "racist" on it, as it appeared to give some credence to Labour's accusation that they were somehow extreme, or closet racists. I made myself very unpopular with Conservative Central Office when I told them that, if they put it up in the constituency I was standing in, I would personally rip it down.
So to wake up yesterday to headlines of "Cameron gets tough on immigration" was a slight shock. I have no problem with being tough on immigration and taking measures to secure our borders, and I have no problem with David Cameron saying so either. But the way it was being reported you'd have thought Michael Howard was back in charge. "Return to the core vote" and "lurch to the Right" were just two of the more colourful phrases being used. And all because Cameron had the temerity to answer a reasonable question on Newsnight in a reasonable way. He made the rational point that our borders need to be secure and that insecure borders led to mass immigration, which our public services infrastructure has found difficult to cope with. He also said that new transitional measures may be needed to cope with further influxes from new EU members.
He was asked about Margaret Thatcher's use of the phrase "swamped" to describe immigration in the 1970s and said he would not have used that phrase. He was calm, collected and rational in all his answers. A lurch to the Right? I don't think so.
The Dizzy Thinks blog reckons that framing new immigration within the prism of public services is a masterstroke of "Clintonian" triangulation. It makes it very difficult for the Left to criticise what Cameron is saying, as it would appear that it doesn't care about the quality of public services. No dog whistles there, because the tactic enables Cameron to sound eminently reasonable to centre-ground voters and refute the persistent Labour accusation that any Tory who dares to talk about immigration must by definition be a racist. So, in a week when Cameron has announced tough proposals on law and order, reiterated his support for a European referendum and talked about immigration, it might be easy to see all this as falling into the trap of talking to an audience of Tory supporters. This is to misread what he is doing.
Crime will be one of the top three issues at the election. Talking tough on crime, but at the same time looking at social policies that can help the most deprived areas in our country, is what Mark Oaten used to call "tough liberalism", but David Davis prefers to call "tough love". It's also another classic piece of political triangulation, in that it appeals to people whose instincts might be to support another political party, but makes them sit up and think. This strategy is already working with GPs and hospital doctors, 48 per cent of whom now intend to vote Conservative. When Stephen Dorrell's public services commission report is published on Tuesday, expect to see a similar strategy relating to teachers and other public servants. The public sector has grown to such an extent over the past decade that any politician who wants to win an election needs the public sector vote, too.
The main lesson to draw from recent events is that David Cameron is a politician of remarkable tenacity. There used to be an advert for a children's toy called a Weeble. It was impossible to knock over and the slogan its owners used was: "Weebles wobble but they don't fall down". No one would deny that there has been a wobble over the summer, but if the past 10 days are anything to go by, David Cameron has grabbed back the initiative from a remarkably silent Gordon Brown. He has also displayed great resilience, and that should be of great comfort to Conservatives who were beginning to lose heart.
Source
Monday, September 03, 2007
Britain To Expand Police State Apparatus and ID All Subjects by 2009
The United Kingdom is now selecting companies to develop a compulsory multi-billion pound national identity card programme to complement the massive surveillance system monitoring the movements of British subjects.
The Labour government called the œ5.7 billion ID programme "another milestone" in the fight against terrorism, organised crime, and illegal immigration, while opposition parties and civil liberties groups argue the programme smacks of the police state and is another milestone in eroding the freedoms and the privacy once enjoyed by Britons.
Under this scheme Britons would be compelled to take up biometric national ID cards containing all ten fingerprints, which at some later date would also incorporate iris and face-recognition technology. Starting in 2009, all Britons applying for passports or renewing their passports would also have to apply for the ID cards. Britons have not had mandatory national ID cards since World War II, when the island kingdom was in a national crisis fighting for its survival against Nazi Germany.
"It has become increasingly clear that the methods we have traditionally relied on to prove ID are outdated, inefficient, and increasingly open to abuse," stated Home Office Minister Meg Hillier. "That has to end, and that is why we are taking the scheme forward." The government issued a notice (published in the Official Journal of the European Union) inviting firms to bid for contracts, worth between œ50 million and œ500 million, to build and run the national ID programme.
However, the Conservatives pledged Thursday to "scrap the costly white elephant" if Britons vote them back into power. "This project will do nothing to improve our security," said David Davis, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary. "In fact independent experts like Microsoft and the LSE (London School of Economics) have pointed out that it could well make our security worse while costing the taxpayer 20 billion pounds in the process."
The Home Office's claims, that the biometric cards will add to Britain's security problems are supported by a 2006 investigation by the UK's Guardian newspaper. The Guardian proved that the new UK biometric passport - another scheme of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) - could be hacked easily by their computer expert and even more easily by those with the resources to do it - those terrorists and crime lords the system is supposed to thwart. (See here) The ID cards will use similar technology, which the EU-funded Future of Identity in the Information Society (Fidis) called "poorly conceived" and a threat to the privacy, security, and identity of EU citizens.
If Britain continues with its plan to ID all subjects biometrically and place them under surveillance, the democratic nation will have adopted major hallmarks of the police state nearly indistinguishable from communist China. The 12.4 million citizens in Shenzen City, for example, will soon have to carry new biometric ID cards containing home address, work history, background, ethnicity, religion and medical insurance. The government plans to place them under watch with a network of 20,000 cameras, in addition to 180,000 existing private security cameras in the workplace that are also monitored by the government. This programme is meant to identify criminals and social or political dissidents. About four million Britons a year are expected to get the biometric cards when they renew their passports once the scheme is off the ground.
