Eye on Britain
Posted by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
WAS THE "INCORRECT" SHEIK PARTLY RIGHT AFTER ALL?
Post below from Angry Harry. His comparison with British pornography law is interesting:
Muslim Cleric Causes Uproar Over Women's Clothing: Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress.
Of course, this uproar was caused by various women's groups who think that women should bear no responsibility for what they do. Well, in my view, Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali is correct in what he says - at least to some extent. Indeed, only recently, I wrote the following on my Your Emails page to a woman who seemed to think that women should be able to dress as they please without needing to take into account how others might respond.
And I stand by that view! I think I'll become a Muslim. And, while on this particular subject, I wish to make an interesting point!
Here, in the UK, we are soon going to outlaw certain types of pornography because some sex-offenders have claimed that "pornography made me do it". In other words, the government reckons that men can be 'enticed' into doing bad things by looking at pictures. Well, surely, if lofty people can accept the notion that men can be 'enticed' by pictures, then they should also accept the notion that men can be enticed by 'reality'!
And, if this is so, then women - who bring about their own reality - and who thrust it upon others - must also often be viewed as responsible for enticing men in much the same way that pornography allegedly does. So, how is it that women can escape all responsibility for enticing men, whereas pornography and pornographers cannot?
Well, of course, the answer is obvious. Women are nowadays held to be responsible for almost nothing that they do; not even for those situations in which they choose to place themselves. They are not held fully responsible when it comes to choosing to bear offspring, when it comes to their work choices, when it comes to whom they have sex with - especially when they are drunk - when it comes to child abuse, and even when it comes to murder.
And now we are simply being indoctrinated with the view that pornography can entice men to do bad things, but women, themselves, cannot. What hokum, eh? What lies!
Notice also that misleading women - especially younger women - into believing that their dress has no effect on the likelihood of being sexually-assaulted will simply lead to more women enticing more sexual assaults. In other words, more women will be hurt.
But, despite what they might say, most women do not actually care about this. So long as they can say and do as they damn well please, they do not actually care how many other women might be assaulted as a result.
GREEN TAX BLITZ COMING IN BRITAIN
Secret plans for a multi-billion-pound package of stealth taxes on fuel, cars, air travel and consumer goods have been drawn up by the Government to combat global warming. The proposals, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, show that the Government is considering introducing a raft of hard-hitting 'eco-taxes' that will have a devastating effect on the cost of living. Families with big cars could end up paying more than 1,000 pounds a year extra in tax. And nearly every household in Britain will be hit in the pocket.
Most controversial of all, the documents reveal the Government is planning to grab billions of pounds of extra revenue from motorists - without telling them. It is considering introducing a special mechanism so that whenever oil prices go down, the Government would get the cash in extra fuel tax - not the motorist. A leaked letter from Environment Secretary David Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown says the advantage of this is that the Government would gain billions of pounds 'without individual announcements on fuel-duty rises needing to be made'. The Government was immediately accused by the Conservatives of trying to introduce more 'stealth taxes' and failing to be honest with voters about the consequences of dealing with climate change.
The leak comes 24 hours before Tony Blair launches a major report warning that floods and other natural disasters caused by global warming will spark an economic catastrophe worse than the 1929 Wall Street Crash. But the report, by economist Sir Nicholas Stern, does not reveal what the Government plans to do about it. But a leaked letter written from Mr Miliband to Mr Brown on October 18 and obtained by The Mail on Sunday spells out the grim reality: wide-ranging tax rises that will have a dramatic impact on family incomes.
Mr Miliband calls for tough measures to combat 'car use and ownership' with a 'substantial increase' in road tax, which currently costs a maximum of 210 pounds a year. Mr Miliband says road tax should copy the 'success' of companycar taxes which forced people to switch to smaller vehicles with annual levies of up to 5,000 pounds. He also suggests a 'Treasury mechanism' allowing the Government to benefit from any fall in oil prices and reintroducing the 'fuel-duty escalator', which put up the duty on petrol by five per cent over inflation until Mr Brown ordered a freeze in 1999. Mr Miliband calls for a new 'pay-per-mile pollution tax' on motorists. And he urges VAT on air travel to EU destinations and new taxes on inefficient washing machines and light bulbs.
He also backs fresh laws to let town halls impose a 'rubbish tax' on households by using 'spies' placed in dustbins to weigh non-recyclable refuse. The letter says: 'Differential charging for waste at household level can have a significant role to play and local authorities should be given the powers to do so.' Mr Miliband also called for landfill tax - paid by businesses and local councils that bury rubbish - to be increased from 21 pounds a ton to 75. But one environmental expert said this could lead to more flytipping unless it is properly policed.
The letter to Mr Brown, marked ' Restricted', demands urgent and radical action in next month's public-spending review and next year's Budget. Changing people's behaviour can be achieved only by 'market forces and price signals', it says, adding: ' Marketbased instruments, including taxes, need to play a substantial role. As our understandings of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done.' The Government must 'increase the pace of existing tax measures, broaden them into sectors where incentives to cut carbon emissions are weak and identify new instruments to drive progress in tackling greenhouse gas'.
An aide to Mr Miliband said last night: 'We don't comment on leaked documents. These are ideas, not a package of measures.' An ally of Mr Brown added: 'The Chancellor does not approve of conducting Government business on the basis of leaks.'
Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: 'No one is more committed to tackling climate change than the Conservatives. But if the Government wants to deal with it successfully, it must do so in an upfront way instead of bringing in stealth taxes by the back door. As with everything this Government does, the devil is in the detail. If motorists and consumers think all the Government wants to do is to slap taxes on everything, they may respond negatively. 'Tony Blair's Government has sat on its hands for ten years. Tackling the enormous challenge of climate change would have been much easier if they hadn't left it so late.'
Professor Julian Morris, environmental economist at Birmingham University and director of the International Policy Network, a free-market think-tank, called the new taxes 'underhand' and accused the Government of 'nannying'.
Source
WAKING UP FROM SLEEP-WALKING, BRITISH BUSINESSES FACE STERN TAXES
British business is this weekend fighting off calls for a raft of new green taxes that it fears will follow the publication of an influential government report tomorrow. The Stern Review is expected to warn that failure to address climate change could slash global economic growth by up to 20 per cent a year - a controversial view that will turn conventional thinking on climate change on its head. Businesses are worried that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, will use the report by Sir Nicholas Stern, the respected economist, as an excuse to introduce a range of new anti-business pollution taxes.
David Frost, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "We are very concerned that business is going to be made to pick up the tab for solving the world's environmental problems. "The fact is that families produce a lot of CO2 as well. It's vital the Government resists the temptation to introduce more taxes and regulations." Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses said: "There seems to be an all-party consensus that something needs to be done about the environment. We fear business may be thought of as a soft target. In reality, a lot of the increase in CO2 emissions is down to domestic use and greater use of transport. But it's consumers who vote - not businesses."
The Chancellor has a range of possible green taxes at his disposal. Options include raising fuel duty or increasing taxation on air travel. Nick Goulding of the Forum of Private Business said it was vital that any new regulations inspired by the report were not rushed through. "Business already pays too much tax," he said. "If new taxes are increased then the Government must slash other business taxes, ideally National Insurance contributions. If not, the economy will suffer."
Many businesses have already taken steps to improve their energy efficiency because of soaring fuel prices over the past two years. The BCC said 52.7 per cent of its members in a recent poll considered themselves "energy efficient", while a further 31.1 per cent were considering become more so. However, a hard core of about 20 per cent said it was too costly for them to consider becoming more energy efficient. The lobby groups maintain that the Government should do more to encourage businesses to go green.
The Forum of Private Business wants to see bigger tax breaks for firms that buy environmentally friendly machinery. Meanwhile, the BCC wants to see the Government beef up the Carbon Trust, the agency that works with businesses to lower carbon emissions.
The report by Stern stretches to 700 pages. An official close to the review said he would call for a dramatic boost in research and development spending on green energy and technology by government and businesses. Stern will say that global R&D spending by government and business will have to double from $10bn (œ5bn) to $20bn over the next five to ten years. "The report itself will not outline specific tax policies," said an official. "It will point out that becoming more energy efficient is also an opportunity to boost our economies."
Source
GUILT-EDGED PROFITS
Almost every day produces another doom-filled warning about global warming: a report tomorrow predicts a worldwide recession as a result of climate change. But, as Ross Clark reports, where there is anxiety, there's also business opportunity... and taxes, of course
Tomorrow, when Sir Nicholas Stern, the head of the Government's Economic Service, publishes his 700-page report claiming that global warming could shrink the world economy by 20 per cent, Ru Hartwell will have some reason to feel optimistic. He has just taken out a 30,000 pound mortgage on his home in Tregaron, west Wales, in order to set up a business, treeflights.com, which helps airline passengers assuage their consciences by having a tree planted, at 10 pounds a time, every time they take to the sky. In the three months since he started his business he has already taken 600 orders on his website, plus another 200 to 300 through a link-up with several travel agencies.
Buyers are promised that their tree will be numbered and tagged, so that they can come and inspect the sapling planted in an attempt to counter the environmental vandalism of their fortnight in Marbella. "I have been planting trees for years to offset my carbon emissions," says Mr Hartwell, 48. "But I ran out of resources and thought, rather than just me making a contribution, why not get people who are polluting more than I am to make a contribution too?"
Mr Hartwell is one tiny part of a multi-million pound industry that has grown out of the guilt created by grim predictions of global warming. There are dozens of companies now offering to "offset" your carbon emissions by planting trees, contributing towards the construction of windfarms or paying for green energy schemes in the third world.
On the subject of whether planting a tree really will make up for the carbon emitted by an airline trip, Mr Hartwell, who has worked as a professional tree-planter for, among others, the Forestry Commission, is honest. "I have planted my land with trees and I heat my home with wood rather than fossil fuels. If anyone was carbon-neutral it would be me, but I'm still nowhere near. A tree stores carbon for the duration of its life, but then releases it when it starts to rot. "That is why I am thinking of setting up a trust which will harvest the trees in a hundred years, and then dump them at sea or bury them underground in anaerobic conditions where they will continue to store their carbon.
"I'm trying to do it right, but what some carbon offset companies have been doing is taking money from the public, then claiming more money for tree-planting under the Woodland Grant Scheme. They then plant their trees on land which they don't own. How secure is that? The landowner could harvest the trees well before they had offset your emissions."
Besides being invited to offset their carbon emissions, guilty consumers are being tempted with lorry loads of "carbon-neutral" gifts. "This year make your Xmas a little greener by giving gifts from our great selection," screams the website of the Carbon Neutral Company. "You could balance out the emissions from someone's flights, home or travel... We've got ecogifts and gadgets that you and your family are sure to love." Among them are a "water-powered calculator" at 14.99 and a "wind-up torch and phone-charger" at 11.99.
The Carbon Neutral Company began life as Future Forests Ltd, doing much the same as Mr Hartwell does now. Since then, it has branched out into consultancy work, advising companies such as Honda and the mobile phone operator O2 on how to promote a greener image. Honda, for example, was advised to come up with a wheeze offering customers "one month of carbon-neutral driving" - in other words it gave a small donation to carbon-offset schemes for every car sold.
Under a tab marked "evidence", the website of the Carbon Neutral Company does not offer proof of global warming or give any hint as to whether the company's activities will make any difference to the planet. What it does offer is a piece of research by something called the Institute of Business Ethics, claiming: "Companies with a public commitment to ethics perform better on three out of four measures than those without. These companies also have 18 per cent higher profits on average."
Another way to cash in on global warming, as The Sunday Telegraph revealed in July, is to take advantage of the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme, which set carbon emission targets for particular industries and then allowed those industries to "sell" emissions if they undershot their targets and forced them to "buy" emissions if they overshot their targets. A study by the think-tank Open Europe found that some companies have been making a fortune from undershooting extremely liberal targets: GlaxoSmithKline's plant in Dartford, for example, used only a fifth of its allocation, while the scheme boosted the profits of BP and Esso by 5 million and 5.8 million respectively. Perversely, some of that money came from NHS hospitals, which had overshot their targets and were forced to buy emission rights from oil companies.
But it is not just private enterprise that has found fear of global warming to be the route to a fortune. Public bodies are using global warming as an excuse for revenue-raising. Justifying his plan to charge drivers of 4x4s 300 pounds for a parking permit, Serge Lourie, the leader of Richmond-upon-Thames borough council, said last week: "Climate change is the single greatest challenge faced by the world today. We can no longer bury our head in the sand and pretend that it is not happening."
While the Government lowered petrol taxes in face of the protests of September 2000, it has used climate change as an excuse for levying charges on homeowners. From next June, all homeowners thinking of placing their homes on the market will be obliged first to obtain an "energy performance certificate" at a cost of around 150 pounds a time. Since 2002, homeowners replacing windows, much to the glee of the double-glazing industry, have been obliged to fit double-glazing, and to pay their local authority to inspect it.
A growing number of public servants owe their careers to global warming. The Carbon Trust, a not-for-profit company which advises industry on how to cut its carbon emissions, chomped its way through a grant of 73.7 million from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last year, paying its chief executive, Tom Delay, salary and bonuses of 200,478. Many of its functions are duplicated by the Energy Saving Trust, another not-for-profit company that spent 59 million worth of public grants last year. On top of that, there are the likes of the climate change co-ordinator recently appointed by the unelected North East Regional Assembly on a salary of 35,000.
There are also two Government-funded research units into climate change: the Hadley Centre, which is part of the Met Office, and the Tyndall Centre, which funds researchers at a number of universities, armed with a 10 million grant from the Government. Anyone wondering why British scientists appear often to present a united front on the issue of global warming may do well to study the Tyndall Centre's "objectives", which include "to seek, evaluate and facilitate sustainable solutions that will minimise the adverse effects of climate change and stimulate policy for the transition to a more benign energy and mobility regime". In other words, if you want public money to study climate at a British university, the answers are given upfront: the climate is changing, it is the fault of mankind and it can be alleviated by reducing energy use and travel.
It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. As the nation starts to digest Sir Nicholas's report tomorrow, it may care to reflect that some people are finding global warming quite profitable too.
Source
SCOTTISH DRINKING
For those who have a special affection for Scotland, there is a great article here by a Scotsman about the Scottish love of the bottle. He is trying to be censorious but cannot help celebrating Scottishness. A few excerpts:
The Buckfast fracas is emblematic of the ingrained, abusive and horribly destructive relationship between my countrymen and the bottle. We Scots make the best drink, and the best drinkers, in the world. No parties in the world can compare, in riotous enjoyment, with Hogmanay and Burns Night [Hear here!]. We just don't know when to stop...
Scottish humour and culture are soused in alcohol. Billy Connolly has long been sober, but his performance inevitably recalls, mocks and celebrates his legless days. Harry Lauder composed Glasgow's unofficial anthem as an ode to the city going "round and round" [That's from "I belong to Glasgow", which is usually attributed to Will Fife] on a Saturday night. John Reid, another reformed drinker, likes to tell a joke about how he found he was "allergic to leather" because he kept waking up with his shoes on and a splitting headache....
The drunken hero is a staple of Scots literature, and drinking has become culturally linked to the idea of liberty. Robert Louis Stevenson stated that "wine is bottled poetry" and Robert Burns himself wrote: "Freedom and whisky gang thegither." Somehow that sentiment has evolved into the freedom to get miserably blootered and die young....
The strange, miserablist tradition of Scottish drinking seems out of kilter with a nation that is increasingly self-confident, a country raking in money from tourists to spend on new livers. Today Scotland is wealthier, better educated and warmer than ever before. All dark, northern countries drink more deeply than those in the lighter south, [The French and the Italians might disagree with that] but now even Scottish weather seems to be improving. As I look outside the window, the rhododendrons are flowering for the third time, in late October.
As a child, I vividly remember the drunks lined up outside the hotel in our local village. Lurching, friendly men with wind-scoured faces, they would lean, patiently if unsteadily, against the wall between afternoon closing time and reopening in the evening regardless of the weather. My father insisted they were propping up the hotel.
Those drunks have long been gathered to the celestial tavern, but a new generation of Scottish drinkers is being pickled, with the freedom to drink all day, and alcohol comparatively cheaper than ever.
Post below from Angry Harry. His comparison with British pornography law is interesting:
Muslim Cleric Causes Uproar Over Women's Clothing: Australia's most senior Muslim cleric has prompted an uproar by saying that some women are attracting sexual assault by the way they dress.
Of course, this uproar was caused by various women's groups who think that women should bear no responsibility for what they do. Well, in my view, Sheikh Taj el-Din al-Hilali is correct in what he says - at least to some extent. Indeed, only recently, I wrote the following on my Your Emails page to a woman who seemed to think that women should be able to dress as they please without needing to take into account how others might respond.
"... if women behave stupidly, then they deserve less sympathy should something untoward happen. And if, for example, they wander about the place showing off all their bits then they should not be too surprised to find that some mentally dysfunctional male might respond to them. And the fact that women know that such unhappy events are more likely to occur if they are sexually provocative then the fact that they carry on regardless suggests that they are not very concerned about such events. That is the message that they are sending out.
As such, the law should reflect this lesser concern - this message - when deciding what level of negative impact any assault might have had, AND when deciding any punishment.
... Many women, however, seem to wish to take no responsibility for their behaviours. They seem to think that they should be able to flaunt their sexuality all over the place - in order to incite men - and then they think that they have the right to claim that they are victims when some men respond to them in a manner which is absolutely consistent with the message that they, themselves, have been sending out.
In my view, women who set out to entice men sexually bear more responsibility for sexual assaults against them than do women who do not set out to entice men sexually. And this should be reflected in the law.
... Are women such sluts that they think that they are entitled to foist their sexuality on to every passing member of the public? Are women so mind-boggling stupid that they cannot see that flagrantly enticing men sexually might bring about consequences? What makes women think that they have the right to overtly sexually stimulate men who happen to be in the vicinity whereas if men did a similar thing in response - perhaps with their hands - they could be prosecuted?
When women stick out their sexual organs uninvited into men's vision then this is not much different from men sticking out their hands uninvited for a grope. After all, in both cases they are merely trying to elicit a sexual response in the other party in the best way that they know how.
... Furthermore, we all have to accept that in order to safeguard our liberties, we have to tolerate many dysfunctional and/or unstable beings in our society, as well as those who are temporarily 'unbalanced' - for one reason or another. The alternative, in practice, is truly horrible. And, of course, some 20% of males have very low IQs. As such, I think that women are - as seems typical these days - being incredibly selfish if they believe that they are entitled to swirl up the passions of whomsoever they wish and then escape all responsibility for any negative consequences that might arise from ending up with the wrong kind of attention.
In a nutshell: People who go out of their way to provoke "an attack" are less deserving - should an attack materialise - than those who do not.
Most people would agree with this. But western women see themselves as so superior that they think they should be above such things. And they think that they should be able to provoke men - all men - as much as they like - and then take no responsibility! (And this is true not just in the area of sex. It is true in many other areas.) 'Ollocks, I say. Their own behaviour must be taken into account. And, take it from me, it soon will be!
And I stand by that view! I think I'll become a Muslim. And, while on this particular subject, I wish to make an interesting point!
Here, in the UK, we are soon going to outlaw certain types of pornography because some sex-offenders have claimed that "pornography made me do it". In other words, the government reckons that men can be 'enticed' into doing bad things by looking at pictures. Well, surely, if lofty people can accept the notion that men can be 'enticed' by pictures, then they should also accept the notion that men can be enticed by 'reality'!
And, if this is so, then women - who bring about their own reality - and who thrust it upon others - must also often be viewed as responsible for enticing men in much the same way that pornography allegedly does. So, how is it that women can escape all responsibility for enticing men, whereas pornography and pornographers cannot?
Well, of course, the answer is obvious. Women are nowadays held to be responsible for almost nothing that they do; not even for those situations in which they choose to place themselves. They are not held fully responsible when it comes to choosing to bear offspring, when it comes to their work choices, when it comes to whom they have sex with - especially when they are drunk - when it comes to child abuse, and even when it comes to murder.
And now we are simply being indoctrinated with the view that pornography can entice men to do bad things, but women, themselves, cannot. What hokum, eh? What lies!
Notice also that misleading women - especially younger women - into believing that their dress has no effect on the likelihood of being sexually-assaulted will simply lead to more women enticing more sexual assaults. In other words, more women will be hurt.
But, despite what they might say, most women do not actually care about this. So long as they can say and do as they damn well please, they do not actually care how many other women might be assaulted as a result.
GREEN TAX BLITZ COMING IN BRITAIN
Secret plans for a multi-billion-pound package of stealth taxes on fuel, cars, air travel and consumer goods have been drawn up by the Government to combat global warming. The proposals, leaked to The Mail on Sunday, show that the Government is considering introducing a raft of hard-hitting 'eco-taxes' that will have a devastating effect on the cost of living. Families with big cars could end up paying more than 1,000 pounds a year extra in tax. And nearly every household in Britain will be hit in the pocket.
Most controversial of all, the documents reveal the Government is planning to grab billions of pounds of extra revenue from motorists - without telling them. It is considering introducing a special mechanism so that whenever oil prices go down, the Government would get the cash in extra fuel tax - not the motorist. A leaked letter from Environment Secretary David Miliband to Chancellor Gordon Brown says the advantage of this is that the Government would gain billions of pounds 'without individual announcements on fuel-duty rises needing to be made'. The Government was immediately accused by the Conservatives of trying to introduce more 'stealth taxes' and failing to be honest with voters about the consequences of dealing with climate change.
The leak comes 24 hours before Tony Blair launches a major report warning that floods and other natural disasters caused by global warming will spark an economic catastrophe worse than the 1929 Wall Street Crash. But the report, by economist Sir Nicholas Stern, does not reveal what the Government plans to do about it. But a leaked letter written from Mr Miliband to Mr Brown on October 18 and obtained by The Mail on Sunday spells out the grim reality: wide-ranging tax rises that will have a dramatic impact on family incomes.
Mr Miliband calls for tough measures to combat 'car use and ownership' with a 'substantial increase' in road tax, which currently costs a maximum of 210 pounds a year. Mr Miliband says road tax should copy the 'success' of companycar taxes which forced people to switch to smaller vehicles with annual levies of up to 5,000 pounds. He also suggests a 'Treasury mechanism' allowing the Government to benefit from any fall in oil prices and reintroducing the 'fuel-duty escalator', which put up the duty on petrol by five per cent over inflation until Mr Brown ordered a freeze in 1999. Mr Miliband calls for a new 'pay-per-mile pollution tax' on motorists. And he urges VAT on air travel to EU destinations and new taxes on inefficient washing machines and light bulbs.
He also backs fresh laws to let town halls impose a 'rubbish tax' on households by using 'spies' placed in dustbins to weigh non-recyclable refuse. The letter says: 'Differential charging for waste at household level can have a significant role to play and local authorities should be given the powers to do so.' Mr Miliband also called for landfill tax - paid by businesses and local councils that bury rubbish - to be increased from 21 pounds a ton to 75. But one environmental expert said this could lead to more flytipping unless it is properly policed.
The letter to Mr Brown, marked ' Restricted', demands urgent and radical action in next month's public-spending review and next year's Budget. Changing people's behaviour can be achieved only by 'market forces and price signals', it says, adding: ' Marketbased instruments, including taxes, need to play a substantial role. As our understandings of climate change increases, it is clear more needs to be done.' The Government must 'increase the pace of existing tax measures, broaden them into sectors where incentives to cut carbon emissions are weak and identify new instruments to drive progress in tackling greenhouse gas'.
An aide to Mr Miliband said last night: 'We don't comment on leaked documents. These are ideas, not a package of measures.' An ally of Mr Brown added: 'The Chancellor does not approve of conducting Government business on the basis of leaks.'
Tory environment spokesman Peter Ainsworth said: 'No one is more committed to tackling climate change than the Conservatives. But if the Government wants to deal with it successfully, it must do so in an upfront way instead of bringing in stealth taxes by the back door. As with everything this Government does, the devil is in the detail. If motorists and consumers think all the Government wants to do is to slap taxes on everything, they may respond negatively. 'Tony Blair's Government has sat on its hands for ten years. Tackling the enormous challenge of climate change would have been much easier if they hadn't left it so late.'
Professor Julian Morris, environmental economist at Birmingham University and director of the International Policy Network, a free-market think-tank, called the new taxes 'underhand' and accused the Government of 'nannying'.
Source
WAKING UP FROM SLEEP-WALKING, BRITISH BUSINESSES FACE STERN TAXES
British business is this weekend fighting off calls for a raft of new green taxes that it fears will follow the publication of an influential government report tomorrow. The Stern Review is expected to warn that failure to address climate change could slash global economic growth by up to 20 per cent a year - a controversial view that will turn conventional thinking on climate change on its head. Businesses are worried that the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, will use the report by Sir Nicholas Stern, the respected economist, as an excuse to introduce a range of new anti-business pollution taxes.
David Frost, the director general of the British Chambers of Commerce, said: "We are very concerned that business is going to be made to pick up the tab for solving the world's environmental problems. "The fact is that families produce a lot of CO2 as well. It's vital the Government resists the temptation to introduce more taxes and regulations." Stephen Alambritis of the Federation of Small Businesses said: "There seems to be an all-party consensus that something needs to be done about the environment. We fear business may be thought of as a soft target. In reality, a lot of the increase in CO2 emissions is down to domestic use and greater use of transport. But it's consumers who vote - not businesses."
The Chancellor has a range of possible green taxes at his disposal. Options include raising fuel duty or increasing taxation on air travel. Nick Goulding of the Forum of Private Business said it was vital that any new regulations inspired by the report were not rushed through. "Business already pays too much tax," he said. "If new taxes are increased then the Government must slash other business taxes, ideally National Insurance contributions. If not, the economy will suffer."
Many businesses have already taken steps to improve their energy efficiency because of soaring fuel prices over the past two years. The BCC said 52.7 per cent of its members in a recent poll considered themselves "energy efficient", while a further 31.1 per cent were considering become more so. However, a hard core of about 20 per cent said it was too costly for them to consider becoming more energy efficient. The lobby groups maintain that the Government should do more to encourage businesses to go green.
The Forum of Private Business wants to see bigger tax breaks for firms that buy environmentally friendly machinery. Meanwhile, the BCC wants to see the Government beef up the Carbon Trust, the agency that works with businesses to lower carbon emissions.
The report by Stern stretches to 700 pages. An official close to the review said he would call for a dramatic boost in research and development spending on green energy and technology by government and businesses. Stern will say that global R&D spending by government and business will have to double from $10bn (œ5bn) to $20bn over the next five to ten years. "The report itself will not outline specific tax policies," said an official. "It will point out that becoming more energy efficient is also an opportunity to boost our economies."
Source
GUILT-EDGED PROFITS
Almost every day produces another doom-filled warning about global warming: a report tomorrow predicts a worldwide recession as a result of climate change. But, as Ross Clark reports, where there is anxiety, there's also business opportunity... and taxes, of course
Tomorrow, when Sir Nicholas Stern, the head of the Government's Economic Service, publishes his 700-page report claiming that global warming could shrink the world economy by 20 per cent, Ru Hartwell will have some reason to feel optimistic. He has just taken out a 30,000 pound mortgage on his home in Tregaron, west Wales, in order to set up a business, treeflights.com, which helps airline passengers assuage their consciences by having a tree planted, at 10 pounds a time, every time they take to the sky. In the three months since he started his business he has already taken 600 orders on his website, plus another 200 to 300 through a link-up with several travel agencies.
Buyers are promised that their tree will be numbered and tagged, so that they can come and inspect the sapling planted in an attempt to counter the environmental vandalism of their fortnight in Marbella. "I have been planting trees for years to offset my carbon emissions," says Mr Hartwell, 48. "But I ran out of resources and thought, rather than just me making a contribution, why not get people who are polluting more than I am to make a contribution too?"
Mr Hartwell is one tiny part of a multi-million pound industry that has grown out of the guilt created by grim predictions of global warming. There are dozens of companies now offering to "offset" your carbon emissions by planting trees, contributing towards the construction of windfarms or paying for green energy schemes in the third world.
On the subject of whether planting a tree really will make up for the carbon emitted by an airline trip, Mr Hartwell, who has worked as a professional tree-planter for, among others, the Forestry Commission, is honest. "I have planted my land with trees and I heat my home with wood rather than fossil fuels. If anyone was carbon-neutral it would be me, but I'm still nowhere near. A tree stores carbon for the duration of its life, but then releases it when it starts to rot. "That is why I am thinking of setting up a trust which will harvest the trees in a hundred years, and then dump them at sea or bury them underground in anaerobic conditions where they will continue to store their carbon.
"I'm trying to do it right, but what some carbon offset companies have been doing is taking money from the public, then claiming more money for tree-planting under the Woodland Grant Scheme. They then plant their trees on land which they don't own. How secure is that? The landowner could harvest the trees well before they had offset your emissions."
Besides being invited to offset their carbon emissions, guilty consumers are being tempted with lorry loads of "carbon-neutral" gifts. "This year make your Xmas a little greener by giving gifts from our great selection," screams the website of the Carbon Neutral Company. "You could balance out the emissions from someone's flights, home or travel... We've got ecogifts and gadgets that you and your family are sure to love." Among them are a "water-powered calculator" at 14.99 and a "wind-up torch and phone-charger" at 11.99.
The Carbon Neutral Company began life as Future Forests Ltd, doing much the same as Mr Hartwell does now. Since then, it has branched out into consultancy work, advising companies such as Honda and the mobile phone operator O2 on how to promote a greener image. Honda, for example, was advised to come up with a wheeze offering customers "one month of carbon-neutral driving" - in other words it gave a small donation to carbon-offset schemes for every car sold.
Under a tab marked "evidence", the website of the Carbon Neutral Company does not offer proof of global warming or give any hint as to whether the company's activities will make any difference to the planet. What it does offer is a piece of research by something called the Institute of Business Ethics, claiming: "Companies with a public commitment to ethics perform better on three out of four measures than those without. These companies also have 18 per cent higher profits on average."
Another way to cash in on global warming, as The Sunday Telegraph revealed in July, is to take advantage of the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme, which set carbon emission targets for particular industries and then allowed those industries to "sell" emissions if they undershot their targets and forced them to "buy" emissions if they overshot their targets. A study by the think-tank Open Europe found that some companies have been making a fortune from undershooting extremely liberal targets: GlaxoSmithKline's plant in Dartford, for example, used only a fifth of its allocation, while the scheme boosted the profits of BP and Esso by 5 million and 5.8 million respectively. Perversely, some of that money came from NHS hospitals, which had overshot their targets and were forced to buy emission rights from oil companies.
But it is not just private enterprise that has found fear of global warming to be the route to a fortune. Public bodies are using global warming as an excuse for revenue-raising. Justifying his plan to charge drivers of 4x4s 300 pounds for a parking permit, Serge Lourie, the leader of Richmond-upon-Thames borough council, said last week: "Climate change is the single greatest challenge faced by the world today. We can no longer bury our head in the sand and pretend that it is not happening."
While the Government lowered petrol taxes in face of the protests of September 2000, it has used climate change as an excuse for levying charges on homeowners. From next June, all homeowners thinking of placing their homes on the market will be obliged first to obtain an "energy performance certificate" at a cost of around 150 pounds a time. Since 2002, homeowners replacing windows, much to the glee of the double-glazing industry, have been obliged to fit double-glazing, and to pay their local authority to inspect it.
A growing number of public servants owe their careers to global warming. The Carbon Trust, a not-for-profit company which advises industry on how to cut its carbon emissions, chomped its way through a grant of 73.7 million from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs last year, paying its chief executive, Tom Delay, salary and bonuses of 200,478. Many of its functions are duplicated by the Energy Saving Trust, another not-for-profit company that spent 59 million worth of public grants last year. On top of that, there are the likes of the climate change co-ordinator recently appointed by the unelected North East Regional Assembly on a salary of 35,000.
There are also two Government-funded research units into climate change: the Hadley Centre, which is part of the Met Office, and the Tyndall Centre, which funds researchers at a number of universities, armed with a 10 million grant from the Government. Anyone wondering why British scientists appear often to present a united front on the issue of global warming may do well to study the Tyndall Centre's "objectives", which include "to seek, evaluate and facilitate sustainable solutions that will minimise the adverse effects of climate change and stimulate policy for the transition to a more benign energy and mobility regime". In other words, if you want public money to study climate at a British university, the answers are given upfront: the climate is changing, it is the fault of mankind and it can be alleviated by reducing energy use and travel.
It is an ill wind that blows no one any good. As the nation starts to digest Sir Nicholas's report tomorrow, it may care to reflect that some people are finding global warming quite profitable too.
Source
SCOTTISH DRINKING
For those who have a special affection for Scotland, there is a great article here by a Scotsman about the Scottish love of the bottle. He is trying to be censorious but cannot help celebrating Scottishness. A few excerpts:
The Buckfast fracas is emblematic of the ingrained, abusive and horribly destructive relationship between my countrymen and the bottle. We Scots make the best drink, and the best drinkers, in the world. No parties in the world can compare, in riotous enjoyment, with Hogmanay and Burns Night [Hear here!]. We just don't know when to stop...
Scottish humour and culture are soused in alcohol. Billy Connolly has long been sober, but his performance inevitably recalls, mocks and celebrates his legless days. Harry Lauder composed Glasgow's unofficial anthem as an ode to the city going "round and round" [That's from "I belong to Glasgow", which is usually attributed to Will Fife] on a Saturday night. John Reid, another reformed drinker, likes to tell a joke about how he found he was "allergic to leather" because he kept waking up with his shoes on and a splitting headache....
The drunken hero is a staple of Scots literature, and drinking has become culturally linked to the idea of liberty. Robert Louis Stevenson stated that "wine is bottled poetry" and Robert Burns himself wrote: "Freedom and whisky gang thegither." Somehow that sentiment has evolved into the freedom to get miserably blootered and die young....
The strange, miserablist tradition of Scottish drinking seems out of kilter with a nation that is increasingly self-confident, a country raking in money from tourists to spend on new livers. Today Scotland is wealthier, better educated and warmer than ever before. All dark, northern countries drink more deeply than those in the lighter south, [The French and the Italians might disagree with that] but now even Scottish weather seems to be improving. As I look outside the window, the rhododendrons are flowering for the third time, in late October.
As a child, I vividly remember the drunks lined up outside the hotel in our local village. Lurching, friendly men with wind-scoured faces, they would lean, patiently if unsteadily, against the wall between afternoon closing time and reopening in the evening regardless of the weather. My father insisted they were propping up the hotel.
Those drunks have long been gathered to the celestial tavern, but a new generation of Scottish drinkers is being pickled, with the freedom to drink all day, and alcohol comparatively cheaper than ever.
Monday, October 30, 2006
NHS CUTS TRAINING
If they keep cutting back at their present rate there will soon be only bureaucrats left in the NHS...
Universities are being forced to cut staff and medical training programmes as strategic health authorities trim their budgets to reduce the NHS deficit, The Times has learnt. Nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy and radiography courses have all been severely depleted, as have community-care programmes. Vice-chancellors have given warning that the cuts are likely to cause a boom-and-bust cycle in healthcare provision that may later result in the closure of university departments.
In Central, South West and the East of England, student numbers have dropped this year by as much as a quarter. Overall they have dropped 13 per cent, as health authorities pull contracts.
England’s nursing and allied-health students are paid for via contracts between the strategic health authorities (SHAs) and the universities. Last year 97,000 students were taking such degrees. At the University of the West of England (UWE), a loss of 900,000 pounds in contracts has resulted in 114 fewer students this year, and the end of all conversion courses for nurses wanting to retrain either as midwives and health visitors or to work in the community. Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire SHA made savings of 7.8 million pounds in training programmes in 2005-06 and is continuing to do so. The fear, says Steve West, UWE’s deputy vice-chancellor, is that the cuts will continue. “Our health-visiting, district-nursing and midwifery conversion courses have all been cut, gone, closed,” he said. “It’s becoming very difficult to sustain our commitment to the NHS when our budgets keep being cut.”
England’s SHAs made savings or “underspent” last year by 524 million, but they are now being asked to set aside a further minimum of 350 million for a contingency fund. Much of this money, argues the Council of Deans for Nursing and Health Professions, is coming out of their education and training budgets. This is resulting in the loss of academics and contracts for nurses and and other health professionals.
More here
"DANGEROUS" PEAR TREE
A ripe pear is soft and squishy but that's still too dangerous for the soft and squishy people in charge of one British school
The laws of gravity might never have been revealed if Isaac Newton's apple tree had suffered the same fate as that of the Sacred Heart primary school's pear tree.
It may warm the hearts of health and safety commissioners across the country, but yesterday a move to cut down the tree was condemned elsewhere as madness. Governors and the head teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School, in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire sparked a furious reaction, when they decided to chop down the tree overhanging the playground. "A risk assessment was done on the tree and it was found necessary to have it removed. The risk was mainly from falling pears," said Geoffrey Fielding, chair of the governors. "We have a duty of care to the health and safety to people on this site, particularly the children and that's the decision that we have taken."
The school said they had made the decision after witnessing parents being hit on the head by falling fruit as they waited for their children. Lizzie Summerwill, a mother, praised the tree cutters. "I think it's brilliant they cut it down because of the health and safety issues," she said. "In the summertime it was infested by wasps and the fruit stank."
But Gill Franklin, owner of Cross Lane Fruit Farm, Mapledurham, which has 400 pear trees, has never been hit on the head by the fruit in 29 years. She said removing damaged pears and picking the fruit before it became ripe would resolve the issue. "Fruit doesn't drop down for no reason. You never ripen a pear on a tree. We have gone mad on risk assessment," she said. "Environmentally the world needs more trees and the children need to eat fruit. Why didn't they pick the pears? It's a frightening thought they're not using their natural resources. They're probably buying fruit in and letting the pears go to waste."
The tree is thought to be at least 25 years old, but was not included in a tree preservation order served on the site. Adam Dawson, a tree preservation officer for South Oxfordshire District Council, said Mr. Fielding did not accept his recommendations for solving the perceived problems. He added: "On balancing up the issues, and bearing in mind the considerable number of other protected trees in the vicinity, I did not consider it expedient to dedicate resources to serving an emergency tree preservation order on this one tree."
Earlier this year the school filled in a pond claiming it was very dangerous for pupils and that the area was needed for a temporary classroom.
Source
STERN GANG CALLS FOR 'BIGGEST ECONOMIC REVOLUTION IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND'
A ground-breaking report due on Monday will say that the impact of global poverty, conflict and mass migration due to climate change far outweighs the costs of taking urgent action to counter global warming. The report by chief British government economist Nicholas Stern will underpin efforts to reach a new global deal to combat climate change when the current Kyoto Protocol agreement ends in 2012.
The United States, the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, pulled out of Kyoto saying taking action would too expensive and cost jobs.
The report, by the former World Bank chief economist, tackles US scepticism head-on by seeking to prove the costs of tackling global warming are small compared to the potentially enormous impact of runaway climate change in year's ahead. In his closely-argued 700-page review Mr Stern says action to curb the most dangerous effects of global warming will hold back growth in the world economy only slightly over the next 45 years, said a source who had seen a draft.
But the effects of uncontrolled climate change could be devastating, Mr Stern says in a report pitched at policymakers who gather next month to discuss extending Kyoto. "He will talk a lot in that report about the scale and urgency of what's required," said John Ashton, special representative for climate change at the British foreign office. "We are all (including Britain, Europe) going to have to do an awful lot better. There is no government which has in place the policies that will eat into this at the scale and with the urgency necessary at the moment," he said.
A scientific consensus is emerging that global greenhouse gas emissions, except from food production, will have to shrink to near-zero by mid-century, said Mr Ashton - requiring a huge leap given that emissions are rising in the European Union. "We need to get very close to a zero carbon global energy economy. This is the biggest structural shift in the way the global economy works that has ever been attempted by humanity, it's an enormous demand of any economy."
Mr Stern will stress that taking action on climate change offers benefits, given that a major way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is by burning fossil fuels more efficiently, offering huge cost-savings. To drive the necessary energy investment changes he will call for a global carbon price, whether through carbon taxes or carbon markets - affixing a clear cost to pollution.
This would build on rather isolated existing carbon markets, such as in the European Union and among countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and mooted markets in California and other US states. "We'll need to develop deep and liquid carbon markets," said a Treasury source. "The combination of price and trading schemes will be central to drive financial flows (investment in emissions cuts)."
Carbon markets set an overall cap on emissions of greenhouse gases but allow companies or countries to trade rights to emit. The idea is that businesses and countries that can cut emissions cheaply will over-achieve and sell their surplus rights to emit to others, cutting the overall cost of cuts. Mr Stern wants an expansion of carbon trading between rich and poor countries under Kyoto.
Britain has raised the alarm on climate change in the run-up to Mr Stern's review. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Dutch counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende said last week the world had just 10 to 15 years to take steps to avoid catastrophe.
Source
INNATE DIFFERENCES IN FOOD CRAVING
Scientists have discovered why some people's brains are particularly vulnerable to food advertising and product packaging, putting them at risk of overeating and becoming overweight. The research provides fresh insight into one of the neurobiological factors underlying obesity by showing how some people are more attracted to the prospect of being rewarded with tasty food than others. The findings from a group of scientists at the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge led by Andy Calder and Andrew Lawrence are published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Different people have higher or lower reward sensitivity, a personality trait that reflects a general desire to pursue rewarding or pleasurable experiences. The research shows that individuals with higher reward sensitivity, show increased activity in the parts of the brain implicated in motivation or reward when simply looking at pictures of appetizing food.
Previous research has shown that people with high reward sensitivity have stronger food cravings and are more likely to be overweight, but until now, the biological basis of this effect was unknown. This new research identifies how this relationship operates in the human brain, resulting in greater susceptibility to food advertising.
The study used the latest technology in brain imaging. The researchers showed people pictures of highly appetizing foods (e.g. chocolate cakes), bland foods (e.g. broccoli), and disgusting foods (e.g. rotten meat) while measuring brain activity using an fMRI scanner. After testing, the study participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their general desire to pursue rewarding items or goals. The results showed that the participant's scores on the reward sensitivity questionnaire predicted the extent to which the appetizing food images activated their brain's reward network.
"Previous studies in this area have assumed that brain activation patterns are similar in all healthy individuals. But the new findings demonstrate that even in healthy individuals some peoples' brain reward centers are more sensitive to appetizing food cues. This helps explain why some individuals are more vulnerable to developing certain disorders like binge-eating," said Dr John Beaver, lead author of the study. "This is particularly pertinent in understanding the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity, as people are constantly bombarded with images of appetizing food items in order to promote food intake through television advertising, vending machines, or product packaging."
According to Dr Beaver the findings may also have broader implications for understanding vulnerability to multiple forms of addiction and compulsive behaviors.
"Research demonstrates that an individual's reward sensitivity may also relate to their vulnerability to substance abuse, and the brain network we have identified is hyper-responsive to drug cues in addicts," he said.
Source
If they keep cutting back at their present rate there will soon be only bureaucrats left in the NHS...
Universities are being forced to cut staff and medical training programmes as strategic health authorities trim their budgets to reduce the NHS deficit, The Times has learnt. Nursing, midwifery, physiotherapy and radiography courses have all been severely depleted, as have community-care programmes. Vice-chancellors have given warning that the cuts are likely to cause a boom-and-bust cycle in healthcare provision that may later result in the closure of university departments.
In Central, South West and the East of England, student numbers have dropped this year by as much as a quarter. Overall they have dropped 13 per cent, as health authorities pull contracts.
England’s nursing and allied-health students are paid for via contracts between the strategic health authorities (SHAs) and the universities. Last year 97,000 students were taking such degrees. At the University of the West of England (UWE), a loss of 900,000 pounds in contracts has resulted in 114 fewer students this year, and the end of all conversion courses for nurses wanting to retrain either as midwives and health visitors or to work in the community. Avon, Gloucestershire and Wiltshire SHA made savings of 7.8 million pounds in training programmes in 2005-06 and is continuing to do so. The fear, says Steve West, UWE’s deputy vice-chancellor, is that the cuts will continue. “Our health-visiting, district-nursing and midwifery conversion courses have all been cut, gone, closed,” he said. “It’s becoming very difficult to sustain our commitment to the NHS when our budgets keep being cut.”
England’s SHAs made savings or “underspent” last year by 524 million, but they are now being asked to set aside a further minimum of 350 million for a contingency fund. Much of this money, argues the Council of Deans for Nursing and Health Professions, is coming out of their education and training budgets. This is resulting in the loss of academics and contracts for nurses and and other health professionals.
More here
"DANGEROUS" PEAR TREE
A ripe pear is soft and squishy but that's still too dangerous for the soft and squishy people in charge of one British school
The laws of gravity might never have been revealed if Isaac Newton's apple tree had suffered the same fate as that of the Sacred Heart primary school's pear tree.
It may warm the hearts of health and safety commissioners across the country, but yesterday a move to cut down the tree was condemned elsewhere as madness. Governors and the head teacher at Sacred Heart Primary School, in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire sparked a furious reaction, when they decided to chop down the tree overhanging the playground. "A risk assessment was done on the tree and it was found necessary to have it removed. The risk was mainly from falling pears," said Geoffrey Fielding, chair of the governors. "We have a duty of care to the health and safety to people on this site, particularly the children and that's the decision that we have taken."
The school said they had made the decision after witnessing parents being hit on the head by falling fruit as they waited for their children. Lizzie Summerwill, a mother, praised the tree cutters. "I think it's brilliant they cut it down because of the health and safety issues," she said. "In the summertime it was infested by wasps and the fruit stank."
But Gill Franklin, owner of Cross Lane Fruit Farm, Mapledurham, which has 400 pear trees, has never been hit on the head by the fruit in 29 years. She said removing damaged pears and picking the fruit before it became ripe would resolve the issue. "Fruit doesn't drop down for no reason. You never ripen a pear on a tree. We have gone mad on risk assessment," she said. "Environmentally the world needs more trees and the children need to eat fruit. Why didn't they pick the pears? It's a frightening thought they're not using their natural resources. They're probably buying fruit in and letting the pears go to waste."
The tree is thought to be at least 25 years old, but was not included in a tree preservation order served on the site. Adam Dawson, a tree preservation officer for South Oxfordshire District Council, said Mr. Fielding did not accept his recommendations for solving the perceived problems. He added: "On balancing up the issues, and bearing in mind the considerable number of other protected trees in the vicinity, I did not consider it expedient to dedicate resources to serving an emergency tree preservation order on this one tree."
Earlier this year the school filled in a pond claiming it was very dangerous for pupils and that the area was needed for a temporary classroom.
Source
STERN GANG CALLS FOR 'BIGGEST ECONOMIC REVOLUTION IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND'
A ground-breaking report due on Monday will say that the impact of global poverty, conflict and mass migration due to climate change far outweighs the costs of taking urgent action to counter global warming. The report by chief British government economist Nicholas Stern will underpin efforts to reach a new global deal to combat climate change when the current Kyoto Protocol agreement ends in 2012.
The United States, the world's biggest producer of greenhouse gases that cause climate change, pulled out of Kyoto saying taking action would too expensive and cost jobs.
The report, by the former World Bank chief economist, tackles US scepticism head-on by seeking to prove the costs of tackling global warming are small compared to the potentially enormous impact of runaway climate change in year's ahead. In his closely-argued 700-page review Mr Stern says action to curb the most dangerous effects of global warming will hold back growth in the world economy only slightly over the next 45 years, said a source who had seen a draft.
But the effects of uncontrolled climate change could be devastating, Mr Stern says in a report pitched at policymakers who gather next month to discuss extending Kyoto. "He will talk a lot in that report about the scale and urgency of what's required," said John Ashton, special representative for climate change at the British foreign office. "We are all (including Britain, Europe) going to have to do an awful lot better. There is no government which has in place the policies that will eat into this at the scale and with the urgency necessary at the moment," he said.
A scientific consensus is emerging that global greenhouse gas emissions, except from food production, will have to shrink to near-zero by mid-century, said Mr Ashton - requiring a huge leap given that emissions are rising in the European Union. "We need to get very close to a zero carbon global energy economy. This is the biggest structural shift in the way the global economy works that has ever been attempted by humanity, it's an enormous demand of any economy."
Mr Stern will stress that taking action on climate change offers benefits, given that a major way to cut greenhouse gas emissions is by burning fossil fuels more efficiently, offering huge cost-savings. To drive the necessary energy investment changes he will call for a global carbon price, whether through carbon taxes or carbon markets - affixing a clear cost to pollution.
This would build on rather isolated existing carbon markets, such as in the European Union and among countries that have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and mooted markets in California and other US states. "We'll need to develop deep and liquid carbon markets," said a Treasury source. "The combination of price and trading schemes will be central to drive financial flows (investment in emissions cuts)."
Carbon markets set an overall cap on emissions of greenhouse gases but allow companies or countries to trade rights to emit. The idea is that businesses and countries that can cut emissions cheaply will over-achieve and sell their surplus rights to emit to others, cutting the overall cost of cuts. Mr Stern wants an expansion of carbon trading between rich and poor countries under Kyoto.
Britain has raised the alarm on climate change in the run-up to Mr Stern's review. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his Dutch counterpart Jan Peter Balkenende said last week the world had just 10 to 15 years to take steps to avoid catastrophe.
Source
INNATE DIFFERENCES IN FOOD CRAVING
Scientists have discovered why some people's brains are particularly vulnerable to food advertising and product packaging, putting them at risk of overeating and becoming overweight. The research provides fresh insight into one of the neurobiological factors underlying obesity by showing how some people are more attracted to the prospect of being rewarded with tasty food than others. The findings from a group of scientists at the Medical Research Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge led by Andy Calder and Andrew Lawrence are published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Different people have higher or lower reward sensitivity, a personality trait that reflects a general desire to pursue rewarding or pleasurable experiences. The research shows that individuals with higher reward sensitivity, show increased activity in the parts of the brain implicated in motivation or reward when simply looking at pictures of appetizing food.
Previous research has shown that people with high reward sensitivity have stronger food cravings and are more likely to be overweight, but until now, the biological basis of this effect was unknown. This new research identifies how this relationship operates in the human brain, resulting in greater susceptibility to food advertising.
The study used the latest technology in brain imaging. The researchers showed people pictures of highly appetizing foods (e.g. chocolate cakes), bland foods (e.g. broccoli), and disgusting foods (e.g. rotten meat) while measuring brain activity using an fMRI scanner. After testing, the study participants completed a questionnaire that assessed their general desire to pursue rewarding items or goals. The results showed that the participant's scores on the reward sensitivity questionnaire predicted the extent to which the appetizing food images activated their brain's reward network.
"Previous studies in this area have assumed that brain activation patterns are similar in all healthy individuals. But the new findings demonstrate that even in healthy individuals some peoples' brain reward centers are more sensitive to appetizing food cues. This helps explain why some individuals are more vulnerable to developing certain disorders like binge-eating," said Dr John Beaver, lead author of the study. "This is particularly pertinent in understanding the rapidly increasing prevalence of obesity, as people are constantly bombarded with images of appetizing food items in order to promote food intake through television advertising, vending machines, or product packaging."
According to Dr Beaver the findings may also have broader implications for understanding vulnerability to multiple forms of addiction and compulsive behaviors.
"Research demonstrates that an individual's reward sensitivity may also relate to their vulnerability to substance abuse, and the brain network we have identified is hyper-responsive to drug cues in addicts," he said.
Source
Sunday, October 29, 2006
THE CONSENSUS VIEW IS FREQUENTLY VERY WRONG INDEED
One of the most misguided ideas in any debate is the idea that the consensus view is usually, if not always, right. All too frequently the accepted wisdom has been completely and comprehensively wrong. We may react with disbelief that anyone believed, or indeed still believes, that ships would sail over the edge of earth, and possibly be gobbled up by monsters, because the earth was flat. But historically this has been an accepted wisdom. And we may be bemused, even a trifle alarmed, that Galileo was threatened with the torture because he supported Copernicus's revolutionary (no pun intended) theory that the earth goes round the sun rather than vice versa. But Copernicus's maverick theory challenged a consensus that was politically dangerous to challenge.
Economics, albeit more prosaically, has also been subject to fads, whims and consensus views to which history has not been kind. Twenty-five years ago Britain was at an economic crossroads. The credibility of the British economy was collapsing as inflation and unemployment soared, manufacturing output slumped and the national debt spiralled upwards. Margaret Thatcher and her Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, concluded that drastic action was required. Taxes were raised by £4bn (then a huge sum) in the 1981 Budget in order to provide scope for lower interest rates and tackle public sector borrowing. There was, unsurprisingly, substantial political opposition.
But, of more interest, 364 economists signed a letter to The Times stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for Sir Geoffrey's policy and that it threatened Britain's "social and political stability". An alternative course of action must be pursued, these savants insisted. Almost the entire academic economic establishment stood against the Government with a mere handful of brave "mavericks" dissenting from the consensus view. But, as we now know, the letter's signatories were wrong because they believed in the then ubiquitous, but faulty, Keynesian consensus of the time.
Moreover, not only did the economics establishment regard Sir Geoffrey's Budget as fundamentally flawed, they also took the same view of the mavericks' judgments. This is instructive. Many in academia seem to believe that "peer-reviewed" research guarantees impartial, sound and independent assessment. It does not. Mavericks can be marked down and dismissed by their consensus-minded peers. Dissension is rarely popular.
The story of the 364 economists should be a warning to all who give the impression that the consensus view is an impregnable fortress of truth. Yet only recently Sir David King, the Government's Chief Scientist, was again reassuring us that at a meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, there had been a "scientific consensus" about climate change. Man-made carbon emissions were the main drivers of global warming. But the meeting was organised by the British Government to discuss the climate change action plan agreed at Gleneagles last year and the main protagonists were G8 ministers, hardly independently minded free spirits.
By happy coincidence, as the G8 delegates were flying to and from Monterrey, liberally scattering carbon emissions into the ether, the Royal Society was publishing a paper by a team from the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) of the utmost scientific significance. Interestingly, the DNSC team leader, one Henrik Svensmark, has been impeded and persecuted by scientific and government establishments in recent years because his findings have been politically inconvenient. Politically inconvenient they are indeed.
Very briefly, the latest DNSC research shows how cosmic rays from exploding stars can encourage cloud formation in the earth's atmosphere. As the Sun's magnetic field, which shields the earth from cosmic rays, strengthened significantly during the 20th century the average influx of cosmic rays, and hence cloudiness, was reduced over this period. The resulting reduction in cloudiness, especially low-altitude clouds which have an overall cooling effect, could, therefore, be a highly significant factor in the last century's global warming.
I am no climate scientist. But it is clear this research seriously challenges the current pseudo-consensus that global warming is largely caused by manmade carbon emissions. All the current carbon hysteria is a mistake - and a potentially costly one at that.
I have to admit I have some reservations about the Royal Society. They have sorely misrepresented me in the press at least twice. And they have frequently been accused of being the Government's mouthpiece on the science of global warming. After all, 67pc of their funding, some 30 million pounds, comes from Government. They have also, apparently, been accused of denying funding to any climate scientist who does not share their alarmist views. But, in publishing this research, they have added to a debate that has major economic and business implications for this country. They should be applauded.
Source
Perfect smile dangerous
In the quest for the perfect Hollywood smile, they provide an instant and cheap makeover for the mouth. But the teeth-whitening kits used by thousands of Britons who want polished molars can cause permanent damage, according to dentists. Super-strength whitening kits that promise to create brighter smiles by bleaching teeth with high levels of hydrogen peroxide dye can lead to chemical burns and aggravated gum disease, the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) announced yesterday. The do-it-yourself kits, on sale over the counter in Britain for as little as 10 pounds, are in demand as an alternative to surgical bleaching treatments offered by dental clinics at a cost of between 300 and 1,300 pounds.
Yet some kits available online are 250 times more concentrated than the legal limit and can cause damage or over-bleaching, resulting in so-called "fridge door teeth", clinicians claim. At worst, they may exacerbate gum disease, leading to tooth loss. Private dental clinics are burgeoning, with the market for cosmetic dentistry in Britain now said to be worth 1 billion. More than a quarter of Britons have had cosmetic dental work, including caps and braces. However, whitening treatments are the most popular, according to a recent survey. James Goolnik, a dentist and board member of the BACD, said that the kits offering a "cheap, quick fix" were ineffective and offered a false economy.
"Whitening is a bit like a facial in that it helps to unlock pores in your tooth so that stains are gently removed leaving teeth cleaner and brighter," he said. "All whitening is based on a hydrogen peroxide solution; the only difference in the hundreds of systems out there is the concentration and the way the solution is applied to your teeth. Not all of them are safe. "By law, shop-bought kits in the UK can't have a hydrogen peroxide concentration level more than 0.1 per cent. But other countries have no regulations at all."
Dr Goolnik said that take-home kits should be used with caution since they involved using poorly moulded mouth guards, often worn overnight, allowing leakage of gel or solutions containing hydrogen peroxide, a chemical typically associated with hair colourings, into the mouth. "If the gel goes on to the gums, it can cause blistering. In someone who has got irritation or decay, it can accelerate the process," he said. Dr Goolnik said that the kits with high levels of hydrogen peroxide were designed to be used by professional dentists, painted directly on to the teeth while the gums were protected. He said: "We are seeing more and more people coming in with damage caused by whitening kits . . . They go to the supermarket and see whitening toothpastes. There is no evidence they can actually whiten teeth and people might not see a difference, so they want the next thing up. At best they get no result, and at worst they get permanent sensitivity. "It is essential to invest, at a bare minimum, in going to see your dentist before you use one of these kits, but you don't want to spend money on whitening for no effect and only a dentist can get your teeth to the maximum whiteness."
A spokesman for the General Dental Council, which regulates dentistry in Britain, said: "Tooth-whitening products contain bleach and need to be handled with caution. Only registered dentists are permitted to apply materials and carry out procedures designed to improve the aesthetic appearance of teeth." Carmel McHenry, a spokeswoman for the British Dental Association said: "Liquids that discolour teeth will darken them again over time." She recommended a full dental assessment before the procedure.
A spokesman for Boots the Chemist, which sells its own brand of whitening kits, said: "People with sensitive teeth or gums are advised to talk to a dentist before using whitening kits, and all users are advised to pay careful attention to the detailed instructions on the packaging. Our own-brand kit uses a non-peroxide formula and has been extensively tested and passed as safe to use."
Source
One of the most misguided ideas in any debate is the idea that the consensus view is usually, if not always, right. All too frequently the accepted wisdom has been completely and comprehensively wrong. We may react with disbelief that anyone believed, or indeed still believes, that ships would sail over the edge of earth, and possibly be gobbled up by monsters, because the earth was flat. But historically this has been an accepted wisdom. And we may be bemused, even a trifle alarmed, that Galileo was threatened with the torture because he supported Copernicus's revolutionary (no pun intended) theory that the earth goes round the sun rather than vice versa. But Copernicus's maverick theory challenged a consensus that was politically dangerous to challenge.
Economics, albeit more prosaically, has also been subject to fads, whims and consensus views to which history has not been kind. Twenty-five years ago Britain was at an economic crossroads. The credibility of the British economy was collapsing as inflation and unemployment soared, manufacturing output slumped and the national debt spiralled upwards. Margaret Thatcher and her Chancellor, Sir Geoffrey Howe, concluded that drastic action was required. Taxes were raised by £4bn (then a huge sum) in the 1981 Budget in order to provide scope for lower interest rates and tackle public sector borrowing. There was, unsurprisingly, substantial political opposition.
But, of more interest, 364 economists signed a letter to The Times stating that there was "no basis in economic theory or supporting evidence" for Sir Geoffrey's policy and that it threatened Britain's "social and political stability". An alternative course of action must be pursued, these savants insisted. Almost the entire academic economic establishment stood against the Government with a mere handful of brave "mavericks" dissenting from the consensus view. But, as we now know, the letter's signatories were wrong because they believed in the then ubiquitous, but faulty, Keynesian consensus of the time.
Moreover, not only did the economics establishment regard Sir Geoffrey's Budget as fundamentally flawed, they also took the same view of the mavericks' judgments. This is instructive. Many in academia seem to believe that "peer-reviewed" research guarantees impartial, sound and independent assessment. It does not. Mavericks can be marked down and dismissed by their consensus-minded peers. Dissension is rarely popular.
The story of the 364 economists should be a warning to all who give the impression that the consensus view is an impregnable fortress of truth. Yet only recently Sir David King, the Government's Chief Scientist, was again reassuring us that at a meeting in Monterrey, Mexico, there had been a "scientific consensus" about climate change. Man-made carbon emissions were the main drivers of global warming. But the meeting was organised by the British Government to discuss the climate change action plan agreed at Gleneagles last year and the main protagonists were G8 ministers, hardly independently minded free spirits.
By happy coincidence, as the G8 delegates were flying to and from Monterrey, liberally scattering carbon emissions into the ether, the Royal Society was publishing a paper by a team from the Danish National Space Center (DNSC) of the utmost scientific significance. Interestingly, the DNSC team leader, one Henrik Svensmark, has been impeded and persecuted by scientific and government establishments in recent years because his findings have been politically inconvenient. Politically inconvenient they are indeed.
Very briefly, the latest DNSC research shows how cosmic rays from exploding stars can encourage cloud formation in the earth's atmosphere. As the Sun's magnetic field, which shields the earth from cosmic rays, strengthened significantly during the 20th century the average influx of cosmic rays, and hence cloudiness, was reduced over this period. The resulting reduction in cloudiness, especially low-altitude clouds which have an overall cooling effect, could, therefore, be a highly significant factor in the last century's global warming.
I am no climate scientist. But it is clear this research seriously challenges the current pseudo-consensus that global warming is largely caused by manmade carbon emissions. All the current carbon hysteria is a mistake - and a potentially costly one at that.
I have to admit I have some reservations about the Royal Society. They have sorely misrepresented me in the press at least twice. And they have frequently been accused of being the Government's mouthpiece on the science of global warming. After all, 67pc of their funding, some 30 million pounds, comes from Government. They have also, apparently, been accused of denying funding to any climate scientist who does not share their alarmist views. But, in publishing this research, they have added to a debate that has major economic and business implications for this country. They should be applauded.
Source
Perfect smile dangerous
In the quest for the perfect Hollywood smile, they provide an instant and cheap makeover for the mouth. But the teeth-whitening kits used by thousands of Britons who want polished molars can cause permanent damage, according to dentists. Super-strength whitening kits that promise to create brighter smiles by bleaching teeth with high levels of hydrogen peroxide dye can lead to chemical burns and aggravated gum disease, the British Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry (BACD) announced yesterday. The do-it-yourself kits, on sale over the counter in Britain for as little as 10 pounds, are in demand as an alternative to surgical bleaching treatments offered by dental clinics at a cost of between 300 and 1,300 pounds.
Yet some kits available online are 250 times more concentrated than the legal limit and can cause damage or over-bleaching, resulting in so-called "fridge door teeth", clinicians claim. At worst, they may exacerbate gum disease, leading to tooth loss. Private dental clinics are burgeoning, with the market for cosmetic dentistry in Britain now said to be worth 1 billion. More than a quarter of Britons have had cosmetic dental work, including caps and braces. However, whitening treatments are the most popular, according to a recent survey. James Goolnik, a dentist and board member of the BACD, said that the kits offering a "cheap, quick fix" were ineffective and offered a false economy.
"Whitening is a bit like a facial in that it helps to unlock pores in your tooth so that stains are gently removed leaving teeth cleaner and brighter," he said. "All whitening is based on a hydrogen peroxide solution; the only difference in the hundreds of systems out there is the concentration and the way the solution is applied to your teeth. Not all of them are safe. "By law, shop-bought kits in the UK can't have a hydrogen peroxide concentration level more than 0.1 per cent. But other countries have no regulations at all."
Dr Goolnik said that take-home kits should be used with caution since they involved using poorly moulded mouth guards, often worn overnight, allowing leakage of gel or solutions containing hydrogen peroxide, a chemical typically associated with hair colourings, into the mouth. "If the gel goes on to the gums, it can cause blistering. In someone who has got irritation or decay, it can accelerate the process," he said. Dr Goolnik said that the kits with high levels of hydrogen peroxide were designed to be used by professional dentists, painted directly on to the teeth while the gums were protected. He said: "We are seeing more and more people coming in with damage caused by whitening kits . . . They go to the supermarket and see whitening toothpastes. There is no evidence they can actually whiten teeth and people might not see a difference, so they want the next thing up. At best they get no result, and at worst they get permanent sensitivity. "It is essential to invest, at a bare minimum, in going to see your dentist before you use one of these kits, but you don't want to spend money on whitening for no effect and only a dentist can get your teeth to the maximum whiteness."
A spokesman for the General Dental Council, which regulates dentistry in Britain, said: "Tooth-whitening products contain bleach and need to be handled with caution. Only registered dentists are permitted to apply materials and carry out procedures designed to improve the aesthetic appearance of teeth." Carmel McHenry, a spokeswoman for the British Dental Association said: "Liquids that discolour teeth will darken them again over time." She recommended a full dental assessment before the procedure.
A spokesman for Boots the Chemist, which sells its own brand of whitening kits, said: "People with sensitive teeth or gums are advised to talk to a dentist before using whitening kits, and all users are advised to pay careful attention to the detailed instructions on the packaging. Our own-brand kit uses a non-peroxide formula and has been extensively tested and passed as safe to use."
Source
Saturday, October 28, 2006
PRIMARY-SCHOOL FAILURE
Nearly a fifth of five-year-olds cannot write their own name and fewer than half have reached their expected level of learning, official figures show. An assessment of 535,000 five-year-olds in England found that, after a year of schooling, 91,000 could not write simple words such as “mum” or “cat” or hold a pencil correctly. The number of children who had mastered basic literacy and numeracy was much lower than last year, as was the number of children who reached expected levels of physical development. Boys proved worst at completing writing tasks, with 21 per cent unable to write key words compared with 11 per cent of girls.
About 21,420 children could not count to ten and 39 per cent could not hear or pronounce the short vowel sounds in words such as “pen”, “hat” and “dog”, while 17 per cent could not recognise or name all the letters of the alphabet. Overall, 44.6 per cent of five-year-olds reached the expected level of improvement after their first year of primary school, a drop of 3.2 percentage points on 2005.
The Department for Education and Skills has defined a “good level of development” as children achieving six or more points across 13 scales in areas such as personal, social and emotional development, reading, writing and maths. However, the figures suggest that the Government will fall short of its target of 53 per cent of five-year-olds in England reaching this level by 2008. Ministers blamed the fall in attainment on tougher marking while teachers said that comparisons between years were spurious.
Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Last year’s assessments were riddled with difficulties as teachers came to terms with the new scheme. “The assessments are qualitative judgments on such issues as a child’s personal development and cannot be presented as simple numerical results or in league table form.”
Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, said in April that the new targets would mean that 30,000 more children would reach expected levels. She said that the Government would like to see “faster gains in our most deprived communities” in England, but figures for local authorities were unavailable yesterday. The Education Department said that the public reaction to its curriculum for toddlers, the Early Years Foundation Stage, had been enthusiastic. The framework has a play-based approach that is designed to integrate quality learning and care. Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, said that the framework would improve the learning abilities of five-year-olds and enable “them to reach their full potential, just as any good parent would seek to do at home”.
Source
More Favoritism for Muslims in Britain
Police in Manchester have been told not to arrest Muslims wanted on warrants at prayer times during Ramadan. Greater Manchester Police confirmed it had asked detectives not to make planned arrests during those periods for reasons of religious sensitivity. The advice was emailed out to officers working in Moss Side, Hulme, Whalley Range, Rusholme, Fallowfield, Ardwick, Longsight, Gorton and Levenshulme. Police said it was not a blanket ban, just a "request for sensitivity". The email stressed the order did not apply to on-the-spot arrests, only the execution of arrest warrants.
The holy month of Ramadan began on 22 September and is due to end with the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr next week. The internal email was sent to staff listing the prayer times, but confusion arose and a second memo was sent clarifying it was not a total ban on arresting Muslims at these times. A GMP statement said: "The primary objective of Greater Manchester Police is to fight crime and protect people. "The month of Ramadan is an important time of the year for members of the Muslim community throughout the world. "It is important that normal, planned policing activities and operations are maintained, while ensuring that officers are professional and respectful to members of the community while going about their duties."
Liberal Democrat councillor Simon Ashley, who represents the city's Gorton South ward and leads the party on Manchester City Council, said: "This sounds odd but we would need to find out what impact rescheduling arrests had on police operations. "The police's first job is to police. "I understand they have a difficult task to do and need to do it sensitively, especially within minority communities, but that can't stop them policing serious crimes."
Source
No arrests of Christians over Easter or Christmas/New Year too? That seems to have been overlooked
A Libertarian Archbishop?
There is not much that I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury about (though he did support the Iraq intervention) and I regularly mock the Church of England but I agree with the following words of His Grace:
As a libertarian, I think that there should be complete freedom of religion for both Muslims and Christians, unlike the absurd situation in the USA and UK at the moment where there seems to be more freedom for Muslims than for Christians. It is only the advocacy and practice of violence that should be penalized.
And it seems that the chief prelate of the Church of England has similar views. He clearly thinks that the wearing of Muslim veils and Christian crosses should both be allowed. Both have of course recently been penalized in England.
Nearly a fifth of five-year-olds cannot write their own name and fewer than half have reached their expected level of learning, official figures show. An assessment of 535,000 five-year-olds in England found that, after a year of schooling, 91,000 could not write simple words such as “mum” or “cat” or hold a pencil correctly. The number of children who had mastered basic literacy and numeracy was much lower than last year, as was the number of children who reached expected levels of physical development. Boys proved worst at completing writing tasks, with 21 per cent unable to write key words compared with 11 per cent of girls.
About 21,420 children could not count to ten and 39 per cent could not hear or pronounce the short vowel sounds in words such as “pen”, “hat” and “dog”, while 17 per cent could not recognise or name all the letters of the alphabet. Overall, 44.6 per cent of five-year-olds reached the expected level of improvement after their first year of primary school, a drop of 3.2 percentage points on 2005.
The Department for Education and Skills has defined a “good level of development” as children achieving six or more points across 13 scales in areas such as personal, social and emotional development, reading, writing and maths. However, the figures suggest that the Government will fall short of its target of 53 per cent of five-year-olds in England reaching this level by 2008. Ministers blamed the fall in attainment on tougher marking while teachers said that comparisons between years were spurious.
Steve Sinnott, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said: “Last year’s assessments were riddled with difficulties as teachers came to terms with the new scheme. “The assessments are qualitative judgments on such issues as a child’s personal development and cannot be presented as simple numerical results or in league table form.”
Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, said in April that the new targets would mean that 30,000 more children would reach expected levels. She said that the Government would like to see “faster gains in our most deprived communities” in England, but figures for local authorities were unavailable yesterday. The Education Department said that the public reaction to its curriculum for toddlers, the Early Years Foundation Stage, had been enthusiastic. The framework has a play-based approach that is designed to integrate quality learning and care. Beverley Hughes, the Children’s Minister, said that the framework would improve the learning abilities of five-year-olds and enable “them to reach their full potential, just as any good parent would seek to do at home”.
Source
More Favoritism for Muslims in Britain
Police in Manchester have been told not to arrest Muslims wanted on warrants at prayer times during Ramadan. Greater Manchester Police confirmed it had asked detectives not to make planned arrests during those periods for reasons of religious sensitivity. The advice was emailed out to officers working in Moss Side, Hulme, Whalley Range, Rusholme, Fallowfield, Ardwick, Longsight, Gorton and Levenshulme. Police said it was not a blanket ban, just a "request for sensitivity". The email stressed the order did not apply to on-the-spot arrests, only the execution of arrest warrants.
The holy month of Ramadan began on 22 September and is due to end with the festival of Eid-ul-Fitr next week. The internal email was sent to staff listing the prayer times, but confusion arose and a second memo was sent clarifying it was not a total ban on arresting Muslims at these times. A GMP statement said: "The primary objective of Greater Manchester Police is to fight crime and protect people. "The month of Ramadan is an important time of the year for members of the Muslim community throughout the world. "It is important that normal, planned policing activities and operations are maintained, while ensuring that officers are professional and respectful to members of the community while going about their duties."
Liberal Democrat councillor Simon Ashley, who represents the city's Gorton South ward and leads the party on Manchester City Council, said: "This sounds odd but we would need to find out what impact rescheduling arrests had on police operations. "The police's first job is to police. "I understand they have a difficult task to do and need to do it sensitively, especially within minority communities, but that can't stop them policing serious crimes."
Source
No arrests of Christians over Easter or Christmas/New Year too? That seems to have been overlooked
A Libertarian Archbishop?
There is not much that I agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury about (though he did support the Iraq intervention) and I regularly mock the Church of England but I agree with the following words of His Grace:
"So the ideal of a society where no visible public signs of religion would be seen - no crosses around necks, no sidelocks, turbans or veils - is a politically dangerous one. It assumes that what comes first in society is the central political "licensing authority", which has all the resource it needs to create a workable public morality.
Source
As a libertarian, I think that there should be complete freedom of religion for both Muslims and Christians, unlike the absurd situation in the USA and UK at the moment where there seems to be more freedom for Muslims than for Christians. It is only the advocacy and practice of violence that should be penalized.
And it seems that the chief prelate of the Church of England has similar views. He clearly thinks that the wearing of Muslim veils and Christian crosses should both be allowed. Both have of course recently been penalized in England.
Friday, October 27, 2006
"Posts unfilled are not jobs lost"??
Good old British "fudging"
The one certainty is that jobs have been lost. But in the publicity fog surrounding the NHS, it is unclear how many. Take the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. Health Service Journal (Oct 19) quotes its chief executive: "We thought we would have to place just over 200 staff at risk of redundancy." In fact, just ten have taken voluntary redundancy and only four have been made redundant. But 200 is more likely to make headlines than four.
Another trust, in Worcestershire, identified more than 750 jobs at risk. In fact, says a trust spokesperson, only 11 have actually been lost. But pessimists can be forgiven for having expected worse. NHS Employers estimated that 20,000 posts were threatened. HSJ says that the reality is just 766 redundancies so far.
The important distinction is, it seems, between jobs lost and posts unfilled. Kevin Barron, the chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, says that he is "hoarse" from talking to organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) which he says tell the media that thousands of jobs are being lost. "In my view, posts unfilled are not jobs lost," Barron says.
But that's little comfort to those who have been made redundant or who have completed their healthcare training and then found that they cannot get work. Commenting on a survey which found that barely half of student nurses expect to have jobs on qualifying, Susan Watts, the RCN's student adviser, says that new staff should be guaranteed a one-year contract. Failure to do so risks nursing shortages in a few years' time, she predicts.
Therapy Weekly (Oct 19) suggests that newly qualified physiotherapists are in a similar position. It says that a "staggering" 93 per cent of this year's graduates have still not found an NHS post.
Source
HUGE RISE IN BRITISH PUBLIC SCHOOL SPENDING HAS SEEN STANDARDS DECLINE
So proposals for vast new spending on State education are greeted with skepticism even on the Left. They rightly fear that it would discredit all government spending
Gordon Brown's pledge to raise state school funding to the same level as that enjoyed by private schools has been criticised by a committee of MPs. The Education Select Committee's investigation of public expenditure in education also condemned a lack of transparency and cautioned that taxpayers might not wish to pay for state schools in future unless ministers can demonstrate that the resources are being used wisely. This lack of information, the Labour-dominated committee said, would not only be bad for taxpayers but could also "undermine the electorate's willingness to fund public services".
But the MPs reserved their harshest criticism for the Chancellor's commitment in this year's Budget to raise the level of funding per pupil in state schools from 5,000 to 8,000 pounds, the average spending per head in independent schools. Although Mr Brown was widely praised for his pledge in March, The Times quickly established from Treasury sources that this was only an aspiration. After questioning Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, and David Bell, his top official, the MPs said that it remained to be seen how the aspiration would be backed up with funding.
The select committee said that it was hard to judge when this pledge could ever be met. "Without a timescale it is hard to be certain when the target would be met," the report stated. "The debate on what is the appropriate level of per-pupil funding is important. Future policy announcements should have a more substantial basis."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has since estimated that it would cost 17 billion to close the gap between the public and private sectors and that this would not be achieved until at least 2014.
The MPs also warned that there was no way to demonstrate whether the Government's increased funding for schools had been effective and had succeeded in providing better education or more highly qualified students. Since Labour came into office, public spending on education has risen from 21.43 billion in 1997-08 to 34.35 billion in 2005-06. But recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that only 41 per cent of pupils achieved five grades A* to C in English, maths and science and only 26 per cent of pupils got good grades in English, maths, science and a language - a fall of 4 percentage points from 2002.
Last night a spokesman said that the Government had invested record amounts in education, and "as a result we are seeing more schools with more teachers and better results". "Investment in education is a key priority for the Government. As the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, the Government's long-term aim is that we raise average investment per pupil to today's private school level. That position remains unchanged."
Source
THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH
Freedom of speech is not a celebrated cause in the West today. While all right-thinking people are concerned about state censorship in China, or the imprisoning of poets by authoritarian regimes across the world, it seems self-indulgent or even hysterical to complain about `censorship' in the liberal West. Consequently, the demand for free speech is often seen as pedantic, eccentric even, the preserve of right-wing social inadequates who like to go on about `political correctness gone mad' or occasionally left-wing social inadequates who like to announce that democracy is being overthrown by neocon conspirators.
It is true that there are relatively few legal restraints on free speech in the West. However, with new and proposed restrictions associated with the `war on terror', formal and informal injunctions against `offensive' speech, and the continuing travesty that is libel law, especially in the UK, there is little reason for complacency. Nonetheless, freedom of speech is not an issue discussed with any urgency; all too readily it is trumped by other priorities. Indeed, more striking than any of the formal restrictions on free speech is the cultural climate, in which none of these restrictions provokes more than a half-hearted whimper of dissent. Free speech is simply not held to be especially important when weighed against security or the protection of minorities from abuse, for example. For the most part, then, it is enjoyed but not valued. It is not understood as a hard-won freedom at all, but taken for granted from day to day. Bizarrely, most of us, most of the time, have free speech in reality, but not in principle, in practice but not in theory.
The justification for this diminishment of free speech is far from clear, however. While detractors often present free speech as an `airy fairy', abstract ideal that must be compromised in the face of more complicated realities, in truth it is more often the critique of free speech that is hopelessly abstract. There are no really good arguments against free speech in principle, because to argue against free speech is to argue against reason itself, to put something beyond debate. Instead, censorship is justified with reference to hypothetical and often irrational suppositions about how people might respond to things, and a general anxiety about unrestrained expression.
The weakness of the case against free speech means debates too often go from outlandish examples proving that `there is no such thing as absolute free speech' to arguments for restricting speech at the drop of a hat. In this context, those of us who want to challenge particular instances of censorship - whether it is the suppression of dissent in authoritarian regimes overseas, or the UK law against `incitement to religious hatred' - must decide whether it is worth holding to a general principle of free speech such as that argued for by JS Mill, in his seminal On Liberty, or whether it is better to argue on a case-by-case basis. Should we accept that there are indeed limits to free speech, and make the debate about where they should be placed? If not, what is the case for free speech as a principle, and how does it differ today, if at all, from that made by Mill in 1859? .......
Free speech and other values
The most common case made for censorship today is not that unregulated speech might incite violence or disorder - though this remains the ostensible rationale behind much recent British legislation limiting freedom of speech - but that it is likely to cause offence. While the moral weight behind the government's bid to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, for example, comes from the idea that `religious hate speech' might provoke violence against Muslims, there is little, if any, evidence for this - in substance the law is about protecting the feelings of those who are upset by perceived insults to their religion.
The notorious Danish Mohammed cartoons published across Europe earlier this year did not incite anti-Muslim mobs, but only outrage among Muslims themselves, just as some Sikhs in Birmingham were offended by the play Behtzi in December 2004. Following that case, Christian protests against the BBC's decision to broadcast Jerry Springer: the Opera followed the same template, emphasising personal offence at the show's depiction of Jesus, rather than the old-fashioned, quasi-political offence of blasphemy against the established religion. In all of these cases, it was suggested that, freedom of speech not being absolute, a line should be drawn at offending religious sensibilities.
It is generally taken for granted that `the line has to be drawn somewhere'. In his polemic against free speech, Stanley Fish presents this commonsense assumption in more theoretical terms, arguing that it is `originary exclusion' that gives meaning to free speech. That is, free speech is defined in the first place by the exceptions to the rule. Fish cites the poet John Milton, who believed in free speech for everyone except Roman Catholics, and by implication other superstitious and impious types who would threaten the seventeenth century English Protestant `faith and manners' on whose behalf he did champion free speech. Fish's argument is not that Milton didn't really believe in free speech, because he excluded Catholics, but that it would have rendered his particular case for free speech meaningless if he had extended it to Catholics, because what he really meant was free speech for people like him.
But it is disingenuous to ignore the substance of Milton's argument for free speech on the grounds that, having discovered its true motive, and seen that Milton himself prized that motive more than free speech itself, we can now dismiss it as merely contingent, a rhetorical tactic. Milton's fear of `Popery' wasn't just a personal peccadillo, after all. Nor was it born of some irrational religious prejudice. At that time in much of Europe, free speech was almost synonymous with the right to criticise the all-powerful Catholic church, which brutally suppressed dissent (in Milton's words, `it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies'). Thus, for Milton, censoring Catholics in Protestant Britain was not about oppressing a minority, but upholding the liberty of all. If, for Milton, liberty was a means to a religious end, the lesson of history is that ultimately it was religious passion that served liberty. (Just as the long religious wars that followed the Reformation finally gave birth to the notion of religious toleration and a battle of ideas rather than arms.)
The lesson of Milton's case is that freedom of speech sooner or later comes into conflict with other principles, often those that inspire us to talk about freedom in the first place. One response to this is to abandon free speech in favour of other priorities. Another is to recognise it as a special kind of freedom, one that must be tolerated even when it does come into conflict with more passionately held principles. This has to do with the nature of speech itself, as something that is subject to rational argument as discussed above. Free speech is the means by which all other principles, convictions and values can be rationally debated. As such, it takes on special status as an end in itself, to be honoured even when it is used in the service of particular ideas we oppose.
Accordingly, hostility to free speech reflects a disavowal of reasoned argument, a belief that certain principles or values must be protected from opposing ideas. For example, when Frank Ellis, a lecturer at Leeds University made racist comments to a student paper earlier this year, it was widely argued that this posed a threat to the university's core values. The university secretary prepared the way for disciplinary action by explaining: `The University of Leeds is a diverse and multicultural community whose staff and students are proud to support our values, which include mutual respect, diversity and equal opportunity, and collegiality.'
Ellis was then suspended and eventually took early retirement. This was generally seen as a good result. As one student said to the Observer: `Knowing that he's a lecturer and that he holds views that black people are inferior and that women can't achieve the same as men, it's disgusting and certainly not conducive to an academic environment.' Of course it could be argued an academic environment implies academic freedom, the right, responsibility even, to speak one's mind and challenge conventional wisdom: hence free speech. Nonetheless, one can see what the student meant. For the most part there is an agreeable sense of shared values and common purpose in universities, within which students and lecturers alike find encouragement and support. While there are always intellectual disagreements and even rivalries, members of a university generally show mutual respect.
This liberal conviviality is undoubtedly threatened by unbridled free speech. Not only boringly racist views like those of Ellis, but, more importantly, original ideas of any kind, when passionately held and rigorously argued, can upset the delicate balance of a university community, making students and faculty alike uncomfortable. Whether or not one agrees with this model of the university, then, is it not reasonable that a university constituted on these grounds should limit speech in order to preserve that multicultural conviviality?
In fact, to the extent that any university limits freedom of speech, it diminishes its credibility as a university. Some institutions, such as religious ones, do have core values that are beyond rational debate. Such institutions routinely suppress freedom of speech in order to preserve their authority. Similarly, authoritarian political regimes resort to censorship in order to protect their `values' from criticism. In institutions committed to reason, however, free speech is defined not by `exceptions to the rule' as Stanley Fish would have it, but as places where those exceptions-to-the-rule do not apply. If there were not a censorious culture outside universities (with or without overt censorship), the `academic' in `academic freedom' would be redundant.
No doubt it would be a good thing if nobody ever talked about free speech because nobody ever threatened it: the term would be meaningless. Unfortunately, free speech is given an abundance of meaning by repeated attempts to stifle it. In censoring the expression of unsavoury opinions, a university is not dispensing with an accidental feature in the interests of its real purposes as a university; it is relinquishing a defining characteristic of any institution committed to the pursuit of knowledge. Without the freedom to think offensive thoughts, and to express them openly, a university cannot function as a university. The `diverse and multicultural community' celebrated by the university secretary at Leeds becomes an empty shell, not distinguishing the university from any other institution.
Old-fashioned racism such as that professed by Ellis has long since been discredited intellectually, and had he tried to put forward his opinions in properly academic contexts, at departmental seminars or in scholarly journals, they would quickly have been dismissed, not as forbidden thoughts, but simply as intellectually untenable ones. More often than we acknowledge, the collective pursuit of truth works. This process is actually short-circuited by attempts to police what can and cannot be said in the university, whether or not it is said in an academic context.
It was the campaign against Ellis that drew wider attention to his racism, and in such a way that misrepresented the nature of intellectual authority. As one of Ellis' Leeds University colleagues argued, `Yes, he has the right of freedom of speech to hold such views, but I strongly believe our university is not the platform from which he should promote them.' Instead of a place where ideas are debated, argued over and ultimately accepted or dismissed, the university is presented as a `platform' that lends legitimacy to anyone lucky enough to find himself there. That Ellis' racist ideas convinced nobody in the university - that the free exchange of ideas works - is not considered important. The fact that racism is intellectually untenable is presented as something that has to be artificially imposed on university life, rather than something that can be demonstrated again and again in the course of reasoned debate.
Worse than hounding someone out of his job for his views, then, this approach means obscuring and undermining the purpose of the university itself. Stifling free speech in keeping with prevailing ideas brings the university into line with the rest of society, rather than serving the distinct purpose of the university. And paradoxically, censorship within the university is justified with the suggestion that free speech belongs somewhere else. Ellis can have `free speech' in the abstract, but not as long as he is associated with the university. In the one situation where free speech is upheld in principle, it is denied in reality.
The politics of free speech
Free speech is not only essential to the pursuit of knowledge. It is also essential to the practice of democracy. This is because the principle of free speech is a permanent challenge to the idea that some questions are beyond contention, and thus a permanent challenge to authority.
In the political sphere, free speech is a principle independent of what is being expressed. The caricature is that people only fall back on `free speech' when they can't win the argument; it is a rhetorical sleight, the last refuge of the bigot. No doubt it is true that those who invoke free speech often do so in defence of racist and other opinions that have long ago been discredited in open debate. One of the more bizarre characteristics of the free speech debate today is that it is often members of far-right organisations that have nothing but contempt for freedom, who pose as champions of free speech. But this says more about the intellectual cowardice of those who want to censor them than about the merits of free speech. True supporters of free speech uphold it even for those with whom they profoundly disagree. Free speech is not a mere rhetorical device, but a political principle in its own right.
Rather than saying, `you can't ban that - it's against free speech', where the magic word `free speech' is used to actually close down argument, one can make the case as JS Mill did that bans impoverish debate and demean our rationality. This is very different from having to argue the merits of each case in terms of the content of what is being expressed. It means that even while arguing vehemently against what is being expressed, we can nonetheless insist on people's right to express it. In fact, it is only through open debate that an argument can truly be won.
This is not to suggest that all objectionable opinions are susceptible to rational debate. Some things are not worth arguing against - Holocaust denial, loopy conspiracy theories etc - in most contexts, it is enough to acknowledge what is being said to dismiss it. Unfortunately this has become a stock response to far more serious arguments that demand a proper response, from the defence of fast food to the rejection (from either side) of a `two-state solution' for Israel-Palestine. Those who dissent against the respectable line on such issues are dismissed as cranks, and often have their motives questioned. The principle of free speech is a challenge to this unimaginative and conformist way of thinking as much as it is a challenge to old-fashioned authority. Genuinely free speech requires a climate in which people are allowed to think out loud, and not shouted down for saying the `wrong' thing.
In September of this year, the pre-eminent British science institution the Royal Society issued something akin to a Papal Bull against dissenting views on climate change, seeking to establish the current scientific consensus as beyond dispute. Nobody is being officially censored or locked up, but the intervention serves to reinforce informal limits on what it is acceptable to say in public or even in respectable company - crucially, not by dismissing errant ideas through rational argument, but simply by mobilising the weight of majority opinion. `You can't say that,' is the prevailing sentiment.
Anyone who does voice the wrong opinions is assumed to be up to no good, or simply nuts - in any case, not to be listened to. In cases like this, it is not that particular ideas are considered offensive as such, so much as that they mark people out as less respectable. Rather than bans or legal prohibition of certain ideas, a subtle or not-so-subtle taboo grows up around such issues, demarcating the decent majority (or would-be majority) from unsavoury dissenters. As JS Mill himself noted, the effect of such informal taboos can be even more restrictive in practice than official censorship.
These kinds of restrictions on free speech today are rarely justified in terms of upholding authority or maintaining the social order in some old-fashioned way, however. It is not the consequences of free speech that are feared so much as freedom itself - unfettered, unbridled, unrestrained activity, `irresponsible' opinions or arguments that jar with accepted orthodoxies. In this context, censoriousness is seen as a generally `civilising' influence rather than a check on specific dangers. Often, it is not so much particular ideas that are seen as a threat, as wild or unchecked attitudes and feelings in general.
This is true even of laws against `incitement', and even when national security is invoked. The much-debated British law against incitement to religious hatred, for example, is not a response to widespread attacks on Muslims or any other religious group. Rather, it expresses anxiety about embarrassing sentiments that might be held by some members of society, and a desire to impose a more respectable, well-mannered attitude to other people's religions. Similarly, attempts to silence Muslim clerics who support terrorism, as if terrorism were a virus spread through sermons, are based not on evidence that such clerics have inspired terror attacks, but on an almost existential panic about `the threat within'. Rather than being a credible strategy to prevent future attacks, the UK ban on `glorifying' terrorism is a desperate gesture. Willingness to sacrifice free speech is presented as a sign of hard-headed realism when in fact it is a pathetic substitute for an intellectual rebuttal of `radical Islamist' ideas. In both cases, censorship is more symbolic than instrumental, but no less pernicious for that.
In this context, to argue for free speech is to make the case for free-thinking, reasoned debate and genuine tolerance. It is also to put forward a particular understanding of how society functions and the role of individual and collective agency, which is very different from the fearful and conservative worldview that gives birth to censorship and taboos. Instead, it is a worldview that allows for the possibility that things could be very different, and that human beings could be the authors of our own destinies. Rather than seeing change as a threat and seeking to contain discord, we can talk openly about the future, exchange ideas and argue over them rather than trying to suppress those that make us uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is not merely a means to an end, then, or a rhetorical trick. It is an invitation to live a free life.
More here
MICROGENERATION NONSENSE: EVEN THE ORIGINAL MOONBAT HAS A FLASH OF REALISM
George Monbiot writes below:
In seeking to work out how a 90% cut in carbon emissions could be achieved in the rich nations by 2030, I have made many surprising findings. But none has shocked me as much as the discovery that renewable micro generation has been grossly overhyped. Those who maintain that our own homes can produce all the renewable electricity and heat they need have harmed the campaign to stop climate chaos, by sowing complacency and misdirecting our efforts.
Bill Dunster, who designed the famous BedZed zero-carbon development outside London, published a brochure claiming that “up to half of your annual electric needs can be met by a near silent micro wind turbine.”...To provide the 50% Bill Dunster advertises, you would need a machine 4 metres in diameter. The lateral thrust it exerted would rip your house to bits.
[Converting to rooftop solar] would be staggeringly and pointlessly expensive – there are far better ways of spending the same money. The International Energy Agency’s MARKAL model gives a cost per tonne of carbon saved by solar electricity in 2020 of between 2200 and 3300 pounds. Onshore macro wind power, by contrast, varies between a saving of 40 and a cost of 130 pounds a tonne.
Similar constraints affect all micro renewables: a report by a team at Imperial College shows that if 50% of our homes were fitted with solar water heaters, they would produce 0.056 exajoules of heat, or 2.3% of our total demand; while AEA Technology suggests that domestic heat pumps could supply only 0.022 eJ of the UK’s current heat consumption, or under 1%. This doesn’t mean they are not worth installing, just that they can’t solve the problem by themselves.
Far from shutting down the national grid, as the Green MEP Caroline Lucas has suggested, we should be greatly expanding it, in order to produce electricity where renewable energy is most abundant. This means, above all, a massive investment in offshore windfarms. A recent government report suggests there is a potential offshore wind resource off the coast of England and Wales of 3,200TWh. High voltage direct current cables, which lose much less electricity in transmission than an AC network, would allow us to make use of a larger area of the continental shelf than before. This means we can generate more electricity more reliably, avoid any visual impact from the land and keep out of the routes taken by migratory birds. Much bigger turbines would realise economies of scale hitherto unavailable. [And don't forget nukes, George!]
Source
BRITISH GREENIE HYPOCRISY
I recently went to a mobile phone mast protest meeting. The local church was full of well-heeled people poring over leaflets about the possible dangers of electromagnetic radiation. Then something started to ring. The man on my right calmly pulled his Nokia out of his Paul Smith jacket and started yabbering into it. “Do you all have mobiles?” I asked the group I had joined. Yes. “Er, don’t you think you need a mast to get a signal?”
Source
Youth is Offensive in Britain
We read:
Another violent peacenik: "A smirking peace activist who left a rising rock star fighting for his life after a row over his girlfriend was jailed for eight months today. Christiaan Briggs, 30, attacked 19-year-old singer Billy Leeson and left him in a coma, after Mr Leeson asked him to stop staring at his girlfriend on a late night number 29 bus. After punching the teenager Briggs, who went to Iraq as a peace activist in 2003, walked away "smirking". Mr Leeson fell into a coma when he hit his head in the pavement and the judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court said: "It was obviously a miracle that he lived." .... New Zealand-born Briggs, a technician at a major firm of chartered surveyors who turned himself in to police following publicity about Mr Leeson's injuries, had previously acted as a human shield in Iraq in 2003 in the hope of warding off a US attack. He pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodly harm when he appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London on September 25. The East London court heard Briggs was staring at Mr Leeson's girlfriend and was confronted by the musician on June 22 last year.... William Leeson was walking away when, without warning, the defendant punched him on his left cheek. He walked off and was described by two witnesses as smirking as he walked away." Mr Leeson crashed to the pavement "with a really loud crack" and was in a coma by the time a London Ambulance arrived."
Good old British "fudging"
The one certainty is that jobs have been lost. But in the publicity fog surrounding the NHS, it is unclear how many. Take the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. Health Service Journal (Oct 19) quotes its chief executive: "We thought we would have to place just over 200 staff at risk of redundancy." In fact, just ten have taken voluntary redundancy and only four have been made redundant. But 200 is more likely to make headlines than four.
Another trust, in Worcestershire, identified more than 750 jobs at risk. In fact, says a trust spokesperson, only 11 have actually been lost. But pessimists can be forgiven for having expected worse. NHS Employers estimated that 20,000 posts were threatened. HSJ says that the reality is just 766 redundancies so far.
The important distinction is, it seems, between jobs lost and posts unfilled. Kevin Barron, the chair of the Commons Health Select Committee, says that he is "hoarse" from talking to organisations such as the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) which he says tell the media that thousands of jobs are being lost. "In my view, posts unfilled are not jobs lost," Barron says.
But that's little comfort to those who have been made redundant or who have completed their healthcare training and then found that they cannot get work. Commenting on a survey which found that barely half of student nurses expect to have jobs on qualifying, Susan Watts, the RCN's student adviser, says that new staff should be guaranteed a one-year contract. Failure to do so risks nursing shortages in a few years' time, she predicts.
Therapy Weekly (Oct 19) suggests that newly qualified physiotherapists are in a similar position. It says that a "staggering" 93 per cent of this year's graduates have still not found an NHS post.
Source
HUGE RISE IN BRITISH PUBLIC SCHOOL SPENDING HAS SEEN STANDARDS DECLINE
So proposals for vast new spending on State education are greeted with skepticism even on the Left. They rightly fear that it would discredit all government spending
Gordon Brown's pledge to raise state school funding to the same level as that enjoyed by private schools has been criticised by a committee of MPs. The Education Select Committee's investigation of public expenditure in education also condemned a lack of transparency and cautioned that taxpayers might not wish to pay for state schools in future unless ministers can demonstrate that the resources are being used wisely. This lack of information, the Labour-dominated committee said, would not only be bad for taxpayers but could also "undermine the electorate's willingness to fund public services".
But the MPs reserved their harshest criticism for the Chancellor's commitment in this year's Budget to raise the level of funding per pupil in state schools from 5,000 to 8,000 pounds, the average spending per head in independent schools. Although Mr Brown was widely praised for his pledge in March, The Times quickly established from Treasury sources that this was only an aspiration. After questioning Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, and David Bell, his top official, the MPs said that it remained to be seen how the aspiration would be backed up with funding.
