Eye on Britain
Friday, October 31, 2008
A small reflection about the relationship between England and Australia
Most Americans feel proud, pleased and blessed to be born in America. And rightly so. Australians and the English feel similarly and for similar reasons. But from the large and constant stream of English immigrants arriving in Australia, one gathers that a lot of the English like some sunshine with their English heritage. And there is more than sunshine to it. I remember a recent arrival in Australia who hailed from Yorkshire saying to me that Australia is "Yorkshire with brass", where "brass" is Northern slang for money. He was oversimplifying but there was a lot of truth in what he said nonetheless. The ties between England and Australia are a lot closer than either side will normally admit. Australians speak derisively of the English (calling them "Poms") and the English speak derisively of Australians (calling them "colonials").
But it remains true that both nationalities feel very much at home in the others' country. And I am probably a rather extreme example of that. When I was growing up in Australia in the 1950s, I grew up into a society that was very Anglophilic. Many Australian-born people still copied their parents' usage and referred to England as "home". And we had a Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) who described himself as "British to his bootstraps". And I remember crying -- aged about 9 -- when it was announced that the King had died. An even stronger influence than all that, however, stemmed from the fact that I was a great book reader from an early age. And most if not all boys' books available were written and published in England for the English. So I grew up in a mental world that was half-English: Which was a very good start on understanding English thinking.
So when I first arrived in England in 1977 I found a few peculiarities but in general had no social difficulties -- which is saying something if you know the intricacies of English social rules. I imagine that I did transgress in various ways from time to time -- but never enough to be a bother. In fact my high level of social acceptance would have been the envy of many Englishmen. I was materially assisted in that by the fact that an educated Australian accent is quite close to RP ("Oxford" English) and accent is enormously important in England. Any Australian accent is in fact closer to RP than are many regional English accents. So I was often told in England that I had a "soft" accent -- meaning that although detectably Australian it was not beyond the pale in in the Home Counties. My conservative politics tend to go down well in the Home Counties too.
An amusing effect of this close but usually denied affinity is the way that some Australian women have constructed for themselves a version of English "society". In England there really is such a thing as "society" -- basically the English aristocracy. The Australian version is of course self-selected rather than genetically selected but they do a moderately good job of imitating the English original. And part of that is that they do a rather good job of imitating the speech of the English original. I remember one example vividly. When I was talking on the phone to Laurie, she sounded to me just like Margaret, who is an English lady I know who really is a born member of the English aristocracy.
So who was Laurie? She was the daughter of my father's accountant. In other words we both grew up in a small Australian country town -- going to school in bare feet in a tropical environment -- an environment beset by such perils as taipan snakes, funnelweb spiders, box jellyfish, finger cherries and crocodiles, rather than the more pleasant English phenomena of crocuses, daffodils, cuckoos and skylarks. From that humble beginning, however, Laurie had acquired all the language, mannerisms and values of the English aristocracy. And I imagine that she did so without ever visiting England.
It reminds me of something that someone wrote (probably Andrew Ian Dodge -- an Anglophilic American) when I first started putting up this "Eye on Britain" blog. He said that this is a blog about England from an outsider's point of view -- but the author really isn't an outsider because he is an Australian. Very insightful.
Most Americans feel proud, pleased and blessed to be born in America. And rightly so. Australians and the English feel similarly and for similar reasons. But from the large and constant stream of English immigrants arriving in Australia, one gathers that a lot of the English like some sunshine with their English heritage. And there is more than sunshine to it. I remember a recent arrival in Australia who hailed from Yorkshire saying to me that Australia is "Yorkshire with brass", where "brass" is Northern slang for money. He was oversimplifying but there was a lot of truth in what he said nonetheless. The ties between England and Australia are a lot closer than either side will normally admit. Australians speak derisively of the English (calling them "Poms") and the English speak derisively of Australians (calling them "colonials").
But it remains true that both nationalities feel very much at home in the others' country. And I am probably a rather extreme example of that. When I was growing up in Australia in the 1950s, I grew up into a society that was very Anglophilic. Many Australian-born people still copied their parents' usage and referred to England as "home". And we had a Prime Minister (Sir Robert Menzies) who described himself as "British to his bootstraps". And I remember crying -- aged about 9 -- when it was announced that the King had died. An even stronger influence than all that, however, stemmed from the fact that I was a great book reader from an early age. And most if not all boys' books available were written and published in England for the English. So I grew up in a mental world that was half-English: Which was a very good start on understanding English thinking.
So when I first arrived in England in 1977 I found a few peculiarities but in general had no social difficulties -- which is saying something if you know the intricacies of English social rules. I imagine that I did transgress in various ways from time to time -- but never enough to be a bother. In fact my high level of social acceptance would have been the envy of many Englishmen. I was materially assisted in that by the fact that an educated Australian accent is quite close to RP ("Oxford" English) and accent is enormously important in England. Any Australian accent is in fact closer to RP than are many regional English accents. So I was often told in England that I had a "soft" accent -- meaning that although detectably Australian it was not beyond the pale in in the Home Counties. My conservative politics tend to go down well in the Home Counties too.
An amusing effect of this close but usually denied affinity is the way that some Australian women have constructed for themselves a version of English "society". In England there really is such a thing as "society" -- basically the English aristocracy. The Australian version is of course self-selected rather than genetically selected but they do a moderately good job of imitating the English original. And part of that is that they do a rather good job of imitating the speech of the English original. I remember one example vividly. When I was talking on the phone to Laurie, she sounded to me just like Margaret, who is an English lady I know who really is a born member of the English aristocracy.
So who was Laurie? She was the daughter of my father's accountant. In other words we both grew up in a small Australian country town -- going to school in bare feet in a tropical environment -- an environment beset by such perils as taipan snakes, funnelweb spiders, box jellyfish, finger cherries and crocodiles, rather than the more pleasant English phenomena of crocuses, daffodils, cuckoos and skylarks. From that humble beginning, however, Laurie had acquired all the language, mannerisms and values of the English aristocracy. And I imagine that she did so without ever visiting England.
It reminds me of something that someone wrote (probably Andrew Ian Dodge -- an Anglophilic American) when I first started putting up this "Eye on Britain" blog. He said that this is a blog about England from an outsider's point of view -- but the author really isn't an outsider because he is an Australian. Very insightful.
Fat kids heavily persecuted in Britain
Some kids are just naturally fat. It's in their genes
At least seven morbidly obese children were taken into care last year by social services. [i.e. removed from their families]. A boy of six who was seriously overweight, a girl of seven with a Body Mass Index three times higher than normal, and an eight-year-old girl who weighed nine stone, were among those taken from their parents. They were joined by a boy of 12 from London who had a BMI of 28 to 60 per cent above the 17.5 average for his age.
The figures were released by councils following a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Dr Colin Waine, former head of the National Obesity Forum Charity, said more needed to be done to monitor vulnerable children before social services were forced to intervene.
Meanwhile, health minister Dawn Primarolo has hailed Disneyland for offering healthy side dishes in its fast food outlets. Ms Primarolo told the Food Standards Agency she wanted to see all food outlets 'making healthy choices a default option'. She also praised Tesco for using the characters Tigger and Mickey Mouse to promote fresh fruit, juice, cereal and yoghurts.
Source
Self-righteous British legislators fail to look out the window
Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.
In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.
The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) "requiring the directors' report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible" by 2012.
Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won't be as bad "as people say".
Both figures are higher than a year ago - and the poll was taken before the non-Summer of 2008, and the (latest) credit crisis.Yet anyone looking for elected representatives to articulate these concerns will have been disappointed. Instead, representatives had a higher purpose - demonstrating their virtue
And for the first 90 minutes of the marathon debate, the new nobility outdid each other with calls for tougher pledges, or stricter monitoring. Gestures are easy, so no wonder MPs like making them so much. It was all deeply sanctimonious, but no one pointed out that Europe's appetite for setting targets that hurt the economy has evaporated in recent weeks - so it's a gesture few countries will feel compelled to imitate.
The US Senate has Senator James Inhofe, but in the Commons, there wasn't an out-and-out sceptic to be found. It was 90 minutes before anyone broke the liturgy of virtue. When Peter Lilley, in amazement, asked why there hadn't been a cost/benefit analysis made of such a major change in policy, he was told to shut up by the Deputy Speaker.(And even Lilley - one of only five out of 653 MPs to vote against the Climate Bill in its second reading - felt it necessary to pledge his allegiance to the Precautionary Principle.)
It fell to a paid-up member of Greenpeace, the Labour MP Rob Marris, to point out the Bill was a piece of political showboating that would fail. While professing himself a believer in the theory that human activity is primarily the cause of global warming, he left plenty of room for doubt - far more than most members. The legislation was doomed, Marris said. MP Rob Marris had previously supported the 60 per cent target but thought that 80 per cent, once it included shipping and aviation, wouldn't work. We could have a higher target, or include shipping and aviation, but not both.
He compared it to asking someone to run 100m in 14 seconds - which they might consider something to train for. Asking someone to run it in ten seconds just meant people would dismiss the target. "The public will ask 'why should we bother doing anything at all?'
The closest thing to a British Inhofe is Ulsterman Sammy Wilson, Democratic Unionist Party, who'd wanted a "reasoned debate" on global warming, rather than bullying, and recently called environmentalism a "hysterical psuedo-religion". Wilson described the Climate Bill as a disaster, but even colleagues who disagree with his views of environmentalism are wary of the latest amendments. The Irish Republic is likely to reap big economic gains if it doesn't penalise its own transport sector as fiercely as the UK pledges to penalise its own in the bill. Most Ulster MPs were keenly aware of the costs, and how quickly the ports and airports could close, when a cheaper alternative lies a few miles away over the border.
Tory barrister Christopher Chope professed himself baffled by the logic of including aviation and shipping. If transportation was made more expensive, how could there be more trade? "As we destroy industry we'll be more dependent on shipping and aviation for our imports!" he said. "When the history books come to be written people will ask why were the only five MPs... who voted against this ludicrous bill," he said. It would tie Britain up in knots for years, all for a futile gesture, Chope thought.
However, Tim Yeo, the perma-suntanned Tory backbencher who wants us to carry carbon rationing cards, said it would "improve Britain's competitiveness". He didn't say how. Lilley impertinently pointed out that no cost/benefit case had been made for handicapping shipping and aviation. It was the first mention in the chamber of the cost of the commitments being discussed. Estimates put the total cost of the Climate Change Bill at 210bn pounds, or 10,000 per household - potentially twice the benefits.
Quoting Nordhaus, Lilley noted that Stern ("Lord Stern - he got his reward") had only got his front-loaded benefits by using improbable discount rates - and then only half the benefits of making drastic carbon reductions will kick in by the year 2800. The government has said it wasn't using Stern's discount rates to calculate the cost of shipping and aviation restrictions, but a more sensible and traditional rate of 3.5 per cent instead - yet it refused to reveal the costs.
Lilley asked:"I ask the house - is it sensible to buy into an insurance policy where the premiums are twice the value of the house?" Lilley was "building a broad case on a narrow foundation", the Deputy Speaker told him. "I really must direct him to the specific matter that's included in these clauses and amendments."
Earlier, the Tories had said they would be tougher on carbon than Labour, and the Lib Dems the toughest of the lot. Much more representative of the tone of the debate was Nia Griffith, the NuLab MP for Lanelli. Her comments are worth repeating (Hansard link to follow today) because language tells us a lot - not only about the bureaucratic ambitions of the exercise, but how the modern politician thinks about governing. Griffith told the House that the Bill was "a process not an end in itself", and had great value as a "monitoring tool". MP Nia Griffith "It's the targets that make us think," she said. She also used the phrase "raise consciousness" - as in, "it must raise consciousness amongst nations that follow suit."
In other words, if you take a gesture, then pile on targets and penalties, you will change people's behaviour. Maybe she hasn't heard of Goodhart's law. Yesterday, however, it seemed that the only MPs exhibiting enough "consciousness" to actually think - and ask reasonable questions about cost and effectiveness of the gesture - got a good telling off.
The Bill finally passed its third reading by 463 votes to three.
Source
THE BIG BBC MELTDOWN: It was once a model of high standards and decorum -- but no more
Now that the Left have got hold of it, any garbage is fine and "standards" is a stupid old-fashioned concept. Tearing everything down is what the Left are all about. After just about everyone from the Prime Minister down condemned them, the principal offenders have now been suspended and one has resigned but how the BBC allowed such a foul and hurtful programme to be broadcast is the real issue. Two articles below on the matter. One from 29th and one from 30th
29th).
The BBC is under unprecedented pressure to crack down on offensive material after an intervention by the Prime Minister and 10,000 complaints over its decision to broadcast obscene phone calls made by two of its biggest stars. Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, maintained his silence on the conduct of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand for a third day despite a growing clamour for an explanation as to how pre-recorded taunts directed at Andrew Sachs, the 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor, went on air.
The radio transmission on October 18 included Ross shouting on to Sachs's answerphone that Brand had slept with his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23, and Brand joking that the actor might kill himself. Ms Baillie has called for the pair to be sacked.
Gordon Brown swung behind the flood of public outrage, saying that the incident was clearly inappropriate and unacceptable. David Cameron, the Tory leader, demanded to know who had given the green light to the broadcast. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, described the incident as a serious breach of broadcasting standards.
The BBC has rejected calls to suspend the pair and Ross, who is paid 6 million pounds a year, was expected to record this week's edition of his chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, tonight. However, Sir David Attenborough, who was due to appear on the show, was in discussions with the BBC last night. Frank Skinner, the comedian, and the American actress Miley Cyrus were also on the guest list.
Mr Thompson has been ordered by the BBC Trust to present a "formal report" to its monthly meeting on November 20, as to how the offensive material came to be aired. The trust also demanded an interim report to be presented next week at a meeting of its editorial standards committee. Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, was also investigating the material under Section 2 of the Broadcasting Code, relating to harm and offence.
The row led every major BBC news bulletin yesterday. Tim Davie, the corporation's director of audio and music and the most senior executive to comment, admitted that the programme that went out was "unacceptable". He said that the BBC would conduct a full investigation and decide the appropriate action and that it would be wrong to apportion blame at this stage.
Source
30th).
The suspension of the foul-mouthed Jonathan Ross and the forced resignation of his equally disagreeable sidekick Russell Brand marked an extraordinary historic cultural victory. For the first time in living memory, the BBC has signalled that there are boundaries of decency it must not cross. But, my goodness, didn't this admission take a long time coming? No one at the BBC appeared to realise that the original show broadcast by Radio 2 on October 18 was so offensive.
Ross and Brand's vulgar abuse of the actor Andrew Sachs was passed on the nod by a 25-year-old Radio 2 producer, even though Mr Sachs had refused his permission. That young man evidently did not know any better. But nor did his bosses. It took several days of mounting Press coverage, and critical remarks by David Cameron, Gordon Brown and other politicians, before the BBC's management finally responded. Even then the person whose head was pushed above the parapet was that of Tim Davie, the 'director of audio and music', of whom none of us had ever heard.
Only yesterday did Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, and the man ultimately responsible for the Corporation's output, break his holiday and announce that he was suspending Ross and Brand. His statement was certainly everything one might have wished for, referring as it did to 'a gross lapse of taste that has angered licence payers', but it had to be wrung out of him.
Mr Thompson is a deeply symbolic figure of our times. He is not a bad man. He is civilised and well-read, having taken a first in English at Oxford. As a devout Roman Catholic, he adheres to moral values that are a million miles from those of Ross and Brand. And yet he has made no attempt to stem the tide of clod-hopping filth that pours out of their, and others', mouths whenever they broadcast.
Why should this be? Perhaps Mr Thompson believes that Ross and Brand are popular figures who will attract a large audience. Although the BBC is protected from commercial realities, it increasingly conducts itself as though these are the only realities that matter. Shielded from the market, the Corporation often strives to outdo the market in offering dumbed-down programming, and appealing to the lowest common denominator.
But I fancy there is a deeper psychological explanation for Mr Thompson's indulgence of so-called entertainers against whose vulgarity and ignorance he must privately recoil. Whereas some on the Left embrace Brand for his nihilism and for what they regard as his welcome flouting of bourgeois values - he seems eager to copulate with anything that moves - Mr Thompson is a more elevated, as well as a more interesting,
Like so many modern liberal-minded intellectuals, he has a horror of being judgmental. He knows that Jonathan Ross is a coarse figure, but he reasons that if there are people who enjoy his crudeness and lavatory humour and peppering of four-letter words, he is not going to prevent them from having what they desire. There is a fissure in him that permits this moral relativism. For himself and his family he wants culture and standards of decency, but if there are others who prefer dross, he is not going to stand in their way.
Yet, more than any other organisation, the BBC should not be in the business of providing dross. It is protected from the market. It was founded on high and noble principles. It does not have to follow the worst trends - far less take the lead - and lure us into the gutter. Mr Thompson might not be fitted by background or temperament to edit the Daily Smut, but he has all the attributes to guide the BBC towards higher ground. And yet he does not do so.
The French philosopher Julien Benda famously coined the phrase 'La Trahison des Clercs' - the betrayal of the intellectuals. He was thinking of French and German 19th-century intellectuals who had become apologists for militarism and nationalism. The modern trahison des clercs is that of liberal intellectuals like Mr Thompson who can recognise goodness and truth but, out of fear of appearing judgmental or proscriptive, will not help others to find them.
This moral dereliction amounts to a fatal arrogance. Mr Thompson knows why it is wrong to scatter four-letter words on television. He can see that the kind of humour purveyed by the likes of Ross and Brand does not raise people up but often pushes them down. But, because he is terrified of being seen imposing his values - which are, in fact, almost indistinguishable from the old values of the BBC - he has so far said: let them have what they want. Then he returns to the books and music and culture of his pleasant house in Oxford....
BBC bosses were not able to see what was objectionable about Ross and Brand's outpourings, but thousands of ordinary people, once alerted, could. It was the shocking realisation that many licence-payers had had enough - that they still defended standards of decency and proper behaviour - that finally jerked Mr Thompson out of his holiday reveries....
Will this historic cultural victory stick? Yesterday's Mail reported that, in April, a BBC1 comedy drama called Love Soup showed a woman being 'raped' by a dog. The BBC still pumps out many programmes that offend against decency and taste, and are often particularly offensive to women. We should not imagine that the tap will be turned off in a trice. But, maybe the affair of those unfunny and grossly overpaid vulgarians Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand will show Mr Thompson and his senior colleagues that the BBC has become dangerously out of step with many of the people who pay its bills.
If Mr Thompson does not have the courage to act on his moral convictions, he will be wise to listen to the outrage of those who do.
Source
Outrage as British council makes pupils stand on chairs and pledge to be nice to gypsy children
Villagers opposing plans for a travellers site have accused a council of attempting to 'brainwash' their children. Pupils aged between six and 11 were requested to stand up and promise to 'welcome newcomers' and not bully them. The incident happened at a workshop for youngsters that was part of Local Democracy Week, where talks were organised by Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council.
A large proportion of the scores of children present were from Spooners Row Primary School, near Wymondham, Norfolk. Residents there are battling plans by South Norfolk District Council to build a permanent travellers' site with eight pitches. One parent, who asked not to be named, said: 'It appears as if the council was targeting children with propaganda to try to get them on side. My first thought was that it was disgusting to target children in such an underhand way when so many people oppose the new site.'
Another parent said: 'It's out of order that the council has done this.' They added: 'If I had been there I would have stood up and said, "Stop this". It's in breach of the children's rights, surely?' Another parent complained the workshop was planting thoughts about bullying into the minds of children who had probably not thought of it.
The primary school's headmaster, Simon Wakeman, has made an official complaint to the council. He said yesterday that a council official connected with the plans for the travellers' camp had been at the workshop-The two people taking the workshop asked the children if they wanted to stand up and make a pledge,' he said. 'None of the children stood up because I suspect they felt awkward, but the pledge was read out anyway. 'They were asked to make a series of promises to be kind to gipsy and traveller children, welcome them into the community and not bully them. The children were encouraged to put their fingers in the air or their hands on their hearts to signify their acceptance.'
He added that he supported talks to 'build bridges in society', but opposed having children make pledges, particularly in light of their parents' anxiety over the travellers' site. Mr Wakeman said the workshop had left the school in an 'invidious position' as it had gone to lengths to remain objective about the proposals but parents were now questioning its neutral stance.
The talk, on October 17, was one of several on offer to schoolchildren at the council's offices in Long Stratton. Headmasters chose which ones their pupils attended. No one from the Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council was available to comment yesterday.
John Fuller, South Norfolk Council leader, has sent a personal apology to the school but yesterday he insisted that the council was not responsible for what the equality council told the youngsters. 'The workshop was run by the local racial equality council who are experts in this particular field and the council had no direct input in what was said.
Source
"Holocaust denier" wins first round
Germany is trying to prosecute an Australian citizen for things he said in Australia:
UK immigration reforms make visas easier to get for Australians
Young Australians wanting to work in the United Kingdom should find it easier under new visa rules being introduced by the British government. Britain is revamping its working holiday visa scheme to allow 18-to-30-year-old Australians to find jobs in their chosen profession for a full two years. They will also for the first time be able to line up jobs to go to in Britain before leaving Australia. Under the old scheme, Australians faced a host of restrictions before being granted a working holiday visa, including how long they could stay in the one job.
British high commissioner to Australia Helen Liddell said the changes would make working in the UK even more attractive for Australians. "Some of the old restrictions are going and the visas will be cheaper by half,'' she said. "Britain's immigration system rewards those who come, work hard, bring their skills and strengthen cultural ties and Australians fit the bill very well.''
The new youth mobility visa scheme will come into force on November 27 and cost STG99 ($255.85), down from STG200 ($516.86) price of the working holiday visa. Those applying for the new visa will also have to show they have the equivalent of STG1,600 ($4,134.9) to cover living expenses for the first few weeks in the UK. Australia is one of just four countries Britain is allowing to take part in the new visa scheme. The others are New Zealand, Canada and Japan.
During the last financial year, the British High Commission in Canberra issued 15,204 working holiday visas to Australians. "Because of the changes, we wouldn't be surprised if those numbers increase next year,'' a British High Commission spokesman said. The changes are part of wide-ranging alterations Britain has been making to its immigration policies, including introducing an Australian-style points system for would-be migrants.
Source
BRITISH ACADEMICS THREATEN TO SUE UNION OVER ISRAEL BOYCOTT
The University and College Union (UCU) is facing a court threat if it doesn't retract its decision to encourage members to question the ethics of contacts with universities in Israel. A group of as yet anonymous litigants, who are UCU members, are demanding repayment of any union funds spent on carrying out a national conference resolution which asked academics to consider the moral and political implications of their links with Israeli institutions. Via their solicitors, Mishcon de Reya, the litigants warn UCU that they will sue its four trustees individually for recovery of the money.
A year ago UCU accepted legal advice that its 2007 national conference motion for an academic boycott of Israel was unlawful and could not be implemented. At this year's conference in May, lecturers voted overwhelmingly to call on colleagues to "consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating".
Their general secretary, Sally Hunt, had warned delegates before the debate that UCU would need to take legal advice on what steps it could take to carry out the motion. The motion sparked off a heated debate and a succession of resignations from UCU members.
In a House of Lords debate, the former independent adjudicator for higher education, Baroness Deech, called on universities to derecognise the union. "These efforts to boycott, or to come as close as possible to a boycott, are contrary to race relations legislation and ultra vires the powers of the union," Deech said. "The UCU has created an atmosphere hostile to Jewish academics and to quality academic research and freedom in this country," Deech added.
On September 26, Mishcon de Reya wrote to Hunt warning her that unless UCU accepted within 14 days that the latest conference resolution was "ultra vires" - beyond its powers - a group of unnamed members would take it to court. As UCU members, its clients were entitled to sue the union and its trustees - Professor Neil Macfarlane, Fawzi Ibrahim, Dr Dennis Wright and Paul Russell - to force it to declare the resolution null and void, the letter said. And they would sue the trustees for the repayment of any money spent on implementing the resolution. If legal action is taken, the union members taking it will be identified, their solicitors say. The 14-day deadline for UCU to reply passed on Friday.
Source
Some kids are just naturally fat. It's in their genes
At least seven morbidly obese children were taken into care last year by social services. [i.e. removed from their families]. A boy of six who was seriously overweight, a girl of seven with a Body Mass Index three times higher than normal, and an eight-year-old girl who weighed nine stone, were among those taken from their parents. They were joined by a boy of 12 from London who had a BMI of 28 to 60 per cent above the 17.5 average for his age.
The figures were released by councils following a request under the Freedom of Information Act. Dr Colin Waine, former head of the National Obesity Forum Charity, said more needed to be done to monitor vulnerable children before social services were forced to intervene.
Meanwhile, health minister Dawn Primarolo has hailed Disneyland for offering healthy side dishes in its fast food outlets. Ms Primarolo told the Food Standards Agency she wanted to see all food outlets 'making healthy choices a default option'. She also praised Tesco for using the characters Tigger and Mickey Mouse to promote fresh fruit, juice, cereal and yoghurts.
Source
Self-righteous British legislators fail to look out the window
Snow blankets London for Global Warming debate
Snow fell as the House of Commons debated Global Warming yesterday - the first October fall in the metropolis since 1922. The Mother of Parliaments was discussing the Mother of All Bills for the last time, in a marathon six hour session.
In order to combat a projected two degree centigrade rise in global temperature, the Climate Change Bill pledges the UK to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. The bill was receiving a third reading, which means both the last chance for both democratic scrutiny and consent.
The bill creates an enormous bureaucratic apparatus for monitoring and reporting, which was expanded at the last minute. Amendments by the Government threw emissions from shipping and aviation into the monitoring program, and also included a revision of the Companies Act (c. 46) "requiring the directors' report of a company to contain such information as may be specified in the regulations about emissions of greenhouse gases from activities for which the company is responsible" by 2012.
Recently the American media has begun to notice the odd incongruity of saturation media coverage here which insists that global warming is both man-made and urgent, and a British public which increasingly doubts either to be true. 60 per cent of the British population now doubt the influence of humans on climate change, and more people than not think Global Warming won't be as bad "as people say".
Both figures are higher than a year ago - and the poll was taken before the non-Summer of 2008, and the (latest) credit crisis.Yet anyone looking for elected representatives to articulate these concerns will have been disappointed. Instead, representatives had a higher purpose - demonstrating their virtue
And for the first 90 minutes of the marathon debate, the new nobility outdid each other with calls for tougher pledges, or stricter monitoring. Gestures are easy, so no wonder MPs like making them so much. It was all deeply sanctimonious, but no one pointed out that Europe's appetite for setting targets that hurt the economy has evaporated in recent weeks - so it's a gesture few countries will feel compelled to imitate.