Source
British Tories urge 'firm immigration plan'
Controlling immigration to the UK will lead to greater community cohesion, the Tories said. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said a "firm immigration policy" was necessary to enable local authorities to provide services for people arriving in the country. Tory leader David Cameron said that immigration into Britain had been "too high" and called for "tough and rigorous" action to control the numbers coming in.
Mr Green, speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, said recent waves of immigration had put public services under strain. He said: "Local authorities in various parts of the country have pointed out the difficulties. "For instance, in Slough, they found themselves suddenly having to find school places for large numbers of children who they didn't know were there, who couldn't speak English. That puts a huge strain on particular social services. "Inevitably many of the incoming communities do cluster together, it's a natural thing to do, and therefore if that's unplanned and unexpected then it's very difficult for the local authorities to cope. "So actually having a firm immigration policy is a way of contributing to better community cohesion in this country."
Mr Cameron used an appearance on the BBC's Newsnight to call for tighter immigration controls. He said: "I think the levels of migration we see in the early part of the decade of this Government, when the asylum numbers were very high, and the later part of the decade, when immigration settlement numbers were very high... I think we have put too great a burden on public services and I think it needs to be better controlled."
Mr Green denied the Tories' recent emphasis on classic right-wing issues such as crime, Europe and immigration was a plan to woo their traditional supporters. He said: "In no way is this a move back to a core vote strategy. When you look at what David Cameron has been talking about over the past few weeks, he has talked about health, he has talked about crime, he has talked about social breakdown. He was asked a straight question about immigration policy last night and he gave a straight answer."
Mr Green added: "What's happened over a long period is that all mainstream politicians have been very sensitive to the fact that, if you deal with issues like immigration, you have to deal with them in a moderate and sensitive tone. But I also believe very strongly that it is an issue that mainstream democratic politicians need to address because otherwise it leaves the floor clear for extremists, particularly on the far right."
Source
The United Kingdom is now selecting companies to develop a compulsory multi-billion pound national identity card programme to complement the massive surveillance system monitoring the movements of British subjects.
The Labour government called the œ5.7 billion ID programme "another milestone" in the fight against terrorism, organised crime, and illegal immigration, while opposition parties and civil liberties groups argue the programme smacks of the police state and is another milestone in eroding the freedoms and the privacy once enjoyed by Britons.
Under this scheme Britons would be compelled to take up biometric national ID cards containing all ten fingerprints, which at some later date would also incorporate iris and face-recognition technology. Starting in 2009, all Britons applying for passports or renewing their passports would also have to apply for the ID cards. Britons have not had mandatory national ID cards since World War II, when the island kingdom was in a national crisis fighting for its survival against Nazi Germany.
"It has become increasingly clear that the methods we have traditionally relied on to prove ID are outdated, inefficient, and increasingly open to abuse," stated Home Office Minister Meg Hillier. "That has to end, and that is why we are taking the scheme forward." The government issued a notice (published in the Official Journal of the European Union) inviting firms to bid for contracts, worth between œ50 million and œ500 million, to build and run the national ID programme.
However, the Conservatives pledged Thursday to "scrap the costly white elephant" if Britons vote them back into power. "This project will do nothing to improve our security," said David Davis, the Conservative Shadow Home Secretary. "In fact independent experts like Microsoft and the LSE (London School of Economics) have pointed out that it could well make our security worse while costing the taxpayer 20 billion pounds in the process."
The Home Office's claims, that the biometric cards will add to Britain's security problems are supported by a 2006 investigation by the UK's Guardian newspaper. The Guardian proved that the new UK biometric passport - another scheme of the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) - could be hacked easily by their computer expert and even more easily by those with the resources to do it - those terrorists and crime lords the system is supposed to thwart. (See here) The ID cards will use similar technology, which the EU-funded Future of Identity in the Information Society (Fidis) called "poorly conceived" and a threat to the privacy, security, and identity of EU citizens.
If Britain continues with its plan to ID all subjects biometrically and place them under surveillance, the democratic nation will have adopted major hallmarks of the police state nearly indistinguishable from communist China. The 12.4 million citizens in Shenzen City, for example, will soon have to carry new biometric ID cards containing home address, work history, background, ethnicity, religion and medical insurance. The government plans to place them under watch with a network of 20,000 cameras, in addition to 180,000 existing private security cameras in the workplace that are also monitored by the government. This programme is meant to identify criminals and social or political dissidents. About four million Britons a year are expected to get the biometric cards when they renew their passports once the scheme is off the ground.
Source
British Tories urge 'firm immigration plan'
Controlling immigration to the UK will lead to greater community cohesion, the Tories said. Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said a "firm immigration policy" was necessary to enable local authorities to provide services for people arriving in the country. Tory leader David Cameron said that immigration into Britain had been "too high" and called for "tough and rigorous" action to control the numbers coming in.
Mr Green, speaking on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, said recent waves of immigration had put public services under strain. He said: "Local authorities in various parts of the country have pointed out the difficulties. "For instance, in Slough, they found themselves suddenly having to find school places for large numbers of children who they didn't know were there, who couldn't speak English. That puts a huge strain on particular social services. "Inevitably many of the incoming communities do cluster together, it's a natural thing to do, and therefore if that's unplanned and unexpected then it's very difficult for the local authorities to cope. "So actually having a firm immigration policy is a way of contributing to better community cohesion in this country."
Mr Cameron used an appearance on the BBC's Newsnight to call for tighter immigration controls. He said: "I think the levels of migration we see in the early part of the decade of this Government, when the asylum numbers were very high, and the later part of the decade, when immigration settlement numbers were very high... I think we have put too great a burden on public services and I think it needs to be better controlled."