The select committee said that it was hard to judge when this pledge could ever be met. "Without a timescale it is hard to be certain when the target would be met," the report stated. "The debate on what is the appropriate level of per-pupil funding is important. Future policy announcements should have a more substantial basis."
The Institute for Fiscal Studies has since estimated that it would cost 17 billion to close the gap between the public and private sectors and that this would not be achieved until at least 2014.
The MPs also warned that there was no way to demonstrate whether the Government's increased funding for schools had been effective and had succeeded in providing better education or more highly qualified students. Since Labour came into office, public spending on education has risen from 21.43 billion in 1997-08 to 34.35 billion in 2005-06. But recent figures from the Office for National Statistics showed that only 41 per cent of pupils achieved five grades A* to C in English, maths and science and only 26 per cent of pupils got good grades in English, maths, science and a language - a fall of 4 percentage points from 2002.
Last night a spokesman said that the Government had invested record amounts in education, and "as a result we are seeing more schools with more teachers and better results". "Investment in education is a key priority for the Government. As the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, the Government's long-term aim is that we raise average investment per pupil to today's private school level. That position remains unchanged."
Source
THE IMPORTANCE OF FREE SPEECH
Freedom of speech is not a celebrated cause in the West today. While all right-thinking people are concerned about state censorship in China, or the imprisoning of poets by authoritarian regimes across the world, it seems self-indulgent or even hysterical to complain about `censorship' in the liberal West. Consequently, the demand for free speech is often seen as pedantic, eccentric even, the preserve of right-wing social inadequates who like to go on about `political correctness gone mad' or occasionally left-wing social inadequates who like to announce that democracy is being overthrown by neocon conspirators.
It is true that there are relatively few legal restraints on free speech in the West. However, with new and proposed restrictions associated with the `war on terror', formal and informal injunctions against `offensive' speech, and the continuing travesty that is libel law, especially in the UK, there is little reason for complacency. Nonetheless, freedom of speech is not an issue discussed with any urgency; all too readily it is trumped by other priorities. Indeed, more striking than any of the formal restrictions on free speech is the cultural climate, in which none of these restrictions provokes more than a half-hearted whimper of dissent. Free speech is simply not held to be especially important when weighed against security or the protection of minorities from abuse, for example. For the most part, then, it is enjoyed but not valued. It is not understood as a hard-won freedom at all, but taken for granted from day to day. Bizarrely, most of us, most of the time, have free speech in reality, but not in principle, in practice but not in theory.
The justification for this diminishment of free speech is far from clear, however. While detractors often present free speech as an `airy fairy', abstract ideal that must be compromised in the face of more complicated realities, in truth it is more often the critique of free speech that is hopelessly abstract. There are no really good arguments against free speech in principle, because to argue against free speech is to argue against reason itself, to put something beyond debate. Instead, censorship is justified with reference to hypothetical and often irrational suppositions about how people might respond to things, and a general anxiety about unrestrained expression.
The weakness of the case against free speech means debates too often go from outlandish examples proving that `there is no such thing as absolute free speech' to arguments for restricting speech at the drop of a hat. In this context, those of us who want to challenge particular instances of censorship - whether it is the suppression of dissent in authoritarian regimes overseas, or the UK law against `incitement to religious hatred' - must decide whether it is worth holding to a general principle of free speech such as that argued for by JS Mill, in his seminal On Liberty, or whether it is better to argue on a case-by-case basis. Should we accept that there are indeed limits to free speech, and make the debate about where they should be placed? If not, what is the case for free speech as a principle, and how does it differ today, if at all, from that made by Mill in 1859? .......
Free speech and other values
The most common case made for censorship today is not that unregulated speech might incite violence or disorder - though this remains the ostensible rationale behind much recent British legislation limiting freedom of speech - but that it is likely to cause offence. While the moral weight behind the government's bid to outlaw incitement to religious hatred, for example, comes from the idea that `religious hate speech' might provoke violence against Muslims, there is little, if any, evidence for this - in substance the law is about protecting the feelings of those who are upset by perceived insults to their religion.
The notorious Danish Mohammed cartoons published across Europe earlier this year did not incite anti-Muslim mobs, but only outrage among Muslims themselves, just as some Sikhs in Birmingham were offended by the play Behtzi in December 2004. Following that case, Christian protests against the BBC's decision to broadcast Jerry Springer: the Opera followed the same template, emphasising personal offence at the show's depiction of Jesus, rather than the old-fashioned, quasi-political offence of blasphemy against the established religion. In all of these cases, it was suggested that, freedom of speech not being absolute, a line should be drawn at offending religious sensibilities.
It is generally taken for granted that `the line has to be drawn somewhere'. In his polemic against free speech, Stanley Fish presents this commonsense assumption in more theoretical terms, arguing that it is `originary exclusion' that gives meaning to free speech. That is, free speech is defined in the first place by the exceptions to the rule. Fish cites the poet John Milton, who believed in free speech for everyone except Roman Catholics, and by implication other superstitious and impious types who would threaten the seventeenth century English Protestant `faith and manners' on whose behalf he did champion free speech. Fish's argument is not that Milton didn't really believe in free speech, because he excluded Catholics, but that it would have rendered his particular case for free speech meaningless if he had extended it to Catholics, because what he really meant was free speech for people like him.
But it is disingenuous to ignore the substance of Milton's argument for free speech on the grounds that, having discovered its true motive, and seen that Milton himself prized that motive more than free speech itself, we can now dismiss it as merely contingent, a rhetorical tactic. Milton's fear of `Popery' wasn't just a personal peccadillo, after all. Nor was it born of some irrational religious prejudice. At that time in much of Europe, free speech was almost synonymous with the right to criticise the all-powerful Catholic church, which brutally suppressed dissent (in Milton's words, `it extirpates all religious and civil supremacies'). Thus, for Milton, censoring Catholics in Protestant Britain was not about oppressing a minority, but upholding the liberty of all. If, for Milton, liberty was a means to a religious end, the lesson of history is that ultimately it was religious passion that served liberty. (Just as the long religious wars that followed the Reformation finally gave birth to the notion of religious toleration and a battle of ideas rather than arms.)
The lesson of Milton's case is that freedom of speech sooner or later comes into conflict with other principles, often those that inspire us to talk about freedom in the first place. One response to this is to abandon free speech in favour of other priorities. Another is to recognise it as a special kind of freedom, one that must be tolerated even when it does come into conflict with more passionately held principles. This has to do with the nature of speech itself, as something that is subject to rational argument as discussed above. Free speech is the means by which all other principles, convictions and values can be rationally debated. As such, it takes on special status as an end in itself, to be honoured even when it is used in the service of particular ideas we oppose.
Accordingly, hostility to free speech reflects a disavowal of reasoned argument, a belief that certain principles or values must be protected from opposing ideas. For example, when Frank Ellis, a lecturer at Leeds University made racist comments to a student paper earlier this year, it was widely argued that this posed a threat to the university's core values. The university secretary prepared the way for disciplinary action by explaining: `The University of Leeds is a diverse and multicultural community whose staff and students are proud to support our values, which include mutual respect, diversity and equal opportunity, and collegiality.'
Ellis was then suspended and eventually took early retirement. This was generally seen as a good result. As one student said to the Observer: `Knowing that he's a lecturer and that he holds views that black people are inferior and that women can't achieve the same as men, it's disgusting and certainly not conducive to an academic environment.' Of course it could be argued an academic environment implies academic freedom, the right, responsibility even, to speak one's mind and challenge conventional wisdom: hence free speech. Nonetheless, one can see what the student meant. For the most part there is an agreeable sense of shared values and common purpose in universities, within which students and lecturers alike find encouragement and support. While there are always intellectual disagreements and even rivalries, members of a university generally show mutual respect.
This liberal conviviality is undoubtedly threatened by unbridled free speech. Not only boringly racist views like those of Ellis, but, more importantly, original ideas of any kind, when passionately held and rigorously argued, can upset the delicate balance of a university community, making students and faculty alike uncomfortable. Whether or not one agrees with this model of the university, then, is it not reasonable that a university constituted on these grounds should limit speech in order to preserve that multicultural conviviality?
In fact, to the extent that any university limits freedom of speech, it diminishes its credibility as a university. Some institutions, such as religious ones, do have core values that are beyond rational debate. Such institutions routinely suppress freedom of speech in order to preserve their authority. Similarly, authoritarian political regimes resort to censorship in order to protect their `values' from criticism. In institutions committed to reason, however, free speech is defined not by `exceptions to the rule' as Stanley Fish would have it, but as places where those exceptions-to-the-rule do not apply. If there were not a censorious culture outside universities (with or without overt censorship), the `academic' in `academic freedom' would be redundant.
No doubt it would be a good thing if nobody ever talked about free speech because nobody ever threatened it: the term would be meaningless. Unfortunately, free speech is given an abundance of meaning by repeated attempts to stifle it. In censoring the expression of unsavoury opinions, a university is not dispensing with an accidental feature in the interests of its real purposes as a university; it is relinquishing a defining characteristic of any institution committed to the pursuit of knowledge. Without the freedom to think offensive thoughts, and to express them openly, a university cannot function as a university. The `diverse and multicultural community' celebrated by the university secretary at Leeds becomes an empty shell, not distinguishing the university from any other institution.
Old-fashioned racism such as that professed by Ellis has long since been discredited intellectually, and had he tried to put forward his opinions in properly academic contexts, at departmental seminars or in scholarly journals, they would quickly have been dismissed, not as forbidden thoughts, but simply as intellectually untenable ones. More often than we acknowledge, the collective pursuit of truth works. This process is actually short-circuited by attempts to police what can and cannot be said in the university, whether or not it is said in an academic context.
It was the campaign against Ellis that drew wider attention to his racism, and in such a way that misrepresented the nature of intellectual authority. As one of Ellis' Leeds University colleagues argued, `Yes, he has the right of freedom of speech to hold such views, but I strongly believe our university is not the platform from which he should promote them.' Instead of a place where ideas are debated, argued over and ultimately accepted or dismissed, the university is presented as a `platform' that lends legitimacy to anyone lucky enough to find himself there. That Ellis' racist ideas convinced nobody in the university - that the free exchange of ideas works - is not considered important. The fact that racism is intellectually untenable is presented as something that has to be artificially imposed on university life, rather than something that can be demonstrated again and again in the course of reasoned debate.
Worse than hounding someone out of his job for his views, then, this approach means obscuring and undermining the purpose of the university itself. Stifling free speech in keeping with prevailing ideas brings the university into line with the rest of society, rather than serving the distinct purpose of the university. And paradoxically, censorship within the university is justified with the suggestion that free speech belongs somewhere else. Ellis can have `free speech' in the abstract, but not as long as he is associated with the university. In the one situation where free speech is upheld in principle, it is denied in reality.
The politics of free speech
Free speech is not only essential to the pursuit of knowledge. It is also essential to the practice of democracy. This is because the principle of free speech is a permanent challenge to the idea that some questions are beyond contention, and thus a permanent challenge to authority.
In the political sphere, free speech is a principle independent of what is being expressed. The caricature is that people only fall back on `free speech' when they can't win the argument; it is a rhetorical sleight, the last refuge of the bigot. No doubt it is true that those who invoke free speech often do so in defence of racist and other opinions that have long ago been discredited in open debate. One of the more bizarre characteristics of the free speech debate today is that it is often members of far-right organisations that have nothing but contempt for freedom, who pose as champions of free speech. But this says more about the intellectual cowardice of those who want to censor them than about the merits of free speech. True supporters of free speech uphold it even for those with whom they profoundly disagree. Free speech is not a mere rhetorical device, but a political principle in its own right.
Rather than saying, `you can't ban that - it's against free speech', where the magic word `free speech' is used to actually close down argument, one can make the case as JS Mill did that bans impoverish debate and demean our rationality. This is very different from having to argue the merits of each case in terms of the content of what is being expressed. It means that even while arguing vehemently against what is being expressed, we can nonetheless insist on people's right to express it. In fact, it is only through open debate that an argument can truly be won.
This is not to suggest that all objectionable opinions are susceptible to rational debate. Some things are not worth arguing against - Holocaust denial, loopy conspiracy theories etc - in most contexts, it is enough to acknowledge what is being said to dismiss it. Unfortunately this has become a stock response to far more serious arguments that demand a proper response, from the defence of fast food to the rejection (from either side) of a `two-state solution' for Israel-Palestine. Those who dissent against the respectable line on such issues are dismissed as cranks, and often have their motives questioned. The principle of free speech is a challenge to this unimaginative and conformist way of thinking as much as it is a challenge to old-fashioned authority. Genuinely free speech requires a climate in which people are allowed to think out loud, and not shouted down for saying the `wrong' thing.
In September of this year, the pre-eminent British science institution the Royal Society issued something akin to a Papal Bull against dissenting views on climate change, seeking to establish the current scientific consensus as beyond dispute. Nobody is being officially censored or locked up, but the intervention serves to reinforce informal limits on what it is acceptable to say in public or even in respectable company - crucially, not by dismissing errant ideas through rational argument, but simply by mobilising the weight of majority opinion. `You can't say that,' is the prevailing sentiment.
Anyone who does voice the wrong opinions is assumed to be up to no good, or simply nuts - in any case, not to be listened to. In cases like this, it is not that particular ideas are considered offensive as such, so much as that they mark people out as less respectable. Rather than bans or legal prohibition of certain ideas, a subtle or not-so-subtle taboo grows up around such issues, demarcating the decent majority (or would-be majority) from unsavoury dissenters. As JS Mill himself noted, the effect of such informal taboos can be even more restrictive in practice than official censorship.
These kinds of restrictions on free speech today are rarely justified in terms of upholding authority or maintaining the social order in some old-fashioned way, however. It is not the consequences of free speech that are feared so much as freedom itself - unfettered, unbridled, unrestrained activity, `irresponsible' opinions or arguments that jar with accepted orthodoxies. In this context, censoriousness is seen as a generally `civilising' influence rather than a check on specific dangers. Often, it is not so much particular ideas that are seen as a threat, as wild or unchecked attitudes and feelings in general.
This is true even of laws against `incitement', and even when national security is invoked. The much-debated British law against incitement to religious hatred, for example, is not a response to widespread attacks on Muslims or any other religious group. Rather, it expresses anxiety about embarrassing sentiments that might be held by some members of society, and a desire to impose a more respectable, well-mannered attitude to other people's religions. Similarly, attempts to silence Muslim clerics who support terrorism, as if terrorism were a virus spread through sermons, are based not on evidence that such clerics have inspired terror attacks, but on an almost existential panic about `the threat within'. Rather than being a credible strategy to prevent future attacks, the UK ban on `glorifying' terrorism is a desperate gesture. Willingness to sacrifice free speech is presented as a sign of hard-headed realism when in fact it is a pathetic substitute for an intellectual rebuttal of `radical Islamist' ideas. In both cases, censorship is more symbolic than instrumental, but no less pernicious for that.
In this context, to argue for free speech is to make the case for free-thinking, reasoned debate and genuine tolerance. It is also to put forward a particular understanding of how society functions and the role of individual and collective agency, which is very different from the fearful and conservative worldview that gives birth to censorship and taboos. Instead, it is a worldview that allows for the possibility that things could be very different, and that human beings could be the authors of our own destinies. Rather than seeing change as a threat and seeking to contain discord, we can talk openly about the future, exchange ideas and argue over them rather than trying to suppress those that make us uncomfortable. Freedom of speech is not merely a means to an end, then, or a rhetorical trick. It is an invitation to live a free life.
More here
MICROGENERATION NONSENSE: EVEN THE ORIGINAL MOONBAT HAS A FLASH OF REALISM
George Monbiot writes below:
In seeking to work out how a 90% cut in carbon emissions could be achieved in the rich nations by 2030, I have made many surprising findings. But none has shocked me as much as the discovery that renewable micro generation has been grossly overhyped. Those who maintain that our own homes can produce all the renewable electricity and heat they need have harmed the campaign to stop climate chaos, by sowing complacency and misdirecting our efforts.
Bill Dunster, who designed the famous BedZed zero-carbon development outside London, published a brochure claiming that “up to half of your annual electric needs can be met by a near silent micro wind turbine.”...To provide the 50% Bill Dunster advertises, you would need a machine 4 metres in diameter. The lateral thrust it exerted would rip your house to bits.
[Converting to rooftop solar] would be staggeringly and pointlessly expensive – there are far better ways of spending the same money. The International Energy Agency’s MARKAL model gives a cost per tonne of carbon saved by solar electricity in 2020 of between 2200 and 3300 pounds. Onshore macro wind power, by contrast, varies between a saving of 40 and a cost of 130 pounds a tonne.
Similar constraints affect all micro renewables: a report by a team at Imperial College shows that if 50% of our homes were fitted with solar water heaters, they would produce 0.056 exajoules of heat, or 2.3% of our total demand; while AEA Technology suggests that domestic heat pumps could supply only 0.022 eJ of the UK’s current heat consumption, or under 1%. This doesn’t mean they are not worth installing, just that they can’t solve the problem by themselves.
Far from shutting down the national grid, as the Green MEP Caroline Lucas has suggested, we should be greatly expanding it, in order to produce electricity where renewable energy is most abundant. This means, above all, a massive investment in offshore windfarms. A recent government report suggests there is a potential offshore wind resource off the coast of England and Wales of 3,200TWh. High voltage direct current cables, which lose much less electricity in transmission than an AC network, would allow us to make use of a larger area of the continental shelf than before. This means we can generate more electricity more reliably, avoid any visual impact from the land and keep out of the routes taken by migratory birds. Much bigger turbines would realise economies of scale hitherto unavailable. [And don't forget nukes, George!]
Source
BRITISH GREENIE HYPOCRISY
I recently went to a mobile phone mast protest meeting. The local church was full of well-heeled people poring over leaflets about the possible dangers of electromagnetic radiation. Then something started to ring. The man on my right calmly pulled his Nokia out of his Paul Smith jacket and started yabbering into it. “Do you all have mobiles?” I asked the group I had joined. Yes. “Er, don’t you think you need a mast to get a signal?”
They hadn’t thought. Didn’t really want to. They were much readier to sign a petition and express outrage over a cup of coffee than actually to tackle their own contribution to the problem. Like the people who drive around the country expleting at wind turbines, oblivious to the pollution streaming out behind them. Like those who campaign against incinerators — the health risks of which are far clearer, and more alarming, than those of phone masts — without apparently asking themselves whether they could stop chucking away the vast amounts of unwanted plastic that they insist on purchasing.
If you really thought mobile phones were irradiating your children, surely you would jack them in and stick to the landline? If you think wind turbines are damaging the landscape, why don’t you reduce your energy use? If can’t be bothered to compost your rubbish or give usable stuff you don’t want to someone who does via www.freecycle.com (an activity, incidentally, that I highly recommend for offsetting both carbon and guilt), who are you to argue when an ugly great dioxin-emitting chimney comes to perch on your doorstep? Our budding consciences have led to a lot of soul-searching, but not yet to much personal action.
Part of the problem, of course, is the fear that any minuscule step one takes to do good will simply be exploited by someone else. Why should I endure the rain at the bus stop with my four-year-old every morning when some other mother is just going to use the road space I have vacated? I do, because my conscience dictates it. But I wouldn’t mind Ken Livingstone extending the congestion charge. My decision not to drive would be backed up with penalties for those who do, and the proceeds invested in alternatives that I use.
Now I want someone to back up my other principles. I am fed up of feeling like a criminal when I prowl around the office at night switching off colleagues’ computers; of feeling pressured to buy a new handbag (or five) when my old one hasn’t worn out; of taking holidays that do not involve flying, only to be looked at strangely by friends who have started to apologise for taking so many planes, but who still flaunt their tans when they get back.
The greatest objection to the wider use of environmental taxes is their regressive nature: they tend to hit the poor hardest. The fuel protests are still uppermost in ministerial minds, which is why cross-party support for the climate change Bill has been so vital. The other problem, less discussed, is that such taxes will have the least impact on the rich, who have the most impact on the planet. Richmond upon Thames council’s decision, much publicised yesterday, to slam gas-guzzling cars with high parking fees provoked howls of predictable outrage from the AA. But what will an extra £200 a year mean to someone who can afford to buy a Jaguar X-Type or a BMW X5 in the first place? Not much.
The Richmond councillors have become evangelical about SUVs since they discovered, through a British Gas survey of local authorities, that the people in their borough consume more energy and emit more carbon dioxide than anyone else in Britain. British Gas found that people living in the richest areas use three times more energy than the rest. It stands to reason: they drive more, they heat larger homes, they buy more stuff.
To price the rich out of polluting activities would either mean prohibitive tax burdens for everyone else, or slanting the burden so much the other way that you would get a revolution by the chauffeur-driven classes. So the answer must also lie in cultural change. We all crave the status symbols that the rich create. But while Hollywood celebrities sport their caring credentials on unbleached hemp sleeves, the new rich ethical mafia is in serious danger of jumping on the wrong bandwagon.
We cannot save the planet by shopping. “Fairtrade” and “Green”, for example, which are mentioned in the same breathless breath, are almost wholly contradictory. The one encourages the importation of consumer goods from halfway round the globe, which contributes to the climate change that will hit the poorest countries first and hardest. The other dictates that we buy locally, if at all.
Since “ethical lifestyle” became the hottest new trend, a lot of rubbish is being peddled as eco-chic. Despite heroic attempts by some travel editors, “eco” and “tourism” are a non sequitur. While sales of the hybrid Toyota Prius are helping to kick-start a new market, the bog-standard Honda Insight has better mileage. Even recycling, the great guilt-absolver, puts diesel-powered trucks on every street to collect mountains of glass that cannot be used and shipping plastic bottles off to China to be burnt, when the water we drank from them could have come a lot cheaper from the tap.
Which brings me back to phones. Why do people rush to protest about the infinitesimally small risk posed by a mobile phone mast, but seem unable to feel anything about the much greater risk of climate change? It is partly because the potential impact of one is much more local and immediate. It may also be because the mast company is a more clearly defined enemy. But in both cases we are actually both victims and perpetrators.
Righteous indignation is easy. If we can’t face taking personal action, we can at least back the Government to give us some incentives. And the fashionistas could also do me a personal favour, by designing a hair shirt that I can wear every season and look cool.
Source
Youth is Offensive in Britain
We read:
"A television advert for shower gel which featured a young-looking model has been banned after the industry watchdog ruled it "offensive". A naked woman sitting under a lemon tree is featured in the PZ Cussons advert for Original Source shower gel. Some 29 people complained because the model appeared to be under 16 and was depicted in a sexually provocative way.
Source
Another violent peacenik: "A smirking peace activist who left a rising rock star fighting for his life after a row over his girlfriend was jailed for eight months today. Christiaan Briggs, 30, attacked 19-year-old singer Billy Leeson and left him in a coma, after Mr Leeson asked him to stop staring at his girlfriend on a late night number 29 bus. After punching the teenager Briggs, who went to Iraq as a peace activist in 2003, walked away "smirking". Mr Leeson fell into a coma when he hit his head in the pavement and the judge at Snaresbrook Crown Court said: "It was obviously a miracle that he lived." .... New Zealand-born Briggs, a technician at a major firm of chartered surveyors who turned himself in to police following publicity about Mr Leeson's injuries, had previously acted as a human shield in Iraq in 2003 in the hope of warding off a US attack. He pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodly harm when he appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court in East London on September 25. The East London court heard Briggs was staring at Mr Leeson's girlfriend and was confronted by the musician on June 22 last year.... William Leeson was walking away when, without warning, the defendant punched him on his left cheek. He walked off and was described by two witnesses as smirking as he walked away." Mr Leeson crashed to the pavement "with a really loud crack" and was in a coma by the time a London Ambulance arrived."
Thursday, October 26, 2006
British pupils 'cannot locate UK'
One in five British children cannot find the UK on a map of the world, a magazine's research suggests. National Geographic Kids said it also found fewer than two thirds of children were able to correctly locate the US. The magazine, which questioned more than 1,000 six to 14-year-olds, said it found several London children did not know they lived in England's capital.
Teachers' union the NASUWT said the findings were "nonsense" and did not reflect staff and pupils' hard work.
National Geographic Kids also discovered 86% of the children interviewed failed to identify Iraq and one in 10 could not name a single continent. Boys seemed to show a slightly better geographical knowledge than girls, with 65% able to locate a number of countries around the world compared with 63% of girls.
Scottish children appeared to be the most geographically aware with 67% able to point out the most countries, out of England, the US, France, China and Iraq, on a world map.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said the findings were "rather frightening". "These results underline the need for education to concentrate on the essentials. "How are children going to be able to get as much out of their life if they fail to have an understanding of the shape of the world?"
The Department for Education and Skills said geography was a compulsory subject on the National Curriculum for five to 14-year-olds. A spokesman said all 14-year-olds should be taught to use atlases and globes, as well as learning about places and environments in the world.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said: "The constant desire for groups to produce statistics to do down the English education system is quite appalling and does nothing to recognise the excellent work of children and staff."
The magazine carried out the study to mark its UK launch and highlight "gaps in children's geographical knowledge". Environmentalist David Bellamy said the world was still an undiscovered place for many children. "Making geography fun and exciting is so important because it makes children aware of the importance of caring for the environment and, by learning about the world, it helps bring other people's worlds and cultures closer to their own."
Source
Bishop attacks British faith schools plan
Plans for new faith schools in England to admit up to 25% of pupils from other religions "must be resisted", the Archbishop of Birmingham has said. The most Rev Vincent Nichols described the plans as "insulting" and "divisive" and has urged the head teachers of Catholic schools to voice their fears.
The plans were introduced in an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill last week. The government has said schools are in a position to prevent social division.
Education Secretary Alan Johnson met with representatives from the UK's major religious groups on Monday for a so-called "inclusion summit" to discuss the role faith schools can play in improving relations between the faiths. The Department for Education and Skills said the meeting had been productive and Mr Johnson had made it clear that the amendment would only apply to new faith schools. He also explained that where there is local opposition, a local authority will need the consent of the education secretary to approve a new faith school with fewer than 25% of non-faith admissions.
The Church of England has said its new schools will admit up to 25% of pupils from outside the faith - but said other religions should not be expected to offer the same commitment. But the amendment has met with opposition from Muslim, Jewish and Catholic groups.
Writing in the Telegraph newspaper, the archbishop said coercive measures by the government would not win co-operation and branded them "ill-thought out, unworkable and contradictory of empirical evidence". He said Catholic schools on average welcome 30% of pupils from other faiths or none, and they were likely to have better academic records and less likely to encounter bullying or racism. He added that the government appears to hold the view that, left to themselves, Catholic schools would be divisive. "Since the evidence suggests the opposite, I can only assume that this view rises from muddled thinking or prejudice," he wrote. He warned: "The introduction of 'admissions requirements' is a Trojan horse, bringing into Catholic schools those who may not only reject its central vision but soon seek to oppose it." The way forward, he said, was a "mutually respectful co-operation" between faith groups and authorities. But this amendment, he warned "seems to signal an alternative and deeply divisive step. It has to be resisted."
Last week, he wrote to the head teachers of 2,075 secondary and primary Roman Catholic schools urging them to write to their MPs to voice their concerns. He has also called for talks between the government and the Catholic church.
Rabbi James Kennard, head teacher at King Solomon High School in Ilford, Essex, shared his view, saying Jewish schools had not been able to explain their position. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said: "The Jewish school is the traditional institution where a youngster's Jewish identity is shaped, through an all-embracing ethos that runs alongside, and integrates with, the educational requirements of the country where Jews are living. "The Jewish community is small, needs to maintain its distinct identity and ethos and has no interest in spreading its message to others." He added that when people have a good grounding in their religion, they tend to be able to participate in wider society.
The Department for Education said it welcomed the steps faith groups have already taken to improve community cohesion and said they were talking to them about how to build on this
Source
"Naughty" Wrong
We read:
Scottish disgrace: "We must thank the University of St Andrews for that rare opportunity - the chance to employ with a straight face the clich‚ "it's like Caligula appointing his horse as consul". How so? Because Scotland's oldest university has decided to award an honorary doctorate of law to former President Khatami of Iran "in recognition of his efforts to encourage interfaith dialogue". I kid you not. No less a person than Sir Menzies Campbell, the university's Chancellor, will bestow the accolade on the acceptable face of violent, arbitrary clerical rule. It will come to be seen as one of the most shameful days in the university's history - on a par with the honorary degrees granted by the University of Edinburgh to Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, or the Central London Polytechnic to Elena Ceaucescu, of Romania. They, too, were once fashionable items among the appeasing classes, of which Sir Menzies is the contemporary personification."
One in five British children cannot find the UK on a map of the world, a magazine's research suggests. National Geographic Kids said it also found fewer than two thirds of children were able to correctly locate the US. The magazine, which questioned more than 1,000 six to 14-year-olds, said it found several London children did not know they lived in England's capital.
Teachers' union the NASUWT said the findings were "nonsense" and did not reflect staff and pupils' hard work.
National Geographic Kids also discovered 86% of the children interviewed failed to identify Iraq and one in 10 could not name a single continent. Boys seemed to show a slightly better geographical knowledge than girls, with 65% able to locate a number of countries around the world compared with 63% of girls.
Scottish children appeared to be the most geographically aware with 67% able to point out the most countries, out of England, the US, France, China and Iraq, on a world map.
Professor Alan Smithers, director of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said the findings were "rather frightening". "These results underline the need for education to concentrate on the essentials. "How are children going to be able to get as much out of their life if they fail to have an understanding of the shape of the world?"
The Department for Education and Skills said geography was a compulsory subject on the National Curriculum for five to 14-year-olds. A spokesman said all 14-year-olds should be taught to use atlases and globes, as well as learning about places and environments in the world.
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, said: "The constant desire for groups to produce statistics to do down the English education system is quite appalling and does nothing to recognise the excellent work of children and staff."
The magazine carried out the study to mark its UK launch and highlight "gaps in children's geographical knowledge". Environmentalist David Bellamy said the world was still an undiscovered place for many children. "Making geography fun and exciting is so important because it makes children aware of the importance of caring for the environment and, by learning about the world, it helps bring other people's worlds and cultures closer to their own."
Source
Bishop attacks British faith schools plan
Plans for new faith schools in England to admit up to 25% of pupils from other religions "must be resisted", the Archbishop of Birmingham has said. The most Rev Vincent Nichols described the plans as "insulting" and "divisive" and has urged the head teachers of Catholic schools to voice their fears.
The plans were introduced in an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill last week. The government has said schools are in a position to prevent social division.
Education Secretary Alan Johnson met with representatives from the UK's major religious groups on Monday for a so-called "inclusion summit" to discuss the role faith schools can play in improving relations between the faiths. The Department for Education and Skills said the meeting had been productive and Mr Johnson had made it clear that the amendment would only apply to new faith schools. He also explained that where there is local opposition, a local authority will need the consent of the education secretary to approve a new faith school with fewer than 25% of non-faith admissions.
The Church of England has said its new schools will admit up to 25% of pupils from outside the faith - but said other religions should not be expected to offer the same commitment. But the amendment has met with opposition from Muslim, Jewish and Catholic groups.
Writing in the Telegraph newspaper, the archbishop said coercive measures by the government would not win co-operation and branded them "ill-thought out, unworkable and contradictory of empirical evidence". He said Catholic schools on average welcome 30% of pupils from other faiths or none, and they were likely to have better academic records and less likely to encounter bullying or racism. He added that the government appears to hold the view that, left to themselves, Catholic schools would be divisive. "Since the evidence suggests the opposite, I can only assume that this view rises from muddled thinking or prejudice," he wrote. He warned: "The introduction of 'admissions requirements' is a Trojan horse, bringing into Catholic schools those who may not only reject its central vision but soon seek to oppose it." The way forward, he said, was a "mutually respectful co-operation" between faith groups and authorities. But this amendment, he warned "seems to signal an alternative and deeply divisive step. It has to be resisted."
Last week, he wrote to the head teachers of 2,075 secondary and primary Roman Catholic schools urging them to write to their MPs to voice their concerns. He has also called for talks between the government and the Catholic church.
Rabbi James Kennard, head teacher at King Solomon High School in Ilford, Essex, shared his view, saying Jewish schools had not been able to explain their position. In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said: "The Jewish school is the traditional institution where a youngster's Jewish identity is shaped, through an all-embracing ethos that runs alongside, and integrates with, the educational requirements of the country where Jews are living. "The Jewish community is small, needs to maintain its distinct identity and ethos and has no interest in spreading its message to others." He added that when people have a good grounding in their religion, they tend to be able to participate in wider society.
The Department for Education said it welcomed the steps faith groups have already taken to improve community cohesion and said they were talking to them about how to build on this
Source
"Naughty" Wrong
We read:
"Parents should not call their youngsters 'naughty' because it damages their self-confidence, a childcare expert controversially claimed.
Annette Mountford, chief executive of the parenting organisation, Family Links, said that children's self-esteem is run down by such branding, even if they are behaving badly.
Source
Scottish disgrace: "We must thank the University of St Andrews for that rare opportunity - the chance to employ with a straight face the clich‚ "it's like Caligula appointing his horse as consul". How so? Because Scotland's oldest university has decided to award an honorary doctorate of law to former President Khatami of Iran "in recognition of his efforts to encourage interfaith dialogue". I kid you not. No less a person than Sir Menzies Campbell, the university's Chancellor, will bestow the accolade on the acceptable face of violent, arbitrary clerical rule. It will come to be seen as one of the most shameful days in the university's history - on a par with the honorary degrees granted by the University of Edinburgh to Robert Mugabe, of Zimbabwe, or the Central London Polytechnic to Elena Ceaucescu, of Romania. They, too, were once fashionable items among the appeasing classes, of which Sir Menzies is the contemporary personification."
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Terms of Endearment Forbidden in Scotland
In much of Britain and quite often in Australia, it is customary for women to address others and be addressed by others as "love" or some other form of endearment, even if the parties are hardly known to one another. For instance, if I order a sandwich in a sandwich shop, the lady making the sandwich will often ask me "do you want pepper and salt with that, love?"
I guess it is in one sense old-fashioned and silly but I personally think it makes life pleasanter for everyone. Though some of the terms used in the North of England are a bit amusing: "duck", "hen" etc. In much of the American South "Hun" and "Sugar" are used similarly, of course.
There have been attempts to limit such speech in England (See my post of August 17) and the poison has now spread to Scotland. The Glasgow City Council has instructed its employees as follows:
And there is much more idiocy of the same kind. Why it "oppresses" women to call them "Love" defies my imagination. Maybe it is felt to oppress lesbians and that leads to the objections from feminists, many of whom seem to be of the lesbian persuasion.
BRITISH FOOD NOT SO BAD?
I remember vividly the first time I offended an American. I was living in New York at the time and feeling a bit homesick, so I dragged the US citizen in question to an expat fish’n’chip shop in Greenwich Village. There, I ordered the homesick Northerner special: a chip butty, smothered in a thick curry sauce — just like the butties I used to inhale at the bus stop in Alnwick on a school night.
My friend thought this was all very cute and, like, totally British, until she realised exactly what I was eating. “You put the French fries . . . in a bread roll?” she asked, her throat tightening. “And then you pour Indian sauce all over it?”
Through molten, brownish-green mouthfuls, I mumbled something about the Queen. “That might be okay in Britain, but it’s definitely not okay here,” she choked. “You have to get rid of it. Now.” When I realised she wasn’t joking — she began to dry retch loudly — I threw the butty away, half eaten.
Source
The veiled conceit of multiculturalism
A misinformed tolerance finally hits its limits in Britain
How tolerant must a free society be of those who are intolerant of the values it holds dear? This question is at the heart of a controversy that has flared up in Britain over the past fortnight concerning Muslim women who wear nikabs, burkas and other face coverings that allow little more than the eyes to be seen. Two weeks ago, former British foreign minister Jack Straw, writing in his local newspaper, criticised Muslim women who covered their faces, saying the practice maked "better, positive relations" between communities "more difficult". He added that the veil was a "visible statement of separation and of difference". And although his remarks were sensationalised, in pointing out that the multicultural emperor is wearing not too few clothes but too many Mr Straw largely won applause. Senior Labour politicians rushed to echo his concerns. Newspapers cheered the opening of debate and Tony Blair himself offered his support, calling the veil a "mark of separation". Not long afterwards, a Muslim teaching assistant in a British school was suspended for wearing a veil that allowed only her eyes to be seen, on the grounds that hiding her face hurt her communication with students. In this case as well, reaction to the school's decision has been largely positive. Many Britons are concerned that multicultural policies that have discouraged assimilation have divided their society and created what one commentator called a "voluntary apartheid". In the age of terrorism, this is a worrisome trend, especially considering that a recent survey of British Muslims suggested 100,000 of them felt the 7/7 attacks were justified and that one in five felt little or no loyalty to Britain.
The debate over the veil is not confined to Britain. It is an important one for any Western country with a sizeable community of Islamic immigrants, including Australia - though we have, happily, been far more successful at integrating Muslim newcomers than many other Western European nations and the veil is not the feature of public life here that it is there. But when women wear headcoverings that hide the face, they are committing a powerful act that has political as well as religious overtones and which sends a message that many people find threatening.
Many justifications have been offered for the veil. Speaking recently in Sydney, Munira Mirza, a young British Muslim woman, told The Australian that schoolgirls were wearing head coverings as a statement about Western oppression. On the other side of the spectrum, the veil can be worn as a mark of superiority that makes women who dress less modestly by the standards of the veil-wearer seem less moral, or as a way for men to control their wives and other women in their families. At its most dangerous, this thinking can be seen in the Sydney gang-rapes crisis, when Muslim youths felt their victims deserved their fates because of the way they dressed and behaved. It can even be used as a justification for terrorism. The philosophical basis for groups such as al-Qa'ida largely hinges on the idea that non-Muslims must convert or die to hasten the advent of an entire world under Islam, and veils are one way of indicating who is in the elect. Finally, some Muslim women claim that the veil is a liberating force, or that it is an inherent part of their cultural identity. But no matter the justification, the question remains whether a practice with its roots and justification in medieval Arabia has a place in a postmodern secular society such as Australia. Religious beliefs are by definition sacred, and as much as possible they should be a private matter. But when an individual or a community feels that their personal practices should trump widely held values while also setting themselves apart, the question arises as to whether those people would not be more comfortable in a place where such behaviour is the norm.
At its heart is the question of where tolerance should end and the old adage, "When in Rome, do as the Romans", should kick in. While tolerance is certainly a positive virtue that should be strived for, it cannot be a cultural suicide pact. A culture that is tolerant of those who are intolerant of its freedoms is ripe for destruction, and bit by bit will see all it values eroded. And radical Islam knows this. Just as an Australian wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia to wear a bikini on the beach and drink beer in the corner pub, those who see the proper role of women as subservient, anonymous and under cover should not expect a postmodern secular democracy such as Britain or Australia to accommodate these beliefs. Australians, who quite properly want their daughters, sisters, wives and mothers to be able to achieve anything, are right to feel uncomfortable about religiously mandated coverings and the limits they imply. We do not allow practices such as female genital mutilation simply because they are practiced by an immigrant "other". Disappointingly, those who have traditionally been a positive force for the liberation of women against oppression in other spheres have here largely been silent on the question of Islam's beliefs concerning half of humanity.
If it is true that the past is another country, then what confronts the West today is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of centuries. The jumbo jets that have enabled the mass immigration from Muslim countries to the West are, in effect, time machines that have brought millions of people from a pre-Enlightenment world - where men are the unquestioned bosses, stoning and forced amputation are punishments rather than crimes, and sectarian differences are worth dying over - to secular, liberal and postmodern democracies such as ours. Integration in such circumstances will be difficult but should not be shied away from, even if it means newcomers will have to adapt. Mainstream British politicians have done a great service by opening a debate on this subject. Government-supported ethnic essentialism ultimately leads to segregation - anathema to an immigrant nation such as ours whose success lies in the adoption of common values rather than the preservation of divisive behaviours. In the debate over values, far better that we appeal to our shared humanity rather than encourage behaviours that seek to demonstrate separateness and superiority
Source
British conservatives argue for "urban sprawl"
Though they are not calling it that, of course
Fewer small flats and more bungalows and houses with gardens should be built to make it easier for elderly people to avoid going into care, the Conservatives said yesterday. David Cameron, the party leader, told an Age Concern conference that houses should be designed to be suitable for every stage of life. "We must think in a new way about housing design and urban planning. Housing in Britain never seems to be built with a whole lifetime in mind," he said.
New homes tend to be either small flats, which are not suitable when people have children, or tall houses, which aren't suitable when people become old and less mobile. Although only a quarter of people say they want to live in flats, more than half of all new properties are flats. "We're sqeezing more and more housing into smaller and smaller spaces. This means less room for elderly parents. We're disrupting the generational relationship. "We need to change the planning rules so that we get fewer small flats and more homes with gardens. Fewer homes designed for young single people, and more designed for life - universal design," Mr Cameron said.
The new homes, also called lifetime homes, would be designed to ensure that people never had the need to move. Rather than being tall and thin with winding staircases, which are bad for elderly people, they would be flatter and wider, and even bungalows. They would tend to be more spacious to cope with wheelchairs, with gardens for the family stage of life.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundationhas proposed 16 detailed requirements, many of which are already legal stipulations for public buildings, which must be fulfilled before a house can be categorised as a "lifetime home". These adaptations would ensure that old people could carry on living in the house.
Michael Gove, the Tories' housing spokesman, said: "Thought has to be given so that people aren't trapped in one or two rooms in multi-storey houses. It means more bungalow living, as opposed to less flexible vertical houses."
A spokeswoman for Age Concern said that as the number of elderly people grew, it would be increasingly important that their needs were incorporated into the designs. "The problem is that not enough homes are built to last a lifetime. Many people find living in their home more difficult as they grow older and often have to make the difficult decision to move on, for example to a retirement flat. The concept of a lifetime home addresses the changing needs of people as they age and is a very welcome one."
Far from costing money, the foundation suggests that it would save taxpayers 5.5 billion pounds over 60 years in reducing the need for adaptations to existing houses and moving people to care homes. However, it would mean houses occupying larger plots of land, compared with thinking that encourages high-density housing. Mr Gove insisted that the Conservatives would protect the green belt around cities, but that more greenfield land would be used. "The future lies in allowing communities to expand outwards not just upwards. We recognise that if we are to meet future housing need, you will have some currently undeveloped land which will have to be developed," he said.
Source
MORE NHS NEGLIGENCE
What happens when erring doctors get little more than a slap on the wrist
Patients got a record 1 million pounds in payouts last year after docs operated on the WRONG body part. The NHS compensation went to 40 people.
Healthy ears, legs and hips were operated on - and in 35 cases wrong teeth were removed. One patient got 327,076 pounds - the biggest payout by the NHS Litigation Authority. Experts believe it is likely a good lung was removed.
In 2004 there were 27 claims for "wrong site surgery" - costing the NHS 447,000 pounds. But the figure has jumped 100 per cent in two years to 1,098,000. The authority was forced to disclose the payouts under the Freedom of Information Act.
A separate study found the wrong set of lungs were transplanted into a patient, another had a healthy testicle removed and a hysterectomy was carried out on the wrong woman. A Patients Association spokesman said: "Doctors must take care."
Source
Muslim brutality in Britain: "Hundreds of young girls in Britain are suffering genital mutilation at the hands of women paid to come to Britain by their families. African immigrants are clubbing together to pay for practitioners to fly to Britain and circumcise their daughters in highly secretive rituals. Police believe that the trend has developed among parents who do not have passports or cannot afford to return to their home countries to have their daughters circumcised, a brutal practice that remains commonplace throughout Africa. The procedure is generally performed by elderly women, in unsterilised conditions with no anaesthetic. Children as young as five have parts or all of their clitoris or labia removed. Some have their vaginas sewn up or the flesh shrunk with corrosives... The procedure is highly dangerous and leaves many of its victims with health problems throughout their lives. Infections and cysts are commonplace, as are complications during childbirth, endangering both mother and baby. Women who have suffered genital mutilation are twice as likely to die in childbirth and three times as likely to give birth to a stillborn child. Despite the dangers, many African Muslim communities prize the ritual and ostracise women who are not circumcised. It is common in a band stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia on the East coast and in many areas uncircumcised women cannot find a husband.
Britain closes the door slightly: "Tough curbs banning tens of thousands of unskilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania coming to Britain are to be unveiled by ministers this week. The move comes as new government figures show that four out of every five existing east European immigrants earn little more than the minimum wage and pay on average half the amount Britons pay in taxes. The report claims they may not be as much of a boon to the economy as some have suggested"
In much of Britain and quite often in Australia, it is customary for women to address others and be addressed by others as "love" or some other form of endearment, even if the parties are hardly known to one another. For instance, if I order a sandwich in a sandwich shop, the lady making the sandwich will often ask me "do you want pepper and salt with that, love?"
I guess it is in one sense old-fashioned and silly but I personally think it makes life pleasanter for everyone. Though some of the terms used in the North of England are a bit amusing: "duck", "hen" etc. In much of the American South "Hun" and "Sugar" are used similarly, of course.
There have been attempts to limit such speech in England (See my post of August 17) and the poison has now spread to Scotland. The Glasgow City Council has instructed its employees as follows:
"Don't assume it is acceptable to address women by endearments such as 'dear', 'pet' and 'love' when you would not address men in such a way," the guide instructs. "Don't refer to women as 'girls', for example, 'the girls in the office'."
It adds: "The term 'ladies' should only be used in situations where the parallel term 'gentlemen' is used."
Source
And there is much more idiocy of the same kind. Why it "oppresses" women to call them "Love" defies my imagination. Maybe it is felt to oppress lesbians and that leads to the objections from feminists, many of whom seem to be of the lesbian persuasion.
BRITISH FOOD NOT SO BAD?
I remember vividly the first time I offended an American. I was living in New York at the time and feeling a bit homesick, so I dragged the US citizen in question to an expat fish’n’chip shop in Greenwich Village. There, I ordered the homesick Northerner special: a chip butty, smothered in a thick curry sauce — just like the butties I used to inhale at the bus stop in Alnwick on a school night.
My friend thought this was all very cute and, like, totally British, until she realised exactly what I was eating. “You put the French fries . . . in a bread roll?” she asked, her throat tightening. “And then you pour Indian sauce all over it?”
Through molten, brownish-green mouthfuls, I mumbled something about the Queen. “That might be okay in Britain, but it’s definitely not okay here,” she choked. “You have to get rid of it. Now.” When I realised she wasn’t joking — she began to dry retch loudly — I threw the butty away, half eaten.
It’s been a hard few years for us butty lovers in America. Not only have we had to contend with the Americans’ general lack of respect for British food — they’ll happily eat a Spanish empanada, but will vomit on command at the thought of a Cornish pasty — but we’ve also had to deal with the low-carb fad that has essentially outlawed the very staples of the British diet. Fancy a pub lunch of lasagne and chips? Not a chance.
A move from New York to Los Angeles simply made it worse. I found myself eating soyburgers with alfalfa sprouts, and drinking low-calorie lager, which, to quote the great Eric Idle, is like making love in a canoe: f*****g close to water.
It is, therefore, with a happy (but not necessarily healthy) heart that I bring you news of a breakthrough. Yes, carbs are back. A nutritionist from New Zealand has found that feasting on potatoes, rice and white bread at bedtime does not necessarily make you put on weight. Meanwhile, the US Department of Agriculture has tweaked its food pyramid to allow 9oz of various grains per day (and 3.5oz of veggies, which can include white potatoes). What’s more, the return of the carb has been trumpeted on this season’s trend-setting television show, Ugly Betty. Bread consumption, which suffered a 7.5 per cent decline between 1997 and 2003, is already on the rise.
The press, naturally, has gone wild. Profiles have been written about John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, who created the British lunch when he was too busy gambling to stop for a meal (he asked instead to be served roast beef between two hunks of bread). Other publications have invited Americans to dust off their bread-making machines and start baking their own carbs, using everything from leftover vegetables to overripe fruit for extra flavour.
Nothing, however, prepared me for the reaction of The Los Angeles Times, which put together a full-page feature telling gourmands where to find the most carbtastic British treats. It recommended no fewer than 36 British themed pubs across LA, including joints called Scotland Yard, the Beckham Grill (it has wing back chairs!) and Lucky Baldwin’s, which is patronised by the rocket scientists of Nasa’s jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena.
The best-known pubs of the bunch, however, are Ye Olde King’s Head in Santa Monica, where the paparazzi go drinking, and the Cat & Fiddle on Sunset Boulevard, where the same Ladies and Gentlemen of the British press play darts and eat Yorkshire puddings. The LA Times declared the Fiddle’s Scotch egg to be “iconic” and “hilarious but delicious with beer”. It also raved about the English bangers and the meat-filled pies. What it should have said, of course, is that it all tastes better when you’re cross-eyed and dribbling.
I’m hoping this is the start of a wider trend. After carbs, what else can make a comeback? Cigarettes? Snuff? Tinned meatballs? But I fear that our culinary heritage will be forever changed by the embrace of the carb loving Americans. The Whale & Ale pub in Long Beach, for example, is already serving a bastardised version of steak pie, filled instead with oysters. Inevitably, we will soon have to call this kind of thing “British-American” food.
As for the chip butty, I remain confident that there is absolutely nothing about this delicious abomination that can be tweaked to make it acceptable to LA yuppies. Which is probably why I haven’t been able to buy one since leaving New York.
Source
The veiled conceit of multiculturalism
A misinformed tolerance finally hits its limits in Britain
How tolerant must a free society be of those who are intolerant of the values it holds dear? This question is at the heart of a controversy that has flared up in Britain over the past fortnight concerning Muslim women who wear nikabs, burkas and other face coverings that allow little more than the eyes to be seen. Two weeks ago, former British foreign minister Jack Straw, writing in his local newspaper, criticised Muslim women who covered their faces, saying the practice maked "better, positive relations" between communities "more difficult". He added that the veil was a "visible statement of separation and of difference". And although his remarks were sensationalised, in pointing out that the multicultural emperor is wearing not too few clothes but too many Mr Straw largely won applause. Senior Labour politicians rushed to echo his concerns. Newspapers cheered the opening of debate and Tony Blair himself offered his support, calling the veil a "mark of separation". Not long afterwards, a Muslim teaching assistant in a British school was suspended for wearing a veil that allowed only her eyes to be seen, on the grounds that hiding her face hurt her communication with students. In this case as well, reaction to the school's decision has been largely positive. Many Britons are concerned that multicultural policies that have discouraged assimilation have divided their society and created what one commentator called a "voluntary apartheid". In the age of terrorism, this is a worrisome trend, especially considering that a recent survey of British Muslims suggested 100,000 of them felt the 7/7 attacks were justified and that one in five felt little or no loyalty to Britain.
The debate over the veil is not confined to Britain. It is an important one for any Western country with a sizeable community of Islamic immigrants, including Australia - though we have, happily, been far more successful at integrating Muslim newcomers than many other Western European nations and the veil is not the feature of public life here that it is there. But when women wear headcoverings that hide the face, they are committing a powerful act that has political as well as religious overtones and which sends a message that many people find threatening.
Many justifications have been offered for the veil. Speaking recently in Sydney, Munira Mirza, a young British Muslim woman, told The Australian that schoolgirls were wearing head coverings as a statement about Western oppression. On the other side of the spectrum, the veil can be worn as a mark of superiority that makes women who dress less modestly by the standards of the veil-wearer seem less moral, or as a way for men to control their wives and other women in their families. At its most dangerous, this thinking can be seen in the Sydney gang-rapes crisis, when Muslim youths felt their victims deserved their fates because of the way they dressed and behaved. It can even be used as a justification for terrorism. The philosophical basis for groups such as al-Qa'ida largely hinges on the idea that non-Muslims must convert or die to hasten the advent of an entire world under Islam, and veils are one way of indicating who is in the elect. Finally, some Muslim women claim that the veil is a liberating force, or that it is an inherent part of their cultural identity. But no matter the justification, the question remains whether a practice with its roots and justification in medieval Arabia has a place in a postmodern secular society such as Australia. Religious beliefs are by definition sacred, and as much as possible they should be a private matter. But when an individual or a community feels that their personal practices should trump widely held values while also setting themselves apart, the question arises as to whether those people would not be more comfortable in a place where such behaviour is the norm.
At its heart is the question of where tolerance should end and the old adage, "When in Rome, do as the Romans", should kick in. While tolerance is certainly a positive virtue that should be strived for, it cannot be a cultural suicide pact. A culture that is tolerant of those who are intolerant of its freedoms is ripe for destruction, and bit by bit will see all it values eroded. And radical Islam knows this. Just as an Australian wouldn't go to Saudi Arabia to wear a bikini on the beach and drink beer in the corner pub, those who see the proper role of women as subservient, anonymous and under cover should not expect a postmodern secular democracy such as Britain or Australia to accommodate these beliefs. Australians, who quite properly want their daughters, sisters, wives and mothers to be able to achieve anything, are right to feel uncomfortable about religiously mandated coverings and the limits they imply. We do not allow practices such as female genital mutilation simply because they are practiced by an immigrant "other". Disappointingly, those who have traditionally been a positive force for the liberation of women against oppression in other spheres have here largely been silent on the question of Islam's beliefs concerning half of humanity.
If it is true that the past is another country, then what confronts the West today is not so much a clash of civilisations as a clash of centuries. The jumbo jets that have enabled the mass immigration from Muslim countries to the West are, in effect, time machines that have brought millions of people from a pre-Enlightenment world - where men are the unquestioned bosses, stoning and forced amputation are punishments rather than crimes, and sectarian differences are worth dying over - to secular, liberal and postmodern democracies such as ours. Integration in such circumstances will be difficult but should not be shied away from, even if it means newcomers will have to adapt. Mainstream British politicians have done a great service by opening a debate on this subject. Government-supported ethnic essentialism ultimately leads to segregation - anathema to an immigrant nation such as ours whose success lies in the adoption of common values rather than the preservation of divisive behaviours. In the debate over values, far better that we appeal to our shared humanity rather than encourage behaviours that seek to demonstrate separateness and superiority
Source
British conservatives argue for "urban sprawl"
Though they are not calling it that, of course
Fewer small flats and more bungalows and houses with gardens should be built to make it easier for elderly people to avoid going into care, the Conservatives said yesterday. David Cameron, the party leader, told an Age Concern conference that houses should be designed to be suitable for every stage of life. "We must think in a new way about housing design and urban planning. Housing in Britain never seems to be built with a whole lifetime in mind," he said.
New homes tend to be either small flats, which are not suitable when people have children, or tall houses, which aren't suitable when people become old and less mobile. Although only a quarter of people say they want to live in flats, more than half of all new properties are flats. "We're sqeezing more and more housing into smaller and smaller spaces. This means less room for elderly parents. We're disrupting the generational relationship. "We need to change the planning rules so that we get fewer small flats and more homes with gardens. Fewer homes designed for young single people, and more designed for life - universal design," Mr Cameron said.
The new homes, also called lifetime homes, would be designed to ensure that people never had the need to move. Rather than being tall and thin with winding staircases, which are bad for elderly people, they would be flatter and wider, and even bungalows. They would tend to be more spacious to cope with wheelchairs, with gardens for the family stage of life.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundationhas proposed 16 detailed requirements, many of which are already legal stipulations for public buildings, which must be fulfilled before a house can be categorised as a "lifetime home". These adaptations would ensure that old people could carry on living in the house.
Michael Gove, the Tories' housing spokesman, said: "Thought has to be given so that people aren't trapped in one or two rooms in multi-storey houses. It means more bungalow living, as opposed to less flexible vertical houses."
A spokeswoman for Age Concern said that as the number of elderly people grew, it would be increasingly important that their needs were incorporated into the designs. "The problem is that not enough homes are built to last a lifetime. Many people find living in their home more difficult as they grow older and often have to make the difficult decision to move on, for example to a retirement flat. The concept of a lifetime home addresses the changing needs of people as they age and is a very welcome one."
Far from costing money, the foundation suggests that it would save taxpayers 5.5 billion pounds over 60 years in reducing the need for adaptations to existing houses and moving people to care homes. However, it would mean houses occupying larger plots of land, compared with thinking that encourages high-density housing. Mr Gove insisted that the Conservatives would protect the green belt around cities, but that more greenfield land would be used. "The future lies in allowing communities to expand outwards not just upwards. We recognise that if we are to meet future housing need, you will have some currently undeveloped land which will have to be developed," he said.
Source
MORE NHS NEGLIGENCE
What happens when erring doctors get little more than a slap on the wrist
Patients got a record 1 million pounds in payouts last year after docs operated on the WRONG body part. The NHS compensation went to 40 people.
Healthy ears, legs and hips were operated on - and in 35 cases wrong teeth were removed. One patient got 327,076 pounds - the biggest payout by the NHS Litigation Authority. Experts believe it is likely a good lung was removed.
In 2004 there were 27 claims for "wrong site surgery" - costing the NHS 447,000 pounds. But the figure has jumped 100 per cent in two years to 1,098,000. The authority was forced to disclose the payouts under the Freedom of Information Act.
A separate study found the wrong set of lungs were transplanted into a patient, another had a healthy testicle removed and a hysterectomy was carried out on the wrong woman. A Patients Association spokesman said: "Doctors must take care."
Source
Muslim brutality in Britain: "Hundreds of young girls in Britain are suffering genital mutilation at the hands of women paid to come to Britain by their families. African immigrants are clubbing together to pay for practitioners to fly to Britain and circumcise their daughters in highly secretive rituals. Police believe that the trend has developed among parents who do not have passports or cannot afford to return to their home countries to have their daughters circumcised, a brutal practice that remains commonplace throughout Africa. The procedure is generally performed by elderly women, in unsterilised conditions with no anaesthetic. Children as young as five have parts or all of their clitoris or labia removed. Some have their vaginas sewn up or the flesh shrunk with corrosives... The procedure is highly dangerous and leaves many of its victims with health problems throughout their lives. Infections and cysts are commonplace, as are complications during childbirth, endangering both mother and baby. Women who have suffered genital mutilation are twice as likely to die in childbirth and three times as likely to give birth to a stillborn child. Despite the dangers, many African Muslim communities prize the ritual and ostracise women who are not circumcised. It is common in a band stretching from Senegal in West Africa to Somalia on the East coast and in many areas uncircumcised women cannot find a husband.
Britain closes the door slightly: "Tough curbs banning tens of thousands of unskilled workers from Bulgaria and Romania coming to Britain are to be unveiled by ministers this week. The move comes as new government figures show that four out of every five existing east European immigrants earn little more than the minimum wage and pay on average half the amount Britons pay in taxes. The report claims they may not be as much of a boon to the economy as some have suggested"
Tuesday, October 24, 2006
BBC ADMITS BIAS
It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism. A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.
At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians. One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. 'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.'
In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen -- known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101. On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran. Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show's actual producer and the BBC's head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.
In a debate on whether the BBC should interview Osama Bin Laden if he approached them, it was decided the Al Qaeda leader would be given a platform to explain his views. And the BBC's 'diversity tsar', Mary Fitzpatrick, said women newsreaders should be able to wear whatever they wanted while on TV, including veils. Ms Fitzpatrick spoke out after criticism was raised at the summit of TV newsreader Fiona Bruce, who recently wore on air a necklace with a cross.
The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer. Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'
Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.
Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.' Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!' Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.
There was another heated debate when the summit discussed whether the BBC was too sensitive about criticising black families for failing to take responsibility for their children. Head of news Helen Boaden disclosed that a Radio 4 programme which blamed black youths at a young offenders', institution for bullying white inmates faced the axe until she stepped in.
But Ms Fitzpatrick, who has said that the BBC should not use white reporters in non-white countries, argued it had a duty to 'contextualise' why black youngsters behaved in such a way.
Andrew Marr told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country. Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.'
Source
ARROGANT CONDEMNATION OF "MATERIALISM"
Seeing ordinary people with lots of goodies is just insufferable to our self-declared Leftist "betters"
If the reams of scary reportage on Britain's unprecedented levels of personal debt, competitive misery and shopping addiction are anything to go by, then we have finally bought wholesale into an ugly, regressive morality tale of the helpless consumer. Over the past decade, commentators have been competing to see who can present the most alarmist research on the psychological damage, spiritual impoverishment and moral decay caused by our compulsive spending and consuming. The recent high profile campaign to cure childhood of various modern ills cited `mass marketing' as one of the big three toxins. Spendaholic Britons are apparently in the paralysing grip of a debt crisis: `Credit card lending rose by œ400m last month.. On average every man, woman and child in the UK owes at least 2,300 pounds.'
Yet pathologising our spending habits has created a demeaning, damaging vision of the human subject as a vulnerable, selfish automaton; a hopeless, amoral being. This commentary on our `sick' spending and Pavlovian response to advertising is symptomatic, not just of therapy culture, but of a deep ambivalence towards what are, in fact, some of our more healthy impulses and ambitions.
Before interrogating the political message of these distortions, it is worth challenging the hysterical tone of the debt statistics in particular. The `on average' nature of the figures cited above, for example, means they include a majority of `typical' middle-income households. Is 2,300 worth of debt so crippling to this group? Surely such a sum is comfortably covered by the average earnings of those involved? Or take Credit Action's panicked estimation that `Britain's personal debt is increasing by 1million every four minutes.' Is this so terrifying if it includes, in the main, households that take out loans for home improvements or new cars? No, but these planned investments in assets add up to the image of a rational consumer, not the impulsive, `frivolous', irresponsible one contemporary experts prefer to cast us as.
Spendaholics and the politics of behaviour
There is a long history of preaching against the corrupting potential of wealth. It began with ancient creeds, surfaced in general Christian teachings and Puritan doctrines, then re-emerged in the nineteenth century bohemian revulsion towards bourgeois, commercial `vulgarity'. What distinguishes today's anti-consumer sermons, however, is their tendency to cast `the masses' as greedy cartoon demons, and the eco-friendly, middle-class thrifties as the saints. Lifestyle `downsizers' occupy the moral high ground by virtue of their lack of desire for stuff, and their ability to declutter - materially and therefore spiritually.
The crude equation is: more stuff = sad, less stuff =happy. As Professor Andrew Oswald of Warwick University tells the BBC: `During the past 25 years, people have had material things far more, and yet it doesn't seem to have generated greater happiness.' An American book reporting from the frontline of decluttering, is soon to clutter our shelves. It describes, in anthropological terms, a couple's attempt to spend nothing for a year (other than on the absolute basics: mortgage, heat and food). Early reviews praised the lessons learnt about freedom from consumerist tyranny.
So why are we slaves to the 2006 version of the slavish consumer? Daniel Ben-Ami has argued previously on spiked that `We live in a world in which there is an unprecedented degree of cynicism about the benefits of economic growth.affluence .is typically subject to numerous caveats. Among other things it is accused of damaging the environment, leading to inequality and failing to make people happy.' The concepts of affluence and happiness are diametrically opposed today. So, imagery of consumerist hell reflects our ambivalence towards material growth generally. But what it further reflects is the new politics of behaviour.
Even if the loan sharks were banging down all our doors, why has this suddenly become anyone else's business or cause for alarm? It is precisely the private nature of disposable income and personal loans that so disturbs the lifestyle experts. It is one of the few, albeit banal, arenas left where people exercise unmediated control over their immediate material circumstances. Even then, we are not free from moral condescension regarding the eco or ethical credentials of our purchases, but it is still excess money, to do with as we see fit.
What also upsets the lifestyle experts is aspiration. One of the rhetorical cliches deployed in this debate, to reinforce a picture of humanity as despairing, vulnerable and in need of expert guidance, is the portrayal of ambition as a competitive sickness. What Alain de Botton recently called `status anxiety' not only adds to the picture of our damaged passivity, it also reduces aspirational desires and social interaction to banal, cold forms of one-upmanship.
Our lack of altruism and vicious competitive detachment from others is continually emphasized in subsequent modern studies. According to BBC News, researchers at Warwick University have discovered most people need to feel richer than their neighbours, even when they do not know them - to the point where we would cost ourselves money in order that our `imagined rivals' might be poorer. The use of `imagined rivals' increases the sense of our irrationality and diminished autonomy, as does the cash rich, time poor debate. As Professor Judith Schor tells the BBC: `Spending then has to compensate for the fact that we're losing time - we're losing control of our lives.'
What academics like Professor Andrew Oswald term the `culture' or `curse' of `comparison' is apparently the central virus of modernity, infecting every area of our lives. Britain's politics of behaviour and happiness policies turn to the minutiae of our domestic and internal lives for purpose. They address us sternly and unconvincingly on this subject, citing the main obstacle to our happiness targets as our desire for more stuff: `The pursuit of wealth stops us pursuing the things that make us happy.' We are compelled, in the eyes of the experts, to shop mindlessly in an attempt to heal our mental wounds. Describing buying in these pathological terms then subtly leads to other agendas of behaviour modification: `Instead we should be concentrating on friendships, relationships and health.'
The creation of recent concepts such as `ethical debt' reveals similar political motives. The `problem' is no longer discussed in simply economic, but social terms. As a leader in the Observer put it: `Debt to finance university education is more worthwhile than the more widespread borrowing for lifestyle accoutrements - new cars and kitchens. This consumer debt is the real.social problem.' [So wonderful to have such wise guidance]
Notions of control
The addiction cycle is obsessively applied to the shopping experience. According to the BBC News article, when we shop we don't exercise consumer choice, or indulge in harmless escapism, but experience a hunger and high: `compulsive and uncontrollable buying affected between two and five per cent of adults.' Then there is the withdrawal: `the shopping buzz does not last for long', increasing doses: `The pleasure from having extra things wears off', and finally the treatment: `one manufacturer has released an anti-depressant drug it claims can help combat the urge to spend.'
Just decades ago, in contrast, there existed a far more powerful sense of human agency and control regarding personal budgets. For instance, the poet Al Alvarez, in his autobiography of the shabby genteel Oxbridge set of the 1950's, talks of his friends' spending habits as metaphors for their character. Hopelessly generous eccentrics would fritter meager post-war inheritances on parties or daft whims. They lived blissfully on the breadline, oblivious to the causes of their eventually hand-to-mouth existence, because it was the result of such deeply ingrained traits. Equally, other mean-spirited characters manifested their repressed nature in spectacular acts of tight-fistedness. Ultimately, at this time, there was the sense that it was your innate, often charming qualities that dictated how you spent, not sinister external forces.
Instead, in our therapy culture, we are cast as victims of a spending disease, attacking us from the outside. We are passively lured by advertising, or `pushed' by opportunistic creditors. Our spending is now dictated, not by delightful individual quirks, but homogenous psychological problems that manifest themselves in ways beyond our understanding or control. These are habits that require the intervention of a psychologist or debt counsellor. Shopping has become the act of blindly and mindlessly `compensating' for past emotional traumas with the purchase `high'.....
The spiritual corruption of overspending is normally presented as afflicting working class consumer souls far more deeply than middle-class ones. `Chav' baiting is founded on a disgust of conspicuous consumption and the perceived vulgarity and psychological chaos that ensues: for example for lottery winners, or young Premiership footballers.
Working class children and their junk pushing parents, are also felt to be in greater need of protection from the pressures of perfection. Ed Mayo, head of the National Consumer Council, wrote in the Guardian recently: `Our research shows that children who have the least want the most. This "aspiration gap" is most marked in the poorest households. Poorer children tend to get more pocket money and will get crisps and snacks in their lunchboxes - but these are the children most likely to be disappointed when birthdays come around.'
Overstating the case of the pathological spender however has now moved beyond class politics and become a morality tale of the modern human condition. It's all-encompassing cultural reach is reflected in TV schedules (Spendaholics, Spend, Spend, Spend, Bank of Mum and Dad, Britain's Streets of Debt, Skint, Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole In My Heart - to name just a few), government policy and a general tone of media despair. On the whole this mood goes unchallenged.
But surely we need to remind ourselves of the immediate transformative effect of so called `stuff'? Stuff is what we are surrounded by, dressed in, dictates our levels of physical comfort, can provide us with knowledge, entertainment, aesthetic pleasure, cultural enrichment, enhanced potential for communication and social stimulation. What is so spiritually deadening or morally offensive about that?
Doing up your house, upgrading your mode of transport, treating yourself, family and friends to a good time, buying great cultural experiences and holidays, buying time-saving gadgets. These are major sources of pleasures in life. Certainly shopping cannot compete with more substantial, free sources of happiness such as friendship and love. It certainly cannot compensate for a culture lacking in political purpose or pursuits of intellectual discovery; but neither will it stain our souls or damage our psyche.
In the face of today's anti-consumerist sermons, we need to restate a case for the power of new things to transform our immediate experience and material surroundings. A variety of commentators, philosophers and experts might wish to pathologise our desires for comfort, diversion, stimulation, increased leisure-time, and our aspiration to improve our physical living conditions. But `stuff' can change our quality of life, and even has some potential to change society at large, especially in the developing world. Those interested in progress, and concerned by all this fatalistic doom-mongering about the human condition, need to defend our quite healthy materialist impulses. Here's to raising the aspirational bar for all.
Source
A world without people
There are an increasing number of commentators who believe that the planet would be better off without the presence of human beings on it. The current issue of New Scientist goes one step further to speculate what it might look like.
The premise of the article is that human beings disappear overnight. `The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better,' says a conservation biologist from California. Nature would be able to reclaim the fields and pastures, and make new habitats in deserted buildings. `Light pollution' would disappear from the skies. Forests would return to their natural state. Nuclear reactors might catch fire or explode, but even there ecosystems would thrive. Strangely, it's not all good news for nature. Some ecosystems have thrived in the presence of human activity and might fail if we were to disappear.
In terms of leaving a legacy, however, the mark of mankind will be pretty shortlived in the great scheme of things. As the article concludes: `The humbling - and perversely comforting - reality is that the Earth will forget us remarkably quickly.' What would be more accurate is that without the presence of an intelligent lifeform, the Earth would be a pointless rock flying through space.
What is remarkable is that the producers of Britain's most widely read science magazine, who should be celebrating the increasing capacity of human beings to understand and shape the world, have so little regard for humanity's interests. Instead, they seem to dismiss the great progress we have made in conquering the problems that nature confronts us with, prefering to fantasise about our demise. While environmentalists speculate about humanity destroying itself through `ecocide', it is the increasingly fashionable desire to dismiss our existence as pointless which is more likely to herald disaster.
Source
DELIBERATE EROSION OF ACADEMIC STANDARDS PLANNED IN BRITAIN
Universities should drop entry requirements by up to two A level grades for students from "disadvantaged" backgrounds in order to widen participation, according to a government-commissioned study. Admissions tutors should lower the bar for pupils in care, those attending poorly-performing schools, those who suffer from long-term disability or sickness and those who have to look after sick relatives, it said. The tutors should also collaborate with each other to ensure that more deprived children enter the top universities.
Academics at Leeds University found that while most universities had a programme to encourage more applications from working-class backgrounds, systems varied and only a few hundred were recruited annually by this route.
The study, published tomorrow, follows the release of Ucas figures last week that showed that 5,400 fewer students from "lower-income backgrounds" had started university this year, amid fears of increasing debt over higher fees. The authors of the study praised those universities that chose pupils on the basis of their potential, even if their grades were lower than the entry requirements. "We know of heavily oversubscribed courses where admissions tutors have made offers of an A and two Bs to impressive applicants in disadvantaged circumstances who have demonstrated appropriate personal qualities, while rejecting other applicants with three predicted As," they wrote. "Admissions tutors prepared to do this have our strong support."
The researchers acknowledged fears that students being turned away with higher grades could mount legal challenges, but pointed out that most disadvantaged students admitted on this basis showed "no significant differences in their referral and withdrawal rates as compared with the university average".
Paul Sharp, co-author of Opportunity and Equity: Developing a Framework for Good Practice in Compact Schemes, said that universities put a lot of effort into widening participation, but needed to publicise it more and share good practice. He refused to endorse a compulsory scheme of lowering grades.
In 2003, the Government's White Paper on Higher Education pointed out that young people from the professional classes were "over five times more likely to enter higher education than those from unskilled backgrounds".
The next year, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the proportion of state students decreased in 14 of the 19 leading Russell Group universities, with only 53.4 per cent of Oxford admissions coming from state schools. Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, said that the report set out good principles but threw up several "potential minefields". Although he supported sharing good practice, there also came a point when colleges competed for the best students, he said. Under the Cambridge Special Access scheme, the university already accepted students with lower grades, he said. "But at the moment there needs to be a very large disadvantage to make it a B rather than an A," he said. "Unless we move to a system where the offers could be more finely graduated, it would be very difficult to make those adjustments."
An aide to Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said that he favoured the idea of universities assessing an applicant's potential and awaited the report with interest.
Source
British schools as Orwell's "Big Brother"
No matter where you are, your school will see you and punish you for deviance
Three pupils were expelled last week from St George's School Harpenden, a prestigious state boarding school in Hertfordshire, for smoking cannabis during the summer holidays. But should schools be disciplining children for what goes on beyond the school gate?
Harpenden is an affluent commuter town. Its leafy roads and traditional high street do not point to an endemic drugs problem bought on by social exclusion, especially not involving St George's pupils where `there is a sense of real purpose and harmony based on Christian principles and our traditions,' according to the headmaster, Norman Hoare.
Rumours of drug abuse surfaced this autumn and an investigation was launched by the school. The subsequent expulsions were based on interviews held by St George's. Whilst cannabis use is illegal, the police told me that they would not be taking any action after concluding that there was too little evidence to pursue the matter.
Norman Hoare told BBC News: `The school has a duty to uphold the law and protect all students but none of our investigations showed that the drugs had been on our premises. The activities took place after school or at weekends and some of it started in July. That's one of the reasons we acted very quickly.'
Hoare's ideas on the boundaries of school authority are not shared by everyone. One angry parent contacted spiked, even though his children were not involved: `At what point does the school's jurisdiction end? I am completely opposed to the control of my children outside of school hours.' When I asked Norman Hoare why he had expelled students on the basis of drug use outside of school term, he replied that `the pupils who join the school are aware of our drugs policy'. However, his actions seem to go beyond the policy stated on the school's website: `A period of fixed term exclusion [ie, suspension] from school would normally be the penalty for involvement in purchase, possession, or consumption of illegal drugs or substance of abuse while under school jurisdiction.'
Events at St George's contrast with a case heard by the High Court in September. A school in Birmingham had its decision to expel two pupils for cannabis use overturned because their expulsion contravened government guidelines on exclusion for minor drug offences. These pupils were caught smoking on school grounds and some kind of punishment by the school was to be expected. But the St George's pupils were not caught by the police or anyone from the school; they were allegedly using cannabis outside of school term and were not dealing drugs.
St George's sees the alleged minor drug use of a few of its pupils outside school hours as its responsibility - parents are not to be trusted. In doing so, the headmaster was only following the lead of the New Labour government; it does not trust private individuals. The Anti-Social Behaviour Act of 2003 gives head teachers the authority to fine parents and issue parenting orders forcing them to attend counselling. Where once schools stood for moral guidance, they are now expected to play a much more interventionist and authoritarian role. As David Perks has noted elsewhere on spiked: `the government sees schools as a blunt weapon in a war against what it sees as feckless parents and feral children. Education policy has become part of a wider attempt to control people's behaviour.'
So how should we deal with children who experiment with drugs and why do they do it? I asked Patrick Turner, writer, lecturer and former drugs worker: `The same as we have traditionally done with alcohol. A degree of indulgence towards the desire to experiment and enjoy adult pleasures seasoned with a sensitivity to the circumstances and motives of the individuals concerned. Put simply, the risk associated with a stable, self-aware young person who has lots of support messing around with dope is not the same as that posed to the young person, say, in local authority care with a history of poor mental health.'
In fact, government guidelines on expulsion seem to fit well with Turner's statement: `Exclusion should only be considered for serious breaches of the school's behaviour policy, and should not be imposed without a thorough investigation unless there is an immediate threat to the safety of others in the school or the pupil concerned. It should not be used if alternative solutions have the potential to achieve a change in the pupil's behaviour and are not detrimental to the whole school community.' So, why has this school gone further? Norman Hoare had not heard about the Birmingham case in which the High Court ruled these guidelines took precedence over school decisions. I suspect when the St George's board of governers examines the expulsion they may well overturn it in light of the Birmingham case.
This episode is indicative of the mixed messages from government about drugs, and the contradictory positions they adopt. The government's downgrading of cannabis to a class `C' drug has added to the mess since the law itself is a combination of `hard' and `soft' signals. So while the maximum sentence for possession will fall from five years to two, penalties for adults supplying cannabis will remain at a maximum of 14 years compared to the five years for other class `C' drugs.
There is no right for children to experiment with cannabis, but it would be better to have childhood experimentation dealt with in a constructive manner. That means schools should not overstep the boundaries of their authority, and government should not politicise and proceduralise matters that are best dealt with informally.
Source
THE REVOLUTION THAT SORTED OUT THE IDEALISTS FROM THE HATERS
A former British Communist reflects on the Hungarian revolution:
As I walked back from the podium to my seat in the audience, screams of `Trotskyist!' hit me from all sides. Communist Party comrades who had been my friends hurled abuse at me, their faces screwed up with hatred. By the time I got back to my seat I was shouting back, telling them that, like the AVO (Hungarian secret policemen) who were then swinging on lamp posts as a result of people's anger, their time on the end of a rope was nearing. I would not recommend this as a way to win political arguments.
The scene was the old Liverpool Stadium in 1956; the Liverpool District Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain had organised a meeting to discuss the Hungarian uprising. In my intervention I had called for the Soviet troops to get out of Hungary, and demanded we pledge our full support for the Hungarian workers and students in their attempt to replace Stalinism. On returning to my seat I heard a member of the District Committee describe me from the platform as a Trotskyist provocateur. The shepherd had spoken and the witless sheep responded as the followers of Stalin, myself included, had always done in the past. The magic word was Trotsky, the revolutionary bogeyman of Stalinism.
More here
In memoriam: "Ideas shape the world. Last week a very important promoter of ideas, Ralph Harris, died at the age of 81. The liberal economic ideas that he popularised in the 1960s and 1970s became the basis of the Conservative reforms of the 1980s, and have remained the accepted basis of the Blair administration. No other British propagandist of ideas in the second half of the 20th century had anything like the same influence on national policy. Lord Harris of High Cross taught Margaret Thatcher. He converted a whole generation of politicians and journalists to the free-market ideas in which he believed; he converted most economists as well. [I knew Ralph Harris myself]
Would most of the "young people" mentioned in this report be black or Muslim? "Britain is becoming a nation increasingly afraid of its young people and this trend is causing problems for children as they grow up, according to a report released overnight. Britons are far less likely than their European counterparts to stop young people committing antisocial behaviour, because of fears of reprisals, being attacked, or verbal abuse, the study by the Institute of Policy Research (IPPR) found.... The IPPR said that 1.5 million Britons now thought about moving away from the area they lived in because of "young people hanging around". It said 1.7 million people avoided going out after dark because of their worries about antisocial behaviour which the vast majority blamed on a "lack of discipline".
It was the day that a host of BBC executives and star presenters admitted what critics have been telling them for years: the BBC is dominated by trendy, Left-leaning liberals who are biased against Christianity and in favour of multiculturalism. A leaked account of an 'impartiality summit' called by BBC chairman Michael Grade, is certain to lead to a new row about the BBC and its reporting on key issues, especially concerning Muslims and the war on terror. It reveals that executives would let the Bible be thrown into a dustbin on a TV comedy show, but not the Koran, and that they would broadcast an interview with Osama Bin Laden if given the opportunity. Further, it discloses that the BBC's 'diversity tsar', wants Muslim women newsreaders to be allowed to wear veils when on air.
At the secret meeting in London last month, which was hosted by veteran broadcaster Sue Lawley, BBC executives admitted the corporation is dominated by homosexuals and people from ethnic minorities, deliberately promotes multiculturalism, is anti-American, anti-countryside and more sensitive to the feelings of Muslims than Christians. One veteran BBC executive said: 'There was widespread acknowledgement that we may have gone too far in the direction of political correctness. 'Unfortunately, much of it is so deeply embedded in the BBC's culture, that it is very hard to change it.'
In one of a series of discussions, executives were asked to rule on how they would react if the controversial comedian Sacha Baron Cohen -- known for his offensive characters Ali G and Borat - was a guest on the programme Room 101. On the show, celebrities are invited to throw their pet hates into a dustbin and it was imagined that Baron Cohen chose some kosher food, the Archbishop of Canterbury, a Bible and the Koran. Nearly everyone at the summit, including the show's actual producer and the BBC's head of drama, Alan Yentob, agreed they could all be thrown into the bin, except the Koran for fear of offending Muslims.
In a debate on whether the BBC should interview Osama Bin Laden if he approached them, it was decided the Al Qaeda leader would be given a platform to explain his views. And the BBC's 'diversity tsar', Mary Fitzpatrick, said women newsreaders should be able to wear whatever they wanted while on TV, including veils. Ms Fitzpatrick spoke out after criticism was raised at the summit of TV newsreader Fiona Bruce, who recently wore on air a necklace with a cross.
The full account of the meeting shows how senior BBC figures queued up to lambast their employer. Political pundit Andrew Marr said: 'The BBC is not impartial or neutral. It's a publicly funded, urban organisation with an abnormally large number of young people, ethnic minorities and gay people. It has a liberal bias not so much a party-political bias. It is better expressed as a cultural liberal bias.'
Washington correspondent Justin Webb said that the BBC is so biased against America that deputy director general Mark Byford had secretly agreed to help him to 'correct', it in his reports. Webb added that the BBC treated America with scorn and derision and gave it 'no moral weight'.
Former BBC business editor Jeff Randall said he complained to a 'very senior news executive', about the BBC's pro-multicultural stance but was given the reply: 'The BBC is not neutral in multiculturalism: it believes in it and it promotes it.' Randall also told how he once wore Union Jack cufflinks to work but was rebuked with: 'You can't do that, that's like the National Front!' Quoting a George Orwell observation, Randall said that the BBC was full of intellectuals who 'would rather steal from a poor box than stand to attention during God Save The King'.
There was another heated debate when the summit discussed whether the BBC was too sensitive about criticising black families for failing to take responsibility for their children. Head of news Helen Boaden disclosed that a Radio 4 programme which blamed black youths at a young offenders', institution for bullying white inmates faced the axe until she stepped in.
But Ms Fitzpatrick, who has said that the BBC should not use white reporters in non-white countries, argued it had a duty to 'contextualise' why black youngsters behaved in such a way.
Andrew Marr told The Mail on Sunday last night: 'The BBC must always try to reflect Britain, which is mostly a provincial, middle-of-the-road country. Britain is not a mirror image of the BBC or the people who work for it.'
Source
ARROGANT CONDEMNATION OF "MATERIALISM"
Seeing ordinary people with lots of goodies is just insufferable to our self-declared Leftist "betters"
If the reams of scary reportage on Britain's unprecedented levels of personal debt, competitive misery and shopping addiction are anything to go by, then we have finally bought wholesale into an ugly, regressive morality tale of the helpless consumer. Over the past decade, commentators have been competing to see who can present the most alarmist research on the psychological damage, spiritual impoverishment and moral decay caused by our compulsive spending and consuming. The recent high profile campaign to cure childhood of various modern ills cited `mass marketing' as one of the big three toxins. Spendaholic Britons are apparently in the paralysing grip of a debt crisis: `Credit card lending rose by œ400m last month.. On average every man, woman and child in the UK owes at least 2,300 pounds.'
Yet pathologising our spending habits has created a demeaning, damaging vision of the human subject as a vulnerable, selfish automaton; a hopeless, amoral being. This commentary on our `sick' spending and Pavlovian response to advertising is symptomatic, not just of therapy culture, but of a deep ambivalence towards what are, in fact, some of our more healthy impulses and ambitions.
Before interrogating the political message of these distortions, it is worth challenging the hysterical tone of the debt statistics in particular. The `on average' nature of the figures cited above, for example, means they include a majority of `typical' middle-income households. Is 2,300 worth of debt so crippling to this group? Surely such a sum is comfortably covered by the average earnings of those involved? Or take Credit Action's panicked estimation that `Britain's personal debt is increasing by 1million every four minutes.' Is this so terrifying if it includes, in the main, households that take out loans for home improvements or new cars? No, but these planned investments in assets add up to the image of a rational consumer, not the impulsive, `frivolous', irresponsible one contemporary experts prefer to cast us as.
Spendaholics and the politics of behaviour
There is a long history of preaching against the corrupting potential of wealth. It began with ancient creeds, surfaced in general Christian teachings and Puritan doctrines, then re-emerged in the nineteenth century bohemian revulsion towards bourgeois, commercial `vulgarity'. What distinguishes today's anti-consumer sermons, however, is their tendency to cast `the masses' as greedy cartoon demons, and the eco-friendly, middle-class thrifties as the saints. Lifestyle `downsizers' occupy the moral high ground by virtue of their lack of desire for stuff, and their ability to declutter - materially and therefore spiritually.
The crude equation is: more stuff = sad, less stuff =happy. As Professor Andrew Oswald of Warwick University tells the BBC: `During the past 25 years, people have had material things far more, and yet it doesn't seem to have generated greater happiness.' An American book reporting from the frontline of decluttering, is soon to clutter our shelves. It describes, in anthropological terms, a couple's attempt to spend nothing for a year (other than on the absolute basics: mortgage, heat and food). Early reviews praised the lessons learnt about freedom from consumerist tyranny.
So why are we slaves to the 2006 version of the slavish consumer? Daniel Ben-Ami has argued previously on spiked that `We live in a world in which there is an unprecedented degree of cynicism about the benefits of economic growth.affluence .is typically subject to numerous caveats. Among other things it is accused of damaging the environment, leading to inequality and failing to make people happy.' The concepts of affluence and happiness are diametrically opposed today. So, imagery of consumerist hell reflects our ambivalence towards material growth generally. But what it further reflects is the new politics of behaviour.
Even if the loan sharks were banging down all our doors, why has this suddenly become anyone else's business or cause for alarm? It is precisely the private nature of disposable income and personal loans that so disturbs the lifestyle experts. It is one of the few, albeit banal, arenas left where people exercise unmediated control over their immediate material circumstances. Even then, we are not free from moral condescension regarding the eco or ethical credentials of our purchases, but it is still excess money, to do with as we see fit.
What also upsets the lifestyle experts is aspiration. One of the rhetorical cliches deployed in this debate, to reinforce a picture of humanity as despairing, vulnerable and in need of expert guidance, is the portrayal of ambition as a competitive sickness. What Alain de Botton recently called `status anxiety' not only adds to the picture of our damaged passivity, it also reduces aspirational desires and social interaction to banal, cold forms of one-upmanship.
Our lack of altruism and vicious competitive detachment from others is continually emphasized in subsequent modern studies. According to BBC News, researchers at Warwick University have discovered most people need to feel richer than their neighbours, even when they do not know them - to the point where we would cost ourselves money in order that our `imagined rivals' might be poorer. The use of `imagined rivals' increases the sense of our irrationality and diminished autonomy, as does the cash rich, time poor debate. As Professor Judith Schor tells the BBC: `Spending then has to compensate for the fact that we're losing time - we're losing control of our lives.'
What academics like Professor Andrew Oswald term the `culture' or `curse' of `comparison' is apparently the central virus of modernity, infecting every area of our lives. Britain's politics of behaviour and happiness policies turn to the minutiae of our domestic and internal lives for purpose. They address us sternly and unconvincingly on this subject, citing the main obstacle to our happiness targets as our desire for more stuff: `The pursuit of wealth stops us pursuing the things that make us happy.' We are compelled, in the eyes of the experts, to shop mindlessly in an attempt to heal our mental wounds. Describing buying in these pathological terms then subtly leads to other agendas of behaviour modification: `Instead we should be concentrating on friendships, relationships and health.'
The creation of recent concepts such as `ethical debt' reveals similar political motives. The `problem' is no longer discussed in simply economic, but social terms. As a leader in the Observer put it: `Debt to finance university education is more worthwhile than the more widespread borrowing for lifestyle accoutrements - new cars and kitchens. This consumer debt is the real.social problem.' [So wonderful to have such wise guidance]
Notions of control
The addiction cycle is obsessively applied to the shopping experience. According to the BBC News article, when we shop we don't exercise consumer choice, or indulge in harmless escapism, but experience a hunger and high: `compulsive and uncontrollable buying affected between two and five per cent of adults.' Then there is the withdrawal: `the shopping buzz does not last for long', increasing doses: `The pleasure from having extra things wears off', and finally the treatment: `one manufacturer has released an anti-depressant drug it claims can help combat the urge to spend.'
Just decades ago, in contrast, there existed a far more powerful sense of human agency and control regarding personal budgets. For instance, the poet Al Alvarez, in his autobiography of the shabby genteel Oxbridge set of the 1950's, talks of his friends' spending habits as metaphors for their character. Hopelessly generous eccentrics would fritter meager post-war inheritances on parties or daft whims. They lived blissfully on the breadline, oblivious to the causes of their eventually hand-to-mouth existence, because it was the result of such deeply ingrained traits. Equally, other mean-spirited characters manifested their repressed nature in spectacular acts of tight-fistedness. Ultimately, at this time, there was the sense that it was your innate, often charming qualities that dictated how you spent, not sinister external forces.
Instead, in our therapy culture, we are cast as victims of a spending disease, attacking us from the outside. We are passively lured by advertising, or `pushed' by opportunistic creditors. Our spending is now dictated, not by delightful individual quirks, but homogenous psychological problems that manifest themselves in ways beyond our understanding or control. These are habits that require the intervention of a psychologist or debt counsellor. Shopping has become the act of blindly and mindlessly `compensating' for past emotional traumas with the purchase `high'.....
The spiritual corruption of overspending is normally presented as afflicting working class consumer souls far more deeply than middle-class ones. `Chav' baiting is founded on a disgust of conspicuous consumption and the perceived vulgarity and psychological chaos that ensues: for example for lottery winners, or young Premiership footballers.
Working class children and their junk pushing parents, are also felt to be in greater need of protection from the pressures of perfection. Ed Mayo, head of the National Consumer Council, wrote in the Guardian recently: `Our research shows that children who have the least want the most. This "aspiration gap" is most marked in the poorest households. Poorer children tend to get more pocket money and will get crisps and snacks in their lunchboxes - but these are the children most likely to be disappointed when birthdays come around.'
Overstating the case of the pathological spender however has now moved beyond class politics and become a morality tale of the modern human condition. It's all-encompassing cultural reach is reflected in TV schedules (Spendaholics, Spend, Spend, Spend, Bank of Mum and Dad, Britain's Streets of Debt, Skint, Shiny Shiny Bright New Hole In My Heart - to name just a few), government policy and a general tone of media despair. On the whole this mood goes unchallenged.
But surely we need to remind ourselves of the immediate transformative effect of so called `stuff'? Stuff is what we are surrounded by, dressed in, dictates our levels of physical comfort, can provide us with knowledge, entertainment, aesthetic pleasure, cultural enrichment, enhanced potential for communication and social stimulation. What is so spiritually deadening or morally offensive about that?
Doing up your house, upgrading your mode of transport, treating yourself, family and friends to a good time, buying great cultural experiences and holidays, buying time-saving gadgets. These are major sources of pleasures in life. Certainly shopping cannot compete with more substantial, free sources of happiness such as friendship and love. It certainly cannot compensate for a culture lacking in political purpose or pursuits of intellectual discovery; but neither will it stain our souls or damage our psyche.
In the face of today's anti-consumerist sermons, we need to restate a case for the power of new things to transform our immediate experience and material surroundings. A variety of commentators, philosophers and experts might wish to pathologise our desires for comfort, diversion, stimulation, increased leisure-time, and our aspiration to improve our physical living conditions. But `stuff' can change our quality of life, and even has some potential to change society at large, especially in the developing world. Those interested in progress, and concerned by all this fatalistic doom-mongering about the human condition, need to defend our quite healthy materialist impulses. Here's to raising the aspirational bar for all.
Source
A world without people
There are an increasing number of commentators who believe that the planet would be better off without the presence of human beings on it. The current issue of New Scientist goes one step further to speculate what it might look like.
The premise of the article is that human beings disappear overnight. `The sad truth is, once the humans get out of the picture, the outlook starts to get a lot better,' says a conservation biologist from California. Nature would be able to reclaim the fields and pastures, and make new habitats in deserted buildings. `Light pollution' would disappear from the skies. Forests would return to their natural state. Nuclear reactors might catch fire or explode, but even there ecosystems would thrive. Strangely, it's not all good news for nature. Some ecosystems have thrived in the presence of human activity and might fail if we were to disappear.
In terms of leaving a legacy, however, the mark of mankind will be pretty shortlived in the great scheme of things. As the article concludes: `The humbling - and perversely comforting - reality is that the Earth will forget us remarkably quickly.' What would be more accurate is that without the presence of an intelligent lifeform, the Earth would be a pointless rock flying through space.
What is remarkable is that the producers of Britain's most widely read science magazine, who should be celebrating the increasing capacity of human beings to understand and shape the world, have so little regard for humanity's interests. Instead, they seem to dismiss the great progress we have made in conquering the problems that nature confronts us with, prefering to fantasise about our demise. While environmentalists speculate about humanity destroying itself through `ecocide', it is the increasingly fashionable desire to dismiss our existence as pointless which is more likely to herald disaster.
Source
DELIBERATE EROSION OF ACADEMIC STANDARDS PLANNED IN BRITAIN
Universities should drop entry requirements by up to two A level grades for students from "disadvantaged" backgrounds in order to widen participation, according to a government-commissioned study. Admissions tutors should lower the bar for pupils in care, those attending poorly-performing schools, those who suffer from long-term disability or sickness and those who have to look after sick relatives, it said. The tutors should also collaborate with each other to ensure that more deprived children enter the top universities.
Academics at Leeds University found that while most universities had a programme to encourage more applications from working-class backgrounds, systems varied and only a few hundred were recruited annually by this route.
The study, published tomorrow, follows the release of Ucas figures last week that showed that 5,400 fewer students from "lower-income backgrounds" had started university this year, amid fears of increasing debt over higher fees. The authors of the study praised those universities that chose pupils on the basis of their potential, even if their grades were lower than the entry requirements. "We know of heavily oversubscribed courses where admissions tutors have made offers of an A and two Bs to impressive applicants in disadvantaged circumstances who have demonstrated appropriate personal qualities, while rejecting other applicants with three predicted As," they wrote. "Admissions tutors prepared to do this have our strong support."
The researchers acknowledged fears that students being turned away with higher grades could mount legal challenges, but pointed out that most disadvantaged students admitted on this basis showed "no significant differences in their referral and withdrawal rates as compared with the university average".
Paul Sharp, co-author of Opportunity and Equity: Developing a Framework for Good Practice in Compact Schemes, said that universities put a lot of effort into widening participation, but needed to publicise it more and share good practice. He refused to endorse a compulsory scheme of lowering grades.
In 2003, the Government's White Paper on Higher Education pointed out that young people from the professional classes were "over five times more likely to enter higher education than those from unskilled backgrounds".
The next year, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the proportion of state students decreased in 14 of the 19 leading Russell Group universities, with only 53.4 per cent of Oxford admissions coming from state schools. Geoff Parks, director of admissions at Cambridge, said that the report set out good principles but threw up several "potential minefields". Although he supported sharing good practice, there also came a point when colleges competed for the best students, he said. Under the Cambridge Special Access scheme, the university already accepted students with lower grades, he said. "But at the moment there needs to be a very large disadvantage to make it a B rather than an A," he said. "Unless we move to a system where the offers could be more finely graduated, it would be very difficult to make those adjustments."
An aide to Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, said that he favoured the idea of universities assessing an applicant's potential and awaited the report with interest.
Source
British schools as Orwell's "Big Brother"
No matter where you are, your school will see you and punish you for deviance
Three pupils were expelled last week from St George's School Harpenden, a prestigious state boarding school in Hertfordshire, for smoking cannabis during the summer holidays. But should schools be disciplining children for what goes on beyond the school gate?
Harpenden is an affluent commuter town. Its leafy roads and traditional high street do not point to an endemic drugs problem bought on by social exclusion, especially not involving St George's pupils where `there is a sense of real purpose and harmony based on Christian principles and our traditions,' according to the headmaster, Norman Hoare.
Rumours of drug abuse surfaced this autumn and an investigation was launched by the school. The subsequent expulsions were based on interviews held by St George's. Whilst cannabis use is illegal, the police told me that they would not be taking any action after concluding that there was too little evidence to pursue the matter.
Norman Hoare told BBC News: `The school has a duty to uphold the law and protect all students but none of our investigations showed that the drugs had been on our premises. The activities took place after school or at weekends and some of it started in July. That's one of the reasons we acted very quickly.'