The US Senate has Senator James Inhofe, but in the Commons, there wasn't an out-and-out sceptic to be found. It was 90 minutes before anyone broke the liturgy of virtue. When Peter Lilley, in amazement, asked why there hadn't been a cost/benefit analysis made of such a major change in policy, he was told to shut up by the Deputy Speaker.(And even Lilley - one of only five out of 653 MPs to vote against the Climate Bill in its second reading - felt it necessary to pledge his allegiance to the Precautionary Principle.)
It fell to a paid-up member of Greenpeace, the Labour MP Rob Marris, to point out the Bill was a piece of political showboating that would fail. While professing himself a believer in the theory that human activity is primarily the cause of global warming, he left plenty of room for doubt - far more than most members. The legislation was doomed, Marris said. MP Rob Marris had previously supported the 60 per cent target but thought that 80 per cent, once it included shipping and aviation, wouldn't work. We could have a higher target, or include shipping and aviation, but not both.
He compared it to asking someone to run 100m in 14 seconds - which they might consider something to train for. Asking someone to run it in ten seconds just meant people would dismiss the target. "The public will ask 'why should we bother doing anything at all?'
The closest thing to a British Inhofe is Ulsterman Sammy Wilson, Democratic Unionist Party, who'd wanted a "reasoned debate" on global warming, rather than bullying, and recently called environmentalism a "hysterical psuedo-religion". Wilson described the Climate Bill as a disaster, but even colleagues who disagree with his views of environmentalism are wary of the latest amendments. The Irish Republic is likely to reap big economic gains if it doesn't penalise its own transport sector as fiercely as the UK pledges to penalise its own in the bill. Most Ulster MPs were keenly aware of the costs, and how quickly the ports and airports could close, when a cheaper alternative lies a few miles away over the border.
Tory barrister Christopher Chope professed himself baffled by the logic of including aviation and shipping. If transportation was made more expensive, how could there be more trade? "As we destroy industry we'll be more dependent on shipping and aviation for our imports!" he said. "When the history books come to be written people will ask why were the only five MPs... who voted against this ludicrous bill," he said. It would tie Britain up in knots for years, all for a futile gesture, Chope thought.
However, Tim Yeo, the perma-suntanned Tory backbencher who wants us to carry carbon rationing cards, said it would "improve Britain's competitiveness". He didn't say how. Lilley impertinently pointed out that no cost/benefit case had been made for handicapping shipping and aviation. It was the first mention in the chamber of the cost of the commitments being discussed. Estimates put the total cost of the Climate Change Bill at 210bn pounds, or 10,000 per household - potentially twice the benefits.
Quoting Nordhaus, Lilley noted that Stern ("Lord Stern - he got his reward") had only got his front-loaded benefits by using improbable discount rates - and then only half the benefits of making drastic carbon reductions will kick in by the year 2800. The government has said it wasn't using Stern's discount rates to calculate the cost of shipping and aviation restrictions, but a more sensible and traditional rate of 3.5 per cent instead - yet it refused to reveal the costs.
Lilley asked:"I ask the house - is it sensible to buy into an insurance policy where the premiums are twice the value of the house?" Lilley was "building a broad case on a narrow foundation", the Deputy Speaker told him. "I really must direct him to the specific matter that's included in these clauses and amendments."
Earlier, the Tories had said they would be tougher on carbon than Labour, and the Lib Dems the toughest of the lot. Much more representative of the tone of the debate was Nia Griffith, the NuLab MP for Lanelli. Her comments are worth repeating (Hansard link to follow today) because language tells us a lot - not only about the bureaucratic ambitions of the exercise, but how the modern politician thinks about governing. Griffith told the House that the Bill was "a process not an end in itself", and had great value as a "monitoring tool". MP Nia Griffith "It's the targets that make us think," she said. She also used the phrase "raise consciousness" - as in, "it must raise consciousness amongst nations that follow suit."
In other words, if you take a gesture, then pile on targets and penalties, you will change people's behaviour. Maybe she hasn't heard of Goodhart's law. Yesterday, however, it seemed that the only MPs exhibiting enough "consciousness" to actually think - and ask reasonable questions about cost and effectiveness of the gesture - got a good telling off.
The Bill finally passed its third reading by 463 votes to three.
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THE BIG BBC MELTDOWN: It was once a model of high standards and decorum -- but no more
Now that the Left have got hold of it, any garbage is fine and "standards" is a stupid old-fashioned concept. Tearing everything down is what the Left are all about. After just about everyone from the Prime Minister down condemned them, the principal offenders have now been suspended and one has resigned but how the BBC allowed such a foul and hurtful programme to be broadcast is the real issue. Two articles below on the matter. One from 29th and one from 30th
29th).
The BBC is under unprecedented pressure to crack down on offensive material after an intervention by the Prime Minister and 10,000 complaints over its decision to broadcast obscene phone calls made by two of its biggest stars. Mark Thompson, the BBC Director-General, maintained his silence on the conduct of Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand for a third day despite a growing clamour for an explanation as to how pre-recorded taunts directed at Andrew Sachs, the 78-year-old Fawlty Towers actor, went on air.
The radio transmission on October 18 included Ross shouting on to Sachs's answerphone that Brand had slept with his granddaughter Georgina Baillie, 23, and Brand joking that the actor might kill himself. Ms Baillie has called for the pair to be sacked.
Gordon Brown swung behind the flood of public outrage, saying that the incident was clearly inappropriate and unacceptable. David Cameron, the Tory leader, demanded to know who had given the green light to the broadcast. Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, described the incident as a serious breach of broadcasting standards.
The BBC has rejected calls to suspend the pair and Ross, who is paid 6 million pounds a year, was expected to record this week's edition of his chat show, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, tonight. However, Sir David Attenborough, who was due to appear on the show, was in discussions with the BBC last night. Frank Skinner, the comedian, and the American actress Miley Cyrus were also on the guest list.
Mr Thompson has been ordered by the BBC Trust to present a "formal report" to its monthly meeting on November 20, as to how the offensive material came to be aired. The trust also demanded an interim report to be presented next week at a meeting of its editorial standards committee. Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, was also investigating the material under Section 2 of the Broadcasting Code, relating to harm and offence.
The row led every major BBC news bulletin yesterday. Tim Davie, the corporation's director of audio and music and the most senior executive to comment, admitted that the programme that went out was "unacceptable". He said that the BBC would conduct a full investigation and decide the appropriate action and that it would be wrong to apportion blame at this stage.
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30th).
The suspension of the foul-mouthed Jonathan Ross and the forced resignation of his equally disagreeable sidekick Russell Brand marked an extraordinary historic cultural victory. For the first time in living memory, the BBC has signalled that there are boundaries of decency it must not cross. But, my goodness, didn't this admission take a long time coming? No one at the BBC appeared to realise that the original show broadcast by Radio 2 on October 18 was so offensive.
Ross and Brand's vulgar abuse of the actor Andrew Sachs was passed on the nod by a 25-year-old Radio 2 producer, even though Mr Sachs had refused his permission. That young man evidently did not know any better. But nor did his bosses. It took several days of mounting Press coverage, and critical remarks by David Cameron, Gordon Brown and other politicians, before the BBC's management finally responded. Even then the person whose head was pushed above the parapet was that of Tim Davie, the 'director of audio and music', of whom none of us had ever heard.
Only yesterday did Mark Thompson, the BBC's director-general, and the man ultimately responsible for the Corporation's output, break his holiday and announce that he was suspending Ross and Brand. His statement was certainly everything one might have wished for, referring as it did to 'a gross lapse of taste that has angered licence payers', but it had to be wrung out of him.
Mr Thompson is a deeply symbolic figure of our times. He is not a bad man. He is civilised and well-read, having taken a first in English at Oxford. As a devout Roman Catholic, he adheres to moral values that are a million miles from those of Ross and Brand. And yet he has made no attempt to stem the tide of clod-hopping filth that pours out of their, and others', mouths whenever they broadcast.
Why should this be? Perhaps Mr Thompson believes that Ross and Brand are popular figures who will attract a large audience. Although the BBC is protected from commercial realities, it increasingly conducts itself as though these are the only realities that matter. Shielded from the market, the Corporation often strives to outdo the market in offering dumbed-down programming, and appealing to the lowest common denominator.
But I fancy there is a deeper psychological explanation for Mr Thompson's indulgence of so-called entertainers against whose vulgarity and ignorance he must privately recoil. Whereas some on the Left embrace Brand for his nihilism and for what they regard as his welcome flouting of bourgeois values - he seems eager to copulate with anything that moves - Mr Thompson is a more elevated, as well as a more interesting,
Like so many modern liberal-minded intellectuals, he has a horror of being judgmental. He knows that Jonathan Ross is a coarse figure, but he reasons that if there are people who enjoy his crudeness and lavatory humour and peppering of four-letter words, he is not going to prevent them from having what they desire. There is a fissure in him that permits this moral relativism. For himself and his family he wants culture and standards of decency, but if there are others who prefer dross, he is not going to stand in their way.
Yet, more than any other organisation, the BBC should not be in the business of providing dross. It is protected from the market. It was founded on high and noble principles. It does not have to follow the worst trends - far less take the lead - and lure us into the gutter. Mr Thompson might not be fitted by background or temperament to edit the Daily Smut, but he has all the attributes to guide the BBC towards higher ground. And yet he does not do so.
The French philosopher Julien Benda famously coined the phrase 'La Trahison des Clercs' - the betrayal of the intellectuals. He was thinking of French and German 19th-century intellectuals who had become apologists for militarism and nationalism. The modern trahison des clercs is that of liberal intellectuals like Mr Thompson who can recognise goodness and truth but, out of fear of appearing judgmental or proscriptive, will not help others to find them.
This moral dereliction amounts to a fatal arrogance. Mr Thompson knows why it is wrong to scatter four-letter words on television. He can see that the kind of humour purveyed by the likes of Ross and Brand does not raise people up but often pushes them down. But, because he is terrified of being seen imposing his values - which are, in fact, almost indistinguishable from the old values of the BBC - he has so far said: let them have what they want. Then he returns to the books and music and culture of his pleasant house in Oxford....
BBC bosses were not able to see what was objectionable about Ross and Brand's outpourings, but thousands of ordinary people, once alerted, could. It was the shocking realisation that many licence-payers had had enough - that they still defended standards of decency and proper behaviour - that finally jerked Mr Thompson out of his holiday reveries....
Will this historic cultural victory stick? Yesterday's Mail reported that, in April, a BBC1 comedy drama called Love Soup showed a woman being 'raped' by a dog. The BBC still pumps out many programmes that offend against decency and taste, and are often particularly offensive to women. We should not imagine that the tap will be turned off in a trice. But, maybe the affair of those unfunny and grossly overpaid vulgarians Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand will show Mr Thompson and his senior colleagues that the BBC has become dangerously out of step with many of the people who pay its bills.
If Mr Thompson does not have the courage to act on his moral convictions, he will be wise to listen to the outrage of those who do.
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Outrage as British council makes pupils stand on chairs and pledge to be nice to gypsy children
Villagers opposing plans for a travellers site have accused a council of attempting to 'brainwash' their children. Pupils aged between six and 11 were requested to stand up and promise to 'welcome newcomers' and not bully them. The incident happened at a workshop for youngsters that was part of Local Democracy Week, where talks were organised by Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council.
A large proportion of the scores of children present were from Spooners Row Primary School, near Wymondham, Norfolk. Residents there are battling plans by South Norfolk District Council to build a permanent travellers' site with eight pitches. One parent, who asked not to be named, said: 'It appears as if the council was targeting children with propaganda to try to get them on side. My first thought was that it was disgusting to target children in such an underhand way when so many people oppose the new site.'
Another parent said: 'It's out of order that the council has done this.' They added: 'If I had been there I would have stood up and said, "Stop this". It's in breach of the children's rights, surely?' Another parent complained the workshop was planting thoughts about bullying into the minds of children who had probably not thought of it.
The primary school's headmaster, Simon Wakeman, has made an official complaint to the council. He said yesterday that a council official connected with the plans for the travellers' camp had been at the workshop-The two people taking the workshop asked the children if they wanted to stand up and make a pledge,' he said. 'None of the children stood up because I suspect they felt awkward, but the pledge was read out anyway. 'They were asked to make a series of promises to be kind to gipsy and traveller children, welcome them into the community and not bully them. The children were encouraged to put their fingers in the air or their hands on their hearts to signify their acceptance.'
He added that he supported talks to 'build bridges in society', but opposed having children make pledges, particularly in light of their parents' anxiety over the travellers' site. Mr Wakeman said the workshop had left the school in an 'invidious position' as it had gone to lengths to remain objective about the proposals but parents were now questioning its neutral stance.
The talk, on October 17, was one of several on offer to schoolchildren at the council's offices in Long Stratton. Headmasters chose which ones their pupils attended. No one from the Norwich and Norfolk Racial Equality Council was available to comment yesterday.
John Fuller, South Norfolk Council leader, has sent a personal apology to the school but yesterday he insisted that the council was not responsible for what the equality council told the youngsters. 'The workshop was run by the local racial equality council who are experts in this particular field and the council had no direct input in what was said.
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"Holocaust denier" wins first round
Germany is trying to prosecute an Australian citizen for things he said in Australia:
"CONTROVERSIAL Australian historian Frederick Toben has won the first round of his fight against extradition to Germany from Britain. A London judge ruled overnight that the European arrest warrant used to detain Dr Toben in Britain for extradition earlier this month was invalid because it did not provide enough detail.
However, the case appears far from over, with lawyers representing German prosecutors, who want to try Dr Toben for his alleged anti-Semitic views, preparing to appeal to Britain's High Court.
Dr Toben's solicitor Kevin Lowry-Mullins described today's ruling as a victory and said the academic, who has been granted bail, looked forward to the High Court hearing his case.
Dr Toben was arrested while in transit at London's Heathrow airport on October 1 under a warrant issued by Germany, which accuses him of racism and publishing anti-Semitic views.
Unlike in Britain, Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany and offenders can face up to five years in jail.... The High Court is expected to hear Dr Toben's case early next year.
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UK immigration reforms make visas easier to get for Australians
Young Australians wanting to work in the United Kingdom should find it easier under new visa rules being introduced by the British government. Britain is revamping its working holiday visa scheme to allow 18-to-30-year-old Australians to find jobs in their chosen profession for a full two years. They will also for the first time be able to line up jobs to go to in Britain before leaving Australia. Under the old scheme, Australians faced a host of restrictions before being granted a working holiday visa, including how long they could stay in the one job.
British high commissioner to Australia Helen Liddell said the changes would make working in the UK even more attractive for Australians. "Some of the old restrictions are going and the visas will be cheaper by half,'' she said. "Britain's immigration system rewards those who come, work hard, bring their skills and strengthen cultural ties and Australians fit the bill very well.''
The new youth mobility visa scheme will come into force on November 27 and cost STG99 ($255.85), down from STG200 ($516.86) price of the working holiday visa. Those applying for the new visa will also have to show they have the equivalent of STG1,600 ($4,134.9) to cover living expenses for the first few weeks in the UK. Australia is one of just four countries Britain is allowing to take part in the new visa scheme. The others are New Zealand, Canada and Japan.
During the last financial year, the British High Commission in Canberra issued 15,204 working holiday visas to Australians. "Because of the changes, we wouldn't be surprised if those numbers increase next year,'' a British High Commission spokesman said. The changes are part of wide-ranging alterations Britain has been making to its immigration policies, including introducing an Australian-style points system for would-be migrants.
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BRITISH ACADEMICS THREATEN TO SUE UNION OVER ISRAEL BOYCOTT
The University and College Union (UCU) is facing a court threat if it doesn't retract its decision to encourage members to question the ethics of contacts with universities in Israel. A group of as yet anonymous litigants, who are UCU members, are demanding repayment of any union funds spent on carrying out a national conference resolution which asked academics to consider the moral and political implications of their links with Israeli institutions. Via their solicitors, Mishcon de Reya, the litigants warn UCU that they will sue its four trustees individually for recovery of the money.
A year ago UCU accepted legal advice that its 2007 national conference motion for an academic boycott of Israel was unlawful and could not be implemented. At this year's conference in May, lecturers voted overwhelmingly to call on colleagues to "consider the moral and political implications of educational links with Israeli institutions, and to discuss the occupation with individuals and institutions concerned, including Israeli colleagues with whom they are collaborating".
Their general secretary, Sally Hunt, had warned delegates before the debate that UCU would need to take legal advice on what steps it could take to carry out the motion. The motion sparked off a heated debate and a succession of resignations from UCU members.
In a House of Lords debate, the former independent adjudicator for higher education, Baroness Deech, called on universities to derecognise the union. "These efforts to boycott, or to come as close as possible to a boycott, are contrary to race relations legislation and ultra vires the powers of the union," Deech said. "The UCU has created an atmosphere hostile to Jewish academics and to quality academic research and freedom in this country," Deech added.
On September 26, Mishcon de Reya wrote to Hunt warning her that unless UCU accepted within 14 days that the latest conference resolution was "ultra vires" - beyond its powers - a group of unnamed members would take it to court. As UCU members, its clients were entitled to sue the union and its trustees - Professor Neil Macfarlane, Fawzi Ibrahim, Dr Dennis Wright and Paul Russell - to force it to declare the resolution null and void, the letter said. And they would sue the trustees for the repayment of any money spent on implementing the resolution. If legal action is taken, the union members taking it will be identified, their solicitors say. The 14-day deadline for UCU to reply passed on Friday.
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Thursday, October 30, 2008
British "health & safety" Nazis obliterate an ancient right for no good reason
They want to assert their ownership of what is not theirs. Power is what bureaucrats want and ownership gives power
If you go down to the woods today, forget about disguise - you'd better wear a hard hat and a hi-viz jacket. Dingly Dell has fallen to the elf 'n' safety nazis. For the past 12 years, retired builder Mike Kamp has been collecting firewood from the forest near his home at Betws-y-Coed, North Wales. It's a right enshrined in the Magna Carta of 1215, the template for democracies around the world. Free men down the centuries have been granted the liberty to gather dead wood from common land to fuel their stoves, repair their homes and make charcoal.
That was before the Forestry Commission came along and started demanding that anyone wanting to collect wood would need a licence to forage. Now it has imposed an outright ban, stating: 'This is an area where we are subject to increasing constraints in terms of health and safety. We have a duty of care to people in our wood.' Note the use of the possessive our wood. It isn't their wood. It's common land and it belongs to everyone.
As Mr Kamp said: 'They are claiming there are health and safety issues. But people have walked through the woods collecting firewood for hundreds of years without too many safety problems.' Precisely. I doubt there is one recorded incident of a firewood-related fatality in North Wales. This, as usual, is about bureaucrats justifying their own sad existence and protecting their backs in the event of someone turning their ankle in a rabbit hole, ringing Blame Direct, and suing for com-pensayshun.
It's the same warped thinking which led to plans for an open-air ice rink in Bath this Christmas being abandoned because council officials feared it could be a magnet for paedophiles. How sick do you have to be to reach that conclusion?
And a school in Colchester has banned children from bringing in broomsticks for Halloween in case they get hurt. In fairness, they were only following official advice on the NHS website: 'Be careful with witches' brooms made from sticks. If the sticks get dislodged, they are a choking hazard. These brooms should be labelled For Adult Use Only.'
You couldn't make it up. Where is it all going to end?
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British high school exams COULD be dumbed down unless watchdog steps in
What? Dumbed down any further?
Standards in GCSEs and A levels risk being dumbed down unless the new independent examinations watchdog is given statutory powers to force exam boards to maintain them, the Government has been warned.
In a highly unusual intervention into the debate about exam standards, Mike Cresswell, director-general of AQA, Britain's biggest exam board, has broken ranks with its rivals. In an interview with The Times, he has given warning that public confidence in the quality of GCSE and A level qualifications cannot be maintained unless the new exams watchdog, Ofqual, has sufficient muscle to prevent exam boards lowering their standards.
Ofqual was created by Gordon Brown and made independent from government precisely to put an end to the debate about the dumbing down of public examinations and to ensure that there could be no suspicion of government pressure on exam boards to set standards at particular levels. But Dr Cresswell believes there is a "major omission" from the proposals for Ofqual's powers. While it is empowered to force exam boards to follow certain procedures in the way they set and mark exams, it has no powers over what level they set standards at.
"Ofqual needs to be given an explicit statutory power to enable it, if necessary, to direct an awarding body to set standards at a particular level," Dr Cresswell said. "It needs to have this power so that it can give credible public assurance that standards are comparable between awarding bodies and maintained over time." Without statutory powers of intervention, Ofqual would be left to the mercy of exam boards, he added. "A regulator who is there to uphold public confidence in standards can't be in a position where it has to negotiate with the exam boards over standards."
Dr Cresswell added: "The awarding bodies compete for entries. They don't compete on standards. If Ofqual had this power [to enforce standards], it would make it much more difficult for that to ever begin."
The main exam boards work closely together in developing qualifications, but there is a tension in their relationship, as they are competing with each other within a finite but lucrative market place. Schools and colleges pay about 400 pounds million a year in fees to exam boards. Mr Cresswell's warning comes after a disagreement this summer between England's three exam boards, which set their own GCSE and A-level papers, about standards in the new GCSE single science exam. The three boards met in August to discuss grade boundaries. They failed to come to an agreement over the mark needed to get a C, officially a good pass. One of AQA's rival boards awarded Cs in one paper to pupils who got only 20 per cent of questions correct and would not back down from this position. Negotiations between the boards broke down.
AQA was eventually persuaded by Ofqual to reduce its own grade boundaries to bring it into line with the other boards, even though it did not think this sufficient to maintain standards. Dr Cresswell agreed to the move "under protest" because he did not want to disadvantage the half-million pupils who had taken his board's science exam. "Plainly, we couldn't possibly have a situation where children doing our exam would be judged against harsher standards than children doing other boards," he said.
Yesterday was the last day for submissions on what monitoring and enforcement powers Ofqual should have. Dr Cresswell has written to the Government to express his concerns and to request a meeting with Jim Knight, the Schools Minister.
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Public must think we have all gone mad, says British judge left powerless to jail burglar who terrorised pregnant mother
A judge has hit out at sentencing guidelines which stopped him from jailing a burglar who terrorised a heavily pregnant mother. Recorder Shaun Smith said the public 'must think we've all gone mad or soft' as he let Dominic Wong walk free. Wong had admitted battering his way into Safa Moustafa's home and stealing cash while she cowered upstairs with her two-year-old daughter.
Trauma from her ordeal has left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, but Recorder Smith said he was powerless to put Wong behind bars because it was his first burglary offence. Instead he had to hand out a community service order. The judge said: 'This is sentencing by numbers. I want to send you to prison. The public want to see you go to prison. But I can't send you to prison because of the guidelines I have been given.'
Last night Mrs Moustafa's husband Ahmed, 31, a highways consultant, reacted with outrage. He said: 'We're the victims, but no one cares about us. The whole system is completely on its head. 'If a judge wants to send someone to prison but can't then what's the point of a judge in the first place?'
Jobless Wong forced his way into 28-year-old Mrs Moustafa's home in Loughborough, Leicestershire, on September 15 this year. She was seven months pregnant at the time. She and her daughter, who was not named, were upstairs and stayed hiding as Wong smashed his way through the front door before helping himself to money. When police arrived at the scene they discovered him lurking in the garden of the house next door, which he had also tried to break into.
In a victim impact statement read to Leicester Crown Court, Mrs Moustafa said: 'I'm now very nervous and anxious in my own home. I'm forever checking doors and windows and keep looking outside to see who's around. 'I can't even go into the garden unless my husband is here. I can't be alone in the house and have friends to sleep over.' Mrs Moustafa said her daughter had become 'nervous and clingy'. She added: 'Because of this man's actions, I hope the court sends him to prison to make him understand exactly how he has affected our lives.'
But James Weston, defending, said it was Wong's first offence and the starting point was a community sentence. The law recommends first-time burglars should be spared custody if the case can satisfy certain conditions. The sentence has to represent an effective punishment and should tackle problems such as an offender's drug addiction.
Wong, of Loughborough, who claimed he would 'turn back the clock' if he could, also admitted burgling the house next door. He was given a two-year community order with 240 hours of unpaid work and was made the subject of a six-month night-time curfew. He was also told to pay 350 pounds compensation to the mother.
Mr Moustafa said the sentence did not reflect the damage Wong had inflicted. He said: 'My wife and daughter have been mentally scarred. My wife could have had a miscarriage. 'She was screaming "I'm pregnant!", but he still kept hitting the door until he managed to get in. 'Would he have still got a community order if my wife had suffered a miscarriage? I can only assume so, if that's what these guidelines say.'
The case came as Justice Secretary Jack Straw attacked liberal justice groups who 'drive him nuts' by focusing on the 'needs' of offenders instead of punishment.
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Stranger Than Fiction
Earlier this year, I wrote an eco-satirical column under the pseudonym Ethan Greenhart, in which I (or rather, Ethan) called upon Greens everywhere to pray for an economic downturn. The column argued that nothing would benefit our human-ravaged planet more than a "big, beautiful, stock-crashing, Wall Street-burning, consumer-baiting, home-evicting, bank-busting recession."
We need something to stop humans "raping the planet," I said, tongue pressed ferociously against my cheek, and "the recession might just be the chemical castration for the job." A recession could be the "antibody Gaia so desperately needs to deal with her human itch," since it would force people to buy less and live more humbly.
The column said recession would be a just punishment for the "lunatics" of humankind, before the arrival of the "final big disease" - that glorious moment when a rampant sickness will "reduce the human population to sustainable levels" and "end industrialism . . . just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism."
I was going too far, right? Yes, there are super-aloof Gaia worshippers who, caring little for the living standards of their fellow men, argue that a recession would be a good thing - and, sure, they deserve a few satirical darts tossed their way. But surely no right-minded Green (assuming such a thing exists) would celebrate the depletion of mankind by a "preferably painless but speedily contagious disease"?
You'd be amazed. Not 24 hours after the column was published, "Ethan" received an e-mail (my alter ego came with his own inbox) from Valerie Stevens, chairperson of the U.K.-based Optimum Population Trust. The OPT is an influential green-leaning outfit that campaigns for strict controls on population growth. Ms. Stevens, believing - remarkably - that Ethan Greenhart is a real person, wrote: "What a marvellous piece of writing. I feel exactly the same as you!"