Mr Green denied the Tories' recent emphasis on classic right-wing issues such as crime, Europe and immigration was a plan to woo their traditional supporters. He said: "In no way is this a move back to a core vote strategy. When you look at what David Cameron has been talking about over the past few weeks, he has talked about health, he has talked about crime, he has talked about social breakdown. He was asked a straight question about immigration policy last night and he gave a straight answer."
Mr Green added: "What's happened over a long period is that all mainstream politicians have been very sensitive to the fact that, if you deal with issues like immigration, you have to deal with them in a moderate and sensitive tone. But I also believe very strongly that it is an issue that mainstream democratic politicians need to address because otherwise it leaves the floor clear for extremists, particularly on the far right."
Source
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Another BBC sneer at patriotism
A BBC series on British cinema which has been criticised for its “sneery” and “witless” commentary is accused of reaching a new low tonight with an insult to the memory of Douglas Bader.
Group Captain Bader performed heroics as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, despite having both his legs amputated after a 1931 flying crash. An instalment of British Film Forever dedicated to war movies discusses Reach for the Sky, the 1956 Bader biopic starring Kenneth More. The voiceover, read by the comedy actress Jessica Hynes, says: “Viewers of this film might’ve thought they were having their legs pulled.”
Alison Graham, TV editor of Radio Times, said: “It purports to be a serious look at British war films, yet only British Film Forever would come up with that throwaway remark. I wonder who exactly this witless commentary is aimed at?”
The critics hope that the BBC will reedit tonight’s episode to remove the Bader remark, which appears designed to offend the audience most likely to tune in for a 95-minute special on British war films.
Source
Private schools in Britain show up government schools
The schools system in England is at risk of drifting into "educational apartheid" with different examination systems for pupils in state and independent schools, according to a leading head teacher. Pat Langham, president of the Girls' Schools Association, was responding to renewed calls from private school head teachers for the GCSE to be ditched in favour of more rigorous examinations, such as the IGCSE (International GCSE). Her comments were made as it emerged that fee-paying school pupils passed nearly six out of ten of their GCSE exams this summer with a grade A or A*, nearly three times the national average of 19.5 per cent. GCSE results for independent schools revealed that 92.9 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including maths and English, compared with just 63.3 per cent nationally.
Martin Stephen, head of St Paul's, the top-performing boys' private school in The Times GCSE league tables, said the gulf between the two suggested that the GCSE was no longer fit for purpose. "The GCSE is seriously flawed. It is trying to be all things to all people, but it is failing. Getting five good [A* to C] GCSEs has effectively become the equivalent of passing a school leaving certificate, yet the system is not doing this job very well because 50 per cent of pupils fail to get these grades," he said.
Ms Langham, who is head of Wakefield Girls' School, one of the top 50 girls' schools in the UK, argued against more private schools adopting the IGCSE, saying that it would create further divisions between state and independent schools. She said: "The IGCSE is not the answer. Independent schools should be part of a credible, national examination system and it should be the same as the system in state schools. Otherwise, you get educational apartheid and I don't agree with that. If there are concerns about too many pupils getting A grades at GCSE, we should all work together as teachers in the private and state systems to find a joint solution. "Students in private and state schools are both going out into the same world when they leave school and they deserve the same education."
Ms Langham's comments followed claims by examination boards that standards were falling in private schools. Results for private schools, compiled by the Independent Schools Council, published today, show that 57.4 per cent of GCSE exam entries were graded A or A* this year, with 26.8 per cent of entries awarded an A* grade, up from 26.5 per cent last year. The national A* average was just 6.4 per cent. In 231 independent schools, every pupil achieved five or more A* to C grades. In a further 159 schools, 95 per cent or more achieved this standard.
Source
PRIEST OFFERS GREEN CONFESSION
Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer? The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in "green confessions" to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness. Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county's Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated confessional booth of its kind.
Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors, he will hear the sins of of those who have not recycled the things they ought to have done and who have consumed the things they ought not to have done. Father Sutch tries to practise what he preaches but has turned the heating down so low at his church of St Benet's that at least one parishioner has fled to the warmer care of a neighbouring priest for winter services.
He told The Times: "It is not, I hope, blasphemous to do this. I do not think it is. It is just an attempt to make people conscious of the way they live. The Church is aware of green issues and of how aware we have to be of how we treat the environment. "I know the Pope has now set up his own airline, but I am told the Vatican will be planting trees every time it flies. I do think the way we treat our environment is important. "There is a huge amount of greed in the West. We have to be aware of the consequences of how we live."
FULL STORY here.
A BBC series on British cinema which has been criticised for its “sneery” and “witless” commentary is accused of reaching a new low tonight with an insult to the memory of Douglas Bader.
Group Captain Bader performed heroics as a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain, despite having both his legs amputated after a 1931 flying crash. An instalment of British Film Forever dedicated to war movies discusses Reach for the Sky, the 1956 Bader biopic starring Kenneth More. The voiceover, read by the comedy actress Jessica Hynes, says: “Viewers of this film might’ve thought they were having their legs pulled.”
Alison Graham, TV editor of Radio Times, said: “It purports to be a serious look at British war films, yet only British Film Forever would come up with that throwaway remark. I wonder who exactly this witless commentary is aimed at?”
The critics hope that the BBC will reedit tonight’s episode to remove the Bader remark, which appears designed to offend the audience most likely to tune in for a 95-minute special on British war films.