Hoare's ideas on the boundaries of school authority are not shared by everyone. One angry parent contacted spiked, even though his children were not involved: `At what point does the school's jurisdiction end? I am completely opposed to the control of my children outside of school hours.' When I asked Norman Hoare why he had expelled students on the basis of drug use outside of school term, he replied that `the pupils who join the school are aware of our drugs policy'. However, his actions seem to go beyond the policy stated on the school's website: `A period of fixed term exclusion [ie, suspension] from school would normally be the penalty for involvement in purchase, possession, or consumption of illegal drugs or substance of abuse while under school jurisdiction.'
Events at St George's contrast with a case heard by the High Court in September. A school in Birmingham had its decision to expel two pupils for cannabis use overturned because their expulsion contravened government guidelines on exclusion for minor drug offences. These pupils were caught smoking on school grounds and some kind of punishment by the school was to be expected. But the St George's pupils were not caught by the police or anyone from the school; they were allegedly using cannabis outside of school term and were not dealing drugs.
St George's sees the alleged minor drug use of a few of its pupils outside school hours as its responsibility - parents are not to be trusted. In doing so, the headmaster was only following the lead of the New Labour government; it does not trust private individuals. The Anti-Social Behaviour Act of 2003 gives head teachers the authority to fine parents and issue parenting orders forcing them to attend counselling. Where once schools stood for moral guidance, they are now expected to play a much more interventionist and authoritarian role. As David Perks has noted elsewhere on spiked: `the government sees schools as a blunt weapon in a war against what it sees as feckless parents and feral children. Education policy has become part of a wider attempt to control people's behaviour.'
So how should we deal with children who experiment with drugs and why do they do it? I asked Patrick Turner, writer, lecturer and former drugs worker: `The same as we have traditionally done with alcohol. A degree of indulgence towards the desire to experiment and enjoy adult pleasures seasoned with a sensitivity to the circumstances and motives of the individuals concerned. Put simply, the risk associated with a stable, self-aware young person who has lots of support messing around with dope is not the same as that posed to the young person, say, in local authority care with a history of poor mental health.'
In fact, government guidelines on expulsion seem to fit well with Turner's statement: `Exclusion should only be considered for serious breaches of the school's behaviour policy, and should not be imposed without a thorough investigation unless there is an immediate threat to the safety of others in the school or the pupil concerned. It should not be used if alternative solutions have the potential to achieve a change in the pupil's behaviour and are not detrimental to the whole school community.' So, why has this school gone further? Norman Hoare had not heard about the Birmingham case in which the High Court ruled these guidelines took precedence over school decisions. I suspect when the St George's board of governers examines the expulsion they may well overturn it in light of the Birmingham case.
This episode is indicative of the mixed messages from government about drugs, and the contradictory positions they adopt. The government's downgrading of cannabis to a class `C' drug has added to the mess since the law itself is a combination of `hard' and `soft' signals. So while the maximum sentence for possession will fall from five years to two, penalties for adults supplying cannabis will remain at a maximum of 14 years compared to the five years for other class `C' drugs.
There is no right for children to experiment with cannabis, but it would be better to have childhood experimentation dealt with in a constructive manner. That means schools should not overstep the boundaries of their authority, and government should not politicise and proceduralise matters that are best dealt with informally.
Source
THE REVOLUTION THAT SORTED OUT THE IDEALISTS FROM THE HATERS
A former British Communist reflects on the Hungarian revolution:
As I walked back from the podium to my seat in the audience, screams of `Trotskyist!' hit me from all sides. Communist Party comrades who had been my friends hurled abuse at me, their faces screwed up with hatred. By the time I got back to my seat I was shouting back, telling them that, like the AVO (Hungarian secret policemen) who were then swinging on lamp posts as a result of people's anger, their time on the end of a rope was nearing. I would not recommend this as a way to win political arguments.
The scene was the old Liverpool Stadium in 1956; the Liverpool District Committee of the Communist Party of Great Britain had organised a meeting to discuss the Hungarian uprising. In my intervention I had called for the Soviet troops to get out of Hungary, and demanded we pledge our full support for the Hungarian workers and students in their attempt to replace Stalinism. On returning to my seat I heard a member of the District Committee describe me from the platform as a Trotskyist provocateur. The shepherd had spoken and the witless sheep responded as the followers of Stalin, myself included, had always done in the past. The magic word was Trotsky, the revolutionary bogeyman of Stalinism.
More here
In memoriam: "Ideas shape the world. Last week a very important promoter of ideas, Ralph Harris, died at the age of 81. The liberal economic ideas that he popularised in the 1960s and 1970s became the basis of the Conservative reforms of the 1980s, and have remained the accepted basis of the Blair administration. No other British propagandist of ideas in the second half of the 20th century had anything like the same influence on national policy. Lord Harris of High Cross taught Margaret Thatcher. He converted a whole generation of politicians and journalists to the free-market ideas in which he believed; he converted most economists as well. [I knew Ralph Harris myself]
Would most of the "young people" mentioned in this report be black or Muslim? "Britain is becoming a nation increasingly afraid of its young people and this trend is causing problems for children as they grow up, according to a report released overnight. Britons are far less likely than their European counterparts to stop young people committing antisocial behaviour, because of fears of reprisals, being attacked, or verbal abuse, the study by the Institute of Policy Research (IPPR) found.... The IPPR said that 1.5 million Britons now thought about moving away from the area they lived in because of "young people hanging around". It said 1.7 million people avoided going out after dark because of their worries about antisocial behaviour which the vast majority blamed on a "lack of discipline".
Monday, October 23, 2006
U.K.: Paedophile escapes school gym ban as it would breach his human rights
A convicted paedophile is being allowed to use a gym at a school because the authorities are worried that banning him would infringe his human rights. Andrew Baldwin, 43, was convicted in 1999 of molesting three girls aged 12 and 13. Yet he is a frequent visitor to a public gym on the site of Whitecross School, a comprehensive for 11-16 year olds in Lydney in the Forest of Dean.
Outraged parents, who raised the alarm four weeks ago, claim they were told the school was afraid to ban Baldwin in case it was accused of breaching his human rights. This is despite the fact that the gym is next door to children's changing rooms. Anthony Callaghan, 40, whose 15-year-old daughter attends Whitecross school, confronted Baldwin when he first saw him at the gym - and the child abuser promptly complained to the receptionist. Mr Callaghan said: "It's so ridiculous, you couldn't make it up. The gym is for over-16s but it is right on the school premises and you have to go down the corridor and past the boys' and girls' changing room to get there. "I use it five times a week and I've been walking down the corridor with girls in their PE kits and quite often the changing room doors are left ajar. The headmaster told me it was out of his hands because the solicitors say a ban would breach this paedophile's human rights. "Well, if that's the case, what about the human rights of the pupils?"
The gym is at council-run Whitecross Leisure Centre, which is in 'joint use' with the school. The majority of public use of the facilities, including squash courts and sports hall, takes place in the evenings or at weekends. But, crucially, the 'lifestyle fitness suite' is open to the public from 9am each day. Whitecross headmaster David Gaston and Forest of Dean District Council are now talks with legal experts on how to resolve the issue, with one option stopping Baldwin attending the gym during school hours. Mr Gaston said: "The safety of students is the absolute priority of the school and any decision will take their welfare into account." A council spokesman added: "We're unable to comment because the head at Whitecross is awaiting definitive legal advice from Shire Hall."
The child protection charity Kidscape called for immediate action. Director Dr Michelle Elliott said: "This totally defies common sense. Men who have been convicted of abusing a child should not be on school premises."
Source
Recycling fanaticism in Britain
A householder has told of his despair at being landed with a criminal record for putting a scrap of paper in a bin bag meant for bottles and cans. Michael Reeves, 28, has become Britain's first recycling martyr after a court fined him 200 pounds for disobeying rules about sorting his rubbish. He had volunteered to take part in a recycling scheme launched by Swansea Council. But somehow a single piece of junk mail found its way into a bag designated for other rubbish. And when council workers found his name and address on it, they prosecuted.
Last night the case provoked widespread anger. Even environmentalists said that it could put people off recycling as millions of householders already struggle to make sense of bewildering rules governing how to dispose of their rubbish.
Mr Reeves told The Mail on Sunday: "I now have a criminal record and it will weigh me down like a millstone. I will have to explain myself every time I apply for a new job. And if I want to go to the United States I will have to apply for a special entry visa." Mr Reeves, a sports writer, also spoke of his frustration at his time-consuming journey through five court hearings. "Not satisfied with a false accusation of mixing up my rubbish, they tried to throw in an additional charge of leaving the bags out on the wrong day,' he said. "Looked at in one way it is a hilarious tale of barmy bureaucracy - but I found it no laughing matter."
Last night, campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance accused local authorities of cynically using the environment as an excuse to collect extra revenue. Director James Frayne said: "This is a joke. The Green movement in Britain is in danger of being hijacked by tax-hungry politicians. People will soon start to associate going green with going broke."
Mr Reeves denied even putting the letter in the bag. There were no witnesses nor camera footage of him doing so, but magistrates still found him guilty. "I am not a violent man or a drunkard. I have not held up a bank. I have not committed fraud. But when I allowed a single piece of junk mail to appear in the wrong sort of recycling bag I found myself committing a crime. It was not me who put the letter in the recycling bag. It was not even my bag. Yet the presence of my address amid the cans and bottles was enough for the court to find me guilty. I have always been happy to do my bit for the environment - but I couldn't care less now."
Mr Reeves said his first mistake was to put his rubbish out a day early, but only because he was going on holiday the next day. It was met with a warning that any further slip-ups would result in legal action. "Duly warned I carried on separating the rubbish,' he said. Then came the summons accusing him of breaching the order. "I was shocked and had no idea what to do,' he said. "I couldn't sleep. At one point I even thought I might end up in jail." He added: "The irony is that I would have been better off not recycling at all, just loading everything into a single rubbish bag. But like most people I supported the principle and was happy to play my part."
It is only in the past six months that local authorities have pursued those who flout the rules with any vigour. They have had the power to set down rules on how rubbish is sorted since 1990, but the law has not previously been tested because recycling schemes have only really developed on a wide scale since a 1999 EU ruling limiting how much waste each country can bury in landfill. Donna Challice of Exeter was the first person to be prosecuted for putting the wrong rubbish in her recycling bin, but she was acquitted after a 6,000 pound case because the council could not prove she was responsible.
Friends of the Earth said Mr Reeves' case 'may put people off recycling - and that's bad news'. A Swansea Council spokesman said: "It is very rare for us to take this line but it is unfortunate that Mr Reeves didn't contact us at any point. When he failed to respond to a second enforcement notice over his contaminated rubbish, we had no option but to issue a summons. "It was dealt with in the magistrates court which means Mr Reeves now has a criminal record"
Source
GOAT IS GOOD FOR YOU (MAYBE)
The life expectancies of goat-eating populations (in Africa etc.) are not very encouraging but such populations do have other problems
Janet Street-Porter may be able to take some of the credit for introducing goat meat to the British. The broadcaster extolled the meat’s low-fat virtues to a group of dieters on the Gordon Ramsay programme The F-Word, on Channel 4, and demand has soared.
Goat is the world’s most popular meat, with about 500 million animals reared for the table each year. Yet in Britain it has eluded the average dinner table, although it is a favourite for curry among the Afro-Caribbean community.
The increased demand means that there are not enough goats to slaughter. Most of the UK’s 100,000 goats are reared to produce milk and cheese. Some go into the food chain at the end of their productive life, but their meat tends to be tough. The push is on to expand the herd of British boer goats, which provide quality meat and are reared specifically for the table. There are just 1,000 boer goats in Britain, but the British Boer Society is building up its herds. Peter Bidwell, its chairman, who farms near Stanely, Co Durham, sells 300 goats a year but hopes to increase that number to 1,000 within two years. He has had inquiries from suppliers for Asda and Sainsbury’s.
But until the meat goat herd has developed, keepers are unable to provide the volumes required to satisfy retail buyers. This gap in the market has triggered a scam being investigated by trading standards officers in which some farmers sell skinny sheep and label the meat as goat. Mr Bidwell said: “We have never had so many inquiries but we just don’t have the volume. There is a butcher in Newcastle who would like to take 5,000 goats a year. We can’t do that.”
Source
STRANGE NHS PRIORITIES
The National Health Service spent tens of millions of pounds removing nearly 200,000 tattoos last year, according to figures released by the Department of Health last week. Rosie Winterton, the health minister, said in a Commons written answer that doctors had carried out the procedure, involving either skin grafts or lasers, on 187,063 tattoos. The figure has astonished MPs and consultants who fear NHS funds are being spent on trivial surgery while patients are denied potentially life-saving drugs and staff are laid off.
Even conservative estimates of the cost of removing a small tattoo under anaesthetic on the NHS put the bill for 2004-05 at 37 million pounds, but some consultants suggested a figure of 300m.
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “In a week when we’ve seen the NHS turning down Velcade (a cancer drug) it seems incredible that so much is being spent on tattoo removal.” Tattoos were once seen as a rebellious statement and the preserve of criminals, bikers and sailors, but they have become increasingly mainstream adornments. According to research carried out by the Discovery Channel earlier this year, 29% of Britons aged 25-34 have tattoos. They are popular among celebrities. David Beckham, the former England football captain, has tattoos bearing the names of his three children, while Robbie Williams, the pop singer, has a Maori pattern on his left arm, a Celtic cross on his right hip, a lion on his shoulder and his grandfather’s name on his arm. Eight years ago there were 300 tattoo parlours in Britain; today there are more than 1,500.
Because tattoos penetrate under the skin, removing them is expensive. The tattooed area must be cut out and skin grafted over the gap. Removing tattoos with skin grafts in the private sector can cost 1,000-2,500 pounds. Laser surgery costs from a minimum 200 to more than 2,500.
While having tattoos removed for “beautification” on the NHS is banned, surgery may be undertaken to “secure mental health wellbeing”. Earlier this year a health trust in Manchester agreed to spend 2,500 removing the tattoos of Tanya Bainbridge, a 57-year-old transsexual. The former merchant seaman, previously called Brian, claimed the large tattoos on her forearms were “not ladylike” and made her depressed.
Source
Firing BIG guns
There is an amusing British video here that indulges every gun-lover's fantasy -- ending up with firing a Carl Gustaf antitank weapon.
A convicted paedophile is being allowed to use a gym at a school because the authorities are worried that banning him would infringe his human rights. Andrew Baldwin, 43, was convicted in 1999 of molesting three girls aged 12 and 13. Yet he is a frequent visitor to a public gym on the site of Whitecross School, a comprehensive for 11-16 year olds in Lydney in the Forest of Dean.
Outraged parents, who raised the alarm four weeks ago, claim they were told the school was afraid to ban Baldwin in case it was accused of breaching his human rights. This is despite the fact that the gym is next door to children's changing rooms. Anthony Callaghan, 40, whose 15-year-old daughter attends Whitecross school, confronted Baldwin when he first saw him at the gym - and the child abuser promptly complained to the receptionist. Mr Callaghan said: "It's so ridiculous, you couldn't make it up. The gym is for over-16s but it is right on the school premises and you have to go down the corridor and past the boys' and girls' changing room to get there. "I use it five times a week and I've been walking down the corridor with girls in their PE kits and quite often the changing room doors are left ajar. The headmaster told me it was out of his hands because the solicitors say a ban would breach this paedophile's human rights. "Well, if that's the case, what about the human rights of the pupils?"
The gym is at council-run Whitecross Leisure Centre, which is in 'joint use' with the school. The majority of public use of the facilities, including squash courts and sports hall, takes place in the evenings or at weekends. But, crucially, the 'lifestyle fitness suite' is open to the public from 9am each day. Whitecross headmaster David Gaston and Forest of Dean District Council are now talks with legal experts on how to resolve the issue, with one option stopping Baldwin attending the gym during school hours. Mr Gaston said: "The safety of students is the absolute priority of the school and any decision will take their welfare into account." A council spokesman added: "We're unable to comment because the head at Whitecross is awaiting definitive legal advice from Shire Hall."
The child protection charity Kidscape called for immediate action. Director Dr Michelle Elliott said: "This totally defies common sense. Men who have been convicted of abusing a child should not be on school premises."
Source
Recycling fanaticism in Britain
A householder has told of his despair at being landed with a criminal record for putting a scrap of paper in a bin bag meant for bottles and cans. Michael Reeves, 28, has become Britain's first recycling martyr after a court fined him 200 pounds for disobeying rules about sorting his rubbish. He had volunteered to take part in a recycling scheme launched by Swansea Council. But somehow a single piece of junk mail found its way into a bag designated for other rubbish. And when council workers found his name and address on it, they prosecuted.
Last night the case provoked widespread anger. Even environmentalists said that it could put people off recycling as millions of householders already struggle to make sense of bewildering rules governing how to dispose of their rubbish.
Mr Reeves told The Mail on Sunday: "I now have a criminal record and it will weigh me down like a millstone. I will have to explain myself every time I apply for a new job. And if I want to go to the United States I will have to apply for a special entry visa." Mr Reeves, a sports writer, also spoke of his frustration at his time-consuming journey through five court hearings. "Not satisfied with a false accusation of mixing up my rubbish, they tried to throw in an additional charge of leaving the bags out on the wrong day,' he said. "Looked at in one way it is a hilarious tale of barmy bureaucracy - but I found it no laughing matter."
Last night, campaign group the Taxpayers' Alliance accused local authorities of cynically using the environment as an excuse to collect extra revenue. Director James Frayne said: "This is a joke. The Green movement in Britain is in danger of being hijacked by tax-hungry politicians. People will soon start to associate going green with going broke."
Mr Reeves denied even putting the letter in the bag. There were no witnesses nor camera footage of him doing so, but magistrates still found him guilty. "I am not a violent man or a drunkard. I have not held up a bank. I have not committed fraud. But when I allowed a single piece of junk mail to appear in the wrong sort of recycling bag I found myself committing a crime. It was not me who put the letter in the recycling bag. It was not even my bag. Yet the presence of my address amid the cans and bottles was enough for the court to find me guilty. I have always been happy to do my bit for the environment - but I couldn't care less now."
Mr Reeves said his first mistake was to put his rubbish out a day early, but only because he was going on holiday the next day. It was met with a warning that any further slip-ups would result in legal action. "Duly warned I carried on separating the rubbish,' he said. Then came the summons accusing him of breaching the order. "I was shocked and had no idea what to do,' he said. "I couldn't sleep. At one point I even thought I might end up in jail." He added: "The irony is that I would have been better off not recycling at all, just loading everything into a single rubbish bag. But like most people I supported the principle and was happy to play my part."
It is only in the past six months that local authorities have pursued those who flout the rules with any vigour. They have had the power to set down rules on how rubbish is sorted since 1990, but the law has not previously been tested because recycling schemes have only really developed on a wide scale since a 1999 EU ruling limiting how much waste each country can bury in landfill. Donna Challice of Exeter was the first person to be prosecuted for putting the wrong rubbish in her recycling bin, but she was acquitted after a 6,000 pound case because the council could not prove she was responsible.
Friends of the Earth said Mr Reeves' case 'may put people off recycling - and that's bad news'. A Swansea Council spokesman said: "It is very rare for us to take this line but it is unfortunate that Mr Reeves didn't contact us at any point. When he failed to respond to a second enforcement notice over his contaminated rubbish, we had no option but to issue a summons. "It was dealt with in the magistrates court which means Mr Reeves now has a criminal record"
Source
GOAT IS GOOD FOR YOU (MAYBE)
The life expectancies of goat-eating populations (in Africa etc.) are not very encouraging but such populations do have other problems
Janet Street-Porter may be able to take some of the credit for introducing goat meat to the British. The broadcaster extolled the meat’s low-fat virtues to a group of dieters on the Gordon Ramsay programme The F-Word, on Channel 4, and demand has soared.
Goat is the world’s most popular meat, with about 500 million animals reared for the table each year. Yet in Britain it has eluded the average dinner table, although it is a favourite for curry among the Afro-Caribbean community.
The increased demand means that there are not enough goats to slaughter. Most of the UK’s 100,000 goats are reared to produce milk and cheese. Some go into the food chain at the end of their productive life, but their meat tends to be tough. The push is on to expand the herd of British boer goats, which provide quality meat and are reared specifically for the table. There are just 1,000 boer goats in Britain, but the British Boer Society is building up its herds. Peter Bidwell, its chairman, who farms near Stanely, Co Durham, sells 300 goats a year but hopes to increase that number to 1,000 within two years. He has had inquiries from suppliers for Asda and Sainsbury’s.
But until the meat goat herd has developed, keepers are unable to provide the volumes required to satisfy retail buyers. This gap in the market has triggered a scam being investigated by trading standards officers in which some farmers sell skinny sheep and label the meat as goat. Mr Bidwell said: “We have never had so many inquiries but we just don’t have the volume. There is a butcher in Newcastle who would like to take 5,000 goats a year. We can’t do that.”
Source
STRANGE NHS PRIORITIES
The National Health Service spent tens of millions of pounds removing nearly 200,000 tattoos last year, according to figures released by the Department of Health last week. Rosie Winterton, the health minister, said in a Commons written answer that doctors had carried out the procedure, involving either skin grafts or lasers, on 187,063 tattoos. The figure has astonished MPs and consultants who fear NHS funds are being spent on trivial surgery while patients are denied potentially life-saving drugs and staff are laid off.
Even conservative estimates of the cost of removing a small tattoo under anaesthetic on the NHS put the bill for 2004-05 at 37 million pounds, but some consultants suggested a figure of 300m.
Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: “In a week when we’ve seen the NHS turning down Velcade (a cancer drug) it seems incredible that so much is being spent on tattoo removal.” Tattoos were once seen as a rebellious statement and the preserve of criminals, bikers and sailors, but they have become increasingly mainstream adornments. According to research carried out by the Discovery Channel earlier this year, 29% of Britons aged 25-34 have tattoos. They are popular among celebrities. David Beckham, the former England football captain, has tattoos bearing the names of his three children, while Robbie Williams, the pop singer, has a Maori pattern on his left arm, a Celtic cross on his right hip, a lion on his shoulder and his grandfather’s name on his arm. Eight years ago there were 300 tattoo parlours in Britain; today there are more than 1,500.
Because tattoos penetrate under the skin, removing them is expensive. The tattooed area must be cut out and skin grafted over the gap. Removing tattoos with skin grafts in the private sector can cost 1,000-2,500 pounds. Laser surgery costs from a minimum 200 to more than 2,500.
While having tattoos removed for “beautification” on the NHS is banned, surgery may be undertaken to “secure mental health wellbeing”. Earlier this year a health trust in Manchester agreed to spend 2,500 removing the tattoos of Tanya Bainbridge, a 57-year-old transsexual. The former merchant seaman, previously called Brian, claimed the large tattoos on her forearms were “not ladylike” and made her depressed.
Source
Firing BIG guns
There is an amusing British video here that indulges every gun-lover's fantasy -- ending up with firing a Carl Gustaf antitank weapon.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
PAY CUT FOR NHS MEDICAL STAFF
No cuts to the pay of bureaucrats, though; THEY are essential
Doctors and nurses are facing pay cuts as the Government struggles to resolve the hospital deficit crisis that has led to thousands of job losses. Nurses' unions accused the Department of Health of bullying after it insisted that medical staff should have a below-inflation pay rise to plug the hole in budgets, saying that patients would suffer otherwise.
The department said that doctors, nurses, midwives and dentists should get basic pay rises of 1.5 per cent next year, despite the NHS budget rising by 9 per cent. The 1.5 per cent offer is less than half the rate of inflation, so in real terms pay rates would be cut.
In its evidence to the independent pay review boards, the department gave warning that without pay restraint the NHS would not be able to tackle its deficits, jobs would be cut and patient care would suffer. It said: "The NHS is facing a challenging financial period with the need to change a 512 million pound deficit in 2005-06 into lasting financial balance." The department added: "All NHS pay is met from the general NHS allocation; there is no separate funding for pay. Therefore, pay uplifts must be affordable, otherwise funding for patient services will suffer. If pay levels are too high, NHS employers may well need to reduce staff posts."
Unions, which will present their claims on Tuesday, said that the Government was bullying them into accepting an offer that amounted to just 2p an hour for a newly qualified nurse. Karen Jennings, Unison's head of health, said: "It is outrageous to suggest that unless staff take what is effectively a pay cut, jobs will go and patients will suffer." Josie Irwin, head of employment at the Royal College of Nursing, said that the offer was derisory. "It is a slap in the face for the staff who have worked so hard under such intense pressure to deliver the Government's health reforms."
The Government faces the prospect of industrial action from Amicus, the union for health workers. Kevin Coyne, its national health officer, said: "Unless an improved [offer] is put on the table we will not hesitate to proceed to ballot for industrial action." The British Medical Association has already demanded a 4 per cent pay rise for doctors.
The Government dismissed claims that 1.5 per cent amounted to a pay cut because staff also got a rise for each year worked. Pay for some staff would be cut but the offer delivered a 4 per cent increase in average earnings "which compares with the average across the whole economy".
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that Ms Hewitt was trying "to make NHS staff pay for the consequences of the Government's financial mismanagement and the 1.3 billion deficit from last year".
Source
NHS: "DIE OF CANCER. SEE IF WE CARE!"
Cancer sufferers in England are to be denied a life-extending drug because the Government's drugs rationing watchdog has refused to fund treatment, it was claimed last night. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will announce next week that Velcade should not be offered on the NHS to treat multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. A course of Velcade costs between 9,000 and 18,000 pounds and was approved for use in Scotland in 1994.
Cancer charities and victims of the disease criticised the decision by NICE, saying that it was the latest example of the watchdog trying to save the Government money by rejecting drugs that increase life expectancy. Since June, NICE has refused to endorse five treatments that would extend the lives of people with bowel cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer, as well as Alzheimer's disease.
Janice Wrigglesworth, 59, from Keighley, in West Yorkshire, has multiple myeloma. She condemend the decision as insanity.
She said: "Are they saying a Scottish life is worth more than an English life? "They are effectively saying to people with incurable diseases, `sit down in a darkened room and die'."
NICE refused to comment on next week's announcement. However, a spokesman said: "NICE's expert advisers review all the evidence on cancer treatments to determine whether they add benefits for patients when compared to other treatments that are already available. "The benefits that we assess include whether a drug extends life, and whether a drug improves patients' quality of life." A Department of Health spokesman said that it could not comment until the guidance was published.
Source
BRITISH SCHOOL INCAPABLE OF DISCIPLINING A 5 -YEAR OLD GIRL
She's black, you see, so just touching her would be a huge crime
A girl aged 5 has been permanently excluded from her school for attacking a teacher and a classmate. Tamara Howard's mother has been told that her daughter cannot return to the 300-pupil Old Moat School, in Withington, Manchester, because her presence is too disruptive.
The decision to expel the child was taken after she was excluded for 15 days for an alleged attack on a teacher and classmate on September 20. The school said that she hit the teacher on the arm, leaving cuts and bruises, after she was asked to clear away some toy bricks. On an earlier occasion she was said to have assaulted six members of staff.
The education authority said that it had offered intensive help to the pupil, who joined the infants from the school's nursery in January. Angela Howard, 41, a single mother who has two grown-up children, is hoping that the decision will be reversed. She said that the school had not given her enough time to address her child's behaviour and that she was excluded before there was a chance to get any help.
Source
Free Speech for Leftist Abuse in Britain
We read:
Free speech for abuse in Britain! A novel idea indeed! If a conservative had insulted a Jew there would have been hell to pay. "Red Ken" Livingstone is an extreme Leftist.
No cuts to the pay of bureaucrats, though; THEY are essential
Doctors and nurses are facing pay cuts as the Government struggles to resolve the hospital deficit crisis that has led to thousands of job losses. Nurses' unions accused the Department of Health of bullying after it insisted that medical staff should have a below-inflation pay rise to plug the hole in budgets, saying that patients would suffer otherwise.
The department said that doctors, nurses, midwives and dentists should get basic pay rises of 1.5 per cent next year, despite the NHS budget rising by 9 per cent. The 1.5 per cent offer is less than half the rate of inflation, so in real terms pay rates would be cut.
In its evidence to the independent pay review boards, the department gave warning that without pay restraint the NHS would not be able to tackle its deficits, jobs would be cut and patient care would suffer. It said: "The NHS is facing a challenging financial period with the need to change a 512 million pound deficit in 2005-06 into lasting financial balance." The department added: "All NHS pay is met from the general NHS allocation; there is no separate funding for pay. Therefore, pay uplifts must be affordable, otherwise funding for patient services will suffer. If pay levels are too high, NHS employers may well need to reduce staff posts."
Unions, which will present their claims on Tuesday, said that the Government was bullying them into accepting an offer that amounted to just 2p an hour for a newly qualified nurse. Karen Jennings, Unison's head of health, said: "It is outrageous to suggest that unless staff take what is effectively a pay cut, jobs will go and patients will suffer." Josie Irwin, head of employment at the Royal College of Nursing, said that the offer was derisory. "It is a slap in the face for the staff who have worked so hard under such intense pressure to deliver the Government's health reforms."
The Government faces the prospect of industrial action from Amicus, the union for health workers. Kevin Coyne, its national health officer, said: "Unless an improved [offer] is put on the table we will not hesitate to proceed to ballot for industrial action." The British Medical Association has already demanded a 4 per cent pay rise for doctors.
The Government dismissed claims that 1.5 per cent amounted to a pay cut because staff also got a rise for each year worked. Pay for some staff would be cut but the offer delivered a 4 per cent increase in average earnings "which compares with the average across the whole economy".
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that Ms Hewitt was trying "to make NHS staff pay for the consequences of the Government's financial mismanagement and the 1.3 billion deficit from last year".
Source
NHS: "DIE OF CANCER. SEE IF WE CARE!"
Cancer sufferers in England are to be denied a life-extending drug because the Government's drugs rationing watchdog has refused to fund treatment, it was claimed last night. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence will announce next week that Velcade should not be offered on the NHS to treat multiple myeloma, a cancer of the bone marrow. A course of Velcade costs between 9,000 and 18,000 pounds and was approved for use in Scotland in 1994.
Cancer charities and victims of the disease criticised the decision by NICE, saying that it was the latest example of the watchdog trying to save the Government money by rejecting drugs that increase life expectancy. Since June, NICE has refused to endorse five treatments that would extend the lives of people with bowel cancer, leukaemia and breast cancer, as well as Alzheimer's disease.
Janice Wrigglesworth, 59, from Keighley, in West Yorkshire, has multiple myeloma. She condemend the decision as insanity.
She said: "Are they saying a Scottish life is worth more than an English life? "They are effectively saying to people with incurable diseases, `sit down in a darkened room and die'."
NICE refused to comment on next week's announcement. However, a spokesman said: "NICE's expert advisers review all the evidence on cancer treatments to determine whether they add benefits for patients when compared to other treatments that are already available. "The benefits that we assess include whether a drug extends life, and whether a drug improves patients' quality of life." A Department of Health spokesman said that it could not comment until the guidance was published.
Source
BRITISH SCHOOL INCAPABLE OF DISCIPLINING A 5 -YEAR OLD GIRL
She's black, you see, so just touching her would be a huge crime
A girl aged 5 has been permanently excluded from her school for attacking a teacher and a classmate. Tamara Howard's mother has been told that her daughter cannot return to the 300-pupil Old Moat School, in Withington, Manchester, because her presence is too disruptive.
The decision to expel the child was taken after she was excluded for 15 days for an alleged attack on a teacher and classmate on September 20. The school said that she hit the teacher on the arm, leaving cuts and bruises, after she was asked to clear away some toy bricks. On an earlier occasion she was said to have assaulted six members of staff.
The education authority said that it had offered intensive help to the pupil, who joined the infants from the school's nursery in January. Angela Howard, 41, a single mother who has two grown-up children, is hoping that the decision will be reversed. She said that the school had not given her enough time to address her child's behaviour and that she was excluded before there was a chance to get any help.
Source
Free Speech for Leftist Abuse in Britain
We read:
"Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, won his High Court appeal yesterday against a finding that he had breached his authority's code of conduct by likening a Jewish reporter to a Nazi concentration camp guard....
Mr Justice Collins said that the mayor had been "indulging in offensive abuse of a journalist". But, "surprising as it may perhaps appear to some, the right of freedom of speech does extend to abuse". It was important, he added, that any individual "knows that he can say what he likes, provided it is not unlawful".
Source
Free speech for abuse in Britain! A novel idea indeed! If a conservative had insulted a Jew there would have been hell to pay. "Red Ken" Livingstone is an extreme Leftist.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Huge British High School failure
Only a quarter of pupils obtained good GCSEs in the core subjects that many employers now regard as essential, according to figures released yesterday. The proportion of pupils achieving five GCSEs at grades A* to C this summer jumped by 1.8 percentage points to 58.1 per cent, the second biggest rise since 1997, the Department for Education said. But the figures also show that, after 11 years of compulsory schooling, just 45.1 per cent of pupils obtained five good GCSEs when English and mathematics were included, a rise of less than one percentage point on last year's figures. Only 41 per cent of pupils achieved grades A* to C in English, maths and science and just 26 per cent got good grades in English, maths, science and a language - a fall of four percentage points from 2002.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, conceded that more needs to be done to boost attainment. "One child not reaching their full potential in one school is one too many," he said. Mr Knight also expressed "deep frustration" that the gap in performance between boys and girls had hardly narrowed. Although exam results for both sexes had continued to improve, "boys are now where girls were in 1999", he said.
The results, published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, show that 53 per cent of pupils failed to get good grades in maths and English at GCSE. This rises to nearly 57 per cent among boys. However, Mr Knight added that the number of schools failing to equip at least a quarter of their pupils with five good passes in any subject had been cut to about one tenth of the rate of 1997. He also said that entries for a single science were now rising, with rises of 7 per cent each in chemistry and physics.
Nick Gibb, the Conservative schools spokesman, welcomed the increase in the headline figure for five or more good GCSEs, but expressed concern that the rise was being fuelled by schools entering more pupils for easier, or "softer", subjects such as sociology. "Because they want to reach the target of getting pupils through five or more GCSEs, some schools appear to be manipulating the results by focusing less on the essential subjects such as English and maths and putting more emphasis on softer subjects, where they think they can get higher grades," he said. "Most concerning of all is the drop in the proportion achieving good GCSEs in English, maths, science and a modern foreign language for the fifth year running, a proportion which has now reached a record low of just 26 per cent."
Anthony Thompson, head of skills at the employers' organisation CBI, said that employers remained frustrated by the lack of progress at GCSE level. "The recent action to try and increase take-up of foreign languages is a positive step, but the Government must ensure the science curriculum encourages further study," he said
Source
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, conceded that more needs to be done to boost attainment. "One child not reaching their full potential in one school is one too many," he said. Mr Knight also expressed "deep frustration" that the gap in performance between boys and girls had hardly narrowed. Although exam results for both sexes had continued to improve, "boys are now where girls were in 1999", he said.
The results, published yesterday by the Office for National Statistics, show that 53 per cent of pupils failed to get good grades in maths and English at GCSE. This rises to nearly 57 per cent among boys. However, Mr Knight added that the number of schools failing to equip at least a quarter of their pupils with five good passes in any subject had been cut to about one tenth of the rate of 1997. He also said that entries for a single science were now rising, with rises of 7 per cent each in chemistry and physics.
Nick Gibb, the Conservative schools spokesman, welcomed the increase in the headline figure for five or more good GCSEs, but expressed concern that the rise was being fuelled by schools entering more pupils for easier, or "softer", subjects such as sociology. "Because they want to reach the target of getting pupils through five or more GCSEs, some schools appear to be manipulating the results by focusing less on the essential subjects such as English and maths and putting more emphasis on softer subjects, where they think they can get higher grades," he said. "Most concerning of all is the drop in the proportion achieving good GCSEs in English, maths, science and a modern foreign language for the fifth year running, a proportion which has now reached a record low of just 26 per cent."
Anthony Thompson, head of skills at the employers' organisation CBI, said that employers remained frustrated by the lack of progress at GCSE level. "The recent action to try and increase take-up of foreign languages is a positive step, but the Government must ensure the science curriculum encourages further study," he said
Source
FALSE RAPE ACCUSATION: LYING BITCH IDENTIFIED
A Labour peer yesterday named a "serial and repeated liar" whose false allegations resulted in an innocent man being jailed for a sex attack. Lord Campbell-Savours used parliamentary privilege to name the woman during a debate in the House of Lords on rape legislation. He suggested that women who make false allegations of rape should be named and prosecuted for perjury. It is believed to be the first time that the identity of a woman who claims that she has been the victim of a sexual offence has been revealed in Parliament. Women's rights groups said that they feared that the naming of the woman would further deter rape victims from reporting their ordeal.
It is a criminal offence to name anyone who complains to police that they have been the victim of a sexual offence, even if the alleged attacker is found not guilty in court. But Lord Campbell-Savours is protected from legal action for comments made in the House of Lords. Speaking in the Lords he said: "Is not the inevitable consequence of the workings of the law as currently framed that we will carry on imprisoning innocent people such as Warren Blackwell, who was falsely accused by a serial and repeated liar, (the woman's name), who has a history of making false accusations and having multiple identities? "As a result of her accusations, he spent three and a half years in prison following a shabby and inadequate police investigation and was exonerated only when the Criminal Cases Review Commission inquiry cleared him and traced her history.
"Should not mature accusers who perjure themselves in rape trials be named and prosecuted for perjury?" The official record of the Houses of Parliament, Hansard, included the woman's name in its report because it believed it was covered by parliamentary privilege. However, the Press Association later removed the woman's identity from its report of the debate after seeking legal advice, which said that she was entitled, by statute, to lifelong anonymity. Lord Cambell-Savours said last night that he was unable to comment further on the issue because he would not be covered by privilege outside Parliament.
Mr Blackwell, 36, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, spent more than three years in jail for a sex attack before his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal last month after fresh evidence suggested that his alleged victim was a liar. The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, discovered that the alleged victim had made similar accusations. The Court of Appeal ruled that Mr Blackwell's conviction was unsafe in the light of the new evidence that the complainant had made "strikingly similar allegations" about other sex attacks, had an ability to lie and a possible propensity to self-harm.
Lord Campbell-Savours' comments came after intense debate about the right to anonymity for victims of sexual offenders and those accused but not convicted. Anonymity is granted automatically to the accuser in rape cases, under the Sexual Offences Act 1976. The woman who accused Mr Blackwell can be identified only when she waives her right to anonymity or is convicted of attempting to pervert the cause of justice, proving that the sexual assault never took place.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Home Office Minister, told the Lords: "It is not inevitable that people will be falsely accused. One of the tragedies in relation to rape allegations is that very few of those who suffer this most dreadful crime have the courage to come forward at all." Ruth Hall, of Women Against Rape, said: "Women are being targeted by the criminal justice system for bringing allegations of rape. It is a new development that we have seen over the past few weeks. "There have been a number of women prosecuted for perverting the course of justice or having something added to their Criminal Records Bureau records because they have made allegations of rape. "The system is institutionally sexist. We don't believe that any assumption can be made that a woman has not been telling a truth."
At present 5.6 per cent of rape cases result in a conviction. The Government and lawyers fear that any attempt to remove anonymity would reduce significantly the number of women coming forward and prepared to go to court
Source
SOME LIARS PENALIZED
With just one in twenty cases of rape leading to a conviction there have been growing demands for changes to the law to make it easier bring prosecutions. However, there have also been growing numbers of cases where men have had their rape convictions overturned and prosecutions of women who have made up allegations. Last month a teenager was jailed after four men were held in police cells for 36 hours after she accused them of rape. Cinzia Sannino, then 17, only admitted her lies when police showed her footage on a mobile telephone of her performing naked lap- dancing for the men after returning home with them from a Cardiff club. The case led a spokesman for the False Allegations Support Organisation to comment: "Too many people jump on the bandwagon, aware that they can get compensation for false allegations."
Two weeks later a woman who falsely cried rape against her former husband was also convicted of perverting the course of justice. Sally Henderson, 40, a mother of two, described by the prosecution as a "wicked liar", claimed that Richard Cooke, 39, had repeatedly raped her during their year-long marriage. However, police discovered that her claims were almost identical to false allegations she had made five years earlier against a previous boyfriend, Gloucester Crown Court heard. Lifting an order preventing her identification, Recorder David Lane, QC, said: "The public has a right to know the identity of a person who makes such allegations and who seeks to use the system of justice for her own, unscrupulous ends."
A month earlier an obsessed stalker who accused her psychiatrist of rape was convicted of harassment, threats to kill and perverting justice. Maria Marchese, 45, rummaged through Jan Falkowski's dustbin for a used condom to clinch DNA evidence. The case against the consultant, of Limehouse, East London, was dropped - but his relationship with his fiancee collapsed.
There have been growing calls for men accused of rape to be granted anonymity until they are convicted. The Liberal Democrats voted last month to grant anonymity to anyone accused of rape until conviction.
Source
Multicultural madness needs such antidotes
A twentysomething visitor from Britain brings us the message that there should be no special rules for Muslims, writes Janet Albrechtsen
IN another sign of predictable cultural capitulation, a check-in employee with British Airways is banned from wearing a small Christian cross but Muslim and Sikh employees may wear turbans and the hijab. Little wonder, then, that Munira Mirza is so refreshing. This young woman, reared as a Muslim, says it's time to scrap multiculturalism and to stop defining people as members of a minority group. Specifically, it's time for our political leaders to stop engaging with Muslims as Muslims. They are citizens; no special rules apply.
Mirza pulls few punches when exposing the West's cultural surrender. We all know the problem. Free speech in the polite West is a little clogged up these days. A Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, is slain for making Submission, a movie critical of Islam. The scriptwriter, Dutch political activist Ayan Hirsi Ali, is forced to live under threat of death. Amateurish Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed unleash orchestrated madness across the globe. A nun is killed in Somalia because local Muslims don't like the Pope musing about Muslim attitudes to violence. A French teacher is hiding, under police protection, after describing Mohammed as a "merciless war leader". And so it goes on.
When it's easier to stay quiet for fear of provoking violence from some Muslims or attracting accusations of racism from Western appeasers, then the West is already living under the shadow of Islamic fascism. We're stuck with silent feminists who prefer cultural rights and the burka over women's rights and the silly noise of some on the so-called progressive side of politics marching to the tune of "We're all Hezbollah now".
Which is why, in the battle of ideas, Mirza is a much needed and perhaps most unlikely warrior. This twentysomething petite British woman who visited Australia last week says multiculturalism has caused the West's cultural timidity. She isn't talking about the simple acceptance of diversity originally sold to us as multiculturalism and embraced by Australians. Multiculturalism has gone far beyond whether to eat Thai, Indian, Italian or Chinese food.
Particularly in her native Britain, but also across large swaths of the Western world, multiculturalism has become a far bigger and more insidious concept during the past three decades. Its basic proposition is cultural relativism: that all cultures are of equal value, none can be criticised (except for the majority one), and that encouraging integration is racist.
In Mirza's Britain, this has delivered a tribalised society in which identity politics reigns supreme. In this world, victimhood is especially prized. Mirza told The Australian that multiculturalism "encourages groups to claim exclusion in order to get attention. In order to get resources, you have to prove your weakness." In a competitive multicultural marketplace, groups vie for most victimised status. This political culture disenfranchises people as individuals, rejecting that they are moral agents responsible for their own future.
At a Centre for Independent Studies lecture last Wednesday, Mirza told her audience that when she was at school in Britain a decade ago, few Muslim girls wore headscarves. Now Muslim girls, even those whose mothers don't wear the scarf, are choosing to put it on as an identifier of difference and oppression, the oppressor being the West.
Multiculturalism makes the private part of you - your religion - your most valuable public asset. And it's off bounds to criticise any part of it. Just ask Jack Straw, the leader of Britain's House of Commons, who was recently dubbed a terrorist guilty of inciting religious hatred for raising the problem of interacting with veiled Muslim women.
That powerful multicultural concoction of separateness and victimhood has left the West fractured, neutered of a confident and united identity. The consequences have been far ranging, according to Mirza. Most acutely, it has fuelled home-grown terrorism.
Young Muslim boys such as the London bombers - born, reared and educated in the West - have gone looking for meaning elsewhere because, Mirza says, "being British is so discredited in this country ... The most compelling thing about the al-Qa'ida identity is its victimhood status; it is the ultimate logic of multiculturalism, with its claim that it represents an oppressed minority."
The multicultural message has wrought other disastrous consequences documented by Mirza. Culture Vultures, a book she edited earlier this year, showcases how the arts have been subsumed by an ethnocentric emphasis that promotes wasteful projects with little artistic merit. In the workplace, multiculturalism has spawned diversity training because difference needs to be micro-managed. The premise is that without expert training in how to deal with difference, pudden-headed workers will succumb to their inherent bigoted, racist tendencies.
But, as Mirza points out, emphasising difference through diversity training ends up dividing us more. The ostensibly different ones are reminded of their difference, encouraged to treat every slight as an exhibition of racism. And the rest, their fellow workers, are left paralysed in their interactions for fear of being labelled a racist.
Australia has not yielded to the levels of multicultural madness infecting Britain and Europe, which is why Mirza's message is both a warning for Australia and a sign that perhaps the intellectual tide is turning in Britain. She says the answer is to stop the politics of tribalisation and start being unashamedly proud about the Enlightenment values that lie at the core of Western liberal democracies, values such as freedom of speech.
Where Mirza is less than convincing is in her tendency to ignore Islam as part of the problem confronting the West. When asked whether there was something about Islam that explained the rise of Islamic terrorism, she said all religions could be twisted to suit warped agendas of violence. Perhaps. But disaffected Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs are not plotting jihad: a point the Pope wished to raise in his speech at a German university before being pummelled into apologetic appeasement.
Following that fracas, Marcello Pera - who in 2004 co-wrote with the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger a book titled Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam - told the International Herald Tribune it was legitimate for those in the West to ask if jihad is a necessary part of some interpretations of Islam. It's not a comfortable topic but it goes with the terrain of free speech. And on that score, as Mirza said at a lunch last week, "we could all do with a little more courage, frankly". Amen to that.
Source
NEGLIGENT NHS KILLS AGAIN
THE family of a teenager who was exposed to massive overdoses of radiation during treatment for cancer blamed her death on hospital chiefs yesterday. Lisa Norris, 16, died at home on Wednesday, after receiving at least 17 overdoses of radiation during treatment for a brain tumour at the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow. Her father, Ken Norris, said that she died after the cancer returned, but believed that it was a direct result of the hospital blunder and not a natural recurrence of the disease.
Eight months ago, Lisa and her family were celebrating after doctors said that a course of radiotherapy had destroyed a tumour in her brain. However, days later, consultants from the centre visited Lisa at her home in Girvan, Ayrshire, and told her that on every visit she had been exposed to a level of radiation 65 per cent higher than prescribed. Recalling the visit, Lisa said: "I asked them if I was going to die, but they ignored me. When I asked a second time if I would be here in five years, they said they could not answer."
NHS Greater Glasgow admitted at the time that the overdoses, which were administered by three different physicians and went unnoticed by two hospital administrators, were simply human error. It is now bracing itself for legal action from Lisa's parents, and the possibility of further legal actions from dozens of other patients. It has disclosed that there have been 46 incidents over the past 20 years during radiotherapy treatment, including 14 cases in which patients were given overdoses.
Mr Norris described Lisa as an inspiration. He said: "She kept us going in many ways. She was so positive and strong." He added: "We knew things were not looking good but we never expected Lisa to pass away so soon. We had hoped to see Christmas."
Professor Sir John Arbuthnott, the chairman of NHS Greater Glasgow, said that staff were "extremely upset" to hear of Lisa's death. He said: "I have passed on my condolences to the family on behalf of the whole organisation."
The overdoses left Lisa with bright red sores and blisters on her ears, head and neck. She also had difficulty sleeping because of a constant burning sensation inside her. She needed to take cold showers in an attempt to cool down but maintained her good humour, even as the symptoms grew worse. After trying on a blonde wig, Lisa, who had ginger hair until it fell out, said: "I always hated my hair colour. Anyway, I have such a red face and head now that it would have clashed."
Lisa became ill again last month and returned to hospital for emergency surgery for fluid on the brain. Doctors told her that the tumour had returned and offered her chemotherapy, but by then the cancer had spread to her spine and other parts of her body. Mr Norris said: "When she was in hospital recently, a doctor told us the overdose might have been to blame for the problems she developed. "One of the hardest things is that Lisa has died when there are still so many unanswered questions. But we will continue the fight for truth and for justice in her name."
The Scottish Executive has begun an independent investigation, which a spokesman said was in its final stages.
Source
THE NEW CLIMATE REALISM: UN MEETING TO FOCUS ON ADAPTATION, NOT EMISSION TARGETS
There is an "urgent need" to help developing countries adapt to impacts of climate change, UK Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson has said. Nations were experiencing environmental changes as a result of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, he told MPs. He said he was hopeful that an action plan and funding would be agreed at a climate summit in Africa next month. But Mr Pearson added that the talks on the Kyoto Protocol were unlikely to deliver new global emission targets.
He made his comments while giving evidence to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry into how the UN Kyoto Protocol will progress after the current period for emission targets ends in 2012. Mr Pearson said that it was helpful that the talks on the protocol were being hosted by an African government. "Climate change is a huge issue when it comes to Africa. There will certainly be a strong focus on adaptation in Nairobi because it is one of the most pressing issues facing countries in sub-Saharan Africa today," he said. "A large number of the countries that did not sign up to Kyoto are very small emitters and they are not a big part of the problem. "But they are going to be affected by the climate change that is already in the (atmospheric) system," the minister told committee members.
The two-week summit will look at what progress has been made by the legally binding agreement that requires industrial nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. Delegates will also consider what system should be adopted when the current period ends.
Earlier this month, the UK government co-hosted a climate conference in Mexico for the world's top 20 polluting nations. The two-day informal gathering brought together ministers from G8 industrialised countries and developing nations to try to reach a consensus on the issue. When asked by Labour MP David Chaytor whether the meeting undermined the UN negotiations, Mr Pearson disagreed. "The key thing was to continue to build international consensus on the science and practical actions in terms of what needs to be done," he told the committee. However, he said it would be very difficult to get ministers from 189 nations at the Nairobi summit to reach an agreement on what should happen after 2012.
A number of nations, including the US, the world's biggest polluter, favour technological advances rather than targets to reduce emissions. "I would love to say that I feel confident that everyone is going to Nairobi with the expectation that there is going to be a long-term international agreement, but I do not think that is going to be the case," Mr Pearson conceded. "What we can realistically expect... is to hopefully agree an adaptation work programme and an adaptation fund which will be important issues for developing countries."
Source
Ayn Rand prize. Note that entries for the Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize close on 19th November 2006. Contestants are invited to submit essays under the title "The Achievements of Ayn Rand". Essay Length: 2000 words excluding notes. The prize will be 1000 pounds. The winner will be announced at the Libertarian Alliance Conference, which will take place in London this coming 25-26 November 2006 at the National Liberal Club in London: Send entries by e-mail to sean@libertarian.co.uk
UK Muslim veil row teacher loses case: "A British tribunal ruled that a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil. The case of 24-year-old Aishah Azmi against Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire, northern England, has attracted nationwide interest after former foreign minister Jack Straw said Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations difficult."
BBC wastes public money: "The BBC's 18 million pound contract with Jonathan Ross is an indefensible use of licence-fee money, a leading talent agent said yesterday. Unjustifiable pay deals are creating an inflationary spiral among talent, according to Anita Land, who represents BBC presenters such as Jeremy Paxman and Louis Theroux. Mrs Land is the sister of Michael Grade, the BBC chairman. She is a showbusiness veteran with a reputation for tough bargaining and her decision to speak out over top broadcasters' pay will infuriate fellow agents. It also heaped more pressure on the BBC, which has been criticised for demanding an above-inflation licence-fee increase while paying commercial rates to retain star talent. Mrs Land wrote about Ross's 18 million deal - a three-year exclusive contract signed this year - in Shooting Stars, a compilation of essays about television talent. "It is difficult to justify such large sums," she said. "Frankly, I don't think Jonathan does deserve it; nobody in his position could deserve it. I am amazed the BBC managed to get away with it without landing more flak." Paxman earns about 100 pounds a minute for presenting Newsnight, where he enjoys a three-day week, and about 7,500 for each edition of University Challenge."
A Labour peer yesterday named a "serial and repeated liar" whose false allegations resulted in an innocent man being jailed for a sex attack. Lord Campbell-Savours used parliamentary privilege to name the woman during a debate in the House of Lords on rape legislation. He suggested that women who make false allegations of rape should be named and prosecuted for perjury. It is believed to be the first time that the identity of a woman who claims that she has been the victim of a sexual offence has been revealed in Parliament. Women's rights groups said that they feared that the naming of the woman would further deter rape victims from reporting their ordeal.
It is a criminal offence to name anyone who complains to police that they have been the victim of a sexual offence, even if the alleged attacker is found not guilty in court. But Lord Campbell-Savours is protected from legal action for comments made in the House of Lords. Speaking in the Lords he said: "Is not the inevitable consequence of the workings of the law as currently framed that we will carry on imprisoning innocent people such as Warren Blackwell, who was falsely accused by a serial and repeated liar, (the woman's name), who has a history of making false accusations and having multiple identities? "As a result of her accusations, he spent three and a half years in prison following a shabby and inadequate police investigation and was exonerated only when the Criminal Cases Review Commission inquiry cleared him and traced her history.
"Should not mature accusers who perjure themselves in rape trials be named and prosecuted for perjury?" The official record of the Houses of Parliament, Hansard, included the woman's name in its report because it believed it was covered by parliamentary privilege. However, the Press Association later removed the woman's identity from its report of the debate after seeking legal advice, which said that she was entitled, by statute, to lifelong anonymity. Lord Cambell-Savours said last night that he was unable to comment further on the issue because he would not be covered by privilege outside Parliament.
Mr Blackwell, 36, from Daventry, Northamptonshire, spent more than three years in jail for a sex attack before his conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal last month after fresh evidence suggested that his alleged victim was a liar. The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice, discovered that the alleged victim had made similar accusations. The Court of Appeal ruled that Mr Blackwell's conviction was unsafe in the light of the new evidence that the complainant had made "strikingly similar allegations" about other sex attacks, had an ability to lie and a possible propensity to self-harm.
Lord Campbell-Savours' comments came after intense debate about the right to anonymity for victims of sexual offenders and those accused but not convicted. Anonymity is granted automatically to the accuser in rape cases, under the Sexual Offences Act 1976. The woman who accused Mr Blackwell can be identified only when she waives her right to anonymity or is convicted of attempting to pervert the cause of justice, proving that the sexual assault never took place.
Baroness Scotland of Asthal, the Home Office Minister, told the Lords: "It is not inevitable that people will be falsely accused. One of the tragedies in relation to rape allegations is that very few of those who suffer this most dreadful crime have the courage to come forward at all." Ruth Hall, of Women Against Rape, said: "Women are being targeted by the criminal justice system for bringing allegations of rape. It is a new development that we have seen over the past few weeks. "There have been a number of women prosecuted for perverting the course of justice or having something added to their Criminal Records Bureau records because they have made allegations of rape. "The system is institutionally sexist. We don't believe that any assumption can be made that a woman has not been telling a truth."
At present 5.6 per cent of rape cases result in a conviction. The Government and lawyers fear that any attempt to remove anonymity would reduce significantly the number of women coming forward and prepared to go to court
Source
SOME LIARS PENALIZED
With just one in twenty cases of rape leading to a conviction there have been growing demands for changes to the law to make it easier bring prosecutions. However, there have also been growing numbers of cases where men have had their rape convictions overturned and prosecutions of women who have made up allegations. Last month a teenager was jailed after four men were held in police cells for 36 hours after she accused them of rape. Cinzia Sannino, then 17, only admitted her lies when police showed her footage on a mobile telephone of her performing naked lap- dancing for the men after returning home with them from a Cardiff club. The case led a spokesman for the False Allegations Support Organisation to comment: "Too many people jump on the bandwagon, aware that they can get compensation for false allegations."
Two weeks later a woman who falsely cried rape against her former husband was also convicted of perverting the course of justice. Sally Henderson, 40, a mother of two, described by the prosecution as a "wicked liar", claimed that Richard Cooke, 39, had repeatedly raped her during their year-long marriage. However, police discovered that her claims were almost identical to false allegations she had made five years earlier against a previous boyfriend, Gloucester Crown Court heard. Lifting an order preventing her identification, Recorder David Lane, QC, said: "The public has a right to know the identity of a person who makes such allegations and who seeks to use the system of justice for her own, unscrupulous ends."
A month earlier an obsessed stalker who accused her psychiatrist of rape was convicted of harassment, threats to kill and perverting justice. Maria Marchese, 45, rummaged through Jan Falkowski's dustbin for a used condom to clinch DNA evidence. The case against the consultant, of Limehouse, East London, was dropped - but his relationship with his fiancee collapsed.
There have been growing calls for men accused of rape to be granted anonymity until they are convicted. The Liberal Democrats voted last month to grant anonymity to anyone accused of rape until conviction.
Source
Multicultural madness needs such antidotes
A twentysomething visitor from Britain brings us the message that there should be no special rules for Muslims, writes Janet Albrechtsen
IN another sign of predictable cultural capitulation, a check-in employee with British Airways is banned from wearing a small Christian cross but Muslim and Sikh employees may wear turbans and the hijab. Little wonder, then, that Munira Mirza is so refreshing. This young woman, reared as a Muslim, says it's time to scrap multiculturalism and to stop defining people as members of a minority group. Specifically, it's time for our political leaders to stop engaging with Muslims as Muslims. They are citizens; no special rules apply.
Mirza pulls few punches when exposing the West's cultural surrender. We all know the problem. Free speech in the polite West is a little clogged up these days. A Dutch film-maker, Theo van Gogh, is slain for making Submission, a movie critical of Islam. The scriptwriter, Dutch political activist Ayan Hirsi Ali, is forced to live under threat of death. Amateurish Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed unleash orchestrated madness across the globe. A nun is killed in Somalia because local Muslims don't like the Pope musing about Muslim attitudes to violence. A French teacher is hiding, under police protection, after describing Mohammed as a "merciless war leader". And so it goes on.
When it's easier to stay quiet for fear of provoking violence from some Muslims or attracting accusations of racism from Western appeasers, then the West is already living under the shadow of Islamic fascism. We're stuck with silent feminists who prefer cultural rights and the burka over women's rights and the silly noise of some on the so-called progressive side of politics marching to the tune of "We're all Hezbollah now".
Which is why, in the battle of ideas, Mirza is a much needed and perhaps most unlikely warrior. This twentysomething petite British woman who visited Australia last week says multiculturalism has caused the West's cultural timidity. She isn't talking about the simple acceptance of diversity originally sold to us as multiculturalism and embraced by Australians. Multiculturalism has gone far beyond whether to eat Thai, Indian, Italian or Chinese food.
Particularly in her native Britain, but also across large swaths of the Western world, multiculturalism has become a far bigger and more insidious concept during the past three decades. Its basic proposition is cultural relativism: that all cultures are of equal value, none can be criticised (except for the majority one), and that encouraging integration is racist.
In Mirza's Britain, this has delivered a tribalised society in which identity politics reigns supreme. In this world, victimhood is especially prized. Mirza told The Australian that multiculturalism "encourages groups to claim exclusion in order to get attention. In order to get resources, you have to prove your weakness." In a competitive multicultural marketplace, groups vie for most victimised status. This political culture disenfranchises people as individuals, rejecting that they are moral agents responsible for their own future.
At a Centre for Independent Studies lecture last Wednesday, Mirza told her audience that when she was at school in Britain a decade ago, few Muslim girls wore headscarves. Now Muslim girls, even those whose mothers don't wear the scarf, are choosing to put it on as an identifier of difference and oppression, the oppressor being the West.
Multiculturalism makes the private part of you - your religion - your most valuable public asset. And it's off bounds to criticise any part of it. Just ask Jack Straw, the leader of Britain's House of Commons, who was recently dubbed a terrorist guilty of inciting religious hatred for raising the problem of interacting with veiled Muslim women.
That powerful multicultural concoction of separateness and victimhood has left the West fractured, neutered of a confident and united identity. The consequences have been far ranging, according to Mirza. Most acutely, it has fuelled home-grown terrorism.
Young Muslim boys such as the London bombers - born, reared and educated in the West - have gone looking for meaning elsewhere because, Mirza says, "being British is so discredited in this country ... The most compelling thing about the al-Qa'ida identity is its victimhood status; it is the ultimate logic of multiculturalism, with its claim that it represents an oppressed minority."
The multicultural message has wrought other disastrous consequences documented by Mirza. Culture Vultures, a book she edited earlier this year, showcases how the arts have been subsumed by an ethnocentric emphasis that promotes wasteful projects with little artistic merit. In the workplace, multiculturalism has spawned diversity training because difference needs to be micro-managed. The premise is that without expert training in how to deal with difference, pudden-headed workers will succumb to their inherent bigoted, racist tendencies.
But, as Mirza points out, emphasising difference through diversity training ends up dividing us more. The ostensibly different ones are reminded of their difference, encouraged to treat every slight as an exhibition of racism. And the rest, their fellow workers, are left paralysed in their interactions for fear of being labelled a racist.
Australia has not yielded to the levels of multicultural madness infecting Britain and Europe, which is why Mirza's message is both a warning for Australia and a sign that perhaps the intellectual tide is turning in Britain. She says the answer is to stop the politics of tribalisation and start being unashamedly proud about the Enlightenment values that lie at the core of Western liberal democracies, values such as freedom of speech.
Where Mirza is less than convincing is in her tendency to ignore Islam as part of the problem confronting the West. When asked whether there was something about Islam that explained the rise of Islamic terrorism, she said all religions could be twisted to suit warped agendas of violence. Perhaps. But disaffected Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs are not plotting jihad: a point the Pope wished to raise in his speech at a German university before being pummelled into apologetic appeasement.
Following that fracas, Marcello Pera - who in 2004 co-wrote with the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger a book titled Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam - told the International Herald Tribune it was legitimate for those in the West to ask if jihad is a necessary part of some interpretations of Islam. It's not a comfortable topic but it goes with the terrain of free speech. And on that score, as Mirza said at a lunch last week, "we could all do with a little more courage, frankly". Amen to that.
Source
NEGLIGENT NHS KILLS AGAIN
THE family of a teenager who was exposed to massive overdoses of radiation during treatment for cancer blamed her death on hospital chiefs yesterday. Lisa Norris, 16, died at home on Wednesday, after receiving at least 17 overdoses of radiation during treatment for a brain tumour at the Beatson Oncology Centre in Glasgow. Her father, Ken Norris, said that she died after the cancer returned, but believed that it was a direct result of the hospital blunder and not a natural recurrence of the disease.
Eight months ago, Lisa and her family were celebrating after doctors said that a course of radiotherapy had destroyed a tumour in her brain. However, days later, consultants from the centre visited Lisa at her home in Girvan, Ayrshire, and told her that on every visit she had been exposed to a level of radiation 65 per cent higher than prescribed. Recalling the visit, Lisa said: "I asked them if I was going to die, but they ignored me. When I asked a second time if I would be here in five years, they said they could not answer."
NHS Greater Glasgow admitted at the time that the overdoses, which were administered by three different physicians and went unnoticed by two hospital administrators, were simply human error. It is now bracing itself for legal action from Lisa's parents, and the possibility of further legal actions from dozens of other patients. It has disclosed that there have been 46 incidents over the past 20 years during radiotherapy treatment, including 14 cases in which patients were given overdoses.
Mr Norris described Lisa as an inspiration. He said: "She kept us going in many ways. She was so positive and strong." He added: "We knew things were not looking good but we never expected Lisa to pass away so soon. We had hoped to see Christmas."
Professor Sir John Arbuthnott, the chairman of NHS Greater Glasgow, said that staff were "extremely upset" to hear of Lisa's death. He said: "I have passed on my condolences to the family on behalf of the whole organisation."
The overdoses left Lisa with bright red sores and blisters on her ears, head and neck. She also had difficulty sleeping because of a constant burning sensation inside her. She needed to take cold showers in an attempt to cool down but maintained her good humour, even as the symptoms grew worse. After trying on a blonde wig, Lisa, who had ginger hair until it fell out, said: "I always hated my hair colour. Anyway, I have such a red face and head now that it would have clashed."
Lisa became ill again last month and returned to hospital for emergency surgery for fluid on the brain. Doctors told her that the tumour had returned and offered her chemotherapy, but by then the cancer had spread to her spine and other parts of her body. Mr Norris said: "When she was in hospital recently, a doctor told us the overdose might have been to blame for the problems she developed. "One of the hardest things is that Lisa has died when there are still so many unanswered questions. But we will continue the fight for truth and for justice in her name."
The Scottish Executive has begun an independent investigation, which a spokesman said was in its final stages.
Source
THE NEW CLIMATE REALISM: UN MEETING TO FOCUS ON ADAPTATION, NOT EMISSION TARGETS
There is an "urgent need" to help developing countries adapt to impacts of climate change, UK Climate Change Minister Ian Pearson has said. Nations were experiencing environmental changes as a result of greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere, he told MPs. He said he was hopeful that an action plan and funding would be agreed at a climate summit in Africa next month. But Mr Pearson added that the talks on the Kyoto Protocol were unlikely to deliver new global emission targets.
He made his comments while giving evidence to the Commons Environmental Audit Committee's inquiry into how the UN Kyoto Protocol will progress after the current period for emission targets ends in 2012. Mr Pearson said that it was helpful that the talks on the protocol were being hosted by an African government. "Climate change is a huge issue when it comes to Africa. There will certainly be a strong focus on adaptation in Nairobi because it is one of the most pressing issues facing countries in sub-Saharan Africa today," he said. "A large number of the countries that did not sign up to Kyoto are very small emitters and they are not a big part of the problem. "But they are going to be affected by the climate change that is already in the (atmospheric) system," the minister told committee members.
The two-week summit will look at what progress has been made by the legally binding agreement that requires industrial nations to cut their emissions by an average of 5.2% from 1990 levels by the period 2008-2012. Delegates will also consider what system should be adopted when the current period ends.
Earlier this month, the UK government co-hosted a climate conference in Mexico for the world's top 20 polluting nations. The two-day informal gathering brought together ministers from G8 industrialised countries and developing nations to try to reach a consensus on the issue. When asked by Labour MP David Chaytor whether the meeting undermined the UN negotiations, Mr Pearson disagreed. "The key thing was to continue to build international consensus on the science and practical actions in terms of what needs to be done," he told the committee. However, he said it would be very difficult to get ministers from 189 nations at the Nairobi summit to reach an agreement on what should happen after 2012.
A number of nations, including the US, the world's biggest polluter, favour technological advances rather than targets to reduce emissions. "I would love to say that I feel confident that everyone is going to Nairobi with the expectation that there is going to be a long-term international agreement, but I do not think that is going to be the case," Mr Pearson conceded. "What we can realistically expect... is to hopefully agree an adaptation work programme and an adaptation fund which will be important issues for developing countries."
Source
Ayn Rand prize. Note that entries for the Chris R. Tame Memorial Prize close on 19th November 2006. Contestants are invited to submit essays under the title "The Achievements of Ayn Rand". Essay Length: 2000 words excluding notes. The prize will be 1000 pounds. The winner will be announced at the Libertarian Alliance Conference, which will take place in London this coming 25-26 November 2006 at the National Liberal Club in London: Send entries by e-mail to sean@libertarian.co.uk
UK Muslim veil row teacher loses case: "A British tribunal ruled that a Muslim teaching assistant had not been discriminated against when the school where she worked asked her to remove her veil. The case of 24-year-old Aishah Azmi against Kirklees Council in West Yorkshire, northern England, has attracted nationwide interest after former foreign minister Jack Straw said Muslim women who wore full veils made community relations difficult."
BBC wastes public money: "The BBC's 18 million pound contract with Jonathan Ross is an indefensible use of licence-fee money, a leading talent agent said yesterday. Unjustifiable pay deals are creating an inflationary spiral among talent, according to Anita Land, who represents BBC presenters such as Jeremy Paxman and Louis Theroux. Mrs Land is the sister of Michael Grade, the BBC chairman. She is a showbusiness veteran with a reputation for tough bargaining and her decision to speak out over top broadcasters' pay will infuriate fellow agents. It also heaped more pressure on the BBC, which has been criticised for demanding an above-inflation licence-fee increase while paying commercial rates to retain star talent. Mrs Land wrote about Ross's 18 million deal - a three-year exclusive contract signed this year - in Shooting Stars, a compilation of essays about television talent. "It is difficult to justify such large sums," she said. "Frankly, I don't think Jonathan does deserve it; nobody in his position could deserve it. I am amazed the BBC managed to get away with it without landing more flak." Paxman earns about 100 pounds a minute for presenting Newsnight, where he enjoys a three-day week, and about 7,500 for each edition of University Challenge."
Friday, October 20, 2006
THE BRITISH SHIP OF STATE IS SLOWLY CHANGING COURSE OVER MUSLIMS
The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said he backed a local council which suspended a Muslim classroom assistant for refusing to remove her veil, as part of what he described as a difficult but necessary debate about how Islam integrates into the modern world. Mr Blair said on Tuesday the niqab worn by some Muslim women was "a mark of separation and that is why it makes other people from outside of the community feel uncomfortable" - words likely to anger some religious leaders.
Asked if it was possible for a woman wearing a veil to make a full contribution to British society, Mr Blair said it was "a very difficult question … no one wants to say that people don't have the right to do it. That is to take it too far. But I think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society. "It's a very, very sensitive issue; all I'm saying is we need to have this debate about integration. I'm not saying anyone should be forced to do anything."
Mr Blair said he could "see the reason" why Kirklees Council had suspended Aishah Azmi, a teaching assistant at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Ms Azmi has taken the council to an employment tribunal. Mr Blair said he was mindful of that, though he did not go as far as the Minister for Local Government, Phil Woolas, in calling for her to be sacked. But he said he "fully" supported Kirklees. "I simply say that I back their handling of the case. I can see the reason why they came to the decision they did," Mr Blair said.
Ms Azmi's lawyer said he was considering taking an injunction against Mr Blair to stop him saying more about the case. The Prime Minister said Ms Azmi's case, along with the decision by a senior Labour MP, Jack Straw, to ask women to remove their veils in his constituency surgeries and a row over British Airways' ban on a staff member wearing a cross, were part of a broader debate which was "happening in a very haphazard way". The debate was about the degree of integration by Muslims, and about "how Islam comes to terms with and is comfortable with the modern world", he said. The debate had begun long before ministers contributed and was going on in different forms across the developed world including the Middle East. A spokesman in Mr Blair's office said later that ministers had not engineered the debate, but nor could they shy away from it.
Source
MORE CONTROL MANIA FROM BRITAIN
A virtually unnoticed piece of legislation is wending its way through Parliament right now. You might think you could not take issue with something called the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. You might think that any legislation designed to promote child safety should be supported. You might be wrong. This new Bill will insist that every single person who could conceivably come into contact with a child, whether through work or volunteering, has to be subject to continuous criminal-record vetting.
Josie Appleton, author of The Case Against Vetting, calculates that up to a third of the adult working population will be covered, from the plumber who comes to mend a school’s leaking radiator to a parent running a football team or a 16-year-old helping schoolchildren to read. It will be an offence, subject to a fine of up to 5,000 pounds, for an employer to hire someone to work with children without being vetted, except in the context of private family arrangements.
Of course, those of us with nothing to hide will have nothing to lose. Except that the vetting is almost as bureaucratically onerous as getting a new passport. There are forms to be filled in, three pieces of identity to be proferred and, in some cases, cheques to be written. You then have to wait several weeks before you are cleared.
One new headmaster last year could not enter his own school for the first couple of weeks of term because his check had not come through. Another man — a father of three and member of the Scottish Parliament — was not allowed to lead the “walking bus” to his son’s primary school because he had not been officially cleared. We grown-ups, however public-spirited, are all now assumed guilty until proved innocent.
As a result, adults are being deterred from offering to help with children. The Girl Guides and Scouts are chronically short of volunteers: the Guides have a waiting list of 50,000, the Scouts 30,000, and some parents have resorted to signing their children up at birth. These checks will reveal not just convictions, but also offences of which people were accused but not convicted. This could wreck the lives of adults who have been falsely accused. And what about, for instance, Cherie Blair, who was investigated by the police for play-slapping a 17-year-old who made rabbit ears above her head while posing for a photograph? Will she now be banned from working with children? Or the vicar who kissed a girl on her forehead during a maths class?
One of the nicer aspects of being a child used to be the random acts of kindness offered by adults outside the family: the friendly shopkeeper who ruffled your hair and gave you a sweet; the enthusiastic PE coach who gave up time after school to help with your gymnastics and was constantly — and wholly innocently — adjusting your body position to get the moves right. These adults were generous with their time and their affection. We knew who the pervs were and took pains to avoid them.
Now all adults are deemed to be perverts unless they can prove that they are not. Most will now avoid contact with other people’s children and will refrain from touching them for fear of the action being misconstrued.
So what this Bill threatens to do is to poison the relationships between generations. Just as the ultra-feminist slogan “All men are rapists” tainted the relationship between men and women for a decade, so the assumption that all adults are potential paedophiles will imbue children with fear, parents with paranoia and other adults with excessive caution.
The new law was inspired by the Soham murders, in which Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, killed two young girls. Yet he did not even work at their school; it was his partner who did. In other words, the legislation may save no new lives. But what it will do is sour the trust between millions of children and millions of innocent adults. What a great shame.
Source
COUNCILS ADOPT SOVIET/NAZI TACTICS
Homeowners are being asked to spy on their neighbours and report them if they are not recycling, it emerged. A free telephone number has been set up by a council for residents to report anyone flouting strict rules on rubbish collection. Offenders will then be visited by a "recycling sheriff"' who will inspect their bins as part of the controversial scheme.
Last night the council officials were widely criticised for using tactics that will "turn neighbour against neighbour" and lead to families facing fines up to 2,500 pounds. The plan to get residents to report their neighbours was revealed after Teignbridge District Council distributed thousands of leaflets asking residents to look out for people who do not recycle correctly. Under the headline: "Wanted: People who can't recycle or won't recycle," it reads: "It is now easier than ever to recycle yet 30 per cent of residents still aren't!" "Do you know of someone in your road who is not doing their bit? Do you feel strongly enough about it to let us help them?" "Then contact us free on 0800 7310323 and a recycling sheriff will be there to assist."
The council says it has been forced to adopt the strategy to tackle residents who do not adhere to their complex four-bin recycling scheme. But there are fears the recycling "hotline" could lead to numerous prosecutions as well as prank calls from people who have disputes with their neighbours. One resident, who asked not to be named said: "It is a sneaky business to turn neighbour against neighbour - a dream come true for every curtain twitcher and busy-body." "The council should be ashamed of itself to use such underhand tactics."
The leaflet was distributed to thousands of homes in several Devon towns including Newton Abbot, Kingsteignton and Teignmouth where all homes have four bins each, consisting of separate containers for newspapers, glass, food waste and non-recyclable landfill. Last night a spokesman for the Liberal Democrat controlled council insisted the leaflet was not meant to be "sinister" or designed to seek prosecutions. She said: "The council just wanted to help people who were having difficulty getting to grips with recycling." "This is all about providing assistance to people who aren't sure about how to recycle, particularly the elderly."
News of the scheme emerged after one man made a personal protest against fortnightly rubbish collections. When bin men refused to collect John Chandler's rubbish yesterday he threw the bag in to the lorry himself. Mr Chandler, a mechanic, says he and his neighbours are fed up with mountains of bags left uncollected because of rules which restrict residents to one wheelie bin every two weeks. The 28-year-old father-of-one said: "It looks awful, you can always smell the rubbish when you're walking up the street." "Lots of people are upset about it. I've tried talking to the council but nothing has happened so I decided to take action." But the council claims that John is failing to recycle his waste properly and is threatening legal action against him for allegedly intimidating refuse collectors.
Last weekend the Daily Mail told how fortnightly rubbish collections are to be forced on millions of homeowners in a backdoor campaign." Town hall chiefs have been told to end weekly visits by the binmen in winter - so that the cold weather keeps down the smell and vermin. The hope is that by the summer, when the odours and rats return, it will be too late to bring back once-a-week collections. The guidance over fortnightly collections comes in the wake of concern over Government plans to slap extra taxes on rubbish. One in ten councils has started fitting wheelie bins with microchips which weigh rubbish so that householders can be billed by the kilo.
Source
ONLY 15 MINUTES HELP FOR THE FRAIL ELDERLY IN BRITAIN
Privatization called for
Social workers have set a 15-minute limit on the amount of home help they will allow frail and vulnerable elderly people, a shocking watchdog report revealed. Care workers are under strict orders to take no more than a quarter of an hour to dress and bathe someone who needs help looking after themselves. Then they must abandon the job and move on to the next one, a report by the Government's social services inspectors said.
Their inquiry into the treatment of more than 350,000 vulnerable older people who need help to stay in their own homes found the system is riddled with shortages, failure and indifference. Most hurtful of the miseries inflicted on the elderly who get home help is the "15 minute slot", which is "undignified and unsafe", the Commission for Social Care Inspection said. It called for radical reforms to strip local council social workers of the right to organise home help for the elderly, and instead give older people their own buying power to get help from outside or pay the relatives who already care for them.
Inspectorate chief Dame Denise Platt said: "Failure to listen to what people really need, and respond to this, results in missed opportunities to promote independence. "At worst, it can also result in services that do not respect people’s rights and dignity."
The condemnation of the way elderly people are treated in their own homes by social workers and contractors hired by local councils is the latest in a series of scathing reports into the way frail and sick old people are cared for. The Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign has highlighted the ill-treatment suffered by older people in care homes and hospitals, and the way the controversial means-testing scheme covering care home places forces 70,000 people a year to sell their homes to meet the bills.
The new report by inspectors backed the findings of an independent inquiry into care of the elderly carried out earlier this year by former Treasury troubleshooter Sir Derek Wanless. His findings - which were instantly dismissed by Chancellor Gordon Brown - said the Government should put greatly increased public spending into caring for people in their own homes in order to help them stay independent and out of care homes. The CSCI report said that far from increasing numbers who are helped at home, the total of those given assistance in dressing, washing, cleaning and preparing meals has dropped by a third over the past 13 years to just over 350,000. The inspectors found "widespread problems in relation to the shortness of visits, the timing of visits, and reliability, associated with care workers rushing between visits and turning up late."
Social work chiefs, it said, "restrict the help they will offer to a list of prescribed activities." "Care managers draw up individual care plans that tightly specify both the tasks to be undertaken and the time to be evoted to thise tasks. "People using services, their families and their care workers told us that it could be difficult to carry out the required tasks in the time available." The report called for a shake-up to strip social workers of their powers to organise care and give older people and their families more say. Pressure groups for the elderly endorsed the inspectors' findings.
Gordon Lishman of Age Concern said: "Too many frail and vulnerable older people are being let down by under-pressure staff and over-stretched councils who are not providing the care they need." A survey by the charity Counsel and Care last month found that one in three town halls have cut back the level of services they offer to elderly people getting help at home.
The Government has launched a 'Dignity in Care' campaign under which care workers and hospital staff will be told not to call old people "poppet" or "love" as part of an effort to cut maltreatment. But ministers have offered no new money to help improve the care system. Councils blamed the Government for giving them too little cash to provide home help. David Rogers of the Local Government Association said: "Councils want to provide more personalised services to give elderly people the care they both need and deserve. "An increasingly ageing population and issues around central government funding means there is not enough money in the system."
Source
The British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said he backed a local council which suspended a Muslim classroom assistant for refusing to remove her veil, as part of what he described as a difficult but necessary debate about how Islam integrates into the modern world. Mr Blair said on Tuesday the niqab worn by some Muslim women was "a mark of separation and that is why it makes other people from outside of the community feel uncomfortable" - words likely to anger some religious leaders.
Asked if it was possible for a woman wearing a veil to make a full contribution to British society, Mr Blair said it was "a very difficult question … no one wants to say that people don't have the right to do it. That is to take it too far. But I think we need to confront this issue about how we integrate people properly into our society. "It's a very, very sensitive issue; all I'm saying is we need to have this debate about integration. I'm not saying anyone should be forced to do anything."
Mr Blair said he could "see the reason" why Kirklees Council had suspended Aishah Azmi, a teaching assistant at Headfield Church of England junior school in Dewsbury, West Yorkshire. Ms Azmi has taken the council to an employment tribunal. Mr Blair said he was mindful of that, though he did not go as far as the Minister for Local Government, Phil Woolas, in calling for her to be sacked. But he said he "fully" supported Kirklees. "I simply say that I back their handling of the case. I can see the reason why they came to the decision they did," Mr Blair said.
Ms Azmi's lawyer said he was considering taking an injunction against Mr Blair to stop him saying more about the case. The Prime Minister said Ms Azmi's case, along with the decision by a senior Labour MP, Jack Straw, to ask women to remove their veils in his constituency surgeries and a row over British Airways' ban on a staff member wearing a cross, were part of a broader debate which was "happening in a very haphazard way". The debate was about the degree of integration by Muslims, and about "how Islam comes to terms with and is comfortable with the modern world", he said. The debate had begun long before ministers contributed and was going on in different forms across the developed world including the Middle East. A spokesman in Mr Blair's office said later that ministers had not engineered the debate, but nor could they shy away from it.
Source
MORE CONTROL MANIA FROM BRITAIN
A virtually unnoticed piece of legislation is wending its way through Parliament right now. You might think you could not take issue with something called the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Bill. You might think that any legislation designed to promote child safety should be supported. You might be wrong. This new Bill will insist that every single person who could conceivably come into contact with a child, whether through work or volunteering, has to be subject to continuous criminal-record vetting.
Josie Appleton, author of The Case Against Vetting, calculates that up to a third of the adult working population will be covered, from the plumber who comes to mend a school’s leaking radiator to a parent running a football team or a 16-year-old helping schoolchildren to read. It will be an offence, subject to a fine of up to 5,000 pounds, for an employer to hire someone to work with children without being vetted, except in the context of private family arrangements.
Of course, those of us with nothing to hide will have nothing to lose. Except that the vetting is almost as bureaucratically onerous as getting a new passport. There are forms to be filled in, three pieces of identity to be proferred and, in some cases, cheques to be written. You then have to wait several weeks before you are cleared.
One new headmaster last year could not enter his own school for the first couple of weeks of term because his check had not come through. Another man — a father of three and member of the Scottish Parliament — was not allowed to lead the “walking bus” to his son’s primary school because he had not been officially cleared. We grown-ups, however public-spirited, are all now assumed guilty until proved innocent.
As a result, adults are being deterred from offering to help with children. The Girl Guides and Scouts are chronically short of volunteers: the Guides have a waiting list of 50,000, the Scouts 30,000, and some parents have resorted to signing their children up at birth. These checks will reveal not just convictions, but also offences of which people were accused but not convicted. This could wreck the lives of adults who have been falsely accused. And what about, for instance, Cherie Blair, who was investigated by the police for play-slapping a 17-year-old who made rabbit ears above her head while posing for a photograph? Will she now be banned from working with children? Or the vicar who kissed a girl on her forehead during a maths class?
One of the nicer aspects of being a child used to be the random acts of kindness offered by adults outside the family: the friendly shopkeeper who ruffled your hair and gave you a sweet; the enthusiastic PE coach who gave up time after school to help with your gymnastics and was constantly — and wholly innocently — adjusting your body position to get the moves right. These adults were generous with their time and their affection. We knew who the pervs were and took pains to avoid them.
Now all adults are deemed to be perverts unless they can prove that they are not. Most will now avoid contact with other people’s children and will refrain from touching them for fear of the action being misconstrued.
So what this Bill threatens to do is to poison the relationships between generations. Just as the ultra-feminist slogan “All men are rapists” tainted the relationship between men and women for a decade, so the assumption that all adults are potential paedophiles will imbue children with fear, parents with paranoia and other adults with excessive caution.
The new law was inspired by the Soham murders, in which Ian Huntley, a school caretaker, killed two young girls. Yet he did not even work at their school; it was his partner who did. In other words, the legislation may save no new lives. But what it will do is sour the trust between millions of children and millions of innocent adults. What a great shame.
Source
COUNCILS ADOPT SOVIET/NAZI TACTICS
Homeowners are being asked to spy on their neighbours and report them if they are not recycling, it emerged. A free telephone number has been set up by a council for residents to report anyone flouting strict rules on rubbish collection. Offenders will then be visited by a "recycling sheriff"' who will inspect their bins as part of the controversial scheme.
Last night the council officials were widely criticised for using tactics that will "turn neighbour against neighbour" and lead to families facing fines up to 2,500 pounds. The plan to get residents to report their neighbours was revealed after Teignbridge District Council distributed thousands of leaflets asking residents to look out for people who do not recycle correctly. Under the headline: "Wanted: People who can't recycle or won't recycle," it reads: "It is now easier than ever to recycle yet 30 per cent of residents still aren't!" "Do you know of someone in your road who is not doing their bit? Do you feel strongly enough about it to let us help them?" "Then contact us free on 0800 7310323 and a recycling sheriff will be there to assist."
The council says it has been forced to adopt the strategy to tackle residents who do not adhere to their complex four-bin recycling scheme. But there are fears the recycling "hotline" could lead to numerous prosecutions as well as prank calls from people who have disputes with their neighbours. One resident, who asked not to be named said: "It is a sneaky business to turn neighbour against neighbour - a dream come true for every curtain twitcher and busy-body." "The council should be ashamed of itself to use such underhand tactics."
The leaflet was distributed to thousands of homes in several Devon towns including Newton Abbot, Kingsteignton and Teignmouth where all homes have four bins each, consisting of separate containers for newspapers, glass, food waste and non-recyclable landfill. Last night a spokesman for the Liberal Democrat controlled council insisted the leaflet was not meant to be "sinister" or designed to seek prosecutions. She said: "The council just wanted to help people who were having difficulty getting to grips with recycling." "This is all about providing assistance to people who aren't sure about how to recycle, particularly the elderly."
News of the scheme emerged after one man made a personal protest against fortnightly rubbish collections. When bin men refused to collect John Chandler's rubbish yesterday he threw the bag in to the lorry himself. Mr Chandler, a mechanic, says he and his neighbours are fed up with mountains of bags left uncollected because of rules which restrict residents to one wheelie bin every two weeks. The 28-year-old father-of-one said: "It looks awful, you can always smell the rubbish when you're walking up the street." "Lots of people are upset about it. I've tried talking to the council but nothing has happened so I decided to take action." But the council claims that John is failing to recycle his waste properly and is threatening legal action against him for allegedly intimidating refuse collectors.
Last weekend the Daily Mail told how fortnightly rubbish collections are to be forced on millions of homeowners in a backdoor campaign." Town hall chiefs have been told to end weekly visits by the binmen in winter - so that the cold weather keeps down the smell and vermin. The hope is that by the summer, when the odours and rats return, it will be too late to bring back once-a-week collections. The guidance over fortnightly collections comes in the wake of concern over Government plans to slap extra taxes on rubbish. One in ten councils has started fitting wheelie bins with microchips which weigh rubbish so that householders can be billed by the kilo.
Source
ONLY 15 MINUTES HELP FOR THE FRAIL ELDERLY IN BRITAIN
Privatization called for
Social workers have set a 15-minute limit on the amount of home help they will allow frail and vulnerable elderly people, a shocking watchdog report revealed. Care workers are under strict orders to take no more than a quarter of an hour to dress and bathe someone who needs help looking after themselves. Then they must abandon the job and move on to the next one, a report by the Government's social services inspectors said.
Their inquiry into the treatment of more than 350,000 vulnerable older people who need help to stay in their own homes found the system is riddled with shortages, failure and indifference. Most hurtful of the miseries inflicted on the elderly who get home help is the "15 minute slot", which is "undignified and unsafe", the Commission for Social Care Inspection said. It called for radical reforms to strip local council social workers of the right to organise home help for the elderly, and instead give older people their own buying power to get help from outside or pay the relatives who already care for them.
Inspectorate chief Dame Denise Platt said: "Failure to listen to what people really need, and respond to this, results in missed opportunities to promote independence. "At worst, it can also result in services that do not respect people’s rights and dignity."
The condemnation of the way elderly people are treated in their own homes by social workers and contractors hired by local councils is the latest in a series of scathing reports into the way frail and sick old people are cared for. The Daily Mail's Dignity for the Elderly campaign has highlighted the ill-treatment suffered by older people in care homes and hospitals, and the way the controversial means-testing scheme covering care home places forces 70,000 people a year to sell their homes to meet the bills.
The new report by inspectors backed the findings of an independent inquiry into care of the elderly carried out earlier this year by former Treasury troubleshooter Sir Derek Wanless. His findings - which were instantly dismissed by Chancellor Gordon Brown - said the Government should put greatly increased public spending into caring for people in their own homes in order to help them stay independent and out of care homes. The CSCI report said that far from increasing numbers who are helped at home, the total of those given assistance in dressing, washing, cleaning and preparing meals has dropped by a third over the past 13 years to just over 350,000. The inspectors found "widespread problems in relation to the shortness of visits, the timing of visits, and reliability, associated with care workers rushing between visits and turning up late."
Social work chiefs, it said, "restrict the help they will offer to a list of prescribed activities." "Care managers draw up individual care plans that tightly specify both the tasks to be undertaken and the time to be evoted to thise tasks. "People using services, their families and their care workers told us that it could be difficult to carry out the required tasks in the time available." The report called for a shake-up to strip social workers of their powers to organise care and give older people and their families more say. Pressure groups for the elderly endorsed the inspectors' findings.
Gordon Lishman of Age Concern said: "Too many frail and vulnerable older people are being let down by under-pressure staff and over-stretched councils who are not providing the care they need." A survey by the charity Counsel and Care last month found that one in three town halls have cut back the level of services they offer to elderly people getting help at home.
The Government has launched a 'Dignity in Care' campaign under which care workers and hospital staff will be told not to call old people "poppet" or "love" as part of an effort to cut maltreatment. But ministers have offered no new money to help improve the care system. Councils blamed the Government for giving them too little cash to provide home help. David Rogers of the Local Government Association said: "Councils want to provide more personalised services to give elderly people the care they both need and deserve. "An increasingly ageing population and issues around central government funding means there is not enough money in the system."
Source
Thursday, October 19, 2006
TRANSPLANTS STUMP THE NHS
The NHS cannot cope with the huge increase in the number of organ transplants for which the Government has legislated, campaigners say. The National Kidney Federation and the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group will call today for changes to the organ transplant system to take advantage of the Human Tissue Act, which came into effect last month. Reforms could double the number of kidney patients receiving transplants each year and abolish the waiting list of 6,000, campaigners say. But a shortage of surgeons and nurses means that the effects of the Act are limited.
Britain has 24 transplant centres, which should each have five surgeons - 120 in total. The actual number of specialist transplant surgeons is 86, the federation says. There are 12 full-time transplant co-ordinators - specialist nurses who give advice to patients and relatives; there should be at least 40.
About half of organs are unused as a result of relatives refusing permission. The Act, which states that relatives do not have a right to veto the expressed wishes of a donor, and should not be invited to do so, was intended at least to double Britain's rate of organ donation, currently the lowest in Western Europe. Doctors will still be expected to respect the preferences and religious wishes of families, experts said. Tim Statham, chief executive of the federation, said: "Despite the provisions of the Act, we do not expect surgeons to now ignore the strongly held wishes of relatives."
However, an increase in the availability of organs, and in the time for testing, identification and monitoring of suitable donors and transplant patients, would put stresses on the capacity of surgeons and transplant centres, he said. According to the federation, about 800 potential donor organs are lost each year from donors in whom the heart has stopped. In other cases, donors are "brain-dead". Until recently non-heartbeating donors had not been considered an appropriate source of organs.
The report, published today, calls on the Government to monitor the effect of legislation on transplant success. Anthony Warrens, of the Royal Society of Medicine, said: "At a time of deep emotional stress, when relatives have lost a loved one, it is understandable that a person may refuse permission to donate a much needed organ from their relative. This is often a decision they come to regret."
The NHS is cancelling more than 620 operations a day because of administrative errors, it was claimed last night. Mistakes such as failing to book operating theatres or to inform patients of the date resulted in about 162,500 procedures being abandoned last year. The Conservative MP Grant Shapps has used Freedom of Information laws to request data from trusts in England and Wales
Source
BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHY HYSTERIA SPREADS TO FOOTBALL
Anything to upset ordinary people
Families were banned from taking photographs of their teenage sons playing football after a referee said that they were breaking child protection rules. The under-15s match was stopped three times and the teams warned that they would be deducted points if the 150 parents did not stop taking photographs or using their video cameras. The order followed widespread bans by schools and youth clubs preventing parents from recording plays and concerts, sports days and awards' presentations.
The referee of Sunday's match between Ashford Borough FC and Folkestone Invicta FC told parents that they could only photograph players if they had the written permission of every parent whose son was on the pitch. Alan Sleator, a spectator, was taking photos of his 14-year-old son Laurie during the first half of the game in Ashford, Kent, when he was upbraided by the referee. Mr Sleator, a 50-year-old PR executive, who drove 90 miles to watch the game, said: "He came charging up to me and I got a right dressing down. He said, `You can't take photographs, it's child protection.' Someone else was taking photographs and he did the same thing." The third time the referee spotted another parent brandishing a camera, during the second half, he halted the game for ten minutes.
Mr Sleator said: "He called both managers into the centre of the pitch and told them that if anyone in the crowd took any more photographs without his permission he would abandon the match and deduct points from both teams. "He instructed managers to confiscate cameras. I turned away and admitted defeat. Declaring parents who take photographs of their own kids to be criminals is hardly a great way to build the grass roots of the game." The match ended with Asford winning 3-2.
Bob Dix, chairman of Folkestone Invicta FC, said that he knew nothing about the guidelines and neither, according to parents, did football league officials attending neighbouring games on Sunday. Mr Dix said: "Most people who go to youth games are family or friends and many of them take pictures or videos. You see [David] Beckham and [Ashley] Cole's parents showing off videos of them playing when they were boys." The Football Association said that there were no rules preventing parents from taking pictures of youth matches. "We have issued guidance, not rules, that parents should try not to take individual pictures of children who are not their own and should record action shots and group shots."
Keith Masters, chief executive of the Kent Football Association, said: "There is no reason why the parents could not take photographs. I have spoken to the referee and explained this to him. He said that he was told to do this when he attended a child protection course."
The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said last year that headteachers should ban cameras and videos from school events unless all families have given permission for their children to be filmed.
Source
BRITISH CORRECTNESS PROTECTS TERRORISTS
The escape of two terror suspects under control orders is as embarrassing to the Home Office as it is bewildering to the public. The men cannot be named, though one is understood to be an Iraqi and the other a Briton of Pakistani origin. The Government has refused to say why they are dangerous, or how or when they escaped, and will not give details that could alert the public, even though officials reportedly regard the Iraqi as a serious risk. The public has not been told whether police are seeking the men, whether the Home Office is to carry out a review or what is being done to ensure effective surveillance of the other former internees in Belmarsh prison who are also subject to control orders....
Since none of the 15 suspects has been charged, the Government has insisted that they cannot be named. And it is this insistence on anonymity that has greatly confused the issue. Lawyers argue that naming the men or giving any details of them would brand them as guilty. The Government therefore did not announce that they had escaped. Breaching a control order is in itself a crime. But although they are now fugitives from justice, it will still not name them. This certainly does not make it any easier to recapture them.
The obsession with anonymity is meant to protect the suspects' human rights and to ensure that any future trial is not prejudiced. Judges insist that there should be no public discussion of this or of the charges and substance of other current terror trials - many mired in delays and legal wrangling - lest this prejudice juries. The principle is admirable; the practice is absurd. Details of the control order cases are freely available on the internet. So too is most of the information banned from publication about other terrorist suspects. Ignorance may be no excuse, but this is an excuse for ignorance.
It is a basic principle of British law that justice should be seen to be done. This has become a casualty of terrorism. The only way out, ultimately, is to admit wiretapping evidence in court and to charge terrorist suspects or deport them.
Source
Get the inspectors out of British nurseries
Government regulation of childcare is making life difficult for parents, children and carers
What do you want from your child’s nursery? A secure, affectionate environment run by people who know and like children, or a bureaucratic hell-hole where you are kept neatly updated with your toddler’s educational progress, by a coterie of highly-qualified staff who keep the kids at arm’s length and react to a high temperature or a display of bad behaviour by picking up the phone and telling you to come and get them?
For most parents, I would imagine this is a rhetorical question. When you drop off your little children at their nursery or childminder (mine are five months old, and two-and-a-bit), you don’t want them to come home able to count to 100. You want to know that they will have fun, not just be safe; that when they fall, they will be somehow comforted; that when they misbehave, they will be somehow reprimanded; and that when they become suddenly ill – as children do – they will be given something to help them.