Consider what this means. The head of one of Britain's most vocal Green lobby groups feels "exactly" that people who work in shops are comparable to "concentration camp guards"; that humankind is a "poisonous bacteria in Gaia's bloodstream"; that "consumerism makes us mentally ill"; that the consumer society has "turned us into savages . . . well, not us, obviously, but certainly them"; and that a disease should come and decimate "the plague that is mankind." All of these statements were contained in the pretend eco-rant that OPT chair Valerie Stevens described as a "marvellous piece of writing" with which she agrees "exactly."
The OPT has numerous Green bigwigs on its advisory board, including Jonathon Porritt, who was director of Friends of the Earth from 1984 to 1990 and is currently an adviser to Prince Charles, the insufferably eco-minded heir to the British throne. Ms Stevens' enthusiastic agreement with Ethan Greenhart unwittingly revealed the backward, misanthropic thinking that rattles in the attics of Britain's posh Green elite.
It also revealed something else: the environmental movement is now so pompous, hysterical, bloated, and disconnected that it is almost beyond satire. My weekly Ethan Greenhart columns, published in my online magazine, spiked, have now been turned into a book: Can I Recycle My Granny? And 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas. In the course of writing it, I discovered that satirizing Greens is forever an uphill struggle, as one's campaign to mock environmentalism continually threatens to be derailed by the latest ridiculous utterance from the Greens themselves.
Ethan Greenhart has argued that climate-change denial should be recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a "mental disorder" and that there should be "eco-lobotomies" for persistent deniers. Well, this is only a more extreme version of a leading British Green's demand for "international criminal tribunals" to try those who "preach the gospel of denial." Yet it turns out that many Greens are already discussing the "psychological processes" that contribute to climate change denial, with The Ecologist, an influential British magazine, arguing that "angrily denying the problem [of climate change] outright" is a form of "psychotic denial." Perhaps eco-lobotomies aren't so far off now.
Ethan Greenhart has claimed to have set up something called Bottlefeeders Anonymous, for those moms who have strayed from The Ethical Path by bottlefeeding rather than breastfeeding their offspring. "Bottlefeeding is a form of child abuse," he declares, since it involves "stuffing your child's gut with powder produced in a factory by a really big and probably quite evil conglomerate." Lo and behold, it turns out that eco-minded "militant lactivists" really do look upon bottlefeeding as abusive. Green columnist George Monbiot believes that feeding your child formula is "tantamount to child abuse."
Ethan has even celebrated suicide as a sensible solution to human overcrowding on Gaia's "pretty face." Here he was inspired by cranky Green groups like the Church of Euthanasia. Yet this outlook ain't so cranky anymore. Shortly before Can I Recycle My Granny? was to hit the shelves - in which Ethan maintains that "non-existence is the most perfectly ethical way of being" - a book by David Benatar (a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, no less) appeared under the title Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.
Horace said the purpose of satire is to "laugh men out of their follies." Yet such is the depth of contemporary Green folly that even mockery can be mistaken for another sensible idea or contribution to the "Green cause." Of course (and I would say this, wouldn't I?) my book is still full of cutting-edge satire - "richly comic," hails The Independent. But you had better buy it quick before its maddest, zaniest send-ups of the environmentalist movement become the latest Green orthodoxy.
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British Muslim doctor faces misconduct hearing over homosexual comments
What he said would have been normal just a few decades ago. But no worry: As a Muslim, he will be excused.
They want to assert their ownership of what is not theirs. Power is what bureaucrats want and ownership gives power
If you go down to the woods today, forget about disguise - you'd better wear a hard hat and a hi-viz jacket. Dingly Dell has fallen to the elf 'n' safety nazis. For the past 12 years, retired builder Mike Kamp has been collecting firewood from the forest near his home at Betws-y-Coed, North Wales. It's a right enshrined in the Magna Carta of 1215, the template for democracies around the world. Free men down the centuries have been granted the liberty to gather dead wood from common land to fuel their stoves, repair their homes and make charcoal.
That was before the Forestry Commission came along and started demanding that anyone wanting to collect wood would need a licence to forage. Now it has imposed an outright ban, stating: 'This is an area where we are subject to increasing constraints in terms of health and safety. We have a duty of care to people in our wood.' Note the use of the possessive our wood. It isn't their wood. It's common land and it belongs to everyone.
As Mr Kamp said: 'They are claiming there are health and safety issues. But people have walked through the woods collecting firewood for hundreds of years without too many safety problems.' Precisely. I doubt there is one recorded incident of a firewood-related fatality in North Wales. This, as usual, is about bureaucrats justifying their own sad existence and protecting their backs in the event of someone turning their ankle in a rabbit hole, ringing Blame Direct, and suing for com-pensayshun.
It's the same warped thinking which led to plans for an open-air ice rink in Bath this Christmas being abandoned because council officials feared it could be a magnet for paedophiles. How sick do you have to be to reach that conclusion?
And a school in Colchester has banned children from bringing in broomsticks for Halloween in case they get hurt. In fairness, they were only following official advice on the NHS website: 'Be careful with witches' brooms made from sticks. If the sticks get dislodged, they are a choking hazard. These brooms should be labelled For Adult Use Only.'
You couldn't make it up. Where is it all going to end?
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British high school exams COULD be dumbed down unless watchdog steps in
What? Dumbed down any further?
Standards in GCSEs and A levels risk being dumbed down unless the new independent examinations watchdog is given statutory powers to force exam boards to maintain them, the Government has been warned.
In a highly unusual intervention into the debate about exam standards, Mike Cresswell, director-general of AQA, Britain's biggest exam board, has broken ranks with its rivals. In an interview with The Times, he has given warning that public confidence in the quality of GCSE and A level qualifications cannot be maintained unless the new exams watchdog, Ofqual, has sufficient muscle to prevent exam boards lowering their standards.
Ofqual was created by Gordon Brown and made independent from government precisely to put an end to the debate about the dumbing down of public examinations and to ensure that there could be no suspicion of government pressure on exam boards to set standards at particular levels. But Dr Cresswell believes there is a "major omission" from the proposals for Ofqual's powers. While it is empowered to force exam boards to follow certain procedures in the way they set and mark exams, it has no powers over what level they set standards at.
"Ofqual needs to be given an explicit statutory power to enable it, if necessary, to direct an awarding body to set standards at a particular level," Dr Cresswell said. "It needs to have this power so that it can give credible public assurance that standards are comparable between awarding bodies and maintained over time." Without statutory powers of intervention, Ofqual would be left to the mercy of exam boards, he added. "A regulator who is there to uphold public confidence in standards can't be in a position where it has to negotiate with the exam boards over standards."
Dr Cresswell added: "The awarding bodies compete for entries. They don't compete on standards. If Ofqual had this power [to enforce standards], it would make it much more difficult for that to ever begin."
The main exam boards work closely together in developing qualifications, but there is a tension in their relationship, as they are competing with each other within a finite but lucrative market place. Schools and colleges pay about 400 pounds million a year in fees to exam boards. Mr Cresswell's warning comes after a disagreement this summer between England's three exam boards, which set their own GCSE and A-level papers, about standards in the new GCSE single science exam. The three boards met in August to discuss grade boundaries. They failed to come to an agreement over the mark needed to get a C, officially a good pass. One of AQA's rival boards awarded Cs in one paper to pupils who got only 20 per cent of questions correct and would not back down from this position. Negotiations between the boards broke down.
AQA was eventually persuaded by Ofqual to reduce its own grade boundaries to bring it into line with the other boards, even though it did not think this sufficient to maintain standards. Dr Cresswell agreed to the move "under protest" because he did not want to disadvantage the half-million pupils who had taken his board's science exam. "Plainly, we couldn't possibly have a situation where children doing our exam would be judged against harsher standards than children doing other boards," he said.
Yesterday was the last day for submissions on what monitoring and enforcement powers Ofqual should have. Dr Cresswell has written to the Government to express his concerns and to request a meeting with Jim Knight, the Schools Minister.
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Public must think we have all gone mad, says British judge left powerless to jail burglar who terrorised pregnant mother
A judge has hit out at sentencing guidelines which stopped him from jailing a burglar who terrorised a heavily pregnant mother. Recorder Shaun Smith said the public 'must think we've all gone mad or soft' as he let Dominic Wong walk free. Wong had admitted battering his way into Safa Moustafa's home and stealing cash while she cowered upstairs with her two-year-old daughter.
Trauma from her ordeal has left her a virtual prisoner in her own home, but Recorder Smith said he was powerless to put Wong behind bars because it was his first burglary offence. Instead he had to hand out a community service order. The judge said: 'This is sentencing by numbers. I want to send you to prison. The public want to see you go to prison. But I can't send you to prison because of the guidelines I have been given.'
Last night Mrs Moustafa's husband Ahmed, 31, a highways consultant, reacted with outrage. He said: 'We're the victims, but no one cares about us. The whole system is completely on its head. 'If a judge wants to send someone to prison but can't then what's the point of a judge in the first place?'
Jobless Wong forced his way into 28-year-old Mrs Moustafa's home in Loughborough, Leicestershire, on September 15 this year. She was seven months pregnant at the time. She and her daughter, who was not named, were upstairs and stayed hiding as Wong smashed his way through the front door before helping himself to money. When police arrived at the scene they discovered him lurking in the garden of the house next door, which he had also tried to break into.
In a victim impact statement read to Leicester Crown Court, Mrs Moustafa said: 'I'm now very nervous and anxious in my own home. I'm forever checking doors and windows and keep looking outside to see who's around. 'I can't even go into the garden unless my husband is here. I can't be alone in the house and have friends to sleep over.' Mrs Moustafa said her daughter had become 'nervous and clingy'. She added: 'Because of this man's actions, I hope the court sends him to prison to make him understand exactly how he has affected our lives.'
But James Weston, defending, said it was Wong's first offence and the starting point was a community sentence. The law recommends first-time burglars should be spared custody if the case can satisfy certain conditions. The sentence has to represent an effective punishment and should tackle problems such as an offender's drug addiction.
Wong, of Loughborough, who claimed he would 'turn back the clock' if he could, also admitted burgling the house next door. He was given a two-year community order with 240 hours of unpaid work and was made the subject of a six-month night-time curfew. He was also told to pay 350 pounds compensation to the mother.
Mr Moustafa said the sentence did not reflect the damage Wong had inflicted. He said: 'My wife and daughter have been mentally scarred. My wife could have had a miscarriage. 'She was screaming "I'm pregnant!", but he still kept hitting the door until he managed to get in. 'Would he have still got a community order if my wife had suffered a miscarriage? I can only assume so, if that's what these guidelines say.'
The case came as Justice Secretary Jack Straw attacked liberal justice groups who 'drive him nuts' by focusing on the 'needs' of offenders instead of punishment.
Source
Stranger Than Fiction
Earlier this year, I wrote an eco-satirical column under the pseudonym Ethan Greenhart, in which I (or rather, Ethan) called upon Greens everywhere to pray for an economic downturn. The column argued that nothing would benefit our human-ravaged planet more than a "big, beautiful, stock-crashing, Wall Street-burning, consumer-baiting, home-evicting, bank-busting recession."
We need something to stop humans "raping the planet," I said, tongue pressed ferociously against my cheek, and "the recession might just be the chemical castration for the job." A recession could be the "antibody Gaia so desperately needs to deal with her human itch," since it would force people to buy less and live more humbly.
The column said recession would be a just punishment for the "lunatics" of humankind, before the arrival of the "final big disease" - that glorious moment when a rampant sickness will "reduce the human population to sustainable levels" and "end industrialism . . . just as the Plague contributed to the demise of feudalism."
I was going too far, right? Yes, there are super-aloof Gaia worshippers who, caring little for the living standards of their fellow men, argue that a recession would be a good thing - and, sure, they deserve a few satirical darts tossed their way. But surely no right-minded Green (assuming such a thing exists) would celebrate the depletion of mankind by a "preferably painless but speedily contagious disease"?
You'd be amazed. Not 24 hours after the column was published, "Ethan" received an e-mail (my alter ego came with his own inbox) from Valerie Stevens, chairperson of the U.K.-based Optimum Population Trust. The OPT is an influential green-leaning outfit that campaigns for strict controls on population growth. Ms. Stevens, believing - remarkably - that Ethan Greenhart is a real person, wrote: "What a marvellous piece of writing. I feel exactly the same as you!"
Consider what this means. The head of one of Britain's most vocal Green lobby groups feels "exactly" that people who work in shops are comparable to "concentration camp guards"; that humankind is a "poisonous bacteria in Gaia's bloodstream"; that "consumerism makes us mentally ill"; that the consumer society has "turned us into savages . . . well, not us, obviously, but certainly them"; and that a disease should come and decimate "the plague that is mankind." All of these statements were contained in the pretend eco-rant that OPT chair Valerie Stevens described as a "marvellous piece of writing" with which she agrees "exactly."
The OPT has numerous Green bigwigs on its advisory board, including Jonathon Porritt, who was director of Friends of the Earth from 1984 to 1990 and is currently an adviser to Prince Charles, the insufferably eco-minded heir to the British throne. Ms Stevens' enthusiastic agreement with Ethan Greenhart unwittingly revealed the backward, misanthropic thinking that rattles in the attics of Britain's posh Green elite.
It also revealed something else: the environmental movement is now so pompous, hysterical, bloated, and disconnected that it is almost beyond satire. My weekly Ethan Greenhart columns, published in my online magazine, spiked, have now been turned into a book: Can I Recycle My Granny? And 39 Other Eco-Dilemmas. In the course of writing it, I discovered that satirizing Greens is forever an uphill struggle, as one's campaign to mock environmentalism continually threatens to be derailed by the latest ridiculous utterance from the Greens themselves.
Ethan Greenhart has argued that climate-change denial should be recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as a "mental disorder" and that there should be "eco-lobotomies" for persistent deniers. Well, this is only a more extreme version of a leading British Green's demand for "international criminal tribunals" to try those who "preach the gospel of denial." Yet it turns out that many Greens are already discussing the "psychological processes" that contribute to climate change denial, with The Ecologist, an influential British magazine, arguing that "angrily denying the problem [of climate change] outright" is a form of "psychotic denial." Perhaps eco-lobotomies aren't so far off now.
Ethan Greenhart has claimed to have set up something called Bottlefeeders Anonymous, for those moms who have strayed from The Ethical Path by bottlefeeding rather than breastfeeding their offspring. "Bottlefeeding is a form of child abuse," he declares, since it involves "stuffing your child's gut with powder produced in a factory by a really big and probably quite evil conglomerate." Lo and behold, it turns out that eco-minded "militant lactivists" really do look upon bottlefeeding as abusive. Green columnist George Monbiot believes that feeding your child formula is "tantamount to child abuse."
Ethan has even celebrated suicide as a sensible solution to human overcrowding on Gaia's "pretty face." Here he was inspired by cranky Green groups like the Church of Euthanasia. Yet this outlook ain't so cranky anymore. Shortly before Can I Recycle My Granny? was to hit the shelves - in which Ethan maintains that "non-existence is the most perfectly ethical way of being" - a book by David Benatar (a professor of philosophy at the University of Cape Town, no less) appeared under the title Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.
Horace said the purpose of satire is to "laugh men out of their follies." Yet such is the depth of contemporary Green folly that even mockery can be mistaken for another sensible idea or contribution to the "Green cause." Of course (and I would say this, wouldn't I?) my book is still full of cutting-edge satire - "richly comic," hails The Independent. But you had better buy it quick before its maddest, zaniest send-ups of the environmentalist movement become the latest Green orthodoxy.
Source
British Muslim doctor faces misconduct hearing over homosexual comments
What he said would have been normal just a few decades ago. But no worry: As a Muslim, he will be excused.
"A prominent Muslim doctor has appeared before a misconduct hearing after declaring that society needs "protecting from the ravages" of homosexuality. Dr Muhammad Siddiq, 65, president of the Islamic Medical Association, accused gay people of spreading disease and suggested they needed the "stick of the law to put them on the right path", the General Medical Council was told.
Dr Siddiq, who is currently suspended from practising, made the comments in a letter to Pulse, the medical magazine, which generated a stream of complaints when it was published last year. He later apologised for causing hurt and distress, but yesterday faced misconduct charges in front of a GMC fitness-to-practice panel in Manchester. If found guilty, he faces being struck off .
The panel was told that Dr Siddiq was working as a GP at the Walsall Teaching Primary Care Trust when he wrote the letter in July last year. It read: "There is punishment and fine if you throw rubbish or filth on the streets, the gays are worse than the ordinary careless citizen, they are causing the spread of illness and they are the root cause of many sexually-transmitted diseases. "They need neither sympathy nor help, what they need is the stick of law to put them on the right path and mend their ways and behaviour. "We need to protect society from their ravages."
Bernadette Baxter, prosecuting, said Dr Siddiq wrote to Walsall PCT to explain the letter after it was published in July last year. In this letter, he apologised unreservedly and said he had written it because of stress due to unrelated proceedings between himself and the GMC. He wrote: "I categorically and unreservedly apologise and retract the letter, and apologise for any hurt or offence that may have been caused to anybody reading the letter. "I have practised as a GP for over 30 years, and I have never discriminated against any patient on any grounds.
Source
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Black man has to remind Britain's Labour government that they are supposed to be on the side of the worker
Britain risks a surge in Right-wing extremism if it fails to help its white working class weather the recession, the equalities chief will warn today. Trevor Phillips will break with years of political convention to call for the law to be changed to enshrine positive discrimination in favour of disadvantaged whites. His startling intervention in the race debate is a rebuke to Harriet Harman, who earlier this year trumpeted plans to make companies discriminate in favour of women and ethnic minorities.
Mr Phillips said ministers should allow councils and education authorities to introduce 'positive action' programmes aimed specifically at young whites unable to compete with highly skilled immigrants because the 'need is so great'. And he warned that immigration has fuelled 'resentments that are real and should not be dismissed - resentments felt by white, black and Asian'.
The chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission set out his thinking to the Daily Mail ahead of his appearance at a CBI event on immigration today alongside immigration minister Phil Woolas. Mr Phillips said failure to help white families hit by the downturn could drive them into the arms of far-Right parties similar to those that have brought turmoil to Austria, Belgium and Holland. He also warned that ministers needed to acknowledge the resentment by some whites over what they see as unfair help given to blacks and Asians. 'What we are seeing is that there is a whole group of people, a large proportion of whom are white, who are going to suffer from this crisis who are going to be the people we should want to help, particularly because they come from the wrong side of town,' he said.
'We are going to have to do something special for them. We are going to have to put extra resources where young people can't compete with migrants' skills. 'And in some parts of the country, it is clear that what defines disadvantage won't be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups, what we might call the white underclass.'
And he warned: 'We know what the political consequences are because we have seen it on the Continent. 'If we ignore the fact some white groups are going to be disadvantaged we will end up with the same kind of conflicts we have seen in Austria, Belgium and now Holland, where the anti-immigrant racist Right-wing parties get a big boost. 'We need to do more to help those who are going to suffer and who will then think that the reason they are suffering is their colour. 'We need to pay attention to that white underclass that happens not to live in the right part of town.'
Politicians have long shied away from allowing positive discrimination, claiming it flies in the face of equality laws. But its supporters claim the system is a necessary way of helping minorities finding it difficult to get a job or housing, by pushing them to the top of the queue.
In June, Miss Harman angered business leaders by revealing plans for new anti-discrimination laws. She said she wanted to see more women and ethnic minorities promoted into senior posts and would use next year's Equalities Bill to discriminate in their favour. Under the plans, firms will be forced to reveal the salary gap between their male and female staff to shame employers into bringing them into line. But in what was seen as a clear 'white men need not apply', she made no attempt to suggest that whites could benefit from positive discrimination as well.
Mr Phillips said he wanted to see the bill used to help whites. And he added Miss Harman had been looking at the work of the commission. 'Positive action now in Britain is more likely to mean programmes for people who are poor, white and come from workless households than it is for East African Asians, for example,' he added.
Earlier this summer, Miss Harman insisted: 'It is important to encourage applications from minority groups, but we are strongly against positive discrimination so someone gets a job just because they are black or disabled.'
Mr Phillips also warned against allowing the economic crisis to trigger an outburst of anti-immigrant feeling in the UK. 'It's dangerous and it's divisive,' he said. He claimed immigrants could act as a 'buffer' against the impact of recession because they are more likely to return to their countries than stay in Britain and swell the unemployment register. 'If it wasn't for the fact that migrants from eastern Europe are now going home you would see a great many more people unemployed in this country,' he claimed.
Last week, Mr Woolas was forced to backtrack after suggesting that there should be a cap on the number of immigrants allowed into the country. Last night, Mr Phillips dismissed Mr Woolas's call for a cap, saying: 'We need to control it, we need to be tough on borders but the idea is a promise no one can deliver.'
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War crime? Battle of Agincourt was our finest hour
By Bernard Cornwell
Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle.
Laurence Olivier's film of Shakespeare's Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt.
The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.
A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim's visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger's point.
It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered.
Over the weekend, during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like 'war criminals' during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French 'were met with barbarism by the English', said the museum's director Christophe Gilliot.
The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England's history.
Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt - spelled as it is in France - and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was.
Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed.
Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry's feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered.
In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry's army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin's Day, Henry's small army had entered legend.
But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years' War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town's stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege's end his army had been struck by dysentery.
Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat.
He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur. Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers.
The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry's path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains.
They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped.
The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions' chests.
But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say 'Let's go, fellows!' as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line.
And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry's men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud.
The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows.
At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack.
A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos.
Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry's men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach.
They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses' hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets' visors.
They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers.
The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented.
At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour.
A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second.
Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent.
So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards.
If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men. Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived.
Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers.
The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud.
But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race.
Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads?
Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy's armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down.
What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms.
There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms.
The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows.
Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back. The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents.
Any man capable of hauling a warbow's string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds.
The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men.
Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph.
There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless.
Shakespeare's heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle's place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again.
Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?
It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman - the V- sign that is common parlance today.
The men in Henry's army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers.
They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won.
The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride.
The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. It is an English tale for the ages, an inspiration and - far from being ashamed of so-called 'war crimes' - we can be proud of it.
Source
Britain risks a surge in Right-wing extremism if it fails to help its white working class weather the recession, the equalities chief will warn today. Trevor Phillips will break with years of political convention to call for the law to be changed to enshrine positive discrimination in favour of disadvantaged whites. His startling intervention in the race debate is a rebuke to Harriet Harman, who earlier this year trumpeted plans to make companies discriminate in favour of women and ethnic minorities.
Mr Phillips said ministers should allow councils and education authorities to introduce 'positive action' programmes aimed specifically at young whites unable to compete with highly skilled immigrants because the 'need is so great'. And he warned that immigration has fuelled 'resentments that are real and should not be dismissed - resentments felt by white, black and Asian'.
The chairman of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission set out his thinking to the Daily Mail ahead of his appearance at a CBI event on immigration today alongside immigration minister Phil Woolas. Mr Phillips said failure to help white families hit by the downturn could drive them into the arms of far-Right parties similar to those that have brought turmoil to Austria, Belgium and Holland. He also warned that ministers needed to acknowledge the resentment by some whites over what they see as unfair help given to blacks and Asians. 'What we are seeing is that there is a whole group of people, a large proportion of whom are white, who are going to suffer from this crisis who are going to be the people we should want to help, particularly because they come from the wrong side of town,' he said.
'We are going to have to do something special for them. We are going to have to put extra resources where young people can't compete with migrants' skills. 'And in some parts of the country, it is clear that what defines disadvantage won't be black or brown, it will be white. And we will have to take positive action to help some white groups, what we might call the white underclass.'
And he warned: 'We know what the political consequences are because we have seen it on the Continent. 'If we ignore the fact some white groups are going to be disadvantaged we will end up with the same kind of conflicts we have seen in Austria, Belgium and now Holland, where the anti-immigrant racist Right-wing parties get a big boost. 'We need to do more to help those who are going to suffer and who will then think that the reason they are suffering is their colour. 'We need to pay attention to that white underclass that happens not to live in the right part of town.'
Politicians have long shied away from allowing positive discrimination, claiming it flies in the face of equality laws. But its supporters claim the system is a necessary way of helping minorities finding it difficult to get a job or housing, by pushing them to the top of the queue.
In June, Miss Harman angered business leaders by revealing plans for new anti-discrimination laws. She said she wanted to see more women and ethnic minorities promoted into senior posts and would use next year's Equalities Bill to discriminate in their favour. Under the plans, firms will be forced to reveal the salary gap between their male and female staff to shame employers into bringing them into line. But in what was seen as a clear 'white men need not apply', she made no attempt to suggest that whites could benefit from positive discrimination as well.
Mr Phillips said he wanted to see the bill used to help whites. And he added Miss Harman had been looking at the work of the commission. 'Positive action now in Britain is more likely to mean programmes for people who are poor, white and come from workless households than it is for East African Asians, for example,' he added.
Earlier this summer, Miss Harman insisted: 'It is important to encourage applications from minority groups, but we are strongly against positive discrimination so someone gets a job just because they are black or disabled.'
Mr Phillips also warned against allowing the economic crisis to trigger an outburst of anti-immigrant feeling in the UK. 'It's dangerous and it's divisive,' he said. He claimed immigrants could act as a 'buffer' against the impact of recession because they are more likely to return to their countries than stay in Britain and swell the unemployment register. 'If it wasn't for the fact that migrants from eastern Europe are now going home you would see a great many more people unemployed in this country,' he claimed.
Last week, Mr Woolas was forced to backtrack after suggesting that there should be a cap on the number of immigrants allowed into the country. Last night, Mr Phillips dismissed Mr Woolas's call for a cap, saying: 'We need to control it, we need to be tough on borders but the idea is a promise no one can deliver.'
Source
War crime? Battle of Agincourt was our finest hour
By Bernard Cornwell
Legend says the Battle of Agincourt was won by stalwart English archers. It was not. In the end it was won by men using lead-weighted hammers, poleaxes, mauls and falcon-beaks, the ghastly paraphernalia of medieval hand-to-hand fighting. It was fought on a field knee-deep in mud and it was more of a massacre than a battle.
Laurence Olivier's film of Shakespeare's Henry V shows French knights charging on horseback, but very few men were mounted at Agincourt.
The French came on foot and the battle was reduced to men hitting other armoured men with hammers, maces and axes.
A sword would not penetrate armour and did not have the weight to knock a man off his feet, but a poleaxe (a long-handled axe or hammer, topped with a fearsome spike) would fell him fast, and then it was easy to raise the victim's visor and slide a knife through an eye. That was how hundreds of men died; their last sight on earth a dagger's point.