Source
Private schools in Britain show up government schools
The schools system in England is at risk of drifting into "educational apartheid" with different examination systems for pupils in state and independent schools, according to a leading head teacher. Pat Langham, president of the Girls' Schools Association, was responding to renewed calls from private school head teachers for the GCSE to be ditched in favour of more rigorous examinations, such as the IGCSE (International GCSE). Her comments were made as it emerged that fee-paying school pupils passed nearly six out of ten of their GCSE exams this summer with a grade A or A*, nearly three times the national average of 19.5 per cent. GCSE results for independent schools revealed that 92.9 per cent of pupils achieved five GCSEs at grades A* to C, including maths and English, compared with just 63.3 per cent nationally.
Martin Stephen, head of St Paul's, the top-performing boys' private school in The Times GCSE league tables, said the gulf between the two suggested that the GCSE was no longer fit for purpose. "The GCSE is seriously flawed. It is trying to be all things to all people, but it is failing. Getting five good [A* to C] GCSEs has effectively become the equivalent of passing a school leaving certificate, yet the system is not doing this job very well because 50 per cent of pupils fail to get these grades," he said.
Ms Langham, who is head of Wakefield Girls' School, one of the top 50 girls' schools in the UK, argued against more private schools adopting the IGCSE, saying that it would create further divisions between state and independent schools. She said: "The IGCSE is not the answer. Independent schools should be part of a credible, national examination system and it should be the same as the system in state schools. Otherwise, you get educational apartheid and I don't agree with that. If there are concerns about too many pupils getting A grades at GCSE, we should all work together as teachers in the private and state systems to find a joint solution. "Students in private and state schools are both going out into the same world when they leave school and they deserve the same education."
Ms Langham's comments followed claims by examination boards that standards were falling in private schools. Results for private schools, compiled by the Independent Schools Council, published today, show that 57.4 per cent of GCSE exam entries were graded A or A* this year, with 26.8 per cent of entries awarded an A* grade, up from 26.5 per cent last year. The national A* average was just 6.4 per cent. In 231 independent schools, every pupil achieved five or more A* to C grades. In a further 159 schools, 95 per cent or more achieved this standard.
Source
PRIEST OFFERS GREEN CONFESSION
Forgotten to recycle any newspapers or tin cans recently? Feeling guilty because you neglected to carbon offset your flight to somewhere, anywhere, outside England this summer? The Roman Catholic Church is at hand with a new line in "green confessions" to help eco-sinners to find forgiveness. Dom Anthony Sutch, the Benedictine monk who resigned as head of Downside School to become a parish priest in Suffolk, will be at the county's Waveney Greenpeace festival this weekend to hear eco-confessions in what is thought to be the first dedicated confessional booth of its kind.
Vested in a green chasuble-style garment made from recycled curtains, and in a booth constructed of recycled doors, he will hear the sins of of those who have not recycled the things they ought to have done and who have consumed the things they ought not to have done. Father Sutch tries to practise what he preaches but has turned the heating down so low at his church of St Benet's that at least one parishioner has fled to the warmer care of a neighbouring priest for winter services.
He told The Times: "It is not, I hope, blasphemous to do this. I do not think it is. It is just an attempt to make people conscious of the way they live. The Church is aware of green issues and of how aware we have to be of how we treat the environment. "I know the Pope has now set up his own airline, but I am told the Vatican will be planting trees every time it flies. I do think the way we treat our environment is important. "There is a huge amount of greed in the West. We have to be aware of the consequences of how we live."
FULL STORY here.
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Muslim Hate Speech OK (Again)
We read:
The BBC and the rest of the Left are ALWAYS ready to excuse Muslim hate speech on free speech grounds. Just say something adverse about homosexuals (for instance) though and see what happens.
Note this, "The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented" and ask when the BBC has aired a program condemning homosexuality as psychopathological? Yet only a few decades ago homosexuality was listed as a pathology in psychiatry handbooks such as DSM II.
Cancer survival rates in Britain versus the USA
Sure, I know that just one mention of why I dislike nationalized health care sends some of my left-of-center readers into a frenzy. It seems that the cause d'jour on the Left is the implementation of a state run system of health care in America. It is the public policy version of the Holy Grail.
Questioning nationalized health care is, to them, a similar sort of heresy as questioning the necessity of baptism by immersion at a Baptist tent revival. Alas, I'm used to the role of village atheist so I don't mind.
Of the various state systems of health care the National Health Service in England holds a special place in the pantheon of state system -- mainly because it one of the first and one of the most pervasive. It has gone through a process of beatification in some circles. And I think it qualifies. And like anyone who is beatified that means it is declared holy on insufficient grounds and it is dead. Maybe it's not clinically dead but it certainly is on life support with the struggle more and more difficult each year.
Ask any member of the nationalize health sects where they would rather be sick, America or the U.K., and they will dutifully tell you how the British system is more fair and gives more health care to more people. That is the argument I generally hear. Giving out lots of care is easy and can be done cheaply. But the real issue is not what you give out but what are the results of the actual care given?
So ask yourself what you want to do if you had cancer. Would you prefer to get "equal" care or more effective care? Would you rather have a system that equalizes the treatment rate or one that maximizes survival rates?
A research team for The Lancet Oncology has looked at the survival rates for individuals diagnosed with cancer. This rate is determined by the number of patients who are still alive five years after being diagnosed with cancer. They ranked the various nations of Europe and then compared the survival rate to that of cancer patients in the United States -- the Great Satan of Health Care.
National Health Care covers England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales.
If you are a female in Scotland, your chances of surviving five years after a cancer diagnosis is 48%. In Northern Ireland it is slightly better at 51% and even better in England at 52.7%. Wales comes out tops there with 54.1%. The percentage of American women who survive more than five years after a cancer diagnosis was 62.9%. This, by the way, is a higher survival rate than any of the European countries that were surveyed. And the survey included all the major European health system except France, where the statistics were not made available.