But for the authorities, it seems like quite a different set of criteria apply. Childcare is under increasing pressure to change its priorities, so that box-ticking and back-covering count for more than confidence and common sense. Vetted to within an inch of their lives, subjected to all manner of formal inspections, and expected to play the combined role of schoolteacher, social worker, child psychologist and hyper-efficient bureaucrat, those young women who used to be called ‘nursery nurses’, who worked with children just because they liked them and were good at the job, are burdened under a whole load of contradictory expectations. Isn’t it time someone put a stop to this nonsense?
Enter Olive Rack. On 26 September this year, magistrates cleared Mrs Rack, a nursery owner for over 20 years, after being accused by two council inspectors of assault. Her ‘crime’? She disciplined a toddler – who had just hit a baby on the head - by leading her by the arm and putting her on a ‘naughty chair’. The toddler’s mother had agreed with Rack’s actions; the inspectors did not, and Rack was consequently suspended for a year (1). Now she has been vindicated, and the case has sparked some welcome discussion about the daftness of various childcare regulations: everything from refusing to allow nurseries to dispense Calpol or cough medicine without prescription or prior written consent, to the incompatibility of concerns about touching children with the basic need to change nappies and give them a cuddle.
‘Since I opened in 1987 the red tape and regulations have grown. There are more and more rules, to the point where they are actually strangling the nurseries. It’s certainly detrimental to the children, it’s spread to their lives as well,’ Rack told the Sunday Times (2). It turns out that she first clashed with inspectors more than a decade ago, by refusing to demote one of her staff who had no formal childcare qualifications: ‘She was brilliant at her job but in the end she lost confidence because of all the nitpicking,’ says Rack.
These are good points well made; and the ‘PC gone mad’ element of childcare bureaucracy, upon which much of the commentary has focused (3), is certainly due a trouncing. But the problem goes deeper than red tape and accreditation-mania. The formalisation of childcare is steadily undermining the confidence and trust that is essential for parents, children and childcarers alike.
As an example: my children’s nursery recently underwent an Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspection, and it was a gruelling thing to watch. Suddenly, staff working in this lovely, warm, relaxed environment were put on edge, their spontaneous confidence dulled by the scrutiny. After dropping off my baby and toddler on day two, the inspector ‘canvassed’ me at the door. Did I know my children’s key-worker? Was I familiar with the complaints procedure? Did I think anything could be improved?
As I talked about how brilliant the nursery was, her eyes glazed over – and I suppose this was no surprise. Because there is no space in these formal procedures for indicating the positive, intangible things you really value about your children’s nursery: the easy affection and no-nonsense approach of the staff; that if they phone you to request more nappies, the first thing they tell you is that your kids are fine, so you don’t visualise them being rushed to the hospital; that ‘compress and cuddle’ is given as a treatment for a minor tumble.
Indeed, many of the things that we parents so value when leaving our little children in the care of a nursery or childminder are now increasingly seen as suspicious, and in need of further documentation and procedure. This undermines childcare staff, who do a brilliant job for little money; it threatens to have a bad impact on the children, who at that age need confidence and cuddles like nothing else; and it is an insult to us, the parents. We don’t need an Ofsted report to tell us what our children’s nursery or childminder is like – we see it day in, day out, and if we don’t like something we deal with it. When official inspectors come through the door, it is as though we are being judged too. The upshot of all this is to create an environment that is tense at best, with everybody encouraged to second-guess what they should be doing, rather than just focusing on looking after the kids.
What purpose is served by this regulation? The authorities would argue that this ever-tighter process of inspection and standard-setting is for the benefit of the parents – that it will help us to have confidence that our children are receiving ‘quality’ care. But aside from the fact that parents may not share Ofsted’s standards, in its own terms this process is flawed. ‘Good’ nurseries and childminders that pass the test are put on the defensive by the inspection process, and forced to adopt policies and procedures with which they may not agree. In other words, doing well at inspection is no protection. And those that don’t pass? They just get shut down.
According to the Sunday Times, Ofsted closed down 11 nurseries and childminders last year, and suspended a further 30. Maybe these were shabby establishments – who knows? But we should remember what we are dealing with here. Childcare for very young children is, for the most part, privately owned and privately funded by the parents. It is also very scarce: unlike the state school system from primary education onwards, where a place does exist for every child somewhere, there is no guarantee that parents wanting daycare for their pre-schoolers will be able to get it.
Daycare isn’t even publicly funded, unlike schools. This begs two questions. What business has Ofsted, the body set up to inspect publicly-funded compulsory schooling, in inspecting private nurseries anyway? And if Ofsted doesn’t like what it sees, what is going to happen to those parents who rely on the childcare they, after all, have chosen?
It happens that the bureaucratisation and ‘nitpicking’ described by Olive Rack has coincided with an increasing expectation that women go back to full-time work after their children are born. So just at the point when there is a huge demand for daycare, the authorities seem hell-bent on making it less accessible, not more.
The shame of this is that there is a clear role for the government in the provision of childcare – greater subsidies, or even state-run nurseries, so that there are more places, which are more affordable for parents, and at the same time allowing nursery nurses, those very badly-paid unsung heroes of the childcare sector, to be paid more. It’s not rocket science. It’s just common sense.
Source
SCHOOLS: ANOTHER OF THE ENDLESS LEFTIST ATTEMPTS AT SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Measures to make all faith schools open their doors to children from other religions are to be considered in an attempt to break down barriers between communities. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, will announce today that he plans to look at the intakes of existing religious schools as part of a review of the admissions code for schools. He will tell a conference that plans to require new faith schools to admit a quarter of pupils from a non-faith background are "a start". The next step by the Government will be to apply the principle behind this move to the much larger number of existing church and other faith schools, he will say.
In remarks likely to alarm supporters of faith schools, Mr Johnson will say in his speech: "Young minds are free from prejudice and discrimination, so schools are in a unique position to prevent social division. Schools should cross ethnic and religious boundaries, and certainly not increase them, or exacerbate difficulties in sensitive areas."
Last night the Government confirmed its intention to require new faith schools to ensure that 25 per cent of their intake is made up of pupils from a different religious denomination or none, where there is local demand for this.
Mr Johnson will go farther today in a speech to the National Children and Adult Services Conference at Brighton, according to advance extracts of his speech released by a government source. Mr Johnson will refer to the 25 per cent target for all new faith schools. But he will then add: "This important principle is a start. Through the consultation on the new admissions code, we should explore whether there is more we can do by encouraging existing faith schools to further promote community cohesion, as I know they themselves are keen to do." Ideas he will propose are exchange programmes for teachers, under which they would go into schools of different denominations, to expose teachers and children to the "ethos and approach of different faiths".
A review of citizenship classes as part of the national curriculum, which is due to report in December, will also form part of this process. But Mr Johnson will indicate that he expects independent schools, too, to do more to co-operate with non-faith schools in their area as a condition of charitable status.
His remarks come amid signs of growing opposition to the Government's approach among faith schools, which account for about one third of state schools in Britain, with the great majority, 6,400 out of 7,000, in the primary sector. The Church of England, whose schools teach 940,000 children, has already announced plans to give priority to non-Anglican children for a quarter of places in any new schools, but it said that government action on existing schools was unnecessary. "Church of England schools are already deliberately inclusive, as well as distinctive," a spokesman said. "The provision of church schools across the country is fairly patchy. The local conditions and communities they serve can be quite different from one part of the country to the next. A one-size-fits-all solution would not be appropriate."
Archbishop Vincent Nichols, chairman of the Catholic Education Services, said: "We are vehemently opposed to the imposition of quotas on Catholic schools. It will mean turning away Catholics and could well lead to more division." The Board of Deputies of British Jews has expressed similar concerns that a quota could prevent Jewish children from attending Jewish schools
Source
The real world of "gun free" Britain: "A [black?] girl of 14 has been charged with conspiring to supply machineguns to London crime gangs. The girl, who cannot be named because of her age, was one of four people arrested by detectives from Operation Trident which specialises in black on black gun crime. She is being held in juvenile custody today. The arrests came after a weekend of gun violence across London in which two men were shot dead and four others were injured. One man was shot in the face at close range in Harlesden and another died after a shoot-out at an illegal gambling club frequented by Albanians in Park Royal. A third man, described as an innocent passer-by, is critically ill after another nightclub shooting. The 14-year-old, from Colindale, was charged along with two youths and a 31-year-old woman. She is accused of conspiring to supply two revolvers and two machineguns - including a Mach 10 known as "spray and pray" which is a favourite weapon of Yardiestyle [Jamaican] gangsters. The girl is also accused of three charges of possession of prohibited weapons and three counts of possessing ammunition. A 16-year-old youth was charged with possession of a revolver with intent to endanger life, as well as possessing crack cocaine, cannabis and five CS sprays. Korrey Johnson-Bell, 18, was charged with possessing a Mach 10. The 31-year-old woman, Genevieve Shah, was also charged with conspiring to supply two revolvers, a Mach 10 and another unidentified machine pistol, as well as possession of three prohibited weapons and ammunition".
Leftist voting fraud in Britain: "Britain is to be investigated for the first time by the Council of Europe for alleged human rights breaches because of concerns over postal voting fraud. Scandals arising from Tony Blair's strategy to improve turnouts by giving everybody the right to vote by post risk placing Britain in the same league as newly toppled dictatorships. Bridget Prentice, the Constitutional Affairs Minister who has just steered an anti-fraud Bill through Parliament, reacted angrily, saying that the move was unnecessary, unwarranted and unfair... The final straw for Britain was the decision by a judge last year that widespread voterigging by Labour in Birmingham's local elections "would disgrace a banana republic".
The NHS cannot cope with the huge increase in the number of organ transplants for which the Government has legislated, campaigners say. The National Kidney Federation and the All Party Parliamentary Kidney Group will call today for changes to the organ transplant system to take advantage of the Human Tissue Act, which came into effect last month. Reforms could double the number of kidney patients receiving transplants each year and abolish the waiting list of 6,000, campaigners say. But a shortage of surgeons and nurses means that the effects of the Act are limited.
Britain has 24 transplant centres, which should each have five surgeons - 120 in total. The actual number of specialist transplant surgeons is 86, the federation says. There are 12 full-time transplant co-ordinators - specialist nurses who give advice to patients and relatives; there should be at least 40.
About half of organs are unused as a result of relatives refusing permission. The Act, which states that relatives do not have a right to veto the expressed wishes of a donor, and should not be invited to do so, was intended at least to double Britain's rate of organ donation, currently the lowest in Western Europe. Doctors will still be expected to respect the preferences and religious wishes of families, experts said. Tim Statham, chief executive of the federation, said: "Despite the provisions of the Act, we do not expect surgeons to now ignore the strongly held wishes of relatives."
However, an increase in the availability of organs, and in the time for testing, identification and monitoring of suitable donors and transplant patients, would put stresses on the capacity of surgeons and transplant centres, he said. According to the federation, about 800 potential donor organs are lost each year from donors in whom the heart has stopped. In other cases, donors are "brain-dead". Until recently non-heartbeating donors had not been considered an appropriate source of organs.
The report, published today, calls on the Government to monitor the effect of legislation on transplant success. Anthony Warrens, of the Royal Society of Medicine, said: "At a time of deep emotional stress, when relatives have lost a loved one, it is understandable that a person may refuse permission to donate a much needed organ from their relative. This is often a decision they come to regret."
The NHS is cancelling more than 620 operations a day because of administrative errors, it was claimed last night. Mistakes such as failing to book operating theatres or to inform patients of the date resulted in about 162,500 procedures being abandoned last year. The Conservative MP Grant Shapps has used Freedom of Information laws to request data from trusts in England and Wales
Source
BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHY HYSTERIA SPREADS TO FOOTBALL
Anything to upset ordinary people
Families were banned from taking photographs of their teenage sons playing football after a referee said that they were breaking child protection rules. The under-15s match was stopped three times and the teams warned that they would be deducted points if the 150 parents did not stop taking photographs or using their video cameras. The order followed widespread bans by schools and youth clubs preventing parents from recording plays and concerts, sports days and awards' presentations.
The referee of Sunday's match between Ashford Borough FC and Folkestone Invicta FC told parents that they could only photograph players if they had the written permission of every parent whose son was on the pitch. Alan Sleator, a spectator, was taking photos of his 14-year-old son Laurie during the first half of the game in Ashford, Kent, when he was upbraided by the referee. Mr Sleator, a 50-year-old PR executive, who drove 90 miles to watch the game, said: "He came charging up to me and I got a right dressing down. He said, `You can't take photographs, it's child protection.' Someone else was taking photographs and he did the same thing." The third time the referee spotted another parent brandishing a camera, during the second half, he halted the game for ten minutes.
Mr Sleator said: "He called both managers into the centre of the pitch and told them that if anyone in the crowd took any more photographs without his permission he would abandon the match and deduct points from both teams. "He instructed managers to confiscate cameras. I turned away and admitted defeat. Declaring parents who take photographs of their own kids to be criminals is hardly a great way to build the grass roots of the game." The match ended with Asford winning 3-2.
Bob Dix, chairman of Folkestone Invicta FC, said that he knew nothing about the guidelines and neither, according to parents, did football league officials attending neighbouring games on Sunday. Mr Dix said: "Most people who go to youth games are family or friends and many of them take pictures or videos. You see [David] Beckham and [Ashley] Cole's parents showing off videos of them playing when they were boys." The Football Association said that there were no rules preventing parents from taking pictures of youth matches. "We have issued guidance, not rules, that parents should try not to take individual pictures of children who are not their own and should record action shots and group shots."
Keith Masters, chief executive of the Kent Football Association, said: "There is no reason why the parents could not take photographs. I have spoken to the referee and explained this to him. He said that he was told to do this when he attended a child protection course."
The National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations said last year that headteachers should ban cameras and videos from school events unless all families have given permission for their children to be filmed.
Source
BRITISH CORRECTNESS PROTECTS TERRORISTS
The escape of two terror suspects under control orders is as embarrassing to the Home Office as it is bewildering to the public. The men cannot be named, though one is understood to be an Iraqi and the other a Briton of Pakistani origin. The Government has refused to say why they are dangerous, or how or when they escaped, and will not give details that could alert the public, even though officials reportedly regard the Iraqi as a serious risk. The public has not been told whether police are seeking the men, whether the Home Office is to carry out a review or what is being done to ensure effective surveillance of the other former internees in Belmarsh prison who are also subject to control orders....
Since none of the 15 suspects has been charged, the Government has insisted that they cannot be named. And it is this insistence on anonymity that has greatly confused the issue. Lawyers argue that naming the men or giving any details of them would brand them as guilty. The Government therefore did not announce that they had escaped. Breaching a control order is in itself a crime. But although they are now fugitives from justice, it will still not name them. This certainly does not make it any easier to recapture them.
The obsession with anonymity is meant to protect the suspects' human rights and to ensure that any future trial is not prejudiced. Judges insist that there should be no public discussion of this or of the charges and substance of other current terror trials - many mired in delays and legal wrangling - lest this prejudice juries. The principle is admirable; the practice is absurd. Details of the control order cases are freely available on the internet. So too is most of the information banned from publication about other terrorist suspects. Ignorance may be no excuse, but this is an excuse for ignorance.
It is a basic principle of British law that justice should be seen to be done. This has become a casualty of terrorism. The only way out, ultimately, is to admit wiretapping evidence in court and to charge terrorist suspects or deport them.
Source
Get the inspectors out of British nurseries
Government regulation of childcare is making life difficult for parents, children and carers
What do you want from your child’s nursery? A secure, affectionate environment run by people who know and like children, or a bureaucratic hell-hole where you are kept neatly updated with your toddler’s educational progress, by a coterie of highly-qualified staff who keep the kids at arm’s length and react to a high temperature or a display of bad behaviour by picking up the phone and telling you to come and get them?
For most parents, I would imagine this is a rhetorical question. When you drop off your little children at their nursery or childminder (mine are five months old, and two-and-a-bit), you don’t want them to come home able to count to 100. You want to know that they will have fun, not just be safe; that when they fall, they will be somehow comforted; that when they misbehave, they will be somehow reprimanded; and that when they become suddenly ill – as children do – they will be given something to help them.
But for the authorities, it seems like quite a different set of criteria apply. Childcare is under increasing pressure to change its priorities, so that box-ticking and back-covering count for more than confidence and common sense. Vetted to within an inch of their lives, subjected to all manner of formal inspections, and expected to play the combined role of schoolteacher, social worker, child psychologist and hyper-efficient bureaucrat, those young women who used to be called ‘nursery nurses’, who worked with children just because they liked them and were good at the job, are burdened under a whole load of contradictory expectations. Isn’t it time someone put a stop to this nonsense?
Enter Olive Rack. On 26 September this year, magistrates cleared Mrs Rack, a nursery owner for over 20 years, after being accused by two council inspectors of assault. Her ‘crime’? She disciplined a toddler – who had just hit a baby on the head - by leading her by the arm and putting her on a ‘naughty chair’. The toddler’s mother had agreed with Rack’s actions; the inspectors did not, and Rack was consequently suspended for a year (1). Now she has been vindicated, and the case has sparked some welcome discussion about the daftness of various childcare regulations: everything from refusing to allow nurseries to dispense Calpol or cough medicine without prescription or prior written consent, to the incompatibility of concerns about touching children with the basic need to change nappies and give them a cuddle.
‘Since I opened in 1987 the red tape and regulations have grown. There are more and more rules, to the point where they are actually strangling the nurseries. It’s certainly detrimental to the children, it’s spread to their lives as well,’ Rack told the Sunday Times (2). It turns out that she first clashed with inspectors more than a decade ago, by refusing to demote one of her staff who had no formal childcare qualifications: ‘She was brilliant at her job but in the end she lost confidence because of all the nitpicking,’ says Rack.
These are good points well made; and the ‘PC gone mad’ element of childcare bureaucracy, upon which much of the commentary has focused (3), is certainly due a trouncing. But the problem goes deeper than red tape and accreditation-mania. The formalisation of childcare is steadily undermining the confidence and trust that is essential for parents, children and childcarers alike.
As an example: my children’s nursery recently underwent an Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) inspection, and it was a gruelling thing to watch. Suddenly, staff working in this lovely, warm, relaxed environment were put on edge, their spontaneous confidence dulled by the scrutiny. After dropping off my baby and toddler on day two, the inspector ‘canvassed’ me at the door. Did I know my children’s key-worker? Was I familiar with the complaints procedure? Did I think anything could be improved?
As I talked about how brilliant the nursery was, her eyes glazed over – and I suppose this was no surprise. Because there is no space in these formal procedures for indicating the positive, intangible things you really value about your children’s nursery: the easy affection and no-nonsense approach of the staff; that if they phone you to request more nappies, the first thing they tell you is that your kids are fine, so you don’t visualise them being rushed to the hospital; that ‘compress and cuddle’ is given as a treatment for a minor tumble.
Indeed, many of the things that we parents so value when leaving our little children in the care of a nursery or childminder are now increasingly seen as suspicious, and in need of further documentation and procedure. This undermines childcare staff, who do a brilliant job for little money; it threatens to have a bad impact on the children, who at that age need confidence and cuddles like nothing else; and it is an insult to us, the parents. We don’t need an Ofsted report to tell us what our children’s nursery or childminder is like – we see it day in, day out, and if we don’t like something we deal with it. When official inspectors come through the door, it is as though we are being judged too. The upshot of all this is to create an environment that is tense at best, with everybody encouraged to second-guess what they should be doing, rather than just focusing on looking after the kids.
What purpose is served by this regulation? The authorities would argue that this ever-tighter process of inspection and standard-setting is for the benefit of the parents – that it will help us to have confidence that our children are receiving ‘quality’ care. But aside from the fact that parents may not share Ofsted’s standards, in its own terms this process is flawed. ‘Good’ nurseries and childminders that pass the test are put on the defensive by the inspection process, and forced to adopt policies and procedures with which they may not agree. In other words, doing well at inspection is no protection. And those that don’t pass? They just get shut down.
According to the Sunday Times, Ofsted closed down 11 nurseries and childminders last year, and suspended a further 30. Maybe these were shabby establishments – who knows? But we should remember what we are dealing with here. Childcare for very young children is, for the most part, privately owned and privately funded by the parents. It is also very scarce: unlike the state school system from primary education onwards, where a place does exist for every child somewhere, there is no guarantee that parents wanting daycare for their pre-schoolers will be able to get it.
Daycare isn’t even publicly funded, unlike schools. This begs two questions. What business has Ofsted, the body set up to inspect publicly-funded compulsory schooling, in inspecting private nurseries anyway? And if Ofsted doesn’t like what it sees, what is going to happen to those parents who rely on the childcare they, after all, have chosen?
It happens that the bureaucratisation and ‘nitpicking’ described by Olive Rack has coincided with an increasing expectation that women go back to full-time work after their children are born. So just at the point when there is a huge demand for daycare, the authorities seem hell-bent on making it less accessible, not more.
The shame of this is that there is a clear role for the government in the provision of childcare – greater subsidies, or even state-run nurseries, so that there are more places, which are more affordable for parents, and at the same time allowing nursery nurses, those very badly-paid unsung heroes of the childcare sector, to be paid more. It’s not rocket science. It’s just common sense.
Source
SCHOOLS: ANOTHER OF THE ENDLESS LEFTIST ATTEMPTS AT SOCIAL ENGINEERING
Measures to make all faith schools open their doors to children from other religions are to be considered in an attempt to break down barriers between communities. Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, will announce today that he plans to look at the intakes of existing religious schools as part of a review of the admissions code for schools. He will tell a conference that plans to require new faith schools to admit a quarter of pupils from a non-faith background are "a start". The next step by the Government will be to apply the principle behind this move to the much larger number of existing church and other faith schools, he will say.
In remarks likely to alarm supporters of faith schools, Mr Johnson will say in his speech: "Young minds are free from prejudice and discrimination, so schools are in a unique position to prevent social division. Schools should cross ethnic and religious boundaries, and certainly not increase them, or exacerbate difficulties in sensitive areas."
Last night the Government confirmed its intention to require new faith schools to ensure that 25 per cent of their intake is made up of pupils from a different religious denomination or none, where there is local demand for this.
Mr Johnson will go farther today in a speech to the National Children and Adult Services Conference at Brighton, according to advance extracts of his speech released by a government source. Mr Johnson will refer to the 25 per cent target for all new faith schools. But he will then add: "This important principle is a start. Through the consultation on the new admissions code, we should explore whether there is more we can do by encouraging existing faith schools to further promote community cohesion, as I know they themselves are keen to do." Ideas he will propose are exchange programmes for teachers, under which they would go into schools of different denominations, to expose teachers and children to the "ethos and approach of different faiths".
A review of citizenship classes as part of the national curriculum, which is due to report in December, will also form part of this process. But Mr Johnson will indicate that he expects independent schools, too, to do more to co-operate with non-faith schools in their area as a condition of charitable status.
His remarks come amid signs of growing opposition to the Government's approach among faith schools, which account for about one third of state schools in Britain, with the great majority, 6,400 out of 7,000, in the primary sector. The Church of England, whose schools teach 940,000 children, has already announced plans to give priority to non-Anglican children for a quarter of places in any new schools, but it said that government action on existing schools was unnecessary. "Church of England schools are already deliberately inclusive, as well as distinctive," a spokesman said. "The provision of church schools across the country is fairly patchy. The local conditions and communities they serve can be quite different from one part of the country to the next. A one-size-fits-all solution would not be appropriate."
Archbishop Vincent Nichols, chairman of the Catholic Education Services, said: "We are vehemently opposed to the imposition of quotas on Catholic schools. It will mean turning away Catholics and could well lead to more division." The Board of Deputies of British Jews has expressed similar concerns that a quota could prevent Jewish children from attending Jewish schools
Source
The real world of "gun free" Britain: "A [black?] girl of 14 has been charged with conspiring to supply machineguns to London crime gangs. The girl, who cannot be named because of her age, was one of four people arrested by detectives from Operation Trident which specialises in black on black gun crime. She is being held in juvenile custody today. The arrests came after a weekend of gun violence across London in which two men were shot dead and four others were injured. One man was shot in the face at close range in Harlesden and another died after a shoot-out at an illegal gambling club frequented by Albanians in Park Royal. A third man, described as an innocent passer-by, is critically ill after another nightclub shooting. The 14-year-old, from Colindale, was charged along with two youths and a 31-year-old woman. She is accused of conspiring to supply two revolvers and two machineguns - including a Mach 10 known as "spray and pray" which is a favourite weapon of Yardiestyle [Jamaican] gangsters. The girl is also accused of three charges of possession of prohibited weapons and three counts of possessing ammunition. A 16-year-old youth was charged with possession of a revolver with intent to endanger life, as well as possessing crack cocaine, cannabis and five CS sprays. Korrey Johnson-Bell, 18, was charged with possessing a Mach 10. The 31-year-old woman, Genevieve Shah, was also charged with conspiring to supply two revolvers, a Mach 10 and another unidentified machine pistol, as well as possession of three prohibited weapons and ammunition".
Leftist voting fraud in Britain: "Britain is to be investigated for the first time by the Council of Europe for alleged human rights breaches because of concerns over postal voting fraud. Scandals arising from Tony Blair's strategy to improve turnouts by giving everybody the right to vote by post risk placing Britain in the same league as newly toppled dictatorships. Bridget Prentice, the Constitutional Affairs Minister who has just steered an anti-fraud Bill through Parliament, reacted angrily, saying that the move was unnecessary, unwarranted and unfair... The final straw for Britain was the decision by a judge last year that widespread voterigging by Labour in Birmingham's local elections "would disgrace a banana republic".
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
NHS centres 'rationing consultant visits'
New centres that "screen" patient referrals from GPs to hospital consultants are being used by the NHS to ration health care by stealth, say medical professionals. More than a third of primary care trusts (PCTs) have established "referral management centres" that, critics say, are preventing patients from seeing the doctor of their choice and in some cases are prolonging waiting times in order to save cash. In one case, GPs found thousands of referral letters stashed in a cupboard for weeks.
Patients' groups and doctors' leaders say the referral schemes, which are sanctioned by the Department of Health, are creating another tier of NHS bureaucracy and could actually harm people's health. GPs say some centres are refusing to let patients see consultants sooner than the Government's outpatient target of 13 weeks. This limits the number of appointments in any one year - saving the PCT money. In some trusts, people are being sent back to their GPs by doctors employed by referral centres, who decide they are not sick enough to warrant a hospital consultation. In a survey carried out by the medical magazine Pulse, 10 per cent of all PCTs admitted they had a specific target to cut GP referrals.
When patients in Milton Keynes started complaining of long delays, their GPs investigated. Milton Keynes PCT had set up a referral management centre, which was meant to scrutinise all referrals in order to speed access and ensure patients got the right treatment. But Dr Peter Berkin and colleagues discovered a backlog of more than 2,000 letters locked in a cupboard by the centre's secretaries until just short of the 13-week waiting-time target. "It got really scary," said Dr Berkin. "There were cases that could have been very serious and needed to see a consultant quickly. We were horrified. The decisions were taken by secretarial staff, not doctors." A spokesman for Milton Keynes PCT admitted there was a backlog, but said it had mostly been dealt with.
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "These centres are springing up all over the place, but who's monitoring what they're up to? It seems to be another way of rationing patient care by stealth." Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs' committee, said: "There is considerable concern among doctors. Where clinicians have been involved, things may be working well, but in other places there has been no effective consultation and it seems the main intention is to cut costs. This is potentially harmful to patients' health."
A Department of Health official said referral centres were a "local initiative" by PCTs, but national guidance had been issued on running them. "They must only be set up where they will have clinical benefits and should add value to patient services. They should not conflict with giving patients more choice [and] must not lengthen the patient journey or create 'hidden' waiting times."
Source
CRAP BRITISH SCHOOLS
Almost a million children in England are being let down by poor teaching and inadequate leadership in hundreds of under-performing schools, according to an influential committee of MPs. In spite of the Government spending almost 900 million pounds on schemes to raise achievement levels, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) estimates that last year as many as 1,557 schools, including one in six secondaries, were failing to provide a decent education.
The report comes as Ofsted figures reveal today that the number of schools judged to be failing or requiring "significant improvement" had risen by more than 11 per cent in the past year, from 587 schools in August 2005 to 654 schools this year. At the same time, double the number of inadequate schools were closed in August compared with last. Head teachers and teaching unions reacted angrily to the "misleading and damaging" report, which they said did not give a true reflection of education in today's schools.
With almost one in seven schoolchildren being denied a quality education, Edward Leigh, chairman of the PAC, said that the long-term consequences for Britain's future were severe. "Nearly one million children in England attend schools that, according to government definitions, are providing a poor standard of education," he said. "To waste so much potential in this way is a tragedy." The Tory MP insisted that the "signs of decline" needed to be picked up early and dealt with swiftly. He voiced concern, too, over the lack of data by which to judge primary schools, amid fears that poor performers were slipping through the net.
Having examined trends in poorly performing schools over 2004-05, the 59th PAC report identified strong leadership, honest self-evaluation and collaboration with successful schools as key to raising standards. While accepting that fewer schools are weak or failing than were six years ago, the committee noted that more schools are missing the Government's baseline GCSE targets.
In 2004, the Government denoted "low-attaining" secondary schools as those where less than a fifth of children achieved five A*-C GCSEs. In 2005 40 schools failed this GCSE benchmark. While the MPs agree that poor-performing schools should receive more attention than high-performers, they give warning that weak heads often fail to give an honest assessment of their performance. "Of the schools inspected during the autumn 2005 term, only three judged their leadership and management to be `inadequate'. However, 85 schools were placed in special measures, indicating that Ofsted judged leadership and management to be weak in a much higher number," the report said. While leadership is clearly key to raising morale and the ethos of a school, the MPs also note that in spite of offering salaries of up to 100,000 pounds, schools are finding it increasingly difficult to replace them.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister said the report had exaggerated the number of failing schools. "A significant proportion of these schools are not failing. In some, 60 to 70 per cent of pupils get five good GCSEs and many others are improving very quickly," he said. John Dunford, general-secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders denounced the report as "misleading and damaging". He said: "Let us be clear about the current situation. Even though Ofsted has raised the bar for inspections, only 54 secondary schools out of 3,500 are in special measures. "Of the other schools cited as `low attaining', many have good value-added scores for very weak intakes. They are certainly not failing."
Source
Asbestos: The BBC loves a Greenie scam
Imagine that a very experienced, knowledgeable and brave whistleblower sets out to expose a commercial racket that is ripping off businesses and members of the public to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, and which a government agency, despite being supplied with factual evidence, does nothing to stop. If a leading BBC "consumer affairs" programme learned about this story, might one not expect it to throw all its resources into exposing the racket?
It might seem odd that, using evidence supplied by the very people who are behind the scam, the BBC would instead pull out all the stops to discredit the whistleblower. Yet such is the bizarre situation that will arise this Wednesday, when Radio Four's You and Yours programme attempts to sabotage the four-year campaign waged by Prof John Bridle, Britain's leading practical asbestos expert, to expose the malpractices of many firms in the asbestos industry. This column has supported Bridle's crusade since 2002, when the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) proposed new asbestos regulations that, on its own original figures, would cost 8 billion pounds. Introduced to me by the Federation of Small Businesses, Bridle explained how these regulations were so seriously flawed that they would open the door to shameless exploitation by many of the firms to which the HSE gave the exclusive right to handle asbestos.
When I checked this out with some of the leading asbestos scientists in this country, they not only endorsed what he was saying but said they were enthusiastically behind his campaign. Such support did it win from members of the public, not least readers of this column, that Bridle set up Asbestos Watchdog, a company dedicated to giving honest advice to the ever larger number of people who were victims of the racket.
So powerful was Bridle's case that Asbestos Watchdog was given the HSE's official support, and on November 26 2004 was appointed by Bill Macdonald, the HSE's head of asbestos policy, as an official "stakeholder" to advise on policy. One leading asbestos company was so alarmed by the practices rife in the industry that it even gave Asbestos Watchdog significant financial backing.
But so vast were the sums now at stake that there have recently been clear signs of a concerted move by the powerful "anti-asbestos lobby" to silence Bridle. One of their greatest successes to date has been winning the support of the You and Yours team. Fortunately, the programme has informed him of 18 of the charges they plan to throw at him, all of which have been levelled before by different branches of the anti-asbestos lobby. It is hard to believe that the BBC will be so reckless as to repeat them (when he offered documentary evidence to refute their charges, one journalist said they were so confident they were right that this was not necessary).
Some charges are laughable, such as that Bridle falsely claims to have been made in 2005 an honorary professor of the prestigious Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Confirmed by the academy's official certificate, this was widely reported in Russia at the time as the first occasion on which anyone had been so honoured.
The BBC charges him with falsely claiming to have advised the Conservative Party leadership. Yet in 2002 when, after a briefing from Bridle, Iain Duncan Smith, then the party's leader, wrote to the Government asking for the regulations to be delayed until they could be debated by Parliament, Bridle (and I) gave extensive written and verbal briefings to John Bercow, the front-bench Tory spokesman who led the debate, as You and Yours could have confirmed by consulting Hansard.
The BBC denies that Asbestos Watchdog, much to the rage of the asbestos industry, has saved businesses and homeowners tens of millions of pounds by advising how asbestos work could legally and safely be carried out for a fraction of the sums they had been quoted by contractors, as I have reported here (not least because many of the beneficiaries were readers of The Sunday Telegraph). The BBC did not even want to look at the evidence.
The central point on which the whole asbestos scam rests, as You and Yours seems unable to grasp, is the confusion, now made worse by some very bad law, between two completely different minerals, both passing under the general but unscientific term "asbestos". One includes the genuinely dangerous blue and brown forms (amphiboles with sharp metallic fibres that, remaining in the lungs, can cause cancer). The other, very much commoner, "white asbestos" (chrysotile, the soft silky fibres of which dissolve in the lungs within 15 days) is usually encapsulated in cement or textured coatings, from which it is virtually impossible to extract a single fibre. Yet it is on the sleight of hand allowing the dangers of one mineral to be attributed to the other that huge sums of money are now being made by those who play on public fear and ignorance, a commercial racket the HSE does nothing to stop.
Itself a victim of this confusion, the BBC seems desperate to pin on Bridle the damning charge that he claims that "white asbestos is harmless". Yet he is always scrupulously careful to cite the most comprehensive review yet conducted of the scientific literature (Hoskins and Lange 2004) as showing that white cement products pose "no measurable risk to health". Instead of falling for such distortions and untruths, the BBC team should be asking why they plan to give credence to the most disgraceful commercial racket flourishing in Britain today.
Source
THE VICTIM INDUSTRY
And there is no group suffering official discrimination like white middle-class males do
The vast majority of people in Britain are officially oppressed, according to a report that claims we have become a "nation of victims". The study calculates that 73 per cent of Britons are members of officially recognised "victim groups", including the disabled, women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals. Each group is given government support, including protective legislation. The report, We're (Nearly) All Victims Now, by the socially conservative think- tank Civitas, gives warning that the rise of a "victimocracy" undermines democracy because people are no longer considered equal under law.
"We have become a nation of victims," it says. "Victimhood today is a political status that is sought after because of the advantages it brings, including preferential treatment in the workplace, the possibility of using police power to silence unwelcome critics, and financial compensation. To be classified as a victim is to be given a special political status, which has no necessary connection with real hardship or oppression."
In October next year the Government is setting up the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which merges the disability, race and equal opportunities commissions.
Many people, such as black women, are victims of so-called multiple discrimination. The report uses official figures to strip out the overlapping groups to calculate that nearly three quarters of people belong to one category or other. The biggest oppressed group is women, who constitute 51 per cent of the population and are protected by a range of legislation covering discrimination, equal pay and domestic violence. Ethnic minority men amount to 4 per cent; white disabled men 11 per cent; white male pensioners 5 per cent; and white, gay, able-bodied men, 2 per cent.
The report attacks the increasing tendency to judge crimes as more serious if they are committed against official victims - so-called hate crimes. Police have been encouraged to give priority to such cases, which the Civitas report says is undermining equality under the law. It cites the trial this year of the killers of Jody Dobrowski, a barman murdered on Clapham Common, South London, in October last year. Jailing the two men for 28 years, the judge said that the sentence would have been halved if they had not voiced any opposition to the victim's sexuality. "Is animosity to gays a worse motive than, for example, a calculated killing to silence a witness?" it asks.
It also states that claiming official victim status enables groups to silence critics, often using taking offence as a political tactic. The benefits of taking offence are so great in any debate, that it has encouraged the growth of "increasing touchiness" in Britain. However, the report gives warning that seeking victim status can harm the victims, denying them personal responsibility by always blaming others and undermining their self-respect
Source
FISH ARE GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU, GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU .......
Pregnant women have been warned against consuming too much oily fish, as scientists believe it may increase the risk of delivering the baby too early. Researchers told New Scientist magazine the harm is probably caused by high mercury levels in oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines. However, experts warn that it is still important to eat at least two portions of fish a week. Indeed, studies indicate that eating enough fish can boost the birth weight and brainpower of babies and help prevent premature labour in pregnant women.
Species, such as shark, marlin and swordfish should be avoided though, because they are particularly high in mercury and other pollutants, according to a BBC report. Girls, women who are breastfeeding and those trying for a baby should eat two portions of oily fish per week, and other women, men and boys, can eat up to four portions.
The latest work in New Scientist, also published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at 1,024 pregnant women living in Michigan, the US. Dr Fei Xue and colleagues measured the amount of mercury these women had in their hair and compared this with the date that the women delivered their babies. The women who gave birth more than two weeks early were three times as likely to have double the average mercury level in their hair samples. On the whole, these women also tended to eat more oily fish, and particularly canned fish. Only 44 of the women gave birth prematurely, however, and the researchers said more work was needed to corroborate their findings.
They also pointed out that the women were asked to recall how much fish they had eaten, which might be inaccurate. It is also possible that the women could have been exposed to mercury from other sources too, they said.
Source
("If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no room for tinkers". I hope there are still some people who understand that old saying. No product of a "modern" education would, of course)
New centres that "screen" patient referrals from GPs to hospital consultants are being used by the NHS to ration health care by stealth, say medical professionals. More than a third of primary care trusts (PCTs) have established "referral management centres" that, critics say, are preventing patients from seeing the doctor of their choice and in some cases are prolonging waiting times in order to save cash. In one case, GPs found thousands of referral letters stashed in a cupboard for weeks.
Patients' groups and doctors' leaders say the referral schemes, which are sanctioned by the Department of Health, are creating another tier of NHS bureaucracy and could actually harm people's health. GPs say some centres are refusing to let patients see consultants sooner than the Government's outpatient target of 13 weeks. This limits the number of appointments in any one year - saving the PCT money. In some trusts, people are being sent back to their GPs by doctors employed by referral centres, who decide they are not sick enough to warrant a hospital consultation. In a survey carried out by the medical magazine Pulse, 10 per cent of all PCTs admitted they had a specific target to cut GP referrals.
When patients in Milton Keynes started complaining of long delays, their GPs investigated. Milton Keynes PCT had set up a referral management centre, which was meant to scrutinise all referrals in order to speed access and ensure patients got the right treatment. But Dr Peter Berkin and colleagues discovered a backlog of more than 2,000 letters locked in a cupboard by the centre's secretaries until just short of the 13-week waiting-time target. "It got really scary," said Dr Berkin. "There were cases that could have been very serious and needed to see a consultant quickly. We were horrified. The decisions were taken by secretarial staff, not doctors." A spokesman for Milton Keynes PCT admitted there was a backlog, but said it had mostly been dealt with.
Katherine Murphy, of the Patients' Association, said: "These centres are springing up all over the place, but who's monitoring what they're up to? It seems to be another way of rationing patient care by stealth." Dr Hamish Meldrum, chairman of the British Medical Association's GPs' committee, said: "There is considerable concern among doctors. Where clinicians have been involved, things may be working well, but in other places there has been no effective consultation and it seems the main intention is to cut costs. This is potentially harmful to patients' health."
A Department of Health official said referral centres were a "local initiative" by PCTs, but national guidance had been issued on running them. "They must only be set up where they will have clinical benefits and should add value to patient services. They should not conflict with giving patients more choice [and] must not lengthen the patient journey or create 'hidden' waiting times."
Source
CRAP BRITISH SCHOOLS
Almost a million children in England are being let down by poor teaching and inadequate leadership in hundreds of under-performing schools, according to an influential committee of MPs. In spite of the Government spending almost 900 million pounds on schemes to raise achievement levels, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) estimates that last year as many as 1,557 schools, including one in six secondaries, were failing to provide a decent education.
The report comes as Ofsted figures reveal today that the number of schools judged to be failing or requiring "significant improvement" had risen by more than 11 per cent in the past year, from 587 schools in August 2005 to 654 schools this year. At the same time, double the number of inadequate schools were closed in August compared with last. Head teachers and teaching unions reacted angrily to the "misleading and damaging" report, which they said did not give a true reflection of education in today's schools.
With almost one in seven schoolchildren being denied a quality education, Edward Leigh, chairman of the PAC, said that the long-term consequences for Britain's future were severe. "Nearly one million children in England attend schools that, according to government definitions, are providing a poor standard of education," he said. "To waste so much potential in this way is a tragedy." The Tory MP insisted that the "signs of decline" needed to be picked up early and dealt with swiftly. He voiced concern, too, over the lack of data by which to judge primary schools, amid fears that poor performers were slipping through the net.
Having examined trends in poorly performing schools over 2004-05, the 59th PAC report identified strong leadership, honest self-evaluation and collaboration with successful schools as key to raising standards. While accepting that fewer schools are weak or failing than were six years ago, the committee noted that more schools are missing the Government's baseline GCSE targets.
In 2004, the Government denoted "low-attaining" secondary schools as those where less than a fifth of children achieved five A*-C GCSEs. In 2005 40 schools failed this GCSE benchmark. While the MPs agree that poor-performing schools should receive more attention than high-performers, they give warning that weak heads often fail to give an honest assessment of their performance. "Of the schools inspected during the autumn 2005 term, only three judged their leadership and management to be `inadequate'. However, 85 schools were placed in special measures, indicating that Ofsted judged leadership and management to be weak in a much higher number," the report said. While leadership is clearly key to raising morale and the ethos of a school, the MPs also note that in spite of offering salaries of up to 100,000 pounds, schools are finding it increasingly difficult to replace them.
Jim Knight, the Schools Minister said the report had exaggerated the number of failing schools. "A significant proportion of these schools are not failing. In some, 60 to 70 per cent of pupils get five good GCSEs and many others are improving very quickly," he said. John Dunford, general-secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders denounced the report as "misleading and damaging". He said: "Let us be clear about the current situation. Even though Ofsted has raised the bar for inspections, only 54 secondary schools out of 3,500 are in special measures. "Of the other schools cited as `low attaining', many have good value-added scores for very weak intakes. They are certainly not failing."
Source
Asbestos: The BBC loves a Greenie scam
Imagine that a very experienced, knowledgeable and brave whistleblower sets out to expose a commercial racket that is ripping off businesses and members of the public to the tune of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, and which a government agency, despite being supplied with factual evidence, does nothing to stop. If a leading BBC "consumer affairs" programme learned about this story, might one not expect it to throw all its resources into exposing the racket?
It might seem odd that, using evidence supplied by the very people who are behind the scam, the BBC would instead pull out all the stops to discredit the whistleblower. Yet such is the bizarre situation that will arise this Wednesday, when Radio Four's You and Yours programme attempts to sabotage the four-year campaign waged by Prof John Bridle, Britain's leading practical asbestos expert, to expose the malpractices of many firms in the asbestos industry. This column has supported Bridle's crusade since 2002, when the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) proposed new asbestos regulations that, on its own original figures, would cost 8 billion pounds. Introduced to me by the Federation of Small Businesses, Bridle explained how these regulations were so seriously flawed that they would open the door to shameless exploitation by many of the firms to which the HSE gave the exclusive right to handle asbestos.
When I checked this out with some of the leading asbestos scientists in this country, they not only endorsed what he was saying but said they were enthusiastically behind his campaign. Such support did it win from members of the public, not least readers of this column, that Bridle set up Asbestos Watchdog, a company dedicated to giving honest advice to the ever larger number of people who were victims of the racket.
So powerful was Bridle's case that Asbestos Watchdog was given the HSE's official support, and on November 26 2004 was appointed by Bill Macdonald, the HSE's head of asbestos policy, as an official "stakeholder" to advise on policy. One leading asbestos company was so alarmed by the practices rife in the industry that it even gave Asbestos Watchdog significant financial backing.
But so vast were the sums now at stake that there have recently been clear signs of a concerted move by the powerful "anti-asbestos lobby" to silence Bridle. One of their greatest successes to date has been winning the support of the You and Yours team. Fortunately, the programme has informed him of 18 of the charges they plan to throw at him, all of which have been levelled before by different branches of the anti-asbestos lobby. It is hard to believe that the BBC will be so reckless as to repeat them (when he offered documentary evidence to refute their charges, one journalist said they were so confident they were right that this was not necessary).
Some charges are laughable, such as that Bridle falsely claims to have been made in 2005 an honorary professor of the prestigious Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Confirmed by the academy's official certificate, this was widely reported in Russia at the time as the first occasion on which anyone had been so honoured.
The BBC charges him with falsely claiming to have advised the Conservative Party leadership. Yet in 2002 when, after a briefing from Bridle, Iain Duncan Smith, then the party's leader, wrote to the Government asking for the regulations to be delayed until they could be debated by Parliament, Bridle (and I) gave extensive written and verbal briefings to John Bercow, the front-bench Tory spokesman who led the debate, as You and Yours could have confirmed by consulting Hansard.
The BBC denies that Asbestos Watchdog, much to the rage of the asbestos industry, has saved businesses and homeowners tens of millions of pounds by advising how asbestos work could legally and safely be carried out for a fraction of the sums they had been quoted by contractors, as I have reported here (not least because many of the beneficiaries were readers of The Sunday Telegraph). The BBC did not even want to look at the evidence.
The central point on which the whole asbestos scam rests, as You and Yours seems unable to grasp, is the confusion, now made worse by some very bad law, between two completely different minerals, both passing under the general but unscientific term "asbestos". One includes the genuinely dangerous blue and brown forms (amphiboles with sharp metallic fibres that, remaining in the lungs, can cause cancer). The other, very much commoner, "white asbestos" (chrysotile, the soft silky fibres of which dissolve in the lungs within 15 days) is usually encapsulated in cement or textured coatings, from which it is virtually impossible to extract a single fibre. Yet it is on the sleight of hand allowing the dangers of one mineral to be attributed to the other that huge sums of money are now being made by those who play on public fear and ignorance, a commercial racket the HSE does nothing to stop.
Itself a victim of this confusion, the BBC seems desperate to pin on Bridle the damning charge that he claims that "white asbestos is harmless". Yet he is always scrupulously careful to cite the most comprehensive review yet conducted of the scientific literature (Hoskins and Lange 2004) as showing that white cement products pose "no measurable risk to health". Instead of falling for such distortions and untruths, the BBC team should be asking why they plan to give credence to the most disgraceful commercial racket flourishing in Britain today.
Source
THE VICTIM INDUSTRY
And there is no group suffering official discrimination like white middle-class males do
The vast majority of people in Britain are officially oppressed, according to a report that claims we have become a "nation of victims". The study calculates that 73 per cent of Britons are members of officially recognised "victim groups", including the disabled, women, ethnic minorities and homosexuals. Each group is given government support, including protective legislation. The report, We're (Nearly) All Victims Now, by the socially conservative think- tank Civitas, gives warning that the rise of a "victimocracy" undermines democracy because people are no longer considered equal under law.
"We have become a nation of victims," it says. "Victimhood today is a political status that is sought after because of the advantages it brings, including preferential treatment in the workplace, the possibility of using police power to silence unwelcome critics, and financial compensation. To be classified as a victim is to be given a special political status, which has no necessary connection with real hardship or oppression."
In October next year the Government is setting up the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, which merges the disability, race and equal opportunities commissions.
Many people, such as black women, are victims of so-called multiple discrimination. The report uses official figures to strip out the overlapping groups to calculate that nearly three quarters of people belong to one category or other. The biggest oppressed group is women, who constitute 51 per cent of the population and are protected by a range of legislation covering discrimination, equal pay and domestic violence. Ethnic minority men amount to 4 per cent; white disabled men 11 per cent; white male pensioners 5 per cent; and white, gay, able-bodied men, 2 per cent.
The report attacks the increasing tendency to judge crimes as more serious if they are committed against official victims - so-called hate crimes. Police have been encouraged to give priority to such cases, which the Civitas report says is undermining equality under the law. It cites the trial this year of the killers of Jody Dobrowski, a barman murdered on Clapham Common, South London, in October last year. Jailing the two men for 28 years, the judge said that the sentence would have been halved if they had not voiced any opposition to the victim's sexuality. "Is animosity to gays a worse motive than, for example, a calculated killing to silence a witness?" it asks.
It also states that claiming official victim status enables groups to silence critics, often using taking offence as a political tactic. The benefits of taking offence are so great in any debate, that it has encouraged the growth of "increasing touchiness" in Britain. However, the report gives warning that seeking victim status can harm the victims, denying them personal responsibility by always blaming others and undermining their self-respect
Source
FISH ARE GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU, GOOD FOR YOU, BAD FOR YOU .......
Pregnant women have been warned against consuming too much oily fish, as scientists believe it may increase the risk of delivering the baby too early. Researchers told New Scientist magazine the harm is probably caused by high mercury levels in oily fish such as mackerel, salmon and sardines. However, experts warn that it is still important to eat at least two portions of fish a week. Indeed, studies indicate that eating enough fish can boost the birth weight and brainpower of babies and help prevent premature labour in pregnant women.
Species, such as shark, marlin and swordfish should be avoided though, because they are particularly high in mercury and other pollutants, according to a BBC report. Girls, women who are breastfeeding and those trying for a baby should eat two portions of oily fish per week, and other women, men and boys, can eat up to four portions.
The latest work in New Scientist, also published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at 1,024 pregnant women living in Michigan, the US. Dr Fei Xue and colleagues measured the amount of mercury these women had in their hair and compared this with the date that the women delivered their babies. The women who gave birth more than two weeks early were three times as likely to have double the average mercury level in their hair samples. On the whole, these women also tended to eat more oily fish, and particularly canned fish. Only 44 of the women gave birth prematurely, however, and the researchers said more work was needed to corroborate their findings.
They also pointed out that the women were asked to recall how much fish they had eaten, which might be inaccurate. It is also possible that the women could have been exposed to mercury from other sources too, they said.
Source
("If ifs and ans were pots and pans, there'd be no room for tinkers". I hope there are still some people who understand that old saying. No product of a "modern" education would, of course)
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Scam, scam, scam and scam
Post lifted from Number Watch
Scam is a word that comes up with increasing frequently when the actions of (or promoted by) the UK Government are discussed. The headline in the print version of the Mail on Sunday was Great Speed Cam Scam (different in the online version). Regular number watchers will be familiar with this outrageous piece of covert taxation that subverts the system of justice to turn it into a collection service for the Treasury, covering up gross sources of inaccuracy in the process.
Christopher Booker’s main piece is headlined The BBC falls for the asbestos scam.
The crucial point about all of these scams is that they are a damaging drain on the economy. They absorb capital, labour and revenue. Thousands of businesses and ordinary householders are charged million of pounds for the removal of a harmless substance because it happens to share a common name with a quite different known carcinogen.
Here is a quote from Sorry, wrong number!
"Of the many gifts bestowed by the French on the Anglo-Saxons, bureaucracy must be the most potent. In Saxon times the learned and beneficent Alfred the Great could decree that half the revenues would go to education, and it was done. When the first English Kings reigned, the Treasury was just another department of the royal household, like the Wardrobe. Subsequent centuries would see a growth in the power and influence of the Treasury that is still continuing today."
That was six years ago. Thanks to the incompetence and insouciance of the Prime Minister in delegating domestic policy to his Chancellor, the Treasury has since made a great leap forward. Its tax and waste policies now dominate British Life. The biggest scam of all was one of Gordon Brown’s first moves, the raid on the private pensions system. It broke one of the golden rules of pensions policy by introducing double taxation. You get taxed when you put it in and taxed again when you take it out. So we have the front page headline in the Telegraph: Brown's raid on pensions costs Britain 100 billion pounds
This was more than just another of Brown’s money-making schemes. It was inspired by malice. There is a type of middle class socialist motivated by hatred of their own origins. They are developmentally retarded, still engaged in their teenage rebellion against their own fathers. Brown has cold bloodedly condemned millions of elderly people, who had the temerity to plan for their declining years, to end their lives in penury and despair, forced to sign up for his humiliating means testing. He has simply stolen their savings.
It is not just the money. He sent out a signal that the Government did not care about private sector pensions, so the whole industry virtually collapsed. Furthermore he singled out that sector of the population for swingeing taxation from local council and other imposts. Meanwhile public sector employees were guaranteed inflation proofed packages paid for out of the taxation of the rest.
Uniquely among chancellors he has left his successors with enormous, impossible burdens, such as the Private Finance Initiative, a form of hire purchase that will hog tie future finance minister for generations. He loves complexity and will only be satisfied when he has most of the population (though not, of course, New Labour supporting millionaires) entangled in the coils of his bureaucratic schemes.
Time was when finance ministers were just incompetent. This one is evil and he is the Prime Minister in waiting. Worst of all, if he gets to be Prime Minister he will have made himself the highest paid leader in the quasi-democratic world and a
multimillionaire by dint of his pension alone. It’s a sick, sick, sick world.
VEILED TEACHER CONTROVERSY
A British government minister joined an increasingly bitter debate about the rights of Muslim women to veil their faces, saying a teaching assistant should be fired for insisting on wearing one in school. Phil Woolas, the government's Race and Faith minister, was quoted by the Sunday Mirror newspaper as demanding that Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant, be fired for refusing to remove her veil at work. She should be sacked. She has put herself in a position where she can't do her job," Woolas said.
Azmi has refused to remove her black veil, which leaves only her eyes visible, in front of male colleagues. She was suspended from her job, but has taken her case to an industrial tribunal, a court that handles cases on employment law, which will make a decision in the next few weeks.
Azmi, who is 24 and has two children, has insisted that she had been willing to remove her veil in class, as long as there were no adult males present. "She is denying the right of children to a full education by insisting that she wears the veil. If she is saying that she won't work with men, she is taking away the right of men to work in school," Woolas said.
The debate on the veils began earlier this month, when Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary who now serves as leader of the House of Commons, said Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils. The opposition Conservatives also weighed in on the contentious issue, with one of the party's top officials accusing Muslim leaders of encouraging a "voluntary apartheid" that could help spawn homegrown terrorism.
David Davis, a top Conservative Party official, supported Straw for starting the debate. "What Jack touched on was the fundamental issue of whether in Britain we are developing a divided society," Davis told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "Whether we are inadvertently encouraging a kind of voluntary apartheid."
Prime Minister Tony Blair has praised Straw for raising the issue "in a measured and considered way," and urged Britons to engage in such discussions without "becoming hysterical."
Salman Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" once led to death threats against him by Islamic clerics, said last week that Straw "was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."
Nazir Ahmed, the House of Lords' first Muslim legislator, today joined the fray by criticizing British politicians and the media for "demonizing" the country's Muslim community. In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, Ahmed, a moderate lawmaker of the governing Labour Party, said: "Let's be honest, there are people in our community who call themselves Muslims who have been threatening our national security. It is very unfortunate. "But the problem is that the politicians and some people in the media have used this for demonization of entire communities, which has become a very fashionable thing today."
Source
Islamic militants face purge in British schools and universities
Minister will order police and councils to identify hotspots of extremism
Hotspots of Islamic extremism will be identified in schools, colleges and universities under government plans to be announced today. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, will defy growing anger from Islamic leaders by ordering police and local authorities to root out Muslim extremists.
Source
MORE ON ENVIRONMENTALISM AS A RELIGION
Part of a review of Monbiot's "Heat":
Given its near-universal acceptance how is it that the belief that over-consumption threatens life itself has failed to impact on behaviour? It is not that people have failed to curb their consumption sufficiently. On the contrary, consumption, and specifically energy consumption continues to rise year on year, individually and collectively. If the leaders of Friends of the Earth and Stop the Climate Chaos are frequent fliers, so are the rest of us: frequent drivers, who leave our televisions on standby and our houses un-insulated.
To George Monbiot, this sounds like hypocrisy, and he is right. But he misunderstands the relationship between ecological thought and consumption. That climate change threatens the planet is not a belief that leads to a restriction in consumption. On the contrary, one could state as a law of politics that the relationship between green thinking and increasing consumption is not contradictory, but complementary. The greater role that consumption plays in our lives, the more we are predisposed to worrying about the planet. Ecology is to the twenty-first century what Christianity was to the Victorians. The harder those patricians blessed the meek on a Sunday, the more viciously they exploited them from Monday to Saturday. Green thinking is the religion of the consumer age. As sure as night follows day, the very people that are most preoccupied with the environment will increase their consumption from one year to the next.
We know this because environmental activism and beliefs are also stronger among the better paid and educated - the very people who command more of life's resources. The stream of advice on ethical consumerism does not result in restricted consumption, but more complex, which is to say more costly consumption, like the ethical tourism that Monbiot denounces.
The environmental belief pattern fulfils all the demands of a secular religion, elevating the elect few above the common herd of vulgar, unthinking consumers; creating secular rituals, like fastidious eating, and garbage-sorting, as well as a full calendar of public worship, or protest. And like all religions, ecology has its eschatology, its end-time, the belief in the coming apocalypse, or to give it its modern name, climate change.
The motivation for the book is the proposition that if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises above the current level of 380 parts per million by 2030, combining with other `greenhouse gases', it will trap the sun's rays in the atmosphere raising temperatures by two and six degrees Celsius - causing irreversible and catastrophic climate change. Melting polar ice caps will raise sea levels flooding coastal cities and towns; Africa, Australia and the Mediterranean will suffer frequent droughts; grain yields will collapse leading to famine; malaria will increase; species will become extinct.
But Monbiot says he is trying to avoid despair. The world can avoid the disaster if we reduce the carbon given off in energy production and other industrial processes, by 60 per cent, so that each of us produces no more than 0.33 tonnes of carbon by 2030 (with an intermediate target of 0.8 tonnes by 2012). But with energy use highest in the developed world, our target here is a 90 per cent reduction. The book sets out, in broad outline, how the saving can be made, supported with case studies on domestic energy use, the energy industry itself, transport, retail and concrete production.
It is the attempt to realise the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, or to achieve a balance with nature, that is Monbiot's error. Like religious belief, environmental thinking is not supposed to be resolved. Rather, the belief persists precisely because it is the mirror image of consumerism. Without consumerism, environmentalism would cease to exist. Some Victorian religious sects made a similar mistake, trying to create religious communes in the New World, or sometimes retreating into the forests to escape worldly sin. Generally they ended up quarrelling and destitute. Once realised, all the absurdities of the belief system become writ large.
So it is with George Monbiot's blueprint. In attempting to show that the necessary reduction in carbon emissions can be achieved Monbiot is forced again and again towards the one likely source of resource efficiency, greater technological development. Hence he is forced reluctantly to concede that nuclear power is a more plausible source of clean energy than biomass; that supermarkets' internet delivery services, an example of the advantage of industrial concentration, could reduce energy use. Monbiot explains very well that rules on energy efficient house-building would have little impact because the rate at which Britain's housing stock is replaced is glacially slow - but fails to understand that the low level of new building that leaves us all in energy-inefficient Victorian houses is a direct consequence of environmental constraints on housing developments.
In every instance, however, the ethical meaning of ecology, its romantic protest against modernity, reasserts itself. This is clearest in Monbiot's predictable hostility to the car, which he associates with a vicious libertarianism, in which motorists perceive society, pedestrians, cyclists, road-humps, as a barrier. But this only illustrates Monbiot's prejudices. Society is represented by pedestrians and cyclists. But drivers are society, too. Indeed, with car journeys making up 85 per cent of all distance travelled, they are a much greater share of society than cyclists, making up 0.5 per cent. Heat follows the conventional calculation of the costs of motoring unrepresented in the price of petrol, like health care and traffic policing. But it is wholly ignorant of the un-reckoned advantages of motoring, like greater mobility, and sociability.
Though wreathed in statistics, Heat fails to reckon the basic contribution to human existence of consumerism and motorisation, as if these could be tossed away without severely limiting its quality and duration. Take a look inside your fridge: more than nine-tenths of what you see there was delivered to the shop or supermarket by road, as indeed were the goods in your home. The organic vegetables and the spare parts that keep your bicycle moving were not delivered by bicycle, but by a man in a white van. Monbiot worries about declining agricultural yields and pressure on farmland, but fails to acknowledge that motorisation and fertilisers have massively increased output, bringing down prices, and releasing more land every year from cultivation.
Monbiot opens Heat with a quote from environmental activist Mayer Hillman on what a society that cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent would look like: `a very poor third world country'. Monbiot aims to disprove this argument, by showing that reduction could be achieved without reducing us to penury, but he fails because he does not understand the extent to which our quality of life is dependent upon the very technologies that he considers destructive. Monbiot protests at `skeptical environmentalist' Bjorn Lomborg's economic calculation of how money could be better spent solving world problems than wasted imposing restrictions on manufacturing output. This calculation he thinks is immoral. What price can you put on the subsequent deaths from malnutrition in Ethiopia caused by global warming? But Monbiot singularly fails to recognise that his restrictions would also have a human cost.
Those countries with low carbon dioxide emissions, like Ethiopia and Bangladesh, are also those with high infant mortality, low life expectancy and poor quality of life. To recreate their levels of energy consumption in the developed world would be to recreate their social conditions also. What is more, no across-the-board reduction in living standards has ever been achieved without social conflict and violent repression. Alongside the depressions of the 1930s and 1970s came police brutality. Monbiot's ideal, wartime rationing, was achieved by terrifying the population with the threat of foreign invasion and militarising society. But Monbiot would reply that all of this is immaterial, because it is not possible to reproduce western standards of living in the developing world, because of the absolute limit of catastrophic climate change.
But even here, despite its welter of statistics, Heat is unconvincing. Monbiot calls his critics climate change deniers, not balking at the comparison with Holocaust denial. Anyone who does not support his linear connection of industrial carbon emissions, to the greenhouse effect, to climate change, ending in environmental catastrophe is deluded. But this is not the language of science, whose findings are always provisional. More to the point, though, even where it can be shown that industrial output has had an effect on the earth's temperature, the extrapolation from that to necessary ecological disaster is all entirely speculative. All the changes modelled are projected into the future, failing Karl Popper's test of falsifiability. And while there is a small industry dedicated to modelling the negative effects of climate change, any positive effects are excluded out of hand.
Monbiot accuses air-travellers of killing future generations of Africans, through the Malaria and famine that he says will increase because of climate change. But he ignores the Africans dying of malaria today because environmentalists persuaded the World Health Organisation to ban DDT there or the Africans suffering food shortages already because environmentalists got the United Nations not to fund the use of chemical fertilisers in aid programmes.
The gloomy warnings say more about their authors than they do about the future. We have been warned by environmentalists that by 1997 one-third of the population will be stricken with `human-BSE', that genetically modified organisms will enter the food-chain altering our DNA, even that, as Nature reported in the 1970s we are on the brink of a new Ice Age. The belief in impending disaster arises out of the psychological need for an eschatology, a secular version of Kingdom Come, that will under-gird the grandstanding of moralists like George Monbiot. Like the Dostoevsky character who worries that `if there is no God, how can I be captain', Monbiot has to believe in impending catastrophe so that he can denounce the unbelievers and weak of conviction. But there is a less painful way to overcome the clash between modern lifestyles and environmental thinking, and that is to abandon the latter, not the former.
Source
MORE ON BRITISH FAT FASCISM
So we are the fattipuffs of Europe. Somebody had to be. The British, among their many other hobbies and extraordinary attributes, obviously enjoy overeating. And it appears that nothing - no television diet guru examining our excretions, no Messiah-like chef tossing buckets of undigested fat in front of us, no bossy government leaflets imploring us to eat more vegetables - is going to change that. Does it matter? Not to the fattipuffs, clearly, or they would do something about it. Not to the rest of the British public either. Or if it does, it really shouldn't. It is none of our business. I just wish someone could persuade this irritating government that it's none of its business either.
Fat fascists and government spokespeople, when voicing their peculiar disapproval of other people's body mass index (BMI), often come up with spurious figures regarding the cost of obesity to the National Health Service. Apparently if you include the wear and tear on hospital lavatory seats, the stress on nurses at having to deal with such irresponsible patients and so on, this extra cost can spiral into billions. Fat people get ill more, so the argument goes, and since we taxpayers have to pay for the consequences, we have every right to bully fat people into getting thin again.
It is a loathsome argument: the same one that is used when trying to control smokers and drinkers. No doubt it will be used against people who slouch too much in front of their computers, or who take exercise without stretching first or who choose, against all advice, to look directly at the sun. Extend the argument still further and there is no reason why it couldn't be used to enforce the screening of unborn children: hell, we could get shot of the duffers before they were even fully formed. Why not? Imagine all the taxpayers' money that could be saved.
The NHS, it should never be forgotten, is a service run by the government but paid for by the people. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tool with which to control us. Also (although I'm loath to indulge this line of argument), it's clearly a nonsense to pretend that fat people, in the long run, cost the public purse any more than the rest of the population. If fat people get ill more, the chances are they are going to die earlier, too.
So while the rest of us health freaks mince around on Zimmer frames, demanding expensive drugs for the other debilitating diseases waiting to take us out, the fat people will already be dead. No requests from them for geriatric medical care, free bus passes and measly pensions. With obesity rates rising at the rate that we're told they are, the public purse ought soon to be positively bulging.
But never mind all that, never mind the logic of it: that was never the point. This government simply can't resist an opportunity to nag. If it's not about fatness, it's about thinness; it's about our liquid intake during heatwaves, our alcohol intake over Christmas, the temperature of our baths, the frequency of our lavatory flushing, the hoods on our sweatshirts, the veils on our faces. It will come up with a guideline for anything to keep its stultifying presence on the front pages. Anything to show us it cares.
This week, in response to the wretched fatness survey, it has truly excelled itself. Healthy diet has been the subject to worry about, and even the chancellor of the exchequer has felt inspired to contribute to the debate. He has let it be known (in case we were wondering) that he "always" has two portions of vegetables at lunch and that he can often be seen "munching an apple or an orange" around the office. A spokesman for Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary (who, it is claimed, eats "infinitely more" than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day), has released the news that she enjoys "very, very regular bowel movements". Which is marvellous, but perhaps a case of too much information.
If we are to believe their spokespeople, government ministers are an example to us all, only ever enjoying the occasional glass of wine, always eating up their greens and often having rowing machines in their offices. If only we could be more like them. Thankfully Caroline Flint, our new minister for fitness, has announced a new initiative to help us to catch up. She wants to impel supermarkets to offer lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables because, she says, there are people out there who find fresh fruit and vegetables "scary". Ho hum. An example of a new victim group cleverly unearthed by sensitive ministers or just one more case of an exhausted government dribbling into its geriatric bib? I almost feel sorry for them.
Then there are the thinnifers. Another problem, another call for a ban. Why do so many people think banning things is the only answer? I refer to the banning of very thin people from the catwalk, a place which we know to be their historical home. A collection of doctors and other eating disorder experts have joined together to make a formal request to the fashion industry not to employ models below a certain weight. It has been mooted that London Fashion Week should have its subsidies suspended (all in favour of that) if it refuses to comply.
Having struggled for years with the problem in my teens and early twenties, I have some inkling of the madness which settles in an anorexic's head. Of course I can't speak for them all, but I can speak from experience. And to suggest that the banning of models with the wrong BMI might in some way alter an anorexic's approach to her own body, or to flesh in general, seems pretty facile to me. Young women starve themselves for all sorts of reasons but mostly, I think, as a muddle-headed response to their own internal chaos: body weight is one of the few aspects of life which feels controllable. The truth is that you could put anyone you wanted on the catwalk - put Dawn French up there - but I don't believe it would change a thing. Anorexics see the world through different eyes.
I used to look in near revulsion at supermodel Cindy Crawford, a woman who, at the peak of my madness, was lauded as one of the most desirable women on earth. I couldn't comprehend it. I used to be disgusted by the gargantuan size of her thighs. When people said she looked wonderful, I thought they were the mad ones; either that or they were lying. The fashion industry is being asked to present a more realistic image of women to the world. But fashion isn't about realistic images, it's about fantasy - and art. There's something pretty wrong with a society that wants to ban that
Source
NHS to punish conservatives
Community hospitals that lie in Conservative or Liberal Democrat constituencies will bear the brunt of the Government's closure programme, re-igniting accusations of political interference in the NHS. The Times has learnt that seven times as many community hospitals have closed or are under threat in constituencies held by opposition MPs. There are 62 closed or at-risk hospitals in Conservative constituencies and 8 in Liberal Democrats seats, with 11 in Labour areas. This has prompted opposition MPs to accuse the Government of "playing politics" and undermining the hospital closure programme.
The revelation comes a month after The Times disclosed that ministers and Labour Party officials held meetings to work out ways of closing hospitals without jeopardising key marginal seats. Leaked e-mails showed that Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, called for those at the meeting to be provided with "heat maps", showing marginal Labour seats where closures or reconfigurations of health services could cost votes. The Department of Health has consistently denied that political considerations reflect policy-making.
But research carried out by the Community Hospitals Association reveals that of the ten community hospitals that have already closed this year five fall in Conservative-held seats while four are in Liberal Democrat areas. The Department for Health said that it was committed to community hospitals, which are often found in more rural areas. Ms Hewitt recently promised a 750 million pound cash injection to community health services declaring: "Community hospitals have for too long been viewed as the poor relation of larger hospitals. This stops today."
Lord Warner, the Health Minister, has said that the Government is committed to spending 100 million on building or refurbishing at least 50 community hospitals which provide diagnostics, day surgery and outpatient facilities closer to where people live and work. However, a spokesman for the department said that some community hospitals could not cope with the challenge of the modern NHS and would close. The spokesman insisted that ministers had no ability to chose directly which hospitals closed and which stayed open. A statement from the department in February said that "hit squads" of inspectors would be dispatched to meet the heads of strategic health authorities, and reject any plans for community hospital closures from primary care trusts if they could not show that they had considered all other options, including other companies taking over the hospitals.
However, opposition MPs are suspicious of the move. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, said: "Last month we discovered that ministers are more concerned with saving the political skins of Labour MPs than they are with pursuing the long-term interests of the health service." Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "There are too many times for coincidence that the process is favouring Labour seats and Labour MPs. That undermines the whole process. If you go through consultations with a sneaking suspicion that the Labour seat is going to get the hospital anyway, it destroys your faith in these consultations. "Nobody would argue that a particular set of buildings should be set in stone for ever. Health needs change, population change, so buildings and services should change. The key is that the decision should be clinically based; what delivers the best care."
Sources close to Ms Hewitt said: "The reality is that a lot of these hospitals are not particularly strong on state-of-the-art healthcare. "We want the best healthcare, which is not the same as wanting to maintain the same buildings."
Source
Post lifted from Number Watch
Scam is a word that comes up with increasing frequently when the actions of (or promoted by) the UK Government are discussed. The headline in the print version of the Mail on Sunday was Great Speed Cam Scam (different in the online version). Regular number watchers will be familiar with this outrageous piece of covert taxation that subverts the system of justice to turn it into a collection service for the Treasury, covering up gross sources of inaccuracy in the process.
Christopher Booker’s main piece is headlined The BBC falls for the asbestos scam.
The crucial point about all of these scams is that they are a damaging drain on the economy. They absorb capital, labour and revenue. Thousands of businesses and ordinary householders are charged million of pounds for the removal of a harmless substance because it happens to share a common name with a quite different known carcinogen.
Here is a quote from Sorry, wrong number!
"Of the many gifts bestowed by the French on the Anglo-Saxons, bureaucracy must be the most potent. In Saxon times the learned and beneficent Alfred the Great could decree that half the revenues would go to education, and it was done. When the first English Kings reigned, the Treasury was just another department of the royal household, like the Wardrobe. Subsequent centuries would see a growth in the power and influence of the Treasury that is still continuing today."
That was six years ago. Thanks to the incompetence and insouciance of the Prime Minister in delegating domestic policy to his Chancellor, the Treasury has since made a great leap forward. Its tax and waste policies now dominate British Life. The biggest scam of all was one of Gordon Brown’s first moves, the raid on the private pensions system. It broke one of the golden rules of pensions policy by introducing double taxation. You get taxed when you put it in and taxed again when you take it out. So we have the front page headline in the Telegraph: Brown's raid on pensions costs Britain 100 billion pounds
This was more than just another of Brown’s money-making schemes. It was inspired by malice. There is a type of middle class socialist motivated by hatred of their own origins. They are developmentally retarded, still engaged in their teenage rebellion against their own fathers. Brown has cold bloodedly condemned millions of elderly people, who had the temerity to plan for their declining years, to end their lives in penury and despair, forced to sign up for his humiliating means testing. He has simply stolen their savings.
It is not just the money. He sent out a signal that the Government did not care about private sector pensions, so the whole industry virtually collapsed. Furthermore he singled out that sector of the population for swingeing taxation from local council and other imposts. Meanwhile public sector employees were guaranteed inflation proofed packages paid for out of the taxation of the rest.
Uniquely among chancellors he has left his successors with enormous, impossible burdens, such as the Private Finance Initiative, a form of hire purchase that will hog tie future finance minister for generations. He loves complexity and will only be satisfied when he has most of the population (though not, of course, New Labour supporting millionaires) entangled in the coils of his bureaucratic schemes.
Time was when finance ministers were just incompetent. This one is evil and he is the Prime Minister in waiting. Worst of all, if he gets to be Prime Minister he will have made himself the highest paid leader in the quasi-democratic world and a
multimillionaire by dint of his pension alone. It’s a sick, sick, sick world.
VEILED TEACHER CONTROVERSY
A British government minister joined an increasingly bitter debate about the rights of Muslim women to veil their faces, saying a teaching assistant should be fired for insisting on wearing one in school. Phil Woolas, the government's Race and Faith minister, was quoted by the Sunday Mirror newspaper as demanding that Aishah Azmi, a Muslim teaching assistant, be fired for refusing to remove her veil at work. She should be sacked. She has put herself in a position where she can't do her job," Woolas said.
Azmi has refused to remove her black veil, which leaves only her eyes visible, in front of male colleagues. She was suspended from her job, but has taken her case to an industrial tribunal, a court that handles cases on employment law, which will make a decision in the next few weeks.
Azmi, who is 24 and has two children, has insisted that she had been willing to remove her veil in class, as long as there were no adult males present. "She is denying the right of children to a full education by insisting that she wears the veil. If she is saying that she won't work with men, she is taking away the right of men to work in school," Woolas said.
The debate on the veils began earlier this month, when Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary who now serves as leader of the House of Commons, said Muslim women visiting his office should remove their veils. The opposition Conservatives also weighed in on the contentious issue, with one of the party's top officials accusing Muslim leaders of encouraging a "voluntary apartheid" that could help spawn homegrown terrorism.
David Davis, a top Conservative Party official, supported Straw for starting the debate. "What Jack touched on was the fundamental issue of whether in Britain we are developing a divided society," Davis told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. "Whether we are inadvertently encouraging a kind of voluntary apartheid."
Prime Minister Tony Blair has praised Straw for raising the issue "in a measured and considered way," and urged Britons to engage in such discussions without "becoming hysterical."
Salman Rushdie, whose book "The Satanic Verses" once led to death threats against him by Islamic clerics, said last week that Straw "was expressing an important opinion, which is that veils suck, which they do. I think the veil is a way of taking power away from women."
Nazir Ahmed, the House of Lords' first Muslim legislator, today joined the fray by criticizing British politicians and the media for "demonizing" the country's Muslim community. In an interview with British Broadcasting Corp. radio, Ahmed, a moderate lawmaker of the governing Labour Party, said: "Let's be honest, there are people in our community who call themselves Muslims who have been threatening our national security. It is very unfortunate. "But the problem is that the politicians and some people in the media have used this for demonization of entire communities, which has become a very fashionable thing today."
Source
Islamic militants face purge in British schools and universities
Minister will order police and councils to identify hotspots of extremism
Hotspots of Islamic extremism will be identified in schools, colleges and universities under government plans to be announced today. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, will defy growing anger from Islamic leaders by ordering police and local authorities to root out Muslim extremists.
The announcement comes after the revelation yesterday that new faith schools could be forced to offer at least a quarter of their places to pupils of other religions and non-believers.
Ms Kelly will urge representatives from 20 “key” local councils to consider if they are doing enough to tackle extremism in schools, colleges and universities, and if they have identified “hot-spot” neighbourhoods and sections of the community that could be breeding grounds for such activity.
“In major parts of Britain the new extremism we’re facing is the single biggest security issue for local communities,” she will stay. “This is not just a problem for Muslim communities. The far Right is still with us, still poisonous, still trying to create and exploit divisions.”
The Department for Education has also prepared plans to ask university staff and lecturers to inform police of Muslim and “Asian-looking” students they suspect of involvement in supporting terrorists. An 18-page document due to be sent to universities and colleges by the end of the year expresses concern over Islamic societies and students from “segregated backgrounds”.
Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, is expected to suggest that opening up admissions to faith schools would help to ease racial tensions and give parents more choice. The move comes after a proposal this month by the Church of England to open up voluntarily 25 per cent of places in all its new schools to children irrespective of their religious beliefs.
The changes are likely to prove more controversial with Roman Catholics and Muslims. Critics of faith schools have long complained that they are exclusive and divide society, rather than promote cohesion. About a third, or 7,000, of all state schools in England have a religious ethos, mostly Christian. Four fifths of the top 200 secondaries are faith schools.
Mr Johnson will table an amendment to the Education and Inspections Bill when it returns to the Lords this week requiring new faith schools to reserve a quarter of their places for non-believers or children of other faiths. The change would place the initial decision about a school’s intake in the hands of the local education authority (LEA), enabling it to demand that up to a quarter of its places are open to families of different or no faiths.
“It is not a quota, per se, only obviously if there is a demand for places,” a source close to Mr Johnson said. “But if there is demand they [LEAs] will have the power to insist on up to 25 per cent of places being given up to non-faith pupils.”
Where there is opposition to the policy within the school, the Church or community, an appeal could be made to the Secretary of State who could allow the LEA to approve a faith school with fewer than 25 per cent non-faith pupils.
Shahid Malik, the Muslim Labour MP for Dewsbury, said of the move: “This is part of a strategy which says we can’t ignore segregation any longer. We have to start working to make people have a greater understanding of one another.”
Last week Lord Bruce- Lockhart, the head of the Local Government Association, suggested in The Times that state schools should introduce ethnic quotas into admissions criteria to break down the extreme segregation of pupils along cultural and religious lines.
A Tory spokesman gave Mr Johnson’s plan a guarded welcome, saying that David Cameron had made clear that he supported such initiatives, but that it should not be a matter of uniform national rules. Idris Mears, of the Association of Muslim Schools, said that imposing the proposals on minority faiths seemed to be socially unjust. “Most Muslim schools already have this provision in their regulations, but to impose it on us without increasing our numbers substantially doesn’t seem fair,” he said.
There are seven Muslim state schools in England, and five more are recommended for public funding. Tony Blair hopes to bring more of the 150 private Muslim schools into the state sector. There are two Sikh schools, 37 Jewish schools, 2,041 Catholic schools and 4,646 Church of England schools.
Source
MORE ON ENVIRONMENTALISM AS A RELIGION
Part of a review of Monbiot's "Heat":
Given its near-universal acceptance how is it that the belief that over-consumption threatens life itself has failed to impact on behaviour? It is not that people have failed to curb their consumption sufficiently. On the contrary, consumption, and specifically energy consumption continues to rise year on year, individually and collectively. If the leaders of Friends of the Earth and Stop the Climate Chaos are frequent fliers, so are the rest of us: frequent drivers, who leave our televisions on standby and our houses un-insulated.
To George Monbiot, this sounds like hypocrisy, and he is right. But he misunderstands the relationship between ecological thought and consumption. That climate change threatens the planet is not a belief that leads to a restriction in consumption. On the contrary, one could state as a law of politics that the relationship between green thinking and increasing consumption is not contradictory, but complementary. The greater role that consumption plays in our lives, the more we are predisposed to worrying about the planet. Ecology is to the twenty-first century what Christianity was to the Victorians. The harder those patricians blessed the meek on a Sunday, the more viciously they exploited them from Monday to Saturday. Green thinking is the religion of the consumer age. As sure as night follows day, the very people that are most preoccupied with the environment will increase their consumption from one year to the next.
We know this because environmental activism and beliefs are also stronger among the better paid and educated - the very people who command more of life's resources. The stream of advice on ethical consumerism does not result in restricted consumption, but more complex, which is to say more costly consumption, like the ethical tourism that Monbiot denounces.
The environmental belief pattern fulfils all the demands of a secular religion, elevating the elect few above the common herd of vulgar, unthinking consumers; creating secular rituals, like fastidious eating, and garbage-sorting, as well as a full calendar of public worship, or protest. And like all religions, ecology has its eschatology, its end-time, the belief in the coming apocalypse, or to give it its modern name, climate change.
The motivation for the book is the proposition that if carbon dioxide in the atmosphere rises above the current level of 380 parts per million by 2030, combining with other `greenhouse gases', it will trap the sun's rays in the atmosphere raising temperatures by two and six degrees Celsius - causing irreversible and catastrophic climate change. Melting polar ice caps will raise sea levels flooding coastal cities and towns; Africa, Australia and the Mediterranean will suffer frequent droughts; grain yields will collapse leading to famine; malaria will increase; species will become extinct.
But Monbiot says he is trying to avoid despair. The world can avoid the disaster if we reduce the carbon given off in energy production and other industrial processes, by 60 per cent, so that each of us produces no more than 0.33 tonnes of carbon by 2030 (with an intermediate target of 0.8 tonnes by 2012). But with energy use highest in the developed world, our target here is a 90 per cent reduction. The book sets out, in broad outline, how the saving can be made, supported with case studies on domestic energy use, the energy industry itself, transport, retail and concrete production.
It is the attempt to realise the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth, or to achieve a balance with nature, that is Monbiot's error. Like religious belief, environmental thinking is not supposed to be resolved. Rather, the belief persists precisely because it is the mirror image of consumerism. Without consumerism, environmentalism would cease to exist. Some Victorian religious sects made a similar mistake, trying to create religious communes in the New World, or sometimes retreating into the forests to escape worldly sin. Generally they ended up quarrelling and destitute. Once realised, all the absurdities of the belief system become writ large.
So it is with George Monbiot's blueprint. In attempting to show that the necessary reduction in carbon emissions can be achieved Monbiot is forced again and again towards the one likely source of resource efficiency, greater technological development. Hence he is forced reluctantly to concede that nuclear power is a more plausible source of clean energy than biomass; that supermarkets' internet delivery services, an example of the advantage of industrial concentration, could reduce energy use. Monbiot explains very well that rules on energy efficient house-building would have little impact because the rate at which Britain's housing stock is replaced is glacially slow - but fails to understand that the low level of new building that leaves us all in energy-inefficient Victorian houses is a direct consequence of environmental constraints on housing developments.
In every instance, however, the ethical meaning of ecology, its romantic protest against modernity, reasserts itself. This is clearest in Monbiot's predictable hostility to the car, which he associates with a vicious libertarianism, in which motorists perceive society, pedestrians, cyclists, road-humps, as a barrier. But this only illustrates Monbiot's prejudices. Society is represented by pedestrians and cyclists. But drivers are society, too. Indeed, with car journeys making up 85 per cent of all distance travelled, they are a much greater share of society than cyclists, making up 0.5 per cent. Heat follows the conventional calculation of the costs of motoring unrepresented in the price of petrol, like health care and traffic policing. But it is wholly ignorant of the un-reckoned advantages of motoring, like greater mobility, and sociability.
Though wreathed in statistics, Heat fails to reckon the basic contribution to human existence of consumerism and motorisation, as if these could be tossed away without severely limiting its quality and duration. Take a look inside your fridge: more than nine-tenths of what you see there was delivered to the shop or supermarket by road, as indeed were the goods in your home. The organic vegetables and the spare parts that keep your bicycle moving were not delivered by bicycle, but by a man in a white van. Monbiot worries about declining agricultural yields and pressure on farmland, but fails to acknowledge that motorisation and fertilisers have massively increased output, bringing down prices, and releasing more land every year from cultivation.
Monbiot opens Heat with a quote from environmental activist Mayer Hillman on what a society that cut greenhouse gases by 80 per cent would look like: `a very poor third world country'. Monbiot aims to disprove this argument, by showing that reduction could be achieved without reducing us to penury, but he fails because he does not understand the extent to which our quality of life is dependent upon the very technologies that he considers destructive. Monbiot protests at `skeptical environmentalist' Bjorn Lomborg's economic calculation of how money could be better spent solving world problems than wasted imposing restrictions on manufacturing output. This calculation he thinks is immoral. What price can you put on the subsequent deaths from malnutrition in Ethiopia caused by global warming? But Monbiot singularly fails to recognise that his restrictions would also have a human cost.
Those countries with low carbon dioxide emissions, like Ethiopia and Bangladesh, are also those with high infant mortality, low life expectancy and poor quality of life. To recreate their levels of energy consumption in the developed world would be to recreate their social conditions also. What is more, no across-the-board reduction in living standards has ever been achieved without social conflict and violent repression. Alongside the depressions of the 1930s and 1970s came police brutality. Monbiot's ideal, wartime rationing, was achieved by terrifying the population with the threat of foreign invasion and militarising society. But Monbiot would reply that all of this is immaterial, because it is not possible to reproduce western standards of living in the developing world, because of the absolute limit of catastrophic climate change.
But even here, despite its welter of statistics, Heat is unconvincing. Monbiot calls his critics climate change deniers, not balking at the comparison with Holocaust denial. Anyone who does not support his linear connection of industrial carbon emissions, to the greenhouse effect, to climate change, ending in environmental catastrophe is deluded. But this is not the language of science, whose findings are always provisional. More to the point, though, even where it can be shown that industrial output has had an effect on the earth's temperature, the extrapolation from that to necessary ecological disaster is all entirely speculative. All the changes modelled are projected into the future, failing Karl Popper's test of falsifiability. And while there is a small industry dedicated to modelling the negative effects of climate change, any positive effects are excluded out of hand.
Monbiot accuses air-travellers of killing future generations of Africans, through the Malaria and famine that he says will increase because of climate change. But he ignores the Africans dying of malaria today because environmentalists persuaded the World Health Organisation to ban DDT there or the Africans suffering food shortages already because environmentalists got the United Nations not to fund the use of chemical fertilisers in aid programmes.
The gloomy warnings say more about their authors than they do about the future. We have been warned by environmentalists that by 1997 one-third of the population will be stricken with `human-BSE', that genetically modified organisms will enter the food-chain altering our DNA, even that, as Nature reported in the 1970s we are on the brink of a new Ice Age. The belief in impending disaster arises out of the psychological need for an eschatology, a secular version of Kingdom Come, that will under-gird the grandstanding of moralists like George Monbiot. Like the Dostoevsky character who worries that `if there is no God, how can I be captain', Monbiot has to believe in impending catastrophe so that he can denounce the unbelievers and weak of conviction. But there is a less painful way to overcome the clash between modern lifestyles and environmental thinking, and that is to abandon the latter, not the former.
Source
MORE ON BRITISH FAT FASCISM
So we are the fattipuffs of Europe. Somebody had to be. The British, among their many other hobbies and extraordinary attributes, obviously enjoy overeating. And it appears that nothing - no television diet guru examining our excretions, no Messiah-like chef tossing buckets of undigested fat in front of us, no bossy government leaflets imploring us to eat more vegetables - is going to change that. Does it matter? Not to the fattipuffs, clearly, or they would do something about it. Not to the rest of the British public either. Or if it does, it really shouldn't. It is none of our business. I just wish someone could persuade this irritating government that it's none of its business either.
Fat fascists and government spokespeople, when voicing their peculiar disapproval of other people's body mass index (BMI), often come up with spurious figures regarding the cost of obesity to the National Health Service. Apparently if you include the wear and tear on hospital lavatory seats, the stress on nurses at having to deal with such irresponsible patients and so on, this extra cost can spiral into billions. Fat people get ill more, so the argument goes, and since we taxpayers have to pay for the consequences, we have every right to bully fat people into getting thin again.
It is a loathsome argument: the same one that is used when trying to control smokers and drinkers. No doubt it will be used against people who slouch too much in front of their computers, or who take exercise without stretching first or who choose, against all advice, to look directly at the sun. Extend the argument still further and there is no reason why it couldn't be used to enforce the screening of unborn children: hell, we could get shot of the duffers before they were even fully formed. Why not? Imagine all the taxpayers' money that could be saved.
The NHS, it should never be forgotten, is a service run by the government but paid for by the people. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tool with which to control us. Also (although I'm loath to indulge this line of argument), it's clearly a nonsense to pretend that fat people, in the long run, cost the public purse any more than the rest of the population. If fat people get ill more, the chances are they are going to die earlier, too.
So while the rest of us health freaks mince around on Zimmer frames, demanding expensive drugs for the other debilitating diseases waiting to take us out, the fat people will already be dead. No requests from them for geriatric medical care, free bus passes and measly pensions. With obesity rates rising at the rate that we're told they are, the public purse ought soon to be positively bulging.
But never mind all that, never mind the logic of it: that was never the point. This government simply can't resist an opportunity to nag. If it's not about fatness, it's about thinness; it's about our liquid intake during heatwaves, our alcohol intake over Christmas, the temperature of our baths, the frequency of our lavatory flushing, the hoods on our sweatshirts, the veils on our faces. It will come up with a guideline for anything to keep its stultifying presence on the front pages. Anything to show us it cares.
This week, in response to the wretched fatness survey, it has truly excelled itself. Healthy diet has been the subject to worry about, and even the chancellor of the exchequer has felt inspired to contribute to the debate. He has let it be known (in case we were wondering) that he "always" has two portions of vegetables at lunch and that he can often be seen "munching an apple or an orange" around the office. A spokesman for Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary (who, it is claimed, eats "infinitely more" than the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables a day), has released the news that she enjoys "very, very regular bowel movements". Which is marvellous, but perhaps a case of too much information.
If we are to believe their spokespeople, government ministers are an example to us all, only ever enjoying the occasional glass of wine, always eating up their greens and often having rowing machines in their offices. If only we could be more like them. Thankfully Caroline Flint, our new minister for fitness, has announced a new initiative to help us to catch up. She wants to impel supermarkets to offer lessons in how to eat fruit and vegetables because, she says, there are people out there who find fresh fruit and vegetables "scary". Ho hum. An example of a new victim group cleverly unearthed by sensitive ministers or just one more case of an exhausted government dribbling into its geriatric bib? I almost feel sorry for them.
Then there are the thinnifers. Another problem, another call for a ban. Why do so many people think banning things is the only answer? I refer to the banning of very thin people from the catwalk, a place which we know to be their historical home. A collection of doctors and other eating disorder experts have joined together to make a formal request to the fashion industry not to employ models below a certain weight. It has been mooted that London Fashion Week should have its subsidies suspended (all in favour of that) if it refuses to comply.
Having struggled for years with the problem in my teens and early twenties, I have some inkling of the madness which settles in an anorexic's head. Of course I can't speak for them all, but I can speak from experience. And to suggest that the banning of models with the wrong BMI might in some way alter an anorexic's approach to her own body, or to flesh in general, seems pretty facile to me. Young women starve themselves for all sorts of reasons but mostly, I think, as a muddle-headed response to their own internal chaos: body weight is one of the few aspects of life which feels controllable. The truth is that you could put anyone you wanted on the catwalk - put Dawn French up there - but I don't believe it would change a thing. Anorexics see the world through different eyes.
I used to look in near revulsion at supermodel Cindy Crawford, a woman who, at the peak of my madness, was lauded as one of the most desirable women on earth. I couldn't comprehend it. I used to be disgusted by the gargantuan size of her thighs. When people said she looked wonderful, I thought they were the mad ones; either that or they were lying. The fashion industry is being asked to present a more realistic image of women to the world. But fashion isn't about realistic images, it's about fantasy - and art. There's something pretty wrong with a society that wants to ban that
Source
NHS to punish conservatives
Community hospitals that lie in Conservative or Liberal Democrat constituencies will bear the brunt of the Government's closure programme, re-igniting accusations of political interference in the NHS. The Times has learnt that seven times as many community hospitals have closed or are under threat in constituencies held by opposition MPs. There are 62 closed or at-risk hospitals in Conservative constituencies and 8 in Liberal Democrats seats, with 11 in Labour areas. This has prompted opposition MPs to accuse the Government of "playing politics" and undermining the hospital closure programme.
The revelation comes a month after The Times disclosed that ministers and Labour Party officials held meetings to work out ways of closing hospitals without jeopardising key marginal seats. Leaked e-mails showed that Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, called for those at the meeting to be provided with "heat maps", showing marginal Labour seats where closures or reconfigurations of health services could cost votes. The Department of Health has consistently denied that political considerations reflect policy-making.
But research carried out by the Community Hospitals Association reveals that of the ten community hospitals that have already closed this year five fall in Conservative-held seats while four are in Liberal Democrat areas. The Department for Health said that it was committed to community hospitals, which are often found in more rural areas. Ms Hewitt recently promised a 750 million pound cash injection to community health services declaring: "Community hospitals have for too long been viewed as the poor relation of larger hospitals. This stops today."
Lord Warner, the Health Minister, has said that the Government is committed to spending 100 million on building or refurbishing at least 50 community hospitals which provide diagnostics, day surgery and outpatient facilities closer to where people live and work. However, a spokesman for the department said that some community hospitals could not cope with the challenge of the modern NHS and would close. The spokesman insisted that ministers had no ability to chose directly which hospitals closed and which stayed open. A statement from the department in February said that "hit squads" of inspectors would be dispatched to meet the heads of strategic health authorities, and reject any plans for community hospital closures from primary care trusts if they could not show that they had considered all other options, including other companies taking over the hospitals.
However, opposition MPs are suspicious of the move. Andrew Lansley, the Conservative health spokesman, said: "Last month we discovered that ministers are more concerned with saving the political skins of Labour MPs than they are with pursuing the long-term interests of the health service." Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat health spokesman, said: "There are too many times for coincidence that the process is favouring Labour seats and Labour MPs. That undermines the whole process. If you go through consultations with a sneaking suspicion that the Labour seat is going to get the hospital anyway, it destroys your faith in these consultations. "Nobody would argue that a particular set of buildings should be set in stone for ever. Health needs change, population change, so buildings and services should change. The key is that the decision should be clinically based; what delivers the best care."
Sources close to Ms Hewitt said: "The reality is that a lot of these hospitals are not particularly strong on state-of-the-art healthcare. "We want the best healthcare, which is not the same as wanting to maintain the same buildings."
Source
Monday, October 16, 2006
THE DE-SKILLING OF THE NHS
Closing hospitals and shoving their work onto GPs
Minor surgery such as hernia repairs and varicose vein removal will be carried out in family doctors’ surgeries instead of in hospitals under plans to be announced by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, this week. Ministers believe that up to half of the 45m hospital outpatient appointments can be dealt with by GPs and nurses in local health centres. It will save the National Health Service money by freeing up hospital beds which cost about 300 pounds a day. Ministers say surgery in local health centres will make better use of highly trained GPs and be more convenient for patients.
Lord Warner, the minister for NHS reform, said: “The rationale behind providing care closer to home is to make better use of highly specialist skills . . . this will involve (having) GPs who are as skilled with the scalpel as they are with the stethoscope.”
Hewitt will also announce plans to free up hospital beds by discharging patients early with a telephone number for a nurse in case they have a relapse. The health secretary will say patients are likely to make a speedier recovery in the comfort of their own homes. A trial of the dial-a-nurse plan has already been carried out at the Royal Hampshire county hospital in Winchester. Bowel cancer patients have been discharged from hospital early and told to call if their condition deteriorates.
Cancer patients will be given chemotherapy in their own homes as part of the drive to reduce the amount of treatment carried out in hospitals, which are expensive to run. The changes will also reduce the risk of patients catching hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA. Hewitt pledged to move treatment out of hospitals in the government white paper Health Outside Hospitals, published in January. The plans may prove controversial when some hospitals are either downgraded or closed.
David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, warned that some hospitals will need to close. Last month he said that there would be up to 60 “reconfigurations” of NHS services, affecting every region in England.
Source
ANTI-CHRISTIAN DISCRIMINATION IN BRITAIN
(Sad that it takes a Coptic Christian to stand up for the faith. The only thing a member of the Church of England would stand up for is homosexuality)
British Airways has suspended a Christian woman who wears a necklace with a crucifix to work, even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans, a newspaper reported overnight. Nadia Eweida, 55, told the Daily Mail that she decided to sue her employer for religious discrimination after having been suspended without pay for three weeks. "I will not hide my belief in the Lord Jesus. British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel," Ms Eweida said. "Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith." Ms Eweida, a British Airways employee for seven years, works at the BA check-in counter at London's Heathrow Airport.