It is not a tale of chivalry, but rather of armoured men hacking at each other to break limbs and crush skulls. At the battle's height, when Henry V expected an attack on his rear that never materialised, he ordered the newly captured French prisoners to be killed. They were murdered.
Over the weekend, during a conference at the Medieval History Museum in Agincourt, French academics met to declare that English soldiers acted like 'war criminals' during the battle, setting fire to prisoners and killing French noblemen who had surrendered. The French 'were met with barbarism by the English', said the museum's director Christophe Gilliot.
The French pronouncement smacks of bias, but what is certain is that Agincourt was filthy, horrible and merciless. Yet it is still celebrated as a golden moment in England's history.
Why do we remember it? Why has this battle galvanised English hearts over the centuries? These are questions I came to ask as I researched my new novel Azincourt - spelled as it is in France - and discovered just what an extraordinary event it was.
Part of the legend about the archers is certainly true. Most of the English army were archers and their arrows caused huge damage, although they never delivered the knock-out blow it is claimed.
Henry V was also an inspirational leader. He fought in the front rank and part of his crown was knocked off. Eighteen Frenchmen had taken an oath to kill him and all of them died at Henry's feet, slaughtered by the King or by his bodyguard. And, despite recent claims to the contrary, it seems the English were horribly outnumbered.
In the cold, wet dawn of October 25, 1415, no one could have expected Henry's army to survive the day. He had about 6,000 men, more than 5,000 of them archers, while the French numbered at least 30,000 and were so confident that, before the battle was joined, they sent away some newly arrived reinforcements. By dusk on that Saint Crispin's Day, Henry's small army had entered legend.
But the English should never have been at Agincourt, which lies 25 miles south of Calais. England was in the thick of the 100 Years' War with France, and Henry had invaded Normandy in the hope of making a quick conquest of Harfleur, a strategic port. Yet the town's stubborn defence delayed him and by the siege's end his army had been struck by dysentery.
Sick men were dying and the campaign season was ending as winter drew in. Sensible advice suggested that Henry cut his losses and sail back to England. But he had borrowed huge amounts of money to invade France and all he had to show for it was one gun-battered port. Going home looked suspiciously like defeat.
He instead marched north to Calais with probably nothing more in mind than cocking a snook at the French who, though they had gathered an army, had done nothing to relieve the brave defenders of Harfleur. Henry wanted to humiliate the French by flaunting his banners, yet I doubt he truly wanted to face that large French army with his own depleted numbers.
The French had been supine all summer, but now, suddenly, they woke and moved to block Henry's path. Henry tried to go round them. A march meant to last eight days stretched to 16. The English exhausted their food, they were ill with dysentery and soaked from the continual autumn rains.
They were driven far inland in search of a place to cross the River Somme and then trudged north, only to discover the French army waiting for them on a muddy field between the woods of Azincourt and Tramecourt. The English were trapped.
The French were barring the English road home, so Henry had to fight. He hoped the French would attack him and he ordered his archers to protect themselves from knights on horseback by making a thicket of sharpened stakes to impale the stallions' chests.
But the French remained motionless, so Henry was forced to advance on them. Did he really say 'Let's go, fellows!' as one contemporary claimed? It seems so, yet whatever his words, the English plucked up their stakes and waded through the mud to get close to the French line.
And the French, even though they must have seen that the English were in disarray, did nothing. They let Henry's men come to within extreme bowshot distance where, once again, the stakes were hammered into the ground and the battle line was reformed on a newly ploughed field that had been soaked by constant rain. If I had to suggest one cause for the French defeat, it would be mud.
The two sides were now little more than a couple of hundred paces apart. The English, astonishingly, had been given time to reposition themselves, and now the archers began the battle by shooting a volley of arrows.
At least 5,000 of them, most converging from the flanks, slashed into the French, and it seems that the shock of that first arrow strike prompted the French to attack.
A handful of Frenchmen advanced on horseback, trying to get among the archers, but mud, stakes and arrows easily defeated those knights. Some of the horses, maddened by pain, galloped back through the French men-at-arms, tearing their ranks into chaos.
Some 8,000 Frenchmen were now advancing on foot. No one knows how long it took them to cover the 200 or more paces which separated them from Henry's men-at-arms, but it was not a quick approach.
They were wading through mud made treacherous by deeply ploughed furrows and churned to quagmire by horses' hooves. And they were being struck by arrows so that they were forced to close their helmets' visors.
They could see little through the tiny eye- slits, their breathing was stifled and still the arrows came. The conventional verdict suggests that the French were cut down by those arrow storms, but the chief effect of the arrows was to delay and, by forcing them to close their visors, half-blind the attackers.
The French knew about English and Welsh archers. The longbow could shoot an arrow more than 200 paces with an accuracy that was unmatched till the rifled gun barrel was invented.
At Agincourt some barbed broadhead arrows (which were designed to cause maximum damage and could fell cavalry) would have been shot at those few horses that attacked the English line. But most were bodkins, long and slender arrowheads without barbs that were made to pierce armour.
A good archer could easily shoot 15 arrows a minute, so 5,000 archers could loose 75,000 arrows in one minute; more than 1,000 a second.
Why did the French not deploy their own longbowmen? Because to shoot a longbow demanded great strength (they were at least three times as powerful as a modern competition bow) and considerable skill. It took years for a man to develop the muscles and technique, and for reasons that have never been understood, such men emerged in Britain, but not on the Continent.
So as the first French line advanced it was being struck repeatedly by arrows, and even if a bodkin did not penetrate plate armour its strike was sufficient to knock a man backwards.
If the advance took four minutes (and I suspect it took longer), then about 300,000 arrows would have been shot at the 8,000 men. Even if the English were short of arrows and cut their shooting rate to one-third, then they would still have driven 100,000 arrows against the struggling 8,000, and if the legend is correct, then not one of those Frenchmen should have survived.
Yet they did survive, and most of them reached the English line and started fighting with shortened lances, poleaxes and war-hammers.
The fight became a struggle of hacking and thrusting, slaughter in the mud.
But if so many arrows had been shot, how did the French survive to reach the English and start that murderous brawl? The answer probably lies in the eternal arms race.
Armour technology had advanced and the French plate armour was mostly good enough to resist the English arrow-heads. And how good were those heads?
Arrow-making was an industrial-scale activity in England, yet few men understood what happened when iron was hardened into steel and many of the English arrows crumpled on contact with the enemy's armour. So the many reached the few, but the many were exhausted by mud, some were wounded and the English, enjoying the luxury of raised visors, cut them down.
What seems to have happened was that the front rank of the French, exhausted by slogging through the mud, battered and wounded by arrows, disorganised by panicked horses and by stumbling over wounded men, became easy victims for the English men-at-arms.
There would have been the ghastly sound of hammers crushing helmets, the screams of men falling, and suddenly the leading French rank being chopped down and its fallen men becoming an obstacle to those behind who, being thrust forward by the rearmost ranks, tripped on the newly fallen bodies and so became victims themselves. One witness claimed that the pile of dead and dying was as tall as a man, an obvious exaggeration, but undoubtedly the first French casualties made a rampart to protect the English men-at-arms.
The French had attacked the centre of the English line where the King, the nobles and the gentry stood. Their aim had been to take prisoners and so become rich from ransoms, but now that centre was a killing ground and, to escape it, the French widened their attack to assault the archers who had probably exhausted their arrows.
Yet the archers had been equipped with poleaxes and other handweapons, and they fought back. The bowmen wore little armour, and in the glutinous mud they were far more mobile than their plate-armoured opponents.
Any man capable of hauling a warbow's string was hugely strong and a battle-axe in his hands would be a ghastly weapon. So the archers joined the hand-to-hand fight and the tired French were killed in their hundreds.
The second French line, another 8,000 men on foot, tried to support their beleaguered colleagues, but they too were cut down and the rest of the French melted away. The extraordinary, awful battle was over. The field was now groaning with horribly wounded men; men lying in piles, men suffocating in mud, dead men, blood-drenched men.
Perhaps as many as 5,000 French died that day, while English losses were in the hundreds, maybe not even as many as 200. The few had gained their extraordinary triumph.
There were other victories, like Poitiers in 1356, that were more decisive, and it is arguable that Agincourt achieved very little; it would take another five years of warfare before Henry won the concessions he wanted from the French and even then his premature death proved those gains worthless.
Shakespeare's heart-stirring Henry V helped ensure the battle's place in English folklore, but Shakespeare was playing to an audience that already knew the tale and wanted to hear it again.
Agincourt was well-known long before Shakespeare made it immortal, yet even so there were those other great triumphs like Poitiers and Crecy, so why Agincourt?
It must have started with the stories told by survivors. They had expected annihilation and gained victory. It might even be true that the archers, when the battle was over, taunted the French by holding up the two string-fingers that the enemy had threatened to slice off every captured bowman - the V- sign that is common parlance today.
The men in Henry's army must have believed they had been part of a miracle. The few had destroyed the many, and most of those few were archers.
They were not lords and knights and gentry, but butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers from the shires. They were the ordinary men of England and Wales. They had met the awesome power of France in hand-to-hand fighting and they had won.
The battle is part of the binding of England, the emergence of the common man as a vital part of the nation, and those common men returned to England with their tales, their plunder and their pride.
The stories were told in taverns over and over, how a few hungry, trapped men had gained an amazing victory. The story is still told because it has such power. It is a tale of the common man achieving greatness. It is an English tale for the ages, an inspiration and - far from being ashamed of so-called 'war crimes' - we can be proud of it.
Source
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Science comprehension slipping badly among British pupils
Given the way science teaching has been dumbed down almost to vanishing point, this is no surprise. The article below is written as if it were IQ being tested but that is careless. The researcher in fact makes the point that on a task which relies on IQ rather than specific knowledge, there has been no change. It is the teaching that has deteriorated. The kids all know about global warming, the desirability of a low-fat diet and other myths but would they be able to explain the periodic table to you?
Bright teenagers are a disappearing breed, an alarming new study has revealed. The intellectual ability of the country's cleverest youngsters has declined radically, almost certainly due to the rise of TV and computer games and over-testing in schools. The 'high-level thinking' skills of 14-year-olds are now on a par with those of 12-year-olds in 1976.
The findings contradict national results which have shown a growth in top grades in SATs at 14, GCSEs and A-levels. But Michael Shayer, the professor of applied psychology who led the study, believes that is the result of exam standards 'edging down'. His team of researchers at London's King's College tested 800 13 and 14-year-olds and compared the results with a similar exercise in 1976.
The tests were intended to measure understanding of abstract scientific concepts such as volume, density, quantity and weight, which set pupils up for success not only in maths and science but also in English and history. One test asked pupils to study a pendulum swinging on a string and investigate the factors that cause it to change speed. A second involved weights on a beam. In the pendulum test, average achievement was much the same as in 1976.
But the proportion of teenagers reaching top grades, demanding a 'higher level of thinking', slumped dramatically. Just over one in ten were at that level, down from one in four in 1976. In the second test, assessing mathematical thinking skills, just one in 20 pupils were achieving the high grades - down from one in five in 1976.
Professor Shayer said: 'The pendulum test does not require any knowledge of science at all. 'It looks at how people can deal with complex information and sort it out for themselves.' He believes most of the downturn has occurred over the last ten to 15 years. It may have been hastened by the introduction of national curriculum testing and accompanying targets, which have cut the time available for teaching which develops more advanced skills.
Critics say schools concentrate instead on drilling children for the tests. 'The moment you introduce targets, people will find the most economical strategies to achieve them,' said Professor Shayer. 'In the case of education, I'm sure this has had an effect on driving schools away from developing higher levels of understanding.' He added that while the numeracy hour in primary schools appears to have led to some gains, it has 'squeezed out a lot of things teachers might otherwise be doing'.
Professor Shayer believes the decline in brainpower is also linked to changes in children's leisure activities. The advent of multi-channel TV has encouraged passive viewing while computer games, particularly for boys, are feared to have supplanted time spent playing with tools, gadgets and other mechanisms.
Professor Shayer warned that without the development of higher-order thinking skills, the future supply of scientists will be compromised. 'We don't even have enough scientists now,' he said.
Previous research by Professor Shayer has shown that 11-year-olds' grasp of concepts such as volume, density, quantity and weight appears to have declined over the last 30 years. Their mental abilities were up to three years behind youngsters tested in in 1975.
His latest findings, due to appear in the British Journal of Educational Psychology, come in the wake of a report by Dr Aric Sigman which linked the decline in intellectual ability to a shift away from art and craft skills in both schools and the home. Dr Sigman said practical activities such as building models and sandcastles, making dens, using tools, playing with building blocks, knitting, sewing and woodwork were being neglected. Yet they helped develop vital skills such as understanding dimension, volume and density.
Earlier this month the Government bowed to mounting pressure and scrapped SATs for 14-year-olds. Ministers have also created an independent exams watchdog and promised a return to traditional, open-ended questions at A-level plus a new A* grade to mark out the brightest students. A spokesman for the Department for Children said last night: 'Good teachers do not need to teach to the test and there is no evidence that such practice is widespread. 'We have already taken steps to reduce the testing burden, but targets and testing are integral features of any work to drive up standards.'
Last month an Ofsted report said millions of teenagers were finishing compulsory education with a weak grasp of maths because half of the country's schools fail to teach the subject as well as they could. Inspectors said teachers were increasingly drilling pupils to pass exams instead of encouraging them to understand crucial concepts. The report said: 'It is of vital importance to shift from a narrow emphasis towards a focus on pupils' mathematical understanding.'
Source
British prisons boss toughens up
Liberals who push criminal rights drive me nuts, says Justice Secretary Jack Straw
Jack Straw will today launch a withering attack on liberal justice groups who 'drive him nuts' by focusing on the 'needs' of offenders instead of punishment. In a landmark speech, the Justice Secretary will unleash a broadside against the 'prison reform lobby', condemning groups with which Labour has forged close links and accusing them of being 'lost in a fog of platitudes' and overlooking the suffering of victims.
The tough tone of Mr Straw's speech appears to mark a dramatic turning away from the liberal consensus on prison policy. For years this has stressed the need to understand prisoners' problems and 'needs', while playing down the role of jail as a harsh deterrent to force them to mend their ways. It is likely to be seen as a bid to re-establish Labour as the party of law and order at a time when the Conservatives are pledging measures to fix Britain's 'broken society', and public concerns are growing over gun and knife crime and the crisis in the country's overcrowded prisons.
Mr Straw served as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, and resumed responsibility for prisons when he became Justice Secretary in June 2007. He will tell his audience at the Royal Society of Arts in London today that the Government is not returning to 'Victorian notions' of crime and punishment but must be 'crystal clear about what the public expect the justice system to do on their behalf: to punish those who have broken the law'.
He will lament the way concepts of 'punishment and reform' have become 'unfashionable', adding: 'We should not shy away from the fact that the sentences of the court are first and foremost for the punishment of those who have broken the law, broken society's rules.' He will go on to say: 'The criminal justice lobby today is full of people . . . who do a very good job. 'However, I am concerned that it has retreated into language that doesn't chime with the public. 'When I hear phrases like "criminogenic needs of offenders" it drives me nuts . . . I profoundly disagree that we should describe someone's amoral desire to go thieving as a "need" equivalent to that of victims or the law-abiding public.'
The Justice Secretary's focus on the central role of punishment in prisons is likely to infuriate groups such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, which have enjoyed close ties with the Government since Labour took office in 1997. Such reforming groups have enjoyed years of Home Office funding while senior ministers - including Mr Straw himself - have been frequent speakers at their conferences. By contrast, groups espousing much tougher approaches to law and order, such as the Victims of Crime Trust, have mostly been sidelined under Labour.
Mr Straw also risks a backlash from opposition critics demanding to know why he is adopting a tougher tone now, more than 11 years after Labour took office, and having personally overseen the Government's criminal justice policy for much of that time. He is currently under fire over his department's policy of releasing thousands of convicted prisoners before they complete their sentences, as an emergency measure to cope with the lack of prison capacity in England and Wales. Hundreds have gone on to commit further offences when they should have been behind bars.
Source
Widow, 71, died after uncaring NHS doctors ignored penicillin warning
A grandmother died after hospital doctors gave her penicillin even though her medical notes and drug chart made clear she was allergic to it. June Cutmore was even wearing a red wristband to draw attention to the allergy. The 71-year-old widow went into anaphylactic shock and died after being injected with Augmentin - a form of the drug.
St Bartholomew's Hospital in London admitted that 'human error' caused the death. Her family believe a catalogue of mistakes by medical staff led to the tragedy in May 2007. The grandmother of three from Basildon, Essex, was admitted to St Bartholomew's to have a heart valve replaced, and undergo a double bypass.
Shortly before this Mrs Cutmore had some teeth removed at a hospital in Basildon. While there she was given penicillin and went into anaphylactic shock. She recovered from that reaction but it was written on her medical notes that she should never be given the drug again. Daughter Denise Hajduga, 48, and her husband Peter, 50, say they repeatedly told staff at St Bartholomew's about the allergy. Mrs Hajduga said: 'We told a nurse about it when we went into hospital with my mother for her pre-operation tests, then we told another nurse about it when my mother was actually admitted a few days later. They gave her a red band to wear on her wrist which said she was allergic to penicillin. 'It was also written on her medical notes after they discovered it in Basildon, and on her drug chart.' In a copy of Mrs Cutmore's drug chart seen by the Daily Mail the word penicillin is written in big capital letters with stars next to it in a box labelled 'drug allergies'.
Mrs Cutmore's heart operation was deemed a success, and after two days in intensive care the retired cook was transferred on to a ward. But the pensioner, who lived alone after the death of her husband Cliff, suffered complications. Mrs Hajduga, from Romford, Essex said: 'When she had the heart operation they had to break her sternum bone to reach her heart, and it became infected. The doctors had a meeting about what to do, and prescribed the antibiotic Augmentin - which contains penicillin.'
Mrs Hajduga's husband was there when the nurses gave her the drug. She said: 'He could see my mother was distressed immediately - within seconds of it being given to her she started getting short of breath and was pointing to her arm.' She says that her husband told the nurse three times to stop injecting it. 'But the nurse said she was just panicking a bit and carried on injecting it. She died shortly after.'
Mrs Cutmore had been in hospital for three weeks before she died. Mrs Hajduga said: 'They just didn't follow procedures. A number of health professionals failed to pick up that allergy.' She claims staff failed to even check her mother's wristband. 'They killed somebody and I think people should know about it. We have waited 18 months and now we just want answers to why it happened.' Her husband added: 'June worked hard all her life. She was loved by everyone. It is unbelievable what happened.'
A spokesman for the hospital said: 'Barts and The London NHS Trust is deeply sorry for the failure of the safeguards that should have protected Mrs Cutmore. The Trust's medical director and chief nurse met Mr and Mrs Hajduga soon after their mother's death to apologise unreservedly for the medication error. 'The staff members involved in this tragic incident are very upset and the Trust is committed to ensuring that the whole organisation learns the lessons from the tragedy.' [Bullsh*t, Bullsh*t, Bullsh*t]
Source
Given the way science teaching has been dumbed down almost to vanishing point, this is no surprise. The article below is written as if it were IQ being tested but that is careless. The researcher in fact makes the point that on a task which relies on IQ rather than specific knowledge, there has been no change. It is the teaching that has deteriorated. The kids all know about global warming, the desirability of a low-fat diet and other myths but would they be able to explain the periodic table to you?
Bright teenagers are a disappearing breed, an alarming new study has revealed. The intellectual ability of the country's cleverest youngsters has declined radically, almost certainly due to the rise of TV and computer games and over-testing in schools. The 'high-level thinking' skills of 14-year-olds are now on a par with those of 12-year-olds in 1976.
The findings contradict national results which have shown a growth in top grades in SATs at 14, GCSEs and A-levels. But Michael Shayer, the professor of applied psychology who led the study, believes that is the result of exam standards 'edging down'. His team of researchers at London's King's College tested 800 13 and 14-year-olds and compared the results with a similar exercise in 1976.
The tests were intended to measure understanding of abstract scientific concepts such as volume, density, quantity and weight, which set pupils up for success not only in maths and science but also in English and history. One test asked pupils to study a pendulum swinging on a string and investigate the factors that cause it to change speed. A second involved weights on a beam. In the pendulum test, average achievement was much the same as in 1976.
But the proportion of teenagers reaching top grades, demanding a 'higher level of thinking', slumped dramatically. Just over one in ten were at that level, down from one in four in 1976. In the second test, assessing mathematical thinking skills, just one in 20 pupils were achieving the high grades - down from one in five in 1976.
Professor Shayer said: 'The pendulum test does not require any knowledge of science at all. 'It looks at how people can deal with complex information and sort it out for themselves.' He believes most of the downturn has occurred over the last ten to 15 years. It may have been hastened by the introduction of national curriculum testing and accompanying targets, which have cut the time available for teaching which develops more advanced skills.
Critics say schools concentrate instead on drilling children for the tests. 'The moment you introduce targets, people will find the most economical strategies to achieve them,' said Professor Shayer. 'In the case of education, I'm sure this has had an effect on driving schools away from developing higher levels of understanding.' He added that while the numeracy hour in primary schools appears to have led to some gains, it has 'squeezed out a lot of things teachers might otherwise be doing'.
Professor Shayer believes the decline in brainpower is also linked to changes in children's leisure activities. The advent of multi-channel TV has encouraged passive viewing while computer games, particularly for boys, are feared to have supplanted time spent playing with tools, gadgets and other mechanisms.
Professor Shayer warned that without the development of higher-order thinking skills, the future supply of scientists will be compromised. 'We don't even have enough scientists now,' he said.
Previous research by Professor Shayer has shown that 11-year-olds' grasp of concepts such as volume, density, quantity and weight appears to have declined over the last 30 years. Their mental abilities were up to three years behind youngsters tested in in 1975.
His latest findings, due to appear in the British Journal of Educational Psychology, come in the wake of a report by Dr Aric Sigman which linked the decline in intellectual ability to a shift away from art and craft skills in both schools and the home. Dr Sigman said practical activities such as building models and sandcastles, making dens, using tools, playing with building blocks, knitting, sewing and woodwork were being neglected. Yet they helped develop vital skills such as understanding dimension, volume and density.
Earlier this month the Government bowed to mounting pressure and scrapped SATs for 14-year-olds. Ministers have also created an independent exams watchdog and promised a return to traditional, open-ended questions at A-level plus a new A* grade to mark out the brightest students. A spokesman for the Department for Children said last night: 'Good teachers do not need to teach to the test and there is no evidence that such practice is widespread. 'We have already taken steps to reduce the testing burden, but targets and testing are integral features of any work to drive up standards.'
Last month an Ofsted report said millions of teenagers were finishing compulsory education with a weak grasp of maths because half of the country's schools fail to teach the subject as well as they could. Inspectors said teachers were increasingly drilling pupils to pass exams instead of encouraging them to understand crucial concepts. The report said: 'It is of vital importance to shift from a narrow emphasis towards a focus on pupils' mathematical understanding.'
Source
British prisons boss toughens up
Liberals who push criminal rights drive me nuts, says Justice Secretary Jack Straw
Jack Straw will today launch a withering attack on liberal justice groups who 'drive him nuts' by focusing on the 'needs' of offenders instead of punishment. In a landmark speech, the Justice Secretary will unleash a broadside against the 'prison reform lobby', condemning groups with which Labour has forged close links and accusing them of being 'lost in a fog of platitudes' and overlooking the suffering of victims.
The tough tone of Mr Straw's speech appears to mark a dramatic turning away from the liberal consensus on prison policy. For years this has stressed the need to understand prisoners' problems and 'needs', while playing down the role of jail as a harsh deterrent to force them to mend their ways. It is likely to be seen as a bid to re-establish Labour as the party of law and order at a time when the Conservatives are pledging measures to fix Britain's 'broken society', and public concerns are growing over gun and knife crime and the crisis in the country's overcrowded prisons.
Mr Straw served as Home Secretary from 1997 to 2001, and resumed responsibility for prisons when he became Justice Secretary in June 2007. He will tell his audience at the Royal Society of Arts in London today that the Government is not returning to 'Victorian notions' of crime and punishment but must be 'crystal clear about what the public expect the justice system to do on their behalf: to punish those who have broken the law'.
He will lament the way concepts of 'punishment and reform' have become 'unfashionable', adding: 'We should not shy away from the fact that the sentences of the court are first and foremost for the punishment of those who have broken the law, broken society's rules.' He will go on to say: 'The criminal justice lobby today is full of people . . . who do a very good job. 'However, I am concerned that it has retreated into language that doesn't chime with the public. 'When I hear phrases like "criminogenic needs of offenders" it drives me nuts . . . I profoundly disagree that we should describe someone's amoral desire to go thieving as a "need" equivalent to that of victims or the law-abiding public.'
The Justice Secretary's focus on the central role of punishment in prisons is likely to infuriate groups such as the Howard League for Penal Reform, and the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders, which have enjoyed close ties with the Government since Labour took office in 1997. Such reforming groups have enjoyed years of Home Office funding while senior ministers - including Mr Straw himself - have been frequent speakers at their conferences. By contrast, groups espousing much tougher approaches to law and order, such as the Victims of Crime Trust, have mostly been sidelined under Labour.
Mr Straw also risks a backlash from opposition critics demanding to know why he is adopting a tougher tone now, more than 11 years after Labour took office, and having personally overseen the Government's criminal justice policy for much of that time. He is currently under fire over his department's policy of releasing thousands of convicted prisoners before they complete their sentences, as an emergency measure to cope with the lack of prison capacity in England and Wales. Hundreds have gone on to commit further offences when they should have been behind bars.
Source
Widow, 71, died after uncaring NHS doctors ignored penicillin warning
A grandmother died after hospital doctors gave her penicillin even though her medical notes and drug chart made clear she was allergic to it. June Cutmore was even wearing a red wristband to draw attention to the allergy. The 71-year-old widow went into anaphylactic shock and died after being injected with Augmentin - a form of the drug.
St Bartholomew's Hospital in London admitted that 'human error' caused the death. Her family believe a catalogue of mistakes by medical staff led to the tragedy in May 2007. The grandmother of three from Basildon, Essex, was admitted to St Bartholomew's to have a heart valve replaced, and undergo a double bypass.