Male cancer survival rates show that 40.2% of Scottish men live five or more years after diagnosis. In Northern Ireland it is 42%, England is 44.8% and and Wales is 47.9%. The United States has a male survival rate of 66.3%.
If 100 English women are diagnosed this month with cancer, then 47 will, on average, die in the next five years. In the United States, with all the problems the health systems does have, an extra 16 women per 100, will live. Sure, its just statistics, unless you happen to be one of those 16 women. And for every 100 English men diagnosed this month 55 will die in the next five years. If the same 100 men lived in the United States an extra 21 of them would live.
One of the researchers from Scotland, Prof. Ian Kunkler saays that one reason for the low survival rate in the U.K is partially due to the long waiting periods before treatment. He says that there is "good evidence that survival for lung cancer has been compromised by long waiting lists for radiotherapy treatment."
Oddly the BBC managed to report this story without once mentioning the higher survival rate in the United States. But they do publish the European mean survival rate for men and women. They have a graph showing the survival rates but it is not calibrated too finely. My best estimate from the chart is that mean average survival rate for women appears to be around 51% about 11 points behind the U.S. And for men it appears to be 47% or about 19 points behind the U.S.
Lung cancer survival rates in England and Wales are very depressing. Only 6% of either sex survive. The U.S. survival rate is between two to three times higher, or up to about 16%. However, one relatively new regimen of care developed in the U.S. has shown survival rates of up to 29%.
Perhaps there are arguments as to why one might prefer to live in England versus the US (I spend more time in the UK than I do the US myself) but certainly if survival rates count for something -- and they do to those who are trying to survive -- I know which I would pick.
Source
Cal Thomas: Vanishing England
Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture. The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there, or the thousands unknown to the government.
Britain's Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods that have remained unchanged for generations.
Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: Life in Britain has become unbearable for them. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness that has swept the country. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are about to be granted "amnesty" to stay in Britain. The government's approach is similar to that pursued by President Bush, who failed to win congressional approval for his amnesty plan. In Britain it appears likely to succeed. Migrants will be granted immediate access to many benefits, including top priority for council housing. Taxpayers will foot the bill.
The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, called the policy a "stealth amnesty." Again, in a comment reminiscent of the debate in America, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This is yet another example of the Alice in Wonderland world of human rights. If you break British law for long enough, you acquire rights, not penalties."
British media have carried stories about an Italian immigrant who murdered a schoolteacher and was sentenced to life in prison. He is about to be released after serving just 12 years. The government wants to deport him to Italy, but a combination of British human rights legislation and European Union law are making it impossible to do so. This does not bode well for deporting Islamic terrorists who call for the overthrow of the government and incite young people to acts of violence.
Abraham Lincoln said no nation can exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation be sustained if it allows conditions that result in mass emigration, while importing huge numbers of foreigners who come from backgrounds that do not practice assimilation or tolerance of other beliefs.
When one factors in the high number of abortions (one in five pregnancies are aborted in England and Wales), the high birth rates of immigrants (15 times those of white Britons), it doesn't take a population expert to predict that the days of the England we have known may be numbered.
The problem for Britain and the United States isn't just the change in demographics. It is the reluctance of both countries to inculcate the beliefs, history and, yes, religious ideals, which made our nations so successful that others wanted to come and be a part of them. The difference between many of the current immigrants and those of the past is that the previous ones wanted to become fully American or fully British. The current ones, in too many cases, would destroy what makes our countries unique. And the "leaders" of Britain and America refuse to stop it. The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.
Source
New booster vaccine for TB
One of the most feared diseases in the world is making an alarming comeback in the UK. Cases of tuberculosis increased by 10 per cent in 2005, with 8,494 cases, and are set to continue rising, as the bug becomes increasingly resistant to drugs, and international travel extends its global reach. TB kills about 1.6 million people a year, largely in developing countries, and experts believe that its global resurgence goes hand in hand with the Aids pandemic. However, Helen McShane, a British scientist, announced today that a groundbreaking new vaccine - the first in 80 years, which has taken ten years to develop - is being tested in human clinical trials for the first time.
The areas most affected by the disease in Britain are cities such as London, Birmingham and Leicester, with immigrant communities from areas where the disease is still common: Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Africa. One in five cases of TB is found in new arrivals into the country. However, the disease is not something you could simply catch on a train; only frequent or prolonged contact with someone with TB puts a person at risk (hence why it's passed within families), and it can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed quickly. Nevertheless, the Government is so concerned at the growing number of people with TB that it is considering screening visitors to the UK from countries such as China and India, it was revealed this week.
If the new TB vaccine passes its trials, as it is expected to do, it could be available in your GP's practice by 2015, when it would work as a booster for the childhood BCG injection (now given only to children in high-risk groups), conferring long-lasting immunity on all adults and thus preventing the spread of this disease.
Symptoms include a persistent cough, weight loss and fever. Before the First World War there were more than 100,000 UK cases a year, but numbers have fallen steadily since the BCG vaccination was introduced in 1953.
Dr McShane, the scientist behind this latest booster vaccine, is a 40-year-old medical doctor-turned-vaccinologist. It's impossible not to share her excitement, particularly when she describes the day in her Oxford University laboratory when she realised she was on to something. "It was a little tense," says Dr McShane, who was then 35 and five years into a project that she had started as a PhD student in 1997. "I went into the lab to check blood tests taken the day before, looked at the plates and couldn't believe my eyes. The results were excellent. We knew the vaccine would stimulate the production of some antibodies but there were ten times the number we had predicted. I ran down the corridor to show my professor immediately." Dr McShane knew she had created a vaccine that could potentially save two million lives a year worldwide. The Wellcome Trust will today announce her project as the first new vaccine for TB in 80 years.