In a statement, British Airways said: "The case is ongoing, and is still under investigation, and as such it would be inappropriate to discuss it in detail. An appeal is due to be heard next week. "British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn underneath the uniform," it said. "There is no ban. The rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross," it said. "Other religious items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms."
The Daily Mail said Ms Eweida, whose father is an Egyptian Coptic Christian and whose mother is English, was ordered last month by a manager at Heathrow to remove her cross or hide it beneath a company cravat. She then asked for permission to wear the chain but was refused. According to the newspaper, BA customer service manager Caroline Girling told Ms Eweida in a letter: "You have been sent home because you have failed to comply with a reasonable request. "You were asked to cover up or remove your cross and chain which you refused to do"
Source
THE "MEN'S HEALTH" PANIC IN BRITAIN
Yes: The panic is more dangerous than the disease
Michael Baum is in fighting form. The emeritus professor of surgery at University College London, and leading expert on cancer, says he would like to give the `self-appointed custodians of men's health' a `bloody nose'. He's talking about those men's health groups, men's health magazines and men's health officials in the pay of the government, who are constantly advising men - through TV ads, glossy posters in GPs' waiting rooms, information-laden beermats, drop-in advice centres at football grounds or celeb-backed `awareness campaigns' - to get in touch with their bodies and their wellbeing. `You know what they're doing, don't you?' he says. `They are trying to make men into women. They are trying to whip up the same kind of hysteria about health that bugs women amongst men as well.'
Men's health has become big business in recent years. Who are these people? Well, there's the Men's Health Forum (MHF), founded in 1994, which works for the `development of health services that meet men's needs and enable men to change their risk-taking behaviours'. MHF is funded by the UK Department of Health (to the tune of around 200,000 pounds a year) and has also, a bit bizarrely, received money from the Kent Police Service (10,000 for the year 2004/2005), British Telecom (9,375 for 2004/2005), Sport England (10,000 for 2004/2005) and numerous others. Its patrons include the bicycle-riding liberal's favourite newsreader, Jon Snow, TV presenter Lynn Faulds-Wood and celebrity doctor Mark Porter. MHF is currently `devising interventions' in British schools to encourage young boys to think more about their health and enable them to `take control and seek help'
There is Men's Health Week, kickstarted by MHF in 2002 and supported by the DoH, which raises awareness about a different aspect of men's health each year. This year - 12 to 18 June - it was mental health, because apparently men `often find it hard to discuss their feelings and can be reluctant to seek professional help for emotional or mental health problems'. Then there is Everyman, a wing of the Institute of Cancer Research, which seeks to inform the male public about testicular and prostate cancer. It runs numerous advertising campaigns, gimmicks and stunts - most recently the `TacheBack 2006' initiative in September, which encouraged men to sponsor each other to grow moustaches (the `mark of a REAL superhero', apparently) in order to raise money for Everyman (3). It also launched the `Notice your nuts' campaign, with a TV advert featuring men with massive fake testicles hanging out of their flies and the slogan: `Make your balls a bigger part of your life.' Everyman is sponsored by Asda, Virgin, Butlins and Topman, the cheap and cheerful clothes-store for blokes which has produced t-shirts that say `I love my balls' and `Bollocks to cancer' and underwear that come with instructions on how to examine yourself for signs of testicular cancer printed on the inside.
There is Check-Em, an offshoot of Everyman, which as its name suggests is about encouraging young men to check `them' - that is, their testicles. Its website uses cod-ladspeak to encourage young men to practice testicular self-examination (TSE) every month. `Check your nuts!! A hands-on guide as to what to look for.' says a headline, while underneath a cartoon nurse in kinky white boots, suspenders and a tight white leather top (because men don't pay attention to matters related to health unless there's a scantily-clad nurse involved) explains how you should roll each testicle in search of lumps, bumps and other abnormalities (5). There is also the Orchid Cancer Charity, which has sent its self-help video `Know Your Balls: Check `Em Out', featuring celebs like Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Steve Davis, to 5,000 schools - and the Prostate Cancer Charity, which during its awareness week in 2005 distributed thousands of beermats to pubs around the country warning men about the dangers of prostate cancer.
Even football stadiums are being colonised by the men's health industry. During last year's Men's Health Week, MHF and government officials launched the `Football and Health' initiative, aimed at `harnessing the mass appeal [of football] to help reinforce and promote healthy living'. Announcing plans to set up drop-in health centres and organise leaflet and advice distribution at football grounds around the country, government minister Caroline Flint declared: `Football is an important part of many people's lives, and with its family-friendly policies including smoke-free grounds, family enclosures and football-in-the-community work carried out by club players, it provides great opportunities to get across key messages about healthy, active lives..'
From schools to pubs, from TV ads to the footie, there seems to be no respite from the `self-appointed custodians of men's health'. Baum is irritated by this burgeoning industry for two reasons: first, it can actually do more harm than good; and second, it takes officialdom's intervention into our private lives to `quite frightening new levels', he says.
Baum says the constant imploring of men to check themselves for testicular cancer, or to submit to prostate specific antigen tests (PSAs) for signs of prostate cancer, really is potentially harmful. `To promote testicular self-examination without evidence.well, it suggests we are not learning from the mistakes of the past', he says. `There are actually no data to support the idea that detecting testicular cancer by self-examination improves on the mortality for testicular cancer; that is just an assumption, but there is no evidence to support that assumption.'
`Testicular cancer is a relatively rare cancer, whereas testicular lumps are quite common', he continues. `So if we encourage young men to check their testes, their chances of finding a benign abnormality are considerably more than their chances of detecting cancer. So what you have is a lot of false alarms, with young men queuing up to see their doctors convinced they have TC when in fact they don't. And the real downside to all this is that if testicular cancer is suspected then the treatment is orchiectomy [the surgical removal of a testicle]. You don't biopsy a testicular cancer, you remove the testicle. And with all this heightened awareness of testicular cancer, with all these young men checking themselves for lumps and convinced that something benign is something really bad, I can see a situation where men will have unnecessary orchiectomies.'
One of the strangest things about the incessant campaigning around testicular cancer, which is targeted at young men aged 15 to 24 in particular, is that the disease is rare and very curable. There are around 1,900 cases of TC in Britain each year, which accounts for about one per cent of all cancers - and approximately 95 per cent of these cases of TC are cured. Last year there were 67 deaths from testicular cancer among men of all age groups in England and Wales. Among youthful men aged 15 to 24 - those who tend to be in those schools and colleges bombarded with know-your-balls propaganda - six men died from testicular cancer in 2005. The same number of 15- to 24-year-olds died from liver cancer, while four times that number - 25 - died from cancers of the brain. Strikingly, more men died from breast cancer in 2005 than died from testicular cancer: 82 men in all age groups died from breast cancer, compared to 67 for testicular cancer. Why aren't there campaigns instructing men on how to check their breasts for lumps? Why aren't young men warned about the tell-tale signs of brain cancer? Why the obsessive focus on testicles, with hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on encouraging young men to monitor their balls for a disease that is very rare and often not life-threatening?
Baum says it sums up the men's health brigade: `They are grabbing us by the balls, where it hurts.' When he says that those promoting testicular self-examination have not learned from `the mistakes of the past', he is referring especially to `the constant promotion of breast self-examination'. `As all the experts now know, that was a bad thing', he says. `It did more harm than good.'
As co-author of Breast Cancer and co-editor of History and Advancement of Anastrozole in the Treatment of Breast Cancer, and chair of the Psychosocial Oncology Committee at the National Cancer Research Institute, Baum knows his stuff. `In breast cancer, the mantra has always been "catch it early and you'll save your life" or "Your life in your hands", cliches like that. This hypothesis, that women who regularly practise breast self-examination will have a lower mortality for breast cancer than those who don't, has been tested - and it doesn't hold up. There have been three large-scale trials - one in Shanghai, one in Petersburg, another in the UK - where they compared the outcome of women who had been trained and monitored in breast self-examination with those who had been left alone. And as far as breast cancer mortality was concerned, there was no difference. But there was twice the number of unnecessary surgical interventions among the women who practised breast self-examination, among those who were more "aware", more cautious. `This provoked the publication of the Canadian Medical Association to publish a paper and a leader which argued that as far as public health is concerned, breast self-examination has now been downgraded from Category C - unproven - to Category D: proven to be harmful.'
Now Baum fears that similar harm may come to men who practise testicular self-examination or demand PSAs for prostate cancer. He argues that the endless promotion of awareness about prostate cancer - which is leading more men to ask for PSAs - is `especially worrying'. `There is a potential risk of overdiagnosing a latent pathology which if left alone would not threaten a man's life, yet if detected, and acted upon, might threaten his continence and his performance, if you see what I mean. Promoting PSA in the absence of evidence that PSA testing stops men dying from prostate cancer is foolish and dangerous.' Indeed, numerous studies have confirmed that widespread testing for prostate cancer can be bad news. Earlier this year a US taskforce that investigated the efficacy of PSA testing was only the latest to find that `screening is associated with important harms, including frequent false-positive results and unnecessary anxiety, biopsies and potential complications of treatment of some cancer that may never have affected a patient's health'.
Who'd have thought it - the men's health industry is potentially bad for men's health. However good and noble their intentions might be, male health activists and their funders and supporters in government, business and the media are causing anxiety amongst men of all ages and possibly even giving rise to surgical interventions that are unnecessary, uncomfortable, unhelpful and harmful. `Men are living longer and healthier lives', says Baum. `And there is no evidence that this obsession with health improves length and quality of life - in fact it can actually detract from both. Men should ignore these health zealots.'
Baum argues that the men's health industry is social engineering dressed up as caring awareness. `This is about trying to manipulate behaviour. It is about trying to brainwash people into unnatural ways of behaving, getting men to be more meek and obedient. It is symptomatic of the kind of social engineering we have today. We have a quite extraordinary situation in this country at the moment. On what we might call the left-leaning side of society there is a flight from rational belief towards alternative medicine - and then on the right-leaning side of society there is the transformation of health into a kind of social engineering project. I really think we should tell both sides to get a grip.'
As young men feel up their testicles (after a bath is best, apparently, when the scrotum is soft and shrivelled) and older men have their rectums penetrated by a doctor's digit, could there be a more fitting image of the emasculation of the contemporary male? In the rise of the men's health industry, which treats men as passive victims who must be prodded and studied for signs of distress and disease, we can glimpse the demise of old ideas of manhood - of men as active, strong-willed, ambitious and independent. Nothing better sums it up than the know-your-balls agenda. In Ancient Rome and other societies the testicles were seen as symbols of virility and strength, the source of man's power; today they are seen as symbols of victimhood and sickness, potentially the source of man's downfall. Baum has a message for the testicle-squeezers of the men's health lobby: `Keep you nose out of my anus and keep your hands off my balls - and stop interfering in my life.'
Source
Closing hospitals and shoving their work onto GPs
Minor surgery such as hernia repairs and varicose vein removal will be carried out in family doctors’ surgeries instead of in hospitals under plans to be announced by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary, this week. Ministers believe that up to half of the 45m hospital outpatient appointments can be dealt with by GPs and nurses in local health centres. It will save the National Health Service money by freeing up hospital beds which cost about 300 pounds a day. Ministers say surgery in local health centres will make better use of highly trained GPs and be more convenient for patients.
Lord Warner, the minister for NHS reform, said: “The rationale behind providing care closer to home is to make better use of highly specialist skills . . . this will involve (having) GPs who are as skilled with the scalpel as they are with the stethoscope.”
Hewitt will also announce plans to free up hospital beds by discharging patients early with a telephone number for a nurse in case they have a relapse. The health secretary will say patients are likely to make a speedier recovery in the comfort of their own homes. A trial of the dial-a-nurse plan has already been carried out at the Royal Hampshire county hospital in Winchester. Bowel cancer patients have been discharged from hospital early and told to call if their condition deteriorates.
Cancer patients will be given chemotherapy in their own homes as part of the drive to reduce the amount of treatment carried out in hospitals, which are expensive to run. The changes will also reduce the risk of patients catching hospital-acquired infections such as MRSA. Hewitt pledged to move treatment out of hospitals in the government white paper Health Outside Hospitals, published in January. The plans may prove controversial when some hospitals are either downgraded or closed.
David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS, warned that some hospitals will need to close. Last month he said that there would be up to 60 “reconfigurations” of NHS services, affecting every region in England.
Source
ANTI-CHRISTIAN DISCRIMINATION IN BRITAIN
(Sad that it takes a Coptic Christian to stand up for the faith. The only thing a member of the Church of England would stand up for is homosexuality)
British Airways has suspended a Christian woman who wears a necklace with a crucifix to work, even though it allows Muslims and Sikhs to wear headscarves and turbans, a newspaper reported overnight. Nadia Eweida, 55, told the Daily Mail that she decided to sue her employer for religious discrimination after having been suspended without pay for three weeks. "I will not hide my belief in the Lord Jesus. British Airways permits Muslims to wear a headscarf, Sikhs to wear a turban and other faiths religious apparel," Ms Eweida said. "Only Christians are forbidden to express their faith." Ms Eweida, a British Airways employee for seven years, works at the BA check-in counter at London's Heathrow Airport.
In a statement, British Airways said: "The case is ongoing, and is still under investigation, and as such it would be inappropriate to discuss it in detail. An appeal is due to be heard next week. "British Airways does recognise that uniformed employees may wish to wear jewellery including religious symbols. Our uniform policy states that these items can be worn underneath the uniform," it said. "There is no ban. The rule applies for all jewellery and religious symbols on chains and is not specific to the Christian cross," it said. "Other religious items such as turbans, hijabs and bangles can be worn as it is not practical for staff to conceal them beneath their uniforms."
The Daily Mail said Ms Eweida, whose father is an Egyptian Coptic Christian and whose mother is English, was ordered last month by a manager at Heathrow to remove her cross or hide it beneath a company cravat. She then asked for permission to wear the chain but was refused. According to the newspaper, BA customer service manager Caroline Girling told Ms Eweida in a letter: "You have been sent home because you have failed to comply with a reasonable request. "You were asked to cover up or remove your cross and chain which you refused to do"
Source
THE "MEN'S HEALTH" PANIC IN BRITAIN
Yes: The panic is more dangerous than the disease
Michael Baum is in fighting form. The emeritus professor of surgery at University College London, and leading expert on cancer, says he would like to give the `self-appointed custodians of men's health' a `bloody nose'. He's talking about those men's health groups, men's health magazines and men's health officials in the pay of the government, who are constantly advising men - through TV ads, glossy posters in GPs' waiting rooms, information-laden beermats, drop-in advice centres at football grounds or celeb-backed `awareness campaigns' - to get in touch with their bodies and their wellbeing. `You know what they're doing, don't you?' he says. `They are trying to make men into women. They are trying to whip up the same kind of hysteria about health that bugs women amongst men as well.'
Men's health has become big business in recent years. Who are these people? Well, there's the Men's Health Forum (MHF), founded in 1994, which works for the `development of health services that meet men's needs and enable men to change their risk-taking behaviours'. MHF is funded by the UK Department of Health (to the tune of around 200,000 pounds a year) and has also, a bit bizarrely, received money from the Kent Police Service (10,000 for the year 2004/2005), British Telecom (9,375 for 2004/2005), Sport England (10,000 for 2004/2005) and numerous others. Its patrons include the bicycle-riding liberal's favourite newsreader, Jon Snow, TV presenter Lynn Faulds-Wood and celebrity doctor Mark Porter. MHF is currently `devising interventions' in British schools to encourage young boys to think more about their health and enable them to `take control and seek help'
There is Men's Health Week, kickstarted by MHF in 2002 and supported by the DoH, which raises awareness about a different aspect of men's health each year. This year - 12 to 18 June - it was mental health, because apparently men `often find it hard to discuss their feelings and can be reluctant to seek professional help for emotional or mental health problems'. Then there is Everyman, a wing of the Institute of Cancer Research, which seeks to inform the male public about testicular and prostate cancer. It runs numerous advertising campaigns, gimmicks and stunts - most recently the `TacheBack 2006' initiative in September, which encouraged men to sponsor each other to grow moustaches (the `mark of a REAL superhero', apparently) in order to raise money for Everyman (3). It also launched the `Notice your nuts' campaign, with a TV advert featuring men with massive fake testicles hanging out of their flies and the slogan: `Make your balls a bigger part of your life.' Everyman is sponsored by Asda, Virgin, Butlins and Topman, the cheap and cheerful clothes-store for blokes which has produced t-shirts that say `I love my balls' and `Bollocks to cancer' and underwear that come with instructions on how to examine yourself for signs of testicular cancer printed on the inside.
There is Check-Em, an offshoot of Everyman, which as its name suggests is about encouraging young men to check `them' - that is, their testicles. Its website uses cod-ladspeak to encourage young men to practice testicular self-examination (TSE) every month. `Check your nuts!! A hands-on guide as to what to look for.' says a headline, while underneath a cartoon nurse in kinky white boots, suspenders and a tight white leather top (because men don't pay attention to matters related to health unless there's a scantily-clad nurse involved) explains how you should roll each testicle in search of lumps, bumps and other abnormalities (5). There is also the Orchid Cancer Charity, which has sent its self-help video `Know Your Balls: Check `Em Out', featuring celebs like Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross and Steve Davis, to 5,000 schools - and the Prostate Cancer Charity, which during its awareness week in 2005 distributed thousands of beermats to pubs around the country warning men about the dangers of prostate cancer.
Even football stadiums are being colonised by the men's health industry. During last year's Men's Health Week, MHF and government officials launched the `Football and Health' initiative, aimed at `harnessing the mass appeal [of football] to help reinforce and promote healthy living'. Announcing plans to set up drop-in health centres and organise leaflet and advice distribution at football grounds around the country, government minister Caroline Flint declared: `Football is an important part of many people's lives, and with its family-friendly policies including smoke-free grounds, family enclosures and football-in-the-community work carried out by club players, it provides great opportunities to get across key messages about healthy, active lives..'
From schools to pubs, from TV ads to the footie, there seems to be no respite from the `self-appointed custodians of men's health'. Baum is irritated by this burgeoning industry for two reasons: first, it can actually do more harm than good; and second, it takes officialdom's intervention into our private lives to `quite frightening new levels', he says.
Baum says the constant imploring of men to check themselves for testicular cancer, or to submit to prostate specific antigen tests (PSAs) for signs of prostate cancer, really is potentially harmful. `To promote testicular self-examination without evidence.well, it suggests we are not learning from the mistakes of the past', he says. `There are actually no data to support the idea that detecting testicular cancer by self-examination improves on the mortality for testicular cancer; that is just an assumption, but there is no evidence to support that assumption.'
`Testicular cancer is a relatively rare cancer, whereas testicular lumps are quite common', he continues. `So if we encourage young men to check their testes, their chances of finding a benign abnormality are considerably more than their chances of detecting cancer. So what you have is a lot of false alarms, with young men queuing up to see their doctors convinced they have TC when in fact they don't. And the real downside to all this is that if testicular cancer is suspected then the treatment is orchiectomy [the surgical removal of a testicle]. You don't biopsy a testicular cancer, you remove the testicle. And with all this heightened awareness of testicular cancer, with all these young men checking themselves for lumps and convinced that something benign is something really bad, I can see a situation where men will have unnecessary orchiectomies.'
One of the strangest things about the incessant campaigning around testicular cancer, which is targeted at young men aged 15 to 24 in particular, is that the disease is rare and very curable. There are around 1,900 cases of TC in Britain each year, which accounts for about one per cent of all cancers - and approximately 95 per cent of these cases of TC are cured. Last year there were 67 deaths from testicular cancer among men of all age groups in England and Wales. Among youthful men aged 15 to 24 - those who tend to be in those schools and colleges bombarded with know-your-balls propaganda - six men died from testicular cancer in 2005. The same number of 15- to 24-year-olds died from liver cancer, while four times that number - 25 - died from cancers of the brain. Strikingly, more men died from breast cancer in 2005 than died from testicular cancer: 82 men in all age groups died from breast cancer, compared to 67 for testicular cancer. Why aren't there campaigns instructing men on how to check their breasts for lumps? Why aren't young men warned about the tell-tale signs of brain cancer? Why the obsessive focus on testicles, with hundreds of thousands of pounds spent on encouraging young men to monitor their balls for a disease that is very rare and often not life-threatening?
Baum says it sums up the men's health brigade: `They are grabbing us by the balls, where it hurts.' When he says that those promoting testicular self-examination have not learned from `the mistakes of the past', he is referring especially to `the constant promotion of breast self-examination'. `As all the experts now know, that was a bad thing', he says. `It did more harm than good.'
As co-author of Breast Cancer and co-editor of History and Advancement of Anastrozole in the Treatment of Breast Cancer, and chair of the Psychosocial Oncology Committee at the National Cancer Research Institute, Baum knows his stuff. `In breast cancer, the mantra has always been "catch it early and you'll save your life" or "Your life in your hands", cliches like that. This hypothesis, that women who regularly practise breast self-examination will have a lower mortality for breast cancer than those who don't, has been tested - and it doesn't hold up. There have been three large-scale trials - one in Shanghai, one in Petersburg, another in the UK - where they compared the outcome of women who had been trained and monitored in breast self-examination with those who had been left alone. And as far as breast cancer mortality was concerned, there was no difference. But there was twice the number of unnecessary surgical interventions among the women who practised breast self-examination, among those who were more "aware", more cautious. `This provoked the publication of the Canadian Medical Association to publish a paper and a leader which argued that as far as public health is concerned, breast self-examination has now been downgraded from Category C - unproven - to Category D: proven to be harmful.'
Now Baum fears that similar harm may come to men who practise testicular self-examination or demand PSAs for prostate cancer. He argues that the endless promotion of awareness about prostate cancer - which is leading more men to ask for PSAs - is `especially worrying'. `There is a potential risk of overdiagnosing a latent pathology which if left alone would not threaten a man's life, yet if detected, and acted upon, might threaten his continence and his performance, if you see what I mean. Promoting PSA in the absence of evidence that PSA testing stops men dying from prostate cancer is foolish and dangerous.' Indeed, numerous studies have confirmed that widespread testing for prostate cancer can be bad news. Earlier this year a US taskforce that investigated the efficacy of PSA testing was only the latest to find that `screening is associated with important harms, including frequent false-positive results and unnecessary anxiety, biopsies and potential complications of treatment of some cancer that may never have affected a patient's health'.
Who'd have thought it - the men's health industry is potentially bad for men's health. However good and noble their intentions might be, male health activists and their funders and supporters in government, business and the media are causing anxiety amongst men of all ages and possibly even giving rise to surgical interventions that are unnecessary, uncomfortable, unhelpful and harmful. `Men are living longer and healthier lives', says Baum. `And there is no evidence that this obsession with health improves length and quality of life - in fact it can actually detract from both. Men should ignore these health zealots.'
Baum argues that the men's health industry is social engineering dressed up as caring awareness. `This is about trying to manipulate behaviour. It is about trying to brainwash people into unnatural ways of behaving, getting men to be more meek and obedient. It is symptomatic of the kind of social engineering we have today. We have a quite extraordinary situation in this country at the moment. On what we might call the left-leaning side of society there is a flight from rational belief towards alternative medicine - and then on the right-leaning side of society there is the transformation of health into a kind of social engineering project. I really think we should tell both sides to get a grip.'
As young men feel up their testicles (after a bath is best, apparently, when the scrotum is soft and shrivelled) and older men have their rectums penetrated by a doctor's digit, could there be a more fitting image of the emasculation of the contemporary male? In the rise of the men's health industry, which treats men as passive victims who must be prodded and studied for signs of distress and disease, we can glimpse the demise of old ideas of manhood - of men as active, strong-willed, ambitious and independent. Nothing better sums it up than the know-your-balls agenda. In Ancient Rome and other societies the testicles were seen as symbols of virility and strength, the source of man's power; today they are seen as symbols of victimhood and sickness, potentially the source of man's downfall. Baum has a message for the testicle-squeezers of the men's health lobby: `Keep you nose out of my anus and keep your hands off my balls - and stop interfering in my life.'
Source
Sunday, October 15, 2006
ENGLISH SCHOOLGIRL ARRESTED BECAUSE SHE COULDN'T UNDERSTAND URDU
The big bold British police are great at harassing schoolgirls but don't ask them to do anything about real criminals. See here for one example of how utterly useless they are at catching real crooks -- even when the crooks are in effect handed to them on a platter
A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English. Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. The 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of commonsense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction.
The incident happened in the same local education authority where a ten-year-old boy was prosecuted earlier this year for calling a schoolfriend racist names in the playground, a move branded by a judge "political correctness gone mad."
Codie was attending a GCSE science class at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, when the incident happened. The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with. "She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils," said Codie yesterday. "Only one could speak English, so she had to tell that one what to do so she could explain in their language. Then she sat me with them and said 'Discuss'."
According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn't understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher. "I said 'I'm not being funny, but can I change groups because I can't understand them?' But she started shouting and screaming, saying 'It's racist, you're going to get done by the police'." Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day.
A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest. "They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewellery, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken," said Codie. "It was awful." After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence, her mother Nicola says she was placed in a bare cell for three-and-a-half hours then released without charge. She only returned to lessons this week and has been put in a different science class.
Yesterday Miss Stott, 37, a cleaner, said: "Codie was not being racist." "The reaction from the school and police is totally over the top and I am furious my daughter had to go through this trauma when all she was saying was common sense. " "She'd have been better off not saying anything and getting into trouble for not being able to do the work." Miss Stott, who is separated from Codie and her 18-year-old brother Ashley's father, lives with her partner Keith Seanor, a 36-year-old cable layer, in Walkden.
School insiders acknowledge that at least three of the students Codie refused to sit with had recently arrived in this country and spoke little English. But they say her comments afterwards raised further concerns, for example allegedly referring to the students as "blacks" - something she denied yesterday. The school is now investigating exactly what happened before deciding what action - if any - to take against Codie.
Headteacher Dr Antony Edkins said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark by one student towards a group of Asian students new to the school and new to the country." "We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards people and pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form."
Fewer than two per cent of pupils at Harrop Fold come from an ethnic minority. It had the worst GCSE results in the entire Salford LEA last year with just 15 per cent of pupils achieving five good passes including English and maths, a third of the national average. Since being placed in special measures, Ofsted inspectors say it has improved, not least as a result of Dr Edkins's "outstanding" leadership.
Salford was at the centre of a storm last April after a ten-year-old boy was hauled before a court for allegedly calling an 11-year-old mixed race pupil a 'Paki' and 'Bin Laden' in a playground argument at a primary school in Irlam. When the case came before District Judge Jonathan Finestein he said the decision to prosecute showed "how stupid the whole system is getting". But was himself fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders for "feeding a pernicious agenda" that aided the BNP. The prosecution was eventually dropped.
Last night Robert Whelan, deputy director of the Civitas think-tank, said: "It's obviously common sense that pupils who don't speak English cause problems for other pupils and for teachers." "I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time, but it's a sad reflection on the school if they can't deal with it without involving the police." "A lot of these arrests don't result in prosecutions - they aim is to frighten us into self-censorship until we watch everything we say." Greater Manchester Police denied Codie had been kept in a cell but would not comment further.
Source
Why can't British patients pay for their own drugs?
The NHS often will not
The developers of a groundbreaking new breast cancer drug are expected to file for a licence to sell it in this country within the next few days. Trials suggest Lapatinib (brand name Tykerb) is effective on some women with advanced breast cancer who no longer get benefits from taking the drug Herceptin, and on women who are unable to take Herceptin because of side effects. Like Herceptin, it targets the HER2 protein, which can fuel the growth of breast tumours. About one in five beast cancers carry an excess of HER2 proteins. Unlike Herceptin, it also targets the HER1 receptor, and it may also act on secondary tumours in the brain. It is not a cure for cancer, but it appears to give patients an average of a few months longer to live.
Anni Matthews has advanced breast cancer which has spread to her lungs, and in 2002 she was told she only had two years to live. She took Herceptin for two and a half years, and began taking Lapatinib in March when Herceptin stopped being effective. She had seven tumours in her lungs, and she says all but one seems to have disappeared since she began her new treatment. She has experienced side effects, including stomach upsets and bleeding from her eyes, nose and fingernails, but she feels so well she is still able to lead a normal life including playing tennis twice a week.
Anni is lucky, though. She is getting Lapatinib because she is taking part in a medical trial. If the drug is licensed in Europe, other patients will have to pay for it, unless the NHS decides to fund it. Cancer experts estimate it will cost about 25,000 pounds a year. And patients would also have to pay for the rest of their cancer treatment privately, which would cost at least another 25,000 pounds, because they are not allowed to "top up" their NHS treatment by paying privately for new drugs.
Anni believes Lapatinib should be available on the NHS. "I can't see how this country can spend millions of pounds on drug research - encouraging companies to seek a cure for cancer - and then turn round and say, I'm terribly sorry we can't afford it," she said.
A leading oncologist, Professor Karol Sikora, says the time has come for the NHS to rethink the way expensive cancer drugs are funded. He believes patients should be allowed to "top up" their NHS treatment and pay for drugs themselves if their Primary Care Trusts won't fund them. "I think there's no alternative," he said. "In the next five years there are about 40 new cancer drugs coming along. They will all cost about 40,000 or 50,000 pounds a year. "The NHS simply can't afford them unless it gets an even bigger increase than it's had in the last ten years."
But the medical think tank, the King's Fund, is fundamentally opposed. "The NHS is based on equal treatment for equal need," says Tony Harrison, a senior fellow in health policy. "This could mean you'd get a patient in one NHS bed who can't have the drug next to a patient in the next bed who can, and that would be so obviously inequitable."
The Department of Health said it's not an option being considered at the moment. A spokesperson said it would risk creating a two-tier health service and be in direct contravention with the principles and values of the NHS.
Research is ongoing into whether Lapatinib might be effective against other forms of cancer. And while that continues, so will the debate about how this and other new cancer drugs might be funded in the future.
Source
LSD helps alcoholics put down the botttle: "A single dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD is an effective treatment for alcoholism -- according to research led by a British doctor more than 40 years ago. Studies on thousands of alcoholics treated with the drug in the early 1960s -- before it became popular as a psychedelic street drug -- showed it helped trigger a change in mental attitude leading drinkers to quit. But, in spite of its promise, the therapeutic potential of the drug has been ignored since it was banned worldwide in the late 1960s as a threat to public safety. Now a historian who unearthed the research, led by British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond and carried out in Canada, has interviewed the participants four decades on and says the results are dramatic."
The big bold British police are great at harassing schoolgirls but don't ask them to do anything about real criminals. See here for one example of how utterly useless they are at catching real crooks -- even when the crooks are in effect handed to them on a platter
A teenage schoolgirl was arrested by police for racism after refusing to sit with a group of Asian students because some of them did not speak English. Codie Stott's family claim she was forced to spend three-and-a-half hours in a police cell after she was reported by her teachers. The 14-year-old - who was released without charge - said it had been a simple matter of commonsense and accused the school and police of an over-the-top reaction.
The incident happened in the same local education authority where a ten-year-old boy was prosecuted earlier this year for calling a schoolfriend racist names in the playground, a move branded by a judge "political correctness gone mad."
Codie was attending a GCSE science class at Harrop Fold High School in Worsley, Greater Manchester, when the incident happened. The teenager had not been in school the day before due to a hospital appointment and had missed the start of a project, so the teacher allocated her a group to sit with. "She said I had to sit there with five Asian pupils," said Codie yesterday. "Only one could speak English, so she had to tell that one what to do so she could explain in their language. Then she sat me with them and said 'Discuss'."
According to Codie, the five - four boys and a girl - then began talking in a language she didn't understand, thought to be Urdu, so she went to speak to the teacher. "I said 'I'm not being funny, but can I change groups because I can't understand them?' But she started shouting and screaming, saying 'It's racist, you're going to get done by the police'." Codie said she went outside to calm down where another teacher found her and, after speaking to her class teacher, put her in isolation for the rest of the day.
A complaint was made to a police officer based full-time at the school, and more than a week after the incident on September 26 she was taken to Swinton police station and placed under arrest. "They told me to take my laces out of my shoes and remove my jewellery, and I had my fingerprints and photograph taken," said Codie. "It was awful." After questioning on suspicion of committing a section five racial public order offence, her mother Nicola says she was placed in a bare cell for three-and-a-half hours then released without charge. She only returned to lessons this week and has been put in a different science class.
Yesterday Miss Stott, 37, a cleaner, said: "Codie was not being racist." "The reaction from the school and police is totally over the top and I am furious my daughter had to go through this trauma when all she was saying was common sense. " "She'd have been better off not saying anything and getting into trouble for not being able to do the work." Miss Stott, who is separated from Codie and her 18-year-old brother Ashley's father, lives with her partner Keith Seanor, a 36-year-old cable layer, in Walkden.
School insiders acknowledge that at least three of the students Codie refused to sit with had recently arrived in this country and spoke little English. But they say her comments afterwards raised further concerns, for example allegedly referring to the students as "blacks" - something she denied yesterday. The school is now investigating exactly what happened before deciding what action - if any - to take against Codie.
Headteacher Dr Antony Edkins said: "An allegation of a serious nature was made concerning a racially motivated remark by one student towards a group of Asian students new to the school and new to the country." "We aim to ensure a caring and tolerant attitude towards people and pupils of all ethnic backgrounds and will not stand for racism in any form."
Fewer than two per cent of pupils at Harrop Fold come from an ethnic minority. It had the worst GCSE results in the entire Salford LEA last year with just 15 per cent of pupils achieving five good passes including English and maths, a third of the national average. Since being placed in special measures, Ofsted inspectors say it has improved, not least as a result of Dr Edkins's "outstanding" leadership.
Salford was at the centre of a storm last April after a ten-year-old boy was hauled before a court for allegedly calling an 11-year-old mixed race pupil a 'Paki' and 'Bin Laden' in a playground argument at a primary school in Irlam. When the case came before District Judge Jonathan Finestein he said the decision to prosecute showed "how stupid the whole system is getting". But was himself fiercely attacked by teaching union leaders for "feeding a pernicious agenda" that aided the BNP. The prosecution was eventually dropped.
Last night Robert Whelan, deputy director of the Civitas think-tank, said: "It's obviously common sense that pupils who don't speak English cause problems for other pupils and for teachers." "I'm sure this sort of thing happens all the time, but it's a sad reflection on the school if they can't deal with it without involving the police." "A lot of these arrests don't result in prosecutions - they aim is to frighten us into self-censorship until we watch everything we say." Greater Manchester Police denied Codie had been kept in a cell but would not comment further.
Source
Why can't British patients pay for their own drugs?
The NHS often will not
The developers of a groundbreaking new breast cancer drug are expected to file for a licence to sell it in this country within the next few days. Trials suggest Lapatinib (brand name Tykerb) is effective on some women with advanced breast cancer who no longer get benefits from taking the drug Herceptin, and on women who are unable to take Herceptin because of side effects. Like Herceptin, it targets the HER2 protein, which can fuel the growth of breast tumours. About one in five beast cancers carry an excess of HER2 proteins. Unlike Herceptin, it also targets the HER1 receptor, and it may also act on secondary tumours in the brain. It is not a cure for cancer, but it appears to give patients an average of a few months longer to live.
Anni Matthews has advanced breast cancer which has spread to her lungs, and in 2002 she was told she only had two years to live. She took Herceptin for two and a half years, and began taking Lapatinib in March when Herceptin stopped being effective. She had seven tumours in her lungs, and she says all but one seems to have disappeared since she began her new treatment. She has experienced side effects, including stomach upsets and bleeding from her eyes, nose and fingernails, but she feels so well she is still able to lead a normal life including playing tennis twice a week.
Anni is lucky, though. She is getting Lapatinib because she is taking part in a medical trial. If the drug is licensed in Europe, other patients will have to pay for it, unless the NHS decides to fund it. Cancer experts estimate it will cost about 25,000 pounds a year. And patients would also have to pay for the rest of their cancer treatment privately, which would cost at least another 25,000 pounds, because they are not allowed to "top up" their NHS treatment by paying privately for new drugs.
Anni believes Lapatinib should be available on the NHS. "I can't see how this country can spend millions of pounds on drug research - encouraging companies to seek a cure for cancer - and then turn round and say, I'm terribly sorry we can't afford it," she said.
A leading oncologist, Professor Karol Sikora, says the time has come for the NHS to rethink the way expensive cancer drugs are funded. He believes patients should be allowed to "top up" their NHS treatment and pay for drugs themselves if their Primary Care Trusts won't fund them. "I think there's no alternative," he said. "In the next five years there are about 40 new cancer drugs coming along. They will all cost about 40,000 or 50,000 pounds a year. "The NHS simply can't afford them unless it gets an even bigger increase than it's had in the last ten years."
But the medical think tank, the King's Fund, is fundamentally opposed. "The NHS is based on equal treatment for equal need," says Tony Harrison, a senior fellow in health policy. "This could mean you'd get a patient in one NHS bed who can't have the drug next to a patient in the next bed who can, and that would be so obviously inequitable."
The Department of Health said it's not an option being considered at the moment. A spokesperson said it would risk creating a two-tier health service and be in direct contravention with the principles and values of the NHS.
Research is ongoing into whether Lapatinib might be effective against other forms of cancer. And while that continues, so will the debate about how this and other new cancer drugs might be funded in the future.
Source
LSD helps alcoholics put down the botttle: "A single dose of the hallucinogenic drug LSD is an effective treatment for alcoholism -- according to research led by a British doctor more than 40 years ago. Studies on thousands of alcoholics treated with the drug in the early 1960s -- before it became popular as a psychedelic street drug -- showed it helped trigger a change in mental attitude leading drinkers to quit. But, in spite of its promise, the therapeutic potential of the drug has been ignored since it was banned worldwide in the late 1960s as a threat to public safety. Now a historian who unearthed the research, led by British psychiatrist Humphrey Osmond and carried out in Canada, has interviewed the participants four decades on and says the results are dramatic."
Saturday, October 14, 2006
PERVASIVE BRITISH FOOD HECTORING
Fat maps, Labour's latest wheeze, reveal that the Department of Health will go to extraordinary lengths to preach their healthy-eating message. We must all be kept in line and patronised as inadequates who don't know how to feed ourselves. Caroline Flint, the self-righteous Public Health Minister, has even suggested that supermarkets show us how to eat and cook fruit and vegetables.
One way that the DoH has taken to crusading is through third-party "agents of persuasion". After all, it is not a given that the nanny state should have an automatic right to micromanage its citizens' most intimate activities, from how many pieces of fruit they eat a day to what they put in their children's lunchboxes. It is no surprise, then, that the department has a head of broadcasting strategy, and that a new phenomenon - "policy placement" - is ever more apparent on our television screens.
Take a cursory look at the TV schedules and you will find they are littered with programmes that uncritically regurgitate government messages on public health. Scaremongering about the supposed obesity epidemic, while challenged by many researchers as over-hyped, is accepted as a given in programmes such as Supersize Kids on Channel 4, Fat Families on ITV or Chubby Children on Living TV.
But the doyen of all of them is St Jamie Oliver. The DoH must adore him. I rather agreed with Boris Johnson's swipe at the TV chef. I also cheered when a couple of mums from Rotherham rebelled and told Salad Boy to stop telling the nation's children (and their parents) what not to eat. The great and the good of politics, however, flocked to Jamie's defence. Perhaps one reason why a TV pundit seems to have become such an untouchable Messiah is because he - and a new breed of lifestyle "experts" - have become the saleable face of "health correctness" and the unwitting popularisers of the nanny state.
You can see why politicians enjoy the prospect of outsourcing their policy messages to TV presenters. Arguments that, when presented by politicians, might be unappetising become pukka when pushed by a trendy campaigning chef. Ms Flint could not get away with deriding ordinary parents as "f***ing tossers", even though this is the implicit message behind so many of new Labour's health promotion initiatives.
But while all governments use whatever means necessary to get their policy priorities into the nation's living rooms, broadcasters seem blind to the way their programmes mesh with Government propaganda. The BBC's recent Fat Nation, a "fully integrated pan-platform campaign" across television, radio and online services, admitted that, although "the nation is bombarded by messages . . . from the Government", too many individuals have concluded that the obesity warnings do not affect them personally. Therefore Fat Nation offered to help, presenting itself as a "motivational service" aiming "to provide guidance and raise the nation's awareness of the issues; to change attitudes of people . . . and to motivate them to change their behaviour through diet and exercise over an extended period".
In the commercial sector, the Government regulator, Ofcom, now run by Tony Blair's former media adviser, Ed Richards, is threatening draconian bans on advertisements for "junk food" aimed at children. This is despite Ofcom's own research indicating that such advertisements have only a "modest direct effect on children's food choice". Ironically, while there is no shortage of programmes about unhealthy kids, according to the TV industry's campaign Save Kids TV, the ban means that fewer programmes will be made for children because of the loss of income from advertising. Apparently children's creative undernourishment is unimportant as long as they get the right messages about fatty foods.
While there is a fashionable queasiness about the big bad corporations influencing children to adopt unhealthy lifestyles, there is little queasiness about TV delivering the Government's messages. Celebrity endorsements of crisps, cola and sugary food by the likes of Gary Lineker are denounced as a shocking manipulation of children's minds. But somehow it is not shockingly manipulative when the Food Standards Agency advocates that broadcasters use - guess what - celebrities and cartoon characters to sell children 5 A DAY (five portions of fruit or vegetables a day) messages.
BBC Worldwide uses CBBC characters such as the Teletubbies and the Frimbles to brand food products deemed nutritionally sound. It appears that Ofcom's problem is not about using cartoon characters or celebrities to influence children's diet or lifestyle per se. Rather, if they are to be used, they have to endorse the right diet and lifestyle. And what is "right" is increasingly dictated by the State.
Policy placement threatens journalistic integrity and political accountability. When policy issues are the focus of current affairs programmes, the journalists must adhere to strict guidelines of veracity. The Paxmans and Snows keep a rein on the wilder claims of politicians. Such stringent broadcasting criteria do not apply when policy messages are delivered through entertainment formats. Kris Murrin, presenter of the misanthropic Honey We're Killing the Kids, can get away with terrifying hapless parents into believing they are poisoning their offspring by letting them munch on a bag of crisps, without any cross-examination of her "facts". Where is the evidence to back up Sainsbury's poster boy's litany of ill-founded contemporary prejudices against modern food? Shouldn't St Jamie be challenged to explain how our digestive systems distinguish between the nutritional content of ciabatta with a drizzle of olive oil versus bread and dripping?
Policy placement is not just about diet. Just when Tony Blair focuses the domestic agenda on "the politics of behaviour", we have a flurry of reality TV shows about changing people's behaviour. The message is that private lives need mentoring and monitoring by third party "experts". The TV equivalent of the Government's Sure Start and Every Child Matters policies include Nanny 911 or Supernanny. As for the preoccupation with yobbish behaviour, Channel 4 has commissioned both Mind Your Manners and The Nightmares Next Door.
As Boris Johnson has found to his cost, challenging orthodoxies can get you into trouble. But it's time to drag the politicians out from behind the celebrity TV stars and hold both to account for the policies they peddle
Source
Multicultural failure in Britain
An east London teenager who became a drug dealer and a knife-wielding member of a street gang lays the blame on the transformation of his neighbourhood into an ethnic minority "ghetto" where turf warfare flourishes. "I fell in with the wrong crowd," said Syed Miah, 19, who regrets his life of crime. "Before, it was mixed and you would get to know other people, but now no one meets anyone. You grow up with this mentality that `we're Bangladeshis, whites are whites and blacks are blacks'." Miah became a full-time gangster when he was expelled from school for holding a knife to his teacher's throat. He says he eventually earned up to 960 pounds a week dealing heroin before being sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Miah's account of the failure of multiculturalism encapsulates the growing debate over how ethnic minorities should be integrated into society. At last week's Conservative conference, David Cameron, the party leader, warned that in some cities "we have allowed ghettos to develop - whole neighbourhoods cut off from the rest of society". He spoke of "parallel lives", citing "communities where people from different backgrounds never meet, never talk, never go into each other's homes". There are ethnic gang fights in Manchester and Birmingham and last week they spread to Windsor, where rioting erupted around an Asian-owned dairy and nearby prayer centre.
Last weekend, Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, 40, a maths and finance student, was stabbed to death in his block of flats in Hackney, east London. It later emerged he and his wife Veronique, who came to Britain 10 years ago as refugees from the Congo, had asked the authorities to improve security on their building because they were worried about loitering youths.
Nowhere is the ethnic basis of gangs more evident than in London, where the cultural patchwork is the most complicated in Britain. According to new figures, in the borough of Brent there is an 85% chance that any two people chosen at random would belong to different ethnic groups. Bangladeshis, Somalis, Pakistanis, Afro-Caribbeans and Turks have all formed their own gangs who are as likely to fight each other as they are to attack or be attacked by white thugs.
Last year Lee Jasper, a policing adviser to Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, warned that one south London gang, the Muslim Boys, was the "most serious criminal threat" the black community had ever faced. It was accused of shooting a man, execution-style, after he refused to convert to Islam, and has been implicated in dozens of other muggings and attempted murders.
Tower Hamlets, Miah's home borough, is one of the most ethnically diverse in Britain, with whites comprising just 51% of the population. It has been portrayed in books such as Brick Lane by Monica Ali as an area where there is tension, but communities manage to coexist. However, there is now strong evidence of the extent of segregation in the area. A recent report by Bristol University found 40% of Bangladeshi children went to schools where at least 90% of the pupils were Bangladeshi, while 60% of whites attended overwhelmingly white schools. The report described education in Tower Hamlets as "highly segregated".
Abdi Hassan, a representative of the local Somali community, recently complained to the council that segregation was fuelling violence. "There are many groups here, Moroccans, Irish and Algerians, but nobody mixes with anybody," said Hassan. "Why do we have community ghettos? Why shouldn't people want to interact with each other?"
Some local gangs were set up to resist racist attacks but turned to crime. In one incident in 1994, a Pakistani was left with severe brain damage after an attack by eight white thugs on Whitechapel Road. Emdad Rahman, 39, one of his friends, said: "The whole community was enraged. I remember a lot of my peers thinking, `Right, if they're going out Paki-bashing, we basically need to go out honky-bashing now'."
Often the gangs fight over territory merely for the sake of it. One seven-year feud in the area began with a row over who would get the last doughnut at school and ended with men in their twenties beating, blinding and stabbing each other. Miah's story of growing up amid segregated gang violence suggests such divisions are now entrenched. He used to live on the Solander Gardens estate where he was a member of the 70-strong Shadwell Massive gang. He now has an antisocial behaviour order that bars him from the area after 9pm.
Source
RACE-OBSESSED BRITAIN
State schools should introduce ethnic quotas into admissions criteria to break down the extreme segregation of pupils along cultural and religious lines, the head of the Local Government Association said yesterday. In remarks that sparked an immediate debate about the state of social cohesion in Britain, Lord Bruce-Lockhart said that Britain would never achieve integration and full social cohesion while neighbouring schools were divided along ethnic lines. It was unacceptable that non-white pupils should form 90 per cent of the population of one school, when white pupils formed 90 per cent of a neighbouring school down the road.
One solution, he suggested, would be for schools in areas with high concentrations of minority ethnic groups to incorporate some kind of ethnicity quota into admissions policies. Although reluctant to specify a quota, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, the former Conservative leader of Kent County Council, said other experts had suggested that schools should offer at least 25 per cent of their places to those from other ethnic groups.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart's comments drew a mixed reaction. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, agreed that urgent action was needed but was sceptical about the use of quotas. "I'm open to discussion, but I would not have said this is the first place we need to go," he told the Commons Education Select Committee. He warned MPs that school segregation had now become a "settled pattern" in many towns, often with disastrous effects. "The information we get from the front line . . . is that (segregation) contributes to conflict among young people. Gangs form at school and the ethnicisation of gang culture is part of that," he said.
Twinning agreements between schools and summer camps where children from different backgrounds mix would be more workable, he said. Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that ethnic quotas had been shown to be unworkable in the US, where the problem of pupil segregation was far more extreme. "You cannot tell a parent that they cannot send their child to the school of their choice because it has met its racial quota. The right of parents to send their children to the school they want is a fundamental right in this country," he said.
Sir Dexter Hutt, executive director of the Ninestiles federation in Birmingham, who has dealt with the problem of segregated schools at first hand, said that if quotas were to be used, the level would have to be set closer to 40 than 25 per cent. Although he was sceptical about how practical quotas would be, he accepted that urgent action was needed. "Children learn by rubbing shoulders with each other and by having arguments with each other in a restrained situation like a school. A multiracial school population would be far more likely to lead to social cohesion," he said.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart accepted that such policies would be difficult to put into practice, but said the most important thing was that a debate on school segregation should take place. "Proactive admissions policies could be used to establish a better ethnic balance in schools. In towns where the totality of the minority ethnic population is 15 per cent of the whole, we should consider the use of numbers in admissions policies. "We have to get to a situation where people regard the total ethnicity of a town as being represented in schools, otherwise we are never going to be properly integrated," he told The Times. "Children start off being colour-blind and this is a wonderful thing. But if you have schools where the children are being educated in different ethnic groups you are going to lose that and you are simply not going to have integration. "If we are to have stable communities and to prevent the rise of the far Right, our job now is to put all these issues on the table and open a public debate," he said.
He added that pairing, or twinning schemes, where predominantly white schools link up with predominantly non-white schools for sports and drama activities, were another way forward. So too were federations of white and non-white schools that brought the management of the two institutions together under a single leadership.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart's comments follow new research published by Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. Entitled Sleepwalking towards Segregation, it reports that ethnic segregation in schools is now fully entrenched in areas where the minority ethnic population is above the 8 per cent national average. In Bradford, 62 per cent of secondary schools are predominantly white, while 21 per cent are predominantly non-white. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets 47 per cent of secondary schools are described as "exclusively non-white", while 33 per cent have a white majority.
Source
Alzheimer's drugs appeal refused
Two pounds and fifty pence per day per patient is too expensive for the NHS!
Alzheimer's disease groups have condemned a decision by the NHS drugs watchdog to reject their appeal for greater access to certain drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine could be used to treat moderate stage disease. Campaigners had argued patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's should also have access to the 2.50 pounds-per-day drugs. But NICE said studies showed the drugs "did not make enough of a difference". NICE guidelines cover England and Wales, but the health bodies in Scotland often follow suit.
The body has also ruled another drug, memantine, should be used only in clinical studies for people with moderately severe to severe Alzheimer's disease. Eisai and Pfizer, who produce donepezil, also known as Aricept, said they were considering whether to seek a judicial review of the decision.
About 750,000 people in the UK are estimated to have dementia, but only 78,000 patients take donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine, with two thirds of those taking donepezil. Galantamine is also known as Reminyl, rivastigmine as Exelon and memantine as Ebixa.
NICE guidance in 2001 recommended the drugs - which can make it easier to carry out everyday tasks - should be used as standard. However, in July 2005 it said access to the drugs should be restricted because they were not good value for money. It has now issued its final guidance, which will apply only to newly-diagnosed patients. Those already taking the drugs will continue to do so.
Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, said: "Alzheimer's is a cruel and devastating illness and we realise that today's announcement will be disappointing to people with Alzheimer's and those who treat and care for them. "But we have to be honest and say that, based on all the evidence, including data presented by the drug companies themselves, our experts have concluded that these drugs do not make enough of a difference for us to recommend their use for treating all stages of Alzheimer's disease. "We have recommended the use of these drugs where they have the potential to make a real difference, which is at the moderate stage of the illness." He told the BBC the appeal was "not designed to re-run the whole evaluation", but that "the appeal panel is to make sure the process has been followed properly".
Action on Alzheimer's, an alliance of more than 30 professional and patient organisations, reacted angrily to the ruling. "The decision will force patients to wait until their condition deteriorates into a state of fear and confusion before receiving drugs that work," it said. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Professor Clive Ballard, from the Alzheimer's Society, claimed there were "a number of clear errors during the [Nice] appeal process" that did not appear to have been "addressed". He said: "I think that is a very serious allegation but I believe that to be true."
Help the Aged said one in five people over 80 were affected by dementia and the number of people living with the disease was set to double in a decade. Jonathan Ellis, senior policy manager at the charity, said: "It cannot be right to allow the health of thousands of older people to deteriorate on the altar of cost." A Department of Health spokesman said it would be "entirely inappropriate" to overrule NICE's decision.
Source
FEW GOOD HOSPITALS IN THE NHS
Quality standards and financial management in the NHS still need improvement, according to a hard-hitting report into the service. More than half of all NHS trusts in England provide services that are only weak or fair, and four fifths fall into the same category for their use of resources.
The ratings are the first produced by the Healthcare Commission under a system that has replaced star ratings. The criteria are broader and tougher, which is reflected in the results. Among hospitals, 11 qualify as excellent and 12 are described as weak in quality of service. Primary care trusts (PCTs) come out even worse: only six deliver excellent services and 24 are weak.
The new scales offer four rungs, roughly corresponding to the old three, two, one or zero stars. Services are assessed as excellent, good, fair or weak, and a similar scale is used to measure financial management, described as "use of resources". Not a single PCT wins the accolade of excellent for financial management and 124 are described as weak. Among ambulance trusts, not one is deemed excellent in either category.
The report will make unhappy reading for ministers, who have argued that the extra money going into the NHS is having real effects. The Healthcare Commission agrees: it sees a lot of positives in the findings and says that more demanding criteria, rather than declining performance, are behind the gloomy ratings.
The commission ranked 570 trusts in England, including PCTs, acute hospital trusts, mental health trusts and ambulance trusts. It concluded that 60 per cent were weak or needed to improve. Only two hospitals - Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London - gained excellent ratings for services and use of resources. Eight scored weak in both categories. Overall, 24 trusts were ranked as weak for both quality of services and use of resources. For these - eight hospital trusts, 11 PCTs, four ambulance trusts and one mental health trust - the strategic health authorities would be demanding an action plan to put things right within 30 days.
Anna Walker, the chief executive of the commission, said that there were examples of good work, but added: "The NHS does need to raise its game to ensure a universal guarantee that general standards on both quality of services and use of resources are being met. What this assessment is about is systematically looking at each of these trusts to see how they are performing. What we are saying about the weak ones is not that they are unsafe but that they do have issues that they need to address quickly."
All trusts that ran a deficit in 2005-06 were automatically rated as weak in use of resources. But many, especially among the PCTs, would have scored the same even if they had not run a deficit, because their financial management was poor, Gary Needle, head of the annual health check at the commission, said. Ms Walker said: "This is a worrying picture of an NHS where financial management is not good enough. There are too many weak trusts, which failed to manage finances properly and too many fair trusts, which means that there is room for improvement. "It is no secret that the NHS has struggled with finances over the past year, but this assessment shows it is not only deficits that are the problem. It shows that many organisations do not have adequate financial systems in place. "Patients' care will suffer in the end if this is not put right."
The commission examined quality of services in a variety of ways. They included 24 core standards, looking at areas such as safety, clinical effectiveness and patient focus. Also incorporated were the old targets, mostly concerned with waiting times, where trusts did relatively well, and new targets, such as promoting good health, reducing obesity and helping people to give up smoking, where they did less well.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, urged the NHS to redouble its efforts to meet patients' expectations. "The best of the NHS is among the best in the world and we should all be proud of its achievements," she said. "But I want to see the best everywhere. "This is the toughest and most comprehensive assessment of the NHS and it takes forward the commitment we made to patients and the public to provide them with detailed and easily understandable information about the performance of their local health services."
Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said that the spread of results was proof that the latest round of reorganisations had adversely affected services. "Foundation trusts, who have not been reorganised and have extra freedoms to manage their own affairs, have been able to get on with the job and improve services, as the health check shows," he said.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund health think-tank, said: "There is clearly a mountain to climb here, especially in financial management: in part a legacy of the health service not grappling with underlying deficits early enough."
Source
OXBRIDGE ADMISSIONS: A PATHETIC AND EXTREMELY ARBITRARY SUBSTITUTE FOR IQ AND ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
At what point is a person dead? And how does a perm work? You may need to talk your way out of questions like these to get into Britain's elite universities, a survey of applicants has revealed. They were some of the more curious questions recently pitched by interviewers at Oxford and Cambridge looking to find the very best among the thousands of students trying to get on courses at the prestige institutions. The survey of around 1200 students by Oxbridge Applications, which advises applicants, showed the interview process was living up to its reputation for being notoriously tough. The questions reported by students included:
Here is a piece of bark, please talk about it. (Biological Sciences, Oxford)
Are you cool? (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford)
At what point is a person "dead"? (Medicine, Cambridge)
Put a monetary value on this teapot. (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Cambridge)
Other questions, though it was not clear who asked them, included: What percentage of the world's water is contained in a cow; of all 19th-century politicians, who was most like Tony Blair?
Jessica Elsom, of Oxbridge Applications, said the interview process was "notoriously eccentric" as the universities try to recruit the sharpest-witted among youngsters with flawless British school-leaving exam results. "With the increase in the numbers of students excelling at A-level, the Oxbridge interviews are one way of finding out who really cuts the mustard," she said.
Source
Rushdie: Veils for Muslim women "suck": "British author Salman Rushdie Tuesday joined the delicate debate about face veils for Muslim women saying they 'suck' and weakened a woman's position. The writer, who was the subject of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran in the late 1980s over his novel, The Satanic Verses, said he regarded the veil as a way of taking power away from women. Speaking in a BBC interview, Rushdie supported the position of Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secreatry, who last week sparked controversy with his comment that the veil was a 'visible statement of difference and separation. ... He (Straw) was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck -- which they do,' the Indian-born author said."
Fat maps, Labour's latest wheeze, reveal that the Department of Health will go to extraordinary lengths to preach their healthy-eating message. We must all be kept in line and patronised as inadequates who don't know how to feed ourselves. Caroline Flint, the self-righteous Public Health Minister, has even suggested that supermarkets show us how to eat and cook fruit and vegetables.
One way that the DoH has taken to crusading is through third-party "agents of persuasion". After all, it is not a given that the nanny state should have an automatic right to micromanage its citizens' most intimate activities, from how many pieces of fruit they eat a day to what they put in their children's lunchboxes. It is no surprise, then, that the department has a head of broadcasting strategy, and that a new phenomenon - "policy placement" - is ever more apparent on our television screens.
Take a cursory look at the TV schedules and you will find they are littered with programmes that uncritically regurgitate government messages on public health. Scaremongering about the supposed obesity epidemic, while challenged by many researchers as over-hyped, is accepted as a given in programmes such as Supersize Kids on Channel 4, Fat Families on ITV or Chubby Children on Living TV.
But the doyen of all of them is St Jamie Oliver. The DoH must adore him. I rather agreed with Boris Johnson's swipe at the TV chef. I also cheered when a couple of mums from Rotherham rebelled and told Salad Boy to stop telling the nation's children (and their parents) what not to eat. The great and the good of politics, however, flocked to Jamie's defence. Perhaps one reason why a TV pundit seems to have become such an untouchable Messiah is because he - and a new breed of lifestyle "experts" - have become the saleable face of "health correctness" and the unwitting popularisers of the nanny state.
You can see why politicians enjoy the prospect of outsourcing their policy messages to TV presenters. Arguments that, when presented by politicians, might be unappetising become pukka when pushed by a trendy campaigning chef. Ms Flint could not get away with deriding ordinary parents as "f***ing tossers", even though this is the implicit message behind so many of new Labour's health promotion initiatives.
But while all governments use whatever means necessary to get their policy priorities into the nation's living rooms, broadcasters seem blind to the way their programmes mesh with Government propaganda. The BBC's recent Fat Nation, a "fully integrated pan-platform campaign" across television, radio and online services, admitted that, although "the nation is bombarded by messages . . . from the Government", too many individuals have concluded that the obesity warnings do not affect them personally. Therefore Fat Nation offered to help, presenting itself as a "motivational service" aiming "to provide guidance and raise the nation's awareness of the issues; to change attitudes of people . . . and to motivate them to change their behaviour through diet and exercise over an extended period".
In the commercial sector, the Government regulator, Ofcom, now run by Tony Blair's former media adviser, Ed Richards, is threatening draconian bans on advertisements for "junk food" aimed at children. This is despite Ofcom's own research indicating that such advertisements have only a "modest direct effect on children's food choice". Ironically, while there is no shortage of programmes about unhealthy kids, according to the TV industry's campaign Save Kids TV, the ban means that fewer programmes will be made for children because of the loss of income from advertising. Apparently children's creative undernourishment is unimportant as long as they get the right messages about fatty foods.
While there is a fashionable queasiness about the big bad corporations influencing children to adopt unhealthy lifestyles, there is little queasiness about TV delivering the Government's messages. Celebrity endorsements of crisps, cola and sugary food by the likes of Gary Lineker are denounced as a shocking manipulation of children's minds. But somehow it is not shockingly manipulative when the Food Standards Agency advocates that broadcasters use - guess what - celebrities and cartoon characters to sell children 5 A DAY (five portions of fruit or vegetables a day) messages.
BBC Worldwide uses CBBC characters such as the Teletubbies and the Frimbles to brand food products deemed nutritionally sound. It appears that Ofcom's problem is not about using cartoon characters or celebrities to influence children's diet or lifestyle per se. Rather, if they are to be used, they have to endorse the right diet and lifestyle. And what is "right" is increasingly dictated by the State.
Policy placement threatens journalistic integrity and political accountability. When policy issues are the focus of current affairs programmes, the journalists must adhere to strict guidelines of veracity. The Paxmans and Snows keep a rein on the wilder claims of politicians. Such stringent broadcasting criteria do not apply when policy messages are delivered through entertainment formats. Kris Murrin, presenter of the misanthropic Honey We're Killing the Kids, can get away with terrifying hapless parents into believing they are poisoning their offspring by letting them munch on a bag of crisps, without any cross-examination of her "facts". Where is the evidence to back up Sainsbury's poster boy's litany of ill-founded contemporary prejudices against modern food? Shouldn't St Jamie be challenged to explain how our digestive systems distinguish between the nutritional content of ciabatta with a drizzle of olive oil versus bread and dripping?
Policy placement is not just about diet. Just when Tony Blair focuses the domestic agenda on "the politics of behaviour", we have a flurry of reality TV shows about changing people's behaviour. The message is that private lives need mentoring and monitoring by third party "experts". The TV equivalent of the Government's Sure Start and Every Child Matters policies include Nanny 911 or Supernanny. As for the preoccupation with yobbish behaviour, Channel 4 has commissioned both Mind Your Manners and The Nightmares Next Door.
As Boris Johnson has found to his cost, challenging orthodoxies can get you into trouble. But it's time to drag the politicians out from behind the celebrity TV stars and hold both to account for the policies they peddle
Source
Multicultural failure in Britain
An east London teenager who became a drug dealer and a knife-wielding member of a street gang lays the blame on the transformation of his neighbourhood into an ethnic minority "ghetto" where turf warfare flourishes. "I fell in with the wrong crowd," said Syed Miah, 19, who regrets his life of crime. "Before, it was mixed and you would get to know other people, but now no one meets anyone. You grow up with this mentality that `we're Bangladeshis, whites are whites and blacks are blacks'." Miah became a full-time gangster when he was expelled from school for holding a knife to his teacher's throat. He says he eventually earned up to 960 pounds a week dealing heroin before being sentenced to 18 months in jail.
Miah's account of the failure of multiculturalism encapsulates the growing debate over how ethnic minorities should be integrated into society. At last week's Conservative conference, David Cameron, the party leader, warned that in some cities "we have allowed ghettos to develop - whole neighbourhoods cut off from the rest of society". He spoke of "parallel lives", citing "communities where people from different backgrounds never meet, never talk, never go into each other's homes". There are ethnic gang fights in Manchester and Birmingham and last week they spread to Windsor, where rioting erupted around an Asian-owned dairy and nearby prayer centre.
Last weekend, Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, 40, a maths and finance student, was stabbed to death in his block of flats in Hackney, east London. It later emerged he and his wife Veronique, who came to Britain 10 years ago as refugees from the Congo, had asked the authorities to improve security on their building because they were worried about loitering youths.
Nowhere is the ethnic basis of gangs more evident than in London, where the cultural patchwork is the most complicated in Britain. According to new figures, in the borough of Brent there is an 85% chance that any two people chosen at random would belong to different ethnic groups. Bangladeshis, Somalis, Pakistanis, Afro-Caribbeans and Turks have all formed their own gangs who are as likely to fight each other as they are to attack or be attacked by white thugs.
Last year Lee Jasper, a policing adviser to Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, warned that one south London gang, the Muslim Boys, was the "most serious criminal threat" the black community had ever faced. It was accused of shooting a man, execution-style, after he refused to convert to Islam, and has been implicated in dozens of other muggings and attempted murders.
Tower Hamlets, Miah's home borough, is one of the most ethnically diverse in Britain, with whites comprising just 51% of the population. It has been portrayed in books such as Brick Lane by Monica Ali as an area where there is tension, but communities manage to coexist. However, there is now strong evidence of the extent of segregation in the area. A recent report by Bristol University found 40% of Bangladeshi children went to schools where at least 90% of the pupils were Bangladeshi, while 60% of whites attended overwhelmingly white schools. The report described education in Tower Hamlets as "highly segregated".
Abdi Hassan, a representative of the local Somali community, recently complained to the council that segregation was fuelling violence. "There are many groups here, Moroccans, Irish and Algerians, but nobody mixes with anybody," said Hassan. "Why do we have community ghettos? Why shouldn't people want to interact with each other?"
Some local gangs were set up to resist racist attacks but turned to crime. In one incident in 1994, a Pakistani was left with severe brain damage after an attack by eight white thugs on Whitechapel Road. Emdad Rahman, 39, one of his friends, said: "The whole community was enraged. I remember a lot of my peers thinking, `Right, if they're going out Paki-bashing, we basically need to go out honky-bashing now'."
Often the gangs fight over territory merely for the sake of it. One seven-year feud in the area began with a row over who would get the last doughnut at school and ended with men in their twenties beating, blinding and stabbing each other. Miah's story of growing up amid segregated gang violence suggests such divisions are now entrenched. He used to live on the Solander Gardens estate where he was a member of the 70-strong Shadwell Massive gang. He now has an antisocial behaviour order that bars him from the area after 9pm.
Source
RACE-OBSESSED BRITAIN
State schools should introduce ethnic quotas into admissions criteria to break down the extreme segregation of pupils along cultural and religious lines, the head of the Local Government Association said yesterday. In remarks that sparked an immediate debate about the state of social cohesion in Britain, Lord Bruce-Lockhart said that Britain would never achieve integration and full social cohesion while neighbouring schools were divided along ethnic lines. It was unacceptable that non-white pupils should form 90 per cent of the population of one school, when white pupils formed 90 per cent of a neighbouring school down the road.
One solution, he suggested, would be for schools in areas with high concentrations of minority ethnic groups to incorporate some kind of ethnicity quota into admissions policies. Although reluctant to specify a quota, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, the former Conservative leader of Kent County Council, said other experts had suggested that schools should offer at least 25 per cent of their places to those from other ethnic groups.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart's comments drew a mixed reaction. Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality, agreed that urgent action was needed but was sceptical about the use of quotas. "I'm open to discussion, but I would not have said this is the first place we need to go," he told the Commons Education Select Committee. He warned MPs that school segregation had now become a "settled pattern" in many towns, often with disastrous effects. "The information we get from the front line . . . is that (segregation) contributes to conflict among young people. Gangs form at school and the ethnicisation of gang culture is part of that," he said.
Twinning agreements between schools and summer camps where children from different backgrounds mix would be more workable, he said. Tahir Alam, education spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain, said that ethnic quotas had been shown to be unworkable in the US, where the problem of pupil segregation was far more extreme. "You cannot tell a parent that they cannot send their child to the school of their choice because it has met its racial quota. The right of parents to send their children to the school they want is a fundamental right in this country," he said.
Sir Dexter Hutt, executive director of the Ninestiles federation in Birmingham, who has dealt with the problem of segregated schools at first hand, said that if quotas were to be used, the level would have to be set closer to 40 than 25 per cent. Although he was sceptical about how practical quotas would be, he accepted that urgent action was needed. "Children learn by rubbing shoulders with each other and by having arguments with each other in a restrained situation like a school. A multiracial school population would be far more likely to lead to social cohesion," he said.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart accepted that such policies would be difficult to put into practice, but said the most important thing was that a debate on school segregation should take place. "Proactive admissions policies could be used to establish a better ethnic balance in schools. In towns where the totality of the minority ethnic population is 15 per cent of the whole, we should consider the use of numbers in admissions policies. "We have to get to a situation where people regard the total ethnicity of a town as being represented in schools, otherwise we are never going to be properly integrated," he told The Times. "Children start off being colour-blind and this is a wonderful thing. But if you have schools where the children are being educated in different ethnic groups you are going to lose that and you are simply not going to have integration. "If we are to have stable communities and to prevent the rise of the far Right, our job now is to put all these issues on the table and open a public debate," he said.
He added that pairing, or twinning schemes, where predominantly white schools link up with predominantly non-white schools for sports and drama activities, were another way forward. So too were federations of white and non-white schools that brought the management of the two institutions together under a single leadership.
Lord Bruce-Lockhart's comments follow new research published by Simon Burgess, Professor of Economics at the University of Bristol. Entitled Sleepwalking towards Segregation, it reports that ethnic segregation in schools is now fully entrenched in areas where the minority ethnic population is above the 8 per cent national average. In Bradford, 62 per cent of secondary schools are predominantly white, while 21 per cent are predominantly non-white. In the London borough of Tower Hamlets 47 per cent of secondary schools are described as "exclusively non-white", while 33 per cent have a white majority.
Source
Alzheimer's drugs appeal refused
Two pounds and fifty pence per day per patient is too expensive for the NHS!
Alzheimer's disease groups have condemned a decision by the NHS drugs watchdog to reject their appeal for greater access to certain drugs. The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence said donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine could be used to treat moderate stage disease. Campaigners had argued patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's should also have access to the 2.50 pounds-per-day drugs. But NICE said studies showed the drugs "did not make enough of a difference". NICE guidelines cover England and Wales, but the health bodies in Scotland often follow suit.
The body has also ruled another drug, memantine, should be used only in clinical studies for people with moderately severe to severe Alzheimer's disease. Eisai and Pfizer, who produce donepezil, also known as Aricept, said they were considering whether to seek a judicial review of the decision.
About 750,000 people in the UK are estimated to have dementia, but only 78,000 patients take donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine, with two thirds of those taking donepezil. Galantamine is also known as Reminyl, rivastigmine as Exelon and memantine as Ebixa.
NICE guidance in 2001 recommended the drugs - which can make it easier to carry out everyday tasks - should be used as standard. However, in July 2005 it said access to the drugs should be restricted because they were not good value for money. It has now issued its final guidance, which will apply only to newly-diagnosed patients. Those already taking the drugs will continue to do so.
Andrew Dillon, chief executive of NICE, said: "Alzheimer's is a cruel and devastating illness and we realise that today's announcement will be disappointing to people with Alzheimer's and those who treat and care for them. "But we have to be honest and say that, based on all the evidence, including data presented by the drug companies themselves, our experts have concluded that these drugs do not make enough of a difference for us to recommend their use for treating all stages of Alzheimer's disease. "We have recommended the use of these drugs where they have the potential to make a real difference, which is at the moderate stage of the illness." He told the BBC the appeal was "not designed to re-run the whole evaluation", but that "the appeal panel is to make sure the process has been followed properly".
Action on Alzheimer's, an alliance of more than 30 professional and patient organisations, reacted angrily to the ruling. "The decision will force patients to wait until their condition deteriorates into a state of fear and confusion before receiving drugs that work," it said. Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Professor Clive Ballard, from the Alzheimer's Society, claimed there were "a number of clear errors during the [Nice] appeal process" that did not appear to have been "addressed". He said: "I think that is a very serious allegation but I believe that to be true."
Help the Aged said one in five people over 80 were affected by dementia and the number of people living with the disease was set to double in a decade. Jonathan Ellis, senior policy manager at the charity, said: "It cannot be right to allow the health of thousands of older people to deteriorate on the altar of cost." A Department of Health spokesman said it would be "entirely inappropriate" to overrule NICE's decision.
Source
FEW GOOD HOSPITALS IN THE NHS
Quality standards and financial management in the NHS still need improvement, according to a hard-hitting report into the service. More than half of all NHS trusts in England provide services that are only weak or fair, and four fifths fall into the same category for their use of resources.
The ratings are the first produced by the Healthcare Commission under a system that has replaced star ratings. The criteria are broader and tougher, which is reflected in the results. Among hospitals, 11 qualify as excellent and 12 are described as weak in quality of service. Primary care trusts (PCTs) come out even worse: only six deliver excellent services and 24 are weak.
The new scales offer four rungs, roughly corresponding to the old three, two, one or zero stars. Services are assessed as excellent, good, fair or weak, and a similar scale is used to measure financial management, described as "use of resources". Not a single PCT wins the accolade of excellent for financial management and 124 are described as weak. Among ambulance trusts, not one is deemed excellent in either category.
The report will make unhappy reading for ministers, who have argued that the extra money going into the NHS is having real effects. The Healthcare Commission agrees: it sees a lot of positives in the findings and says that more demanding criteria, rather than declining performance, are behind the gloomy ratings.
The commission ranked 570 trusts in England, including PCTs, acute hospital trusts, mental health trusts and ambulance trusts. It concluded that 60 per cent were weak or needed to improve. Only two hospitals - Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust and the Royal Marsden Hospital in London - gained excellent ratings for services and use of resources. Eight scored weak in both categories. Overall, 24 trusts were ranked as weak for both quality of services and use of resources. For these - eight hospital trusts, 11 PCTs, four ambulance trusts and one mental health trust - the strategic health authorities would be demanding an action plan to put things right within 30 days.
Anna Walker, the chief executive of the commission, said that there were examples of good work, but added: "The NHS does need to raise its game to ensure a universal guarantee that general standards on both quality of services and use of resources are being met. What this assessment is about is systematically looking at each of these trusts to see how they are performing. What we are saying about the weak ones is not that they are unsafe but that they do have issues that they need to address quickly."
All trusts that ran a deficit in 2005-06 were automatically rated as weak in use of resources. But many, especially among the PCTs, would have scored the same even if they had not run a deficit, because their financial management was poor, Gary Needle, head of the annual health check at the commission, said. Ms Walker said: "This is a worrying picture of an NHS where financial management is not good enough. There are too many weak trusts, which failed to manage finances properly and too many fair trusts, which means that there is room for improvement. "It is no secret that the NHS has struggled with finances over the past year, but this assessment shows it is not only deficits that are the problem. It shows that many organisations do not have adequate financial systems in place. "Patients' care will suffer in the end if this is not put right."
The commission examined quality of services in a variety of ways. They included 24 core standards, looking at areas such as safety, clinical effectiveness and patient focus. Also incorporated were the old targets, mostly concerned with waiting times, where trusts did relatively well, and new targets, such as promoting good health, reducing obesity and helping people to give up smoking, where they did less well.
Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, urged the NHS to redouble its efforts to meet patients' expectations. "The best of the NHS is among the best in the world and we should all be proud of its achievements," she said. "But I want to see the best everywhere. "This is the toughest and most comprehensive assessment of the NHS and it takes forward the commitment we made to patients and the public to provide them with detailed and easily understandable information about the performance of their local health services."
Nigel Edwards, director of policy at the NHS Confederation, said that the spread of results was proof that the latest round of reorganisations had adversely affected services. "Foundation trusts, who have not been reorganised and have extra freedoms to manage their own affairs, have been able to get on with the job and improve services, as the health check shows," he said.
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the King's Fund health think-tank, said: "There is clearly a mountain to climb here, especially in financial management: in part a legacy of the health service not grappling with underlying deficits early enough."
Source
OXBRIDGE ADMISSIONS: A PATHETIC AND EXTREMELY ARBITRARY SUBSTITUTE FOR IQ AND ACHIEVEMENT TESTS
At what point is a person dead? And how does a perm work? You may need to talk your way out of questions like these to get into Britain's elite universities, a survey of applicants has revealed. They were some of the more curious questions recently pitched by interviewers at Oxford and Cambridge looking to find the very best among the thousands of students trying to get on courses at the prestige institutions. The survey of around 1200 students by Oxbridge Applications, which advises applicants, showed the interview process was living up to its reputation for being notoriously tough. The questions reported by students included:
Here is a piece of bark, please talk about it. (Biological Sciences, Oxford)
Are you cool? (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Oxford)
At what point is a person "dead"? (Medicine, Cambridge)
Put a monetary value on this teapot. (Philosophy, Politics and Economics, Cambridge)
Other questions, though it was not clear who asked them, included: What percentage of the world's water is contained in a cow; of all 19th-century politicians, who was most like Tony Blair?
Jessica Elsom, of Oxbridge Applications, said the interview process was "notoriously eccentric" as the universities try to recruit the sharpest-witted among youngsters with flawless British school-leaving exam results. "With the increase in the numbers of students excelling at A-level, the Oxbridge interviews are one way of finding out who really cuts the mustard," she said.
Source
Rushdie: Veils for Muslim women "suck": "British author Salman Rushdie Tuesday joined the delicate debate about face veils for Muslim women saying they 'suck' and weakened a woman's position. The writer, who was the subject of a fatwa by Ayatollah Khomeni of Iran in the late 1980s over his novel, The Satanic Verses, said he regarded the veil as a way of taking power away from women. Speaking in a BBC interview, Rushdie supported the position of Jack Straw, the former British Foreign Secreatry, who last week sparked controversy with his comment that the veil was a 'visible statement of difference and separation. ... He (Straw) was expressing an important opinion which is that veils suck -- which they do,' the Indian-born author said."
Friday, October 13, 2006
THE HOUSE OF LORDS ONCE AGAIN DEFENDS LIBERTY IN ENGLAND
Marvellous free-speech ruling by the Law Lords:
The British media has won the freedom to publish allegations about public figures free from the threat of libel laws in a landmark House of Lords ruling. In a ground-breaking unanimous judgment yesterday, the law lords ruled in favour of a public interest defence that brings English law more into line with the freedom enjoyed by the US media. In future, journalists will be free to publish material if they act responsibly and in the public interest and they will not be at risk of libel damages even if relevant allegations later prove to be untrue.
The law lords, Britain's top judges, said that the media was entitled to publish defamatory allegations as part of its duty of neutral reporting of news, or if it believed them to be of substance and they raised matters of public interest. The ruling came in an appeal by the Wall Street Journal Europe against a High Court decision, backed by the Court of Appeal, that it should pay 40,000 pounds damages to a billionaire Saudi car dealer, Mohammed Jameel, whose family owns Harwell Motors in Oxford. The story, published in February 2002, said that bank accounts associated with a number of prominent Saudi citizens, including Mr Jameel's family and its businesses, had been monitored by Saudi authorities at the request of US authorities to ensure no money was provided intentionally or knowingly to support terrorists.
Lord Hoffman, giving the lead judgment, said that the article was a perfect example of journalism for which the public interest defence should be available. It was for judges to apply the public interest test but that publication easily passed that test, he said. Its thrust was to inform the public that the Saudis were cooperating with the US Treasury and monitoring accounts. "It was a serious contribution in measured tone to a subject of very considerable importance." It could not be proved true because the existence of covert surveillance would be impossible to prove by evidence in open court. But that did not mean it did not happen. The newspaper was entitled to report even serious defamations against individuals, so long as they "made a real contribution to the public interest element in the article".
The ruling also said that judges, with "leisure and hindsight" should not second-guess editorial decisions made in busy newsrooms. The key test was whether a media organisation or newspaper acted fairly and responsibly in gathering and publishing the information, the judges said. If the reporter and editor did so, and the information was of public importance, then the fact that it contained relevant but defamatory allegations against prominent people would not permit them to recover libel damages.
Baroness Hale of Richmond in her judgment said: "We need more such serious journalism in this country and our defamation law should encourage rather than discourage it."
Geoffrey Robertson, QC, author of Media Law, the standard textbook, who argued the case for the Journal, said: "The decision provides the media in Britain with an increased freedom to publish newsworthy stories. "This is not a licence for irresponsible journalism. It frees investigative journalism from the chilling effect of libel actions, so long as the treatment is not sensational and the editorial behaviour is responsible. "It will enable, and indeed encourage, editors to place more information into the public domain than at present. "The decision is an important step in moving freedom of speech closer to that enjoyed by the US media under the First Amendment."
Dan Tench, a media partner at Olswang, said: "The judgment has enormous significance for serious journalism. Previously, the focus of libel hearings defended on the basis of the Reynolds defence was always on the newspaper, which faced an uphill struggle to demonstrate that it had acted responsibly. "But following today's ruling, it seems that as long as a publisher can show that it was writing serious journalism that engages the genuine public interest and so deserves to be protected, the focus will shift onto the claimant, who will need to prove not only that there were serious defects in the way the article was put together but also that those defects realistically led to the article as published being unfair."
Mr Jameel issued a statement today emphasising that he had only ever been interested in clearing his name. Mr Jameel, whose 5.4 million pound gift saw the opening last week of the Victoria and Albert Museum's new gallery of Islamic Art, said: "What the Wall Street Journal wrote in February 2002 was that the bank accounts of the ALJ Group were being monitored at the request of the US authorities. "That was not true. Mr Justice Eady and the Court of Appeal ruled that I was libelled. The House of Lords ruled that I was not because it was reasonable for the Wall Street Journal Europe to print something that was false. So be it. I was only ever interested in proving that the allegations were untrue."
Source
British firm bans 'ageist' birthday cards
Greetings cards passed around the office and signed for a colleague's birthday have been banned by a company in Bournemouth. Alan and Thomas Ltd said they stopped the card signings, as jokes or comments about someone's age could be offensive under new age discrimination laws. The firm's boss, Julian Boughton, said they had taken legal advice. Directors of the Bournemouth-based insurance brokers will instead send a card on behalf of all staff.
But speaking to BBC News, one former member of staff who did not wish to be named, said the move was "extreme". They told BBC News: "I think it's a bit draconian really, over the top and quite ridiculous. "I don't see how a jokey birthday card can be seen as discrimination or harassment. And I wonder if they actually asked the staff what they think."
The company said legal advice was sought after the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force this month. Mr Boughton, managing director, said: "Having considered the potential exposures for our employees and our business, we have taken the decision to change the practice of issuing a generically signed card for any given individual's birthday. "Instead we have decided that the company will send a card to each staff member on their birthday, signed by the directors."
Source
WOMEN: SOME INCORRECT TRUTHS FROM A REFORMED FEMINIST
Women are training themselves not to fall in love because relationships are skewed in favour of men, Fay Weldon said yesterday. The novelist and commentator told an audience at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival that women were no longer as romantic as they were a generation ago, to the detriment of their happiness.
Weldon, 75, argued that having been liberated by the Pill in the 1960s women were paying the price of trying to behave like men. "Our generation fell in love all the time," she said. "We sacrificed everything. Now women are much more practical and hard-headed. However, in the pursuit of professional, social and domestic fulfilment many women are failing to accept that, hormonally and physiologically, they are programmed to experience life differently from men," she said. "I think we need to make the most of being women as women, not aspirational men. The assumptions we all make now as to what comprises a good relationship are upside down. The differences between men and females are what we should be celebrating."
Weldon's new book What Makes Women Happy has outraged feminists because of its suggestion that women should fake orgasms to keep their men content. Commentators pilloried her for encouraging women to accept submissiveness in the most intimate area of their relationships. But Weldon believes that sex is the area where men and women come closest to making a sincere emotional connection. The pursuit of intimacy in all aspects of their lives is a false goal, she says. Better to give each other space to indulge the genders' different impulses, she says. "The more we know, the less easy we find it to get on together, I fear," she said.
Weldon's critics accuse her of losing touch with the aspirations of women, a far cry from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when she was regarded as a high-profile feminist with novels such as The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which celebrated women being bad. Her own life, as she recorded it in her 2002 memoir Auto Da Fay, has included a series of complicated relationships and snatched periods of joy, leading to two divorces and four children. Her first husband pimped her to a Soho nightclub because he had no interest in satisfying her sexually and she once slept with a market trader for a pair of nylons.
Happiness, her experiences have taught her, is about aspiring to virtue. Shopping, chocolate and the other "consolations" that women comfort themselves with are frivolous but valuable diversions. "Nothing makes a woman happy for more than ten minutes at a time because after that the doubts and anxieties arrive. You can't help it as a woman. It's not fair: men can be happy for the time of a football match. They have the advantage of single-tasking. Multi-tasking, which women are so proud of, is a great drawback because it limits the periods of our pure happiness. We are training ourselves out of being in love because it is so unfair. "I think for most women that intense love brings unhappiness with it. A lot of our grief comes when one's instincts are at odds with socialisation."
Source
Marvellous free-speech ruling by the Law Lords:
The British media has won the freedom to publish allegations about public figures free from the threat of libel laws in a landmark House of Lords ruling. In a ground-breaking unanimous judgment yesterday, the law lords ruled in favour of a public interest defence that brings English law more into line with the freedom enjoyed by the US media. In future, journalists will be free to publish material if they act responsibly and in the public interest and they will not be at risk of libel damages even if relevant allegations later prove to be untrue.
The law lords, Britain's top judges, said that the media was entitled to publish defamatory allegations as part of its duty of neutral reporting of news, or if it believed them to be of substance and they raised matters of public interest. The ruling came in an appeal by the Wall Street Journal Europe against a High Court decision, backed by the Court of Appeal, that it should pay 40,000 pounds damages to a billionaire Saudi car dealer, Mohammed Jameel, whose family owns Harwell Motors in Oxford. The story, published in February 2002, said that bank accounts associated with a number of prominent Saudi citizens, including Mr Jameel's family and its businesses, had been monitored by Saudi authorities at the request of US authorities to ensure no money was provided intentionally or knowingly to support terrorists.
Lord Hoffman, giving the lead judgment, said that the article was a perfect example of journalism for which the public interest defence should be available. It was for judges to apply the public interest test but that publication easily passed that test, he said. Its thrust was to inform the public that the Saudis were cooperating with the US Treasury and monitoring accounts. "It was a serious contribution in measured tone to a subject of very considerable importance." It could not be proved true because the existence of covert surveillance would be impossible to prove by evidence in open court. But that did not mean it did not happen. The newspaper was entitled to report even serious defamations against individuals, so long as they "made a real contribution to the public interest element in the article".
The ruling also said that judges, with "leisure and hindsight" should not second-guess editorial decisions made in busy newsrooms. The key test was whether a media organisation or newspaper acted fairly and responsibly in gathering and publishing the information, the judges said. If the reporter and editor did so, and the information was of public importance, then the fact that it contained relevant but defamatory allegations against prominent people would not permit them to recover libel damages.
Baroness Hale of Richmond in her judgment said: "We need more such serious journalism in this country and our defamation law should encourage rather than discourage it."
Geoffrey Robertson, QC, author of Media Law, the standard textbook, who argued the case for the Journal, said: "The decision provides the media in Britain with an increased freedom to publish newsworthy stories. "This is not a licence for irresponsible journalism. It frees investigative journalism from the chilling effect of libel actions, so long as the treatment is not sensational and the editorial behaviour is responsible. "It will enable, and indeed encourage, editors to place more information into the public domain than at present. "The decision is an important step in moving freedom of speech closer to that enjoyed by the US media under the First Amendment."
Dan Tench, a media partner at Olswang, said: "The judgment has enormous significance for serious journalism. Previously, the focus of libel hearings defended on the basis of the Reynolds defence was always on the newspaper, which faced an uphill struggle to demonstrate that it had acted responsibly. "But following today's ruling, it seems that as long as a publisher can show that it was writing serious journalism that engages the genuine public interest and so deserves to be protected, the focus will shift onto the claimant, who will need to prove not only that there were serious defects in the way the article was put together but also that those defects realistically led to the article as published being unfair."
Mr Jameel issued a statement today emphasising that he had only ever been interested in clearing his name. Mr Jameel, whose 5.4 million pound gift saw the opening last week of the Victoria and Albert Museum's new gallery of Islamic Art, said: "What the Wall Street Journal wrote in February 2002 was that the bank accounts of the ALJ Group were being monitored at the request of the US authorities. "That was not true. Mr Justice Eady and the Court of Appeal ruled that I was libelled. The House of Lords ruled that I was not because it was reasonable for the Wall Street Journal Europe to print something that was false. So be it. I was only ever interested in proving that the allegations were untrue."
Source
British firm bans 'ageist' birthday cards
Greetings cards passed around the office and signed for a colleague's birthday have been banned by a company in Bournemouth. Alan and Thomas Ltd said they stopped the card signings, as jokes or comments about someone's age could be offensive under new age discrimination laws. The firm's boss, Julian Boughton, said they had taken legal advice. Directors of the Bournemouth-based insurance brokers will instead send a card on behalf of all staff.
But speaking to BBC News, one former member of staff who did not wish to be named, said the move was "extreme". They told BBC News: "I think it's a bit draconian really, over the top and quite ridiculous. "I don't see how a jokey birthday card can be seen as discrimination or harassment. And I wonder if they actually asked the staff what they think."
The company said legal advice was sought after the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006 came into force this month. Mr Boughton, managing director, said: "Having considered the potential exposures for our employees and our business, we have taken the decision to change the practice of issuing a generically signed card for any given individual's birthday. "Instead we have decided that the company will send a card to each staff member on their birthday, signed by the directors."
Source
WOMEN: SOME INCORRECT TRUTHS FROM A REFORMED FEMINIST
Women are training themselves not to fall in love because relationships are skewed in favour of men, Fay Weldon said yesterday. The novelist and commentator told an audience at The Times Cheltenham Literature Festival that women were no longer as romantic as they were a generation ago, to the detriment of their happiness.
Weldon, 75, argued that having been liberated by the Pill in the 1960s women were paying the price of trying to behave like men. "Our generation fell in love all the time," she said. "We sacrificed everything. Now women are much more practical and hard-headed. However, in the pursuit of professional, social and domestic fulfilment many women are failing to accept that, hormonally and physiologically, they are programmed to experience life differently from men," she said. "I think we need to make the most of being women as women, not aspirational men. The assumptions we all make now as to what comprises a good relationship are upside down. The differences between men and females are what we should be celebrating."
Weldon's new book What Makes Women Happy has outraged feminists because of its suggestion that women should fake orgasms to keep their men content. Commentators pilloried her for encouraging women to accept submissiveness in the most intimate area of their relationships. But Weldon believes that sex is the area where men and women come closest to making a sincere emotional connection. The pursuit of intimacy in all aspects of their lives is a false goal, she says. Better to give each other space to indulge the genders' different impulses, she says. "The more we know, the less easy we find it to get on together, I fear," she said.
Weldon's critics accuse her of losing touch with the aspirations of women, a far cry from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, when she was regarded as a high-profile feminist with novels such as The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, which celebrated women being bad. Her own life, as she recorded it in her 2002 memoir Auto Da Fay, has included a series of complicated relationships and snatched periods of joy, leading to two divorces and four children. Her first husband pimped her to a Soho nightclub because he had no interest in satisfying her sexually and she once slept with a market trader for a pair of nylons.
Happiness, her experiences have taught her, is about aspiring to virtue. Shopping, chocolate and the other "consolations" that women comfort themselves with are frivolous but valuable diversions. "Nothing makes a woman happy for more than ten minutes at a time because after that the doubts and anxieties arrive. You can't help it as a woman. It's not fair: men can be happy for the time of a football match. They have the advantage of single-tasking. Multi-tasking, which women are so proud of, is a great drawback because it limits the periods of our pure happiness. We are training ourselves out of being in love because it is so unfair. "I think for most women that intense love brings unhappiness with it. A lot of our grief comes when one's instincts are at odds with socialisation."
Source
Thursday, October 12, 2006
HOPELESS NHS HOSPITALS
A hardcore group of debt-ridden hospitals are offering poor-quality patient care, Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, will admit today. The chief health watchdog in England is expected to expose these hospitals, declaring them “weak”. The Healthcare Commission’s annual assessment of the NHS, to be released tomorrow, comes as many hospitals and health trusts, struggling to curb spending, are cutting frontline services. A group of 63 trusts are responsible for 70 per cent of the NHS’s deficit.
Ms Hewitt told The Times that trusts that were running up debts were also likely to be mismanaging parients and have worse waiting times, cleanliness and MRSA infections. “I’m afraid that a lot of the trusts with the worst financial records are also weak on quality of care,” she said. “You can see why when you visit hospitals like that. “They are not making the best use of their resources, not working through the processes of making sure everybody is paying attention to hygiene and cleanliness, and if they’re not doing that, they’re probably not going through the processes of making sure everything else is being done properly.”
Nearly a third of hospitals and a quarter of all 570 NHS organisations failed to balance their books in 2005-06, leaving the NHS with a net deficit of 547 million pounds, the Health Department announced this week.
Ms Hewitt will ask failing trusts to propose and implement an action or improvement plan within a month, if measures are not in place. “We are going to be asking all of those trusts to sit down with their strategic health authority and set out very clearly what they can do and what more they intend to do,” she said.
However, the commission will paint a varied picture. “The report will show considerable variation in performance across the country,” she said. “Clearly, we will have some trusts that are excellent on quality, but also excellent on financial management, but we will also have trusts that fail on both.”
Five years ago the Government introduced hotel-style star ratings for hospitals to encourage them to improve quality of care. However, a new system uses a wider range of measures, including clinical and financial performance, to rate trusts as excellent, good, fair or weak. The inclusion of financial management will damage the ratings of many hospitals. The NHS deficit has more than doubled in the past 12 months, with the biggest problems concentrated in the South East and eastern England. In recent months, thousands of job cuts have been announced in order to make savings.
Ms Hewitt said that the previous system of assessment had not helped to tackle the problem. “Star ratings muddled up the quality of care with the use of resources and financial management,” she said. “One of the problems we identified last year when the deficit came out was that the star ratings system was ignoring small deficits and not sending out the right message to trusts who overspent. When you’ve got a trust that is quite weak in its financial management, they are generally weak at other things as well.” The latest figures show that 120 of 548 NHS organisations are now predicting deficits for the current financial year, with 90 per cent of the estimated gross deficit originating from 71 of the trusts.
The commission’s report will be published along with a website that will provide information about the performance of all NHS trusts in England, and offer comparisons. The commission is likely to support strongly early action on those trusts judged to be weak. It has promised the assessment will be tougher than star ratings, with fewer trusts falling in to the top category. The score for the quality-of-services rating will be based on how well trusts meet the commission’s 24 core standards in areas such as safety and clinical effectiveness. “In general I would expect that trusts that were doing well under the old system will do well under the new system,” Ms Hewitt said. “But this is a tougher assessment and it’s designed to be because what the NHS can do for patients is much greater that it used to be, and patient expectation is rising every year, so it’s right that the commission should be setting the bar higher.”
Source
AUTHOR: MUSLIMS NOT TRYING TO FIT IN
Muslims are not doing enough to engage with Britain's otherwise thriving multicultural society, Martin Amis has said. Commenting on the recent row over Islamic veils, the author said at the Festival: "The only element that's not fitting in is Islam. Who else is not fitting in?"
Amis, who has written extensively about Islamist terrorism, and wrote a short story imagining the last days of Muhammad Atta, the 9/11 hijacker, said that home-grown terrorism was a separate problem, bound up in the allure that "death cults" have to the vulnerable young men who become suicide bombers. "In this country what's happening is that young men in late adolescence and early manhood have a period of self-hatred and disgust and thoughts of suicide," he said. "The idea you can turn this into world history is tremendously powerful. "The absolutely crucial thing is to see whether it mutates. Death cults take on a terrible momentum."
The allure of a philosophy based on the rejection of reason and embrace of death was intense but short-lived, Amis said. However, if this fused with a sense of the individual exerting an influence on history "then al-Qaedaism will mutate as we feared".
Amis, 57, returned to Britain last month after 2® years in Uruguay, where part of his wife's family lives. He said that he had been struck by how successful British society appeared when viewed through fresh eyes. "It looks like a multicultural society that's working apart from a few miserable bastards." Amis's father, Sir Kingsley, was a passionate communist who became a virulent anti-communist after the Soviet Union's crushing of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956.
Amis himself is suspicious of ideologies and says he welcomes the similarity between the two main political parties in Britain. "All the big [political] battles have been won. We no longer rule a quarter of the world but we are supposed to feel relieved about that because we don't like empires, do we?" he said. "What we have now in England is an evolved market state that doesn't feel humiliated about the loss of its position at the highest table. The result seems to be an increasing concentration on surfaces, outlines and glitter without substance. "As The New Yorker said, `the Brits are now at the point where they feel Schadenfreude about themselves'."
Source
MORE BRITISH PISSING INTO THE WIND
They prohibit or prevent almost all outdoors activity at schools on "safety" grounds so that the kids get no exercise -- and then they think that can all be fixed by handing out free vegetables!! It's like a comic opera!
Vouchers for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins are to be handed out to pregnant women and the parents of young children as part of moves to improve the health of the nation. The scheme, announced yesterday, replaces an initiative introduced during the Second World War under which young children were given free milk.