Shortly before this Mrs Cutmore had some teeth removed at a hospital in Basildon. While there she was given penicillin and went into anaphylactic shock. She recovered from that reaction but it was written on her medical notes that she should never be given the drug again. Daughter Denise Hajduga, 48, and her husband Peter, 50, say they repeatedly told staff at St Bartholomew's about the allergy. Mrs Hajduga said: 'We told a nurse about it when we went into hospital with my mother for her pre-operation tests, then we told another nurse about it when my mother was actually admitted a few days later. They gave her a red band to wear on her wrist which said she was allergic to penicillin. 'It was also written on her medical notes after they discovered it in Basildon, and on her drug chart.' In a copy of Mrs Cutmore's drug chart seen by the Daily Mail the word penicillin is written in big capital letters with stars next to it in a box labelled 'drug allergies'.
Mrs Cutmore's heart operation was deemed a success, and after two days in intensive care the retired cook was transferred on to a ward. But the pensioner, who lived alone after the death of her husband Cliff, suffered complications. Mrs Hajduga, from Romford, Essex said: 'When she had the heart operation they had to break her sternum bone to reach her heart, and it became infected. The doctors had a meeting about what to do, and prescribed the antibiotic Augmentin - which contains penicillin.'
Mrs Hajduga's husband was there when the nurses gave her the drug. She said: 'He could see my mother was distressed immediately - within seconds of it being given to her she started getting short of breath and was pointing to her arm.' She says that her husband told the nurse three times to stop injecting it. 'But the nurse said she was just panicking a bit and carried on injecting it. She died shortly after.'
Mrs Cutmore had been in hospital for three weeks before she died. Mrs Hajduga said: 'They just didn't follow procedures. A number of health professionals failed to pick up that allergy.' She claims staff failed to even check her mother's wristband. 'They killed somebody and I think people should know about it. We have waited 18 months and now we just want answers to why it happened.' Her husband added: 'June worked hard all her life. She was loved by everyone. It is unbelievable what happened.'
A spokesman for the hospital said: 'Barts and The London NHS Trust is deeply sorry for the failure of the safeguards that should have protected Mrs Cutmore. The Trust's medical director and chief nurse met Mr and Mrs Hajduga soon after their mother's death to apologise unreservedly for the medication error. 'The staff members involved in this tragic incident are very upset and the Trust is committed to ensuring that the whole organisation learns the lessons from the tragedy.' [Bullsh*t, Bullsh*t, Bullsh*t]
Source
Monday, October 27, 2008
British immigration boss too outspoken
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, was pulled from last night's BBC Question Time on the instruction of the home secretary after a series of controversial public performances in the past week. Jacqui Smith said Woolas should delay his appearance for a week and Labour tried to replace him with the former Home Office minister Tony McNulty. Smith thought Woolas had made enough controversial remarks, with some Home Office officials briefing he was gaffe prone. The BBC rejected the party's suggestion and asked Lord Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the party, to appear.
Being pulled has been difficult for Woolas, who feels he is being briefed against by Home Office officials angry at what they regard as his unwise remarks on immigration and criticism of previous Home Office practice. However, he is being allowed to appear on the World at One today and he is gathering support from Labour MPs who believe he is taking the right approach.
Woolas was appointed in the reshuffle by Gordon Brown to speak about immigration in ways in which the public could relate. But it has not been clear whether his appointment is bringing a change in policy or merely in rhetoric from his predecessor, Liam Byrne.
There are indications that Smith is considering tightening immigration policy. She told MPs this week: "Our proposals on earned citizenship mean that migrants understand very clearly that permission to come here to work or study does not give them the right to settle here indefinitely".
Labour MP Frank Field, in a joint paper with Tory MP Nicholas Soames, has proposed those granted permission to work in Britain through the new points system would be allowed to stay for four years and thereafter be expected to leave, or undertake a test to see if their skills are needed.
Field, in a letter sent to MPs reporting on his meeting with Smith last week, claims: "The home secretary questioned whether we were being robust enough in our criteria for allowing people to come here to work for up to four years."
Source
British migrant row: Minister hit by pie
The usual Leftist love of coercion
Immigration minister Phil Woolas has become the victim of a pie-throwing protester, angry at his call to limit UK immigration. A member of the No Borders group threw a cream pie into the minister's face while he was speaking at a debate at Manchester University. A spokeswoman for the group said Mr Woolas had been "spouting right-wing anti-immigration policies". A Home Office spokeswoman said the minister declined to comment.
The No Borders group, which campaigns against immigration controls, were angered by Mr Woolas' recent remarks, in which he said the government would not allow the UK's population to rise as high as 70 million.
The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP denied that he wanted a "numerical cap" on immigration. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith later said Mr Woolas had not been "gagged" after her department pulled him from BBC One's Question Time.
Mr Woolas was targeted when he attended an environmental debate held at Manchester University student union on Friday afternoon. As he arrived the minister was confronted with a mock "border control" and was asked for his passport. Then, shortly after he began to speak, a woman rose from the audience and threw a pie, believed to be made of Bourbon Creams biscuits and vegan cream, into his face at close range.
A spokeswoman for No Borders said: "The woman ran away. Mr Woolas was shocked and there was a bit of an awkward silence as he left the room to clean himself up. "We threw the pie because we didn't want to engage in debate [No surprise there] and legitimise what he was saying. "What he was spouting were right wing anti-immigration policies. The danger is that people like him are making such views mainstream."
Mr Woolas was unharmed and later rejoined the debate. It is not known whether he was accompanied by any security at the time of the incident.
Source
Must they know about sex at age five?
One thing stumps me about the news that the Government is to provide compulsory "sex and relationships" lessons for children from the age of five: how much can there really be to say?
On the subject of relationships, obviously, one could go on forever, recommending lengthy homework on everything from Jane Austen to Leonard Cohen lyrics. On sex, I would have thought there was rather less to discuss: one could surely exhaust the topics of contraception, pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases in a matter of weeks at the age of 11, perhaps with a brief refresher course at 13. After that, in what precise style young people proceed with sex in later life is surely a matter for them: there must be some areas to which even the omnipresent hand of the nanny state does not reach.
The news that there will now be a "naming of parts" session for five-year-olds, however - in which they learn the correct words for genitals and the differences between the sexes - gives me the creeps. By the age of five, many children have their own names for their private parts, often of a friendly, silly variety that will do them perfectly well until they are older. Is there really any point in school insisting on teaching them otherwise?
If a friend or relative suddenly insisted on lecturing your five-year-old about the official name for their genitals, apropos of nothing, I imagine they would be asked to shut up pretty sharpish. I am at something of a loss as to why this interference should be thought preferable coming from a primary teacher. And yet a sex education comic - Let's Grow With Nisha and Joe - is already being promoted to primary schools. We learned to read with Dick and Dora: I shudder to think what they would do with that pair today.
The great irony in the Government setting itself up as the supreme educator on sexual and emotional matters is that, when it is given the task of actually looking after confused and vulnerable children all by itself, it is the worst parent imaginable. Girls who have grown up in care are sexually active earlier than other teenagers, and are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant. A quarter of girls leaving care are already mothers or pregnant.
These girls are subjected to the same sex education at school as everyone else: I would be extremely surprised if any of them did not know in theory how to avoid having a baby. The real point, surely, is that they do not greatly want to avoid it. The emotional isolation they experience during their period in the unfeeling British care system means that they gravitate towards men as a source of affection and attention. The prospect of motherhood then offers them both an acknowledged social status and perhaps a reason for continued financial support from the state. Their early pregnancy is entirely logical, for any state that cares to read its own shortcomings written in the logic.
This, to a lesser degree, holds true for very many teenage girls who "accidentally" find themselves pregnant. The phenomenon is not helped by the fact that at the moment there is a wealth of information on what it means to have sex and very little on what it means to be in sole charge of a small baby that cries round the clock.
I believe in the good sense of basic sex education at school for older children, even if my own was pretty much confined to a terrifying film of a woman giving birth, and a hilarious, crackling 1960s film about male puberty called From Boy to Man. (We never got to see From Girl to Woman, despite being primed for yet more helpless laughter: the projector broke.)
There is a danger, however, that any philosophy that mainly concentrates on the somewhat deceptive notion of "safe sex" and the judicious use of contraception is in fact misleading. If a teenager doesn't think that he or she is ready for the life-changing complications that might arise from sex - and few are - then the best advice is not to do it at all. Otherwise, they should be warned that contraception is very far from infallible, and they would be advised to double up on their methods.
I yearn for the day when "sex and relationships" lessons actually do something to make teenage behaviour wiser, and when lessons include: "Just because he sleeps with you doesn't mean he loves you" and "New mum Mary can't go out for two years. It's 3am and the baby's screaming with colic." Sadly, the glum news that Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, has decided instead to start badgering the nation's five-year-olds into naming their private parts doesn't lead me to think that will happen any time soon.
More here
NHS dream of equality trumped by reality
Up to 10,000 patients will pay to top up their care when Alan Johnson, the health secretary, lifts the ban next month on National Health Service patients buying drugs that the state does not fund. Johnson’s U-turn, reported in last week’s Sunday Times, will end the policy of withdrawing NHS care from cancer patients who pay privately for life-prolonging drugs. It follows a campaign by the paper to end the practice. Until now the government has resisted pleas for top-ups to be allowed by claiming that the system will create a two-tier NHS.
The controversy is also expected to force Johnson to ask the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the government’s drug rationing body, to review the way it calculates whether life-prolonging cancer drugs should be funded by the taxpayer. Thousands of NHS patients are denied drugs that could prolong their lives because Nice has ruled that they are not good value for money.
In August Nice ruled that four life-prolonging kidney cancer drugs should not be funded on the NHS because, although they could halt the spread of the cancer for six months, this would be at a cost of up to $70,000 a year. Nice will now be asked to take greater account of how precious this extra time is for terminally ill patients.
At the moment, patients who have chosen to use their savings to pay for drugs to give them extra months of life with their families have their NHS care withdrawn. Johnson will argue that by ordering Nice to make more of these drugs available on the NHS, it will reduce the number of patients who need to pay to top up their care.
Healthcare at Home, a private company, says it is already selling cancer drugs to 1,000 patients from about 30 NHS trusts that have broken ranks and allowed patients to buy additional drugs while receiving NHS care. A company spokesman said that once the ban was lifted and more than 170 hospital trusts in England allowed top-ups, up to 10,000 patients could decide to supplement their NHS care with additional drugs.
Johnson’s change of policy follows an inquiry launched by the government in June after The Sunday Times revealed the tragedy of Linda O'Boyle, 64, a grandmother from Billericay, Essex, who died in March after her NHS care was withdrawn because she had paid privately for cetuximab, the bowel cancer treatment. At least three other cancer patients have died after their NHS care was withdrawn because they had paid for drugs.
Source
Man sacked from British counselling service because he is a Christian who refused to give sex advice to homosexuals
A relationship counsellor claims he was sacked because he admitted that his Christian beliefs could prevent him giving sex therapy to gay couples. Gary McFarlane, a father of two who has worked for the national counselling service Relate since 2003, says that it failed to accommodate his faith or allow him to try to overcome his reservations. Now Mr McFarlane, 47, is taking his case to an employment tribunal, alleging unfair dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination.
The controversy follows the case in July of Lillian Ladele, the Christian registrar who successfully challenged Islington Council over her refusal to conduct civil partnership ceremonies for gay couples.
Mr McFarlane, a solicitor, said he was 'sad and disappointed' with the 'bigotry' he had experienced at the Bristol branch of Relate from 'a group of people with their own agenda'. 'If I was a Muslim this would not happen,' he said. 'They would find a way to make the system work. But Christians seem to have fewer and fewer rights. Relate needs to be forced to work through stuff like this.'
Mr McFarlane, who regularly attends both Church of England and Pentecostal services in Bristol, joined Relate Avon five years ago. As a solicitor, he has specialised in resolving legal disputes through mediation, and even sits on a committee advising the Law Society. He is also a part-time tutor on relationships at Trinity Theological College in Bristol, whose Church of England principal, Canon George Kovoor, is a Chaplain to the Queen.
While training as a counsellor he had qualms about dealing with gay couples but overcame them during discussions with his supervisor. He has since helped a lesbian partnership. But his real problems arose last year after he started to train as a psychosexual therapist, treating people's intimate sexual problems. He said: 'In counselling, you are drawing the couple out, going on a journey with them, enabling them to think in more than black and white. You are not telling anyone what to do or endorsing what they do. 'But in sex therapy you are diagnosing their problems and setting them a treatment plan, not unlike a doctor.'
He said that while he believed in 'each to their own', he felt uncomfortable doing anything that would directly encourage gay sex. He had not expected to confront these issues until facing the prospect of providing therapy for a gay couple, when he planned to discuss them in confidence with his supervisor. He assumed that Relate Avon would take him off the case. He said that many counsellors had difficulties that had to be worked around. Some had been abused as children and found they could not conduct sessions with abusers, and Relate Avon would accommodate them.
But fellow counsellors complained about Mr McFarlane's views, alleging he was homophobic, and he was suspended last December by his manager. After three weeks, he was reinstated and had to promise to abide by Relate's equal opportunities policy, with the proviso, he claims, that he could raise issues in the future.
Following further complaints, however, he was told that he would face a disciplinary hearing because managers at Relate Avon no longer believed he intended to uphold the policy. He was dismissed and his appeal was rejected.
'There was a group who didn't want me there and they got their teeth in,' he said. 'I was prepared to explore my reservations but they wanted unconditional assurances that they would never become an issue for me. 'Why did they have to slam the door like that? This could force other Christians out of counselling. Some have already reacted with consternation, saying if it could happen to someone of my experience and skills, it could happen to them.'
A spokeswoman for Relate said: 'Relate cannot comment until the employment tribunal has taken place.' The organisation, originally called the National Marriage Guidance Council, was founded in 1938. By 1998 it was counselling couples in a much wider range of relationships and changed its name to Relate. It now operates from nearly 600 locations nationwide.
Source
Liberty vs liberty
British campaign group Liberty seems more interested in proposing an alternative authoritarianism than defending freedom
This week, the UK government decided to shelve its plans to increase the period that terror suspects can be held without charge from 28 days to 42 days, after its proposal was voted down in the House of Lords. Britain's leading civil liberties group, Liberty, immediately declared the decision a `victory' for its campaign to prevent the increase. Yet the law that Liberty should really be worried about is not the Counter-Terrorism Bill but the Trades Descriptions Act - because Liberty, along with many others, doesn't seem very interested in defending liberty at all.
The government's decision to shelve the extension was simply a pragmatic one. Its Bill calling for an extension to 42 days' detention without charge only scraped through the House of Commons in June this year thanks to the support of nine Democratic Unionist MPs: bigots from Northern Ireland that no self-respecting government should cuddle up to. New Labour's whips in the House of Commons believed that if the measure went to a vote in the House again, it could well be defeated. Furthermore, even if the Bill did get through the Commons, the unelected House of Lords could continue to block it for up to a year before the Parliament Act could be used to force the law through; this would have delayed all the other measures in the Bill. The government scrapped the 42-days proposal in order to avoid embarrassment in the Commons and a potential delay by the Lords.
However, parliamentary calculation was not the only reason for a change of mind. There was also opposition to aspects of the Bill from those who should have been its keenest supporters: the police. In an article in The Times (London) a week before the Lords' vote, Andy Hayman - until recently Britain's most senior anti-terrorism officer - declared his support for the principle of 42 days' detention while denouncing the proposed mechanism by which it would be put into effect: `[T]he government's current proposals are not fit for purpose: they are bureaucratic, convoluted and unworkable. The draftsman's pen has introduced so many hoops to be jumped through that a police case for detaining a terror suspect will become part of the political game.'
Others argue that the government erased 42 days from its Bill for strictly party political reasons. In June, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown flailing about in a sea of unpopularity and desperate to appear like he had some purpose, he was keen to push through a measure that looked tough on terrorism. But the current economic crisis has given him a new lease of life. Now he is praised in the press not only for saving the British banking system (allegedly) but for providing a framework through which the US authorities and European governments might intervene in the financial arena, too. The 42-day proposal, which must once have seemed like a potential vote-winner, is now a messy and divisive idea at a time when Brown is milking the financial crisis. With all eyes focused on the economy, it was the perfect moment to drop the 42-days idea.
Liberty believes the decision to drop the proposal was a stunning vindication of its campaigning. Never mind that everyone from senior police officers to the prime minister himself was getting cold feet about the whole thing. After the Lords vote, the Liberty website declared: `Last night saw a resounding victory for Liberty's long running "Charge or Release" campaign. Common sense and common decency prevailed as the government dropped plans to detain terror suspects for 42 days without charge, following an overwhelming defeat in the House of Lords. We have consistently urged the government to drop these damaging proposals and have condemned the measures as wrong in principle, unnecessary and counter-productive.'
This is a strange kind of `victory', rather like a football manager declaring that being beaten four-nil was cause for celebration because at least it wasn't six-nil. Both are crushing defeats. The same applies to the current rules on terrorism offences. The power to lock someone up and question him repeatedly without charge for a disturbing 28 days - the victorious settlement in this civil liberty war - has no equivalent in any other democracy, as Liberty itself has pointed out frequently. Indeed, terrorism offences aside, the legal maximum for detention without charge in England is 96 hours - even in murder cases.
Worse, Liberty has argued that 28 days should be maintained and that other important principles of legal protection for suspects should be thrown out in lieu of introducing the 42-day extension. Liberty argues that the government should `remove the bar on intercept (phone tap) evidence in criminal trials', `review the way in which people that have already been charged can be re-interviewed and recharged as further evidence is uncovered' (opening up the possibility of oppressive post-charge questioning), and `bring in existing powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) which enable a civil court to require an individual to hand over an encryption key (which unlocks data on seized computers)'.
These legal rules that Liberty wishes to water down or override provide protection for individuals when the overwhelming power of the state is brought to bear upon them. Yet Liberty seems willing to trade them in for the administrative convenience of the police when investigating terrorist offences. As the Labour peer Martin O'Neill pointed out in the New Statesman earlier this year, in relation to the 42-day proposal, `certain liberties - like the freedom from detention without charge - are simply too fundamental to be traded-off against gains in our personal security. This is because personal security may itself only be truly worthwhile as long as these liberties are protected. It may do us no good to be kept safe from harm if it is at the cost of living in a country that is no longer a civilised liberal democracy.' The same applies to these other pillars of civil liberty, too.
Furthermore, Liberty has remained silent - at best - on a range of recent restrictions on our freedom, from the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which requires the state vetting of 11million people who work with children and old people, through to the bans on smoking and drinking in public. Shami Chakrabarti, the head of Liberty, has even threatened to use the libel laws - England's famously anti-free speech rules - to stop malicious statements being made about her. That's hardly the instinct of someone truly interested in freedom.
Instead of declaring victory in cases where draconian government powers are reinforced, what is needed is a more fundamental defence of individual liberty in Britain, something that spiked has put forward in our `Slash 42 days to 24 hours' campaign (see The fight for individual liberty starts here, by Brendan O'Neill). We need to defend existing protections and reinstate important principles like the right to silence - but we also need to go beyond the law to re-establish the idea of the active political citizen in contemporary society. Until the authorities feel the breath of active opposition on the backs of their necks, we will be stuck with the alternative authoritarianism of legalistic wonks like Liberty.
Source
Phil Woolas, the immigration minister, was pulled from last night's BBC Question Time on the instruction of the home secretary after a series of controversial public performances in the past week. Jacqui Smith said Woolas should delay his appearance for a week and Labour tried to replace him with the former Home Office minister Tony McNulty. Smith thought Woolas had made enough controversial remarks, with some Home Office officials briefing he was gaffe prone. The BBC rejected the party's suggestion and asked Lord Hattersley, the former deputy leader of the party, to appear.
Being pulled has been difficult for Woolas, who feels he is being briefed against by Home Office officials angry at what they regard as his unwise remarks on immigration and criticism of previous Home Office practice. However, he is being allowed to appear on the World at One today and he is gathering support from Labour MPs who believe he is taking the right approach.
Woolas was appointed in the reshuffle by Gordon Brown to speak about immigration in ways in which the public could relate. But it has not been clear whether his appointment is bringing a change in policy or merely in rhetoric from his predecessor, Liam Byrne.
There are indications that Smith is considering tightening immigration policy. She told MPs this week: "Our proposals on earned citizenship mean that migrants understand very clearly that permission to come here to work or study does not give them the right to settle here indefinitely".
Labour MP Frank Field, in a joint paper with Tory MP Nicholas Soames, has proposed those granted permission to work in Britain through the new points system would be allowed to stay for four years and thereafter be expected to leave, or undertake a test to see if their skills are needed.
Field, in a letter sent to MPs reporting on his meeting with Smith last week, claims: "The home secretary questioned whether we were being robust enough in our criteria for allowing people to come here to work for up to four years."
Source
British migrant row: Minister hit by pie
The usual Leftist love of coercion
Immigration minister Phil Woolas has become the victim of a pie-throwing protester, angry at his call to limit UK immigration. A member of the No Borders group threw a cream pie into the minister's face while he was speaking at a debate at Manchester University. A spokeswoman for the group said Mr Woolas had been "spouting right-wing anti-immigration policies". A Home Office spokeswoman said the minister declined to comment.
The No Borders group, which campaigns against immigration controls, were angered by Mr Woolas' recent remarks, in which he said the government would not allow the UK's population to rise as high as 70 million.
The Oldham East and Saddleworth MP denied that he wanted a "numerical cap" on immigration. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith later said Mr Woolas had not been "gagged" after her department pulled him from BBC One's Question Time.
Mr Woolas was targeted when he attended an environmental debate held at Manchester University student union on Friday afternoon. As he arrived the minister was confronted with a mock "border control" and was asked for his passport. Then, shortly after he began to speak, a woman rose from the audience and threw a pie, believed to be made of Bourbon Creams biscuits and vegan cream, into his face at close range.
A spokeswoman for No Borders said: "The woman ran away. Mr Woolas was shocked and there was a bit of an awkward silence as he left the room to clean himself up. "We threw the pie because we didn't want to engage in debate [No surprise there] and legitimise what he was saying. "What he was spouting were right wing anti-immigration policies. The danger is that people like him are making such views mainstream."
Mr Woolas was unharmed and later rejoined the debate. It is not known whether he was accompanied by any security at the time of the incident.
Source
Must they know about sex at age five?
One thing stumps me about the news that the Government is to provide compulsory "sex and relationships" lessons for children from the age of five: how much can there really be to say?
On the subject of relationships, obviously, one could go on forever, recommending lengthy homework on everything from Jane Austen to Leonard Cohen lyrics. On sex, I would have thought there was rather less to discuss: one could surely exhaust the topics of contraception, pregnancy, abortion and sexually transmitted diseases in a matter of weeks at the age of 11, perhaps with a brief refresher course at 13. After that, in what precise style young people proceed with sex in later life is surely a matter for them: there must be some areas to which even the omnipresent hand of the nanny state does not reach.
The news that there will now be a "naming of parts" session for five-year-olds, however - in which they learn the correct words for genitals and the differences between the sexes - gives me the creeps. By the age of five, many children have their own names for their private parts, often of a friendly, silly variety that will do them perfectly well until they are older. Is there really any point in school insisting on teaching them otherwise?
If a friend or relative suddenly insisted on lecturing your five-year-old about the official name for their genitals, apropos of nothing, I imagine they would be asked to shut up pretty sharpish. I am at something of a loss as to why this interference should be thought preferable coming from a primary teacher. And yet a sex education comic - Let's Grow With Nisha and Joe - is already being promoted to primary schools. We learned to read with Dick and Dora: I shudder to think what they would do with that pair today.
The great irony in the Government setting itself up as the supreme educator on sexual and emotional matters is that, when it is given the task of actually looking after confused and vulnerable children all by itself, it is the worst parent imaginable. Girls who have grown up in care are sexually active earlier than other teenagers, and are 2.5 times more likely to become pregnant. A quarter of girls leaving care are already mothers or pregnant.
These girls are subjected to the same sex education at school as everyone else: I would be extremely surprised if any of them did not know in theory how to avoid having a baby. The real point, surely, is that they do not greatly want to avoid it. The emotional isolation they experience during their period in the unfeeling British care system means that they gravitate towards men as a source of affection and attention. The prospect of motherhood then offers them both an acknowledged social status and perhaps a reason for continued financial support from the state. Their early pregnancy is entirely logical, for any state that cares to read its own shortcomings written in the logic.
This, to a lesser degree, holds true for very many teenage girls who "accidentally" find themselves pregnant. The phenomenon is not helped by the fact that at the moment there is a wealth of information on what it means to have sex and very little on what it means to be in sole charge of a small baby that cries round the clock.
I believe in the good sense of basic sex education at school for older children, even if my own was pretty much confined to a terrifying film of a woman giving birth, and a hilarious, crackling 1960s film about male puberty called From Boy to Man. (We never got to see From Girl to Woman, despite being primed for yet more helpless laughter: the projector broke.)
There is a danger, however, that any philosophy that mainly concentrates on the somewhat deceptive notion of "safe sex" and the judicious use of contraception is in fact misleading. If a teenager doesn't think that he or she is ready for the life-changing complications that might arise from sex - and few are - then the best advice is not to do it at all. Otherwise, they should be warned that contraception is very far from infallible, and they would be advised to double up on their methods.
I yearn for the day when "sex and relationships" lessons actually do something to make teenage behaviour wiser, and when lessons include: "Just because he sleeps with you doesn't mean he loves you" and "New mum Mary can't go out for two years. It's 3am and the baby's screaming with colic." Sadly, the glum news that Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, has decided instead to start badgering the nation's five-year-olds into naming their private parts doesn't lead me to think that will happen any time soon.
More here
NHS dream of equality trumped by reality
Up to 10,000 patients will pay to top up their care when Alan Johnson, the health secretary, lifts the ban next month on National Health Service patients buying drugs that the state does not fund. Johnson’s U-turn, reported in last week’s Sunday Times, will end the policy of withdrawing NHS care from cancer patients who pay privately for life-prolonging drugs. It follows a campaign by the paper to end the practice. Until now the government has resisted pleas for top-ups to be allowed by claiming that the system will create a two-tier NHS.
The controversy is also expected to force Johnson to ask the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice), the government’s drug rationing body, to review the way it calculates whether life-prolonging cancer drugs should be funded by the taxpayer. Thousands of NHS patients are denied drugs that could prolong their lives because Nice has ruled that they are not good value for money.
In August Nice ruled that four life-prolonging kidney cancer drugs should not be funded on the NHS because, although they could halt the spread of the cancer for six months, this would be at a cost of up to $70,000 a year. Nice will now be asked to take greater account of how precious this extra time is for terminally ill patients.
At the moment, patients who have chosen to use their savings to pay for drugs to give them extra months of life with their families have their NHS care withdrawn. Johnson will argue that by ordering Nice to make more of these drugs available on the NHS, it will reduce the number of patients who need to pay to top up their care.