There are two main reasons why a new vaccine has taken so long to develop. The first is that it's a difficult bug to vaccinate against as it disguises itself efficiently in the body. There are different strains of the bug, but Dr McShane believes that they are similar enough for the vaccine to be effective against them all. The other reason for the delay, according to the charity TB Alert, is that there wasn't any funding. Until recently TB was prevalent only in the developing world and so drug companies were reluctant to plough money into a vaccine.
A potential vaccine is an achievement that Dr McShane would not have dared to imagine when she first joined Professor Adrian Hill at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in Oxford to begin a PhD. "Most students were working on a malaria project; no one was looking at a TB vaccine, so I thought it would be a good idea," she says. Dr McShane had first started to study the tuberculosis bacterium when, as a young doctor, she was working in an HIV clinic in London. The two diseases often present hand-in-hand because TB is an opportunistic infection and finds the weakened immune system of an HIV-infected person an easy way in. Dr McShane says she found it frustrating that she could offer the latest antiretrovirals for the HIV infection but she had nothing to prescribe except traditional antibiotics for the TB. She could see that as different strains of TB bacteria became resistant to these drugs, her armoury was looking more and more depleted. Surely something could be done?
She decided to take her curiosity into the laboratory. Most contagious diseases can be vaccinated against by priming the immune system to recognise the pathogen and building armies of immune cells to attack it if it invades the body. A vaccine against measles, for example, introduces a highly weakened strain of the disease into the body. This allows the immune system to target the responsible bacteria, deal with them, and prepare defences for attacks in the future.
But TB is more complicated as it is able to hide inside cells and avoid normal antibodies. Instead it requires a subgroup of white blood cells, called T cells, to be activated, which are better at seeking out the bug to destroy it. Immunologists have begun to use recombinant viruses to teach the body how to recognise TB bacteria and prepare its T cells correspondingly. These are modified viruses that carry cloned genes containing a simple protein, harvested from the disease to be fought. The "tweaked" virus is harmless to human beings. It arrives in the body, unloads the cloned protein, and dies. The protein, however, is spotted by the immune system, which prepares T cells for attack. Afterwards, the patient's body is left ready for further invasion.
Dr McShane found that her vaccine worked particularly well at boosting the weak immune response primed by the traditional BCG. "It would be fantastic if this vaccine was proven to work and became available," she says. "It's been a huge team effort with units in The Gambia and South Africa and Oxford working to a common end. The real challenges now are to see if it really does stop people getting TB, and if it does, to make sure that it gets to the people who need it."
Source
More unprotected British Soldiers die: "Eureferendum has the horrifying story of more British Soldiers dying in exposed "dune buggies" being destroyed by IEDs in Afghanistan. These vehicles aren't called dune buggies (they are thin-skinned Land Rovers), but they offer no real protection against completely predictable threats. It's desperately sad. The British Ministry of Defense continues to deny its front-line people adequate protection. They continue to pretend that the enemy is stupid, and that the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Iranians in Basra, will not single out the most exposed and vulnerable of the Coalition forces. Americans, Canadians and Aussies now have a large number of properly protected vehicles. The politicians and upper brass in Whitehall continue to exhibit an inexplicable lack of common sense in the face of the enemy."
We read:
"The editor of an Arabic daily newspaper published in London said in an interview on Lebanese television that he would dance in Trafalgar Square if Iranian missiles hit Israel.
Talking about Iran's nuclear capability on ANB Lebanese television on June 27, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, editor-in-chief of Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper, said, "If the Iranian missiles strike Israel, by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square and dance with delight."
Bari Atwan founded the pan-Arab daily in London in 1989, and today the paper has a circulation of around 50,000. He is also a regular commentator on Sky News and BBC News 24.
A BBC spokesman told The Jerusalem Post that editors make decisions based on the following BBC guidelines.
"We should not automatically assume that academics and journalists from other organizations are impartial and make it clear to our audience when contributors are associated with a particular viewpoint."
"The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented."
"The BBC will sometimes need to report on or interview people whose views may cause serious offense to many in our audiences. We must be convinced, after appropriate referral, that a clear public interest outweighs the possible offense."
Source
The BBC and the rest of the Left are ALWAYS ready to excuse Muslim hate speech on free speech grounds. Just say something adverse about homosexuals (for instance) though and see what happens.
Note this, "The BBC is required to explore a range of views, so that no significant strand of thought is knowingly unreflected or underrepresented" and ask when the BBC has aired a program condemning homosexuality as psychopathological? Yet only a few decades ago homosexuality was listed as a pathology in psychiatry handbooks such as DSM II.
Cancer survival rates in Britain versus the USA
Sure, I know that just one mention of why I dislike nationalized health care sends some of my left-of-center readers into a frenzy. It seems that the cause d'jour on the Left is the implementation of a state run system of health care in America. It is the public policy version of the Holy Grail.
Questioning nationalized health care is, to them, a similar sort of heresy as questioning the necessity of baptism by immersion at a Baptist tent revival. Alas, I'm used to the role of village atheist so I don't mind.
Of the various state systems of health care the National Health Service in England holds a special place in the pantheon of state system -- mainly because it one of the first and one of the most pervasive. It has gone through a process of beatification in some circles. And I think it qualifies. And like anyone who is beatified that means it is declared holy on insufficient grounds and it is dead. Maybe it's not clinically dead but it certainly is on life support with the struggle more and more difficult each year.