It came as a report released by the Department of Health revealed that Britain is the fattest country in Europe, with one in seven children obese. Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, announced the voucher scheme as she issued a statistical profile of England designed to highlight health blackspots. The profile breaks England into regions and shows a strong North-South divide on health, with people in the North East dying two years earlier on average than those in the South West. Vouchers are to be distributed from next month to parents on benefits to encourage them to give their children healthier diets. Ms Flint hopes that this will make it easier for the poorest sectors of society to buy fruit and vegetables.
The Government is already campaigning for people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Fewer than a quarter do so and the consumption of healthy food in Britain is below the European average. A pilot voucher scheme carried out in Devon and Cornwall found that fruit and vegetable intake increased and the range of products stocked by rural grocers improved. Ms Flint said: “It’s a reinvigoration of the Welfare Food Scheme. Since the Second World War, vouchers for milk have been available. Now the vouchers can be used for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins. “We’ve found parents are buying the fruit and vegetables and small retailers in rural parts are bringing in more fruit and vegetables.”
Under the scheme, pregnant woman will receive 2.80 pounds a week. Parents will receive 5.60 a week for each child under a year old and 2.80 for each child aged 1 to 5. The vouchers will be redeemable at a range of grocery stores and supermarkets.
Ms Flint said that obesity was the largest problem faced by public health professionals, with 14.3 per cent of children aged 2 to 10 classified as obese. She suggested that supermarkets could help to improve the national diet by showing customers how to cook and eat more unusual fruit and vegetables.
Source
CRAP "SCIENCE" TEACHING IN BRITAIN
A new science GCSE [junior High School course] that replaces traditional physics, chemistry and biology with discussions about topical issues such as GM crops and the MMR vaccine is attacked today by leading academics as "more suitable to the pub than the schoolroom". The reformed curriculum will not inspire more children to study science at a higher level, while also failing in its main goal of breeding a more scientifically literate public, senior researchers, educationists and ethicists said. The critics, who include Baroness Warnock, the philosopher who framed the embryo research laws, and Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial College London and a former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, say that the new course teaches too little about basic concepts to be of much use either to the next generation of scientists, doctors and engineers, or to those who will drop science at 16.
The "Twenty-First Century Science" GCSE, introduced nationally last month, is being taken by pupils at a third of England's secondary schools. Experts say that its replacement of practical experiments and understanding of fundamental principles with debate about the "impact of science and technology on modern life" will leave students poorly prepared to pursue all sciences at A level and university. They argue that it will also encourage pupils to develop opinions before they understand the underlying research, potentially undermining the scientific literacy that the course seeks to build.
The new syllabus is designed to make science more relevant to teenagers by engaging them with issues of public concern, such as nuclear power or bird flu, rather than teaching traditional physics, chemistry and biology. Pupils also have the option to take a second GCSE that teaches the basics required if they wish to pursue one of these subjects in the sixth form. It is one of two new GCSEs that are replacing the double science award, which used to be taken by most state school pupils. Another alternative is a multiple-choice-based option that has also been severely criticsed for failing to stretch students. Fears have been raised that many hundreds of schools will be attracted to the new exams, after it emerged that from next year their success at GCSE level in the national league tables would also be measured on the percentage of pupils achieving two or more passes in science.
Sir Richard said that it was impossible to have meaningful and informed debate about science and society without first understanding how science works, which is best learnt by practical experiment and mastering fundamental principles. "A science curriculum based on encouraging pupils to debate science in the news is taking a back-to-front approach," he said. "Science should inform the news agenda, not the other way around. "Before we can engage the public in an informed debate we need the scientists to do the science. And before the future citizen can contribute to the decision-making process, they need to have a good grounding in the fundamentals of science and technology, rather than the soundbite science that state school curriculums are increasingly moving towards."
Lady Warnock said: "The present policy has two incompatible aims: to give all pupils some understanding of the subject matter of the sciences, and to so fire the imagination of a substantial minority of them that they want to pursue their interest into the sixth form and beyond. "The new syllabus encourages a postmodern view that science is just one of many ways of finding out about the world, and that its claims are as open to challenge as those of any interested pressure group," she said. The agenda is set by the press, creating debates that are "more suitable for the pub than the school room".
Their criticisms are voiced in What is Science Education For?, published today by the Institute of Ideas, an independent think-tank. In its lead essay, David Perks, head of physics at Graveney School in Wandsworth, southwest London, said that a better way of improving science education would be to return to teaching physics, chemistry and biology as separate disciplines.
Maths and physics A levels will no longer be mandatory for students wishing to study physics at the University of East Anglia, London South Bank University, University of Leicester and University of Surrey. The new "integrated sciences" degree follows the University of Reading's decision to close its physics department last week.
Source
ANOTHER GREAT SUCCESS FOR SCIENTIFIC "MODELS"
The entire global warming scare is based on similar arbitrary "models"
We are used to politicians suppressing the truth. When scientists do it as well, we are in trouble. Not one of the Government's senior advisers, from Sir David King, the chief scientist, downwards, has yet dared to confirm in public what most experts in private now accept, that the mass slaughter of farm animals in the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak was not only unnecessary and inhumane, but was also based on false statistics, bad science and wrong deductions.
The mistakes that were made in attempting to control the outbreak are laid bare in a devastating paper recently compiled by Paul Kitching, one of the world's leading veterinary experts, and published by the World Organisation for Animal Health. It finds that, of the ten million animals slaughtered, more than a third were perfectly healthy; out of the 10,000 or so farms where sheep were killed, only 1,300 were infected with the disease; scientists were wrong to claim that the FMD virus was being spread through airborne infection; the epidemic had reached its peak before the culling began; the infamous 3km killing zone was without justification; estimates of infected premises were little better than guesswork.
The language used in Dr Kitching's report has a controlled anger about it. He talks of "a culling policy driven by unvalidated predictive models", mentions the "public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter" and concludes: "The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models [statistics used to predict the course of an epidemic] can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism."
Those models used by the Government were badly flawed because they relied on computers rather than advice from vets and virologists who understood the nature of the disease. "No model will produce the right output when fed the wrong input," says the report. The Government, late in reacting to the outbreak, fatally moved decision-making away from FMD experts to the Cabinet Office briefing room (Cobra). The result was "carnage by computer" , as one farmer put it - a slaughter that was "grossly excessive", according to the report.
There are vital lessons here about how we should control future outbreaks, avoiding the horrendous cost and slaughter of the last. Thus far, there is no sign that those lessons have been learnt.
Source
A hardcore group of debt-ridden hospitals are offering poor-quality patient care, Patricia Hewitt, the Health Secretary, will admit today. The chief health watchdog in England is expected to expose these hospitals, declaring them “weak”. The Healthcare Commission’s annual assessment of the NHS, to be released tomorrow, comes as many hospitals and health trusts, struggling to curb spending, are cutting frontline services. A group of 63 trusts are responsible for 70 per cent of the NHS’s deficit.
Ms Hewitt told The Times that trusts that were running up debts were also likely to be mismanaging parients and have worse waiting times, cleanliness and MRSA infections. “I’m afraid that a lot of the trusts with the worst financial records are also weak on quality of care,” she said. “You can see why when you visit hospitals like that. “They are not making the best use of their resources, not working through the processes of making sure everybody is paying attention to hygiene and cleanliness, and if they’re not doing that, they’re probably not going through the processes of making sure everything else is being done properly.”
Nearly a third of hospitals and a quarter of all 570 NHS organisations failed to balance their books in 2005-06, leaving the NHS with a net deficit of 547 million pounds, the Health Department announced this week.
Ms Hewitt will ask failing trusts to propose and implement an action or improvement plan within a month, if measures are not in place. “We are going to be asking all of those trusts to sit down with their strategic health authority and set out very clearly what they can do and what more they intend to do,” she said.
However, the commission will paint a varied picture. “The report will show considerable variation in performance across the country,” she said. “Clearly, we will have some trusts that are excellent on quality, but also excellent on financial management, but we will also have trusts that fail on both.”
Five years ago the Government introduced hotel-style star ratings for hospitals to encourage them to improve quality of care. However, a new system uses a wider range of measures, including clinical and financial performance, to rate trusts as excellent, good, fair or weak. The inclusion of financial management will damage the ratings of many hospitals. The NHS deficit has more than doubled in the past 12 months, with the biggest problems concentrated in the South East and eastern England. In recent months, thousands of job cuts have been announced in order to make savings.
Ms Hewitt said that the previous system of assessment had not helped to tackle the problem. “Star ratings muddled up the quality of care with the use of resources and financial management,” she said. “One of the problems we identified last year when the deficit came out was that the star ratings system was ignoring small deficits and not sending out the right message to trusts who overspent. When you’ve got a trust that is quite weak in its financial management, they are generally weak at other things as well.” The latest figures show that 120 of 548 NHS organisations are now predicting deficits for the current financial year, with 90 per cent of the estimated gross deficit originating from 71 of the trusts.
The commission’s report will be published along with a website that will provide information about the performance of all NHS trusts in England, and offer comparisons. The commission is likely to support strongly early action on those trusts judged to be weak. It has promised the assessment will be tougher than star ratings, with fewer trusts falling in to the top category. The score for the quality-of-services rating will be based on how well trusts meet the commission’s 24 core standards in areas such as safety and clinical effectiveness. “In general I would expect that trusts that were doing well under the old system will do well under the new system,” Ms Hewitt said. “But this is a tougher assessment and it’s designed to be because what the NHS can do for patients is much greater that it used to be, and patient expectation is rising every year, so it’s right that the commission should be setting the bar higher.”
Source
AUTHOR: MUSLIMS NOT TRYING TO FIT IN
Muslims are not doing enough to engage with Britain's otherwise thriving multicultural society, Martin Amis has said. Commenting on the recent row over Islamic veils, the author said at the Festival: "The only element that's not fitting in is Islam. Who else is not fitting in?"
Amis, who has written extensively about Islamist terrorism, and wrote a short story imagining the last days of Muhammad Atta, the 9/11 hijacker, said that home-grown terrorism was a separate problem, bound up in the allure that "death cults" have to the vulnerable young men who become suicide bombers. "In this country what's happening is that young men in late adolescence and early manhood have a period of self-hatred and disgust and thoughts of suicide," he said. "The idea you can turn this into world history is tremendously powerful. "The absolutely crucial thing is to see whether it mutates. Death cults take on a terrible momentum."
The allure of a philosophy based on the rejection of reason and embrace of death was intense but short-lived, Amis said. However, if this fused with a sense of the individual exerting an influence on history "then al-Qaedaism will mutate as we feared".
Amis, 57, returned to Britain last month after 2® years in Uruguay, where part of his wife's family lives. He said that he had been struck by how successful British society appeared when viewed through fresh eyes. "It looks like a multicultural society that's working apart from a few miserable bastards." Amis's father, Sir Kingsley, was a passionate communist who became a virulent anti-communist after the Soviet Union's crushing of the Hungarian Uprising in 1956.
Amis himself is suspicious of ideologies and says he welcomes the similarity between the two main political parties in Britain. "All the big [political] battles have been won. We no longer rule a quarter of the world but we are supposed to feel relieved about that because we don't like empires, do we?" he said. "What we have now in England is an evolved market state that doesn't feel humiliated about the loss of its position at the highest table. The result seems to be an increasing concentration on surfaces, outlines and glitter without substance. "As The New Yorker said, `the Brits are now at the point where they feel Schadenfreude about themselves'."
Source
MORE BRITISH PISSING INTO THE WIND
They prohibit or prevent almost all outdoors activity at schools on "safety" grounds so that the kids get no exercise -- and then they think that can all be fixed by handing out free vegetables!! It's like a comic opera!
Vouchers for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins are to be handed out to pregnant women and the parents of young children as part of moves to improve the health of the nation. The scheme, announced yesterday, replaces an initiative introduced during the Second World War under which young children were given free milk.
It came as a report released by the Department of Health revealed that Britain is the fattest country in Europe, with one in seven children obese. Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, announced the voucher scheme as she issued a statistical profile of England designed to highlight health blackspots. The profile breaks England into regions and shows a strong North-South divide on health, with people in the North East dying two years earlier on average than those in the South West. Vouchers are to be distributed from next month to parents on benefits to encourage them to give their children healthier diets. Ms Flint hopes that this will make it easier for the poorest sectors of society to buy fruit and vegetables.
The Government is already campaigning for people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. Fewer than a quarter do so and the consumption of healthy food in Britain is below the European average. A pilot voucher scheme carried out in Devon and Cornwall found that fruit and vegetable intake increased and the range of products stocked by rural grocers improved. Ms Flint said: “It’s a reinvigoration of the Welfare Food Scheme. Since the Second World War, vouchers for milk have been available. Now the vouchers can be used for milk, fruit, vegetables and vitamins. “We’ve found parents are buying the fruit and vegetables and small retailers in rural parts are bringing in more fruit and vegetables.”
Under the scheme, pregnant woman will receive 2.80 pounds a week. Parents will receive 5.60 a week for each child under a year old and 2.80 for each child aged 1 to 5. The vouchers will be redeemable at a range of grocery stores and supermarkets.
Ms Flint said that obesity was the largest problem faced by public health professionals, with 14.3 per cent of children aged 2 to 10 classified as obese. She suggested that supermarkets could help to improve the national diet by showing customers how to cook and eat more unusual fruit and vegetables.
Source
CRAP "SCIENCE" TEACHING IN BRITAIN
A new science GCSE [junior High School course] that replaces traditional physics, chemistry and biology with discussions about topical issues such as GM crops and the MMR vaccine is attacked today by leading academics as "more suitable to the pub than the schoolroom". The reformed curriculum will not inspire more children to study science at a higher level, while also failing in its main goal of breeding a more scientifically literate public, senior researchers, educationists and ethicists said. The critics, who include Baroness Warnock, the philosopher who framed the embryo research laws, and Sir Richard Sykes, Rector of Imperial College London and a former chairman of GlaxoSmithKline, say that the new course teaches too little about basic concepts to be of much use either to the next generation of scientists, doctors and engineers, or to those who will drop science at 16.
The "Twenty-First Century Science" GCSE, introduced nationally last month, is being taken by pupils at a third of England's secondary schools. Experts say that its replacement of practical experiments and understanding of fundamental principles with debate about the "impact of science and technology on modern life" will leave students poorly prepared to pursue all sciences at A level and university. They argue that it will also encourage pupils to develop opinions before they understand the underlying research, potentially undermining the scientific literacy that the course seeks to build.
The new syllabus is designed to make science more relevant to teenagers by engaging them with issues of public concern, such as nuclear power or bird flu, rather than teaching traditional physics, chemistry and biology. Pupils also have the option to take a second GCSE that teaches the basics required if they wish to pursue one of these subjects in the sixth form. It is one of two new GCSEs that are replacing the double science award, which used to be taken by most state school pupils. Another alternative is a multiple-choice-based option that has also been severely criticsed for failing to stretch students. Fears have been raised that many hundreds of schools will be attracted to the new exams, after it emerged that from next year their success at GCSE level in the national league tables would also be measured on the percentage of pupils achieving two or more passes in science.
Sir Richard said that it was impossible to have meaningful and informed debate about science and society without first understanding how science works, which is best learnt by practical experiment and mastering fundamental principles. "A science curriculum based on encouraging pupils to debate science in the news is taking a back-to-front approach," he said. "Science should inform the news agenda, not the other way around. "Before we can engage the public in an informed debate we need the scientists to do the science. And before the future citizen can contribute to the decision-making process, they need to have a good grounding in the fundamentals of science and technology, rather than the soundbite science that state school curriculums are increasingly moving towards."
Lady Warnock said: "The present policy has two incompatible aims: to give all pupils some understanding of the subject matter of the sciences, and to so fire the imagination of a substantial minority of them that they want to pursue their interest into the sixth form and beyond. "The new syllabus encourages a postmodern view that science is just one of many ways of finding out about the world, and that its claims are as open to challenge as those of any interested pressure group," she said. The agenda is set by the press, creating debates that are "more suitable for the pub than the school room".
Their criticisms are voiced in What is Science Education For?, published today by the Institute of Ideas, an independent think-tank. In its lead essay, David Perks, head of physics at Graveney School in Wandsworth, southwest London, said that a better way of improving science education would be to return to teaching physics, chemistry and biology as separate disciplines.
Maths and physics A levels will no longer be mandatory for students wishing to study physics at the University of East Anglia, London South Bank University, University of Leicester and University of Surrey. The new "integrated sciences" degree follows the University of Reading's decision to close its physics department last week.
Source
ANOTHER GREAT SUCCESS FOR SCIENTIFIC "MODELS"
The entire global warming scare is based on similar arbitrary "models"
We are used to politicians suppressing the truth. When scientists do it as well, we are in trouble. Not one of the Government's senior advisers, from Sir David King, the chief scientist, downwards, has yet dared to confirm in public what most experts in private now accept, that the mass slaughter of farm animals in the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak was not only unnecessary and inhumane, but was also based on false statistics, bad science and wrong deductions.
The mistakes that were made in attempting to control the outbreak are laid bare in a devastating paper recently compiled by Paul Kitching, one of the world's leading veterinary experts, and published by the World Organisation for Animal Health. It finds that, of the ten million animals slaughtered, more than a third were perfectly healthy; out of the 10,000 or so farms where sheep were killed, only 1,300 were infected with the disease; scientists were wrong to claim that the FMD virus was being spread through airborne infection; the epidemic had reached its peak before the culling began; the infamous 3km killing zone was without justification; estimates of infected premises were little better than guesswork.
The language used in Dr Kitching's report has a controlled anger about it. He talks of "a culling policy driven by unvalidated predictive models", mentions the "public disgust with the magnitude of the slaughter" and concludes: "The UK experience provides a salutary warning of how models [statistics used to predict the course of an epidemic] can be abused in the interests of scientific opportunism."
Those models used by the Government were badly flawed because they relied on computers rather than advice from vets and virologists who understood the nature of the disease. "No model will produce the right output when fed the wrong input," says the report. The Government, late in reacting to the outbreak, fatally moved decision-making away from FMD experts to the Cabinet Office briefing room (Cobra). The result was "carnage by computer" , as one farmer put it - a slaughter that was "grossly excessive", according to the report.
There are vital lessons here about how we should control future outbreaks, avoiding the horrendous cost and slaughter of the last. Thus far, there is no sign that those lessons have been learnt.
Source
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
U.K. FOOD FADDISTS HURT CHILDREN'S TV
Is independent children's television about to be starved out of existence by a ban on junk-food advertising? I have come to that high temple of British television - the BAFTA building in central London - to talk to Anna Home, award-winning children's TV producer and now leading light of the Save Children's TV campaign.
The home of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), near Piccadilly Circus, looks like it could do with some junk-food advertising revenue of its own. If it endorsed a few Big Macs it might look a little less shoddy. The brown checked carpets clash with the marbled walls, which clash with the white porthole lights and the MFI fixtures and bamboo shutters. The shiny, silver elevator shouts at the gold-coloured handrails, greasy with fingerprints. On the first floor there's a videogame convention, which means that fresher's fayre-style direction boards litter the hallways and game-dignitaries are wandering around wearing red necktags. Perhaps this distinct lack of flash, dazzle and glitz at the heart of British TV suggests why independent TV producers and junk-food advertisers have been roundly trounced by the food lobby in the battle for the soul of kids' television: they're just not coordinated enough.
Anna Home, a BAFTA-winning producer and former head of Children's BBC, sits in the middle of the caf,. She is coordinated: a haven of good sense and quiet expertise, resolutely refusing to be enticed into sensationalism. For example, does she agree with Jonathon Peel of Millimages UK, that the `difficulty with the food lobby is it's a bit like the Taliban. You can't really talk to them, they have just one view and there's no negotiation'? Her reply is tempered: `I think [the anti-junk food lobbyists] are a very efficient group of people. They're professional lobbyists and within the broadcasting industry, we are not. Behaving like the Taliban is perhaps a little extreme..
`I don't think any of us want our kids to grow up on junk food. On the other hand, if you're going to take away an important source of funding, and take it away very fast, then I think you've got to think about what you're going to do to replace it. If it could be phased out gradually - like tobacco advertising was - and give people time to think about how to find alternative funding, that would make a lot more sense.'
The Save Children's TV campaign is a coalition of parents, producers, artists, educators and others who are `concerned about screen-based media for children in the UK'. Their aim is to get both the government and broadcasting regulators to recognise and acknowledge that good children's TV programming is important and valuable - and encourage them to devise new forms of funding to replace the `revenue which will be lost if advertising is restricted'. Because what those Taliban-esque - sorry, efficient lobbyists against junk-food advertising seem not to understand, is that their campaign against such advertising may ostensibly shield children's eyes from apparently evil ads for Happy Meals, but it will also end up shielding them from any British-made programming. As revenue falls, fewer new and independent productions will be made, and children's TV will no longer be taken very seriously.
Home has no illusions about what is going on at ITV, which recently declared that it will massively cut its children's programming. `It's not a terribly happy scenario', she says. `The [advertising] ban gives ITV even more reason not to commission children's television.' She points out that ITV hasn't commissioned a new programme `for over a year', and, as a result, `children's commissioning has gone downhill smartly'. She believes that the lapse in ITV's output `is having a very serious impact on the balance of children's programming and on the industry as a whole, in terms of those independent producers who make children's programmes. It means there's only one real outlet: the BBC, which still makes a lot of its own programmes in-house. And [the BBC's] commissioning budgets are going down as well.'
Is Home worried that the BBC, without the old competition from ITV, will go further down the route of producing government-friendly children's programmes that communicate `correct' messages on everything from environmentalism to healthy eating? Already, programmes like Newsround and Blue Peter seem to come saturated with `save the environment' initiatives and Jamie Oliver-sounding items on what sort of food children should be eating.
`There has always been a tendency for that', says Home. `When we first started Grange Hill it was perceived as very dangerous, very anti-authority, anti-teacher, all those kinds of things. But gradually, when it became successful, people became aware of how many kids it was getting to, and getting to in their own terms. You could feel pressure coming to run certain kinds of storylines.'
Blue Peter and suchlike have `always run campaigns, it's part of their ethos', she says: `But I think it's certainly not something you want to overdo. I don't think you should be getting children to spend their lives being worthy.. And I think that some broadcasters have put on healthy programmes in an attempt to validate themselves.' This, she says, often does not make for very good television.
At the BBC Home started out as a researcher on a programme `which eventually became Playschool' in 1965. From there she developed Jackanory, before moving into children's drama and commissioning many award-winning and enduringly popular shows, including Grange Hill. She moved to ITV for six years in the 1980s before returning to the BBC as head of Children's TV, when she commissioned a revival of the Sunday teatime `classic' in the shape of The Chronicles of Narnia. Just before her retirement she commissioned Teletubbies, to the chagrin of some parents who wanted their children to be taught to speak by the TV set, but to the delight of the nation's tots and skiving teenagers. Teletubbies, of course, became both a national and international smash. Home describes it as `very exciting. it was a completely new breakthrough in kid's programming'.
Some criticised Teletubbies for explicitly targeting very young children. Was it right to expose toddlers to the apparently toxic effects of TV? Shouldn't they `watch with mother' rather than watching weird creatures on their own? The notion that independent viewing is new is misleading, says Home. `Children have always watched television on their own. Yes, the set was in the living room and you had this concept of all the family watching together.but children used to watch children's programmes, adults used to watch adult programmes. Children now have TV sets in their bedrooms and so adults know less what's going on than they did, but even so, I don't think it's changed that much.'
Home admits that not everything currently produced in children's TV is high-quality, but a little junk is no sinister thing, she says. `There's always been dross. There's a great children's writer called Peter Dickinson, who made a terrific speech at a children's literary conference called "In defence of rubbish". He said that in every child's diet of reading, there is a place for rubbish. And I think that's true of television. After all, grown-ups are allowed to enjoy rubbish television - why shouldn't kids?'
The same, perhaps, could be said of the junk food that has precipitated the crisis in the first place: a little bit of junk food is no sinister thing, either. Does she think the proposed bans on junk-food advertising will stop kids consuming junk food? `No.'
Unfortunately, she will not be drawn to comment further. The most persuasive thing about Home is her directness, her brevity, her lack of flurry. `I don't ever want programmes to be "good" for children. That's not what it's about. When I was a programme maker or commissioner, I didn't think it was part of my job to do "good" TV, but TV they would enjoy. Yes, what would expand their minds, what would give them new ideas and new visions, but not necessarily something that was "good" for them.'
So, what does she think will be the future of children's TV in Britain? `In the next 10 years..' She pauses. `We could have some terrific mixed-quality channels including the best of British and from abroad - or you could have North American-dominated, virtually non-stop, nothing but cartoons.' If the former is to win out against the latter, people will need `to become aware that there is a great value not in doing "good" TV, but a value for children's media as a "good thing" in and of itself.'
Ultimately, Home thinks we should `set a balance': `I'm all for [children] having freedom, which at the moment is increasingly limited because of the climate we live in.where parents are very frightened of allowing kids to run free. But I don't think they should be out with bare knees and pullovers all day and all the time, and I think television is good because it gives children, who are increasingly confined, a window on other worlds. And, also, it can talk to them about their own society in their own terms.'
Source
BRITISH BUREAUCRACY HURTS THE GIFTED
There have always been a few bright sparks who made it to university before their eighteenth birthdays. I knew some 17-year-olds when I was at college: they had been so far ahead of their class that their teachers let them skip a year. They didn't get any special treatment at university. Though not legally adults, they were entering an adult institution and were treated pretty much the same as everybody else.
Now with all the paranoia about child protection, universities have changed their view of 17-year-olds. Seventeen-year olds are officially children, and so a whole morass of bureaucracy is developing to protect them from the potentially abusive adults on campus. One admissions tutor at University College London (UCL) says he must now check the criminal records of any staff involved with students under the age of 18. Given that tutors are already over-burdened by bureaucracy, it's likely that they just won't bother: `The practice will be that they won't admit 17-year-olds. They will read this advice and turn down those applicants.' The tutor - who was 17 himself when he started university - argues that this `denies students the opportunity of an education when they are ready for it'.
Those under-age students who do make it through the door will find themselves subject to a distinct system of protection, with a whole special layer of restrictions and protective measures. The University of Glamorgan sends students a letter informing them of their special status. `The university is also required to offer you special protection against sexual harassment, and this responsibility we take very seriously', it says. Even though over-16s can give consent for medical treatment, the university `follows good practice and seeks to involve those people with parental responsibility', asking students to get their parents to fill out a form about medical treatment.
The University of Kent reads both 17-year-olds and their tutors their rights and responsibilities on matriculation day. University advice states: `The Head of Student Guidance and Welfare will contact all U18 students at the start of term to ensure that they are aware of the university regulations and any restrictions placed upon them as a result of their age. `One member of academic staff should be put forward to act as personal tutor for all students who are under 18 and this information provided to the Director of Student Guidance and Welfare Services. That person must undertake a Criminal Records Bureau [CRB] check.... That person should be reminded of the special duty of care owed to underage students and in particular of the offence of abuse of trust under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000.'
As for accepting students younger than 17, Oxford is turning around its traditional habit of accepting child prodigies. At the start of term last year, university authorities said they just couldn't cope with the need to monitor and vet everybody with whom the child came into contact. Ruth Collier, a spokesperson for admissions, said: `Suddenly we can't offer one-to-one tutorials, while the people who do administration in our colleges have to spend a great deal of time making absolutely sure they are not inadvertently placing a child in a potentially dangerous situation with anyone who hasn't had a criminal records check.'
Interviews and university open days have become a minefield. The University of Essex requires that student mentors and helpers undergo a CRB check. It also insists on the presence of two `designated child protection officers' for school visits where students are not accompanied by a teacher or parent, and these officers' `names and contact details must be communicated to the young people involved in the activity, their parents, and staff members'.
Behind all of this lies a changing definition of adulthood and childhood. When adult meant `mature', the existence of 17-year-olds on campus wasn't such a big deal. They couldn't vote or drink legally, but it was only a question of a few months. Since becoming adult was a about becoming gradually more mature, the grey area of 16 to 18 could be fudged. Now, `adult' and `child' have come to mean potential abuser and potential abuse victim. This sets them apart as two completely separate groups, with completely different interests. Children are not in the process of being assimilated into the adult world, but instead need to be protected and defended from it. When this is the view, there is a legalistic obsession with age. A person flips, on their eighteenth birthday, from being abused to abuser, from being protected to regulated. So a person aged 17 years and 11 months would need their tutor to be CRB-checked; if the following month they were to help out at a university open day, they themselves would need to be CRB-checked.
UCL recently changed its regulations from covering students under 17, to covering students `under 17 years and 3 months' - presumably those who would not turn 18 in the course of the year. Somebody's months and years are counted precisely, to decide which side of the abuser-abused line they fall down on. Challenging this ridiculous treatment of 17-year-old university students would be one way to take on this poisonous view of adult-child relationships that is widespread today
Source
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY
From Aynsley Kellow [aynsley.kellow@utas.edu.au]
Dear Mr Ward,
I must say I was somewhat amazed at your letter to Nick Thomas of ExxonMobil of 4 September. That such an august institution as the Royal Society is attempting to suppress scientific argument is one thing, and that it relies upon notions of corporate influence that would flunk any reasonable examination in political science yet another.
I could write you a lengthy discourse on what is wrong with your line of reasoning, touching on the $1 billion Exxon is spending on its own corporate response to climate change, the amount it donates to Stanford University alone to research solutions (an order of magnitude larger than that your analysis indicates Exxon provided to organisations you consider 'misinformed' the public), and so on. I will save such an analysis for my own research on the politics of climate science, for which your letter will constitute an excellent example of attempts to suppress dissent.
Instead, let me address the basis of your claims about the IPCC - and here I write as an expert reviewer for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
You take issue with Exxon's statement that the IPCC relies for its conclusions 'on expert judgment rather than objective, reproducible statistical methods.' You cite a conclusion to Ch12 of TAR stating that 'most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greeenhouse gas concentration.' You do not seem to appreciate that Working Group I adopted quite specific meanings, specified in the Summary for Policy Makers, where expressions such as 'likely' quite explicitly refer to the subjective level of confidence of the Chapter Lead Authors.
'Likely' quite specifically means that the Lead Authors believe there is a 66-90% chance that the science is true. The Exxon statement in its Corporate Citizenship Report that you cite is thus entirely consistent with the IPCC conclusion that you cite.
Sadly, we have now reached the point where the Royal Society is a less reliable source of scientific advice than Exxon Mobil. A sad day indeed.
I am copying this letter to Benny Peiser, who runs an excellent newsletter on such issues.
Yours,
Professor Aynsley Kellow
School of Government
University of Tasmania
THE NEW INQUISITION? ROYAL SOCIETY COMES UNDER FIERCE ATTACK FROM GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER
Greenpeace co-founder asks Britain's Royal Society to stop playing political blame game on global warming
Greenpeace co-founder and former leader Dr. Patrick Moore said the United Kingdom's Royal Society should stop playing a political blame game on global warming and retract its recent letter that smacks of a repressive and anti-intellectual attitude. "It appears to be the policy of the Royal Society to stifle dissent and silence anyone who may have doubts about the connection between global warming and human activity," said Dr. Moore, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Vancouver, Canada-based Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. "That kind of repression seems more suited to the Inquisition than to a modern, respected scientific body," said Moore.
In a letter dated September 4 and published this week in a London newspaper, the Royal Society's Bob Ward accused ExxonMobil of misleading the public by daring to question the link between human activity and increases in global temperatures.
Dr. Moore responded today in an open letter sent to the Royal Society: "Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of causation between the human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years (sic), long before the human-induced increase in CO2 was evident. "While I may agree with certain statements made by the IPCC, surely you and the Royal Society would respect my right to disagree with other statements or at least to call them into question."
Dr. Moore writes further, "I am sure the Royal Society is aware of the difference between an hypothesis and a theory. It is clear the contention that human-induced CO2 emissions and rising CO2 levels in the global atmosphere are the cause of the present global warming trend is an hypothesis that has not yet been elevated to the level of a proven theory. Causation has not been demonstrated in any conclusive way.
Dr. Moore also notes in the letter that while the Royal Society likes to quote from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the IPCC itself admits its conclusions are uncertain. "The Royal Society needs to retract its anti-intellectual and heavy-handed letter to ExxonMobil, and allow reasoned scientific debate on this issue," said Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore said he is speaking out on this issue because "the last thing the world needs, in the midst of a warming trend, is for the Royal Society to cast a chill over science." Dr. Moore and his firm Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. have no links, financial or otherwise, to ExxonMobil.
Source.
Life's ultimate short straw
By irreverent British motoring writer Jeremy Clarkson
My local petrol [gasoline] station has employed an elderly chap to run the pumps, no doubt to satisfy the recent European diktat that bars age discrimination.
Source
DUMB BRITISH COPPERS AGAIN
For an account of how vast is the incompetence of the modern-day British police, see here
`Police officers obviously don't understand the difference between seriousness and satire.they need a crash course in the meaning of irony and the positive reclamation of taboo images.' So says `Geoffrey Cohen' (I'll explain the quote marks around his name in a minute) of the satirical Jewish community group Jewdas, four of whose members were recently arrested in Trafalgar Square, and then stuck in a cell in Charing Cross, for the crime of handing out a `pisstake' leaflet.
It happened at the end of September, during a festival of Jewish celebration in Trafalgar Square. The four were distributing flyers advertising a party due to take place in Hackney this month. The party was called `The protocols of the elders of Hackney', a pun on that old fraudulent anti-Semitic document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Even though their leaflet was clearly satirical, the four pranksters were arrested on suspicion of spreading anti-Semitic material. Following complaints from a handful of members of the public, the police arrested and detained the four leafleters under section 19 of the Public Order Act, which covers suspicion of distributing racially inflammatory material with intent to incite racial hatred.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers confiscated the `inflammable leaflets', as Jewdas now refers to them. The fact that the leaflet was produced by Jewish members of Jewdas - the self-appointed `radical voice for the alternative Jewish Diaspora' that wants to `celebrate being Jewish' - seemed to make not a blind bit of difference to those who complained of anti-Semitism or to the police who acted on those complaints. When a group of young Jews who exist in order to celebrate Jewish culture can be arrested for inciting hatred towards their own community, it shows up the ridiculous nature of today's anti-hate speech legislation and the politics of inoffensiveness. These days you can't even make a joke without having your collar felt by the cops.
Getting an interview with Jewdas is not straightforward. After sending an email to a generic address I found on their website (www.Jewdas.org), I receive a reply from a `Geoffrey Cohen', who lives in Brighton. He tells me that Jewdas is not keen on giving interviews, but they might make an exception for spiked. He promises to make some calls, but warns me that his friends in London might not be able to meet up as it's a Saturday, the Sabbath, and the next evening would be the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It seems that Jewdas' subversive instincts have their limits.
He managed to persuade a friend and fellow Jewdas founder to meet me in London on Sunday afternoon. Braving an early autumn hailstorm, I make my way from south London to West Hampstead, home to large parts of what Jewdas refers to as the `Jewish establishment'. Cohen's friend turns out to be a musical composer in his twenties who also goes by the name `Geoffrey Cohen'. Apparently, all Jewdas leaders go under the same name because it `creates a mystery element', says Geoffrey Cohen No.2, and because `there are a lot of people who hate Jewdas'. The real Geoffrey Cohen is an orthodox rabbi, who I assume is not a fan, much less a member, of Jewdas.
Jewdas was founded by a group of friends who felt that the British Jewish community was becoming too conservative. Their satirical website includes slogans such as `UJS: Undermining Jewish Students', `Yes to hummus, no to Hamas' and `United Synagogue: promoting moronic Judaism since 1870'. Their `Make Melanie Smile' campaign urges supporters and readers to send emails to the conservative Daily Mail columnist, Melanie Phillips, which might help to cheer her up. `Perhaps you know of gay couples splitting up? Or single mothers having their children taken into care? Or an increase in carbon dioxide emissions? Send them all to Melanie', the site says. Why give Phillips such a hard time? `Because she's awful!' exclaims Cohen. `You really couldn't make her up. She's like a new Jew of her own.' He does give her credit, though, for at least being outspoken at a time when `most people in the Jewish community think it's better to just keep to themselves'.
Jewdas was inspired by Heeb, the satirical New York magazine and growing movement of Jewish hipsters, and it is gathering quite a following both in and beyond London. Its debut event, Punk Purim, was a packed-out party in a run-down squat adorned with posters of a joint-smoking rabbi and Che Guevara as a Chassidic Jew. It featured Jewish hip-hop, Palestinian poetry, Kabbalistic graffiti and a peepshow with Jewish girls. According to Cohen, Punk Purim `is already legendary' - and, he proudly tells me, it was condemned in the Jewish Chronicle, the mainstream newspaper of Britain's Jewish community.
Jewdas is run by a bunch of pranksters who want to wind up the older and more miserabilist members of Britain's Jewry. They also claim that there is a more serious purpose to their pranks and parties: to `bring out the message that Judaism is not a fixed thing' and to `reopen the debate on who owns Judaism and who has the right to speak for the Jewish community'. These young synagogue-goers are hardly a threat to the continuity of Jewish life in Britain - and there is certainly no call for sending the police to investigate them. So why was there such a strong reaction against Jewdas in Trafalgar Square, culminating in arrests for handing out leaflets?
`Most people in the Jewish community have a very fixed view of what identity is and they feel threatened by us', says Cohen. `Any criticism of Israel, for instance, sends them into a frenzy. We have received quite a lot of hate mail, but you know, it's all quite funny. The accusation that we are self-haters is just ridiculous. The Jewish community needs to be woken up. It is largely affluent, comfortable and unthinking - and that goes for all denominations. In relation to Israel, it takes a very right-wing stance. The community is materialistic; it has swallowed the middle-class dream.'
Listening to Cohen, I realise that Jewdas is not that different from today's environmentalist and anti-consumerist movements: their criticisms of the `establishment' - in this case the Jewish establishment - are motivated by anti-materialism and a call for more meekness, it seems, rather than by anything truly radical or earth-shattering. Cohen was reluctant to be interviewed over a latte in Starbucks, because Starbucks is `an evil chain'. Jewdas' satirical website and unconventional parties are an attempt to reconcile these fairly mainstream anti-consumerist sentiments with Jewish culture; so Jewdas is also an expression of today's politics of identity, which is equally pervasive among young Londoners, many of whom seem to seek out a particularist national, religious or cultural identity through which they might define who they are and what they want.
Cohen says Jewdas is inspired by the dynamism of Central and Eastern European Yiddish culture during the interwar years. `We're talking about radicals here, who took on the rabbinate - the Jewish establishment.' He admits, though, that Jewdas is `definitely also coming out of multicultural politics' and hopes that `those two worlds' - of earlier radical Judaism and contemporary me-centred multiculturalism - `can be bridged'. It seems unlikely to me; the former was based on taking action and changing things, while the latter is more about the politics of complaint and victimhood.
Cohen says he adheres to Derrida's idea of a radical tradition. `It's not about the polarities of either abandoning the past or returning to it. This is about choosing elements of the past and we want to challenge nationalism and materialism.' In other words, it's all a bit of a postmodern mess, but, admittedly, a very funny postmodern mess.
The `radical Jewish tradition', as Jewdas sees it, includes the work of such diverse figures as Emma Goldman, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Martin Buber and Amos Oz. `Political activism was not separate from their Jewishness, whatever they claim', says Cohen. Jewdas feels that British Jews have forgotten about their `radical past'. Their Punk Purim party was held in London's East End because it used to be home to Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, who came from that `radical tradition' that Cohen so admires. I can't help thinking it's deeply ironic that Jewdas wants to reclaim a past which their grandparents' generation worked so hard to move away from. When Jews moved from the East End and went north to the nice suburbs, they were trying to rise above slum conditions and leave poverty behind. It seems that `celebrating tradition' can cross the line into glorifying the poverty and hardship of yesteryear. Cohen himself lives in West Hampstead. `Yeah, I'm the black sheep of Jewdas', he admits. According to the website, a `true Jewdas' lives in Hackney, prefers bicycles over SUVs, and is a post-Zionist vegan with a Jew-fro.
Whether you would wish to aspire to such a Jewdas lifestyle (it's not for me), Cohen is surely right when he says `closing down debate is not the way to build a tolerant society'. He says it is important to be able to criticise religions and cultures. The right to ridicule religions and their adherents is a hard-won liberty of any secular society worth its name, and we should not sacrifice it at the altar of `protecting minorities from being offended'. Under the cover of stamping out offensiveness, the New Labour government has seriously restricted free speech, and has set about outlawing anti-religious `hate speech', the justification or glorification of terrorism, or any other words it deems to be inappropriate or distasteful. The sentiment behind such stringent restrictions is that speech is a dangerous thing, and that the public must be protected from it by the caring and gracious censor. No thanks.
So, for Cohen, would it be different if non-Jews were to satirise or ridicule the Jewish community? `Non-Jews couldn't do it the way we have', he says. `We deliberately make very specific references which demonstrate that we know the culture very well. The use of humour is also a good way of waking up the Jewish community. If we had just set up a website with serious articles, it would have been ignored.'
It is nonsensical that Jewdas should have to ask for permission from their own community to make fun of them. Those who feel uncomfortable with Jewdas' irreverence should show a bit more chutzpah, rather than running for cover under the government's absurd attempts to legislate offensiveness out of existence.
Source
Sad when the Arts writer of The Times of London does not know the difference between a canon and a cannon. It's an interesting article on John Mortimer ("Rumpole of the Bailey") though.
Is independent children's television about to be starved out of existence by a ban on junk-food advertising? I have come to that high temple of British television - the BAFTA building in central London - to talk to Anna Home, award-winning children's TV producer and now leading light of the Save Children's TV campaign.
The home of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), near Piccadilly Circus, looks like it could do with some junk-food advertising revenue of its own. If it endorsed a few Big Macs it might look a little less shoddy. The brown checked carpets clash with the marbled walls, which clash with the white porthole lights and the MFI fixtures and bamboo shutters. The shiny, silver elevator shouts at the gold-coloured handrails, greasy with fingerprints. On the first floor there's a videogame convention, which means that fresher's fayre-style direction boards litter the hallways and game-dignitaries are wandering around wearing red necktags. Perhaps this distinct lack of flash, dazzle and glitz at the heart of British TV suggests why independent TV producers and junk-food advertisers have been roundly trounced by the food lobby in the battle for the soul of kids' television: they're just not coordinated enough.
Anna Home, a BAFTA-winning producer and former head of Children's BBC, sits in the middle of the caf,. She is coordinated: a haven of good sense and quiet expertise, resolutely refusing to be enticed into sensationalism. For example, does she agree with Jonathon Peel of Millimages UK, that the `difficulty with the food lobby is it's a bit like the Taliban. You can't really talk to them, they have just one view and there's no negotiation'? Her reply is tempered: `I think [the anti-junk food lobbyists] are a very efficient group of people. They're professional lobbyists and within the broadcasting industry, we are not. Behaving like the Taliban is perhaps a little extreme..
`I don't think any of us want our kids to grow up on junk food. On the other hand, if you're going to take away an important source of funding, and take it away very fast, then I think you've got to think about what you're going to do to replace it. If it could be phased out gradually - like tobacco advertising was - and give people time to think about how to find alternative funding, that would make a lot more sense.'
The Save Children's TV campaign is a coalition of parents, producers, artists, educators and others who are `concerned about screen-based media for children in the UK'. Their aim is to get both the government and broadcasting regulators to recognise and acknowledge that good children's TV programming is important and valuable - and encourage them to devise new forms of funding to replace the `revenue which will be lost if advertising is restricted'. Because what those Taliban-esque - sorry, efficient lobbyists against junk-food advertising seem not to understand, is that their campaign against such advertising may ostensibly shield children's eyes from apparently evil ads for Happy Meals, but it will also end up shielding them from any British-made programming. As revenue falls, fewer new and independent productions will be made, and children's TV will no longer be taken very seriously.
Home has no illusions about what is going on at ITV, which recently declared that it will massively cut its children's programming. `It's not a terribly happy scenario', she says. `The [advertising] ban gives ITV even more reason not to commission children's television.' She points out that ITV hasn't commissioned a new programme `for over a year', and, as a result, `children's commissioning has gone downhill smartly'. She believes that the lapse in ITV's output `is having a very serious impact on the balance of children's programming and on the industry as a whole, in terms of those independent producers who make children's programmes. It means there's only one real outlet: the BBC, which still makes a lot of its own programmes in-house. And [the BBC's] commissioning budgets are going down as well.'
Is Home worried that the BBC, without the old competition from ITV, will go further down the route of producing government-friendly children's programmes that communicate `correct' messages on everything from environmentalism to healthy eating? Already, programmes like Newsround and Blue Peter seem to come saturated with `save the environment' initiatives and Jamie Oliver-sounding items on what sort of food children should be eating.
`There has always been a tendency for that', says Home. `When we first started Grange Hill it was perceived as very dangerous, very anti-authority, anti-teacher, all those kinds of things. But gradually, when it became successful, people became aware of how many kids it was getting to, and getting to in their own terms. You could feel pressure coming to run certain kinds of storylines.'
Blue Peter and suchlike have `always run campaigns, it's part of their ethos', she says: `But I think it's certainly not something you want to overdo. I don't think you should be getting children to spend their lives being worthy.. And I think that some broadcasters have put on healthy programmes in an attempt to validate themselves.' This, she says, often does not make for very good television.
At the BBC Home started out as a researcher on a programme `which eventually became Playschool' in 1965. From there she developed Jackanory, before moving into children's drama and commissioning many award-winning and enduringly popular shows, including Grange Hill. She moved to ITV for six years in the 1980s before returning to the BBC as head of Children's TV, when she commissioned a revival of the Sunday teatime `classic' in the shape of The Chronicles of Narnia. Just before her retirement she commissioned Teletubbies, to the chagrin of some parents who wanted their children to be taught to speak by the TV set, but to the delight of the nation's tots and skiving teenagers. Teletubbies, of course, became both a national and international smash. Home describes it as `very exciting. it was a completely new breakthrough in kid's programming'.
Some criticised Teletubbies for explicitly targeting very young children. Was it right to expose toddlers to the apparently toxic effects of TV? Shouldn't they `watch with mother' rather than watching weird creatures on their own? The notion that independent viewing is new is misleading, says Home. `Children have always watched television on their own. Yes, the set was in the living room and you had this concept of all the family watching together.but children used to watch children's programmes, adults used to watch adult programmes. Children now have TV sets in their bedrooms and so adults know less what's going on than they did, but even so, I don't think it's changed that much.'
Home admits that not everything currently produced in children's TV is high-quality, but a little junk is no sinister thing, she says. `There's always been dross. There's a great children's writer called Peter Dickinson, who made a terrific speech at a children's literary conference called "In defence of rubbish". He said that in every child's diet of reading, there is a place for rubbish. And I think that's true of television. After all, grown-ups are allowed to enjoy rubbish television - why shouldn't kids?'
The same, perhaps, could be said of the junk food that has precipitated the crisis in the first place: a little bit of junk food is no sinister thing, either. Does she think the proposed bans on junk-food advertising will stop kids consuming junk food? `No.'
Unfortunately, she will not be drawn to comment further. The most persuasive thing about Home is her directness, her brevity, her lack of flurry. `I don't ever want programmes to be "good" for children. That's not what it's about. When I was a programme maker or commissioner, I didn't think it was part of my job to do "good" TV, but TV they would enjoy. Yes, what would expand their minds, what would give them new ideas and new visions, but not necessarily something that was "good" for them.'
So, what does she think will be the future of children's TV in Britain? `In the next 10 years..' She pauses. `We could have some terrific mixed-quality channels including the best of British and from abroad - or you could have North American-dominated, virtually non-stop, nothing but cartoons.' If the former is to win out against the latter, people will need `to become aware that there is a great value not in doing "good" TV, but a value for children's media as a "good thing" in and of itself.'
Ultimately, Home thinks we should `set a balance': `I'm all for [children] having freedom, which at the moment is increasingly limited because of the climate we live in.where parents are very frightened of allowing kids to run free. But I don't think they should be out with bare knees and pullovers all day and all the time, and I think television is good because it gives children, who are increasingly confined, a window on other worlds. And, also, it can talk to them about their own society in their own terms.'
Source
BRITISH BUREAUCRACY HURTS THE GIFTED
There have always been a few bright sparks who made it to university before their eighteenth birthdays. I knew some 17-year-olds when I was at college: they had been so far ahead of their class that their teachers let them skip a year. They didn't get any special treatment at university. Though not legally adults, they were entering an adult institution and were treated pretty much the same as everybody else.
Now with all the paranoia about child protection, universities have changed their view of 17-year-olds. Seventeen-year olds are officially children, and so a whole morass of bureaucracy is developing to protect them from the potentially abusive adults on campus. One admissions tutor at University College London (UCL) says he must now check the criminal records of any staff involved with students under the age of 18. Given that tutors are already over-burdened by bureaucracy, it's likely that they just won't bother: `The practice will be that they won't admit 17-year-olds. They will read this advice and turn down those applicants.' The tutor - who was 17 himself when he started university - argues that this `denies students the opportunity of an education when they are ready for it'.
Those under-age students who do make it through the door will find themselves subject to a distinct system of protection, with a whole special layer of restrictions and protective measures. The University of Glamorgan sends students a letter informing them of their special status. `The university is also required to offer you special protection against sexual harassment, and this responsibility we take very seriously', it says. Even though over-16s can give consent for medical treatment, the university `follows good practice and seeks to involve those people with parental responsibility', asking students to get their parents to fill out a form about medical treatment.
The University of Kent reads both 17-year-olds and their tutors their rights and responsibilities on matriculation day. University advice states: `The Head of Student Guidance and Welfare will contact all U18 students at the start of term to ensure that they are aware of the university regulations and any restrictions placed upon them as a result of their age. `One member of academic staff should be put forward to act as personal tutor for all students who are under 18 and this information provided to the Director of Student Guidance and Welfare Services. That person must undertake a Criminal Records Bureau [CRB] check.... That person should be reminded of the special duty of care owed to underage students and in particular of the offence of abuse of trust under the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 2000.'
As for accepting students younger than 17, Oxford is turning around its traditional habit of accepting child prodigies. At the start of term last year, university authorities said they just couldn't cope with the need to monitor and vet everybody with whom the child came into contact. Ruth Collier, a spokesperson for admissions, said: `Suddenly we can't offer one-to-one tutorials, while the people who do administration in our colleges have to spend a great deal of time making absolutely sure they are not inadvertently placing a child in a potentially dangerous situation with anyone who hasn't had a criminal records check.'
Interviews and university open days have become a minefield. The University of Essex requires that student mentors and helpers undergo a CRB check. It also insists on the presence of two `designated child protection officers' for school visits where students are not accompanied by a teacher or parent, and these officers' `names and contact details must be communicated to the young people involved in the activity, their parents, and staff members'.
Behind all of this lies a changing definition of adulthood and childhood. When adult meant `mature', the existence of 17-year-olds on campus wasn't such a big deal. They couldn't vote or drink legally, but it was only a question of a few months. Since becoming adult was a about becoming gradually more mature, the grey area of 16 to 18 could be fudged. Now, `adult' and `child' have come to mean potential abuser and potential abuse victim. This sets them apart as two completely separate groups, with completely different interests. Children are not in the process of being assimilated into the adult world, but instead need to be protected and defended from it. When this is the view, there is a legalistic obsession with age. A person flips, on their eighteenth birthday, from being abused to abuser, from being protected to regulated. So a person aged 17 years and 11 months would need their tutor to be CRB-checked; if the following month they were to help out at a university open day, they themselves would need to be CRB-checked.
UCL recently changed its regulations from covering students under 17, to covering students `under 17 years and 3 months' - presumably those who would not turn 18 in the course of the year. Somebody's months and years are counted precisely, to decide which side of the abuser-abused line they fall down on. Challenging this ridiculous treatment of 17-year-old university students would be one way to take on this poisonous view of adult-child relationships that is widespread today
Source
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ROYAL SOCIETY
From Aynsley Kellow [aynsley.kellow@utas.edu.au]
Dear Mr Ward,
I must say I was somewhat amazed at your letter to Nick Thomas of ExxonMobil of 4 September. That such an august institution as the Royal Society is attempting to suppress scientific argument is one thing, and that it relies upon notions of corporate influence that would flunk any reasonable examination in political science yet another.
I could write you a lengthy discourse on what is wrong with your line of reasoning, touching on the $1 billion Exxon is spending on its own corporate response to climate change, the amount it donates to Stanford University alone to research solutions (an order of magnitude larger than that your analysis indicates Exxon provided to organisations you consider 'misinformed' the public), and so on. I will save such an analysis for my own research on the politics of climate science, for which your letter will constitute an excellent example of attempts to suppress dissent.
Instead, let me address the basis of your claims about the IPCC - and here I write as an expert reviewer for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
You take issue with Exxon's statement that the IPCC relies for its conclusions 'on expert judgment rather than objective, reproducible statistical methods.' You cite a conclusion to Ch12 of TAR stating that 'most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greeenhouse gas concentration.' You do not seem to appreciate that Working Group I adopted quite specific meanings, specified in the Summary for Policy Makers, where expressions such as 'likely' quite explicitly refer to the subjective level of confidence of the Chapter Lead Authors.
'Likely' quite specifically means that the Lead Authors believe there is a 66-90% chance that the science is true. The Exxon statement in its Corporate Citizenship Report that you cite is thus entirely consistent with the IPCC conclusion that you cite.
Sadly, we have now reached the point where the Royal Society is a less reliable source of scientific advice than Exxon Mobil. A sad day indeed.
I am copying this letter to Benny Peiser, who runs an excellent newsletter on such issues.
Yours,
Professor Aynsley Kellow
School of Government
University of Tasmania
THE NEW INQUISITION? ROYAL SOCIETY COMES UNDER FIERCE ATTACK FROM GREENPEACE CO-FOUNDER
Greenpeace co-founder asks Britain's Royal Society to stop playing political blame game on global warming
Greenpeace co-founder and former leader Dr. Patrick Moore said the United Kingdom's Royal Society should stop playing a political blame game on global warming and retract its recent letter that smacks of a repressive and anti-intellectual attitude. "It appears to be the policy of the Royal Society to stifle dissent and silence anyone who may have doubts about the connection between global warming and human activity," said Dr. Moore, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Vancouver, Canada-based Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. "That kind of repression seems more suited to the Inquisition than to a modern, respected scientific body," said Moore.
In a letter dated September 4 and published this week in a London newspaper, the Royal Society's Bob Ward accused ExxonMobil of misleading the public by daring to question the link between human activity and increases in global temperatures.
Dr. Moore responded today in an open letter sent to the Royal Society: "Certainly the Royal Society would agree there is no scientific proof of causation between the human-induced increase in atmospheric CO2 and the recent global warming trend, a trend that has been evident for about 500 years (sic), long before the human-induced increase in CO2 was evident. "While I may agree with certain statements made by the IPCC, surely you and the Royal Society would respect my right to disagree with other statements or at least to call them into question."
Dr. Moore writes further, "I am sure the Royal Society is aware of the difference between an hypothesis and a theory. It is clear the contention that human-induced CO2 emissions and rising CO2 levels in the global atmosphere are the cause of the present global warming trend is an hypothesis that has not yet been elevated to the level of a proven theory. Causation has not been demonstrated in any conclusive way.
Dr. Moore also notes in the letter that while the Royal Society likes to quote from the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the IPCC itself admits its conclusions are uncertain. "The Royal Society needs to retract its anti-intellectual and heavy-handed letter to ExxonMobil, and allow reasoned scientific debate on this issue," said Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore said he is speaking out on this issue because "the last thing the world needs, in the midst of a warming trend, is for the Royal Society to cast a chill over science." Dr. Moore and his firm Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. have no links, financial or otherwise, to ExxonMobil.
Source.
Life's ultimate short straw
By irreverent British motoring writer Jeremy Clarkson
My local petrol [gasoline] station has employed an elderly chap to run the pumps, no doubt to satisfy the recent European diktat that bars age discrimination.
Good. I’m pleased as punch that the old boy can now fill his days. However, I do wish the owners of the garage had explained to him how the computerised petrol pumps work, that the cash till is electronic, and how best to operate the chip and pin system while wearing bifocals. By the time you walk out of there with a receipt, and your Smarties, all the fuel you bought has evaporated.
In a world that worked, petrol stations would all be run by spotty young men from Poland or Pakistan. But that simple dream can now be undone by four separate pieces of legislation. Age, sex, race and disability.
This means that if British Nuclear Fuels wants a person to monitor the reactors at Sellafield, it is duty-bound to at least consider someone whose CV reveals them to be a hormonal Afghan school-leaver with a keen interest in Middle East politics, a degree in chemistry and epilepsy.
Of course at this point you’d expect me to work myself into a state of righteous indignation and say: “Idealism? Pah. It’s a lovely thing to have, but God, it’s a dangerous thing to use.”
My wife has said on many occasions that she’d like to have Jamie Lee Curtis’s body. And I agree. I’d very much like to have Jamie Lee Curtis’s body. But it cannot happen because life is not fair. Some people win the lottery. And some don’t.
If you are born to a wealthy, intelligent family, then you will go to Eton, get a brilliant education and end up, having expended almost no effort at all, in a hedge fund, wealthy and contented.
If you are born ugly and with ginger hair, to a stupid family, things are likely to be a little more difficult.
However, here’s the thing. I absolutely support legislation that forces employers to consider people from all walks of life, no matter how much they dribble, or how many times a day they need to pray.
Sure, for every idiotic Stan who wants to become Loretta and have babies, there’s a Douglas Bader who overcame the loss of his legs to get back in a Spitfire or a Michael Bolton who overcame that astonishing haircut to become a pop star. Ian Dury. Franklin D Roosevelt. David Blunkett. Admiral Nelson. History is littered with disabled people who have not just got by, but got on.
Andrew Lloyd Webber made it even though at some point in his teenage years his face melted. And every year 200,000 people have to overcome the massive problem of being born American.
So, if I were an employer and wanted a footballer, I’d get someone who was good at football and wouldn’t care where they were from, what shape they were or even if they were a horse. If I wanted a secretary, I’d get someone who could type, and wouldn’t care how long her legs were or if she had sumptuous breasts. Much.
In fact, there’s only one type of person I wouldn’t employ under any circumstances. A small man.
Smallness trumps everything. It transcends national characteristics and traits written by the stars. I’ve said before that to be born Italian and male is to win the first prize in the lottery of life, but that isn’t so if you’re the height of a normal person’s navel. It doesn’t matter if fate deals the shortarse a hand stuffed with aces, or what new laws the government imposes to smooth his way into normal human life, he simply won’t be able to achieve a state of happiness if he has to go through life banging his head on coffee tables.
If you’re small, it doesn’t matter whether you’re rich, poor, Aries, Leo or ginger, you will be consumed with a sense that people aren’t just physically looking down on you, but mentally as well. This will make you permanently angry, and equipped with a chip so deep you need to wear a tie to stop yourself falling in half. I’ve never once met a small man who is balanced. They misinterpret every kind word and treat every gesture as the opening salvo in a full-on war.
It’s true, of course, that each generation is taller than the one that went before. I recently had a look round the restored SS Great Britain and the beds on this ocean liner were not even big enough for a 21st-century child of six.
It is therefore true to say that taller people are at the cutting edge of civilisation. Those of, let’s say, 6ft 5in are bound to be the brightest and cleverest and most advanced humans the world has ever seen, and those under 5ft 5in are somewhere between the amoeba and the ape, and there’s plenty of evidence to bear this out. An American man who is 6ft 2in tall is 3% more likely to be an executive and 2% more likely to be a professional than is a man who stands 5ft 10in.
It’s often been said that Randy Newman’s song, Short People Got No Reason To Live, is actually a metaphor for the stupidity of racism. I’m not so sure.
And nor, it seems, is the EU. Because while it’s now illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age, race, sex or disability, it is perfectly legal to push small people over in supermarkets and steal their milk in the playground.
Source
DUMB BRITISH COPPERS AGAIN
For an account of how vast is the incompetence of the modern-day British police, see here
`Police officers obviously don't understand the difference between seriousness and satire.they need a crash course in the meaning of irony and the positive reclamation of taboo images.' So says `Geoffrey Cohen' (I'll explain the quote marks around his name in a minute) of the satirical Jewish community group Jewdas, four of whose members were recently arrested in Trafalgar Square, and then stuck in a cell in Charing Cross, for the crime of handing out a `pisstake' leaflet.
It happened at the end of September, during a festival of Jewish celebration in Trafalgar Square. The four were distributing flyers advertising a party due to take place in Hackney this month. The party was called `The protocols of the elders of Hackney', a pun on that old fraudulent anti-Semitic document, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Even though their leaflet was clearly satirical, the four pranksters were arrested on suspicion of spreading anti-Semitic material. Following complaints from a handful of members of the public, the police arrested and detained the four leafleters under section 19 of the Public Order Act, which covers suspicion of distributing racially inflammatory material with intent to incite racial hatred.
Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers confiscated the `inflammable leaflets', as Jewdas now refers to them. The fact that the leaflet was produced by Jewish members of Jewdas - the self-appointed `radical voice for the alternative Jewish Diaspora' that wants to `celebrate being Jewish' - seemed to make not a blind bit of difference to those who complained of anti-Semitism or to the police who acted on those complaints. When a group of young Jews who exist in order to celebrate Jewish culture can be arrested for inciting hatred towards their own community, it shows up the ridiculous nature of today's anti-hate speech legislation and the politics of inoffensiveness. These days you can't even make a joke without having your collar felt by the cops.
Getting an interview with Jewdas is not straightforward. After sending an email to a generic address I found on their website (www.Jewdas.org), I receive a reply from a `Geoffrey Cohen', who lives in Brighton. He tells me that Jewdas is not keen on giving interviews, but they might make an exception for spiked. He promises to make some calls, but warns me that his friends in London might not be able to meet up as it's a Saturday, the Sabbath, and the next evening would be the start of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. It seems that Jewdas' subversive instincts have their limits.
He managed to persuade a friend and fellow Jewdas founder to meet me in London on Sunday afternoon. Braving an early autumn hailstorm, I make my way from south London to West Hampstead, home to large parts of what Jewdas refers to as the `Jewish establishment'. Cohen's friend turns out to be a musical composer in his twenties who also goes by the name `Geoffrey Cohen'. Apparently, all Jewdas leaders go under the same name because it `creates a mystery element', says Geoffrey Cohen No.2, and because `there are a lot of people who hate Jewdas'. The real Geoffrey Cohen is an orthodox rabbi, who I assume is not a fan, much less a member, of Jewdas.
Jewdas was founded by a group of friends who felt that the British Jewish community was becoming too conservative. Their satirical website includes slogans such as `UJS: Undermining Jewish Students', `Yes to hummus, no to Hamas' and `United Synagogue: promoting moronic Judaism since 1870'. Their `Make Melanie Smile' campaign urges supporters and readers to send emails to the conservative Daily Mail columnist, Melanie Phillips, which might help to cheer her up. `Perhaps you know of gay couples splitting up? Or single mothers having their children taken into care? Or an increase in carbon dioxide emissions? Send them all to Melanie', the site says. Why give Phillips such a hard time? `Because she's awful!' exclaims Cohen. `You really couldn't make her up. She's like a new Jew of her own.' He does give her credit, though, for at least being outspoken at a time when `most people in the Jewish community think it's better to just keep to themselves'.
Jewdas was inspired by Heeb, the satirical New York magazine and growing movement of Jewish hipsters, and it is gathering quite a following both in and beyond London. Its debut event, Punk Purim, was a packed-out party in a run-down squat adorned with posters of a joint-smoking rabbi and Che Guevara as a Chassidic Jew. It featured Jewish hip-hop, Palestinian poetry, Kabbalistic graffiti and a peepshow with Jewish girls. According to Cohen, Punk Purim `is already legendary' - and, he proudly tells me, it was condemned in the Jewish Chronicle, the mainstream newspaper of Britain's Jewish community.
Jewdas is run by a bunch of pranksters who want to wind up the older and more miserabilist members of Britain's Jewry. They also claim that there is a more serious purpose to their pranks and parties: to `bring out the message that Judaism is not a fixed thing' and to `reopen the debate on who owns Judaism and who has the right to speak for the Jewish community'. These young synagogue-goers are hardly a threat to the continuity of Jewish life in Britain - and there is certainly no call for sending the police to investigate them. So why was there such a strong reaction against Jewdas in Trafalgar Square, culminating in arrests for handing out leaflets?
`Most people in the Jewish community have a very fixed view of what identity is and they feel threatened by us', says Cohen. `Any criticism of Israel, for instance, sends them into a frenzy. We have received quite a lot of hate mail, but you know, it's all quite funny. The accusation that we are self-haters is just ridiculous. The Jewish community needs to be woken up. It is largely affluent, comfortable and unthinking - and that goes for all denominations. In relation to Israel, it takes a very right-wing stance. The community is materialistic; it has swallowed the middle-class dream.'
Listening to Cohen, I realise that Jewdas is not that different from today's environmentalist and anti-consumerist movements: their criticisms of the `establishment' - in this case the Jewish establishment - are motivated by anti-materialism and a call for more meekness, it seems, rather than by anything truly radical or earth-shattering. Cohen was reluctant to be interviewed over a latte in Starbucks, because Starbucks is `an evil chain'. Jewdas' satirical website and unconventional parties are an attempt to reconcile these fairly mainstream anti-consumerist sentiments with Jewish culture; so Jewdas is also an expression of today's politics of identity, which is equally pervasive among young Londoners, many of whom seem to seek out a particularist national, religious or cultural identity through which they might define who they are and what they want.
Cohen says Jewdas is inspired by the dynamism of Central and Eastern European Yiddish culture during the interwar years. `We're talking about radicals here, who took on the rabbinate - the Jewish establishment.' He admits, though, that Jewdas is `definitely also coming out of multicultural politics' and hopes that `those two worlds' - of earlier radical Judaism and contemporary me-centred multiculturalism - `can be bridged'. It seems unlikely to me; the former was based on taking action and changing things, while the latter is more about the politics of complaint and victimhood.
Cohen says he adheres to Derrida's idea of a radical tradition. `It's not about the polarities of either abandoning the past or returning to it. This is about choosing elements of the past and we want to challenge nationalism and materialism.' In other words, it's all a bit of a postmodern mess, but, admittedly, a very funny postmodern mess.
The `radical Jewish tradition', as Jewdas sees it, includes the work of such diverse figures as Emma Goldman, Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Martin Buber and Amos Oz. `Political activism was not separate from their Jewishness, whatever they claim', says Cohen. Jewdas feels that British Jews have forgotten about their `radical past'. Their Punk Purim party was held in London's East End because it used to be home to Jewish immigrants, mainly from Eastern Europe, who came from that `radical tradition' that Cohen so admires. I can't help thinking it's deeply ironic that Jewdas wants to reclaim a past which their grandparents' generation worked so hard to move away from. When Jews moved from the East End and went north to the nice suburbs, they were trying to rise above slum conditions and leave poverty behind. It seems that `celebrating tradition' can cross the line into glorifying the poverty and hardship of yesteryear. Cohen himself lives in West Hampstead. `Yeah, I'm the black sheep of Jewdas', he admits. According to the website, a `true Jewdas' lives in Hackney, prefers bicycles over SUVs, and is a post-Zionist vegan with a Jew-fro.
Whether you would wish to aspire to such a Jewdas lifestyle (it's not for me), Cohen is surely right when he says `closing down debate is not the way to build a tolerant society'. He says it is important to be able to criticise religions and cultures. The right to ridicule religions and their adherents is a hard-won liberty of any secular society worth its name, and we should not sacrifice it at the altar of `protecting minorities from being offended'. Under the cover of stamping out offensiveness, the New Labour government has seriously restricted free speech, and has set about outlawing anti-religious `hate speech', the justification or glorification of terrorism, or any other words it deems to be inappropriate or distasteful. The sentiment behind such stringent restrictions is that speech is a dangerous thing, and that the public must be protected from it by the caring and gracious censor. No thanks.
So, for Cohen, would it be different if non-Jews were to satirise or ridicule the Jewish community? `Non-Jews couldn't do it the way we have', he says. `We deliberately make very specific references which demonstrate that we know the culture very well. The use of humour is also a good way of waking up the Jewish community. If we had just set up a website with serious articles, it would have been ignored.'
It is nonsensical that Jewdas should have to ask for permission from their own community to make fun of them. Those who feel uncomfortable with Jewdas' irreverence should show a bit more chutzpah, rather than running for cover under the government's absurd attempts to legislate offensiveness out of existence.
Source
Sad when the Arts writer of The Times of London does not know the difference between a canon and a cannon. It's an interesting article on John Mortimer ("Rumpole of the Bailey") though.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Mums who sell junk food? Arrest them
In London last night, mayor Ken Livingstone outlined his radical agenda for punishing parents who dare to eat 'unethical food'.
"If I was running the schools, you’d have had all that crap out of the schools right away. They’d have had good healthy food. And you’d arrest the mums passing junk food through the school fence"
This was not some crank caller to a radio phone-in, but London mayor Ken Livingstone speaking last night at the Hay Festival event ‘The Ethical Food Debate’ at London’s Garrick Theatre. Even more disturbingly, he was wildly applauded. This could only laughably be described as a ‘debate’, since all four panellists – and most of the audience – were quite in agreement about the need to protect the environment, eat organic, avoid chemicals and reduce ‘food miles’.
Despite the title, the debate wasn’t particularly about food. Led by Sheila Dillon, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, it was really all about education, markets, transport, obesity and GM crops – and what policies would be needed to foist the prejudices of the gathered company on to the population at large, who apparently must be saved from themselves.
While Ken was saving the kids, Keith Abel – co-founder of organic food delivery company Abel & Cole – thought it was the Third World that needed rescuing from agribusiness. ‘There are currently around one-and-a-half billion subsistence farmers in the world, who are being told by the chemical industry that they need to either adopt their GM crops or start covering them in artificial fertilisers so they can all move into shanty towns and live as prostitutes.’ So if you think that Third World farmers might actually be keen to modernise their farming methods, and in the process make their lives a bit easier and more fruitful, think again. According to Abel, modernisation is a risky business and agribusiness companies are the moral equivalent of people-traffickers.
Abel argued that kids here at home need protecting, too. ‘I’ve got two little monkeys of primary-school age.… I think there are a number of very straightforward things we can do to prevent these vulnerable little beings being taught the wrong way.’ Specifically, he called for junk food advertising aimed at young children to be banned.
Meanwhile, Jenny Jones, Green Party councillor and former deputy mayor, argued that the main challenges are how to reduce London’s ‘ecological footprint’ and also reduce food poverty. She claimed that six per cent of Londoners go to bed hungry. That may be true, but perhaps they might be better served by better pay and benefits rather than Jones running a mission to provide them with organic vegetables, locally sourced.
The fourth member of the panel, former Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, didn’t seem to be terribly well-informed or insightful. Her main policy suggestion was that the government should ‘do something’. But then, being ill-informed didn’t seem to be much of a barrier to participating in this debate.
Livingstone, for example, showed that he was a dab hand at elevating personal prejudice into established scientific fact. His opening statement, on why he thought food was an ethical issue, was a list of deeply dubious ‘facts’ that encapsulated every green scare of our time. There was his claim that ‘the smallest amount of artificial or toxic substances can cause all sorts of problems, not just cancers but everything else’; his comments that pollution was much worse today because ‘I grew up in the postwar world where it was heavy, dirty old soot you could wash away – now it’s particulates and nitrous oxoids [sic] which are just getting worse and worse’; and his assertion that all this ‘goes a long way to explaining the huge increase in kids in asthma and eczema and hayfever’.
In truth, very small amounts of chemicals are harmless. Even deadly poisons in the quantities in which pesticide residues occur – parts per million – would cause no injury. But pesticides are not deadly poisons; they are selected because they are harmful to pests rather than humans. We consume far more naturally-occurring poisons than pesticides or other manmade chemicals. As Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold note elsewhere on spiked ‘The natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of ingested synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens.’ (1) And London’s air used to be thick with particulates at levels more than 10 times greater than today before first smokeless fuels and then alternative forms of heating were introduced. During the Great Smog of 1953 they were 1,000 times their normal levels today (2).
Livingstone also claimed that the ‘tipping point for irreversible climate change is most probably four or five years away at most’, which apparently means we need to crack down on agribusiness now, because agribusiness is a ‘disproportionate’ generator of carbon emissions and ‘food miles’.
Normally, I don’t like to criticise people for their backgrounds; after all, they can’t help it, and I prefer to challenge their ideas. But when audience members like Rosie and Henrietta joined with Thomasina to tell us how ‘we’ – the decent right-thinking middle classes – could protect the poor, the blacks and the children, it was more than I could stomach. Panellists and audience members seemed to believe that the masses are too stupid to treat junk-food advertising with a pinch of salt, and too feckless to feed their children properly. The proper approach to food, as exemplified by Livingstone, is to wrap yourself up in ethical knots about which food has the least-worst balance of food miles and pesticides while still being ‘fairtrade’ and avoiding supermarkets.
Fortunately, I am a man of direct action. So after the insufferable non-debate finished, my partner and I adjourned to a nearby pizza chain for mass-produced convenience food, the ingredients of which may well have been produced in pesticide-soaked fields and flown thousands of miles to my plate.
Source
A myth that deceived Britain's out-of-touch Leftist elite
Nursing Standard magazine has revealed how Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference that pregnant teenagers now smoke to try to reduce the size of their babies, in order to make delivery less painful. This has sparked up an earnest debate, with Ms Flint saying that young women must be educated to learn that “smoking is not the answer, pain relief is” (she might try teaching that to the “natural birth” zealots among Britain’s midwives).
Ms Flint admitted she had heard these horror stories only “anecdotally”. Anybody with an ear in the real world would surely have known straightaway that such tales are an urban myth. Presumably these girls who smoke to shrink their babies are the same ones who get pregnant from toilet seats and forcefeed their toddlers chips through a teat.
Source
Treatment 'to neutralise all flu'
Scientists say they are developing an entirely new way of providing instant protection against flu. In preliminary tests, it was found to protect animals against various strains of the virus - and may also protect against future pandemic strains.
University of Warwick researchers used a flu virus naturally stripped of some genetic material to compete with other invading flu viruses. This slowed the rate of infection so much the body could fight it off. In effect, the invading virus became its own vaccine by triggering an immune response sufficiently powerful to neutralise it before it could gain a strong enough foothold.
The Warwick team plan to develop the treatment as a nasal spray. Experts warned much more testing was required. However, they said the development of the vaccine was timely, amid concerns the H5N1 bird flu strain circulating in south east Asia could mutate into a pandemic strain which would put millions of lives at risk.
Existing vaccination methods depend on stimulating the body's immune system, so that white blood cells produce antibodies that attach to the surface of the virus and start the process of killing it. This works well for many diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles, but is much less effective with flu, as the coat of the flu virus is continually changing. Vaccination against one strain of flu is totally ineffective against another.
Professor Nigel Dimmock has spent more than two decades developing the new approach. The "protecting virus" with which he worked had naturally lost around 80% of the genetic material of one of its eight RNA constituent segments. This deletion makes the virus harmless and prevents it from reproducing by itself within a cell, so that it cannot spread like a normal influenza virus. However, if it is joined in the cell by another influenza virus, it retains its harmless nature but starts to reproduce - and at a much faster rate than the new influenza virus. This fast reproduction rate - spurred by the new flu infection - means that the new invading influenza is effectively crowded out. This vastly slows the progress of the new infection, prevents flu symptoms, and gives the body time to develop an immune response to the harmful new invader.
The Warwick team believes its research indicates the protecting virus would have the same effect regardless of the strain of flu infection. This is because the coat of the virus is irrelevant to the protection process - the effect works on the virus genes inside the cell. In addition it protects instantly, whereas protection generated by conventional flu vaccination takes two to three weeks to become fully effective. Experiments so far show that a single dose of protecting virus can be given six weeks before, and 24 hours after an infection with flu virus and be effective.
Source
Patriotism incorrect in England
When Australian Kay Rowland was sacked from her job for sending what she thought was a patriotic email about England to colleagues she couldn't believe it. The temp [secretary] was sacked from Castrol Oil after forwarding the email, which the Pipers Way-based company and Reed Employment, deemed to be inappropriate, to five other employees. But Miss Rowland, of Oakhurst, North Swindon, doesn't think the email was offensive and says people have the right to express their own opinion.
Part of the email said: "I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Britain. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. "This idea of London being a multicultural centre for community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Britons we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle."
Miss Rowland, who has been temping at Castrol as a telebusiness operator since January, said: "I was sent the email last Thursday by an employee at the same company and I then sent it to five other employees. "Nothing was said at the time but I overheard some colleagues saying it was true. "But now I know that some of the people I sent it to complained to management."
On Monday morning Miss Rowland says that she felt something wasn't right when a representative from Reed Employment arrived at her office. She said they usually check up on their temps in the afternoon. "My team leader and the Reed lady were both in the meeting room and then I was called in," she said. "They told me some people had complained about the email and that my employment was terminated immediately. I was escorted from the building.
"I didn't think people would enjoy reading the email but I could see where this man who wrote it was coming from. I wasn't offended by it. "I thought the people who I sent it to would look at it and see this man had guts to say what a lot of people are afraid to say."
But Miss Rowland didn't think that the email would land her in such hot water. "In the meeting I was very upset. It was a very big shock and every word came behind a tear. I have been told I was sacked because of the content of the email. "They also said, not in so many words, that I'm not welcome back there." She added: "I think I've been made an example of but I don't think it's an example that should have been made." Miss Rowland, who is moving back to Australia at Christmas is now looking for work elsewhere. Sarah Reynolds, a spokeswoman for Reed Employment, said the company was unable to comment.
Source
MORE OF THAT FINE POLITICALLY CORRECT BRITISH POLICING
Say something derogatory about homosexuals and you are in immediate trouble. Otherwise they're not much interested
An inquiry has been ordered after police failed to respond to five 999 calls from a primary school reporting an armed intruder. The man broke into the school brandishing a lump of wood and threatened staff by telling them 'you're dead'. School had finished for the day, but there were still children inside and frantic staff rang 999 on five occasions over a 50-minute period. Eventually the man left of his own accord, but officers never turned up to investigate.
Kent Police chief constable Michael Fuller has ordered the investigation following a complaint from headteacher Stuart Pywell, of St Stephen's Junior School in Canterbury. The drama at the school unfolded last week, when five young men were seen fighting with lumps of wood in the school grounds. At 4pm one of the men burst into the school through a back door brandishing a lump of wood and threatened staff. Mr Pywell said there were still children at an after-school club, but they were kept away from the intruder.
He said: 'He was standing in a corridor armed with a thick stick being very aggressive and abusive to everyone. He was clearly high on drugs. I told him the police had been called but he just kept threatening us, saying "you're dead". He was very agitated and had the lump of wood but, for all we knew, he could also have had a knife so we were reluctant to physcially tackle him. 'We do not expect the police to put people's lives at risk by failing in their duty to respond to situations like this. There was at least a dozen children and staff at risk yet no officer attended.' Mr Pywell said the man was escorted from the site, but suspicious men in a four-wheel drive vehicle remained outside the school gates. He said he even gave the control room his mobile number and no one 'bothered' to call him.
There have been other previous incidents, including vandalism at the school, when police failed to respond to calls, he said. A superintendent had previously apologised for police failures. 'It has got to the stage now where we have employed our own security guard at weekends.'
Deputy Chief Constable Jim Barker-McCardle said: 'We treat all incidents at schools seriously. We're concerned about how this matter was handled.' A police spokesman confirmed an internal inquiry into the handling of the incident has begun and said tapes of 999 calls made by the teachers will be examined. Senior officers are expected to meet with the headteacher.
Earlier this year Police Federation leaders claimed forces were struggling to cope withcalls because they were too busy 'chasing statistics' for the Government. In a scathing attack on Labour's law and order strategy, the Federation said crimes such as burglaries and car theft were being downgraded by control room staff because there were not enough officers to deal with them.
There have been a number of reported incidents in which emergency services have failed to turn out to 999 emergencies. In April police took an hour and a half to react to 999 calls about violence that led to the mob murder of two brothers. Mohammed and Hayder Ali were dragged from a van in a suburban street in London, stabbed with machetes and beaten around the head with wooden posts. In the 90 minutes before they were killed, five emergency calls was made to Scotland Yard detailing running battles and youths wandering around with weapons.
Last May John Lockley, 60, died after police and ambulance took six hours to respond to 999 calls that he was lying unconscious in the street in Stoke-on-Trent.
Source
CRAP UK HISTORY TEACHING
History teaching at A level [Senior High School] is so fragmented that pupils are left with no understanding of the order in which important events occurred and little idea of what went before or after them, one of Britain's leading academics said yesterday. David Starkey, the television historian and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, said that A levels were too often taught as if they were miniature degrees, with so much analysis crammed in that the periods they covered had to be cut short into "tiny gobbets of chewed-up material".
He said: "There is no point in doing merely a fragment in time with no sense of what might have led up to events and what consequences flowed from them. At the moment, pupils study a bit of American history and a bit of Hitler. That's almost useless." Dr Starkey said that it was absurd that the main history syllabus covering Hitler stopped in 1939. "There is no Second World War and no Holocaust. This approach does a lot of damage. It glamorises Hitler. You have to ask yourself, what is the point of studying it at all?"
He was equally critical of how syllabuses tackled Henry VIII and the Reformation, his own specialist period. "With Henry VIII, the syllabus covers 1502 to 1529. It stops when things get interesting. The other part of the syllabus covers 1529 to 1547 - the interesting bit. This is an absurd fragmentation. It leaves no space to take a step back and discuss what came before or after. "History, if properly taught, should give people a sense of time and a map of time. You should be able to place yourself in time," he said.
Dr Starkey said that teaching also placed far too much emphasis on the science of gathering evidence for historical events, an approach known as the discovery method. "Teachers use the discovery method to teach when the Norman Conquest was. We know when it was. What's the point in having a teacher if not to tell the students what the facts are?" He added that the study of original documents and the search for evidence should not come until university level. Dr Starkey also despaired of the way his own works and those of other historians were used in schools, with teachers focusing increasingly on historiography - the study of the way history is written - rather than history itself. "A-level students would not be able to tell you what happened at the beginning of the Civil War, but they would be able to tell you what (the historian) Conrad Russell thought about the Civil War," he said.
Dr Starkey was speaking before the premiere this week of the film version of Alan Bennett's successful play The History Boys. It depicts the clash between two teachers, one who values learning for its own sake and one who sees teaching as a series of artificially selected exam techniques. It is a debate that Dr Starkey believes is worth having, not least because he fears that the current system of exams, targets and league tables is destroying Britain's education system.
He fears that highly prescriptive curriculums, combined with a fear in schools of failing in the league tables had produced "nothing but elaborately polished mediocrity" among students, who were coached to pass exams, but not to understand their subjects. He believes that among teachers it has bred an "encompassing cynicism" and destroyed their autonomy, self-confidence and sense of risk
Source
In London last night, mayor Ken Livingstone outlined his radical agenda for punishing parents who dare to eat 'unethical food'.
"If I was running the schools, you’d have had all that crap out of the schools right away. They’d have had good healthy food. And you’d arrest the mums passing junk food through the school fence"
This was not some crank caller to a radio phone-in, but London mayor Ken Livingstone speaking last night at the Hay Festival event ‘The Ethical Food Debate’ at London’s Garrick Theatre. Even more disturbingly, he was wildly applauded. This could only laughably be described as a ‘debate’, since all four panellists – and most of the audience – were quite in agreement about the need to protect the environment, eat organic, avoid chemicals and reduce ‘food miles’.
Despite the title, the debate wasn’t particularly about food. Led by Sheila Dillon, presenter of BBC Radio 4’s The Food Programme, it was really all about education, markets, transport, obesity and GM crops – and what policies would be needed to foist the prejudices of the gathered company on to the population at large, who apparently must be saved from themselves.
While Ken was saving the kids, Keith Abel – co-founder of organic food delivery company Abel & Cole – thought it was the Third World that needed rescuing from agribusiness. ‘There are currently around one-and-a-half billion subsistence farmers in the world, who are being told by the chemical industry that they need to either adopt their GM crops or start covering them in artificial fertilisers so they can all move into shanty towns and live as prostitutes.’ So if you think that Third World farmers might actually be keen to modernise their farming methods, and in the process make their lives a bit easier and more fruitful, think again. According to Abel, modernisation is a risky business and agribusiness companies are the moral equivalent of people-traffickers.
Abel argued that kids here at home need protecting, too. ‘I’ve got two little monkeys of primary-school age.… I think there are a number of very straightforward things we can do to prevent these vulnerable little beings being taught the wrong way.’ Specifically, he called for junk food advertising aimed at young children to be banned.
Meanwhile, Jenny Jones, Green Party councillor and former deputy mayor, argued that the main challenges are how to reduce London’s ‘ecological footprint’ and also reduce food poverty. She claimed that six per cent of Londoners go to bed hungry. That may be true, but perhaps they might be better served by better pay and benefits rather than Jones running a mission to provide them with organic vegetables, locally sourced.
The fourth member of the panel, former Masterchef winner Thomasina Miers, didn’t seem to be terribly well-informed or insightful. Her main policy suggestion was that the government should ‘do something’. But then, being ill-informed didn’t seem to be much of a barrier to participating in this debate.
Livingstone, for example, showed that he was a dab hand at elevating personal prejudice into established scientific fact. His opening statement, on why he thought food was an ethical issue, was a list of deeply dubious ‘facts’ that encapsulated every green scare of our time. There was his claim that ‘the smallest amount of artificial or toxic substances can cause all sorts of problems, not just cancers but everything else’; his comments that pollution was much worse today because ‘I grew up in the postwar world where it was heavy, dirty old soot you could wash away – now it’s particulates and nitrous oxoids [sic] which are just getting worse and worse’; and his assertion that all this ‘goes a long way to explaining the huge increase in kids in asthma and eczema and hayfever’.
In truth, very small amounts of chemicals are harmless. Even deadly poisons in the quantities in which pesticide residues occur – parts per million – would cause no injury. But pesticides are not deadly poisons; they are selected because they are harmful to pests rather than humans. We consume far more naturally-occurring poisons than pesticides or other manmade chemicals. As Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold note elsewhere on spiked ‘The natural chemicals that are known rodent carcinogens in a single cup of coffee are about equal in weight to a year’s worth of ingested synthetic pesticide residues that are rodent carcinogens.’ (1) And London’s air used to be thick with particulates at levels more than 10 times greater than today before first smokeless fuels and then alternative forms of heating were introduced. During the Great Smog of 1953 they were 1,000 times their normal levels today (2).
Livingstone also claimed that the ‘tipping point for irreversible climate change is most probably four or five years away at most’, which apparently means we need to crack down on agribusiness now, because agribusiness is a ‘disproportionate’ generator of carbon emissions and ‘food miles’.
Normally, I don’t like to criticise people for their backgrounds; after all, they can’t help it, and I prefer to challenge their ideas. But when audience members like Rosie and Henrietta joined with Thomasina to tell us how ‘we’ – the decent right-thinking middle classes – could protect the poor, the blacks and the children, it was more than I could stomach. Panellists and audience members seemed to believe that the masses are too stupid to treat junk-food advertising with a pinch of salt, and too feckless to feed their children properly. The proper approach to food, as exemplified by Livingstone, is to wrap yourself up in ethical knots about which food has the least-worst balance of food miles and pesticides while still being ‘fairtrade’ and avoiding supermarkets.
Fortunately, I am a man of direct action. So after the insufferable non-debate finished, my partner and I adjourned to a nearby pizza chain for mass-produced convenience food, the ingredients of which may well have been produced in pesticide-soaked fields and flown thousands of miles to my plate.
Source
A myth that deceived Britain's out-of-touch Leftist elite
Nursing Standard magazine has revealed how Caroline Flint, the Public Health Minister, told a fringe meeting at the Labour conference that pregnant teenagers now smoke to try to reduce the size of their babies, in order to make delivery less painful. This has sparked up an earnest debate, with Ms Flint saying that young women must be educated to learn that “smoking is not the answer, pain relief is” (she might try teaching that to the “natural birth” zealots among Britain’s midwives).
Ms Flint admitted she had heard these horror stories only “anecdotally”. Anybody with an ear in the real world would surely have known straightaway that such tales are an urban myth. Presumably these girls who smoke to shrink their babies are the same ones who get pregnant from toilet seats and forcefeed their toddlers chips through a teat.
Worse, this story is, literally, a joke. My wife reports that, ever since health warnings about having a fag while having a baby began, pregnant women whom she knows have been joking with each other about taking up smoking to make childbirth less painful. No doubt you have to be there, in full hormonal bloom, to see how funny it is. Call it labour-ward humour.
This is a sign of how far out-of-touch ministers and health experts are with those whom they patronise as “ordinary people”. Behind all their touchy-feely talk of “inclusion”, these social engineers retain a deeply contemptuous view of young working-class women as the fag-end of society.
The chief executive of the National Childbirth Trust responded to Ms Flint’s claim by saying, presumably with a straight face: “We are bringing up our young women very fearful of labour.” Those who retain a sense of humour on this subject can fill in your own punchline.
Source
Treatment 'to neutralise all flu'
Scientists say they are developing an entirely new way of providing instant protection against flu. In preliminary tests, it was found to protect animals against various strains of the virus - and may also protect against future pandemic strains.
University of Warwick researchers used a flu virus naturally stripped of some genetic material to compete with other invading flu viruses. This slowed the rate of infection so much the body could fight it off. In effect, the invading virus became its own vaccine by triggering an immune response sufficiently powerful to neutralise it before it could gain a strong enough foothold.
The Warwick team plan to develop the treatment as a nasal spray. Experts warned much more testing was required. However, they said the development of the vaccine was timely, amid concerns the H5N1 bird flu strain circulating in south east Asia could mutate into a pandemic strain which would put millions of lives at risk.
Existing vaccination methods depend on stimulating the body's immune system, so that white blood cells produce antibodies that attach to the surface of the virus and start the process of killing it. This works well for many diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles, but is much less effective with flu, as the coat of the flu virus is continually changing. Vaccination against one strain of flu is totally ineffective against another.
Professor Nigel Dimmock has spent more than two decades developing the new approach. The "protecting virus" with which he worked had naturally lost around 80% of the genetic material of one of its eight RNA constituent segments. This deletion makes the virus harmless and prevents it from reproducing by itself within a cell, so that it cannot spread like a normal influenza virus. However, if it is joined in the cell by another influenza virus, it retains its harmless nature but starts to reproduce - and at a much faster rate than the new influenza virus. This fast reproduction rate - spurred by the new flu infection - means that the new invading influenza is effectively crowded out. This vastly slows the progress of the new infection, prevents flu symptoms, and gives the body time to develop an immune response to the harmful new invader.
The Warwick team believes its research indicates the protecting virus would have the same effect regardless of the strain of flu infection. This is because the coat of the virus is irrelevant to the protection process - the effect works on the virus genes inside the cell. In addition it protects instantly, whereas protection generated by conventional flu vaccination takes two to three weeks to become fully effective. Experiments so far show that a single dose of protecting virus can be given six weeks before, and 24 hours after an infection with flu virus and be effective.
Source
Patriotism incorrect in England
When Australian Kay Rowland was sacked from her job for sending what she thought was a patriotic email about England to colleagues she couldn't believe it. The temp [secretary] was sacked from Castrol Oil after forwarding the email, which the Pipers Way-based company and Reed Employment, deemed to be inappropriate, to five other employees. But Miss Rowland, of Oakhurst, North Swindon, doesn't think the email was offensive and says people have the right to express their own opinion.
Part of the email said: "I am not against immigration, nor do I hold a grudge against anyone who is seeking a better life by coming to Britain. However, there are a few things that those who have recently come to our country, and apparently some born here, need to understand. "This idea of London being a multicultural centre for community has served only to dilute our sovereignty and our national identity. As Britons we have our own culture, our own society, our own language and our own lifestyle."
Miss Rowland, who has been temping at Castrol as a telebusiness operator since January, said: "I was sent the email last Thursday by an employee at the same company and I then sent it to five other employees. "Nothing was said at the time but I overheard some colleagues saying it was true. "But now I know that some of the people I sent it to complained to management."
On Monday morning Miss Rowland says that she felt something wasn't right when a representative from Reed Employment arrived at her office. She said they usually check up on their temps in the afternoon. "My team leader and the Reed lady were both in the meeting room and then I was called in," she said. "They told me some people had complained about the email and that my employment was terminated immediately. I was escorted from the building.
"I didn't think people would enjoy reading the email but I could see where this man who wrote it was coming from. I wasn't offended by it. "I thought the people who I sent it to would look at it and see this man had guts to say what a lot of people are afraid to say."
But Miss Rowland didn't think that the email would land her in such hot water. "In the meeting I was very upset. It was a very big shock and every word came behind a tear. I have been told I was sacked because of the content of the email. "They also said, not in so many words, that I'm not welcome back there." She added: "I think I've been made an example of but I don't think it's an example that should have been made." Miss Rowland, who is moving back to Australia at Christmas is now looking for work elsewhere. Sarah Reynolds, a spokeswoman for Reed Employment, said the company was unable to comment.
Source
MORE OF THAT FINE POLITICALLY CORRECT BRITISH POLICING
Say something derogatory about homosexuals and you are in immediate trouble. Otherwise they're not much interested
An inquiry has been ordered after police failed to respond to five 999 calls from a primary school reporting an armed intruder. The man broke into the school brandishing a lump of wood and threatened staff by telling them 'you're dead'. School had finished for the day, but there were still children inside and frantic staff rang 999 on five occasions over a 50-minute period. Eventually the man left of his own accord, but officers never turned up to investigate.
Kent Police chief constable Michael Fuller has ordered the investigation following a complaint from headteacher Stuart Pywell, of St Stephen's Junior School in Canterbury. The drama at the school unfolded last week, when five young men were seen fighting with lumps of wood in the school grounds. At 4pm one of the men burst into the school through a back door brandishing a lump of wood and threatened staff. Mr Pywell said there were still children at an after-school club, but they were kept away from the intruder.
He said: 'He was standing in a corridor armed with a thick stick being very aggressive and abusive to everyone. He was clearly high on drugs. I told him the police had been called but he just kept threatening us, saying "you're dead". He was very agitated and had the lump of wood but, for all we knew, he could also have had a knife so we were reluctant to physcially tackle him. 'We do not expect the police to put people's lives at risk by failing in their duty to respond to situations like this. There was at least a dozen children and staff at risk yet no officer attended.' Mr Pywell said the man was escorted from the site, but suspicious men in a four-wheel drive vehicle remained outside the school gates. He said he even gave the control room his mobile number and no one 'bothered' to call him.
There have been other previous incidents, including vandalism at the school, when police failed to respond to calls, he said. A superintendent had previously apologised for police failures. 'It has got to the stage now where we have employed our own security guard at weekends.'
Deputy Chief Constable Jim Barker-McCardle said: 'We treat all incidents at schools seriously. We're concerned about how this matter was handled.' A police spokesman confirmed an internal inquiry into the handling of the incident has begun and said tapes of 999 calls made by the teachers will be examined. Senior officers are expected to meet with the headteacher.
Earlier this year Police Federation leaders claimed forces were struggling to cope withcalls because they were too busy 'chasing statistics' for the Government. In a scathing attack on Labour's law and order strategy, the Federation said crimes such as burglaries and car theft were being downgraded by control room staff because there were not enough officers to deal with them.
There have been a number of reported incidents in which emergency services have failed to turn out to 999 emergencies. In April police took an hour and a half to react to 999 calls about violence that led to the mob murder of two brothers. Mohammed and Hayder Ali were dragged from a van in a suburban street in London, stabbed with machetes and beaten around the head with wooden posts. In the 90 minutes before they were killed, five emergency calls was made to Scotland Yard detailing running battles and youths wandering around with weapons.
Last May John Lockley, 60, died after police and ambulance took six hours to respond to 999 calls that he was lying unconscious in the street in Stoke-on-Trent.
Source
CRAP UK HISTORY TEACHING
History teaching at A level [Senior High School] is so fragmented that pupils are left with no understanding of the order in which important events occurred and little idea of what went before or after them, one of Britain's leading academics said yesterday. David Starkey, the television historian and a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, said that A levels were too often taught as if they were miniature degrees, with so much analysis crammed in that the periods they covered had to be cut short into "tiny gobbets of chewed-up material".
He said: "There is no point in doing merely a fragment in time with no sense of what might have led up to events and what consequences flowed from them. At the moment, pupils study a bit of American history and a bit of Hitler. That's almost useless." Dr Starkey said that it was absurd that the main history syllabus covering Hitler stopped in 1939. "There is no Second World War and no Holocaust. This approach does a lot of damage. It glamorises Hitler. You have to ask yourself, what is the point of studying it at all?"