Healthcare at Home, a private company, says it is already selling cancer drugs to 1,000 patients from about 30 NHS trusts that have broken ranks and allowed patients to buy additional drugs while receiving NHS care. A company spokesman said that once the ban was lifted and more than 170 hospital trusts in England allowed top-ups, up to 10,000 patients could decide to supplement their NHS care with additional drugs.
Johnson’s change of policy follows an inquiry launched by the government in June after The Sunday Times revealed the tragedy of Linda O'Boyle, 64, a grandmother from Billericay, Essex, who died in March after her NHS care was withdrawn because she had paid privately for cetuximab, the bowel cancer treatment. At least three other cancer patients have died after their NHS care was withdrawn because they had paid for drugs.
Source
Man sacked from British counselling service because he is a Christian who refused to give sex advice to homosexuals
A relationship counsellor claims he was sacked because he admitted that his Christian beliefs could prevent him giving sex therapy to gay couples. Gary McFarlane, a father of two who has worked for the national counselling service Relate since 2003, says that it failed to accommodate his faith or allow him to try to overcome his reservations. Now Mr McFarlane, 47, is taking his case to an employment tribunal, alleging unfair dismissal on the grounds of religious discrimination.
The controversy follows the case in July of Lillian Ladele, the Christian registrar who successfully challenged Islington Council over her refusal to conduct civil partnership ceremonies for gay couples.
Mr McFarlane, a solicitor, said he was 'sad and disappointed' with the 'bigotry' he had experienced at the Bristol branch of Relate from 'a group of people with their own agenda'. 'If I was a Muslim this would not happen,' he said. 'They would find a way to make the system work. But Christians seem to have fewer and fewer rights. Relate needs to be forced to work through stuff like this.'
Mr McFarlane, who regularly attends both Church of England and Pentecostal services in Bristol, joined Relate Avon five years ago. As a solicitor, he has specialised in resolving legal disputes through mediation, and even sits on a committee advising the Law Society. He is also a part-time tutor on relationships at Trinity Theological College in Bristol, whose Church of England principal, Canon George Kovoor, is a Chaplain to the Queen.
While training as a counsellor he had qualms about dealing with gay couples but overcame them during discussions with his supervisor. He has since helped a lesbian partnership. But his real problems arose last year after he started to train as a psychosexual therapist, treating people's intimate sexual problems. He said: 'In counselling, you are drawing the couple out, going on a journey with them, enabling them to think in more than black and white. You are not telling anyone what to do or endorsing what they do. 'But in sex therapy you are diagnosing their problems and setting them a treatment plan, not unlike a doctor.'
He said that while he believed in 'each to their own', he felt uncomfortable doing anything that would directly encourage gay sex. He had not expected to confront these issues until facing the prospect of providing therapy for a gay couple, when he planned to discuss them in confidence with his supervisor. He assumed that Relate Avon would take him off the case. He said that many counsellors had difficulties that had to be worked around. Some had been abused as children and found they could not conduct sessions with abusers, and Relate Avon would accommodate them.
But fellow counsellors complained about Mr McFarlane's views, alleging he was homophobic, and he was suspended last December by his manager. After three weeks, he was reinstated and had to promise to abide by Relate's equal opportunities policy, with the proviso, he claims, that he could raise issues in the future.
Following further complaints, however, he was told that he would face a disciplinary hearing because managers at Relate Avon no longer believed he intended to uphold the policy. He was dismissed and his appeal was rejected.
'There was a group who didn't want me there and they got their teeth in,' he said. 'I was prepared to explore my reservations but they wanted unconditional assurances that they would never become an issue for me. 'Why did they have to slam the door like that? This could force other Christians out of counselling. Some have already reacted with consternation, saying if it could happen to someone of my experience and skills, it could happen to them.'
A spokeswoman for Relate said: 'Relate cannot comment until the employment tribunal has taken place.' The organisation, originally called the National Marriage Guidance Council, was founded in 1938. By 1998 it was counselling couples in a much wider range of relationships and changed its name to Relate. It now operates from nearly 600 locations nationwide.
Source
Liberty vs liberty
British campaign group Liberty seems more interested in proposing an alternative authoritarianism than defending freedom
This week, the UK government decided to shelve its plans to increase the period that terror suspects can be held without charge from 28 days to 42 days, after its proposal was voted down in the House of Lords. Britain's leading civil liberties group, Liberty, immediately declared the decision a `victory' for its campaign to prevent the increase. Yet the law that Liberty should really be worried about is not the Counter-Terrorism Bill but the Trades Descriptions Act - because Liberty, along with many others, doesn't seem very interested in defending liberty at all.
The government's decision to shelve the extension was simply a pragmatic one. Its Bill calling for an extension to 42 days' detention without charge only scraped through the House of Commons in June this year thanks to the support of nine Democratic Unionist MPs: bigots from Northern Ireland that no self-respecting government should cuddle up to. New Labour's whips in the House of Commons believed that if the measure went to a vote in the House again, it could well be defeated. Furthermore, even if the Bill did get through the Commons, the unelected House of Lords could continue to block it for up to a year before the Parliament Act could be used to force the law through; this would have delayed all the other measures in the Bill. The government scrapped the 42-days proposal in order to avoid embarrassment in the Commons and a potential delay by the Lords.
However, parliamentary calculation was not the only reason for a change of mind. There was also opposition to aspects of the Bill from those who should have been its keenest supporters: the police. In an article in The Times (London) a week before the Lords' vote, Andy Hayman - until recently Britain's most senior anti-terrorism officer - declared his support for the principle of 42 days' detention while denouncing the proposed mechanism by which it would be put into effect: `[T]he government's current proposals are not fit for purpose: they are bureaucratic, convoluted and unworkable. The draftsman's pen has introduced so many hoops to be jumped through that a police case for detaining a terror suspect will become part of the political game.'
Others argue that the government erased 42 days from its Bill for strictly party political reasons. In June, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown flailing about in a sea of unpopularity and desperate to appear like he had some purpose, he was keen to push through a measure that looked tough on terrorism. But the current economic crisis has given him a new lease of life. Now he is praised in the press not only for saving the British banking system (allegedly) but for providing a framework through which the US authorities and European governments might intervene in the financial arena, too. The 42-day proposal, which must once have seemed like a potential vote-winner, is now a messy and divisive idea at a time when Brown is milking the financial crisis. With all eyes focused on the economy, it was the perfect moment to drop the 42-days idea.
Liberty believes the decision to drop the proposal was a stunning vindication of its campaigning. Never mind that everyone from senior police officers to the prime minister himself was getting cold feet about the whole thing. After the Lords vote, the Liberty website declared: `Last night saw a resounding victory for Liberty's long running "Charge or Release" campaign. Common sense and common decency prevailed as the government dropped plans to detain terror suspects for 42 days without charge, following an overwhelming defeat in the House of Lords. We have consistently urged the government to drop these damaging proposals and have condemned the measures as wrong in principle, unnecessary and counter-productive.'
This is a strange kind of `victory', rather like a football manager declaring that being beaten four-nil was cause for celebration because at least it wasn't six-nil. Both are crushing defeats. The same applies to the current rules on terrorism offences. The power to lock someone up and question him repeatedly without charge for a disturbing 28 days - the victorious settlement in this civil liberty war - has no equivalent in any other democracy, as Liberty itself has pointed out frequently. Indeed, terrorism offences aside, the legal maximum for detention without charge in England is 96 hours - even in murder cases.
Worse, Liberty has argued that 28 days should be maintained and that other important principles of legal protection for suspects should be thrown out in lieu of introducing the 42-day extension. Liberty argues that the government should `remove the bar on intercept (phone tap) evidence in criminal trials', `review the way in which people that have already been charged can be re-interviewed and recharged as further evidence is uncovered' (opening up the possibility of oppressive post-charge questioning), and `bring in existing powers under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (RIPA) which enable a civil court to require an individual to hand over an encryption key (which unlocks data on seized computers)'.
These legal rules that Liberty wishes to water down or override provide protection for individuals when the overwhelming power of the state is brought to bear upon them. Yet Liberty seems willing to trade them in for the administrative convenience of the police when investigating terrorist offences. As the Labour peer Martin O'Neill pointed out in the New Statesman earlier this year, in relation to the 42-day proposal, `certain liberties - like the freedom from detention without charge - are simply too fundamental to be traded-off against gains in our personal security. This is because personal security may itself only be truly worthwhile as long as these liberties are protected. It may do us no good to be kept safe from harm if it is at the cost of living in a country that is no longer a civilised liberal democracy.' The same applies to these other pillars of civil liberty, too.
Furthermore, Liberty has remained silent - at best - on a range of recent restrictions on our freedom, from the Safeguarding Vulnerable Groups Act, which requires the state vetting of 11million people who work with children and old people, through to the bans on smoking and drinking in public. Shami Chakrabarti, the head of Liberty, has even threatened to use the libel laws - England's famously anti-free speech rules - to stop malicious statements being made about her. That's hardly the instinct of someone truly interested in freedom.
Instead of declaring victory in cases where draconian government powers are reinforced, what is needed is a more fundamental defence of individual liberty in Britain, something that spiked has put forward in our `Slash 42 days to 24 hours' campaign (see The fight for individual liberty starts here, by Brendan O'Neill). We need to defend existing protections and reinstate important principles like the right to silence - but we also need to go beyond the law to re-establish the idea of the active political citizen in contemporary society. Until the authorities feel the breath of active opposition on the backs of their necks, we will be stuck with the alternative authoritarianism of legalistic wonks like Liberty.
Source
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The British Labour party's race prophecy may be self-fulfilling
Labour should overcome its fear of its own white working-class voters
Phil Woolas, the new Minister for Borders and Immigration, says that Labour needs "a tougher immigration policy" to reduce racial tensions. The problem, he told The Times, is that as recession looms "racial stereotyping becomes stronger".
It might help if ministers didn't reinforce the "racial stereotype" of the white working class as an ethnic pogrom waiting to happen, a racial time bomb ready to be set off by a spark from the British National Party. Mr Woolas says that he has been brought in to "be tougher and to change perceptions" that the Government is soft on immigration. He could start by changing the perception that Labour fears its own white voters.
I was struck by Mr Woolas's explanation that his "lifelong purpose" of dealing with immigration problems began when the first Asian boy at his Lancashire grammar school was called "Banana". At my 1970s Surrey grammar, everybody knew they could not call the only black boy "Nigger". So they called him "Nagga" instead.
Such stories give a glimpse of how much British society has changed in 30 years. Both Mr Woolas's Oldham constituency and my corner of northeast London have large Pakistani communities, and no doubt there are problems. Yet there is little sign of Seventies "Paki-bashing".
New Labour, however, does not trust its own people. "I don't believe we are a country of Alf Garnetts," Mr Woolas concedes, "but there's a large element that is discriminatory in its attitude." So fearful is Labour of white working-class voters that it has long sought to avoid debate about immigration. In the 2001 general election, speeches were banned at the Oldham election counts to stop BNP candidates speaking, for fear that a hateful word might start a race riot. The result was to allow the far Right to pose as champions of free speech.
Now the minister hopes to placate white voters by posturing against immigration, while patronisingly asking them "to be nice to people who do come to settle here". Against the background of communities divided by official multiculturalism, which he concedes has helped to "ghettoise" people, his warning of rising tensions could yet prove a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back when Phil Woolas was Labour general secretary of Manchester University student union, he did not agree with us revolting Marxist students who demanded an open borders policy, but he did lead campaigns to support overseas students against the authorities. Now he would have us believe that the way to pursue his "lifelong purpose" is to strike anti-immigration poses. That seems bananas.
Source
Learning from Stalin in Britain
Stalin regularly doctored his production statistics. What statistics does socialist Britain NOT doctor? Violent crime up 22% as Home Office admits police have been under-recording serious offences for ten years
Public trust in crime statistics has been dealt a devastating blow after ministers admitted the figures have been downplaying serious violence for up to a decade. The Home Office admitted that as many as one in five of the worst attacks has been wrongly classified in published figures. As many as 4,000 serious assaults each year were mistakenly recorded as minor incidents - and officials conceded they 'simply do not know how far back it goes'.
The tightening of the rules has seen figures for serious violent crimes rocket by 22 per cent compared to last year - and confusion over the figures makes it impossible to say how much of the rise is genuine.
Ministers blamed the blunders on police officers, who were wrongly classifying cases of 'grievous bodily harm with intent' as minor assaults. But if this is the case it is unclear why the practice was allowed to continue for so long unchecked.
Police have been placed under severe pressure by ministers to reduce the level of serious violence on the street. Critics may claim this provided an incentive for officers to downplay the gravity of assaults where - while the intent was grave - the actual injuries suffered were minimal.
In a sign of the chaos the Metropolitan Police yesterday took the unprecedented step of halting publication of its violent crime figures to check whether they meet the guidelines. Senior police chiefs admitted the problems affected all 43 forces in England and Wales.
Critics claimed the revelations were another serious blow to the credibility of Government crime figures following years of complaints of spin and statistical manipulation. The confusion makes it impossible to tell whether serious violence rose or fell last year - although there are indications of a significant increase in serious knife attacks. There are also grave questions over repeated statements by ministers in recent years stressing the minor nature of many recorded offences.
The blunder centres on the way vicious attacks are logged at police stations. Officers generally class an assault as grievous bodily harm if the victim suffers a cut to their skin or a broken bone. But the rules also state that where an attacker tries but fails to inflict such an injury police should record the assault as GBH rather than a lesser offence - in the same way that attempted murder is treated as a serious offence even if the intended victim is unharmed. Where a thug tries to smash a bottle in a victim's face but causes only a nosebleed, for example, police should recorded the incident as GBH.
It now transpires many officers had been downgrading such incidents to lesser charges of actual bodily harm or common assault - which fall outside the Home Office's definition of 'most serious violence against the person'.
In the latest quarterly figures published yesterday the category of 'most serious violence against the person' had leapt by 22 per cent year on year. It rose from 4,500 in the second quarter last year to 5,500 in the same period this year, equivalent to around 60 a day. But ministers said the startling rise was largely because police across the country were ordered earlier this year to follow counting rules more rigorously when logging crimes.
This 'clarification' by the Home Office quickly revealed that many serious assaults were being wrongly recorded. The Home Office's head of statistics Paul Wiles said: 'We simply don't know how far back this goes. The people doing the recording are constantly changing and retiring.' He said there was evidence that two-thirds of the 22 per cent increase in serious violence was caused by the new counting rules.
Warwickshire Chief Constable Keith Bristow, for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: 'This is an issue that affects all police forces to a greater or lesser degree.' Home Office police minister Vernon Coaker denied the blunders were embarrassing, saying: 'I want the statistics to be as clear as possible.'
But Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'These figures fatally undermine government spin that violent crime was getting better. Labour should now face up to the reality of their failure and realise that if you can't count a problem, you can't combat it.'
Source
British exam board told to dumb down High School science exam to make it easier to pass
20% is a "pass" in some British exams. In other words, you pass while having learned virtually nothing about the subject
England's largest exam board has been forced to make its science GCSE easier because it was too difficult for pupils to get a good pass. The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance said it had lowered the mark needed to achieve a grade C in the exam 'under protest'. It had reluctantly agreed to a request from England's new qualifications regulator, Ofqual, to bring it into line with the level set by rival exam boards. This is the first time that an exam board has publicly questioned the standard of one of its own papers. The step also casts serious doubt on Government claims that exam standards are being maintained.
The controversy relates to a new GCSE science exam taken by more than half a million pupils this summer. It had already been attacked for reducing the factual knowledge required. But it has now emerged that in early August, England's three exam boards asked Ofqual to adjudicate after they failed to reach agreement on setting comparable grade boundaries. The Times Educational Supplement claims that rival board Edexcel awarded C grades in a paper for one of its new science courses to pupils scoring only 20 per cent.
On August 7, just two weeks before results were due to be published, Ofqual wrote to AQA asking it to reduce the boundary for the grade C below what the board had calculated was necessary to maintain standards. Ofqual said the 'least problematic solution' was for AQA to bring its grade C into line with the others.
On August 12, Mike Cresswell, AQA director general, replied, saying: 'AQA is extremely reluctant to adopt a standard which is less comparable with the past than it needs to be.' Ofqual wrote back claiming that all the exam boards believed their grade boundaries maintained standards. Dr Cresswell told the TES: 'We would have preferred a solution that promoted standards that were a little more consistent with those of 2007.'
Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said Ofqual was failing in its duty to maintain standards 'by accepting the lowest common denominator on offer'.
Source
Some users of slimming drug at risk of psychiatric disorders
One hundredth of one percent is a worry?? I would have thought that a drug which 99.99% of people use without suffering severe side-effects was a triumph of safety! All drugs have side-effects. I know one lady who had acute renal failure after taking the common antibiotic Keflex (cephalexein). Maybe we should ban that too! And aspirin would never have been approved under current guidelines
An anti-obesity drug that has been prescribed to 97,000 people in the UK doubled the [tiny] risk of psychiatric disorders in those who took it, the European Medicines Agency has found. The EMA has decided that the benefits of the drug Acomplia - which has been licensed in Europe since June 2006 - no longer outweigh the risks, and have advised doctors to no longer prescribe the drug. In a trial of 36,000 this summer, five of those taking the drug [i.e. 0.01%] committed suicide, compared to only one of those taking the placebo.
Acomplia, whose active substance is rimonabant, has been available on the NHS since June this year. It works by suppressing the appetite. During clinical trials, one third of patients lost more than 10% of their initial bodyweight in a year. Nearly two thirds of patients lost over 5%. The drug is prescribed for people who are clinically classified as obese, or those who are overweight and suffer from problems like type 2 diabetes and a high cholesterol.
Warnings about the side effects of the drug-- which can cause depression-- have been known since the drug was introduced. It is only now however, that it has been decided that these side effects make the drug too dangerous to prescribe. Following a re-evaluation of the drug, the EMEA said that "there is an approximate doubling of the risk of psychiatric disorders in obese or overweight patients."
The EMEA, and their UK counterpart the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), have recommended that the drug is no longer prescribed, and said that those currently on the drug- thought to be about 20,000 in the UK- should consult a doctor about their treatment. The MHRA is alerting healthcare professionals about the recommendation. The MHRA said: "Patients who may be at highest risk of psychiatric reactions cannot be identified reliably. Therefore, further restrictions on the use of this medicine would be unlikely to reduce the risk to an acceptable level."
There are three main anti-obesity drugs prescribed in the UK- Acomplia, Sibutramine, and Orlistat. Acomplia is prescribed in for about 9% of cases, whereas Orlistat, approved by the EMEA in July 2007, is prescribed in 66% of cases. The manufacturer of the drug, Sanofi-Aventis, said: "Sanofi-Aventis will comply with the European authorities' request to temporarily suspend the marketing authorisation of Acomplia in obese and overweight patients and will make every effort to actively support patients and healthcare professionals in this process." They said that the drug had provided "significant clinical benefits to patients" and that 700,000 people worldwide had used the drug.
Dr June Raine, Director of Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines at the MHRA said : "Most medicines work well and are acceptably safe and most people take medicines without suffering any side effects. The MHRA and the EMEA work together to continuously monitor the safety and quality of medicines after they have been licensed, and use a range of approaches to minimise risk. "In the case of Acomplia these measures have not proved to be effective in clinical use.
Source
British government aims to make IVF less successful
When all the world wants the opposite
IVF success rates will fall by up to 20 per cent because of a government policy designed to cut the number of damaging twin pregnancies, research has suggested. An initiative to limit multiple births by persuading IVF patients to use only one embryo at a time will cause a "significant reduction in treatment success", according to an analysis of a clinic's patients.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority strategy, which aims to cut the twin birthrate by 2012 from one in four to one in ten, would in practice reduce the IVF success rate at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester from 21 per cent to 17 per cent, the study found. Daniel Brison, of the University of Manchester, said that the strategy was right to encourage single-embryo transfer because a multiple birth was the greatest IVF risk to mothers and babies, but its implementation needed to be backed by better NHS access to IVF, especially for follow-up courses using frozen embryos. Evidence from Scandinavia and King's College London has indicated that some women's chances of conceiving are just as high with one embryo as with two, if a second frozen-embryo cycle is available.
About a third of NHS trusts do not offer frozen back-up treatment and 85 per cent do not provide the three full cycles that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends. "Single-embryo transfer is the right way forward, but we have to fund more than one cycle," Dr Brison said. "It is very difficult to ask patients to accept any reduction in success rates if they have only one shot. Embryo freezing is also crucial, as is careful selection of patients who are suitable for a single embryo."
IVF produces a higher rate of twins and triplets because multiple embryos are often used to maximise the chances of pregnancy. Such babies, however, are more likely to be stillborn, die in their first year, suffer disabilities or be born prematurely. There are also risks to mothers.
In the study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, Dr Brison and his colleagues Stephen Roberts and Cheryl Fitzgerald constructed a model of what would happen to their clinic's success rates under the single-embryo strategy. To achieve the target of 10 per cent multiple births, about 55 per cent of patients would have to have single-embryo transfer. The current rate is about 10 per cent. This would bring the success rate down by about 20 per cent. If women were selected carefully, the decline would be slightly smaller but the live birthrate would still fall to 18.5 per cent.
The paper suggests ways that women could be selected, including analysis of their embryos as well as their age and hormone levels. Such measures would be essential to limit the policy's impact on pregnancy success, the scientists said. The St Mary's success rate is below the national average of 31 per cent for women under 35 who use their own fresh eggs. It is an NHS centre with a waiting list of up to three years, so couples with a good prognosis often conceive spontaneously while waiting for treatment, leaving the clinic to treat harder cases.
Professor Peter Braude, of King's College London, led the group that drew up the single-embryo strategy. He said that patients could be chosen who would not be disadvantaged by the policy. "It doesn't reduce pregnancy rates in women who are most likely to get pregnant, and who are also most likely to have twins," he said. "We have never said that a single embryo is right for every woman and the 10 per cent target is an aspiration. A very small proportion of patients give rise to most of the twins and by identifying them, we can reduce multiple births but not the pregnancy rate."
Source
Labour should overcome its fear of its own white working-class voters
Phil Woolas, the new Minister for Borders and Immigration, says that Labour needs "a tougher immigration policy" to reduce racial tensions. The problem, he told The Times, is that as recession looms "racial stereotyping becomes stronger".
It might help if ministers didn't reinforce the "racial stereotype" of the white working class as an ethnic pogrom waiting to happen, a racial time bomb ready to be set off by a spark from the British National Party. Mr Woolas says that he has been brought in to "be tougher and to change perceptions" that the Government is soft on immigration. He could start by changing the perception that Labour fears its own white voters.
I was struck by Mr Woolas's explanation that his "lifelong purpose" of dealing with immigration problems began when the first Asian boy at his Lancashire grammar school was called "Banana". At my 1970s Surrey grammar, everybody knew they could not call the only black boy "Nigger". So they called him "Nagga" instead.
Such stories give a glimpse of how much British society has changed in 30 years. Both Mr Woolas's Oldham constituency and my corner of northeast London have large Pakistani communities, and no doubt there are problems. Yet there is little sign of Seventies "Paki-bashing".
New Labour, however, does not trust its own people. "I don't believe we are a country of Alf Garnetts," Mr Woolas concedes, "but there's a large element that is discriminatory in its attitude." So fearful is Labour of white working-class voters that it has long sought to avoid debate about immigration. In the 2001 general election, speeches were banned at the Oldham election counts to stop BNP candidates speaking, for fear that a hateful word might start a race riot. The result was to allow the far Right to pose as champions of free speech.
Now the minister hopes to placate white voters by posturing against immigration, while patronisingly asking them "to be nice to people who do come to settle here". Against the background of communities divided by official multiculturalism, which he concedes has helped to "ghettoise" people, his warning of rising tensions could yet prove a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Back when Phil Woolas was Labour general secretary of Manchester University student union, he did not agree with us revolting Marxist students who demanded an open borders policy, but he did lead campaigns to support overseas students against the authorities. Now he would have us believe that the way to pursue his "lifelong purpose" is to strike anti-immigration poses. That seems bananas.
Source
Learning from Stalin in Britain
Stalin regularly doctored his production statistics. What statistics does socialist Britain NOT doctor? Violent crime up 22% as Home Office admits police have been under-recording serious offences for ten years
Public trust in crime statistics has been dealt a devastating blow after ministers admitted the figures have been downplaying serious violence for up to a decade. The Home Office admitted that as many as one in five of the worst attacks has been wrongly classified in published figures. As many as 4,000 serious assaults each year were mistakenly recorded as minor incidents - and officials conceded they 'simply do not know how far back it goes'.
The tightening of the rules has seen figures for serious violent crimes rocket by 22 per cent compared to last year - and confusion over the figures makes it impossible to say how much of the rise is genuine.
Ministers blamed the blunders on police officers, who were wrongly classifying cases of 'grievous bodily harm with intent' as minor assaults. But if this is the case it is unclear why the practice was allowed to continue for so long unchecked.
Police have been placed under severe pressure by ministers to reduce the level of serious violence on the street. Critics may claim this provided an incentive for officers to downplay the gravity of assaults where - while the intent was grave - the actual injuries suffered were minimal.
In a sign of the chaos the Metropolitan Police yesterday took the unprecedented step of halting publication of its violent crime figures to check whether they meet the guidelines. Senior police chiefs admitted the problems affected all 43 forces in England and Wales.
Critics claimed the revelations were another serious blow to the credibility of Government crime figures following years of complaints of spin and statistical manipulation. The confusion makes it impossible to tell whether serious violence rose or fell last year - although there are indications of a significant increase in serious knife attacks. There are also grave questions over repeated statements by ministers in recent years stressing the minor nature of many recorded offences.
The blunder centres on the way vicious attacks are logged at police stations. Officers generally class an assault as grievous bodily harm if the victim suffers a cut to their skin or a broken bone. But the rules also state that where an attacker tries but fails to inflict such an injury police should record the assault as GBH rather than a lesser offence - in the same way that attempted murder is treated as a serious offence even if the intended victim is unharmed. Where a thug tries to smash a bottle in a victim's face but causes only a nosebleed, for example, police should recorded the incident as GBH.
It now transpires many officers had been downgrading such incidents to lesser charges of actual bodily harm or common assault - which fall outside the Home Office's definition of 'most serious violence against the person'.
In the latest quarterly figures published yesterday the category of 'most serious violence against the person' had leapt by 22 per cent year on year. It rose from 4,500 in the second quarter last year to 5,500 in the same period this year, equivalent to around 60 a day. But ministers said the startling rise was largely because police across the country were ordered earlier this year to follow counting rules more rigorously when logging crimes.