Ask any member of the nationalize health sects where they would rather be sick, America or the U.K., and they will dutifully tell you how the British system is more fair and gives more health care to more people. That is the argument I generally hear. Giving out lots of care is easy and can be done cheaply. But the real issue is not what you give out but what are the results of the actual care given?
So ask yourself what you want to do if you had cancer. Would you prefer to get "equal" care or more effective care? Would you rather have a system that equalizes the treatment rate or one that maximizes survival rates?
A research team for The Lancet Oncology has looked at the survival rates for individuals diagnosed with cancer. This rate is determined by the number of patients who are still alive five years after being diagnosed with cancer. They ranked the various nations of Europe and then compared the survival rate to that of cancer patients in the United States -- the Great Satan of Health Care.
National Health Care covers England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and Wales.
If you are a female in Scotland, your chances of surviving five years after a cancer diagnosis is 48%. In Northern Ireland it is slightly better at 51% and even better in England at 52.7%. Wales comes out tops there with 54.1%. The percentage of American women who survive more than five years after a cancer diagnosis was 62.9%. This, by the way, is a higher survival rate than any of the European countries that were surveyed. And the survey included all the major European health system except France, where the statistics were not made available.
Male cancer survival rates show that 40.2% of Scottish men live five or more years after diagnosis. In Northern Ireland it is 42%, England is 44.8% and and Wales is 47.9%. The United States has a male survival rate of 66.3%.
If 100 English women are diagnosed this month with cancer, then 47 will, on average, die in the next five years. In the United States, with all the problems the health systems does have, an extra 16 women per 100, will live. Sure, its just statistics, unless you happen to be one of those 16 women. And for every 100 English men diagnosed this month 55 will die in the next five years. If the same 100 men lived in the United States an extra 21 of them would live.
One of the researchers from Scotland, Prof. Ian Kunkler saays that one reason for the low survival rate in the U.K is partially due to the long waiting periods before treatment. He says that there is "good evidence that survival for lung cancer has been compromised by long waiting lists for radiotherapy treatment."
Oddly the BBC managed to report this story without once mentioning the higher survival rate in the United States. But they do publish the European mean survival rate for men and women. They have a graph showing the survival rates but it is not calibrated too finely. My best estimate from the chart is that mean average survival rate for women appears to be around 51% about 11 points behind the U.S. And for men it appears to be 47% or about 19 points behind the U.S.
Lung cancer survival rates in England and Wales are very depressing. Only 6% of either sex survive. The U.S. survival rate is between two to three times higher, or up to about 16%. However, one relatively new regimen of care developed in the U.S. has shown survival rates of up to 29%.
Perhaps there are arguments as to why one might prefer to live in England versus the US (I spend more time in the UK than I do the US myself) but certainly if survival rates count for something -- and they do to those who are trying to survive -- I know which I would pick.
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Cal Thomas: Vanishing England
Perhaps there will not always be an England. An exodus unprecedented in modern times, coupled with a record influx of foreigners, is threatening to erode the character of the land of William Shakespeare and overpowering monarchs, a land that served as the cradle for much of American thought, law and culture. The figures, making headlines in London newspapers, tell only part of the story. Between June 2005 and June 2006 nearly 200,000 British citizens chose to leave the country for a new life elsewhere. During the same period, at least 574,000 immigrants came to Britain. This number does not include the people who broke the law to get there, or the thousands unknown to the government.
Britain's Office of National Statistics reports that middle-class Britons are beginning to move out of towns in southern England that have become home to large numbers of immigrants, thereby altering the character of neighborhoods that have remained unchanged for generations.
Britons give many reasons for leaving, but their stories share one commonality: Life in Britain has become unbearable for them. They fear lawlessness and the threat of more terrorism from a growing Muslim population and the loss of a sense of Britishness, exacerbated by the growing refusal of public schools to teach the history and culture of the nation to the next generation. What it means to be British has been watered down in a plague of political correctness that has swept the country. Officials say they do not wish to "offend" others.
Hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers are about to be granted "amnesty" to stay in Britain. The government's approach is similar to that pursued by President Bush, who failed to win congressional approval for his amnesty plan. In Britain it appears likely to succeed. Migrants will be granted immediate access to many benefits, including top priority for council housing. Taxpayers will foot the bill.
The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, called the policy a "stealth amnesty." Again, in a comment reminiscent of the debate in America, Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch UK, said: "This is yet another example of the Alice in Wonderland world of human rights. If you break British law for long enough, you acquire rights, not penalties."
British media have carried stories about an Italian immigrant who murdered a schoolteacher and was sentenced to life in prison. He is about to be released after serving just 12 years. The government wants to deport him to Italy, but a combination of British human rights legislation and European Union law are making it impossible to do so. This does not bode well for deporting Islamic terrorists who call for the overthrow of the government and incite young people to acts of violence.
Abraham Lincoln said no nation can exist half slave and half free. Neither can a nation be sustained if it allows conditions that result in mass emigration, while importing huge numbers of foreigners who come from backgrounds that do not practice assimilation or tolerance of other beliefs.
When one factors in the high number of abortions (one in five pregnancies are aborted in England and Wales), the high birth rates of immigrants (15 times those of white Britons), it doesn't take a population expert to predict that the days of the England we have known may be numbered.
The problem for Britain and the United States isn't just the change in demographics. It is the reluctance of both countries to inculcate the beliefs, history and, yes, religious ideals, which made our nations so successful that others wanted to come and be a part of them. The difference between many of the current immigrants and those of the past is that the previous ones wanted to become fully American or fully British. The current ones, in too many cases, would destroy what makes our countries unique. And the "leaders" of Britain and America refuse to stop it. The greater tragedy is that the people of Britain have little say in any of this, so they are taking the road of last resort. They are leaving.