He was equally critical of how syllabuses tackled Henry VIII and the Reformation, his own specialist period. "With Henry VIII, the syllabus covers 1502 to 1529. It stops when things get interesting. The other part of the syllabus covers 1529 to 1547 - the interesting bit. This is an absurd fragmentation. It leaves no space to take a step back and discuss what came before or after. "History, if properly taught, should give people a sense of time and a map of time. You should be able to place yourself in time," he said.
Dr Starkey said that teaching also placed far too much emphasis on the science of gathering evidence for historical events, an approach known as the discovery method. "Teachers use the discovery method to teach when the Norman Conquest was. We know when it was. What's the point in having a teacher if not to tell the students what the facts are?" He added that the study of original documents and the search for evidence should not come until university level. Dr Starkey also despaired of the way his own works and those of other historians were used in schools, with teachers focusing increasingly on historiography - the study of the way history is written - rather than history itself. "A-level students would not be able to tell you what happened at the beginning of the Civil War, but they would be able to tell you what (the historian) Conrad Russell thought about the Civil War," he said.
Dr Starkey was speaking before the premiere this week of the film version of Alan Bennett's successful play The History Boys. It depicts the clash between two teachers, one who values learning for its own sake and one who sees teaching as a series of artificially selected exam techniques. It is a debate that Dr Starkey believes is worth having, not least because he fears that the current system of exams, targets and league tables is destroying Britain's education system.
He fears that highly prescriptive curriculums, combined with a fear in schools of failing in the league tables had produced "nothing but elaborately polished mediocrity" among students, who were coached to pass exams, but not to understand their subjects. He believes that among teachers it has bred an "encompassing cynicism" and destroyed their autonomy, self-confidence and sense of risk
Source
Monday, October 09, 2006
A roundup of 'taking offence' in Britain
It has been a bumpy ride for sensitive souls this past week. There has been so much going on that might possibly have offended them that I hardly know where to begin.
Politicians suspected of taking offence unjustifiably should have their whip removed. Novelists should have their books boycotted. And as for that great army of publicly employed equality officers - whose original purpose must once have been not to stir up trouble but to try to smooth relations between potentially antagonistic factions - I think this country would be a more peaceful, less paranoid and more genuinely tolerant place if we got rid of the lot of them. Might save us a couple of bob [bucks], too.
Source
Britain's streets are full of fear
By India Knight
(The first name "India" tells us that the lady writing is of upper class origin)
In the week when the word “yob” was banned by Scotland Yard because it might “alienate” teenagers and injure their tender feelings (oh boo hoo), Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, 40, was murdered by a gang of “youths” outside his flat in Hackney, east London.
Source
NEW SUPERBUG IN NHS
Because of negligent failure to isolate at-risk patients and an amazing failure at asepsis
Wounded troops returning from Iraq have been linked by government scientists to outbreaks of a deadly superbug in National Health Service hospitals. Injured soldiers flown back to be treated on the NHS have been infected with a rare strain of Acinetobacter baumannii, a superbug resistant to antibiotics. At one hospital in Birmingham in 2003 the bacteria went on to infect 93 people, 91 of whom were civilians. Thirty-five died, although the hospital has not been able to establish whether the superbug was a contributory factor.
The revelation comes amid growing concerns about the treatment of wounded troops on NHS wards alongside civilian patients. It follows reports that a paratrooper, wounded in Afghanistan and treated at the hospital — Selly Oak in Birmingham — was allegedly threatened by a Muslim visitor.
Acinetobacter baumannii commonly inhabits soil and water and is associated with warmer climates such as the Middle East. It is resistant to most common antibiotics and, if left untreated, can lead to pneumonia, fever and septicemia. The bacterium has become a concern in the US army, where it has been identified in more than 240 military personnel since 2003, killing five.
The first case in a British soldier returning from Iraq has been disclosed by scientists from the government’s Health Protection Agency. In a survey of 30 NHS trusts that had received troops, they discovered a soldier at Selly Oak, which houses the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, had been infected with a strain of the bacterium known as “T”. Another British soldier infected with the superbug was admitted to the hospital in November 2004.
Dr Mark Enright, a reader in epidemiology at London’s Imperial College, said the superbug can spread rapidly in intensive care wards. It can also survive on dry surfaces for up to 20 days. “The problem is that acinetobacter can spread like wildfire between patients. If you’ve got someone who has been evacuated from Iraq with multiple burns and acinetobacter, it would spread to patients in the same unit from the hands of nursing staff and doctors.” [No aseptic procedures?? What an appalling admission!]
The Ministry of Defence said it was negotiating with Selly Oak to create a military-only ward, and added that it had introduced “stringent isolation and infection control measures” that had helped limit infections among military personnel to two soldiers, both of whom survived.
Source
It has been a bumpy ride for sensitive souls this past week. There has been so much going on that might possibly have offended them that I hardly know where to begin.
We have had a Somerset vicar offending Japanese visitors to the village of Bishops Lydeard by making feeble jokes about autumnal nips in the air; and numerous doctors offending old people by calling them “crinklies”.
We have had a Bournemouth councillor offending homosexuals by suggesting that Noah (of the Ark fame) would have been legally obliged to take in same-sex animal couples had he been operating in 2006; George Osborne offending autistic people by suggesting they have something in common with Gordon Brown; Boris Johnson offending fatties by using the word at all; Jack Straw upsetting Muslim women at his surgery by asking to see their faces; a publishing company removing all references to the “ British Isles” from its atlases for fear of offending Irish schoolchildren; and, perhaps most ridiculous of all, the Metropolitan police banning the use of the word “yob” in case it offends the hoodie-wearing classes.
With so many wounded feelings and near-misses out there it’s astonishing, really, that the entire country hasn’t ground to a halt.
But it hasn’t, has it. Apart from the usual chorus of auto-complainers, nobody seems to have turned a hair. If the crowded streets of west London are anything to go by, the human race — Muslim, gay, autistic, Japanese — seems to be chugging along together quite smoothly: occasionally, from across our reservoirs of hurt, even managing to smile at each other.
Nobody smiles much at the lawless laddies, it’s true. Thanks in part to so much police sensitive awareness training, lawless laddies seem to have been abandoned to a parallel universe of their own, where hardly anyone dares to establish eye contact with them, let alone risk hurting their feelings with a grin.
Actually, that’s not the point. Does anyone seriously believe a knife-wielding yob gives a flying fig what we call him? Of course he doesn’t. I wish he did.
It’s not just the yobs. On closer inspection it’s hard to see how any of this week’s supposed targets would have had valid cause to complain. We don’t know how many homosexuals were copied in on the Bournemouth councillor’s hated Noah’s Ark e-mail. But it strikes me as faintly preposterous to suggest that they would have been too fragile to take a joke — not against themselves, note, but against the absurdities of equal opportunity law.
It was a Tory councillor who wrote the e-mail, by the way, and a couple of Liberal Democrat councillors who chose to object to it so publicly. A case of genuinely hurt feelings or of political point-scoring? You decide.
Ditto the “row” over Osborne’s autism joke about Brown’s endogenous growth-theory tendencies. The left-leaning author Nick Hornby, who has an autistic child, was quick to cry foul. He made an uncharacteristically po-faced statement about disabilities not being funny.
Yet, oddly enough, he didn’t complain when his brother-in-law Robert Harris made a similar comment about Brown in this newspaper only a few weeks earlier. Why? Might it possibly have been because Hornby spotted an opportunity to make a dig at the Conservatives? I think so.
As for the vicar’s “nip” joke — having spent my childhood two miles from the village of Bishops Lydeard I would be astonished if a Japanese person had ever, in all its dozy history, found himself anywhere near the place, let alone paused there long enough to read the vicar’s newsletter.
As it turns out the loudest complainer, who is calling for the poor vicar to resign, is not a Japanese tourist but David Onamade, head of the Somerset racial equality council. Having made such an unholy fuss, he now finds himself on a marvellous platform from which to justify to council taxpayers his job, his salary and his pension. Perhaps that is coincidental. I’ve no doubt he would say it was.
I don’t know how much Japanese people mind being referred to as “nips”. Not much, I expect. They have a long history and a proud culture, as do we. And I don’t mind in the least being referred to as a “pom” or a “rosbif”. Do you? Does anyone? Of course there might exist, somewhere, a Japanese individual with unreasonably tender sensibilities who finds it painful to be referred to in such a way. In which case Onamade, by drawing national attention to a bad joke in a village newsheet, has succeeded in upsetting them quite unnecessarily. Shame on him. I think he should resign.
We’ve got to a point now where the Auto-Offence Brigade — most of them professional, many of whose salaries you and I are paying — have us so edgy that we dare not question anybody’s “right” to take offence at anything, regardless of truth, humour or logic. They yell so loudly and so brutishly that it’s hard for the rest of us to hear ourselves think.
When footballers "dive" - roll around the grass in paroxysms of affected agony after bumping into an opposing player in the hopes of getting him sent off - it is the diver and not the other man who gets shown the red card. I wonder if we shouldn't instigate a similar system for these blubbering offence-takers who seem to cause nothing but bad blood and who waste so much of our time.Politicians suspected of taking offence unjustifiably should have their whip removed. Novelists should have their books boycotted. And as for that great army of publicly employed equality officers - whose original purpose must once have been not to stir up trouble but to try to smooth relations between potentially antagonistic factions - I think this country would be a more peaceful, less paranoid and more genuinely tolerant place if we got rid of the lot of them. Might save us a couple of bob [bucks], too.
Source
Britain's streets are full of fear
By India Knight
(The first name "India" tells us that the lady writing is of upper class origin)
In the week when the word “yob” was banned by Scotland Yard because it might “alienate” teenagers and injure their tender feelings (oh boo hoo), Stevens Nyembo-Ya-Muteba, 40, was murdered by a gang of “youths” outside his flat in Hackney, east London.
Stevens, a married father of two little girls, was an émigré from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Britain, where he held down two jobs — delivering food for Tesco during the day, night portering at a restaurant in the evenings — to pay for his education. He was in the third year of a maths and finance degree at the University of Greenwich, having turned down a place at Cambridge so as to stay closer to home. A 17-year-old “youth” has been charged with his murder.
Stevens lost his life because he had had the temerity to ask the gang to keep the noise down after they broke into the communal area of the council estate where he lived. It was about 10pm. “Some of us have work in the morning,” he’d reportedly said which, as rebukes go, is both polite and mild. He was stabbed for his pains and left to bleed to death on a stairwell.
It has since emerged that Stevens and other residents had repeatedly urged the police and the council to do something about the appalling goings-on at the estate. “Prostitutes, smackheads, people having sex on the stairs,” one resident said. Another mentioned gangs of youths congregating in stairwells, taking drugs, urinating and trying to start fires. “The police and the council had been aware of it all for some time,” a relative of Stevens said last week.
I used to live in Hackney opposite two crack houses. The phone box in our road was regularly used as a (rather snug) boudoir by stoned — and not in a benign way — prostitutes. There were needles in the local park and crack-smoking paraphernalia littered the pavements. We were once woken in the night by two dozen armed police who explained that there had been a burglary and that the burglars, who had guns, had taken refuge on our roof.
I took my sons for a walk in the park a couple of days before we moved out of Hackney. It ended abruptly when we saw a young boy being cut down from a tree; he had tried to hang himself.
This in an area, by the way, which was last week described by a London newspaper as up-and-coming and made to sound rather charming and cosmopolitan, with bars and cafes open until 5am (I rather wonder who the paper thinks goes drinking at 5am. Schoolteachers? Yummy mummies? Or — here’s a thought — a feral underclass celebrating the night’s pickings?) It made no mention of the gun crime, the stabbings, the drugs or the desperate, crazed £5 whores.
What is especially depressing about this whole depressing story, which took place in a depressed area full of depressed people doing depressing things, is that I imagine Stevens himself knew a thing or two about deprivation; and that what he knew would put his assailants’ poxy little gripes to shame. Originally from Kinshasa, which is a horrible city in a grim country, I don’t expect the offer of a place at Cambridge exactly fell into his lap. “I believed in myself and got what I wanted,” he once told his college newsletter.
There are unsettling moments when I feel myself turning into a rabid old-school Tory, and this is one of them. What’s with the pathetic, weedy nonsense from Scotland Yard about hurting yobs’ feelings, when stories such as Stevens’s have, shamefully, become commonplace? Who cares about their feelings? I don’t. I couldn’t care less. I don’t care how hard their lives are: I don’t expect Stevens’s life in Kinshasa was much of a picnic either but at least he was doing his best to better himself to make a new life for his family. And I am so tired of the stupid liberal notion (held by me for decades) that gangs of hoodies are all gigantically deprived and thus need our pity, love and support, rather than our approbation. What they need, actually, is to be locked up.
Deprivation is relative: none of them is starving, all of them are clothed and all of them have access to free education. Besides, one of the yobs arrested in connection with Stevens’s murder is, if you please, the son of a social worker for Hackney council, which doesn’t quite constitute the frontline of ghettohood.
The gangs that periodically terrorise my new extremely salubrious, picture-postcard corner of north London aren’t “deprived” in any material sense that I can understand, either — not when they are wearing several hundred pounds’ worth of designer clothing. They are certainly emotionally deprived to which the only solution, short of eugenics, is first-rate education — starting with nursery and, in some cases, psychotherapy from the age of five.
That is a political point. The broader social point is that the killing in Hackney is the merest tip of a deformed, monstrous iceberg. We are all, wherever we live, at the mercy of marauding gangs of underclass yobs, intent on damage, and there seems to be little that anyone can do about it (which is why I’m sounding so cross. I’d have been less cross 10 years ago, and hardly cross at all 20 years ago, but the crossness escalates with every year that passes because the problem gets worse and nothing happens).
I was recently told by a representative from my local Safer Neighbourhood Team that its powers were somewhat limited: it could ask gangs of boys what they were doing lurking in residential areas at 2am, but since it was not legally allowed to make physical contact with them, it could not actually remove them if vocal persuasion failed.
Besides, the representative said mournfully, they’re often on bikes, which means they move too fast. As for Asbos: not terribly helpful when in some circles an Asbo is a badge of honour. I mean, really: someone’s having a laugh and it’s not you or me.
Being frightened in the street and even in our own homes — feeling scared to intervene when yobs are behaving badly for fear of one’s own safety — has become the norm in this country. We moan about it in the same way that we moan about leaves on the line or automated telephone systems: it’s just everyday life.
You have to gird your loins before opening the local newspaper, because its tally of crimes makes you come over all agoraphobic. I used to be absolutely appalled by gated communities — the super-rich making themselves safe because they can afford to. These days I grudgingly see the point. And that feels profoundly demoralising.
Source
NEW SUPERBUG IN NHS
Because of negligent failure to isolate at-risk patients and an amazing failure at asepsis
Wounded troops returning from Iraq have been linked by government scientists to outbreaks of a deadly superbug in National Health Service hospitals. Injured soldiers flown back to be treated on the NHS have been infected with a rare strain of Acinetobacter baumannii, a superbug resistant to antibiotics. At one hospital in Birmingham in 2003 the bacteria went on to infect 93 people, 91 of whom were civilians. Thirty-five died, although the hospital has not been able to establish whether the superbug was a contributory factor.
The revelation comes amid growing concerns about the treatment of wounded troops on NHS wards alongside civilian patients. It follows reports that a paratrooper, wounded in Afghanistan and treated at the hospital — Selly Oak in Birmingham — was allegedly threatened by a Muslim visitor.
Acinetobacter baumannii commonly inhabits soil and water and is associated with warmer climates such as the Middle East. It is resistant to most common antibiotics and, if left untreated, can lead to pneumonia, fever and septicemia. The bacterium has become a concern in the US army, where it has been identified in more than 240 military personnel since 2003, killing five.
The first case in a British soldier returning from Iraq has been disclosed by scientists from the government’s Health Protection Agency. In a survey of 30 NHS trusts that had received troops, they discovered a soldier at Selly Oak, which houses the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine, had been infected with a strain of the bacterium known as “T”. Another British soldier infected with the superbug was admitted to the hospital in November 2004.
Dr Mark Enright, a reader in epidemiology at London’s Imperial College, said the superbug can spread rapidly in intensive care wards. It can also survive on dry surfaces for up to 20 days. “The problem is that acinetobacter can spread like wildfire between patients. If you’ve got someone who has been evacuated from Iraq with multiple burns and acinetobacter, it would spread to patients in the same unit from the hands of nursing staff and doctors.” [No aseptic procedures?? What an appalling admission!]
The Ministry of Defence said it was negotiating with Selly Oak to create a military-only ward, and added that it had introduced “stringent isolation and infection control measures” that had helped limit infections among military personnel to two soldiers, both of whom survived.
Source
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Exercise fails to cut obesity
When will people admit that a fat body is mostly the outcome of a genetic tendency towards overeating?
Giving young children more physical exercise does not stop them becoming obese, a study has shown. The Glasgow University study, based on work with more than 500 four-year-olds, counters the assumption that in an age dominated by television and computer games, children could slough off the pounds if they exercised more. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, set out to establish whether greater physical activity would prevent children from becoming overweight. They recruited 545 children in their last year at 36 nursery schools.
Half the schools instituted three extra half-hour sessions of physical play and activity every week, and parents were given information packs encouraging them to give their children more activity and less television. The other half had no extra activity or information. All the children were regularly weighed and measured and their body mass index (BMI - the relationship between weight and height used to check for obesity) was calculated. There was no difference between the groups. "We found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," wrote the researchers. Nor did the children show less tendency to sit about or more inclination to run around. The only positive finding was that the more active children had better motor and movement skills, which may make them more confident about doing physical activity in the future.
The authors say the study is one of the few into the prevention of obesity in children. Yet the problem is serious: in Scotland in 2001 at least 10 per cent of children aged four to five and 20 per cent aged 11 to 12 were obese. The researchers wrote: "Successful interventions to prevent obesity in early childhood may require changes not just at nursery, school and home but in the wider environment. Changes in other behaviours, including diet, may also be necessary."
The British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, accepted the research was solid, but said it did not mean it was not necessary to encourage children to run around and play. "It's absolutely vital for young children to be active," said prevention and care director Mike Knapton. "Although this study suggests that the benefits of a small amount of extra exercise for nursery children are not visible immediately, we know it's crucial to encourage good exercise habits from an early age. Children get less active as they get older so it's vital that youngsters get regular physical activity to lay the foundations for good health as they grow up."
Source
Black tea 'soothes away stress'
Scientists have proved what many tea drinkers already know - a regular cuppa can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life. A team at University College London found black tea helps to cut levels of the stress hormone cortisol circulating in the blood. They found people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute. The study appears in the journal Psychopharmacology.
In the study, 75 young male regular tea drinkers were split into two groups and monitored for six weeks. They all gave up their normal tea, coffee and caffeinated beverages, and then one group was given a fruit-flavoured caffeinated tea mixture made up of the constituents of an average cup of black tea. The other group was given a caffeinated placebo identical in taste, but devoid of the active tea ingredients.
All drinks were tea-coloured, but were designed to mask some of the normal sensory cues associated with tea drinking (such as smell, taste and familiarity of the brew). This was designed to eliminate confounding factors such as the 'comforting' effect of drinking a cup of tea. Both groups were subjected to challenging tasks, while their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet and self-rated levels of stress were measured.
In one task, volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations (threat of unemployment, a shop-lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home), where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera. The tasks triggered substantial increases in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress ratings in both of the groups. However, 50 minutes after the task, cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 47% in the tea-drinking group compared with 27% in the fake tea group. Blood platelet activation - linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks - was also lower in the tea drinkers. In addition, this group reported a greater degree of relaxation in the recovery period after the task.
Researcher Professor Andrew Steptoe said: "Drinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief, and many people believe that drinking tea helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life. "However, scientific evidence for the relaxing properties of tea is quite limited." Professor Steptoe said it was unclear what ingredients in tea were responsible. He said it was very complex, and ingredients such as catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids had all been found to affect neurotransmitters in the brain. Nevertheless, the study suggests that drinking black tea may speed up our recovery from the daily stresses in life. "Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal. "This has important health implications because slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease."
Source
Britain bows to education reality
Crackdown on High School cheating
Sweeping cuts to GCSE coursework were announced yesterday in response to widespread fears that it has allowed students to copy from the internet or to get their teachers and parents to complete projects for them. Coursework completed by pupils at home will be scrapped in English literature, foreign languages, history, geography, classical subjects, religious studies, social sciences, business studies and economics for courses starting in 2009. Instead, the examinations watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), said that there would be more external exams and controlled assessments carried out in the classroom under strict supervision and marked by teachers. Coursework will continue in art, music, design and technology, PE and home economics. No final decision about English language and information technology has yet been made.
The details followed an announcement last week by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, that coursework would be cut from GCSE maths from next September. The announcement was accompanied by new research findings showing that the majority of teachers were not overwhelmingly worried about the use of the internet for coursework. Four in five (82 per cent) of the 100 subject heads surveyed for the QCA disagreed that their students made too much use of the internet for their GCSE coursework. English and music teachers were most likely to view coursework positively; religious studies teachers were the most sceptical about its value.
A far bigger problem with coursework, as far as the teachers were concerned, centred on the burden or marking coursework and the extra work it generated for students who have to meet project deadlines for a large number of different subjects all at the same time. While most teachers agreed they would like to retain an element of coursework, there was disagreement over how much and how it should be assessed.
In response, the QCA recommended that new ways be found to make written examinations more "challenging and fresh" and to improve the assessment of coursework. The recommendations follow a review of coursework ordered by Ruth Kelly, the former Education Secretary - instigated because a two-year review by the examinations watchdog had found evidence of widespread cheating. Revelations about pupils copying or buying coursework from the internet or getting someone else to do the work for them cast doubt on continually rising grades and raised questions about the credibility of vocational qualifications.
Mr Johnson accepted yesterday that more needed to be done to assure parents that coursework assessed pupils' work in a fair and robust way. "The changes will toughen up the way in which coursework is assessed so that the hard work of the vast majority of students is not undermined by questions of validity," he said. However, he added that coursework still had a place in the modern classroom. Done properly it helped young people to develop research and presentation skills and demonstrate a practical knowledge of a subject. "It is important that coursework retains its place within teaching and learning but we must ensure it remains a reliable and effectiveform of assessment," he said.
Ken Boston, the chief executive of the QCA, insisted that the current system of GCSE exams and coursework was robust. "QCA has provided both teachers and parents with further information on the help that they can provide and how best to authenticate a candidate's coursework." GCSEs replaced GCE O level and CSE exams in 1988. The element of coursework was introduced with GCSEs to test "skills not easily tested in timed, written examinations" and because the three-hour times written examination was seen as narrow and off-putting to many candidates
Source
British police to choose what law they enforce?
London's police chief on Thursday launched an urgent review of a decision not to post a Muslim officer at the Israeli embassy after a newspaper reported that he had been excused on moral grounds. "Having learnt of this issue I have asked for an urgent review of the situation and a full report into the circumstances," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in a statement. The Sun newspaper reported that Constable Alexander Omar Basha told his bosses he was unable to help guard the embassy in west London because he morally objected to Israel's 34-day war against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Police chiefs excused Basha last week but critics said they feared it would open the floodgates for officers of any religion or belief to refuse to carry out certain duties. John O'Connor, a former Metropolitan Police flying squad commander, told the Sun: "This is the beginning of the end for British policing. "If they can allow this, surely they'll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? Where will it end? This decision is going to allow officers to work in a discriminating and racist way."
The police said in a separate statement that officers occasionally asked to be moved from a specific duty. "Every case is considered separately, balancing the needs of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) against those of the individual and the role which he or she is asked to perform," it said.. "Cases are kept under review. However, the needs of the MPS take precedence and the organisation reserves the right to post an officer anywhere in the MPS." Basha is attached to the force's diplomatic protection group, the Sun said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has been trying to improve integration among Britain's ethnic and religious communities. It launched the campaign after suicide bomb attacks by four Islamists on London's transport network in July last year killed 52 commuters.
Source
The end of privacy as we know it
What will Tony Blair be remembered for? The post-war debacle in Iraq? Billions largely wasted on unreformed public services? Half-baked constitutional reforms that have threatened the integrity of the United Kingdom?
How about the erosion of privacy and the transformation of Britain into the most snooped-on country in the world this side of Pyongyang? We have more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together. We have thousands of speed cameras linked to numberplate recognition databases. We await with trepidation the arrival of the national identity database from 2008, entry on to which will make it an offence, for the first time, not to inform the "authorities" when we move home.
Again, for the first time, our medical records, perhaps our most intimate personal information, will be available on a national data "spine", rather than kept within the confines of our GP's files. Details of children will be placed on another database, with no obvious limit to how long this information will be kept. Will a classroom transgression pop out of the system 20 years hence to scupper some job application, with the victim unaware why?
Last week, in a significant announcement issued under the guise of an innocuous-sounding "information-sharing vision statement", the Government proposed to reverse the presumptions of confidentiality under which Whitehall has, until now, conducted its relationships with businesses and individuals. Departments will be able to share personal information obtained for one purpose with other departments that might want it for an entirely different reason. In effect, they will be able to gather all this data in one place, something we were always assured would not happen.
And there is more. The Government is about to enact the controversial part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) that it has held back for almost six years, after obtaining support for the legislation in Parliament on the grounds that it was crucial to the fight against terrorism and crime. If it was so important, why the delay? It makes it an offence not to give the police the key to an encrypted computer entry, should they request it. Failure to do so will mean a long prison sentence.
Now, I hear you say, so what? Surely all of these developments (and most have happened since Mr Blair came to power) are for our own good: to stop bad driving, track down criminals, save children from abuse, ensure prompt medical treatment, identify illegal immigrants and deter terrorists. The fact that there has been very little comment about Ripa, after such a huge fuss was made six years ago, suggests we have all become inured to such intrusions and hardly notice them - unlike visitors, who do. Relatives in London from America last week were shocked by the number of cameras everywhere and found them deeply sinister.
Have we have been bludgeoned into accepting the end of privacy? We now take it for granted that if someone refuses to hand over their data encryption key to the police, they must have something to hide. Perhaps they have, but it doesn't make it the business of the state unless it is illegal. There are plenty of people who want to keep things secret simply because they do not want others to see them.
Samuel Pepys wrote his diaries in shorthand (though the first transcribers thought they were encoded). If he were writing today on a computer, he would almost certainly have encrypted his entries, not because he was doing anything unlawful, but because he did not want his wife to find out what he had been up to with other women, nor certain notables to discover what he thought of them. They were private.
Now, on the assumption that we are all potential criminals, a new law will render such attempts at secrecy illegal. We may think we live in such a godforsaken world that, for the benefit of the majority, any concept of personal freedom as we used to understand it should no longer apply.
This is certainly the view of the Government. The Home Secretary, John Reid, said recently: "Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms." The Government believes it has struck the right balance and is supported by those who subscribe to the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" school of thought.
But the true criminal/terrorist/paedophile will find ways around this legislation, because that is what these people do; and those caught by it will often be unsuspecting innocents who have received an unsolicited encrypted message or have used a code in the past and forgotten the key.
I am by no means an "ultra" in these matters. There are clearly times when heightened surveillance is needed and, given the substantial threat of terrorism, this is one of them. It is also undoubtedly the case that paedophiles will try to hide their revolting photographic trade from prying eyes. But this Act is very widely drawn and can be invoked on the grounds of national security, for the purpose of preventing crime and "in the interests of the economic well-being of the UK". The scope here for misuse is clear.
There is also the concept of proportionality to be considered. Are we so embattled that we need, in Mr Reid's words, "to modify some of our own freedoms" to the point where they are almost unrecognisable from the liberties that our forefathers fought and died to preserve?
Once you accept that the government has the right to know where you are at all times, to demand that you tell its agents when you move home or to render up your private musings at its behest, then you have changed the nature of the individual's relationship to the state in a way that is totally alien to this country's historic, though ill-defined, covenant between the rulers and the ruled. If enough people say "so what?" to that, as well, then Mr Blair really has left a legacy, and it is a pernicious one.
Source
When will people admit that a fat body is mostly the outcome of a genetic tendency towards overeating?
Giving young children more physical exercise does not stop them becoming obese, a study has shown. The Glasgow University study, based on work with more than 500 four-year-olds, counters the assumption that in an age dominated by television and computer games, children could slough off the pounds if they exercised more. The study, published in the British Medical Journal, set out to establish whether greater physical activity would prevent children from becoming overweight. They recruited 545 children in their last year at 36 nursery schools.
Half the schools instituted three extra half-hour sessions of physical play and activity every week, and parents were given information packs encouraging them to give their children more activity and less television. The other half had no extra activity or information. All the children were regularly weighed and measured and their body mass index (BMI - the relationship between weight and height used to check for obesity) was calculated. There was no difference between the groups. "We found no significant effect of the intervention on physical activity, sedentary behaviour or body mass index," wrote the researchers. Nor did the children show less tendency to sit about or more inclination to run around. The only positive finding was that the more active children had better motor and movement skills, which may make them more confident about doing physical activity in the future.
The authors say the study is one of the few into the prevention of obesity in children. Yet the problem is serious: in Scotland in 2001 at least 10 per cent of children aged four to five and 20 per cent aged 11 to 12 were obese. The researchers wrote: "Successful interventions to prevent obesity in early childhood may require changes not just at nursery, school and home but in the wider environment. Changes in other behaviours, including diet, may also be necessary."
The British Heart Foundation, which part-funded the study, accepted the research was solid, but said it did not mean it was not necessary to encourage children to run around and play. "It's absolutely vital for young children to be active," said prevention and care director Mike Knapton. "Although this study suggests that the benefits of a small amount of extra exercise for nursery children are not visible immediately, we know it's crucial to encourage good exercise habits from an early age. Children get less active as they get older so it's vital that youngsters get regular physical activity to lay the foundations for good health as they grow up."
Source
Black tea 'soothes away stress'
Scientists have proved what many tea drinkers already know - a regular cuppa can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life. A team at University College London found black tea helps to cut levels of the stress hormone cortisol circulating in the blood. They found people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute. The study appears in the journal Psychopharmacology.
In the study, 75 young male regular tea drinkers were split into two groups and monitored for six weeks. They all gave up their normal tea, coffee and caffeinated beverages, and then one group was given a fruit-flavoured caffeinated tea mixture made up of the constituents of an average cup of black tea. The other group was given a caffeinated placebo identical in taste, but devoid of the active tea ingredients.
All drinks were tea-coloured, but were designed to mask some of the normal sensory cues associated with tea drinking (such as smell, taste and familiarity of the brew). This was designed to eliminate confounding factors such as the 'comforting' effect of drinking a cup of tea. Both groups were subjected to challenging tasks, while their cortisol, blood pressure, blood platelet and self-rated levels of stress were measured.
In one task, volunteers were exposed to one of three stressful situations (threat of unemployment, a shop-lifting accusation or an incident in a nursing home), where they had to prepare a verbal response and argue their case in front of a camera. The tasks triggered substantial increases in blood pressure, heart rate and subjective stress ratings in both of the groups. However, 50 minutes after the task, cortisol levels had dropped by an average of 47% in the tea-drinking group compared with 27% in the fake tea group. Blood platelet activation - linked to blood clotting and the risk of heart attacks - was also lower in the tea drinkers. In addition, this group reported a greater degree of relaxation in the recovery period after the task.
Researcher Professor Andrew Steptoe said: "Drinking tea has traditionally been associated with stress relief, and many people believe that drinking tea helps them relax after facing the stresses of everyday life. "However, scientific evidence for the relaxing properties of tea is quite limited." Professor Steptoe said it was unclear what ingredients in tea were responsible. He said it was very complex, and ingredients such as catechins, polyphenols, flavonoids and amino acids had all been found to affect neurotransmitters in the brain. Nevertheless, the study suggests that drinking black tea may speed up our recovery from the daily stresses in life. "Although it does not appear to reduce the actual levels of stress we experience, tea does seem to have a greater effect in bringing stress hormone levels back to normal. "This has important health implications because slow recovery following acute stress has been associated with a greater risk of chronic illnesses such as coronary heart disease."
Source
Britain bows to education reality
Crackdown on High School cheating
Sweeping cuts to GCSE coursework were announced yesterday in response to widespread fears that it has allowed students to copy from the internet or to get their teachers and parents to complete projects for them. Coursework completed by pupils at home will be scrapped in English literature, foreign languages, history, geography, classical subjects, religious studies, social sciences, business studies and economics for courses starting in 2009. Instead, the examinations watchdog, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), said that there would be more external exams and controlled assessments carried out in the classroom under strict supervision and marked by teachers. Coursework will continue in art, music, design and technology, PE and home economics. No final decision about English language and information technology has yet been made.
The details followed an announcement last week by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, that coursework would be cut from GCSE maths from next September. The announcement was accompanied by new research findings showing that the majority of teachers were not overwhelmingly worried about the use of the internet for coursework. Four in five (82 per cent) of the 100 subject heads surveyed for the QCA disagreed that their students made too much use of the internet for their GCSE coursework. English and music teachers were most likely to view coursework positively; religious studies teachers were the most sceptical about its value.
A far bigger problem with coursework, as far as the teachers were concerned, centred on the burden or marking coursework and the extra work it generated for students who have to meet project deadlines for a large number of different subjects all at the same time. While most teachers agreed they would like to retain an element of coursework, there was disagreement over how much and how it should be assessed.
In response, the QCA recommended that new ways be found to make written examinations more "challenging and fresh" and to improve the assessment of coursework. The recommendations follow a review of coursework ordered by Ruth Kelly, the former Education Secretary - instigated because a two-year review by the examinations watchdog had found evidence of widespread cheating. Revelations about pupils copying or buying coursework from the internet or getting someone else to do the work for them cast doubt on continually rising grades and raised questions about the credibility of vocational qualifications.
Mr Johnson accepted yesterday that more needed to be done to assure parents that coursework assessed pupils' work in a fair and robust way. "The changes will toughen up the way in which coursework is assessed so that the hard work of the vast majority of students is not undermined by questions of validity," he said. However, he added that coursework still had a place in the modern classroom. Done properly it helped young people to develop research and presentation skills and demonstrate a practical knowledge of a subject. "It is important that coursework retains its place within teaching and learning but we must ensure it remains a reliable and effectiveform of assessment," he said.
Ken Boston, the chief executive of the QCA, insisted that the current system of GCSE exams and coursework was robust. "QCA has provided both teachers and parents with further information on the help that they can provide and how best to authenticate a candidate's coursework." GCSEs replaced GCE O level and CSE exams in 1988. The element of coursework was introduced with GCSEs to test "skills not easily tested in timed, written examinations" and because the three-hour times written examination was seen as narrow and off-putting to many candidates
Source
British police to choose what law they enforce?
London's police chief on Thursday launched an urgent review of a decision not to post a Muslim officer at the Israeli embassy after a newspaper reported that he had been excused on moral grounds. "Having learnt of this issue I have asked for an urgent review of the situation and a full report into the circumstances," Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said in a statement. The Sun newspaper reported that Constable Alexander Omar Basha told his bosses he was unable to help guard the embassy in west London because he morally objected to Israel's 34-day war against Hizbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
Police chiefs excused Basha last week but critics said they feared it would open the floodgates for officers of any religion or belief to refuse to carry out certain duties. John O'Connor, a former Metropolitan Police flying squad commander, told the Sun: "This is the beginning of the end for British policing. "If they can allow this, surely they'll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? Where will it end? This decision is going to allow officers to work in a discriminating and racist way."
The police said in a separate statement that officers occasionally asked to be moved from a specific duty. "Every case is considered separately, balancing the needs of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) against those of the individual and the role which he or she is asked to perform," it said.. "Cases are kept under review. However, the needs of the MPS take precedence and the organisation reserves the right to post an officer anywhere in the MPS." Basha is attached to the force's diplomatic protection group, the Sun said.
Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has been trying to improve integration among Britain's ethnic and religious communities. It launched the campaign after suicide bomb attacks by four Islamists on London's transport network in July last year killed 52 commuters.
Source
The end of privacy as we know it
What will Tony Blair be remembered for? The post-war debacle in Iraq? Billions largely wasted on unreformed public services? Half-baked constitutional reforms that have threatened the integrity of the United Kingdom?
How about the erosion of privacy and the transformation of Britain into the most snooped-on country in the world this side of Pyongyang? We have more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together. We have thousands of speed cameras linked to numberplate recognition databases. We await with trepidation the arrival of the national identity database from 2008, entry on to which will make it an offence, for the first time, not to inform the "authorities" when we move home.
Again, for the first time, our medical records, perhaps our most intimate personal information, will be available on a national data "spine", rather than kept within the confines of our GP's files. Details of children will be placed on another database, with no obvious limit to how long this information will be kept. Will a classroom transgression pop out of the system 20 years hence to scupper some job application, with the victim unaware why?
Last week, in a significant announcement issued under the guise of an innocuous-sounding "information-sharing vision statement", the Government proposed to reverse the presumptions of confidentiality under which Whitehall has, until now, conducted its relationships with businesses and individuals. Departments will be able to share personal information obtained for one purpose with other departments that might want it for an entirely different reason. In effect, they will be able to gather all this data in one place, something we were always assured would not happen.
And there is more. The Government is about to enact the controversial part of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (Ripa) that it has held back for almost six years, after obtaining support for the legislation in Parliament on the grounds that it was crucial to the fight against terrorism and crime. If it was so important, why the delay? It makes it an offence not to give the police the key to an encrypted computer entry, should they request it. Failure to do so will mean a long prison sentence.
Now, I hear you say, so what? Surely all of these developments (and most have happened since Mr Blair came to power) are for our own good: to stop bad driving, track down criminals, save children from abuse, ensure prompt medical treatment, identify illegal immigrants and deter terrorists. The fact that there has been very little comment about Ripa, after such a huge fuss was made six years ago, suggests we have all become inured to such intrusions and hardly notice them - unlike visitors, who do. Relatives in London from America last week were shocked by the number of cameras everywhere and found them deeply sinister.
Have we have been bludgeoned into accepting the end of privacy? We now take it for granted that if someone refuses to hand over their data encryption key to the police, they must have something to hide. Perhaps they have, but it doesn't make it the business of the state unless it is illegal. There are plenty of people who want to keep things secret simply because they do not want others to see them.
Samuel Pepys wrote his diaries in shorthand (though the first transcribers thought they were encoded). If he were writing today on a computer, he would almost certainly have encrypted his entries, not because he was doing anything unlawful, but because he did not want his wife to find out what he had been up to with other women, nor certain notables to discover what he thought of them. They were private.
Now, on the assumption that we are all potential criminals, a new law will render such attempts at secrecy illegal. We may think we live in such a godforsaken world that, for the benefit of the majority, any concept of personal freedom as we used to understand it should no longer apply.
This is certainly the view of the Government. The Home Secretary, John Reid, said recently: "Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms." The Government believes it has struck the right balance and is supported by those who subscribe to the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" school of thought.
But the true criminal/terrorist/paedophile will find ways around this legislation, because that is what these people do; and those caught by it will often be unsuspecting innocents who have received an unsolicited encrypted message or have used a code in the past and forgotten the key.
I am by no means an "ultra" in these matters. There are clearly times when heightened surveillance is needed and, given the substantial threat of terrorism, this is one of them. It is also undoubtedly the case that paedophiles will try to hide their revolting photographic trade from prying eyes. But this Act is very widely drawn and can be invoked on the grounds of national security, for the purpose of preventing crime and "in the interests of the economic well-being of the UK". The scope here for misuse is clear.
There is also the concept of proportionality to be considered. Are we so embattled that we need, in Mr Reid's words, "to modify some of our own freedoms" to the point where they are almost unrecognisable from the liberties that our forefathers fought and died to preserve?
Once you accept that the government has the right to know where you are at all times, to demand that you tell its agents when you move home or to render up your private musings at its behest, then you have changed the nature of the individual's relationship to the state in a way that is totally alien to this country's historic, though ill-defined, covenant between the rulers and the ruled. If enough people say "so what?" to that, as well, then Mr Blair really has left a legacy, and it is a pernicious one.
Source
Saturday, October 07, 2006
Must not Joke about Political Correctness
We read:
The councillor is not apologizing.
How Jamie and school meal fascists turn kids into junk food addicts
Her words are enough to make Jamie Oliver tear his hair out. Joanne, 14, a pupil at a large comprehensive in London, is sucking her Triple Power Push Pop as she explains to me why she insists on stuffing her mouth with such sweets.
Source
Breast milk 'does not boost IQ'
Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more stimulating home environment. However, they stressed that there were still many advantages to breastfeeding.
The British Medical Journal study was carried out by the Medical Research Council and University of Edinburgh. Lead researcher Geoff Der said: "This question has been debated ever since a link between the two [high IQ and breastfeeding] was first discovered in 1929. "Breastfed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds."
The researchers analysed data from more than 5,000 children and 3,000 mothers in the US. They found that mothers who breastfed tended to be more intelligent, and when this fact was taken into account, most of the relationship between breastfeeding and the child's intelligence disappeared. The rest was accounted for by other aspects of the family background.
The researchers also looked at families where one child was breastfed and another was not. This confirmed the earlier results - the breastfed child was no more intelligent than his or her sibling. Putting the results together with other studies that measured the mother's IQ confirmed this pattern. Mr Der said: "This research shows that intelligence is determined by factors other than breastfeeding. "But breastfeeding has many benefits for both mother and child. It's definitely the smart thing to do."
Breastfeeding has been linked to a range of health benefits. Just one day of breastfeeding is thought to be enough to stabilise a baby's blood sugar levels, and provide natural antibodies against disease. Breastfed babies have been shown to be less prone to diarrhoea, vomiting, and respiratory infections. Breastfeeding may also have a long impact on reducing blood pressure and obesity.
Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the study was not conclusive. She said a study in the Philippines - where, unlike the West, poorer women are more likely to breastfeed - showed that breastfed children were likely to be more intelligent. However, she added: "Women do not breastfeed because of any benefit to their baby, they do it because it feels like the natural thing to do. "It is important that women make a decision that is right for them, and their family, and they should not be pressurised either way, but we would like to see more support for women who do decide they want to breastfeed."
Source
Injured British soldiers 'on NHS waiting lists'
They can't even care for the troops -- or don't they want to? People who are willing to put their lives at risk on the command of their government surely deserve better
The treatment of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan was described as appalling by the man who commanded the British army during the Falklands war. Field Marshal Lord Bramall said once injured soldiers were brought back to the UK they were left to languish on NHS waiting lists. "This is where I think they're not being treated properly," he said.
But the MoD's director of health care denied soldiers were being abandoned in the NHS and said after-care was good. Air Commodore Paul Evans said most of their recovery took place in military rehabilitation centres. He was responding to Lord Bramall, who was particularly critical of the treatment of soldiers when they initially left hospital.
"They then have to go onto after care and then they get lost in the NHS, they have to join waiting lists and so on. "This is where I think they're not being treated properly and this goes for the TA [National Guard] as well."
Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that 5,000 soldiers are waiting for treatment on the NHS, while a military hospital, the Royal Hospital Haslar, in Hampshire, is vastly underused. The MoD prefers the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham to the Haslar hospital. Injured troops are sent there initially before being referred to their local NHS hospitals and GPs.
But Lord Bramall said not enough resources were being provided for Selly Oak. "It was going to be the centre of excellence, but of course not enough money has been put into it, there's no proper accommodation, there's no nurses' accommodation. "They've only got one and half wards in the hospital, a surgical ward and half a trauma ward."
The MoD said that Selly Oak's "excellent health care" and training opportunities could not be met at Haslar hospital but a spokeswoman said she could not confirm the 5,000 figure. She said the "vast majority" of troops would not have been injured during combat but may have been in a car accident. Air Commodore Evans said the majority of recovery time for soldiers was within a military environment, after NHS care had seen them through the "acute phase".
Rehabilitation takes place either at 13 regional centres around the country or at the main centre at Hedley Court in south London, which specialises in intensive physiotherapy, he said. "There they can spend many months to bring them back up to a maximum functional outcome in a military environment," he said.
Source
Payoff for phonics revival
Primary school children today are 12 to 18 months ahead in spelling compared with children of the same age 30 years ago, new research suggests. In tests completed by 4,000 children last year, pupils of all ages at primary school did better than their peers who took the same test in 1975. A score of 26 or more out of 40 was achieved last year by the top 50 per cent of children aged eight to eight years, two months. In 1975 the same percentage success was not achieved until pupils were aged nine to nine years, two months. In 1975, only the top 25 per cent aged eight to eight years, two months achieved 26 or more.
The findings suggest that the introduction of key stage testing and the National Literacy Strategy has helped more children to focus on spelling. Colin McCarty, of the Test & Evaluation Consortium, who compared the results of tests completed by 4,000 pupils in England in 1975 and 2005, said that a return to the teaching of phonics might also be responsible for the change by providing the tools to build words. That children now started school earlier had also probably helped, Dr McCarty said. “Children are now starting school in the reception year as the norm and this is likely to have increased the exposure to spelling and reading.”
The Graded Word Spelling Test, which was devised by the educationist Professor P. E. Vernon in 1975, uses 80 words that are a close match with the vocabulary and phonic structures in the National Literacy Strategy. The test has been revised by Dr McCarty and his colleague Mary Crumpler and is reissued this week by the publisher Hodder Murray. The spellings get increasingly difficult, starting with “in”, “am” and “see” and ending with “erroneous”, “abscess” and “menagerie”.
Source
We read:
"It was supposed to be a joke, but colleagues in a politically correct town hall failed to see the funny side when a Tory councillor suggested that nowadays Noah would have been unable to insist on taking only animals of the opposite sex in his Ark.
David Clutterbuck, 72, is facing calls to be sent on "compulsory equality training" after his quip was added to a group e-mail about the bureaucratic obstacles Noah would have to overcome in the modern world.
Source
The councillor is not apologizing.
How Jamie and school meal fascists turn kids into junk food addicts
Her words are enough to make Jamie Oliver tear his hair out. Joanne, 14, a pupil at a large comprehensive in London, is sucking her Triple Power Push Pop as she explains to me why she insists on stuffing her mouth with such sweets.
"I don't buy any of the stuff in the canteen, it's disgusting,' she says. "The drinks are vile - there's no sugar in them. And as for the food, well, it's all salads and vegetables and stuff - and I don't like that.
"So I stock up before school on crisps and lollipops and chews, then at lunchtime I go and eat them where none of them nosy teachers is looking."
Joanne's friends laugh and agree. They say that since the school got 'sick-bag food', they never go to the canteen. They much prefer to munch their sticky, fatty snacks in secret where no 'health police' can find them.
It's not quite what the Government intended when it set up the healthy food initiative. New legislation, which came into effect three weeks ago, demands that school caterers ensure pupils are provided with 'high-quality meat, poultry or oily fish on a regular basis' and that a 'minimum' of two portions of fruit and vegetables accompany every meal.
Prompted by the wrath of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver, who highlighted the horrors of junk-food school meals in his School Dinners programmes last year, the Government has pumped hundreds of millions of pounds into providing healthy school meals.
I am staggered by the change I have seen in my own secondary school canteen. I have always quite liked the food there but this term I have found it to be of a much higher quality - the pasta and rice dishes, in particular, are delicious.
In common with all state schools, sweets, chocolates and crisps have been taken out of the vending machines and off the meal counters. Bowls of fresh fruit have replaced racks of doughnuts with jugs of water and sugar-free drinks being served in place of bottles of fizzy pop.
But the Government overlooked one crucial point when it instituted these changes - and that is that changing the law doesn't change children's minds. Any teacher will tell you that children don't learn much when they're being taught by fascists. While children's food intake is very heavily policed in school, outside the gates they are free to do what they want.
Sweet shop owners around the country must be rubbing their hands with glee. Where I live, shopkeepers tell me of a huge upsurge in business before and after school
. They're raking in money by the bucket load but the school canteen coffers are virtually empty.One school caterer I know called Jane, said: "It's a real disaster for us. We're losing 70 pounds a day compared with last year."
Explaining that the new guidelines mean food preparation is much more labour intensive than before, she added: "I've had to hire more staff to make the food but the kids are just not coming along. The canteen is half-full at lunchtimes. I feel in a state of despair."
So where are the children? At Rawmarsh Comprehensive in South Yorkshire, they have been pressing against the school railings every lunchtime reaching for chips, burgers and fizzy drinks that two enterprising but misguided mothers have been serving to them in an attempt to give them what they want to eat.
In many other schools, where headteachers have taken the hardline decision to ban pupils from bringing sweets and chocolates on to the premises, the rebellion against healthy eating is much more secretive and I have heard about a number of pupils who are buying junk food before they come to school and, like Joanne and her friends, consuming it where they cannot be seen by the teachers.
Some 16-year-old pupils I have heard about are even running a thriving black market in mini-cans of fizzy drinks at their school in Surrey. "The drinks are c*** and expensive in school so you can make quite a killing if you buy a batch of pop wholesale and flog it at 30p a shot," one budding entrepreneur told me.
But not all children are sugar junkies. Many others are in favour of the changes. Their only problem is the price - they simply can't afford it, with the new regulations adding up to 40p to the price of a canteen meal.
As a consequence of the higher prices and dubious popularity of school meals, many parents have started providing packed lunches for their children. This has set the noses of the control freaks twitching and their fingers pointing accusingly at packed lunches which aren't healthy.
Shelley, a parent I spoke to in Bristol, said that her daughter's primary school had been hijacked by 'food fascists' - teachers who remove the chocolate biscuits and fizzy drinks from her daughter's lunchbox and reprimand her for attempting to eat such 'junk food'. Shelley was furious because she had supplied the drink and biscuits as a treat - normally her daughter eats healthy foods.
Other schools are even using computers to monitor each child's daily intake. Heywood Community High School in Lancashire logs what pupils choose for their dinner and a summary of their intake is included in their end-of-year report. Each pupil is identified by means of a biometric thumbprint scanner. This is really scary stuff.
The problem is that the whole initiative was started by Jamie Oliver, who gave the Government a very big kick up the backside when his Channel 4 programmes highlighted how school kitchens had been neglected for decades. But while Oliver may know how to cook, he certainly doesn't know how to educate.
His yobbish style and approach has cowed and influenced many politicians, educators and bureaucrats throughout the country and his abrasive imperatives have been adopted by the food police in our schools and our Government.
While these people stop short of calling parents 'tossers' and effing and blinding at anyone who disagrees with them - as Oliver does - their sanctimonious injunctions are eerily similar to his.
As any good teacher will tell you, knee-jerk reactions, rigid rules and blind dogma are not good educational tools. Issuing orders is not the way to win over reluctant children. Such pupils need to be coaxed into eating healthily in a careful, caring fashion. They should be introduced to eating vegetables and fruit gradually.
A chilling doomsday scenario could unfold if the Government isn't careful - the canteens could go bankrupt and close down, leaving all pupils to munch on whatever they like.
If this happens, many pupils will not even get a glimpse of healthy food. The whole initiative would have then produced exactly the opposite effect of what it intended - there will be a total free-for-all, with our schools becoming awash with sugary sweets and fat-filled fodder.
It is time the Government stopped reaching for quick fixes and taking orders from yobs such as Jamie Oliver before our school canteens close down and chaos descends. There are already major warning signs with many canteens heavily in debt and children surreptitiously chomping on goodness-knows-what at lunchtime.
It is time the food fascists were knocked off their self-satisfied perch and some real educators were called in to rescue the situation.
Source
Breast milk 'does not boost IQ'
Breastfed babies are smarter because their mothers are clever in the first place, not because of any advantage of breastfeeding itself, a study suggests. Researchers found breastfeeding mothers tended to be more intelligent, more highly educated, and likely to provide a more stimulating home environment. However, they stressed that there were still many advantages to breastfeeding.
The British Medical Journal study was carried out by the Medical Research Council and University of Edinburgh. Lead researcher Geoff Der said: "This question has been debated ever since a link between the two [high IQ and breastfeeding] was first discovered in 1929. "Breastfed children do tend to score higher on intelligence tests, but they also tend to come from more advantaged backgrounds."
The researchers analysed data from more than 5,000 children and 3,000 mothers in the US. They found that mothers who breastfed tended to be more intelligent, and when this fact was taken into account, most of the relationship between breastfeeding and the child's intelligence disappeared. The rest was accounted for by other aspects of the family background.
The researchers also looked at families where one child was breastfed and another was not. This confirmed the earlier results - the breastfed child was no more intelligent than his or her sibling. Putting the results together with other studies that measured the mother's IQ confirmed this pattern. Mr Der said: "This research shows that intelligence is determined by factors other than breastfeeding. "But breastfeeding has many benefits for both mother and child. It's definitely the smart thing to do."
Breastfeeding has been linked to a range of health benefits. Just one day of breastfeeding is thought to be enough to stabilise a baby's blood sugar levels, and provide natural antibodies against disease. Breastfed babies have been shown to be less prone to diarrhoea, vomiting, and respiratory infections. Breastfeeding may also have a long impact on reducing blood pressure and obesity.
Rosie Dodds, of the National Childbirth Trust, said the study was not conclusive. She said a study in the Philippines - where, unlike the West, poorer women are more likely to breastfeed - showed that breastfed children were likely to be more intelligent. However, she added: "Women do not breastfeed because of any benefit to their baby, they do it because it feels like the natural thing to do. "It is important that women make a decision that is right for them, and their family, and they should not be pressurised either way, but we would like to see more support for women who do decide they want to breastfeed."
Source
Injured British soldiers 'on NHS waiting lists'
They can't even care for the troops -- or don't they want to? People who are willing to put their lives at risk on the command of their government surely deserve better
The treatment of soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan was described as appalling by the man who commanded the British army during the Falklands war. Field Marshal Lord Bramall said once injured soldiers were brought back to the UK they were left to languish on NHS waiting lists. "This is where I think they're not being treated properly," he said.
But the MoD's director of health care denied soldiers were being abandoned in the NHS and said after-care was good. Air Commodore Paul Evans said most of their recovery took place in military rehabilitation centres. He was responding to Lord Bramall, who was particularly critical of the treatment of soldiers when they initially left hospital.
"They then have to go onto after care and then they get lost in the NHS, they have to join waiting lists and so on. "This is where I think they're not being treated properly and this goes for the TA [National Guard] as well."
Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph reported that 5,000 soldiers are waiting for treatment on the NHS, while a military hospital, the Royal Hospital Haslar, in Hampshire, is vastly underused. The MoD prefers the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine at Selly Oak Hospital in Birmingham to the Haslar hospital. Injured troops are sent there initially before being referred to their local NHS hospitals and GPs.
But Lord Bramall said not enough resources were being provided for Selly Oak. "It was going to be the centre of excellence, but of course not enough money has been put into it, there's no proper accommodation, there's no nurses' accommodation. "They've only got one and half wards in the hospital, a surgical ward and half a trauma ward."
The MoD said that Selly Oak's "excellent health care" and training opportunities could not be met at Haslar hospital but a spokeswoman said she could not confirm the 5,000 figure. She said the "vast majority" of troops would not have been injured during combat but may have been in a car accident. Air Commodore Evans said the majority of recovery time for soldiers was within a military environment, after NHS care had seen them through the "acute phase".
Rehabilitation takes place either at 13 regional centres around the country or at the main centre at Hedley Court in south London, which specialises in intensive physiotherapy, he said. "There they can spend many months to bring them back up to a maximum functional outcome in a military environment," he said.
Source
Payoff for phonics revival
Primary school children today are 12 to 18 months ahead in spelling compared with children of the same age 30 years ago, new research suggests. In tests completed by 4,000 children last year, pupils of all ages at primary school did better than their peers who took the same test in 1975. A score of 26 or more out of 40 was achieved last year by the top 50 per cent of children aged eight to eight years, two months. In 1975 the same percentage success was not achieved until pupils were aged nine to nine years, two months. In 1975, only the top 25 per cent aged eight to eight years, two months achieved 26 or more.
The findings suggest that the introduction of key stage testing and the National Literacy Strategy has helped more children to focus on spelling. Colin McCarty, of the Test & Evaluation Consortium, who compared the results of tests completed by 4,000 pupils in England in 1975 and 2005, said that a return to the teaching of phonics might also be responsible for the change by providing the tools to build words. That children now started school earlier had also probably helped, Dr McCarty said. “Children are now starting school in the reception year as the norm and this is likely to have increased the exposure to spelling and reading.”
The Graded Word Spelling Test, which was devised by the educationist Professor P. E. Vernon in 1975, uses 80 words that are a close match with the vocabulary and phonic structures in the National Literacy Strategy. The test has been revised by Dr McCarty and his colleague Mary Crumpler and is reissued this week by the publisher Hodder Murray. The spellings get increasingly difficult, starting with “in”, “am” and “see” and ending with “erroneous”, “abscess” and “menagerie”.
Source
Friday, October 06, 2006
No jobs for Brit doctors and nurses
Australia is set to benefit from a looming brain drain from Britain's health services. The British Medical Association says almost 6000 young doctors and nurses may have to move overseas or even quit because they cannot get jobs in the National Health Service. Financial straits have led many trusts which run the health system to close wards and cut staff so graduates compete for far fewer jobs. "In one university, only two out of 300 new graduates have found posts," the Royal College of Nursing's Susan Watt said. "These nurses . . . are badly needed but trusts don't have the money to pay their salaries." Virtually all healthcare professions are on the wanted list at a nationwide series of Australia Needs Skills fairs being held by the Immigration Department in Britain this month.
Source
Emasculated England
I don't know what it is exactly, but ever since I arrived here, I've had the sinking feeling that in England, the reasoned liberalism of, say, Bentham and Mill has given way roundly to the ideology of modern-day liberalism. Sure, in some respects--in their preservation of certain customs, habits and manners--the British remain quite conservative. A walk through the financial district of the City of London reveals staid dress habits; a conversation with an elderly couple strolling through Hyde Park will touch on the ignoble lives of the members of the House of Windsor.
But when I consider the snippets of conversations heard on the streets and in the cafes, reflect on the articles in local periodicals, and view the content of television news and entertainment, another kind of society is revealed. Somewhere along the way, England seems to have rushed headlong into the world of animal rights, environmental activism, political correctness, and other liberal nostrums. I could be wrong, but barely a week into my English sojourn and I've already picked up troubling signs of widespread, left-wing nonsense in British public life. For example: Taking bus No. 10 the other day to King's Cross (where I am taking courses in journalism at a local university), I noticed a strange stone and bronze sculpture titled "Animals in War" at Brook Gate on the edge of Hyde Park. This 58-foot wide monstrosity, which cost British taxpayers 1.4 million pounds (almost US$ 2.7 million!), was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and unveiled in November of 2004. The memorial is "a tribute to all the animals that served, suffered, and died in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century."
Don't get me wrong. I like dogs and horses as much as the next fellow. But this memorial not only seems a little silly, but it actually offends the sensibilities by implying that there is a kind of moral equivalence between human beings and animals. (Peter Singer, call your office!) Was this necessary or even appropriate? What hare-brained public official approved the disbursement of funds for this piece of political propaganda passing itself off as art? And speaking of lame public officials in England, what is one to make of David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party? Pundits praise him as the fresh new face of British conservatism. (Even the eccentric, royalist and, at times, reactionary The Spectator, came out in his support.) But since assuming leadership of the Party in December of 2005, Cameron's words and actions have not inspired much confidence among other traditionalist (read: Burkean) conservatives.
Formerly, as an MP for Witney, Cameron was as wishy-washy as you could get--giving mixed messages regarding smoking bans, the Iraq war, the environment, and gay rights. As a rising star within the Party, that was bad enough. But now, as Conservative Party leader, Cameron has made high-profile efforts to try to make his "blue party" more appealing to young people and moderate voters. Cameron's April visit to a Norwegian glacier, for example, accompanied by the World Wildlife Fund, was certainly a disappointment to traditional British conservatives who grimaced as Cameron later told the press: "Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world," and that British voters should "vote blue but go green."
In my own academic life, there are also troubling signs. Even though I am taking classes at a business-oriented university with long ties to the City of London's financial institutions, already three of the four assigned readings for the first week have been either alarmist screeds about capitalism and globalization, or simplistic jeremiads against the role of the U.S. in foreign affairs (read: Iraq) or international environmental efforts (read: Kyoto).
And discussions in and out of class--whether with British students or fellow Americans--have also been characterized by, on the one hand, an offensively self-righteous attitude towards the U.S. in general, the G.O.P., and our current president, or, on the other hand, by angry criticism of mergers and acquisitions, derivatives, hedge funds, and practically every other innovative product that the financial markets--especially those in the U.S.--have given the world. The students furthering these arguments, I sadly remind myself, will be the financial journalists and foreign affairs editors of the future.
I will be accused of using selective examples to build an (admittedly) weak case against England's current social and political climate. Granted, these are but a few, minor examples--insufficiently analyzed--of things I have noticed while here for barely a week. But a dearth of examples does not refute my basic contention that Britain is now, well, Left.
A British sociologist taught me to collect data while walking through a city. There is data everywhere, she said--in sounds and smells, signposts, advertisements, and people's clothes. I've tried to keep this in mind this week and, based on what I've observed, I cannot escape the feeling that this country and its people have been crippled--almost without their awareness--by modern-day liberalism. Watch the BBC and count the number of off-hand remarks made by program hosts about God, the Church, British history, and even Shakespeare. Go shopping at Tesco and notice that one of the most popular teas for sale is organic, "fair-trade certified," and boasts a box covered with pictures of smiling children in developing countries.
No, this is not the England I dreamt of knowing. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the England eulogized by Roger Scruton, evoked by Anthony Daniels or criticized by Douglas Murray. I came in search of an England that was secure, strong and proud, but found one that is insecure, soft and weak; I wanted to learn of an English society that was ancient, principled and instinctively conservative, but found one that is postmodern, relativist and liberal. I suppose I will just have to look for the ghosts of England's past in the nooks and crannies, shadowy passageways, and forgotten lanes of this magnificent city.
Source
A CURE FOR SOME BLINDNESS
But will the NHS be able to afford it? Note a previous story here
A condition that causes thousands of Britons to go blind every year can be halted and even reversed with a monthly injection. Trials into a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is diagnosed in more than 20,000 elderly people a year and is the commonest cause of blindness, have shown dramatic results for almost all who use it. Patients given Lucentis did not only have the gradual deterioration of their sight halted, but even regained vision lost to the disease. For decades, patients with the condition, which leaves 10 per cent of sufferers blind, have been told there is little or nothing that can be done to slow the disease, let alone reverse it. But in a new trial Lucentis reversed sight damage in more than a third of participants with "wet" AMD, the most damaging form of the disease. It also prevented further loss of vision in almost all who were treated with it.
About 24,000 patients a year have wet AMD diagnosed. It is responsible for 90 per cent of cases where people lose their sight entirely: loss of vision is caused by the growth of new blood vessels behind the retina, which cause bleeding and scarring.
Lucentis, developed by the Californian company Genentech, does not yet have a British licence. At 1,000 pounds a treatment, it will raise serious funding questions for the NHS if recommended for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is conducting an appraisal. Costs for treating all newly diagnosed cases to a course of monthly injections - the regime used in the trial - are put at 400 million pounds.
Steve Winyard, head of campaigns at the Royal National Institute of the Blind, said that the results were very exciting. "These results show that the drug is just as good as we thought it was going to be. About 30 per cent of these patients got a significant gain in sight, which shows that the drug also offers improvements as well as preventing sight loss." John Blake, 75, one of the few patients in Britain to have been treated with Lucentis, said that the drug had improved his sight sufficiently for him to be able to take up golf again. "Everything had gone, 80 per cent of my life had gone", he said. "I couldn't drive or watch TV," he said. "Within three days my sight had improved. It cost me nearly 5,000 pounds, but I'm very pleased."
The two trials published today in The New England Journal of Medicine compared Lucentis with a placebo and Visudyne, the only treatment hitherto available on the NHS. In the placebo-controlled trial, 716 US patients were randomly given Lucentis at two dose levels, or a placebo. Over two years, a third of patients given the higher dose of Lucentis gained in visual acuity, compared with only 4 per cent given the placebo. On average, Lucentis patients were able to read about six more letters on the optician's chart after two years of treatment than at the start, while those given a placebo could read fifteen fewer letters.
In the second trial, Lucentis was compared with Visudyne. Over two years, between 35 and 40 per cent of those given Lucentis improved by an average of 15 letters, while fewer than 6 per cent of the Visudyne group did this well. Yit Yang, a consultant ophthalmologist from Wolverhampton, described the results as very striking. "These results mean that potentially people with wet AMD can become independent again and return to activities such as reading, shopping and hobbies."
Source
NHS-speak 'demeaning to patients'
Terms such as "frequent flyers" and "bed-blockers", used by ministers and NHS staff to describe patients, are demeaning, the patients' tsar says. Harry Cayton said such negative words shifted blame to patients and should be avoided, the Royal Society of Medicine journal said. Frequent flyers - patients who are in and out of hospital - and bed-blockers are common phrases in the NHS. The Department of Health said it would take the comments on board.
Mr Cayton, the national director for patients and the public, said of the term frequent flyers: "It implies that somehow these people want regular trips to hospital, that they are collecting points, that they enjoy the health and life-threatening roundabout of continual admission, treatment and discharge." Other phrases, such as bed-blockers, shifted the blame from the NHS to the patient, and further examples of labels included referring to those who do not turn up for appointments as "DNAs".
He also attacked the use of words like "dement" to describe somebody with Alzheimer's disease. He added: "Labelling people in this way is the most common way in which the NHS dehumanises those it is supposed to care for." He said most of the language was used to describe elderly people, possibly reflecting an ageist culture. "Older people generally use the health service most often but they are also sometimes the least able to speak up for themselves, the most vulnerable."
Mr Cayton said he understood that health workers needed to create distance due to the stresses of the job, but added they should find other ways of achieving that distance. A Department of Health spokesman said: "It is important that we are sensitive to the terms patients do not find acceptable. "Harry Cayton is one of our very valued National Directors and an incredibly experienced champion for patients' rights. "We welcome his views and will take this feedback on board."
Source
Australia is set to benefit from a looming brain drain from Britain's health services. The British Medical Association says almost 6000 young doctors and nurses may have to move overseas or even quit because they cannot get jobs in the National Health Service. Financial straits have led many trusts which run the health system to close wards and cut staff so graduates compete for far fewer jobs. "In one university, only two out of 300 new graduates have found posts," the Royal College of Nursing's Susan Watt said. "These nurses . . . are badly needed but trusts don't have the money to pay their salaries." Virtually all healthcare professions are on the wanted list at a nationwide series of Australia Needs Skills fairs being held by the Immigration Department in Britain this month.
Source
Emasculated England
I don't know what it is exactly, but ever since I arrived here, I've had the sinking feeling that in England, the reasoned liberalism of, say, Bentham and Mill has given way roundly to the ideology of modern-day liberalism. Sure, in some respects--in their preservation of certain customs, habits and manners--the British remain quite conservative. A walk through the financial district of the City of London reveals staid dress habits; a conversation with an elderly couple strolling through Hyde Park will touch on the ignoble lives of the members of the House of Windsor.
But when I consider the snippets of conversations heard on the streets and in the cafes, reflect on the articles in local periodicals, and view the content of television news and entertainment, another kind of society is revealed. Somewhere along the way, England seems to have rushed headlong into the world of animal rights, environmental activism, political correctness, and other liberal nostrums. I could be wrong, but barely a week into my English sojourn and I've already picked up troubling signs of widespread, left-wing nonsense in British public life. For example: Taking bus No. 10 the other day to King's Cross (where I am taking courses in journalism at a local university), I noticed a strange stone and bronze sculpture titled "Animals in War" at Brook Gate on the edge of Hyde Park. This 58-foot wide monstrosity, which cost British taxpayers 1.4 million pounds (almost US$ 2.7 million!), was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum and unveiled in November of 2004. The memorial is "a tribute to all the animals that served, suffered, and died in the wars and conflicts of the 20th century."
Don't get me wrong. I like dogs and horses as much as the next fellow. But this memorial not only seems a little silly, but it actually offends the sensibilities by implying that there is a kind of moral equivalence between human beings and animals. (Peter Singer, call your office!) Was this necessary or even appropriate? What hare-brained public official approved the disbursement of funds for this piece of political propaganda passing itself off as art? And speaking of lame public officials in England, what is one to make of David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party? Pundits praise him as the fresh new face of British conservatism. (Even the eccentric, royalist and, at times, reactionary The Spectator, came out in his support.) But since assuming leadership of the Party in December of 2005, Cameron's words and actions have not inspired much confidence among other traditionalist (read: Burkean) conservatives.
Formerly, as an MP for Witney, Cameron was as wishy-washy as you could get--giving mixed messages regarding smoking bans, the Iraq war, the environment, and gay rights. As a rising star within the Party, that was bad enough. But now, as Conservative Party leader, Cameron has made high-profile efforts to try to make his "blue party" more appealing to young people and moderate voters. Cameron's April visit to a Norwegian glacier, for example, accompanied by the World Wildlife Fund, was certainly a disappointment to traditional British conservatives who grimaced as Cameron later told the press: "Climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the world," and that British voters should "vote blue but go green."
In my own academic life, there are also troubling signs. Even though I am taking classes at a business-oriented university with long ties to the City of London's financial institutions, already three of the four assigned readings for the first week have been either alarmist screeds about capitalism and globalization, or simplistic jeremiads against the role of the U.S. in foreign affairs (read: Iraq) or international environmental efforts (read: Kyoto).
And discussions in and out of class--whether with British students or fellow Americans--have also been characterized by, on the one hand, an offensively self-righteous attitude towards the U.S. in general, the G.O.P., and our current president, or, on the other hand, by angry criticism of mergers and acquisitions, derivatives, hedge funds, and practically every other innovative product that the financial markets--especially those in the U.S.--have given the world. The students furthering these arguments, I sadly remind myself, will be the financial journalists and foreign affairs editors of the future.
I will be accused of using selective examples to build an (admittedly) weak case against England's current social and political climate. Granted, these are but a few, minor examples--insufficiently analyzed--of things I have noticed while here for barely a week. But a dearth of examples does not refute my basic contention that Britain is now, well, Left.
A British sociologist taught me to collect data while walking through a city. There is data everywhere, she said--in sounds and smells, signposts, advertisements, and people's clothes. I've tried to keep this in mind this week and, based on what I've observed, I cannot escape the feeling that this country and its people have been crippled--almost without their awareness--by modern-day liberalism. Watch the BBC and count the number of off-hand remarks made by program hosts about God, the Church, British history, and even Shakespeare. Go shopping at Tesco and notice that one of the most popular teas for sale is organic, "fair-trade certified," and boasts a box covered with pictures of smiling children in developing countries.
No, this is not the England I dreamt of knowing. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the England eulogized by Roger Scruton, evoked by Anthony Daniels or criticized by Douglas Murray. I came in search of an England that was secure, strong and proud, but found one that is insecure, soft and weak; I wanted to learn of an English society that was ancient, principled and instinctively conservative, but found one that is postmodern, relativist and liberal. I suppose I will just have to look for the ghosts of England's past in the nooks and crannies, shadowy passageways, and forgotten lanes of this magnificent city.
Source
A CURE FOR SOME BLINDNESS
But will the NHS be able to afford it? Note a previous story here
A condition that causes thousands of Britons to go blind every year can be halted and even reversed with a monthly injection. Trials into a treatment for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is diagnosed in more than 20,000 elderly people a year and is the commonest cause of blindness, have shown dramatic results for almost all who use it. Patients given Lucentis did not only have the gradual deterioration of their sight halted, but even regained vision lost to the disease. For decades, patients with the condition, which leaves 10 per cent of sufferers blind, have been told there is little or nothing that can be done to slow the disease, let alone reverse it. But in a new trial Lucentis reversed sight damage in more than a third of participants with "wet" AMD, the most damaging form of the disease. It also prevented further loss of vision in almost all who were treated with it.
About 24,000 patients a year have wet AMD diagnosed. It is responsible for 90 per cent of cases where people lose their sight entirely: loss of vision is caused by the growth of new blood vessels behind the retina, which cause bleeding and scarring.
Lucentis, developed by the Californian company Genentech, does not yet have a British licence. At 1,000 pounds a treatment, it will raise serious funding questions for the NHS if recommended for use by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), which is conducting an appraisal. Costs for treating all newly diagnosed cases to a course of monthly injections - the regime used in the trial - are put at 400 million pounds.
Steve Winyard, head of campaigns at the Royal National Institute of the Blind, said that the results were very exciting. "These results show that the drug is just as good as we thought it was going to be. About 30 per cent of these patients got a significant gain in sight, which shows that the drug also offers improvements as well as preventing sight loss." John Blake, 75, one of the few patients in Britain to have been treated with Lucentis, said that the drug had improved his sight sufficiently for him to be able to take up golf again. "Everything had gone, 80 per cent of my life had gone", he said. "I couldn't drive or watch TV," he said. "Within three days my sight had improved. It cost me nearly 5,000 pounds, but I'm very pleased."
The two trials published today in The New England Journal of Medicine compared Lucentis with a placebo and Visudyne, the only treatment hitherto available on the NHS. In the placebo-controlled trial, 716 US patients were randomly given Lucentis at two dose levels, or a placebo. Over two years, a third of patients given the higher dose of Lucentis gained in visual acuity, compared with only 4 per cent given the placebo. On average, Lucentis patients were able to read about six more letters on the optician's chart after two years of treatment than at the start, while those given a placebo could read fifteen fewer letters.
In the second trial, Lucentis was compared with Visudyne. Over two years, between 35 and 40 per cent of those given Lucentis improved by an average of 15 letters, while fewer than 6 per cent of the Visudyne group did this well. Yit Yang, a consultant ophthalmologist from Wolverhampton, described the results as very striking. "These results mean that potentially people with wet AMD can become independent again and return to activities such as reading, shopping and hobbies."
Source
NHS-speak 'demeaning to patients'
Terms such as "frequent flyers" and "bed-blockers", used by ministers and NHS staff to describe patients, are demeaning, the patients' tsar says. Harry Cayton said such negative words shifted blame to patients and should be avoided, the Royal Society of Medicine journal said. Frequent flyers - patients who are in and out of hospital - and bed-blockers are common phrases in the NHS. The Department of Health said it would take the comments on board.
Mr Cayton, the national director for patients and the public, said of the term frequent flyers: "It implies that somehow these people want regular trips to hospital, that they are collecting points, that they enjoy the health and life-threatening roundabout of continual admission, treatment and discharge." Other phrases, such as bed-blockers, shifted the blame from the NHS to the patient, and further examples of labels included referring to those who do not turn up for appointments as "DNAs".
He also attacked the use of words like "dement" to describe somebody with Alzheimer's disease. He added: "Labelling people in this way is the most common way in which the NHS dehumanises those it is supposed to care for." He said most of the language was used to describe elderly people, possibly reflecting an ageist culture. "Older people generally use the health service most often but they are also sometimes the least able to speak up for themselves, the most vulnerable."
Mr Cayton said he understood that health workers needed to create distance due to the stresses of the job, but added they should find other ways of achieving that distance. A Department of Health spokesman said: "It is important that we are sensitive to the terms patients do not find acceptable. "Harry Cayton is one of our very valued National Directors and an incredibly experienced champion for patients' rights. "We welcome his views and will take this feedback on board."
Source
Thursday, October 05, 2006
7/7: a very British bombing
John Reid's speech about 'extremist bullies' warping Muslim minds misses the point. Today's radical Islamists are made by mainstream society.
In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester yesterday, home secretary John Reid won rapturous applause when he said Britain would not be `browbeaten' by radical Islamist `bullies'. `If we in this [Labour] movement are going to ask the decent, silent majority of Muslim men and women to have the courage to face down the extremist bullies, then we need to have the courage and character to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them doing it', he said. This follows a speech he made in London last week, in which he called on Muslim mums and dads to `look for the tell-tale signs' that their children might be turning radical, perhaps becoming `brainwashed by fanatics'.
It is a relief that the Labour government has finally begun to face up to the reality of what is referred to as `homegrown terrorism' - that Reid's Home Office seems to be taking more responsibility for rooting out terrorism, rather than leaving it all to the Foreign Office or, worse, the Ministry of Defence. In the years following 9/11, Western leaders and ministers deluded themselves into believing that contemporary Islamist terrorism was a foreign threat. Such violence, they claimed, was the work of weirdo Arabs or Asians raised on a diet of falafel and hatred for the West in some hot and dusty backwater of the Third World.
The bombings in London, however, executed by three men from Leeds and their friend from Huddersfield, blew British politicians back to reality. The atrocity opened their eyes to the fact that this violence is very often the work of Western-born or Western-educated bright young men who speak and think like us, and who live among us. The 7/7 bombers - like the 9/11 hijackers and Madrid bombers before them - were not poverty-stricken; nor were they aliens to the West. They lived here, benefited from Western education and jobs, and indulged in Western culture. Yet still they decided to kill themselves and others in a piece of nihilistic and bloody theatre.....
Reid continually talks about `radicalisation', which he sees as a kind of polluting of young minds by sinister Islamist individuals. The documentarist Peter Taylor, who has made films for the BBC about al-Qaeda, discusses `those who seek to radicalise' - presumably also referring to imams and other Islamists who exploit doubts about the war in Iraq, and also events such as the shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by anti-terrorist police officers in Stockwell, south London, two weeks after 7/7, in order to stir up the anger of Muslim youth.
So Taylor says that, after the killing of de Menezes, `those who seek to radicalise' presented his death in such a way that Muslims would believe `there was a shoot-to-kill policy and that any young Muslim is fair game'. Continuing with this theme of the radicalisers and the radicalised, who somehow stand apart from society, Taylor argues that the British authorities must `drain the water from the pond in which the alleged fish swim': `In other words, you have to get the communities on your side, the side of the state, if the so-called terrorists are to be identified and defeated.' He creates a powerful image of a `pond', an entity separate from mainstream British society, in which there is a polluted kind of water that poisons its inhabitants.
In fact, there is little evidence that the 7/7 bombers were radicalised by an imam, an al-Qaeda bigwig or any other foreign element. The government's report into 7/7, published in May, says of the 7/7 group: `Their indoctrination appears to have taken place away from places with known links to extremism.' (My emphasis.) In other words, not in Taylor's pond, but elsewhere. The report goes on to say that, yes, the bombers would have had the opportunity to attend lectures, watch videos and read material by extremists, `but it is not known if any did to any significant extent'. Rather, the four bombers seem to have `indoctrinated' themselves `through personal contact and group bonding'. This flies in the face of Reid's recent claims about Muslim kids being `brainwashed' by others. On the question of whether `those who radicalised' the four Brits may have been al-Qaeda leaders, the government report says there is still no evidence that any of them had `links to an al-Qaeda fixer': `There is no reliable intelligence or corroborative information to support [these claims].' Moreover, there is `as yet no firm evidence to corroborate.the nature of al-Qaeda support, if there was any'. In the case of 7/7, `those who radicalise' seem to have been the four young men themselves; they were self-radicalised.
Rachel Briggs of Demos has further pursued the theme of the 7/7 bombers' separation from mainstream British society. In a recent article, she favourably quoted a contributor to a recent Demos conference who talked about the `cocktail of ingredients' that have given rise to violent anger among some British Muslims: `foreign policy, perceived or real Islamophobia, poor attainment, lack of participation and representation..' Within `certain communities', this individual said, such ingredients can come together to create terroristic anger (note again the isolation of `certain communities').
Briggs writes of the `gulf between the state and Muslim communities' and of `the sense of alienation that [can] fuel violence'. Again, we are presented with a view of a distinct part of British society, which has been neglected by politicians and officials, and where, through a combination of factors, terrorism can fester and take root. Apparently such terrorism grows away from the mainstream, often unseen by officialdom.
In fact, the most striking thing about the 7/7 bombers' self-radicalisation is that it seems to have taken place, not in a privatised world created by radical Islam or governmental neglect, but in the public sphere and in the full view of mainstream society. The government's report says the bombers were not radicalised in mosques but in gyms, including a gym funded by local government money, and during outdoor sporting activities with other groups of individuals: `Camping, canoeing, white-water rafting, paintballing and other outward bound-type activities are of particular interest because they appear common factors for the 7 July bombers and other cells disrupted previously and since.' In other words, the bombers' radicalisation seems to have occurred during engagement with others, rather than stemming from a sense of alienation while sitting at home, and in a public space rather than in a private room in a mosque or anywhere else.
As Faisal Devji, author of Landscapes of the Jihad, argues: `These men [did not] cut themselves off from British society; instead their politics and their bonding are conducted in the full glare of public scrutiny.. Most of the London bombers' acts of bonding occurred in public - not in mosques but on rafting expeditions and at [paint-ball] shooting games, in clubs and gyms. There is nothing traditionally religious, or private, about that.'
There is something very new here. In the past, small violent sects or cults tended to separate themselves from the mainstream. For example, the People's Temple cult set up a bizarre commune in Jonestown, Guyana, in the mid-Seventies, where eventually 913 of them died in a mass suicide. David Koresh's cultish Branch Davidians also removed themselves from mainstream society; 76 of their members eventually died following an assault by armed FBI men. Or think of something like Charles Manson's murderous Family group which was formed in the late 1960s. Individuals involved in these kinds of groups tended to break off links with their families, refused to engage with society's institutions, and they often set up their own communities so that members could be exposed to sect-like thinking on an hourly and daily basis. This often had the effect of transforming individuals' thought patterns and behaviour, enabling them to carry out often horrendous acts of violence. For example, the Family's self-separation from the mainstream allowed them to transform into individuals capable of murdering a heavily pregnant woman (the actress Sharon Tate) and other civilians.
The 7/7 bombers, however, remained at the heart of the mainstream, living with their families, hanging out and playing cricket with their friends, attending anti-war marches, and using public outdoor sporting activities as an opportunity to bond. This suggests, very strongly, that they are a product of mainstream British society rather than of neglect or foreign radicalisation.
Getting their ideas from the mainstream
Even the bombers' political motivation - to the extent that we know about it - was a product of mainstream and contemporary trends, rather than being some strange, exotic religious duty or something `bullied' into them.
Both the 7/7 ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan and his close friend and fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer made `martyr videos', in which they expressed anger with Britain's foreign policy, especially, in Tanweer's words, with its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Peter Taylor argues that foreign policy failures, or at least perceptions of failures, were key to the `radicalisation' of the 7/7 group. He writes: `I have no doubt that Iraq is the single most important motivating, radicalising factor for young Muslims who are so disposed in this country, or the USA, or elsewhere.' Others argue that Western foreign policy actually nurtures al-Qaeda; it has `greatly helped al-Qaeda to achieve its goals by causing discussion, dissent, alienation and radicalisation in multi-ethnic communities in Western Europe'. Veteran left-wing commentator John Pilger went so far as to describe 7/7 as `Blair's bombs'.
Here, again, we have an idea that 7/7 was a largely foreign enterprise. The argument is that Britain and the West's foreign policy made some Muslims feel alienated and angry and led the 7/7 bombers to take violent action. It is argued that the bombers made an essentially political response to the war in Iraq: we are told they were `radicalised' by it, in a political and active sense. This misses the point about the terrorists' claims to have been motivated by foreign policy, which again is a mainstream response rather than any kind of peculiarly Muslim anger with wars overseas. The 7/7 bombers did not make an anti-imperialist strike against British foreign policy or Western imperialism more broadly; rather they were expressing a sense of disgruntlement with British life and politics through the issue of Iraq.
This is in no way unique. In the past three years, Iraq has become the issue through which many British citizens have experienced and expressed their sense of dislocation from public and political life, as evidenced in the gathering of one million citizens to protest against the war in Hyde Park, London, in February 2003. That was not a traditional anti-imperialist demonstration but a gathering of various strata of British society, from the young to the old, workers through to the middle classes, who claimed that they were `not being listened to' by the British government and felt increasingly distant from the Blairite project. The 7/7 bombers expressed this same, mainstream sense of angst with contemporary British life, only in a more violent form. There was nothing peculiar or original about their focus on foreign policy - that is the issue through which displeasure with or cynicism about the authorities is expressed in contemporary Britain. The bombers' violent outrage can be seen as a more bloody demand that government `listen to us and take our concerns seriously'.
In other ways, too, the 7/7 bombers, as well as other alleged radical Islamists, are products very much of mainstream British ideas. According to the government's report on 7/7, Sidique Khan, for example, was a strong believer in encouraging young people to stay fit and healthy. Apparently his talks to young Muslims, usually given in a gym, focused on `clean living, staying away from crime and drugs, and the value of sport and outdoor activity'. This script could have been written by any New Labour government apparatchik, who have made healthy living and sport into key planks of their interventionist policy to shape and mould our lifestyles.
For the government, promoting good health can very often turn into berating and even punishing those who are seen as unhealthy or obese or feckless. Could it be the same for radical Islamists? A group of British Muslim men from Crawley in West Sussex is currently on trial, accused of plotting a terrorist attack on British soil. It has been alleged that they discussed blowing up a nightclub or poisoning booze at football grounds. One of them allegedly said of nightclubs: `No one can put their hands up and say they are innocent... those slags dancing around.' A witness claims the gang also talked about `poisoning football fans by contaminating beer cans and burgers'. They also allegedly discussed blowing up the Bluewater shopping centre in north-east Kent, which, thanks to some pretty degraded media coverage and political attention has become famous (or perhaps infamous) as the haunt of `chavs'.
The truth of these allegations remains to be decided by a jury. But if anybody really did plot such things, then it seems to me they were more influenced by contemporary British culture than foreign Islamism. It has become de rigueur recently, particularly in political and media circles, to slate the working classes for their binge-drinking and generally bad behaviour. Officials fret over the sight of young girls in mini-skirts falling down drunk, while TV documentaries and newspaper articles expose the apparently seedy and violent life of `football hooligans'. It is also open season on chavs. One website, for example, refers to the Bluewater shopping centre as `the most chav-infested place on the face of the Earth', overrun by `the Burberry-clad hordes'. If a group of men did talk about attacking `slags', poisoning football fans and blowing up Bluewater chavs, they could very well have been taking their cue from mainstream fear and loathing of these sections of society rather than from some Pakistani `Mr Big'.
The politics of pity and identity
What of the 7/7 bombers' belief that they could speak and act on behalf of Muslims everywhere, the ummah? John Reid bemoans the attempts of certain radical Islamists to create `no-go areas' for British officials, where only Muslims will be welcome. Surely this shows that certain radical Islamists, and the 7/7 bombers themselves, were influenced by foreign al-Qaeda-style ideas about the need to stand up and fight for Muslims around the world?
Actually, even this aspect of the 7/7 bombers' actions was shaped much more by contemporary British and Western culture than it was by foreign radicalism. In Sidique Khan and his colleagues' belief that they, as Muslims, could represent all other Muslims, we can glimpse today's undemocratic politics of identity, which defines people by their origin and even skin colour rather than by their political convictions or allegiances.
Over the past 20 years, the politics of identity has superseded the old politics of left and right, replacing traditional collectivities with sectionalised communities which each apparently have their own needs and interests. The politics of identity plays down traditional democratic forms in favour of elevating personal experience as the defining factor of political action on the world. Thus, individuals can speak for others who share their identity, even if they were never elected by them, or have never even met them. As Munira Mirza has argued on spiked: `[I]n a world where any old hack can be called a "community leader", it is hardly surprising that [Khan and Tanweer] also thought they were qualified to speak [on behalf of all Muslims]. What Khan and Tanweer's terrible action shows is the price of endless, meaningless community consultation, where some people are rewarded political power for merely being the right skin colour or religion.'
Likewise, Khan and Co's decision to act on behalf of others, rather than for their own self-interest or for a democratic community, is a very mainstream form of political action. In our post-political, identity-directed era, a great number of groups claims to act in the interests of people they actually have few or no links with, and from whom they certainly have not won any kind of democratic mandate. So NGOs and charities claim to act on behalf of the people of Africa; Greenpeace and other environmentalist campaigners say they act to protect future generations, those who are not even born yet; anti-abortion campaigners act for the unborn; campaign groups like Fathers 4 Justice, despite being tiny in terms of membership and support, claim to act for all fathers; anti-poverty campaigners increasingly focus on the issue of child poverty, speaking, apparently, for those voiceless children neglected by society and possibly even their own parents.
Each of these groups presumes to represent great numbers of people even though they have never submitted their ideas or personnel to the rigour of any kind of mass elective process. At a time when political collectivities and solidarities are in decline, we can see the emergence of a new, profoundly anti-democratic politics of pity - a politics which vicariously, and often patronisingly, campaigns for others who are apparently less able to articulate their grievances, rather than for a self- or community interest. The 7/7 bombers did precisely the same: they acted for all oppressed Muslims, without first consulting them or even trying to win support for their actions within their local communities or families. They were a product of identity politics and victim culture more than radical foreign Islamism....
The 7/7 bombers were no foreign infiltration; nor were they necessarily the product of having been neglected by the mainstream. Rather, they were the mainstream: their political thought and their style of action were shaped by contemporary British ideas and values. From their bonding in public places to their adoption of Iraq as the issue through which to express their dislocation, from their narcissistic elevation of identity to their use of the body for transcendence, their terrorist act was made here at home. It was literally homegrown terrorism. The 7/7 bombers, like other radical Islamists, were moulded by the same politics of identity and angst, and the same suspicion of modern life, that is widespread in Western societies - and which expresses itself in less violent forms in anti-capitalist protests, green movements, new religious movements and other contemporary outfits. What distinguishes radical Islamists, of course, is their use of often horrendous violence. This can be seen as a consequence of the fact that radical Islamism, unlike other contemporary identities, provides its adherents with a distinct sense of being outsiders, and with readymade, off-the-peg identities that allow them to contextualise their very Western disgruntlement as being part of some seemingly grand war between Muslims and infidels.
John Reid and others need a second reality check on homegrown terrorism. They should stop looking for explanations overseas, and explore what the 7/7 bombings and the fashion for radical Islamism reveals about Britain and the West today. 7/7 was less an attack from without than a scream of rage from within, where the thought and action of contemporary society was turned against that very society; it was less evidence of any kind of `clash of civilisations' and more the consequence of the decline and fall of Western civilisation and its move into a new era of identity, narcissism and malaise. The 7/7 atrocity was a very British bombing
More here
Down with carbon colonialism
Did you know that the money you donate to carbon-offsetting schemes is often spent on programmes that stifle development in the Third World?
`When you drink one, Africa drinks one too.' So says the Onederful advertisement on hoardings around London, promoting a new soft drink for the caring executive classes. `All profits', it boasts, `go to build unique roundabout water pumps'. While you quench your thirst after a workout in the gym, children in Africa are getting a workout in order that they can have a drink. These water pumps, celebrated in Cameron Sinclair's latest book Design Like You Give A Damn, are designed to look like a children's roundabout. Ingeniously, each playful rotation raises water from a well, and so youngsters can now do something socially responsible instead of just playing selfishly for themselves.
But regardless of the paternalistic pretension of this scheme (this roundabout is nothing other than a hand pump), and its deception (this is child labour dressed up as doing children a favour), this is a way of acclimatising the Third World to their own lack of development and infrastructure. Children in developing countries want iPods like anyone else, but schemes such as this alter the existing situation just enough that their poverty doesn't look so bad to the Western eye.
Back in the Eighties, Bob Geldof's Live Aid threw down a conscious challenge to the public to `Give us your fucking money'. Not very diplomatic and more than a little contemptuous; but at least he was prepared to engage us and try to earn our money. More recently, charities and campaigns have been searching for more novel, reflexive or unconscious ways to be charitable. Tapping into Western consumer culture is the latest hassle-free method of charitable giving. This is charity without the inconvenience of inconvenience, without the annoyance of having to convince someone of the merits of the case. While this avoids the hassle of engaging in why the organisation's work is important, it also circumvents the possibility of more active engagement.
This model was best exemplified by Bono's RED designer Motorola mobile phone. Buying a phone anyway? Why not buy this trendy one for a little bit more and the proceeds will let a black baby live for another day or two. No skin off your nose (see Why the new Amex card makes me see RED, by Daniel Ben-Ami).
Subverting the everyday into a political act still needs some kind of acknowledgement - hence the need for some recognisable object that indicates what has been done: a wristband, a phone, or a credit card. `Brand Aid' provides a way to contribute without interrupting your daily life, while those in the know will be aware that you've done your bit.
Climate change: a feelgood crisis
The latest stage in this creeping process of unwitting charitable activity makes Bono's sanctimoniousness sound positively engaging. As Africa has slipped down the political agenda, climate change has moved centre stage as the ultimate feelgood crisis. This is a moral dilemma with no argument needed; there is general agreement, it seems, that global warming is potentially devastating and that `something has to be done'.
A quarter of a century ago, Geldof saw people as part of the solution - his beef at the time was with intransigent politicians. Today, aid agencies, especially those working on environmental projects, frequently see people as the problem. The more consumer-driven, modern or economically advanced we become, the more we are deemed to be harming the future of the planet. The consequences of seeing ordinary actions and lifestyles as inherently detrimental to the planet are paradoxical, reinforcing both a sense of self-loathing as well as a moral piety. The Guardian offers some assistance in that `if you really can't, or don't want to, change your lifestyle to reduce the damage you do to the planet, you could consider doing something to offset it'.
Eco-aid giving has now been turned into a contemporary form of absolution, saving you from the guilt of the modern world, best exemplified by `carbon offsets'. Whatever you do, from driving a car to taking a holiday to boiling a kettle of water, gives rise to carbon emissions. Having fewer cups of tea is one way of reducing your `carbon footprint' (the amount of carbon that you produce through your actions) and is seen as a positive objective. Having a zero-emissions (or even a positive feedback) effect is even better. Planting a tree, for example, will help produce oxygen and remove some CO2 from the atmosphere. Powering your home from your own wind turbine or solar cells can mean that surplus power can be fed back into the system resulting in a net positive carbon impact.
Ironically, these environmental organisations assume that we are so wrapped up in Western consumer culture that change has to be engineered through the subversion of that very consumer culture. Thus, environmental groups are now using consumerism - the traditional object of their ire - as a way of legitimating their programme of activities without the consumer necessarily knowing about it. This cynical approach to funders - or donors as they used to be called - is surely a new low in the long history of environmental contempt for consumers.
The real irony, of course, is that most of these campaigning organisations are large businesses themselves. ClimateCare, for example, `was the idea of eco-entrepreneur Mike Mason'. Brian Wilson, who was energy minister in Blair's government until 2003, recently became the chairman of the UK operations board of Airtricity, the Irish-based renewable energy company constructing windfarms all over Ireland and beyond. Both Land Rover and British Gas have bought into ClimateCare's programme of offsets.
The non-executive board members of CarbonNeutral comprise a venture capitalist, an investment banker and an ex-manager at Shell. These examples show that big business is content to do business with environmentalists - and why not? After all, these environmental companies are proper moneymaking concerns that are gratefully receiving your donations.
For some eco-businesses, instead of developing a profitable business plan to encourage shareholder investment (with the attendant awkwardness of accountability), or to manufacture and sell useful products to raise capital, they prefer to use donations to prop up their organisations. Others prefer to provide their more discerning clientele with a carbon-free environmental service as an added-value treat. Still others are diverting resources into lo-tech (carbon-free) technologies as a way of capturing a new market share. Carbon neutrality is, for all businesses, simply an exercise in corporate social responsibility.
Passive giving
So combining the worst elements of all the previous trends with a few new ones, environmental campaigners are now asking people to `donate' in the most passive way possible. Students at Linacre College, Oxford may not realise that Thabit Al-Murani, their student environmental representative, has pledged around 1,250 pounds of their funds to ClimateCare to make the college the first carbon neutral college in Oxbridge
The Carbon Footprint agency (motto: `It doesn't cost the Earth to save the planet') has done a number of deals with third parties to make saving the planet as painless as possible. For example, you can join WeightWatchers and Carbon Footprint will offset 1500kg of CO2; or 2500kg when you subscribe to match.com dating agency. What does this mean? Well, in simple terms, match.com will give a sum of money, via Carbon Footprint, to a carbon neutral campaigning group to do good works. The financial sum has been assessed as the cost of whatever is needed to absorb an equivalent amount of carbon that has been emitted as part of your everyday activities. In the past it might have been called a discount, whereas now it is disguised as an ethical trade-off.
The World Land Trust (WLT) is offering to offset 140kg of your despicable carbon usage if you simply send them a text message. What could this mean? Well, simply that the text nets WLT 1.50 pounds (after network charges have been deducted) and they will plant a tree to the equivalent amount (about a twigful). Call me cynical, but the WLT is a conservation organisation whose very raison d'etre is to plant trees around the world, so it all seems like a canny way to get more cash and a higher profile. And while they boast that `you can sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that we have taken care of [your emissions] for you', it offers texters the chance to win `free carbon neutral flights to Tenerife'. Climate Relief, on the other hand, will send an unsuspecting friend a 20 pound gift voucher worth 100kg emissions. Ideal for the man who has everything.