This 'clarification' by the Home Office quickly revealed that many serious assaults were being wrongly recorded. The Home Office's head of statistics Paul Wiles said: 'We simply don't know how far back this goes. The people doing the recording are constantly changing and retiring.' He said there was evidence that two-thirds of the 22 per cent increase in serious violence was caused by the new counting rules.
Warwickshire Chief Constable Keith Bristow, for the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: 'This is an issue that affects all police forces to a greater or lesser degree.' Home Office police minister Vernon Coaker denied the blunders were embarrassing, saying: 'I want the statistics to be as clear as possible.'
But Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'These figures fatally undermine government spin that violent crime was getting better. Labour should now face up to the reality of their failure and realise that if you can't count a problem, you can't combat it.'
Source
British exam board told to dumb down High School science exam to make it easier to pass
20% is a "pass" in some British exams. In other words, you pass while having learned virtually nothing about the subject
England's largest exam board has been forced to make its science GCSE easier because it was too difficult for pupils to get a good pass. The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance said it had lowered the mark needed to achieve a grade C in the exam 'under protest'. It had reluctantly agreed to a request from England's new qualifications regulator, Ofqual, to bring it into line with the level set by rival exam boards. This is the first time that an exam board has publicly questioned the standard of one of its own papers. The step also casts serious doubt on Government claims that exam standards are being maintained.
The controversy relates to a new GCSE science exam taken by more than half a million pupils this summer. It had already been attacked for reducing the factual knowledge required. But it has now emerged that in early August, England's three exam boards asked Ofqual to adjudicate after they failed to reach agreement on setting comparable grade boundaries. The Times Educational Supplement claims that rival board Edexcel awarded C grades in a paper for one of its new science courses to pupils scoring only 20 per cent.
On August 7, just two weeks before results were due to be published, Ofqual wrote to AQA asking it to reduce the boundary for the grade C below what the board had calculated was necessary to maintain standards. Ofqual said the 'least problematic solution' was for AQA to bring its grade C into line with the others.
On August 12, Mike Cresswell, AQA director general, replied, saying: 'AQA is extremely reluctant to adopt a standard which is less comparable with the past than it needs to be.' Ofqual wrote back claiming that all the exam boards believed their grade boundaries maintained standards. Dr Cresswell told the TES: 'We would have preferred a solution that promoted standards that were a little more consistent with those of 2007.'
Professor Alan Smithers, of the Centre for Education and Employment Research at Buckingham University, said Ofqual was failing in its duty to maintain standards 'by accepting the lowest common denominator on offer'.
Source
Some users of slimming drug at risk of psychiatric disorders
One hundredth of one percent is a worry?? I would have thought that a drug which 99.99% of people use without suffering severe side-effects was a triumph of safety! All drugs have side-effects. I know one lady who had acute renal failure after taking the common antibiotic Keflex (cephalexein). Maybe we should ban that too! And aspirin would never have been approved under current guidelines
An anti-obesity drug that has been prescribed to 97,000 people in the UK doubled the [tiny] risk of psychiatric disorders in those who took it, the European Medicines Agency has found. The EMA has decided that the benefits of the drug Acomplia - which has been licensed in Europe since June 2006 - no longer outweigh the risks, and have advised doctors to no longer prescribe the drug. In a trial of 36,000 this summer, five of those taking the drug [i.e. 0.01%] committed suicide, compared to only one of those taking the placebo.
Acomplia, whose active substance is rimonabant, has been available on the NHS since June this year. It works by suppressing the appetite. During clinical trials, one third of patients lost more than 10% of their initial bodyweight in a year. Nearly two thirds of patients lost over 5%. The drug is prescribed for people who are clinically classified as obese, or those who are overweight and suffer from problems like type 2 diabetes and a high cholesterol.
Warnings about the side effects of the drug-- which can cause depression-- have been known since the drug was introduced. It is only now however, that it has been decided that these side effects make the drug too dangerous to prescribe. Following a re-evaluation of the drug, the EMEA said that "there is an approximate doubling of the risk of psychiatric disorders in obese or overweight patients."
The EMEA, and their UK counterpart the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), have recommended that the drug is no longer prescribed, and said that those currently on the drug- thought to be about 20,000 in the UK- should consult a doctor about their treatment. The MHRA is alerting healthcare professionals about the recommendation. The MHRA said: "Patients who may be at highest risk of psychiatric reactions cannot be identified reliably. Therefore, further restrictions on the use of this medicine would be unlikely to reduce the risk to an acceptable level."
There are three main anti-obesity drugs prescribed in the UK- Acomplia, Sibutramine, and Orlistat. Acomplia is prescribed in for about 9% of cases, whereas Orlistat, approved by the EMEA in July 2007, is prescribed in 66% of cases. The manufacturer of the drug, Sanofi-Aventis, said: "Sanofi-Aventis will comply with the European authorities' request to temporarily suspend the marketing authorisation of Acomplia in obese and overweight patients and will make every effort to actively support patients and healthcare professionals in this process." They said that the drug had provided "significant clinical benefits to patients" and that 700,000 people worldwide had used the drug.
Dr June Raine, Director of Vigilance and Risk Management of Medicines at the MHRA said : "Most medicines work well and are acceptably safe and most people take medicines without suffering any side effects. The MHRA and the EMEA work together to continuously monitor the safety and quality of medicines after they have been licensed, and use a range of approaches to minimise risk. "In the case of Acomplia these measures have not proved to be effective in clinical use.
Source
British government aims to make IVF less successful
When all the world wants the opposite
IVF success rates will fall by up to 20 per cent because of a government policy designed to cut the number of damaging twin pregnancies, research has suggested. An initiative to limit multiple births by persuading IVF patients to use only one embryo at a time will cause a "significant reduction in treatment success", according to an analysis of a clinic's patients.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority strategy, which aims to cut the twin birthrate by 2012 from one in four to one in ten, would in practice reduce the IVF success rate at St Mary's Hospital in Manchester from 21 per cent to 17 per cent, the study found. Daniel Brison, of the University of Manchester, said that the strategy was right to encourage single-embryo transfer because a multiple birth was the greatest IVF risk to mothers and babies, but its implementation needed to be backed by better NHS access to IVF, especially for follow-up courses using frozen embryos. Evidence from Scandinavia and King's College London has indicated that some women's chances of conceiving are just as high with one embryo as with two, if a second frozen-embryo cycle is available.
About a third of NHS trusts do not offer frozen back-up treatment and 85 per cent do not provide the three full cycles that the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence recommends. "Single-embryo transfer is the right way forward, but we have to fund more than one cycle," Dr Brison said. "It is very difficult to ask patients to accept any reduction in success rates if they have only one shot. Embryo freezing is also crucial, as is careful selection of patients who are suitable for a single embryo."
IVF produces a higher rate of twins and triplets because multiple embryos are often used to maximise the chances of pregnancy. Such babies, however, are more likely to be stillborn, die in their first year, suffer disabilities or be born prematurely. There are also risks to mothers.
In the study, published in the journal Human Reproduction, Dr Brison and his colleagues Stephen Roberts and Cheryl Fitzgerald constructed a model of what would happen to their clinic's success rates under the single-embryo strategy. To achieve the target of 10 per cent multiple births, about 55 per cent of patients would have to have single-embryo transfer. The current rate is about 10 per cent. This would bring the success rate down by about 20 per cent. If women were selected carefully, the decline would be slightly smaller but the live birthrate would still fall to 18.5 per cent.
The paper suggests ways that women could be selected, including analysis of their embryos as well as their age and hormone levels. Such measures would be essential to limit the policy's impact on pregnancy success, the scientists said. The St Mary's success rate is below the national average of 31 per cent for women under 35 who use their own fresh eggs. It is an NHS centre with a waiting list of up to three years, so couples with a good prognosis often conceive spontaneously while waiting for treatment, leaving the clinic to treat harder cases.
Professor Peter Braude, of King's College London, led the group that drew up the single-embryo strategy. He said that patients could be chosen who would not be disadvantaged by the policy. "It doesn't reduce pregnancy rates in women who are most likely to get pregnant, and who are also most likely to have twins," he said. "We have never said that a single embryo is right for every woman and the 10 per cent target is an aspiration. A very small proportion of patients give rise to most of the twins and by identifying them, we can reduce multiple births but not the pregnancy rate."
Source
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Moral decay in Britain
My musical career came to an abrupt end when, at the age of 15, I left the school oboe on a bus. The following four days, before the call came through from the London Transport lost property office, were among the most miserable of my life. When I borrowed the instrument, I was given strict instructions that I was to take the greatest possible care of it, since it was worth 110 pounds. That may not sound a huge amount today, but to a 15-year-old schoolboy in 1969 it was an unimaginably vast sum.... If I didn't get it back, I took it for granted that I'd be expelled from school. But that was the least of my worries.
Crippled by the fees, my parents were hard up at the time. There was no way they could have found 110 to reimburse the school for my moment of criminal absent-mindedness. We'd all be utterly ruined - and I'd never be able to look any of my near and dear in the eye again.
I never discovered the identity of the kind passenger who handed it to the bus conductor (we still had them in those days), or indeed the names of the London Transport staff who made sure that it made its way to the lost property office, and then back to me and my school. All I can say is, whoever they were, they earned the undying gratitude of a 15-year-old schoolboy, who has never dared touch an oboe in the 40 years from that day to this.
Chances are I wouldn't be nearly so lucky today. The most depressing article I've read this week - more so even than the grim economic news we've all become used to of late - was yesterday's report on the conduct of railway staff responsible for returning lost property to its owners. An investigation by Which? discovered that, these days, two-thirds of station employees fail to contact owners whose property has been handed in. The consumer watchdog asked undercover agents to hand in coats, each containing a wallet and 22 pounds in cash at 16 stations across the country, saying that they had found them on a train. Every wallet contained the name and address of the owner.
Yet, shockingly, staff at only five of the 16 stations made the effort to contact the coats' owners. Furthermore, in one of those five cases, at Plymouth, the coat and wallet were returned but the 22 was missing (according to First Great Western, it had been put into a bank account for safe keeping - though the Which? researcher who picked up the coat was told that no money had been found).
It's not necessarily true, of course, that staff at the 11 stations which failed to return the lost property simply stole it. But at best, none of them did their job properly and none was prepared to make even the slightest amount of effort to do a kind deed for a fellow human being. Have these railway staff never lost their own wallets - and discovered what huge inconvenience and distress this can cause?
As I write, mine contains 35 in cash, my driving licence, Visa card, NHS European Health Insurance card, photographs of my four sons (taken about ten years ago, when I was still soppy about them), a Blockbuster video card, various friends' and acquaintances' contact numbers, a Nectar card and the electronic pass that lets me into the office and allows me to buy coffee in the canteen.
If I lost it on the train, never to see it again, my life would be in turmoil for weeks, what with all those cards to cancel and renew, no access to the cashpoint machine, no record of those vital contact numbers and no canteen coffee. That's not to mention all those modern worries about identity theft. Yet at railway stations all over the country, from Edinburgh to Brighton, there are staff either so dishonest or so indolent and downright unfeeling about other people's problems that they couldn't be bothered even to lift up a telephone to tell me it had turned up.
You'd think that dealing with lost property would be a richly satisfying job, with all the opportunities it offers for bringing joy to strangers and filling 15-year-old oboists with lifelong gratitude. But no. For many, it's just an opportunity to steal, with hardly any chance of getting caught (unless the lost property happens to have been handed in by an undercover agent for Which?)
What it all comes down to is that we just don't know who we can trust any more. I don't want to romanticise the past. There was always a strong chance, even 40 years ago, that a fellow passenger on that bus to Neasden would have picked up my forgotten oboe and walked off with it into the night. Hence my four days of panic and misery before it turned up. But back in 1968, you could be almost completely sure that once an item had been handed in to an official in charge of lost property, it would be 100 per cent safe. For the huge majority of people in positions of trust, whether they were rich or poor, it was a point of pride to show themselves worthy of the confidence placed in them.
How desperately sad that in 2008, so many more people in all walks of life look upon trust as something to be abused. They seem to think that if they can get away with it, that's all that matters. ...
More here
THE NEXT CRISIS WILL LEAVE US ALL IN THE DARK
Comment from Britain
ISN'T life a hoot? After 10 years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and one as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has discovered "the weaknesses of unbridled free markets". No wonder he didn't see the debt crisis coming. But then he wouldn't have, would he? He had banished boom and bust.
As he is clearly a late developer, he will not have spotted the next two crises on the horizon. It is going to be a close run thing which hits us first - inflation or a power shortage. But you can see them coming as clearly as any approaching rainstorm over the Pennines.
Pensioners would say that inflation has already hit them hard. Theirs is put at more than 13 per cent compared with the official entirely unbelievable figure of 5.2 per cent. But we ain't seen nothing yet. You cannot fling hundreds of billions at the banks, demand that they continue to lend as they did irresponsibly in 2007 and then spend and borrow yourself like a demented fraudster without debauching the currency through humdinging inflation. We are back to where we started before Margaret Thatcher tamed the tiger.
Equally, you cannot have as daft an energy policy as the UK's without running into severe trouble. It doesn't add up and is failing on all counts. It is doing nothing to secure our electricity supply without which no modern nation can call itself civilised. The Government has known for a decade that we shall lose a third of our generating capacity through age and infirmity within the next 10 years.
Yet no replacement power stations are being built, apart from totally useless wind "farms". Ed Miliband, a "green" Doncaster MP who has become head of the new Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is predictably dithering in the face of the fanatics over whether to sanction more coal-fired power stations.
The Government witters on about fuel poverty while it rushes headlong to give 100 per cent subsidies to wind developers, the fat cats of the energy scene, whose electricity is the dearest form of carbon reduction yet devised by man. Yet the wind revolution is grinding to a halt in the face of public revulsion at the desecration of landscapes and ravaged property values, rising costs and technical problems. And, of course, wind does little to reduce greenhouse gases, the sole justification for its development.
The Government's belated commitment to nuclear power has lost momentum with the formation of the new DECC, with the celebrated Joan Ruddock, of CND fame, as a junior Minister. You couldn't make it up. What is more, while the Prime Minister says "we do not live by markets alone", the Government insists that nuclear, which brings security of supply, cheap power and carbon reduction, is left to that very market while it hugely subsidises wind - a form of power that cannot tick any of those boxes.
The sheer loopiness of UK energy policy is demonstrated by three simple examples. In Scotland, more than 14,000MW of wind capacity is operating, approved, planned or proposed yet the cross-border grid can carry only 2,250MW south to consumers.
Such is the sheer manipulation of the subsidy system that it has reduced our largely carbon-free hydro-electric generating capacity because the owners have engineered down their plants to qualify for hand-outs. And, believe it or not, nuclear, which emits next to no greenhouse gases, still has to pay the climate change levy designed to reduce carbon emissions.
Against this background, you will not be surprised to discover that, to "green" acclaim, the first action of the MP for Doncaster North in his new role as Energy Secretary has been to raise the UK target for eliminating carbon emissions from 60 to 80 per cent of the 1990 level by 2050 without having a clue as to how to do it. So what, you may say, he has 41 years to do it in. Ah, yes, but for the foreseeable future only wind and nuclear can replace carbon-rich coal, oil and gas.
My engineering friends calculate that to hit that 80 per cent target we shall need to build another 233,300 2MW wind turbines (on which we could not rely) or 162 nuclear power stations. Don't ask me where we would put all that little lot, assuming we could build them. Currently. Britain has only 2,500 wind turbines and 10 nuclear power stations.
You now understand why the Great Gordon mucks up your life. He can't run a whelk stall. Have fun brushing your teeth in the dark.
Source
The secret to happiness? Having at least 10 good friends
Very mixed up! They first admit that direction of cause is unknown then speak as if it is known. All that the study tells me is that happy people tend to have a loose definition of what constitutes a friend
In love, two is company and three's a crowd. But in friendship, ten is the magic number. Being able to count at least ten people as friends makes us happy, researchers say. But those with five or fewer are likely to be miserable with their lot, they claim. Their study of hundreds of men and women also found that contented sorts tend to have lots of close friends and regularly make new ones.
While it is not clear whether our friends make us happy or we make friends because we are happy, the researchers say it is clear we should nourish our friendships.
Psychologist Richard Tunney said: 'Whatever the reason, actively working on friendships in the same way as to maintain a marriage is a prerequisite to happiness.' Dr Tunney, of Nottingham University, quizzed more than 1,700 people about their satisfaction with their lives and the state of their friendships. Those with five friends or fewer had just a 40 per cent chance of being happy. In other words, they were more likely to be unhappy than happy.
Ten was the first number at which people were more likely to be happy than unhappy. Happiest of the lot were those with dozens of friends, according to the study, which was carried out for the National Lottery. For women, this meant having 33 friends; for men, the figure was 49.
Dr Tunney said: 'People who were extremely satisfied with their lives had twice the number of friends of people who were extremely dissatisfied.' Women tended to have fewer friends than men but formed tighter bonds.
Interestingly, the study found that childhood friends are no more likely to make us happy than people we become close to later in life. Lottery winners, however, had a different take on life. They tended to be happier than others despite spending their time with a small circle of old friends. This could be because they trust those they've known for longest. Alternatively, financial security may allow them to lavish more time and attention on those who matter the most to them.
The analysis also showed Brummies [inhabitants of Birmingham] to be the happiest people in Britain, with an average 29 friends each and a 75 per cent chance of happiness. Most miserable are the people of Brighton. Despite an average friend total of 42, residents have just a 56 per cent chance of happiness.
Dr Tunney, who describes himself as happy and having a lot of good friends, said factors such as a high cost of living could be behind the city's poor rating. 'Brighton is a very gregarious city, so maybe there is more pressure to have social networks than elsewhere,' he said, adding: 'I spent three happy years in Brighton when I was younger. I would be quite happy to live by the sea.'
Source
My musical career came to an abrupt end when, at the age of 15, I left the school oboe on a bus. The following four days, before the call came through from the London Transport lost property office, were among the most miserable of my life. When I borrowed the instrument, I was given strict instructions that I was to take the greatest possible care of it, since it was worth 110 pounds. That may not sound a huge amount today, but to a 15-year-old schoolboy in 1969 it was an unimaginably vast sum.... If I didn't get it back, I took it for granted that I'd be expelled from school. But that was the least of my worries.
Crippled by the fees, my parents were hard up at the time. There was no way they could have found 110 to reimburse the school for my moment of criminal absent-mindedness. We'd all be utterly ruined - and I'd never be able to look any of my near and dear in the eye again.
I never discovered the identity of the kind passenger who handed it to the bus conductor (we still had them in those days), or indeed the names of the London Transport staff who made sure that it made its way to the lost property office, and then back to me and my school. All I can say is, whoever they were, they earned the undying gratitude of a 15-year-old schoolboy, who has never dared touch an oboe in the 40 years from that day to this.
Chances are I wouldn't be nearly so lucky today. The most depressing article I've read this week - more so even than the grim economic news we've all become used to of late - was yesterday's report on the conduct of railway staff responsible for returning lost property to its owners. An investigation by Which? discovered that, these days, two-thirds of station employees fail to contact owners whose property has been handed in. The consumer watchdog asked undercover agents to hand in coats, each containing a wallet and 22 pounds in cash at 16 stations across the country, saying that they had found them on a train. Every wallet contained the name and address of the owner.
Yet, shockingly, staff at only five of the 16 stations made the effort to contact the coats' owners. Furthermore, in one of those five cases, at Plymouth, the coat and wallet were returned but the 22 was missing (according to First Great Western, it had been put into a bank account for safe keeping - though the Which? researcher who picked up the coat was told that no money had been found).
It's not necessarily true, of course, that staff at the 11 stations which failed to return the lost property simply stole it. But at best, none of them did their job properly and none was prepared to make even the slightest amount of effort to do a kind deed for a fellow human being. Have these railway staff never lost their own wallets - and discovered what huge inconvenience and distress this can cause?
As I write, mine contains 35 in cash, my driving licence, Visa card, NHS European Health Insurance card, photographs of my four sons (taken about ten years ago, when I was still soppy about them), a Blockbuster video card, various friends' and acquaintances' contact numbers, a Nectar card and the electronic pass that lets me into the office and allows me to buy coffee in the canteen.
If I lost it on the train, never to see it again, my life would be in turmoil for weeks, what with all those cards to cancel and renew, no access to the cashpoint machine, no record of those vital contact numbers and no canteen coffee. That's not to mention all those modern worries about identity theft. Yet at railway stations all over the country, from Edinburgh to Brighton, there are staff either so dishonest or so indolent and downright unfeeling about other people's problems that they couldn't be bothered even to lift up a telephone to tell me it had turned up.
You'd think that dealing with lost property would be a richly satisfying job, with all the opportunities it offers for bringing joy to strangers and filling 15-year-old oboists with lifelong gratitude. But no. For many, it's just an opportunity to steal, with hardly any chance of getting caught (unless the lost property happens to have been handed in by an undercover agent for Which?)
What it all comes down to is that we just don't know who we can trust any more. I don't want to romanticise the past. There was always a strong chance, even 40 years ago, that a fellow passenger on that bus to Neasden would have picked up my forgotten oboe and walked off with it into the night. Hence my four days of panic and misery before it turned up. But back in 1968, you could be almost completely sure that once an item had been handed in to an official in charge of lost property, it would be 100 per cent safe. For the huge majority of people in positions of trust, whether they were rich or poor, it was a point of pride to show themselves worthy of the confidence placed in them.
How desperately sad that in 2008, so many more people in all walks of life look upon trust as something to be abused. They seem to think that if they can get away with it, that's all that matters. ...
More here
THE NEXT CRISIS WILL LEAVE US ALL IN THE DARK
Comment from Britain
ISN'T life a hoot? After 10 years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and one as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown has discovered "the weaknesses of unbridled free markets". No wonder he didn't see the debt crisis coming. But then he wouldn't have, would he? He had banished boom and bust.
As he is clearly a late developer, he will not have spotted the next two crises on the horizon. It is going to be a close run thing which hits us first - inflation or a power shortage. But you can see them coming as clearly as any approaching rainstorm over the Pennines.
Pensioners would say that inflation has already hit them hard. Theirs is put at more than 13 per cent compared with the official entirely unbelievable figure of 5.2 per cent. But we ain't seen nothing yet. You cannot fling hundreds of billions at the banks, demand that they continue to lend as they did irresponsibly in 2007 and then spend and borrow yourself like a demented fraudster without debauching the currency through humdinging inflation. We are back to where we started before Margaret Thatcher tamed the tiger.
Equally, you cannot have as daft an energy policy as the UK's without running into severe trouble. It doesn't add up and is failing on all counts. It is doing nothing to secure our electricity supply without which no modern nation can call itself civilised. The Government has known for a decade that we shall lose a third of our generating capacity through age and infirmity within the next 10 years.
Yet no replacement power stations are being built, apart from totally useless wind "farms". Ed Miliband, a "green" Doncaster MP who has become head of the new Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), is predictably dithering in the face of the fanatics over whether to sanction more coal-fired power stations.
The Government witters on about fuel poverty while it rushes headlong to give 100 per cent subsidies to wind developers, the fat cats of the energy scene, whose electricity is the dearest form of carbon reduction yet devised by man. Yet the wind revolution is grinding to a halt in the face of public revulsion at the desecration of landscapes and ravaged property values, rising costs and technical problems. And, of course, wind does little to reduce greenhouse gases, the sole justification for its development.
The Government's belated commitment to nuclear power has lost momentum with the formation of the new DECC, with the celebrated Joan Ruddock, of CND fame, as a junior Minister. You couldn't make it up. What is more, while the Prime Minister says "we do not live by markets alone", the Government insists that nuclear, which brings security of supply, cheap power and carbon reduction, is left to that very market while it hugely subsidises wind - a form of power that cannot tick any of those boxes.
The sheer loopiness of UK energy policy is demonstrated by three simple examples. In Scotland, more than 14,000MW of wind capacity is operating, approved, planned or proposed yet the cross-border grid can carry only 2,250MW south to consumers.
Such is the sheer manipulation of the subsidy system that it has reduced our largely carbon-free hydro-electric generating capacity because the owners have engineered down their plants to qualify for hand-outs. And, believe it or not, nuclear, which emits next to no greenhouse gases, still has to pay the climate change levy designed to reduce carbon emissions.
Against this background, you will not be surprised to discover that, to "green" acclaim, the first action of the MP for Doncaster North in his new role as Energy Secretary has been to raise the UK target for eliminating carbon emissions from 60 to 80 per cent of the 1990 level by 2050 without having a clue as to how to do it. So what, you may say, he has 41 years to do it in. Ah, yes, but for the foreseeable future only wind and nuclear can replace carbon-rich coal, oil and gas.
My engineering friends calculate that to hit that 80 per cent target we shall need to build another 233,300 2MW wind turbines (on which we could not rely) or 162 nuclear power stations. Don't ask me where we would put all that little lot, assuming we could build them. Currently. Britain has only 2,500 wind turbines and 10 nuclear power stations.
You now understand why the Great Gordon mucks up your life. He can't run a whelk stall. Have fun brushing your teeth in the dark.
Source
The secret to happiness? Having at least 10 good friends
Very mixed up! They first admit that direction of cause is unknown then speak as if it is known. All that the study tells me is that happy people tend to have a loose definition of what constitutes a friend
In love, two is company and three's a crowd. But in friendship, ten is the magic number. Being able to count at least ten people as friends makes us happy, researchers say. But those with five or fewer are likely to be miserable with their lot, they claim. Their study of hundreds of men and women also found that contented sorts tend to have lots of close friends and regularly make new ones.
While it is not clear whether our friends make us happy or we make friends because we are happy, the researchers say it is clear we should nourish our friendships.
Psychologist Richard Tunney said: 'Whatever the reason, actively working on friendships in the same way as to maintain a marriage is a prerequisite to happiness.' Dr Tunney, of Nottingham University, quizzed more than 1,700 people about their satisfaction with their lives and the state of their friendships. Those with five friends or fewer had just a 40 per cent chance of being happy. In other words, they were more likely to be unhappy than happy.
Ten was the first number at which people were more likely to be happy than unhappy. Happiest of the lot were those with dozens of friends, according to the study, which was carried out for the National Lottery. For women, this meant having 33 friends; for men, the figure was 49.
Dr Tunney said: 'People who were extremely satisfied with their lives had twice the number of friends of people who were extremely dissatisfied.' Women tended to have fewer friends than men but formed tighter bonds.