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New booster vaccine for TB
One of the most feared diseases in the world is making an alarming comeback in the UK. Cases of tuberculosis increased by 10 per cent in 2005, with 8,494 cases, and are set to continue rising, as the bug becomes increasingly resistant to drugs, and international travel extends its global reach. TB kills about 1.6 million people a year, largely in developing countries, and experts believe that its global resurgence goes hand in hand with the Aids pandemic. However, Helen McShane, a British scientist, announced today that a groundbreaking new vaccine - the first in 80 years, which has taken ten years to develop - is being tested in human clinical trials for the first time.
The areas most affected by the disease in Britain are cities such as London, Birmingham and Leicester, with immigrant communities from areas where the disease is still common: Pakistan, Bangladesh and parts of Africa. One in five cases of TB is found in new arrivals into the country. However, the disease is not something you could simply catch on a train; only frequent or prolonged contact with someone with TB puts a person at risk (hence why it's passed within families), and it can be treated with antibiotics if diagnosed quickly. Nevertheless, the Government is so concerned at the growing number of people with TB that it is considering screening visitors to the UK from countries such as China and India, it was revealed this week.
If the new TB vaccine passes its trials, as it is expected to do, it could be available in your GP's practice by 2015, when it would work as a booster for the childhood BCG injection (now given only to children in high-risk groups), conferring long-lasting immunity on all adults and thus preventing the spread of this disease.
Symptoms include a persistent cough, weight loss and fever. Before the First World War there were more than 100,000 UK cases a year, but numbers have fallen steadily since the BCG vaccination was introduced in 1953.
Dr McShane, the scientist behind this latest booster vaccine, is a 40-year-old medical doctor-turned-vaccinologist. It's impossible not to share her excitement, particularly when she describes the day in her Oxford University laboratory when she realised she was on to something. "It was a little tense," says Dr McShane, who was then 35 and five years into a project that she had started as a PhD student in 1997. "I went into the lab to check blood tests taken the day before, looked at the plates and couldn't believe my eyes. The results were excellent. We knew the vaccine would stimulate the production of some antibodies but there were ten times the number we had predicted. I ran down the corridor to show my professor immediately." Dr McShane knew she had created a vaccine that could potentially save two million lives a year worldwide. The Wellcome Trust will today announce her project as the first new vaccine for TB in 80 years.
There are two main reasons why a new vaccine has taken so long to develop. The first is that it's a difficult bug to vaccinate against as it disguises itself efficiently in the body. There are different strains of the bug, but Dr McShane believes that they are similar enough for the vaccine to be effective against them all. The other reason for the delay, according to the charity TB Alert, is that there wasn't any funding. Until recently TB was prevalent only in the developing world and so drug companies were reluctant to plough money into a vaccine.
A potential vaccine is an achievement that Dr McShane would not have dared to imagine when she first joined Professor Adrian Hill at the Nuffield Department of Medicine in Oxford to begin a PhD. "Most students were working on a malaria project; no one was looking at a TB vaccine, so I thought it would be a good idea," she says. Dr McShane had first started to study the tuberculosis bacterium when, as a young doctor, she was working in an HIV clinic in London. The two diseases often present hand-in-hand because TB is an opportunistic infection and finds the weakened immune system of an HIV-infected person an easy way in. Dr McShane says she found it frustrating that she could offer the latest antiretrovirals for the HIV infection but she had nothing to prescribe except traditional antibiotics for the TB. She could see that as different strains of TB bacteria became resistant to these drugs, her armoury was looking more and more depleted. Surely something could be done?
She decided to take her curiosity into the laboratory. Most contagious diseases can be vaccinated against by priming the immune system to recognise the pathogen and building armies of immune cells to attack it if it invades the body. A vaccine against measles, for example, introduces a highly weakened strain of the disease into the body. This allows the immune system to target the responsible bacteria, deal with them, and prepare defences for attacks in the future.
But TB is more complicated as it is able to hide inside cells and avoid normal antibodies. Instead it requires a subgroup of white blood cells, called T cells, to be activated, which are better at seeking out the bug to destroy it. Immunologists have begun to use recombinant viruses to teach the body how to recognise TB bacteria and prepare its T cells correspondingly. These are modified viruses that carry cloned genes containing a simple protein, harvested from the disease to be fought. The "tweaked" virus is harmless to human beings. It arrives in the body, unloads the cloned protein, and dies. The protein, however, is spotted by the immune system, which prepares T cells for attack. Afterwards, the patient's body is left ready for further invasion.
Dr McShane found that her vaccine worked particularly well at boosting the weak immune response primed by the traditional BCG. "It would be fantastic if this vaccine was proven to work and became available," she says. "It's been a huge team effort with units in The Gambia and South Africa and Oxford working to a common end. The real challenges now are to see if it really does stop people getting TB, and if it does, to make sure that it gets to the people who need it."
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More unprotected British Soldiers die: "Eureferendum has the horrifying story of more British Soldiers dying in exposed "dune buggies" being destroyed by IEDs in Afghanistan. These vehicles aren't called dune buggies (they are thin-skinned Land Rovers), but they offer no real protection against completely predictable threats. It's desperately sad. The British Ministry of Defense continues to deny its front-line people adequate protection. They continue to pretend that the enemy is stupid, and that the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Iranians in Basra, will not single out the most exposed and vulnerable of the Coalition forces. Americans, Canadians and Aussies now have a large number of properly protected vehicles. The politicians and upper brass in Whitehall continue to exhibit an inexplicable lack of common sense in the face of the enemy."