The Observer claims that if you've done 120 school runs in a 4x4, then 1.50 pounds should be enough to clear your conscience and if you buy your 4x4 from Autobid.com then they'll offset 3 tonnes of carbon (5). (Before you get too excited, this salesman patter simply nets the equivalent of a 30 pound discount.) If you are planning on holding an event to explain all this, the WLT (not to be confused with the Woodland Trust) asks for a `contribution of 1,000 pounds or above [to] offset the CO2 travel and venue emissions [sic] from a business conference or training event.' But for the really guilty, they suggest that `an investment of o20,000 or above can offset at least 800 tonnes of carbon dioxide (close to the annual heating and lighting-related emissions of 140 households)' (6). Presumably, then, this is what used to be called a `subsidy' to shore up a company, but now it is an `investment' in the future of the planet. And it can be done from your home with the minimum of fuss or involvement.
It is reputed that each tree planted by one of these company's offsets about 730kg CO2 over its lifetime, whereas each person actually uses/ creates about 7,000kg per year (500 tonnes a lifetime). So model citizens should plant 10 trees per year for the rest of their lives. As it happens, temperate forests in developing countries such as the US, UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years, so things aren't as black as they're painted, even in the terms of the debate. However, let not the facts get in the way of an ecological bandwagon.
You don't even have to be a charity or eco-company to do it. BP has launched a new non-profit initiative called TargetNeutral to counter the fact that `a typical motorist will generate around four tonnes of CO2 over 10,000 miles, which would cost o20 to offset'. Simply pull up at a service station, fill up and if you are using one of their loyalty cards, you can automatically pay the sum to TargetNeutral and BP will match it. You haven't got to do a thing; it's automatic. If you're not yet convinced, rest assured that Jonathan Porritt, chair of the UK Sustainable Development Forum will be part of `an independent panel' to oversee its actions. Mind you, BP isn't totally convinced, asking: `Is BP genuine in trying to tackle the problem of global warming, or is it simply a PR stunt that jumps on the green bandwagon? We'd like to hear from you.' If you buy into BP's selfless motives, your money goes to fund wind turbine projects in India and Mexico that BP are committed to building anyway. But any extra cash wouldn't go amiss.
Carbon colonialism
Carbon trading is everywhere, from estate agents to gifts, from insurance products to pension schemes. Take the figures with a pinch of salt though, because they are, effectively, made up. Lots of websites have set up basic software programmes to allow you to assess your impact on the planet, but there seems to be little consistency. CO2Balance also say that o9-worth of CO2 emissions (0.16 tonnes) are caused by travelling 600 miles in a 1.4L petrol-engine car, whereas ClimateCare says that the same car journey racks up 0.18 tonnes of CO2, costing 1.35 pounds. Then again, Carbon Footprint assess it as 0.149 tonnes, which can be offset `by planting 0 trees'. The Scotsman suggests that driving 12,000 miles in a family saloon releases 3.6 tonnes and costs just o20, whereas Newcastle Council states that one tonne of CO2 offset costs 13.65 pounds . So it seems that if you shop around, you can get some good deals. but maybe that'll just make you feel even more guilty.
Obviously, the basis of carbon trading schemes is that they can't offset carbon produced in the West, say, by investing in a technology that produces carbon emissions in the offset country. That would be `irresponsible'. Therefore all of these agencies that have sprung up over the past five or so years are engaged in low- or alternative-technology projects in the under-developed world.
ClimateCare, for instance, invests in low or zero-carbon emissions projects in Kazakhstan, among other places. Here, the silly Kazakhstanis use `traditional incandescent lights in buildings' but by donating to ClimateCare, you are investing in a project called `Education for Sustainability and Climate Change in Central Asia' which delivers `workshops to 98 schools to teach children about climate change. supported by posters, CDs and a teachers' handbook.' The project partners are `developing a monitoring and verification plan', implying that if the scheme doesn't meet target objectives then something'll have to give. Oh, and they can forget about real development using more carbon intensive and effective technology.
ClimateCare also funds projects in India, where it is encouraging villagers to stop using forest wood for fuel so that the indigenous tiger's habitat is preserved; or it employs 400 people in Uganda to clear grassland to plant trees to satisfy the needs of the indigenous primate population. Did you know that you were funding a scheme that promotes wildlife over people - even wildlife that eats people? And what's that got to do with climate change? Given that the carbon offset scheme is premised on the fact that human activity is endangering nature, I suppose that it is a small and logical step to put animals before people.
There are many such examples. United by the allusion to the nobility of the indigenous tribespeople, or the overseeing and monitoring of their performance in the carbon-offset programmes, these initiatives seem faintly colonial. In Mayer Hillman's book, How We Can Save The Planet, he argues that giving carbon credits on an equal individual basis across the globe would be a win-win situation for everyone. While we in the West, he argued, may not be so keen to give up our living standards, what does a person in the Third World want with all those carbon credits? After all, they have no car, phone or significant travel plans. This leaves them `free' to sell the credits off to salvage the conscience of the West. Unfortunately, the consequential maintenance of underdevelopment is the real truth behind carbon offset schemes, and one that, unsurprisingly, the marketing managers don't really want you to know about.
Carbon offsets are premised on the notion that modern lifestyles are inherently damaging to the planet: that you are part of the problem. If you agree, then the answer is simple: reduce your consumption, only travel locally (using muscle power), campaign against housebuilding and give generously to the Third World for schemes that treat the environment as sacrosanct. However, bear in mind that even the water-pump roundabout in Africa, paid for by the profits of a bottled water company in the West, can't really be argued to be zero carbon. After all, the collective CO2 exhalation of malnourished children forced to push a massive playground roundabout in order to extract water is bound to contribute in some small way to the melting of the polar icecaps.
If, however, you think that the under-developed world needs development, then the CO2 equation has to be put on the back burner. The chief priority is to encourage the liberation of millions of people from grinding poverty, not to make them guilty about wanting the material standards that the West has.
Once the under-developed world starts developing, we will encourage an enlightened view of humanity. Similarly, a more enlightened view of humanity can kickstart that development. Meeting this dialectical challenge requires a human-centred, rather than an eco-centric, view of the world. Once we reclaim this agenda for humanity, only then might there be scope for setting a positive agenda for change to deal with environmental factors. At the moment, sanctifying the environment, combined with an anti-humanist guilt, keeps half the world in penury while the other half ponders their purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, consumer choices and carbon offsets are designed to maintain the iniquitous status quo, and make you feel good about it.
Source
"Dangerous" Information
We read:
Ireland no longer "British"
We read:
Must not Call Political Opponents "Autistic"
Even if they do seem that way
We read:
The journalist to whom the remark was made explains it here. The "incorrect" politician was of course a Conservative.
John Reid's speech about 'extremist bullies' warping Muslim minds misses the point. Today's radical Islamists are made by mainstream society.
In his speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester yesterday, home secretary John Reid won rapturous applause when he said Britain would not be `browbeaten' by radical Islamist `bullies'. `If we in this [Labour] movement are going to ask the decent, silent majority of Muslim men and women to have the courage to face down the extremist bullies, then we need to have the courage and character to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with them doing it', he said. This follows a speech he made in London last week, in which he called on Muslim mums and dads to `look for the tell-tale signs' that their children might be turning radical, perhaps becoming `brainwashed by fanatics'.
It is a relief that the Labour government has finally begun to face up to the reality of what is referred to as `homegrown terrorism' - that Reid's Home Office seems to be taking more responsibility for rooting out terrorism, rather than leaving it all to the Foreign Office or, worse, the Ministry of Defence. In the years following 9/11, Western leaders and ministers deluded themselves into believing that contemporary Islamist terrorism was a foreign threat. Such violence, they claimed, was the work of weirdo Arabs or Asians raised on a diet of falafel and hatred for the West in some hot and dusty backwater of the Third World.
The bombings in London, however, executed by three men from Leeds and their friend from Huddersfield, blew British politicians back to reality. The atrocity opened their eyes to the fact that this violence is very often the work of Western-born or Western-educated bright young men who speak and think like us, and who live among us. The 7/7 bombers - like the 9/11 hijackers and Madrid bombers before them - were not poverty-stricken; nor were they aliens to the West. They lived here, benefited from Western education and jobs, and indulged in Western culture. Yet still they decided to kill themselves and others in a piece of nihilistic and bloody theatre.....
Reid continually talks about `radicalisation', which he sees as a kind of polluting of young minds by sinister Islamist individuals. The documentarist Peter Taylor, who has made films for the BBC about al-Qaeda, discusses `those who seek to radicalise' - presumably also referring to imams and other Islamists who exploit doubts about the war in Iraq, and also events such as the shooting of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes by anti-terrorist police officers in Stockwell, south London, two weeks after 7/7, in order to stir up the anger of Muslim youth.
So Taylor says that, after the killing of de Menezes, `those who seek to radicalise' presented his death in such a way that Muslims would believe `there was a shoot-to-kill policy and that any young Muslim is fair game'. Continuing with this theme of the radicalisers and the radicalised, who somehow stand apart from society, Taylor argues that the British authorities must `drain the water from the pond in which the alleged fish swim': `In other words, you have to get the communities on your side, the side of the state, if the so-called terrorists are to be identified and defeated.' He creates a powerful image of a `pond', an entity separate from mainstream British society, in which there is a polluted kind of water that poisons its inhabitants.
In fact, there is little evidence that the 7/7 bombers were radicalised by an imam, an al-Qaeda bigwig or any other foreign element. The government's report into 7/7, published in May, says of the 7/7 group: `Their indoctrination appears to have taken place away from places with known links to extremism.' (My emphasis.) In other words, not in Taylor's pond, but elsewhere. The report goes on to say that, yes, the bombers would have had the opportunity to attend lectures, watch videos and read material by extremists, `but it is not known if any did to any significant extent'. Rather, the four bombers seem to have `indoctrinated' themselves `through personal contact and group bonding'. This flies in the face of Reid's recent claims about Muslim kids being `brainwashed' by others. On the question of whether `those who radicalised' the four Brits may have been al-Qaeda leaders, the government report says there is still no evidence that any of them had `links to an al-Qaeda fixer': `There is no reliable intelligence or corroborative information to support [these claims].' Moreover, there is `as yet no firm evidence to corroborate.the nature of al-Qaeda support, if there was any'. In the case of 7/7, `those who radicalise' seem to have been the four young men themselves; they were self-radicalised.
Rachel Briggs of Demos has further pursued the theme of the 7/7 bombers' separation from mainstream British society. In a recent article, she favourably quoted a contributor to a recent Demos conference who talked about the `cocktail of ingredients' that have given rise to violent anger among some British Muslims: `foreign policy, perceived or real Islamophobia, poor attainment, lack of participation and representation..' Within `certain communities', this individual said, such ingredients can come together to create terroristic anger (note again the isolation of `certain communities').
Briggs writes of the `gulf between the state and Muslim communities' and of `the sense of alienation that [can] fuel violence'. Again, we are presented with a view of a distinct part of British society, which has been neglected by politicians and officials, and where, through a combination of factors, terrorism can fester and take root. Apparently such terrorism grows away from the mainstream, often unseen by officialdom.
In fact, the most striking thing about the 7/7 bombers' self-radicalisation is that it seems to have taken place, not in a privatised world created by radical Islam or governmental neglect, but in the public sphere and in the full view of mainstream society. The government's report says the bombers were not radicalised in mosques but in gyms, including a gym funded by local government money, and during outdoor sporting activities with other groups of individuals: `Camping, canoeing, white-water rafting, paintballing and other outward bound-type activities are of particular interest because they appear common factors for the 7 July bombers and other cells disrupted previously and since.' In other words, the bombers' radicalisation seems to have occurred during engagement with others, rather than stemming from a sense of alienation while sitting at home, and in a public space rather than in a private room in a mosque or anywhere else.
As Faisal Devji, author of Landscapes of the Jihad, argues: `These men [did not] cut themselves off from British society; instead their politics and their bonding are conducted in the full glare of public scrutiny.. Most of the London bombers' acts of bonding occurred in public - not in mosques but on rafting expeditions and at [paint-ball] shooting games, in clubs and gyms. There is nothing traditionally religious, or private, about that.'
There is something very new here. In the past, small violent sects or cults tended to separate themselves from the mainstream. For example, the People's Temple cult set up a bizarre commune in Jonestown, Guyana, in the mid-Seventies, where eventually 913 of them died in a mass suicide. David Koresh's cultish Branch Davidians also removed themselves from mainstream society; 76 of their members eventually died following an assault by armed FBI men. Or think of something like Charles Manson's murderous Family group which was formed in the late 1960s. Individuals involved in these kinds of groups tended to break off links with their families, refused to engage with society's institutions, and they often set up their own communities so that members could be exposed to sect-like thinking on an hourly and daily basis. This often had the effect of transforming individuals' thought patterns and behaviour, enabling them to carry out often horrendous acts of violence. For example, the Family's self-separation from the mainstream allowed them to transform into individuals capable of murdering a heavily pregnant woman (the actress Sharon Tate) and other civilians.
The 7/7 bombers, however, remained at the heart of the mainstream, living with their families, hanging out and playing cricket with their friends, attending anti-war marches, and using public outdoor sporting activities as an opportunity to bond. This suggests, very strongly, that they are a product of mainstream British society rather than of neglect or foreign radicalisation.
Getting their ideas from the mainstream
Even the bombers' political motivation - to the extent that we know about it - was a product of mainstream and contemporary trends, rather than being some strange, exotic religious duty or something `bullied' into them.
Both the 7/7 ringleader Mohammad Sidique Khan and his close friend and fellow bomber Shehzad Tanweer made `martyr videos', in which they expressed anger with Britain's foreign policy, especially, in Tanweer's words, with its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Peter Taylor argues that foreign policy failures, or at least perceptions of failures, were key to the `radicalisation' of the 7/7 group. He writes: `I have no doubt that Iraq is the single most important motivating, radicalising factor for young Muslims who are so disposed in this country, or the USA, or elsewhere.' Others argue that Western foreign policy actually nurtures al-Qaeda; it has `greatly helped al-Qaeda to achieve its goals by causing discussion, dissent, alienation and radicalisation in multi-ethnic communities in Western Europe'. Veteran left-wing commentator John Pilger went so far as to describe 7/7 as `Blair's bombs'.
Here, again, we have an idea that 7/7 was a largely foreign enterprise. The argument is that Britain and the West's foreign policy made some Muslims feel alienated and angry and led the 7/7 bombers to take violent action. It is argued that the bombers made an essentially political response to the war in Iraq: we are told they were `radicalised' by it, in a political and active sense. This misses the point about the terrorists' claims to have been motivated by foreign policy, which again is a mainstream response rather than any kind of peculiarly Muslim anger with wars overseas. The 7/7 bombers did not make an anti-imperialist strike against British foreign policy or Western imperialism more broadly; rather they were expressing a sense of disgruntlement with British life and politics through the issue of Iraq.
This is in no way unique. In the past three years, Iraq has become the issue through which many British citizens have experienced and expressed their sense of dislocation from public and political life, as evidenced in the gathering of one million citizens to protest against the war in Hyde Park, London, in February 2003. That was not a traditional anti-imperialist demonstration but a gathering of various strata of British society, from the young to the old, workers through to the middle classes, who claimed that they were `not being listened to' by the British government and felt increasingly distant from the Blairite project. The 7/7 bombers expressed this same, mainstream sense of angst with contemporary British life, only in a more violent form. There was nothing peculiar or original about their focus on foreign policy - that is the issue through which displeasure with or cynicism about the authorities is expressed in contemporary Britain. The bombers' violent outrage can be seen as a more bloody demand that government `listen to us and take our concerns seriously'.
In other ways, too, the 7/7 bombers, as well as other alleged radical Islamists, are products very much of mainstream British ideas. According to the government's report on 7/7, Sidique Khan, for example, was a strong believer in encouraging young people to stay fit and healthy. Apparently his talks to young Muslims, usually given in a gym, focused on `clean living, staying away from crime and drugs, and the value of sport and outdoor activity'. This script could have been written by any New Labour government apparatchik, who have made healthy living and sport into key planks of their interventionist policy to shape and mould our lifestyles.
For the government, promoting good health can very often turn into berating and even punishing those who are seen as unhealthy or obese or feckless. Could it be the same for radical Islamists? A group of British Muslim men from Crawley in West Sussex is currently on trial, accused of plotting a terrorist attack on British soil. It has been alleged that they discussed blowing up a nightclub or poisoning booze at football grounds. One of them allegedly said of nightclubs: `No one can put their hands up and say they are innocent... those slags dancing around.' A witness claims the gang also talked about `poisoning football fans by contaminating beer cans and burgers'. They also allegedly discussed blowing up the Bluewater shopping centre in north-east Kent, which, thanks to some pretty degraded media coverage and political attention has become famous (or perhaps infamous) as the haunt of `chavs'.
The truth of these allegations remains to be decided by a jury. But if anybody really did plot such things, then it seems to me they were more influenced by contemporary British culture than foreign Islamism. It has become de rigueur recently, particularly in political and media circles, to slate the working classes for their binge-drinking and generally bad behaviour. Officials fret over the sight of young girls in mini-skirts falling down drunk, while TV documentaries and newspaper articles expose the apparently seedy and violent life of `football hooligans'. It is also open season on chavs. One website, for example, refers to the Bluewater shopping centre as `the most chav-infested place on the face of the Earth', overrun by `the Burberry-clad hordes'. If a group of men did talk about attacking `slags', poisoning football fans and blowing up Bluewater chavs, they could very well have been taking their cue from mainstream fear and loathing of these sections of society rather than from some Pakistani `Mr Big'.
The politics of pity and identity
What of the 7/7 bombers' belief that they could speak and act on behalf of Muslims everywhere, the ummah? John Reid bemoans the attempts of certain radical Islamists to create `no-go areas' for British officials, where only Muslims will be welcome. Surely this shows that certain radical Islamists, and the 7/7 bombers themselves, were influenced by foreign al-Qaeda-style ideas about the need to stand up and fight for Muslims around the world?
Actually, even this aspect of the 7/7 bombers' actions was shaped much more by contemporary British and Western culture than it was by foreign radicalism. In Sidique Khan and his colleagues' belief that they, as Muslims, could represent all other Muslims, we can glimpse today's undemocratic politics of identity, which defines people by their origin and even skin colour rather than by their political convictions or allegiances.
Over the past 20 years, the politics of identity has superseded the old politics of left and right, replacing traditional collectivities with sectionalised communities which each apparently have their own needs and interests. The politics of identity plays down traditional democratic forms in favour of elevating personal experience as the defining factor of political action on the world. Thus, individuals can speak for others who share their identity, even if they were never elected by them, or have never even met them. As Munira Mirza has argued on spiked: `[I]n a world where any old hack can be called a "community leader", it is hardly surprising that [Khan and Tanweer] also thought they were qualified to speak [on behalf of all Muslims]. What Khan and Tanweer's terrible action shows is the price of endless, meaningless community consultation, where some people are rewarded political power for merely being the right skin colour or religion.'
Likewise, Khan and Co's decision to act on behalf of others, rather than for their own self-interest or for a democratic community, is a very mainstream form of political action. In our post-political, identity-directed era, a great number of groups claims to act in the interests of people they actually have few or no links with, and from whom they certainly have not won any kind of democratic mandate. So NGOs and charities claim to act on behalf of the people of Africa; Greenpeace and other environmentalist campaigners say they act to protect future generations, those who are not even born yet; anti-abortion campaigners act for the unborn; campaign groups like Fathers 4 Justice, despite being tiny in terms of membership and support, claim to act for all fathers; anti-poverty campaigners increasingly focus on the issue of child poverty, speaking, apparently, for those voiceless children neglected by society and possibly even their own parents.
Each of these groups presumes to represent great numbers of people even though they have never submitted their ideas or personnel to the rigour of any kind of mass elective process. At a time when political collectivities and solidarities are in decline, we can see the emergence of a new, profoundly anti-democratic politics of pity - a politics which vicariously, and often patronisingly, campaigns for others who are apparently less able to articulate their grievances, rather than for a self- or community interest. The 7/7 bombers did precisely the same: they acted for all oppressed Muslims, without first consulting them or even trying to win support for their actions within their local communities or families. They were a product of identity politics and victim culture more than radical foreign Islamism....
The 7/7 bombers were no foreign infiltration; nor were they necessarily the product of having been neglected by the mainstream. Rather, they were the mainstream: their political thought and their style of action were shaped by contemporary British ideas and values. From their bonding in public places to their adoption of Iraq as the issue through which to express their dislocation, from their narcissistic elevation of identity to their use of the body for transcendence, their terrorist act was made here at home. It was literally homegrown terrorism. The 7/7 bombers, like other radical Islamists, were moulded by the same politics of identity and angst, and the same suspicion of modern life, that is widespread in Western societies - and which expresses itself in less violent forms in anti-capitalist protests, green movements, new religious movements and other contemporary outfits. What distinguishes radical Islamists, of course, is their use of often horrendous violence. This can be seen as a consequence of the fact that radical Islamism, unlike other contemporary identities, provides its adherents with a distinct sense of being outsiders, and with readymade, off-the-peg identities that allow them to contextualise their very Western disgruntlement as being part of some seemingly grand war between Muslims and infidels.
John Reid and others need a second reality check on homegrown terrorism. They should stop looking for explanations overseas, and explore what the 7/7 bombings and the fashion for radical Islamism reveals about Britain and the West today. 7/7 was less an attack from without than a scream of rage from within, where the thought and action of contemporary society was turned against that very society; it was less evidence of any kind of `clash of civilisations' and more the consequence of the decline and fall of Western civilisation and its move into a new era of identity, narcissism and malaise. The 7/7 atrocity was a very British bombing
More here
Down with carbon colonialism
Did you know that the money you donate to carbon-offsetting schemes is often spent on programmes that stifle development in the Third World?
`When you drink one, Africa drinks one too.' So says the Onederful advertisement on hoardings around London, promoting a new soft drink for the caring executive classes. `All profits', it boasts, `go to build unique roundabout water pumps'. While you quench your thirst after a workout in the gym, children in Africa are getting a workout in order that they can have a drink. These water pumps, celebrated in Cameron Sinclair's latest book Design Like You Give A Damn, are designed to look like a children's roundabout. Ingeniously, each playful rotation raises water from a well, and so youngsters can now do something socially responsible instead of just playing selfishly for themselves.
But regardless of the paternalistic pretension of this scheme (this roundabout is nothing other than a hand pump), and its deception (this is child labour dressed up as doing children a favour), this is a way of acclimatising the Third World to their own lack of development and infrastructure. Children in developing countries want iPods like anyone else, but schemes such as this alter the existing situation just enough that their poverty doesn't look so bad to the Western eye.
Back in the Eighties, Bob Geldof's Live Aid threw down a conscious challenge to the public to `Give us your fucking money'. Not very diplomatic and more than a little contemptuous; but at least he was prepared to engage us and try to earn our money. More recently, charities and campaigns have been searching for more novel, reflexive or unconscious ways to be charitable. Tapping into Western consumer culture is the latest hassle-free method of charitable giving. This is charity without the inconvenience of inconvenience, without the annoyance of having to convince someone of the merits of the case. While this avoids the hassle of engaging in why the organisation's work is important, it also circumvents the possibility of more active engagement.
This model was best exemplified by Bono's RED designer Motorola mobile phone. Buying a phone anyway? Why not buy this trendy one for a little bit more and the proceeds will let a black baby live for another day or two. No skin off your nose (see Why the new Amex card makes me see RED, by Daniel Ben-Ami).
Subverting the everyday into a political act still needs some kind of acknowledgement - hence the need for some recognisable object that indicates what has been done: a wristband, a phone, or a credit card. `Brand Aid' provides a way to contribute without interrupting your daily life, while those in the know will be aware that you've done your bit.
Climate change: a feelgood crisis
The latest stage in this creeping process of unwitting charitable activity makes Bono's sanctimoniousness sound positively engaging. As Africa has slipped down the political agenda, climate change has moved centre stage as the ultimate feelgood crisis. This is a moral dilemma with no argument needed; there is general agreement, it seems, that global warming is potentially devastating and that `something has to be done'.
A quarter of a century ago, Geldof saw people as part of the solution - his beef at the time was with intransigent politicians. Today, aid agencies, especially those working on environmental projects, frequently see people as the problem. The more consumer-driven, modern or economically advanced we become, the more we are deemed to be harming the future of the planet. The consequences of seeing ordinary actions and lifestyles as inherently detrimental to the planet are paradoxical, reinforcing both a sense of self-loathing as well as a moral piety. The Guardian offers some assistance in that `if you really can't, or don't want to, change your lifestyle to reduce the damage you do to the planet, you could consider doing something to offset it'.
Eco-aid giving has now been turned into a contemporary form of absolution, saving you from the guilt of the modern world, best exemplified by `carbon offsets'. Whatever you do, from driving a car to taking a holiday to boiling a kettle of water, gives rise to carbon emissions. Having fewer cups of tea is one way of reducing your `carbon footprint' (the amount of carbon that you produce through your actions) and is seen as a positive objective. Having a zero-emissions (or even a positive feedback) effect is even better. Planting a tree, for example, will help produce oxygen and remove some CO2 from the atmosphere. Powering your home from your own wind turbine or solar cells can mean that surplus power can be fed back into the system resulting in a net positive carbon impact.
Ironically, these environmental organisations assume that we are so wrapped up in Western consumer culture that change has to be engineered through the subversion of that very consumer culture. Thus, environmental groups are now using consumerism - the traditional object of their ire - as a way of legitimating their programme of activities without the consumer necessarily knowing about it. This cynical approach to funders - or donors as they used to be called - is surely a new low in the long history of environmental contempt for consumers.
The real irony, of course, is that most of these campaigning organisations are large businesses themselves. ClimateCare, for example, `was the idea of eco-entrepreneur Mike Mason'. Brian Wilson, who was energy minister in Blair's government until 2003, recently became the chairman of the UK operations board of Airtricity, the Irish-based renewable energy company constructing windfarms all over Ireland and beyond. Both Land Rover and British Gas have bought into ClimateCare's programme of offsets.
The non-executive board members of CarbonNeutral comprise a venture capitalist, an investment banker and an ex-manager at Shell. These examples show that big business is content to do business with environmentalists - and why not? After all, these environmental companies are proper moneymaking concerns that are gratefully receiving your donations.
For some eco-businesses, instead of developing a profitable business plan to encourage shareholder investment (with the attendant awkwardness of accountability), or to manufacture and sell useful products to raise capital, they prefer to use donations to prop up their organisations. Others prefer to provide their more discerning clientele with a carbon-free environmental service as an added-value treat. Still others are diverting resources into lo-tech (carbon-free) technologies as a way of capturing a new market share. Carbon neutrality is, for all businesses, simply an exercise in corporate social responsibility.
Passive giving
So combining the worst elements of all the previous trends with a few new ones, environmental campaigners are now asking people to `donate' in the most passive way possible. Students at Linacre College, Oxford may not realise that Thabit Al-Murani, their student environmental representative, has pledged around 1,250 pounds of their funds to ClimateCare to make the college the first carbon neutral college in Oxbridge
The Carbon Footprint agency (motto: `It doesn't cost the Earth to save the planet') has done a number of deals with third parties to make saving the planet as painless as possible. For example, you can join WeightWatchers and Carbon Footprint will offset 1500kg of CO2; or 2500kg when you subscribe to match.com dating agency. What does this mean? Well, in simple terms, match.com will give a sum of money, via Carbon Footprint, to a carbon neutral campaigning group to do good works. The financial sum has been assessed as the cost of whatever is needed to absorb an equivalent amount of carbon that has been emitted as part of your everyday activities. In the past it might have been called a discount, whereas now it is disguised as an ethical trade-off.
The World Land Trust (WLT) is offering to offset 140kg of your despicable carbon usage if you simply send them a text message. What could this mean? Well, simply that the text nets WLT 1.50 pounds (after network charges have been deducted) and they will plant a tree to the equivalent amount (about a twigful). Call me cynical, but the WLT is a conservation organisation whose very raison d'etre is to plant trees around the world, so it all seems like a canny way to get more cash and a higher profile. And while they boast that `you can sleep soundly, safe in the knowledge that we have taken care of [your emissions] for you', it offers texters the chance to win `free carbon neutral flights to Tenerife'. Climate Relief, on the other hand, will send an unsuspecting friend a 20 pound gift voucher worth 100kg emissions. Ideal for the man who has everything.
The Observer claims that if you've done 120 school runs in a 4x4, then 1.50 pounds should be enough to clear your conscience and if you buy your 4x4 from Autobid.com then they'll offset 3 tonnes of carbon (5). (Before you get too excited, this salesman patter simply nets the equivalent of a 30 pound discount.) If you are planning on holding an event to explain all this, the WLT (not to be confused with the Woodland Trust) asks for a `contribution of 1,000 pounds or above [to] offset the CO2 travel and venue emissions [sic] from a business conference or training event.' But for the really guilty, they suggest that `an investment of o20,000 or above can offset at least 800 tonnes of carbon dioxide (close to the annual heating and lighting-related emissions of 140 households)' (6). Presumably, then, this is what used to be called a `subsidy' to shore up a company, but now it is an `investment' in the future of the planet. And it can be done from your home with the minimum of fuss or involvement.
It is reputed that each tree planted by one of these company's offsets about 730kg CO2 over its lifetime, whereas each person actually uses/ creates about 7,000kg per year (500 tonnes a lifetime). So model citizens should plant 10 trees per year for the rest of their lives. As it happens, temperate forests in developing countries such as the US, UK and Canada have actually been expanding over the past 40 years, so things aren't as black as they're painted, even in the terms of the debate. However, let not the facts get in the way of an ecological bandwagon.
You don't even have to be a charity or eco-company to do it. BP has launched a new non-profit initiative called TargetNeutral to counter the fact that `a typical motorist will generate around four tonnes of CO2 over 10,000 miles, which would cost o20 to offset'. Simply pull up at a service station, fill up and if you are using one of their loyalty cards, you can automatically pay the sum to TargetNeutral and BP will match it. You haven't got to do a thing; it's automatic. If you're not yet convinced, rest assured that Jonathan Porritt, chair of the UK Sustainable Development Forum will be part of `an independent panel' to oversee its actions. Mind you, BP isn't totally convinced, asking: `Is BP genuine in trying to tackle the problem of global warming, or is it simply a PR stunt that jumps on the green bandwagon? We'd like to hear from you.' If you buy into BP's selfless motives, your money goes to fund wind turbine projects in India and Mexico that BP are committed to building anyway. But any extra cash wouldn't go amiss.
Carbon colonialism
Carbon trading is everywhere, from estate agents to gifts, from insurance products to pension schemes. Take the figures with a pinch of salt though, because they are, effectively, made up. Lots of websites have set up basic software programmes to allow you to assess your impact on the planet, but there seems to be little consistency. CO2Balance also say that o9-worth of CO2 emissions (0.16 tonnes) are caused by travelling 600 miles in a 1.4L petrol-engine car, whereas ClimateCare says that the same car journey racks up 0.18 tonnes of CO2, costing 1.35 pounds. Then again, Carbon Footprint assess it as 0.149 tonnes, which can be offset `by planting 0 trees'. The Scotsman suggests that driving 12,000 miles in a family saloon releases 3.6 tonnes and costs just o20, whereas Newcastle Council states that one tonne of CO2 offset costs 13.65 pounds . So it seems that if you shop around, you can get some good deals. but maybe that'll just make you feel even more guilty.
Obviously, the basis of carbon trading schemes is that they can't offset carbon produced in the West, say, by investing in a technology that produces carbon emissions in the offset country. That would be `irresponsible'. Therefore all of these agencies that have sprung up over the past five or so years are engaged in low- or alternative-technology projects in the under-developed world.
ClimateCare, for instance, invests in low or zero-carbon emissions projects in Kazakhstan, among other places. Here, the silly Kazakhstanis use `traditional incandescent lights in buildings' but by donating to ClimateCare, you are investing in a project called `Education for Sustainability and Climate Change in Central Asia' which delivers `workshops to 98 schools to teach children about climate change. supported by posters, CDs and a teachers' handbook.' The project partners are `developing a monitoring and verification plan', implying that if the scheme doesn't meet target objectives then something'll have to give. Oh, and they can forget about real development using more carbon intensive and effective technology.
ClimateCare also funds projects in India, where it is encouraging villagers to stop using forest wood for fuel so that the indigenous tiger's habitat is preserved; or it employs 400 people in Uganda to clear grassland to plant trees to satisfy the needs of the indigenous primate population. Did you know that you were funding a scheme that promotes wildlife over people - even wildlife that eats people? And what's that got to do with climate change? Given that the carbon offset scheme is premised on the fact that human activity is endangering nature, I suppose that it is a small and logical step to put animals before people.
There are many such examples. United by the allusion to the nobility of the indigenous tribespeople, or the overseeing and monitoring of their performance in the carbon-offset programmes, these initiatives seem faintly colonial. In Mayer Hillman's book, How We Can Save The Planet, he argues that giving carbon credits on an equal individual basis across the globe would be a win-win situation for everyone. While we in the West, he argued, may not be so keen to give up our living standards, what does a person in the Third World want with all those carbon credits? After all, they have no car, phone or significant travel plans. This leaves them `free' to sell the credits off to salvage the conscience of the West. Unfortunately, the consequential maintenance of underdevelopment is the real truth behind carbon offset schemes, and one that, unsurprisingly, the marketing managers don't really want you to know about.
Carbon offsets are premised on the notion that modern lifestyles are inherently damaging to the planet: that you are part of the problem. If you agree, then the answer is simple: reduce your consumption, only travel locally (using muscle power), campaign against housebuilding and give generously to the Third World for schemes that treat the environment as sacrosanct. However, bear in mind that even the water-pump roundabout in Africa, paid for by the profits of a bottled water company in the West, can't really be argued to be zero carbon. After all, the collective CO2 exhalation of malnourished children forced to push a massive playground roundabout in order to extract water is bound to contribute in some small way to the melting of the polar icecaps.
If, however, you think that the under-developed world needs development, then the CO2 equation has to be put on the back burner. The chief priority is to encourage the liberation of millions of people from grinding poverty, not to make them guilty about wanting the material standards that the West has.
Once the under-developed world starts developing, we will encourage an enlightened view of humanity. Similarly, a more enlightened view of humanity can kickstart that development. Meeting this dialectical challenge requires a human-centred, rather than an eco-centric, view of the world. Once we reclaim this agenda for humanity, only then might there be scope for setting a positive agenda for change to deal with environmental factors. At the moment, sanctifying the environment, combined with an anti-humanist guilt, keeps half the world in penury while the other half ponders their purchasing decisions. Unfortunately, consumer choices and carbon offsets are designed to maintain the iniquitous status quo, and make you feel good about it.
Source
"Dangerous" Information
We read:
"Sophisticated ultrasound scans that show foetuses as early as 12 weeks appearing to "walk" in the womb have had a dangerous impact on the public debate over abortion, leading doctors and scientists said yesterday.
Source
Ireland no longer "British"
We read:
"It may be 57 years too late for many an Irish republican, but yesterday Folens, the publishers, said it was introducing a more "correct" version of its school atlas that would no longer include Ireland as part of the British Isles....
John O'Connor, managing director of Folens, said that no final decision had yet been taken as to what would replace the British Isles title in the relevant section, but it might be simply Ireland and England - although that would risk the wrath of the Scots and the Welsh.
Source
Must not Call Political Opponents "Autistic"
Even if they do seem that way
We read:
"The Shadow Chancellor was accused of mocking hundreds of thousands of people with learning difficulties after he joked that Gordon Brown was autistic.
Source
The journalist to whom the remark was made explains it here. The "incorrect" politician was of course a Conservative.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
BRITAIN'S DOTTY METHOD OF ENCOURAGING PUBLIC TRANSPORT USE
And this under one of the world's "greenest" governments!
Thousands of seats are being ripped out of trains to create more standing room as a cheap solution to overcrowding on the busiest rail franchise in Britain. South West Trains is installing extra handholds and creating "perches" in place of seats. Almost 500 carriages, including some which entered service only two years ago, will lose more than a fifth of their seats. The increase in empty floor space will allow the Government to claim that it is meeting targets on reducing overcrowding. Passengers with 0.54 square metres of floor space are not deemed to be on an overcrowded train. (That could, for example, be an area 60cm by 90cm, that is slightly less than three double-page spreads of The Times, which laid toe-to-toe measure 60cm by 108cm).
South West Trains is already officially the most overcrowded franchise and is forecast to carry 20 per cent more passengers by 2016. The Department for Transport does not consider a train to be overcrowded until there are more than 35 people standing for every 100 with seats. But South West Trains breaches even what the department describes as "the acceptable number of passengers in excess of capacity". The 8.04am from Isleworth to Waterloo has 792 seats but carries an average of 1,138 passengers (44 standing per 100 seats), according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. The 6.42am from Haslemere to Waterloo has 598 seats but carries 845 passengers (41 standing per 100 seats). The company, which carries 160 million passengers a year on a network stretching from the South Coast to London Waterloo, said that the changes "will allow more people to stand in comfort".
SWT claimed last month that it would increase the number of seats on peak suburban services by 20 per cent under its new ten-year contract. But when questioned by The Times, the company said that this had been a mistake and that much of the promised new capacity would be in the form of standing room rather than seats. Under the terms of the contract, it add ten carriages to its fleet of 1,400. The company has already begun removing 72 seats from its 20-year-old class 455 trains, which operate between Waterloo and the suburbs, including Chessington, Kingston, Guildford, Epsom, Hampton Court and Shepperton. It is also planning to take seats out of 28 Desiro trains, which were delivered from their German manufacturer only two years ago. These trains serve Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking and dozens of other stations.
A spokeswoman said: "In an ideal world no one would have to stand but we do not live in an ideal world. We recognise that passenger numbers are continuing to grow and we are reconfiguring the trains to give the best possible capacity." The company believes that creating wider aisles will encourage people to move away from the doors, allowing all the available floor space to be used. It claims that most passengers who cannot find a seat have to stand for only 20 minutes.
Britain has the fastest growing railway in Europe, with passenger numbers up 42 per cent in the past decade. In 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority proposed lengthening platforms on routes into Waterloo to accommodate trains with up to 12 carriages. The authority was abolished last year before it could make any progress towards this. Network Rail made similar suggestions in March but admitted that there was no budget or timetable for the improvements. The Government made no mention of lengthening platforms when it awarded the new ten-year franchise last month. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: "We must provide longer trains rather than squeezing more standing passengers into existing carriages. It is unacceptable that people are paying more for their tickets but are increasingly less likely to get a seat."
Source
MORE SEMI-PRIVATIZATION OF THE NHS
It's their only remaining option
A struggling NHS hospital is on the verge of being taken over by a foundation trust. Heart of England, a much-vaunted foundation trust in Birmingham, is poised to acquire the nearby Good Hope Hospital, which has been in dire financial straits. Good Hope would be formally dissolved and its assets, liabilities and staff taken over. Foundation trusts, unlike ordinary ones, are able to borrow, make surpluses and invest while also being at risk of going bust. In its first year of operation Good Hope made a 5 million pound surplus on a 280 million turnover.
According to the Financial Times, Heart of England will be guaranteed some business from the strategic health authority. The deal will not be finalised until it has been agreed how much of Good Hope's historic debt of 27 million can be written off or absorbed by the strategic health authority. Monitor, the foundation trust regulator, said: "This approach will not be suitable for every NHS hospital that gets into financial difficulties, because Good Hope can be made viable. But we expect there will be similar transactions, in perhaps double digits."
Source
Should kids stop eating crisps?
Panic: `The pack-a-day habit threatening our kids' health,' intones the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to promote its Food4Thought campaign. According to the BHF, eating one pack of crisps per day will lead children to consume almost five litres of cooking oil in the course of a year. Their press release notes that half of British schoolchildren `admit' to eating a pack of crisps everyday while almost one-in-five eat two packs or more.
Other nutritional shockers include the finding that three quarters of mothers feed their children ready meals or takeaways more than three times a week and only 13 per cent of boys and 12 per cent of girls reported eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.
Don't panic: This campaign is as heavily laden with spin as the crisps are with oil. The reference to consuming a `pack-a-day' has a strong whiff of cigarettes about it. Since in the popular imagination, `cigarettes=death', the implication is that eating so many crisps will have a similar impact. Yet, while the picture of a little girl pouring a gallon container of oil down her throat looks repulsive, the comparison is no less grotesque.
Oil is a perfectly normal and healthy part of the diet. Eating nothing but crisps would be quite likely to produce a greasy and rather anaemic looking child, but as long as there is some variety in children's diets (and not just between cheese and onion and smokey bacon), there shouldn't be a problem.
Another way of putting that `almost five litres of oil' figure would be that children consume about two-and-a-half teaspoons of oil per pack. In energy terms, the oil contributes about 100 calories. Not exactly devastating. But the ruse of adding up a year's consumption is ludicrous. For example, if a child drinks a litre of water per day, that means they consume 365 litres per year - enough to fill four baths. If they attempted to drink all of it at once they'd certainly drown. Yet no-one is suggesting that drinking water is bad for you.
There is no such thing as `bad' foods, only bad diets. Even then, the link between eating fat and ill-health has never been backed up by the evidence. When major studies have been conducted into the effect of changing diet to a low-fat or low saturated fat intake, the results have been extremely disappointing for those seeking to establish such a link. Rather than targeting health campaigns at children which cause unnecessary worry, finding the root causes of heart disease and better ways to treat it more effectively would be the right path to take. Unlike our children's diets, it's always proven to be more fruitful.
Source
Nutty Church of England blames Christians, not Muslims for abuse of women: "Misguided and distorted versions of Christian belief have contributed to domestic abuse in Britain, says the Church of England. And the Church itself has not done enough to protect victims. The report, which has been backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says that domestic abuse is as "prevalent among Christians" as among other groups and identifies problem areas in Christian tradition."
And this under one of the world's "greenest" governments!
Thousands of seats are being ripped out of trains to create more standing room as a cheap solution to overcrowding on the busiest rail franchise in Britain. South West Trains is installing extra handholds and creating "perches" in place of seats. Almost 500 carriages, including some which entered service only two years ago, will lose more than a fifth of their seats. The increase in empty floor space will allow the Government to claim that it is meeting targets on reducing overcrowding. Passengers with 0.54 square metres of floor space are not deemed to be on an overcrowded train. (That could, for example, be an area 60cm by 90cm, that is slightly less than three double-page spreads of The Times, which laid toe-to-toe measure 60cm by 108cm).
South West Trains is already officially the most overcrowded franchise and is forecast to carry 20 per cent more passengers by 2016. The Department for Transport does not consider a train to be overcrowded until there are more than 35 people standing for every 100 with seats. But South West Trains breaches even what the department describes as "the acceptable number of passengers in excess of capacity". The 8.04am from Isleworth to Waterloo has 792 seats but carries an average of 1,138 passengers (44 standing per 100 seats), according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act. The 6.42am from Haslemere to Waterloo has 598 seats but carries 845 passengers (41 standing per 100 seats). The company, which carries 160 million passengers a year on a network stretching from the South Coast to London Waterloo, said that the changes "will allow more people to stand in comfort".
SWT claimed last month that it would increase the number of seats on peak suburban services by 20 per cent under its new ten-year contract. But when questioned by The Times, the company said that this had been a mistake and that much of the promised new capacity would be in the form of standing room rather than seats. Under the terms of the contract, it add ten carriages to its fleet of 1,400. The company has already begun removing 72 seats from its 20-year-old class 455 trains, which operate between Waterloo and the suburbs, including Chessington, Kingston, Guildford, Epsom, Hampton Court and Shepperton. It is also planning to take seats out of 28 Desiro trains, which were delivered from their German manufacturer only two years ago. These trains serve Wimbledon, Surbiton, Woking and dozens of other stations.
A spokeswoman said: "In an ideal world no one would have to stand but we do not live in an ideal world. We recognise that passenger numbers are continuing to grow and we are reconfiguring the trains to give the best possible capacity." The company believes that creating wider aisles will encourage people to move away from the doors, allowing all the available floor space to be used. It claims that most passengers who cannot find a seat have to stand for only 20 minutes.
Britain has the fastest growing railway in Europe, with passenger numbers up 42 per cent in the past decade. In 2003 the Strategic Rail Authority proposed lengthening platforms on routes into Waterloo to accommodate trains with up to 12 carriages. The authority was abolished last year before it could make any progress towards this. Network Rail made similar suggestions in March but admitted that there was no budget or timetable for the improvements. The Government made no mention of lengthening platforms when it awarded the new ten-year franchise last month. Chris Grayling, the Shadow Transport Secretary, said: "We must provide longer trains rather than squeezing more standing passengers into existing carriages. It is unacceptable that people are paying more for their tickets but are increasingly less likely to get a seat."
Source
MORE SEMI-PRIVATIZATION OF THE NHS
It's their only remaining option
A struggling NHS hospital is on the verge of being taken over by a foundation trust. Heart of England, a much-vaunted foundation trust in Birmingham, is poised to acquire the nearby Good Hope Hospital, which has been in dire financial straits. Good Hope would be formally dissolved and its assets, liabilities and staff taken over. Foundation trusts, unlike ordinary ones, are able to borrow, make surpluses and invest while also being at risk of going bust. In its first year of operation Good Hope made a 5 million pound surplus on a 280 million turnover.
According to the Financial Times, Heart of England will be guaranteed some business from the strategic health authority. The deal will not be finalised until it has been agreed how much of Good Hope's historic debt of 27 million can be written off or absorbed by the strategic health authority. Monitor, the foundation trust regulator, said: "This approach will not be suitable for every NHS hospital that gets into financial difficulties, because Good Hope can be made viable. But we expect there will be similar transactions, in perhaps double digits."
Source
Should kids stop eating crisps?
Panic: `The pack-a-day habit threatening our kids' health,' intones the British Heart Foundation (BHF) to promote its Food4Thought campaign. According to the BHF, eating one pack of crisps per day will lead children to consume almost five litres of cooking oil in the course of a year. Their press release notes that half of British schoolchildren `admit' to eating a pack of crisps everyday while almost one-in-five eat two packs or more.
Other nutritional shockers include the finding that three quarters of mothers feed their children ready meals or takeaways more than three times a week and only 13 per cent of boys and 12 per cent of girls reported eating the recommended five portions of fruit and vegetables daily.
Don't panic: This campaign is as heavily laden with spin as the crisps are with oil. The reference to consuming a `pack-a-day' has a strong whiff of cigarettes about it. Since in the popular imagination, `cigarettes=death', the implication is that eating so many crisps will have a similar impact. Yet, while the picture of a little girl pouring a gallon container of oil down her throat looks repulsive, the comparison is no less grotesque.
Oil is a perfectly normal and healthy part of the diet. Eating nothing but crisps would be quite likely to produce a greasy and rather anaemic looking child, but as long as there is some variety in children's diets (and not just between cheese and onion and smokey bacon), there shouldn't be a problem.
Another way of putting that `almost five litres of oil' figure would be that children consume about two-and-a-half teaspoons of oil per pack. In energy terms, the oil contributes about 100 calories. Not exactly devastating. But the ruse of adding up a year's consumption is ludicrous. For example, if a child drinks a litre of water per day, that means they consume 365 litres per year - enough to fill four baths. If they attempted to drink all of it at once they'd certainly drown. Yet no-one is suggesting that drinking water is bad for you.
There is no such thing as `bad' foods, only bad diets. Even then, the link between eating fat and ill-health has never been backed up by the evidence. When major studies have been conducted into the effect of changing diet to a low-fat or low saturated fat intake, the results have been extremely disappointing for those seeking to establish such a link. Rather than targeting health campaigns at children which cause unnecessary worry, finding the root causes of heart disease and better ways to treat it more effectively would be the right path to take. Unlike our children's diets, it's always proven to be more fruitful.
Source
Nutty Church of England blames Christians, not Muslims for abuse of women: "Misguided and distorted versions of Christian belief have contributed to domestic abuse in Britain, says the Church of England. And the Church itself has not done enough to protect victims. The report, which has been backed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, says that domestic abuse is as "prevalent among Christians" as among other groups and identifies problem areas in Christian tradition."
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
BRITISH CONSERVATIVES HAVE THE RIGHT IDEA
(When they're not scared of their own shadows)
David Cameron's policy chief has declared there will be "no limit" to privatisation of the National Health Service under a Conservative government. In comments that threaten to damage the Tories' carefully crafted new image on the eve of their conference in Bournemouth, Oliver Letwin has outlined plans for a huge increase in the use of private companies in healthcare provision. His vision would reduce the NHS to a commissioning body, with many patient services provided by a range of businesses.
Letwin, chairman of the Tories' policy review, said that contracting out healthcare was in the best interests of patients and any reputable organisation should be allowed to compete for the work. Andrew Lansley, shadow health secretary, has given only vague indications of the party's plans for the health service, focusing instead on the need to free it from red tape and Whitehall targets.
Letwin said the Tories would have "no hang-ups" about use of the private sector in healthcare, although the NHS would remain free of charge. Asked if there would be any limits, he said: "No limits, no. Let the commissioning bodies decide where patients can best be cured. If people can provide services under the NHS which are good services - social enterprises, private bodies or NHS foundations - if they can satisfy the commissioners within the NHS that the best way is through them, then they should be part of the show."
Conservative Central Office immediately tried to play down the remarks, insisting there was no plan to break up the NHS. Letwin's remarks threaten to undo months of work by Cameron and his team to convince voters of the party's commitment to public services. Labour strategists greeted his intervention with glee, saying it exposed the Tories' real intention to dismantle the NHS. "This plays perfectly into our hands," said one. "We'll say Cameron's touchy-feely image is all window dressing but underneath they are the same old Tories who believe `private sector good, public sector bad'. " Labour, which has extended the private sector's role in the NHS, has said that it expects independent operators to have no more than 10% of the business during its current term of office. Ed Balls, the Treasury minister and a close ally of Gordon Brown, said: "David Cameron's plan for the privatisation of the NHS means the end of free healthcare as we know it."
Letwin outlined his vision for the NHS as Cameron faces his first conference as leader. He is under pressure for his refusal to detail his policies since taking over from Michael Howard last year. In his opening speech today he is expected to say it would be "superficial" and "insubstantial" to "make up policies to meet the pressures of the moment". He will tell delegates that policies rushed out without careful consideration will not stand the test of time. "Policy without principle is like a house without foundations. We must think for the long term," he is expected to say.
Cameron will set out his big idea as "social responsibility" - that businesses, doctors, teachers and parents should be trusted to resolve their own problems rather than have solutions dictated to them by government: "When we see challenges to overcome, we do not just ask what government can do. We ask what people can do, what society can do." Cameron's advisers believe that although Labour's intentions have been good, it has tried to solve problems by imposing too many regulations, such as making it mandatory for parents to fit child booster seats in their cars or imposing targets on NHS trusts. "We are more in favour of supernannies than the nanny state," he will say. One example which Cameron may cite in his speech is allowing parents to use childcare tax credits to pay neighbours, friends or grandparents for looking after children - rather than, like Labour, restricting the state benefit to established local government schemes.
Source
Greens 'aid destruction of planet'
(What fun!)
Environmental groups are setting back the fight against global warming with misguided and irrational objections to nuclear power, according to Britain’s leading thinker about the future. Climate change will be the greatest of many significant challenges for humanity over the next century, and every tool available, including nuclear energy, will be needed to prevent it wrecking the planet, James Martin told The Times.
While the anti-nuclear campaign is well-intentioned, it fundamentally misunderstands the safety of the latest generation of reactors and threatens to hold back a technology that could be critical to the world’s future, he said.
The criticism of groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth by Dr Martin, a computer scientist and physicist, will be keenly felt as he is himself a prominent green who has spent much of his large IT and publishing fortune on research into global warming and environmental science. Last year, he donated £60 million to the University of Oxford to found the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, the first school of its kind dedicated to studying problems of the future such as climate change and emerging technologies.
Though nuclear power generates very low carbon emissions, most green lobby groups are opposed to it because of the problem of disposing of waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years, and the risks of an accident.
In The Meaning of the 21st Century, his new book published today, he names climate change as the greatest challenge currently facing humanity, and openly endorses nuclear power as part of the solution. The “fourth-generation” nuclear plants that could be built now are profoundly different from older designs, with safety features that make meltdown impossible, low waste output, and fuel that is not suitable for bombs, Dr Martin said.
He is keen on the pebble bed reactor, an experimental South African and Chinese design, in which the fuel is incapable of melting. A prototype has been built in Beijing. “With the pebble bed reactor, the fuel is easily disposed of, and it can be divorced absolutely from the bomb industry,” he said. Green critics of nuclear power, he said, are delaying adoption of this technology. “I think they are misguided. South Africa would have had a pebble bed reactor running by now if it hadn’t been for Greenpeace.”
His book sets out a number of grand challenges for the next 100 years. While the greatest of these is global warming, he also lists water shortages, which will lead to wars, the loss of global biodiversity, terrorism, diseases such as pandemic flu and HIV/Aids, and the emergence of biotechnology and artificial intelligence that could change the fundamental nature of humanity.
Nathan Argent, a Greenpeace spokesman, said: “While the fourth generation of reactors produce less waste by volume, they produce more of the most radioactive and long-lived waste, and there is still no safe way of dealing with this. We argue that the better way to tackle climate change is to decentralise power generation and make it more efficient.”
Source
Refreshing signs of returning sanity over school sport in Scotland
Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton but the battle against apathy in modern day Scotland is being lost on our school sports pitches. Jack McConnell has condemned the trend for non-competitive sport in Scottish schools, saying children should be pitched against each other to "foster aspiration and promote a sense of achievement".
The First Minister, in an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, said government inspectors would only award top marks to schools which encouraged competitive sport. In what is expected to become a manifesto commitment at the next Holyrood election, McConnell wants teachers to encourage results-driven games during PE classes and outside school hours. The move is an attempt to reverse the decline in school sports since the teachers' strike of 1985 and represents a direct attack on the growth in recent years of "potted sports" with no winners or losers, and sports days without prizes.
McConnell said: "There are far too many schools across Scotland where there is a minimum amount of competitive sport or still an aversion to competitive sport. "Whether or not a school promotes competitive sport will become one of the ways by which we measure whether a school is a good school. "I want to see us having a clear set of guidelines across Scotland, a very clear direction that we expect them to take: competitive sports days, competitive activities for youngsters both in school time and out of school time. "I would want to see the inspectorate measuring that as a key part of performance ."
In recent years some schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, North Lanarkshire, Fife, Aberdeen and Falkirk have had non-competitive sports days which have no individual winners and losers. The move dismayed Olympic swimming champion David Wilkie who recently claimed that political correctness and "inclusivity" in sport has fuelled a culture of defeatism north of the Border.
McConnell told Scotland on Sunday: "Competitive sport does a lot to stimulate the brain and make young people more alert, while it also gives young people something to aspire to, then keeps them working hard, hopefully giving them a sense of achievement. "It's an incredibly healthy thing. Unless we challenge youngsters at an early age then we're not going to have people competing on the athletics track or the football pitch."
McConnell, a former maths teacher, went on to blame the 1980s Conservative government for eroding the "community spirit" of school sports days, as strikes prompted many to stop sacrificing their free time to organise competitive sport.
The First Minister's intervention follows high-profile incidents where competitive sport was frowned upon. In 2002, Brian Harris, the head sports officer with Edinburgh city council, provoked criticism by suggesting that children on the losing side at a football match would be spared "psychological hurt" if the referee scored a few goals on their behalf. A year later the head teacher of an English primary school ruled that parents should be banned from school sports day because children would be "embarrassed" if they lost a race in front of them.
Fiona Hyslop, the SNP's education spokeswoman, said there was nothing wrong with backing competitive sports but "McConnell should get back to basics". She said: "The Executive, under his leadership, has failed to recruit enough PE teachers to replace those who are retiring. Nor has he delivered the two hours of PE that every pupil should receive at school."
Jamie McGrigor, the Scottish Conservatives' culture and sport spokesman, denies claims that the past Tory government was to blame. McGrigor said: "The Conservatives have always encouraged competitive sport. It has been Labour's socialist dogma of preferring dumbing down to excellence that is to blame. They see winning as elitist and the fact that some people are born to run faster than others as something to be ashamed of. I am delighted Jack McConnell wants to see far more competitive sport but he should remember that it was Labour that caused this problem in the first place."
Teachers and unions were also split on whether more competitive sport is needed. Ronnie Hamilton, principal teacher of PE at St Augustine's High School, in Edinburgh, which has 18 sports teams, including three girls' football sides, said: "I am more convinced than ever that competitive sport is a positive thing for everyone. In 39 years of teaching I cannot think of one instance where being included in healthy competition did not benefit a pupil."
However, David Eaglesham of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association (SSTA) dismissed the plans and accused McConnell of electioneering. He said: "League tables of which schools do the most competitive sport are exactly what we don't need. This would have to be something the First Minister negotiates with us. Teachers already devote a great deal of goodwill to assist competitive sport but goodwill is no way to operate a system that will later be assessed by government inspectors. I can't avoid thinking that there is an election coming up and that this influenced these comments."
Source
Unclear and present danger
The public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, Britain's anti-terror supremo says:
Britain's top counter-terrorist cop has no doubt the nature of the threat has changed dramatically. Peter Clarke, Scotland Yard's 51-year-old head of counter-terrorism, talks with quiet resolution about the challenge of Islamist terrorism and how it has turned British policing upside down. People often say to Clarke how well placed the British authorities must be to deal with Islamist terror given their long experience of Irish Republican Army killers. No, he responds emphatically. It's a whole new ball game with no defined rules of engagement or carefully delineated boundaries. "The current terrorist threat is almost the reverse of all those parameters," Clarke said in Canberra this week. "What we see is global in origin, global in ambition, global in reach. The networks are loose, they are fluid and they are incredibly resilient," Clarke told a security conference.
Defeating the threat demands a level of resources, including sustained surveillance, unprecedented in modern law enforcement. "Unless you have pace and scale on your side, you will fail to deal with these terrorist conspiracies that we are currently seeing," he stressed. Clarke tells Inquirer the threat posed by radical Islamists in Britain is growing in scale and complexity. "I think the only sensible conclusion is that it is ... because if you look at the pace of terrorist activity since 9/11, it's clearly unabated and there appears to be a consistency, almost a regularity, in the attack patterns. "I don't want to sound unnecessarily gloomy, but I don't see many positive signs in terms of it being diminished." He points out that British authorities have managed to foil four or five attacks in the past 12 months. But the "sad probability" is that another attack will get through at some time....
Clarke says Britain's experience of Islamist terror, including last year's London bombings and the recently thwarted plot to blow up airliners flying to the US, is driving far-reaching changes in the way police now operate. It used to be that police would only intervene in the final stages of a terrorist plot, making arrests at or near the point of attack, with the strongest possible weight of evidence to put before a court. However, Clarke says the scale of the threat means "we can no longer afford to wait until that moment". "It's a complete shift in scale. Mentally we have had to completely change our response in terms of interdiction and intervention to prevent an increased risk to the public."
Clarke says earlier action to pre-empt a mass casualty attack also dictates the need to engage closely with local communities as a key element of counter-terrorism strategy. He believes the British public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist terror groups. This is despite the fact there are now 90 people awaiting trial on terrorism charges. "We have a whole series of trials which over the coming months and years will unfold in the UK. When that hard evidence is produced the public are able to see what has been planned over the last months and years, that will contribute to their understanding of the threat."
Clarke warns it is vital that the aviation industry examines the implications of the foiled plot for air travel. The plotters had been planning to smuggle liquid explosives on board several planes. "I can't go into details about the methodology except to say its very innovative. That will give a clue to the fact that now in response ... new protective measures are required. The methodology is such that there must be an enduring threat to air transport." So a serious threat to aviation safety remains which has to be addressed? "Absolutely," comes the reply.
More here
(When they're not scared of their own shadows)
David Cameron's policy chief has declared there will be "no limit" to privatisation of the National Health Service under a Conservative government. In comments that threaten to damage the Tories' carefully crafted new image on the eve of their conference in Bournemouth, Oliver Letwin has outlined plans for a huge increase in the use of private companies in healthcare provision. His vision would reduce the NHS to a commissioning body, with many patient services provided by a range of businesses.
Letwin, chairman of the Tories' policy review, said that contracting out healthcare was in the best interests of patients and any reputable organisation should be allowed to compete for the work. Andrew Lansley, shadow health secretary, has given only vague indications of the party's plans for the health service, focusing instead on the need to free it from red tape and Whitehall targets.
Letwin said the Tories would have "no hang-ups" about use of the private sector in healthcare, although the NHS would remain free of charge. Asked if there would be any limits, he said: "No limits, no. Let the commissioning bodies decide where patients can best be cured. If people can provide services under the NHS which are good services - social enterprises, private bodies or NHS foundations - if they can satisfy the commissioners within the NHS that the best way is through them, then they should be part of the show."
Conservative Central Office immediately tried to play down the remarks, insisting there was no plan to break up the NHS. Letwin's remarks threaten to undo months of work by Cameron and his team to convince voters of the party's commitment to public services. Labour strategists greeted his intervention with glee, saying it exposed the Tories' real intention to dismantle the NHS. "This plays perfectly into our hands," said one. "We'll say Cameron's touchy-feely image is all window dressing but underneath they are the same old Tories who believe `private sector good, public sector bad'. " Labour, which has extended the private sector's role in the NHS, has said that it expects independent operators to have no more than 10% of the business during its current term of office. Ed Balls, the Treasury minister and a close ally of Gordon Brown, said: "David Cameron's plan for the privatisation of the NHS means the end of free healthcare as we know it."
Letwin outlined his vision for the NHS as Cameron faces his first conference as leader. He is under pressure for his refusal to detail his policies since taking over from Michael Howard last year. In his opening speech today he is expected to say it would be "superficial" and "insubstantial" to "make up policies to meet the pressures of the moment". He will tell delegates that policies rushed out without careful consideration will not stand the test of time. "Policy without principle is like a house without foundations. We must think for the long term," he is expected to say.
Cameron will set out his big idea as "social responsibility" - that businesses, doctors, teachers and parents should be trusted to resolve their own problems rather than have solutions dictated to them by government: "When we see challenges to overcome, we do not just ask what government can do. We ask what people can do, what society can do." Cameron's advisers believe that although Labour's intentions have been good, it has tried to solve problems by imposing too many regulations, such as making it mandatory for parents to fit child booster seats in their cars or imposing targets on NHS trusts. "We are more in favour of supernannies than the nanny state," he will say. One example which Cameron may cite in his speech is allowing parents to use childcare tax credits to pay neighbours, friends or grandparents for looking after children - rather than, like Labour, restricting the state benefit to established local government schemes.
Source
Greens 'aid destruction of planet'
(What fun!)
Environmental groups are setting back the fight against global warming with misguided and irrational objections to nuclear power, according to Britain’s leading thinker about the future. Climate change will be the greatest of many significant challenges for humanity over the next century, and every tool available, including nuclear energy, will be needed to prevent it wrecking the planet, James Martin told The Times.
While the anti-nuclear campaign is well-intentioned, it fundamentally misunderstands the safety of the latest generation of reactors and threatens to hold back a technology that could be critical to the world’s future, he said.
The criticism of groups such as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth by Dr Martin, a computer scientist and physicist, will be keenly felt as he is himself a prominent green who has spent much of his large IT and publishing fortune on research into global warming and environmental science. Last year, he donated £60 million to the University of Oxford to found the James Martin Institute for Science and Civilisation, the first school of its kind dedicated to studying problems of the future such as climate change and emerging technologies.
Though nuclear power generates very low carbon emissions, most green lobby groups are opposed to it because of the problem of disposing of waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years, and the risks of an accident.
In The Meaning of the 21st Century, his new book published today, he names climate change as the greatest challenge currently facing humanity, and openly endorses nuclear power as part of the solution. The “fourth-generation” nuclear plants that could be built now are profoundly different from older designs, with safety features that make meltdown impossible, low waste output, and fuel that is not suitable for bombs, Dr Martin said.
He is keen on the pebble bed reactor, an experimental South African and Chinese design, in which the fuel is incapable of melting. A prototype has been built in Beijing. “With the pebble bed reactor, the fuel is easily disposed of, and it can be divorced absolutely from the bomb industry,” he said. Green critics of nuclear power, he said, are delaying adoption of this technology. “I think they are misguided. South Africa would have had a pebble bed reactor running by now if it hadn’t been for Greenpeace.”
His book sets out a number of grand challenges for the next 100 years. While the greatest of these is global warming, he also lists water shortages, which will lead to wars, the loss of global biodiversity, terrorism, diseases such as pandemic flu and HIV/Aids, and the emergence of biotechnology and artificial intelligence that could change the fundamental nature of humanity.
Nathan Argent, a Greenpeace spokesman, said: “While the fourth generation of reactors produce less waste by volume, they produce more of the most radioactive and long-lived waste, and there is still no safe way of dealing with this. We argue that the better way to tackle climate change is to decentralise power generation and make it more efficient.”
Source
Refreshing signs of returning sanity over school sport in Scotland
Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton but the battle against apathy in modern day Scotland is being lost on our school sports pitches. Jack McConnell has condemned the trend for non-competitive sport in Scottish schools, saying children should be pitched against each other to "foster aspiration and promote a sense of achievement".
The First Minister, in an exclusive interview with Scotland on Sunday, said government inspectors would only award top marks to schools which encouraged competitive sport. In what is expected to become a manifesto commitment at the next Holyrood election, McConnell wants teachers to encourage results-driven games during PE classes and outside school hours. The move is an attempt to reverse the decline in school sports since the teachers' strike of 1985 and represents a direct attack on the growth in recent years of "potted sports" with no winners or losers, and sports days without prizes.
McConnell said: "There are far too many schools across Scotland where there is a minimum amount of competitive sport or still an aversion to competitive sport. "Whether or not a school promotes competitive sport will become one of the ways by which we measure whether a school is a good school. "I want to see us having a clear set of guidelines across Scotland, a very clear direction that we expect them to take: competitive sports days, competitive activities for youngsters both in school time and out of school time. "I would want to see the inspectorate measuring that as a key part of performance ."
In recent years some schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, North Lanarkshire, Fife, Aberdeen and Falkirk have had non-competitive sports days which have no individual winners and losers. The move dismayed Olympic swimming champion David Wilkie who recently claimed that political correctness and "inclusivity" in sport has fuelled a culture of defeatism north of the Border.
McConnell told Scotland on Sunday: "Competitive sport does a lot to stimulate the brain and make young people more alert, while it also gives young people something to aspire to, then keeps them working hard, hopefully giving them a sense of achievement. "It's an incredibly healthy thing. Unless we challenge youngsters at an early age then we're not going to have people competing on the athletics track or the football pitch."
McConnell, a former maths teacher, went on to blame the 1980s Conservative government for eroding the "community spirit" of school sports days, as strikes prompted many to stop sacrificing their free time to organise competitive sport.
The First Minister's intervention follows high-profile incidents where competitive sport was frowned upon. In 2002, Brian Harris, the head sports officer with Edinburgh city council, provoked criticism by suggesting that children on the losing side at a football match would be spared "psychological hurt" if the referee scored a few goals on their behalf. A year later the head teacher of an English primary school ruled that parents should be banned from school sports day because children would be "embarrassed" if they lost a race in front of them.
Fiona Hyslop, the SNP's education spokeswoman, said there was nothing wrong with backing competitive sports but "McConnell should get back to basics". She said: "The Executive, under his leadership, has failed to recruit enough PE teachers to replace those who are retiring. Nor has he delivered the two hours of PE that every pupil should receive at school."
Jamie McGrigor, the Scottish Conservatives' culture and sport spokesman, denies claims that the past Tory government was to blame. McGrigor said: "The Conservatives have always encouraged competitive sport. It has been Labour's socialist dogma of preferring dumbing down to excellence that is to blame. They see winning as elitist and the fact that some people are born to run faster than others as something to be ashamed of. I am delighted Jack McConnell wants to see far more competitive sport but he should remember that it was Labour that caused this problem in the first place."
Teachers and unions were also split on whether more competitive sport is needed. Ronnie Hamilton, principal teacher of PE at St Augustine's High School, in Edinburgh, which has 18 sports teams, including three girls' football sides, said: "I am more convinced than ever that competitive sport is a positive thing for everyone. In 39 years of teaching I cannot think of one instance where being included in healthy competition did not benefit a pupil."
However, David Eaglesham of the Scottish Secondary Teachers Association (SSTA) dismissed the plans and accused McConnell of electioneering. He said: "League tables of which schools do the most competitive sport are exactly what we don't need. This would have to be something the First Minister negotiates with us. Teachers already devote a great deal of goodwill to assist competitive sport but goodwill is no way to operate a system that will later be assessed by government inspectors. I can't avoid thinking that there is an election coming up and that this influenced these comments."
Source
Unclear and present danger
The public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist extremists, Britain's anti-terror supremo says:
Britain's top counter-terrorist cop has no doubt the nature of the threat has changed dramatically. Peter Clarke, Scotland Yard's 51-year-old head of counter-terrorism, talks with quiet resolution about the challenge of Islamist terrorism and how it has turned British policing upside down. People often say to Clarke how well placed the British authorities must be to deal with Islamist terror given their long experience of Irish Republican Army killers. No, he responds emphatically. It's a whole new ball game with no defined rules of engagement or carefully delineated boundaries. "The current terrorist threat is almost the reverse of all those parameters," Clarke said in Canberra this week. "What we see is global in origin, global in ambition, global in reach. The networks are loose, they are fluid and they are incredibly resilient," Clarke told a security conference.
Defeating the threat demands a level of resources, including sustained surveillance, unprecedented in modern law enforcement. "Unless you have pace and scale on your side, you will fail to deal with these terrorist conspiracies that we are currently seeing," he stressed. Clarke tells Inquirer the threat posed by radical Islamists in Britain is growing in scale and complexity. "I think the only sensible conclusion is that it is ... because if you look at the pace of terrorist activity since 9/11, it's clearly unabated and there appears to be a consistency, almost a regularity, in the attack patterns. "I don't want to sound unnecessarily gloomy, but I don't see many positive signs in terms of it being diminished." He points out that British authorities have managed to foil four or five attacks in the past 12 months. But the "sad probability" is that another attack will get through at some time....
Clarke says Britain's experience of Islamist terror, including last year's London bombings and the recently thwarted plot to blow up airliners flying to the US, is driving far-reaching changes in the way police now operate. It used to be that police would only intervene in the final stages of a terrorist plot, making arrests at or near the point of attack, with the strongest possible weight of evidence to put before a court. However, Clarke says the scale of the threat means "we can no longer afford to wait until that moment". "It's a complete shift in scale. Mentally we have had to completely change our response in terms of interdiction and intervention to prevent an increased risk to the public."
Clarke says earlier action to pre-empt a mass casualty attack also dictates the need to engage closely with local communities as a key element of counter-terrorism strategy. He believes the British public is still not fully aware of the gravity of the threat posed by Islamist terror groups. This is despite the fact there are now 90 people awaiting trial on terrorism charges. "We have a whole series of trials which over the coming months and years will unfold in the UK. When that hard evidence is produced the public are able to see what has been planned over the last months and years, that will contribute to their understanding of the threat."
Clarke warns it is vital that the aviation industry examines the implications of the foiled plot for air travel. The plotters had been planning to smuggle liquid explosives on board several planes. "I can't go into details about the methodology except to say its very innovative. That will give a clue to the fact that now in response ... new protective measures are required. The methodology is such that there must be an enduring threat to air transport." So a serious threat to aviation safety remains which has to be addressed? "Absolutely," comes the reply.
More here
Monday, October 02, 2006
CHURCH OF ENGLAND DEMANDS APPROVAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY IN ITS PRIESTS
The son of Michael Howard, the former Conservative Party leader, has spoken for the first time about his distress at being turned down for ordination by the Church of England. Nick Howard, who completed a theology degree this summer, was not ordained because of his "unwillingness to listen" to other viewpoints. He told The Mail on Sunday that his strongly held evangelical beliefs on homosexuality and multifaith worship marked him out as a "troublemaker" even though they reflect official Anglican doctrine.
During his three-year training at Cranmer Hall, a theological college attached to the University of Durham, Nick discussed his concerns with tutors but found little comfort in their "blase attitudes". Fellow students, although often sympathetic to his orthodox views, did not want to incur the wrath of college authorities by speaking out. Nick, however, quietly reinforced his views by refusing to take Communion at the college's weekly Tuesday evening service. Instead he stayed in his pew, his head bowed in reflection. "An ethics tutor at the college was saying publicly that you can be in a gay sexual relationship and follow Christ," he explains. "That is incompatible with the teaching of the New Testament."
Nick was also encouraged to accord equal spiritual value to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu religions in the name of "multifaith ministry". "As a Christian, I believe that Jesus died for Sikhs and Muslims, too," he says, "so I long to share the good news with them so that they can be saved. It felt a bit awkward sitting there when everyone else was going up [for Communion] but I couldn't physically have done anything else because I can't pretend someone shares the same religion as me if, in reality, they don't." Yet, as a result of this silent declaration of belief, 30-year-old Nick now finds himself ostracised from the Anglican Church he so desperately wants to be a part of.
At the end of his final year, a panel of tutors explained that his "unwillingness to listen" would make him an unsuitable vicar. It was an extraordinary decision because Nick's view - that gay people are welcome to belong to the Church if they remain celibate - is official Anglican teaching. But many may feel that Nick's defence of the basic tenets of Christianity should be welcomed by the Church. After all, woolly-mindedness in its beliefs has seen a huge decline in congregations, while the clear dictums of Islam have contributed to its rapid growth around the globe.
Nick, a quietly spoken and gentle young man, lives in a modest studio flat above a garage in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He does not have a television because he cannot afford the licence. His car, a battered green Ford Fiesta, is rusting around the edges and a back window has been smashed by vandals. He now works for the Association of Evangelists, travelling round the country giving talks in churches, schools and universities. This evening he will speak on God and Politics at a church in Bournemouth, to tie in with the Conservative Party conference.
"In many ways, my current job is everything I've ever wanted to do - to explain the faith to people who don't know it or understand it," he says. "But I'd love to do it in the name of the Church of England. The Church needs reforming but I'd like to be involved from the inside rather than pointing fingers from the outside. "The great problem is that the Church is a mixture of people with lots of versions of the faith. If you're going to hold it together, you've got to be committed to not rocking the boat. Boat-rockers are rather unwelcome. But if I am rocking the boat, it's only because I think we may be about to capsize."
Nick's three-year postgraduate qualification, paid for by the Diocese of Oxford, would have cost about 40,000 pounds. "I knew the college wasn't happy because they gave me a warning in my second year," he says. "But I was surprised that they went that far. My only fault was wanting people to hear the Christian message as taught in the Bible. "If I'd tried to pretend we all believed the same thing when we didn't, that would go against the whole reason I want to be in Christian ministry."
The irony for Nick is that the majority of the world's 73 million Anglicans, many of whom worship in evangelical churches in Africa and South America, would agree with him. When Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans and a celibate homosexual, was chosen as the Bishop of Reading in 2003, his appointment provoked such an outcry that he stepped down. The subsequent election of a homosexual bishop by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America triggered a worldwide crisis in the Anglican Church. In October 2004, a Church commission called for a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and the performance of same-sex blessings. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has just backed a further resolution confirming that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.
But Nick, an Eton and Oxford alumnus who gained a 2:1 in his postgraduate theology degree at Cranmer Hall, seems to have fallen foul of liberal Anglicans desperate to make their Church more palatable in the 21st Century. It is difficult not to conclude that his situation is the result of misguided political correctness. "I felt they were trying to change the message of the Bible so that it fits more happily with the culture that we live in," he says. "The college sent me to Bradford on a course entitled Ministry In A Multifaith Context. In the first session, we were told that we should be building the kingdom of God with Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus and that we would be bringing people into the mosque, temple or church as a place of worship." Nick was "horrified". For him, despite his upbringing as a Jew, Christianity is the "one true faith" and should be promoted as such.
According to one Anglican Canon: "Cranmer Hall is an evangelical foundation but it's fuzzy round the edges. They don't want to rub people up the wrong way with so-called outmoded thinking." But Anne Dyer, the warden of Cranmer Hall, insists that these criticisms are "not things that I recognise as being part of Cranmer or its programme. The decision to ordain somebody lies with the person's diocesan bishop. There are several parties that give the bishop advice and the principal of the college is one of those parties."
Nick's father still attends the St John's Wood liberal synagogue in North West London on Jewish holidays. One imagines he was taken aback when his ferociously bright 15-year-old son told him that he was converting to Christianity on the strength of one discussion group at the Eton Christian Union. But does he want to convert his own father? "I would be very keen for my family to come to faith in Christ," he says, after a long pause. "But I still consider myself a Jewish person who believes in Jesus, so I would not call it conversion. Despite this difference with my father, we do get on very well indeed. "We enjoy each other's company. We talk about politics, about football [they are both ardent Liverpool supporters] and we play chess. My family knows where I stand and that I really believe in it. "I did think hard about entering politics for a while, but politics deals with what is external to people whereas the Bible changes us from the inside. So I think preaching is more important."
The Church's history is littered with examples of the faithful taking a stand against the prevailing mindset of the time. In 1556, the Archbishop of Canterbury was sentenced to be burned at the stake by a Roman Catholic queen for his "heretical" views. His name was Thomas Cranmer. It cannot have escaped Nick's notice that Cranmer Hall, the very institution that wants to bar him from the priesthood, bears this martyr's name.
Source
RATS DESERTING THE SINKING NHS IT PROJECT
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the US software group, was left to pick up the pieces yesterday after Accenture walked away from the NHS's troubled 12.4 billion pound IT modernisation project. In the most serious blow yet for the controversial project, which has been beset with delays and glitches, Accenture said that it would bow out, leaving only three key suppliers - BT, Fujitsu and CSC. The move comes months after the American consulting group booked a $450 million provision for expected losses from the work, blaming the late delivery of key software designed by iSoft.
Although Accenture's work, worth about 1.97 billion pounds, will be picked up by CSC, its move to extricate itself from the programme at such an advanced stage raised questions about the feasibility of the procurement terms and the ability of the Government to hit the planned budget and 2010 deadline. Under the terms of the project the risks associated with it, such as extra costs and delays, lie firmly with the companies involved instead of with NHS Connecting for Health.
The switch is the fourth such upset - BT and Fujitsu have both been forced to switch software sub-contractors and CSC has ditched ComMedica in favour of GE healthcare. The problems recently led BT to install a new chief executive for its London work. However fears that iSoft, the troubled healthcare group, would be dealt another blow receded yesterday when it emerged that its work with Accenture on the project would be transferred to CSC by January.
Richard Bacon, Tory MP and a member of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "The decision by a firm as big as Accenture, and for whom the Government is such a big customer, to quit is an eloquent testament to how difficult it is to do the project the way the Government is trying to do it."
However, Connecting for Health, the agency that runs the programme, insisted that the removal of Accenture would not increase the bill for the project or threaten its deadline. It is delayed by two years already but CfH insists it will make up this lost time. Under its settlement Accenture will keep 110 million of the 173 million pounds it has been paid by the NHS and pay back the balance. It said it would not be liable for any further penalties and any potential legal action has been abandoned
Source
GREEN JETSETTERS
They are the green jetsetters - environmental campaigners who are leading the fight to restrict aviation and cut greenhouse gas emissions, but who also clock up hundreds of thousands of miles flying around the world on business and pleasure. In the past year the directors and chief executives of groups such as WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association have crisscrossed the globe, visiting the Falklands, Japan, Africa and Brazil. All are running high-profile campaigns to persuade people to change their lifestyles and cut emissions of carbon dioxide.
George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist, said this weekend he was "very disappointed - especially if they are flying on holiday". Heat, Monbiot's new book on climate change, warns of disastrous temperature rises unless western countries cut carbon emissions by 90% by 2030, meaning a virtual end to flying.
Among those with the highest air miles is Bob Napier, chief executive of WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, one of the best-known environment groups. In the past 12 months he has visited Spitsbergen, Borneo, Washington, Geneva, and Beijing on business trips and taken a holiday in the Falklands, generating more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide. A typical British household creates about six tons of CO2 a year. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, flew to Malaysia, South Africa, and Amsterdam on business and took his family on holiday to Slovakia in the past year. This weekend he is on a business trip to Nigeria. His trips are estimated to have generated at least eight tons of CO2. "This is the dilemma faced by all international organisations, including green ones," said Juniper. "We do all we can to cut travel but we need to do some flying to make decisions." Aviation generates about 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes.
Graham Wynne, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, says he was acutely aware of such issues when he made business trips to Indonesia, Washington and Scotland over the past year, clocking up more than five tons of CO2. He also takes occasional holidays to New Zealand.
Next month the RSPB will bus hundreds of supporters to a rally in Trafalgar Square against climate change."There are a lot of contradictions like these which organisations like ours have to solve," said Wynne. Other "green" leaders share such concerns. All of those interviewed had imposed "green" measures on their families and organisations, including encouraging staff to walk to work, installing low-energy light bulbs and insulating their homes.
Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, who has flown this year to Japan, America (twice) and four European destinations, generating about six tons of CO2, said: "I am deeply concerned about my flying. I am campaigning for a solution but I am still part of the problem." Such conflicts are also found in Greenpeace, which recently helped organise a runway blockade at Nottingham East Midlands airport. John Sauven, the group's campaigns director, has flown his family on holiday to Italy and taken a business trip to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil (total emissions, three tons).
More here
The son of Michael Howard, the former Conservative Party leader, has spoken for the first time about his distress at being turned down for ordination by the Church of England. Nick Howard, who completed a theology degree this summer, was not ordained because of his "unwillingness to listen" to other viewpoints. He told The Mail on Sunday that his strongly held evangelical beliefs on homosexuality and multifaith worship marked him out as a "troublemaker" even though they reflect official Anglican doctrine.
During his three-year training at Cranmer Hall, a theological college attached to the University of Durham, Nick discussed his concerns with tutors but found little comfort in their "blase attitudes". Fellow students, although often sympathetic to his orthodox views, did not want to incur the wrath of college authorities by speaking out. Nick, however, quietly reinforced his views by refusing to take Communion at the college's weekly Tuesday evening service. Instead he stayed in his pew, his head bowed in reflection. "An ethics tutor at the college was saying publicly that you can be in a gay sexual relationship and follow Christ," he explains. "That is incompatible with the teaching of the New Testament."
Nick was also encouraged to accord equal spiritual value to Muslim, Sikh and Hindu religions in the name of "multifaith ministry". "As a Christian, I believe that Jesus died for Sikhs and Muslims, too," he says, "so I long to share the good news with them so that they can be saved. It felt a bit awkward sitting there when everyone else was going up [for Communion] but I couldn't physically have done anything else because I can't pretend someone shares the same religion as me if, in reality, they don't." Yet, as a result of this silent declaration of belief, 30-year-old Nick now finds himself ostracised from the Anglican Church he so desperately wants to be a part of.
At the end of his final year, a panel of tutors explained that his "unwillingness to listen" would make him an unsuitable vicar. It was an extraordinary decision because Nick's view - that gay people are welcome to belong to the Church if they remain celibate - is official Anglican teaching. But many may feel that Nick's defence of the basic tenets of Christianity should be welcomed by the Church. After all, woolly-mindedness in its beliefs has seen a huge decline in congregations, while the clear dictums of Islam have contributed to its rapid growth around the globe.
Nick, a quietly spoken and gentle young man, lives in a modest studio flat above a garage in Maidenhead, Berkshire. He does not have a television because he cannot afford the licence. His car, a battered green Ford Fiesta, is rusting around the edges and a back window has been smashed by vandals. He now works for the Association of Evangelists, travelling round the country giving talks in churches, schools and universities. This evening he will speak on God and Politics at a church in Bournemouth, to tie in with the Conservative Party conference.
"In many ways, my current job is everything I've ever wanted to do - to explain the faith to people who don't know it or understand it," he says. "But I'd love to do it in the name of the Church of England. The Church needs reforming but I'd like to be involved from the inside rather than pointing fingers from the outside. "The great problem is that the Church is a mixture of people with lots of versions of the faith. If you're going to hold it together, you've got to be committed to not rocking the boat. Boat-rockers are rather unwelcome. But if I am rocking the boat, it's only because I think we may be about to capsize."
Nick's three-year postgraduate qualification, paid for by the Diocese of Oxford, would have cost about 40,000 pounds. "I knew the college wasn't happy because they gave me a warning in my second year," he says. "But I was surprised that they went that far. My only fault was wanting people to hear the Christian message as taught in the Bible. "If I'd tried to pretend we all believed the same thing when we didn't, that would go against the whole reason I want to be in Christian ministry."
The irony for Nick is that the majority of the world's 73 million Anglicans, many of whom worship in evangelical churches in Africa and South America, would agree with him. When Jeffrey John, the Dean of St Albans and a celibate homosexual, was chosen as the Bishop of Reading in 2003, his appointment provoked such an outcry that he stepped down. The subsequent election of a homosexual bishop by the Episcopal Church in the United States of America triggered a worldwide crisis in the Anglican Church. In October 2004, a Church commission called for a moratorium on the appointment of gay bishops and the performance of same-sex blessings. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has just backed a further resolution confirming that homosexual practice is incompatible with the Bible.
But Nick, an Eton and Oxford alumnus who gained a 2:1 in his postgraduate theology degree at Cranmer Hall, seems to have fallen foul of liberal Anglicans desperate to make their Church more palatable in the 21st Century. It is difficult not to conclude that his situation is the result of misguided political correctness. "I felt they were trying to change the message of the Bible so that it fits more happily with the culture that we live in," he says. "The college sent me to Bradford on a course entitled Ministry In A Multifaith Context. In the first session, we were told that we should be building the kingdom of God with Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus and that we would be bringing people into the mosque, temple or church as a place of worship." Nick was "horrified". For him, despite his upbringing as a Jew, Christianity is the "one true faith" and should be promoted as such.
According to one Anglican Canon: "Cranmer Hall is an evangelical foundation but it's fuzzy round the edges. They don't want to rub people up the wrong way with so-called outmoded thinking." But Anne Dyer, the warden of Cranmer Hall, insists that these criticisms are "not things that I recognise as being part of Cranmer or its programme. The decision to ordain somebody lies with the person's diocesan bishop. There are several parties that give the bishop advice and the principal of the college is one of those parties."
Nick's father still attends the St John's Wood liberal synagogue in North West London on Jewish holidays. One imagines he was taken aback when his ferociously bright 15-year-old son told him that he was converting to Christianity on the strength of one discussion group at the Eton Christian Union. But does he want to convert his own father? "I would be very keen for my family to come to faith in Christ," he says, after a long pause. "But I still consider myself a Jewish person who believes in Jesus, so I would not call it conversion. Despite this difference with my father, we do get on very well indeed. "We enjoy each other's company. We talk about politics, about football [they are both ardent Liverpool supporters] and we play chess. My family knows where I stand and that I really believe in it. "I did think hard about entering politics for a while, but politics deals with what is external to people whereas the Bible changes us from the inside. So I think preaching is more important."
The Church's history is littered with examples of the faithful taking a stand against the prevailing mindset of the time. In 1556, the Archbishop of Canterbury was sentenced to be burned at the stake by a Roman Catholic queen for his "heretical" views. His name was Thomas Cranmer. It cannot have escaped Nick's notice that Cranmer Hall, the very institution that wants to bar him from the priesthood, bears this martyr's name.
Source
RATS DESERTING THE SINKING NHS IT PROJECT
Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), the US software group, was left to pick up the pieces yesterday after Accenture walked away from the NHS's troubled 12.4 billion pound IT modernisation project. In the most serious blow yet for the controversial project, which has been beset with delays and glitches, Accenture said that it would bow out, leaving only three key suppliers - BT, Fujitsu and CSC. The move comes months after the American consulting group booked a $450 million provision for expected losses from the work, blaming the late delivery of key software designed by iSoft.
Although Accenture's work, worth about 1.97 billion pounds, will be picked up by CSC, its move to extricate itself from the programme at such an advanced stage raised questions about the feasibility of the procurement terms and the ability of the Government to hit the planned budget and 2010 deadline. Under the terms of the project the risks associated with it, such as extra costs and delays, lie firmly with the companies involved instead of with NHS Connecting for Health.
The switch is the fourth such upset - BT and Fujitsu have both been forced to switch software sub-contractors and CSC has ditched ComMedica in favour of GE healthcare. The problems recently led BT to install a new chief executive for its London work. However fears that iSoft, the troubled healthcare group, would be dealt another blow receded yesterday when it emerged that its work with Accenture on the project would be transferred to CSC by January.
Richard Bacon, Tory MP and a member of the Public Accounts Committee, said: "The decision by a firm as big as Accenture, and for whom the Government is such a big customer, to quit is an eloquent testament to how difficult it is to do the project the way the Government is trying to do it."
However, Connecting for Health, the agency that runs the programme, insisted that the removal of Accenture would not increase the bill for the project or threaten its deadline. It is delayed by two years already but CfH insists it will make up this lost time. Under its settlement Accenture will keep 110 million of the 173 million pounds it has been paid by the NHS and pay back the balance. It said it would not be liable for any further penalties and any potential legal action has been abandoned
Source
GREEN JETSETTERS
They are the green jetsetters - environmental campaigners who are leading the fight to restrict aviation and cut greenhouse gas emissions, but who also clock up hundreds of thousands of miles flying around the world on business and pleasure. In the past year the directors and chief executives of groups such as WWF, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association have crisscrossed the globe, visiting the Falklands, Japan, Africa and Brazil. All are running high-profile campaigns to persuade people to change their lifestyles and cut emissions of carbon dioxide.
George Monbiot, a leading environmentalist, said this weekend he was "very disappointed - especially if they are flying on holiday". Heat, Monbiot's new book on climate change, warns of disastrous temperature rises unless western countries cut carbon emissions by 90% by 2030, meaning a virtual end to flying.
Among those with the highest air miles is Bob Napier, chief executive of WWF, formerly the World Wildlife Fund, one of the best-known environment groups. In the past 12 months he has visited Spitsbergen, Borneo, Washington, Geneva, and Beijing on business trips and taken a holiday in the Falklands, generating more than 11 tons of carbon dioxide. A typical British household creates about six tons of CO2 a year. Tony Juniper, director of Friends of the Earth, flew to Malaysia, South Africa, and Amsterdam on business and took his family on holiday to Slovakia in the past year. This weekend he is on a business trip to Nigeria. His trips are estimated to have generated at least eight tons of CO2. "This is the dilemma faced by all international organisations, including green ones," said Juniper. "We do all we can to cut travel but we need to do some flying to make decisions." Aviation generates about 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions but their warming effect is up to four times greater at high altitudes.
Graham Wynne, chief executive of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, says he was acutely aware of such issues when he made business trips to Indonesia, Washington and Scotland over the past year, clocking up more than five tons of CO2. He also takes occasional holidays to New Zealand.
Next month the RSPB will bus hundreds of supporters to a rally in Trafalgar Square against climate change."There are a lot of contradictions like these which organisations like ours have to solve," said Wynne. Other "green" leaders share such concerns. All of those interviewed had imposed "green" measures on their families and organisations, including encouraging staff to walk to work, installing low-energy light bulbs and insulating their homes.
Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, who has flown this year to Japan, America (twice) and four European destinations, generating about six tons of CO2, said: "I am deeply concerned about my flying. I am campaigning for a solution but I am still part of the problem." Such conflicts are also found in Greenpeace, which recently helped organise a runway blockade at Nottingham East Midlands airport. John Sauven, the group's campaigns director, has flown his family on holiday to Italy and taken a business trip to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil (total emissions, three tons).
More here
Sunday, October 01, 2006
STUPID BRITISH "AGEISM" LAW
As is usual with "anti-discrimination" laws, it ignores real differences and thus creates real problems
Laws banning age discrimination could backfire and end up damaging the job prospects of older workers, leading lawyers have warned ministers. They claim that the new rules make it significantly more costly and complex for companies to keep workers on over the age of 65 and many will choose to let them retire rather than risk legal wrangles. Age discrimination becomes illegal from tomorrow under the most sweeping reforms to employment law for 30 years. Companies will no longer be able to use terms such as “young” or “experienced” in recruitment adverts and all staff will be entitled to equal access to training and promotion.
There will still be a retirement age of 65 when most staff leave work for good, and companies will still be able to extend employment of their workers beyond that age. However, from tomorrow all staff must be treated equally, regardless of age, and the over-65s will be entitled to the same benefits, such as health cover and life insurance, as other workers. Employers are likely to face a legal minefield when they eventually want their over-65s to retire, a process that could take up to 12 months. Under the old regulations, companies could agree special terms with staff aged over 65. That typically meant an end to health insurance and a three-month notice period when either side wanted the agreement to end.
Simon Malcolm, partner at the City law firm Lawrence Graham, said that he was advising companies to let all their staff retire at 65. “Our advice is that it is almost certainly going to be easier to refuse requests from employees to work beyond 65 to avoid additional cost and complexity. Benefits such as health insurance are significantly more expensive for those over 65, but must be offered to everyone. And there is no simple way to get staff to retire once you have agreed to let them work beyond 65,” he said. More and more people want to carry on working beyond 65 and until now companies were often happy to oblige, he said. “But I think many people approaching 65 who want to carry on working to build up their pension are going to be in for a nasty surprise when they realise that their employer will not want to take the risk of keeping them on.”
Saga, which provides services for the over-50s, agrees and claims that workers as young as 50 could also suffer. This year, it planned to introduce a recruitment service for older workers, who typically find it more difficult to get jobs. Employers said that they were so worried about being sued for discriminating against young workers that they would not use it, so the plans were abandoned. “We are bringing these unintended consequences to the attention of the Government because we believe its objective of getting one million more people over 50 back into work can only be achieved by having special programmes designed to help them,” Tim Bull, marketing director of Saga, said.
Source
UK: "Anti-junk mail" postman keeps job: "The rebel postman who became a populist hero when he championed the case against junk mail is to keep his job, it was announced yesterday. Roger Annies, 45, won praise from customers and environmental campaigners when he told householders on his route how to avoid some of the 21 billion pieces of junk mail which are put through Britain's letterboxes each year. Taking matters into his own hands the father-of-one, from Barry, south Wales, designed and circulated a leaflet highlighting Royal Mail's opt-out clause for unsolicited mail. ... Mr Annies was suspended and faced a disciplinary hearing for his intervention. Yesterday, however, a company spokesman said he had been reinstated."
As is usual with "anti-discrimination" laws, it ignores real differences and thus creates real problems
Laws banning age discrimination could backfire and end up damaging the job prospects of older workers, leading lawyers have warned ministers. They claim that the new rules make it significantly more costly and complex for companies to keep workers on over the age of 65 and many will choose to let them retire rather than risk legal wrangles. Age discrimination becomes illegal from tomorrow under the most sweeping reforms to employment law for 30 years. Companies will no longer be able to use terms such as “young” or “experienced” in recruitment adverts and all staff will be entitled to equal access to training and promotion.
There will still be a retirement age of 65 when most staff leave work for good, and companies will still be able to extend employment of their workers beyond that age. However, from tomorrow all staff must be treated equally, regardless of age, and the over-65s will be entitled to the same benefits, such as health cover and life insurance, as other workers. Employers are likely to face a legal minefield when they eventually want their over-65s to retire, a process that could take up to 12 months. Under the old regulations, companies could agree special terms with staff aged over 65. That typically meant an end to health insurance and a three-month notice period when either side wanted the agreement to end.
Simon Malcolm, partner at the City law firm Lawrence Graham, said that he was advising companies to let all their staff retire at 65. “Our advice is that it is almost certainly going to be easier to refuse requests from employees to work beyond 65 to avoid additional cost and complexity. Benefits such as health insurance are significantly more expensive for those over 65, but must be offered to everyone. And there is no simple way to get staff to retire once you have agreed to let them work beyond 65,” he said. More and more people want to carry on working beyond 65 and until now companies were often happy to oblige, he said. “But I think many people approaching 65 who want to carry on working to build up their pension are going to be in for a nasty surprise when they realise that their employer will not want to take the risk of keeping them on.”
Saga, which provides services for the over-50s, agrees and claims that workers as young as 50 could also suffer. This year, it planned to introduce a recruitment service for older workers, who typically find it more difficult to get jobs. Employers said that they were so worried about being sued for discriminating against young workers that they would not use it, so the plans were abandoned. “We are bringing these unintended consequences to the attention of the Government because we believe its objective of getting one million more people over 50 back into work can only be achieved by having special programmes designed to help them,” Tim Bull, marketing director of Saga, said.
Source
UK: "Anti-junk mail" postman keeps job: "The rebel postman who became a populist hero when he championed the case against junk mail is to keep his job, it was announced yesterday. Roger Annies, 45, won praise from customers and environmental campaigners when he told householders on his route how to avoid some of the 21 billion pieces of junk mail which are put through Britain's letterboxes each year. Taking matters into his own hands the father-of-one, from Barry, south Wales, designed and circulated a leaflet highlighting Royal Mail's opt-out clause for unsolicited mail. ... Mr Annies was suspended and faced a disciplinary hearing for his intervention. Yesterday, however, a company spokesman said he had been reinstated."