Interestingly, the study found that childhood friends are no more likely to make us happy than people we become close to later in life. Lottery winners, however, had a different take on life. They tended to be happier than others despite spending their time with a small circle of old friends. This could be because they trust those they've known for longest. Alternatively, financial security may allow them to lavish more time and attention on those who matter the most to them.
The analysis also showed Brummies [inhabitants of Birmingham] to be the happiest people in Britain, with an average 29 friends each and a 75 per cent chance of happiness. Most miserable are the people of Brighton. Despite an average friend total of 42, residents have just a 56 per cent chance of happiness.
Dr Tunney, who describes himself as happy and having a lot of good friends, said factors such as a high cost of living could be behind the city's poor rating. 'Brighton is a very gregarious city, so maybe there is more pressure to have social networks than elsewhere,' he said, adding: 'I spent three happy years in Brighton when I was younger. I would be quite happy to live by the sea.'
Source
Friday, October 24, 2008
'Police are unable to visit 40% of crime victims because of a fog of administration', says British chief constable
Four in ten victims of crime are not visited by a police officer, a chief constable has admitted. Matt Baggott, who is the country's most senior officer for neighbourhood policing, blamed a 'fog of over-supervision and administration'. The Leicestershire chief constable said: 'We do not have the time to do our jobs properly. 'There are no excuses about money. This is about leadership.' He believes every victim should receive a police visit. But critics say many forces no longer attend the scenes of minor crimes, such as theft or vandalism.
Mr Baggott is the first officer to place a figure on the number of incidents that are simply investigated over the phone, with the victim being handed a crime number to give to their insurer. He told a conference in London: 'At the moment we do not visit 40 per cent of crime victims. 'We are not dealing with the moment of misery in their life thoroughly.'
He fears that this approach will make it harder to find out how crimes were able to take place and whether there were any other problems in the neighbourhood. This has a knock-on effect on public trust in policing. According to research conducted for Mr Baggott, for every negative experience of the police, officers must do 14 positive acts locally to repair the damage to their reputation.
He urged officers to free themselves from red tape and targets by engaging in 'structured anarchy' - challenging excessive bureaucracy to persuade policy-makers to scrap it. He wants constables to have the same freedoms as GPs, who do not need permission from superiors to write prescriptions or decide how to treat patients. At present, junior officers have to check their actions with sergeants.
Mr Baggott also wants all criminals to be met at the prison gates to dissuade the 70 per cent who reoffend from doing so. He said they should be placed under such close supervision that they could not commit any more crimes. Former Police Federation chairman Jan Berry, who now works as a red tape tsar for the Home Office, backed Mr Baggott's comments. She said: 'We have got too many people complying with sets of rules that are doing nothing for neighbourhood safety.' She added there was a danger of 'losing the momentum' in tackling red tape and targets since a report into slashing bureaucracy by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, was published earlier this year.
Mr Baggott's comments follow a damning report by the Civitas thinktank warning that the middle classes have lost confidence in the police. The study found responses to crimes such as burglary were slow and statements given by victims of serious crime were often left lying idle for months.
Last month, it emerged that complaints against police officers in England and Wales had risen to record levels. Accord to the Independent Police Complaints Commission there were 48,280 complaints in the year to March, up five per cent on the previous year and the highest total since independent investigations began more than 20 years ago. Most of the complaints concerned alleged failures to investigate or record crimes properly.
Source
The desperate British medical bureaucracy
Family doctors paid bonuses to NOT send you to hospital. It could cause you to have an avoidable amputation but who cares?
GPs are to be paid cash bonuses in return for not sending patients to hospital, raising concerns that financial gain will be put before patients' needs. Doctors' practices stand to earn thousands of pounds extra under the initiative, already said to have been adopted by health authorities across the country. In a variety of schemes, which differ from region to region, GPs are said to have been offered unprecedented cash incentives for deciding not to refer a patient for specialist treatment. Surgeries are given a target of how many patients they should refer to hospital each year and will receive a windfall payment if they meet the quota. Conversely, the money is lost if the surgery sends more patients to hospital than allowed for under the health authority target.
The Mail on Sunday has established that in Oxfordshire each surgery will be given a target of how many patients it should refer to hospital every year. If it meets those quotas, it will be eligible for a bonus payment of up to $20,000. GPs in the region will be paid a similar amount to set aside additional time to review decisions on whether patients should be given hospital appointments. It was reported last night that under another local scheme, doctors in Torbay in Devon could make $120 for every patient not referred. Practices in London, Essex and Wiltshire were said to be in line for $9 for every patient on their list if they meet targets which include a curb on the number of referrals.
The bonus money will be paid into the coffers of GPs' practices, from which they draw their income, giving clinicians for the first time a direct financial incentive to refuse further treatment to patients.
The initiative will cause deep unease, even among doctors who could profit from it. Commenting on the Oxfordshire scheme, Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association's GP Committee, told The Mail on Sunday it was `morally dubious, ethically disturbing and quite wrong'.
The schemes are seen as an attempt by NHS managers to direct patients away from the overloaded hospital system towards cheaper health workers, such as physiotherapists. But Stephen Cannon, a consultant surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, said last night that potentially fatal tumours had already gone undiagnosed because of the scheme.
He said: `I recently encountered two cases in which patients referred to physiotherapists later turned out to have a malignant tumour. In one, a young man was referred to a physiotherapist because of sudden knee pain. Had he come to a specialist the symptoms should have been recognised and he should have been urgently referred to an oncologist. In this case, after the delays, the outcome was amputation. It was devastating for the patient and his family.' ....
Dr Buckman said: `The idea that we should pay doctors to behave in a particular way is worrying. There is a huge difference between paying GPs to increase vaccination levels - which is public health policy and therefore perfectly reasonable - and rewarding them for not referring a patient. `Many patients are referred for further investigation rather than treatment and it would be incredibly dangerous if these patients failed to get hospital appointments simply because GPs decided they weren't sure if a referral was strictly necessary. `The reason for a rise in referrals is very complicated and this isn't the way to deal with it. We should be trying to understand the reason for the referrals.'
Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust insisted it is not paying GPs not to refer but to review their practices, and that every patient who needs to be referred to hospital will get an appointment. Alan Webb, director of commissioning, said the Trust hoped the savings made would go back into patient care.
Source
Immigration to Britain continues unabated amid financial crisis
The growth of immigrant workers holding jobs in Britain has not been halted by the economic slowdown, according to official figures
The number of foreign workers rose by 10,000 between April and June according to the Department for Work and Pensions, despite a fall in the total UK workforce of 15,000 over the same period. The rise took place despite a new points-based immigration system, introduced at the beginning of March, which was supposed to make it harder for foreign nationals from outside the EU to obtain work permits. More than half of foreign workers have been given permission from the government because they are from outside the EU.
Tory MP James Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: "This is in no small part down to Labour's work permit policy."
A Home Office spokesman said: "Government and independent research continues to find no significant evidence of negative employment effects from migration. "The points system, plus our plans for newcomers to earn their citizenship, will reduce overall numbers of economic migrants and the numbers awarded permanent settlement. "It also ensures British jobseekers get the first crack of the whip and only those foreign workers we need - and no more - will be able to come to the UK."
The figures emerged as former minister Frank Field highlighted the issue in the House of Commons, claiming more than 20,000 new National Insurance numbers were issued to foreign nationals last year in the London borough housing the 2012 Olympic Village. He said: "When is the Government going to try and deliver on the Prime Minister's promise of British jobs for British workers?"
Source
New drug raises hope of reversing multiple sclerosis in early stages
Sounds good. Might work on Alzheimers too
A step change in the treatment of multiple sclerosis is heralded today by the first study to suggest that a drug can stop the disease in its tracks and even reverse its progress. A trial of the medicine, known as alemtuzumab, has found that it offers benefits that are “better by a country mile” than other treatments for MS, and that it is effective for a much wider cross-section of patients.
The results offer hope that thousands of people who suffer from MS will eventually be able to control the condition, which causes nerve damage, loss of mobility, blindness and cognitive decline.
Scientists cautioned, however, that alemtuzumab will not be available outside clinical trials for about five years, and that it is suitable only for patients with early-phase MS. Those in whom the disease has already been diagnosed are unlikely to benefit.
When people with early-stage MS were treated with alemtuzumab, their condition improved significantly more than those on beta interferon, the best treatment available now, across three standard clinical indicators.
The drug reduced the number of MS attacks by 74 per cent, and the progression of disability by 71 per cent, when compared with beta interferon. Patients on alemtuzumab also showed recovery of brain function, so that they were less disabled at the end of the three-year study than at the beginning, while those on beta interferon continued to decline. Almost every patient taking alemtuzumab improved, whereas about half of MS patients show no response to beta interferon.
Scientists behind the research said that if the findings were repeated in a larger sample it would promise a revolution in MS care within five years, though only for patients who had yet to develop much nerve damage. “It is a landmark, a step change,” said Alistair Compston, Professor of Neurology at the University of Cambridge, who led the study. “It is more effective than beta interferon by a country mile, and the efficacy is so high that we hope it will represent the definitive treatment if used in the right people.”
Alasdair Coles, another member of the team, said: “It is our view that alemtuzumab offers the most effective treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis described to date. The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented. We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of damaged brain tissue.”
The study, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was a phase 2 trial, conducted on 334 patients as the first test of the drug's efficacy. Two phase 3 trials, of 600 and 1,200 patients, are now under way and positive reports will be needed from these before it can be licensed. Alemtuzumab was also shown to have some potentially serious side-effects, which means that patients who take it will have to be monitored by their doctors. One patient taking the drug died of a brain haemorrhage after developing an autoimmune condition that destroys a clotting agent in the blood, and two others were successfully treated for the same disorder.
Lee Dunster, head of research at the MS Society, said that the charity was delighted at the results. “This news will rightly bring hope to people living with the condition day in, day out.”
Source
Four in ten victims of crime are not visited by a police officer, a chief constable has admitted. Matt Baggott, who is the country's most senior officer for neighbourhood policing, blamed a 'fog of over-supervision and administration'. The Leicestershire chief constable said: 'We do not have the time to do our jobs properly. 'There are no excuses about money. This is about leadership.' He believes every victim should receive a police visit. But critics say many forces no longer attend the scenes of minor crimes, such as theft or vandalism.
Mr Baggott is the first officer to place a figure on the number of incidents that are simply investigated over the phone, with the victim being handed a crime number to give to their insurer. He told a conference in London: 'At the moment we do not visit 40 per cent of crime victims. 'We are not dealing with the moment of misery in their life thoroughly.'
He fears that this approach will make it harder to find out how crimes were able to take place and whether there were any other problems in the neighbourhood. This has a knock-on effect on public trust in policing. According to research conducted for Mr Baggott, for every negative experience of the police, officers must do 14 positive acts locally to repair the damage to their reputation.
He urged officers to free themselves from red tape and targets by engaging in 'structured anarchy' - challenging excessive bureaucracy to persuade policy-makers to scrap it. He wants constables to have the same freedoms as GPs, who do not need permission from superiors to write prescriptions or decide how to treat patients. At present, junior officers have to check their actions with sergeants.
Mr Baggott also wants all criminals to be met at the prison gates to dissuade the 70 per cent who reoffend from doing so. He said they should be placed under such close supervision that they could not commit any more crimes. Former Police Federation chairman Jan Berry, who now works as a red tape tsar for the Home Office, backed Mr Baggott's comments. She said: 'We have got too many people complying with sets of rules that are doing nothing for neighbourhood safety.' She added there was a danger of 'losing the momentum' in tackling red tape and targets since a report into slashing bureaucracy by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the Chief Inspector of Constabulary, was published earlier this year.
Mr Baggott's comments follow a damning report by the Civitas thinktank warning that the middle classes have lost confidence in the police. The study found responses to crimes such as burglary were slow and statements given by victims of serious crime were often left lying idle for months.
Last month, it emerged that complaints against police officers in England and Wales had risen to record levels. Accord to the Independent Police Complaints Commission there were 48,280 complaints in the year to March, up five per cent on the previous year and the highest total since independent investigations began more than 20 years ago. Most of the complaints concerned alleged failures to investigate or record crimes properly.
Source
The desperate British medical bureaucracy
Family doctors paid bonuses to NOT send you to hospital. It could cause you to have an avoidable amputation but who cares?
GPs are to be paid cash bonuses in return for not sending patients to hospital, raising concerns that financial gain will be put before patients' needs. Doctors' practices stand to earn thousands of pounds extra under the initiative, already said to have been adopted by health authorities across the country. In a variety of schemes, which differ from region to region, GPs are said to have been offered unprecedented cash incentives for deciding not to refer a patient for specialist treatment. Surgeries are given a target of how many patients they should refer to hospital each year and will receive a windfall payment if they meet the quota. Conversely, the money is lost if the surgery sends more patients to hospital than allowed for under the health authority target.
The Mail on Sunday has established that in Oxfordshire each surgery will be given a target of how many patients it should refer to hospital every year. If it meets those quotas, it will be eligible for a bonus payment of up to $20,000. GPs in the region will be paid a similar amount to set aside additional time to review decisions on whether patients should be given hospital appointments. It was reported last night that under another local scheme, doctors in Torbay in Devon could make $120 for every patient not referred. Practices in London, Essex and Wiltshire were said to be in line for $9 for every patient on their list if they meet targets which include a curb on the number of referrals.
The bonus money will be paid into the coffers of GPs' practices, from which they draw their income, giving clinicians for the first time a direct financial incentive to refuse further treatment to patients.
The initiative will cause deep unease, even among doctors who could profit from it. Commenting on the Oxfordshire scheme, Dr Laurence Buckman, chairman of the British Medical Association's GP Committee, told The Mail on Sunday it was `morally dubious, ethically disturbing and quite wrong'.
The schemes are seen as an attempt by NHS managers to direct patients away from the overloaded hospital system towards cheaper health workers, such as physiotherapists. But Stephen Cannon, a consultant surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, said last night that potentially fatal tumours had already gone undiagnosed because of the scheme.
He said: `I recently encountered two cases in which patients referred to physiotherapists later turned out to have a malignant tumour. In one, a young man was referred to a physiotherapist because of sudden knee pain. Had he come to a specialist the symptoms should have been recognised and he should have been urgently referred to an oncologist. In this case, after the delays, the outcome was amputation. It was devastating for the patient and his family.' ....
Dr Buckman said: `The idea that we should pay doctors to behave in a particular way is worrying. There is a huge difference between paying GPs to increase vaccination levels - which is public health policy and therefore perfectly reasonable - and rewarding them for not referring a patient. `Many patients are referred for further investigation rather than treatment and it would be incredibly dangerous if these patients failed to get hospital appointments simply because GPs decided they weren't sure if a referral was strictly necessary. `The reason for a rise in referrals is very complicated and this isn't the way to deal with it. We should be trying to understand the reason for the referrals.'
Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust insisted it is not paying GPs not to refer but to review their practices, and that every patient who needs to be referred to hospital will get an appointment. Alan Webb, director of commissioning, said the Trust hoped the savings made would go back into patient care.
Source
Immigration to Britain continues unabated amid financial crisis
The growth of immigrant workers holding jobs in Britain has not been halted by the economic slowdown, according to official figures
The number of foreign workers rose by 10,000 between April and June according to the Department for Work and Pensions, despite a fall in the total UK workforce of 15,000 over the same period. The rise took place despite a new points-based immigration system, introduced at the beginning of March, which was supposed to make it harder for foreign nationals from outside the EU to obtain work permits. More than half of foreign workers have been given permission from the government because they are from outside the EU.
Tory MP James Clappison, a member of the Commons home affairs committee, said: "This is in no small part down to Labour's work permit policy."
A Home Office spokesman said: "Government and independent research continues to find no significant evidence of negative employment effects from migration. "The points system, plus our plans for newcomers to earn their citizenship, will reduce overall numbers of economic migrants and the numbers awarded permanent settlement. "It also ensures British jobseekers get the first crack of the whip and only those foreign workers we need - and no more - will be able to come to the UK."
The figures emerged as former minister Frank Field highlighted the issue in the House of Commons, claiming more than 20,000 new National Insurance numbers were issued to foreign nationals last year in the London borough housing the 2012 Olympic Village. He said: "When is the Government going to try and deliver on the Prime Minister's promise of British jobs for British workers?"
Source
New drug raises hope of reversing multiple sclerosis in early stages
Sounds good. Might work on Alzheimers too
A step change in the treatment of multiple sclerosis is heralded today by the first study to suggest that a drug can stop the disease in its tracks and even reverse its progress. A trial of the medicine, known as alemtuzumab, has found that it offers benefits that are “better by a country mile” than other treatments for MS, and that it is effective for a much wider cross-section of patients.
The results offer hope that thousands of people who suffer from MS will eventually be able to control the condition, which causes nerve damage, loss of mobility, blindness and cognitive decline.
Scientists cautioned, however, that alemtuzumab will not be available outside clinical trials for about five years, and that it is suitable only for patients with early-phase MS. Those in whom the disease has already been diagnosed are unlikely to benefit.
When people with early-stage MS were treated with alemtuzumab, their condition improved significantly more than those on beta interferon, the best treatment available now, across three standard clinical indicators.
The drug reduced the number of MS attacks by 74 per cent, and the progression of disability by 71 per cent, when compared with beta interferon. Patients on alemtuzumab also showed recovery of brain function, so that they were less disabled at the end of the three-year study than at the beginning, while those on beta interferon continued to decline. Almost every patient taking alemtuzumab improved, whereas about half of MS patients show no response to beta interferon.
Scientists behind the research said that if the findings were repeated in a larger sample it would promise a revolution in MS care within five years, though only for patients who had yet to develop much nerve damage. “It is a landmark, a step change,” said Alistair Compston, Professor of Neurology at the University of Cambridge, who led the study. “It is more effective than beta interferon by a country mile, and the efficacy is so high that we hope it will represent the definitive treatment if used in the right people.”
Alasdair Coles, another member of the team, said: “It is our view that alemtuzumab offers the most effective treatment for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis described to date. The ability of an MS drug to promote brain repair is unprecedented. We are witnessing a drug which, if given early enough, might effectively stop the advancement of the disease and also restore lost function by promoting repair of damaged brain tissue.”
The study, which is published in The New England Journal of Medicine, was a phase 2 trial, conducted on 334 patients as the first test of the drug's efficacy. Two phase 3 trials, of 600 and 1,200 patients, are now under way and positive reports will be needed from these before it can be licensed. Alemtuzumab was also shown to have some potentially serious side-effects, which means that patients who take it will have to be monitored by their doctors. One patient taking the drug died of a brain haemorrhage after developing an autoimmune condition that destroys a clotting agent in the blood, and two others were successfully treated for the same disorder.
Lee Dunster, head of research at the MS Society, said that the charity was delighted at the results. “This news will rightly bring hope to people living with the condition day in, day out.”
Source
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Eighteen years and then the scrapheap for cars in Britain
As the driver of a 1963 Humber Super Snipe Type 4, I object strongly to this. The Humber costs me a fortune to keep on the road but I love it! And lots of people come up to me and express their pleasure at seeing it. Fortunately, I live in Australia and not in Britain
Britain's Royal Automotive Club Foundation is floating a proposal that would call for the scrapping of all cars more than 18 years old. Rationale:
I am reasonably certain that they'd find some way to make an exception for Lord Suchandsuch's 1952 Bentley R-Type Continental. Besides: what new industry? Britain's biggest automaker these days is - who? TVR? Morgan? Everyone else has long since sold out.
Bad ideas, of course, have a way of crossing the oceans, so I expect someone to come up with something similar Stateside before too awfully long. Hint: The "most-polluting" vehicle isn't one that's rolled up X number of years; it's one whose engine is so utterly shot that you can see its exhaust from half a mile back. Scrapping those miserable hulks would do more for the urban environment than any amount of "greening" folderol.
Source
Quis docebit ipsos magistes?
Literacy tests for trainee British teachers show that those who can't spell, teach
Thousands of trainee teachers are struggling to pass literacy tests that require them to spell words such as anxiety, relieved and mathematical. More than 11,000 trainee teachers, just over a quarter of the annual intake, failed to pass the literacy test last year at their first attempt, an increase of 16 per cent since 2001. The findings have prompted concern that new teachers may be struggling with the basic skills they will be charged with passing on to pupils.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said: "Spelling is a key basic skill. We need a renewed focus on getting the basics right. "As the number of applicants being accepted on to teaching courses rises, we need to be sure that this isn't being coupled with a decline in standards. The existing minimum qualifications for people wanting to become teachers are too low." Mr Laws said that the economic slowdown should be used as an opportunity to promote teaching as a profession and attract top graduates.
The tests, which are taken online by students training for primary and secondary schools, are designed to raise standards in the profession. Trainees can take them as many times as they want.
Although teachers must have good GCSE passes in English, maths and science and a degree to work in English state schools, the tests were introduced in 2000/01 amid concerns that teacher training did not provide a sufficient grounding in the basics. The figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrats in a Commons written answer, show that the failure rate in numeracy has also risen since the tests were first introduced. Last year 20,000 trainee teachers failed to pass the numeracy test at the first attempt. On average, around half the students had to take the test twice before passing. In ICT, 4,000 failed the test first time.
Research this year from the Spelling Society found that more than half of adults could not spell embarrassed or millennium. A quarter struggled with definitely, accidentally and separate.
The survey found that Britons blame the current state of poor spelling on parents and teachers, with three out of four people believing that spelling among children is worse now than it was ten years ago.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said that the quality of teacher training had never been higher. "The vast majority of trainee teachers pass all three tests first time round and the bottom line is that no one can start teaching until they have passed them," the department said. "More top-quality teachers than ever before are entering the profession from industry, the public sector and universities, thanks to highest-ever pay levels, golden hellos, better behaviour and discipline, and slashed paperwork."
The Training and Development Agency for Schools said that the average pass rate across all three subjects was more than 83 per cent.
Source
CASH-STRAPPED BRITISH FAMILIES FACE $2,000-A-YEAR BILL TO HELP THEIR PIG-HEADED GOVERNMENT FIGHT CLIMATE TARGET
Families face a $2,000-a-year bill after the Government committed Britain to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent before 2050. The decision gives the UK the toughest climate change targets in the world and could usher in an era of green taxes and carbon rationing.
Government advisers admit that the shift to a 'low carbon' economy will cost around $48billion a year at today's prices. Divided among the nation's households, this works out at just under o1,000 extra per family. But it is at odds with ministers' support for the expansion of Stansted and Heathrow airports and recent pledges to construct coal-fired power stations.
Announcing the target yesterday, climate change minister Ed Miliband said tough economic conditions were not an excuse to 'row back' on tackling global warming. He accepted the recommendations of the Government's Climate Change Committee, which last week said the UK needed to cut emissions by four-fifths of 1990 values. Previously the Government had committed to a 60 per cent cut.
'In tough economic times, some people will ask whether we should retreat from our climate change objectives,' he said. 'In our view, it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say we should misunderstand the relationship between the economic and environmental tasks we face.' Last week the Committee on Climate Change said the target would cost 1 to 2 per cent of annual gross domestic product - which currently stands at $2.4trillion.
Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, joined green lobbyists in welcoming the announcement. He said: 'Delaying action will land us with a bill for billions as we struggle to deal with the devastating effects of climate change. 'Dramatically cutting our emissions won't mean we have to suffer hardship - the lights will stay on, we will still travel and live in comfortable homes.'
But Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, said: 'It is an incredibly inefficient way to do virtually nothing. If the UK managed to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent, it would mean postponing global warming by an order of less than a 500th of a degree. Is that really what the British population want to spend 2 per cent of its income on?'
The new target does not include aviation or shipping emissions. However, Mr Miliband said they would 'play a part' in the Government's climate strategy. Mr Miliband also pledged to help homes and small businesses generate their own power. He told the Commons the Energy Bill would be amended to introduce a 'feed-in tariff' to guarantee prices for micro-generation projects which are able to supply electricity to the national grid. He insisted commitments to reductions must come from Europe, despite a demand by Poland and six other member states to drop them because of the economic crisis.
Source
Should UK immigration go Dutch?
Are the Dutch handling immigration more efficiently than the British? UK Immigration Minister Phil Woolas thinks so - he has condemned the UK's migration limits and asylum policy and praised Dutch measures. Here BBC News reporters Dominic Casciani and Laurence Peter look at the UK and Dutch systems, respectively
UK SYSTEM
The UK's immigration system has faced massive upheavals and change over the past decade - and it remains a touchy subject on voters' doorsteps. The old migration system was basically a mess - and an open invitation to abuse, chaos, haphazard decision-making and unfair treatment. There were too many entry routes, no proper system for counting who came and went - and no guaranteed means of working out what happened to people who stayed. What made matters politically far worse for the government was the huge surge in asylum applications in the late 1990s.
So it came as little surprise when the former UK Home Secretary, John Reid, described the system in 2006 as "not fit for purpose", after officials released 1,000 foreign prisoners without considering them for deportation. But from those low points, ministers argue that changes in three key areas are bringing benefits:
* Economic immigration for workers
* Access for asylum seekers and refugees
* Settlement, nationality and citizenship.
The multiple entry routes for workers are being progressively replaced with a simpler system. If you are a worker from within the European free market area, you can come and go as you please. If you are from anywhere else, you must score points to come in under one of a number of categories - a successful system used in Australia, among other countries.
Rules have been increasingly tightened for asylum seekers, spouses or dependents. Spouses will soon be expected to sign up to English lessons as a condition of settlement. The minimum age for someone coming into the UK to wed is also being raised to 21, partly to combat forced marriages of vulnerable women.
Critics say the asylum system has gone from chaotic to unfair because of the high rate of rejections. Supporters say it has simply exposed the high number of bogus applications. The new immigration minister concedes that rejected asylum seekers, who cannot work, have been destitute in the UK because of a failure to ensure they are deported in a timely fashion.
Ministers hope to underpin these reforms in two ways. The first is practical - the UK's borders are going electronic with ID cards, biometric applications and checks at airports as people come or go. The second element is about shifting perceptions and creating a sense belonging. The Home Office plans to use a carrot-and-stick approach to ensure migrants go on a "journey towards citizenship". They will have a choice to "earn citizenship" over a minimum of six years - or to go home.
Critics say it is daft and insulting to people who work hard in jobs that the British often do not want to do. But ministers think it is a good social contract that can help to ease the tensions that have built up over immigration. Public citizenship ceremonies have been taking place for some years now - and they were criticised as a bit silly and American. But for more migrants, they are an important moment, with barely a dry eye in the house.
DUTCH SYSTEM
Dutch immigration policy has shifted markedly away from multiculturalism and towards promoting integration and Dutch identity. The new rules for non-EU citizens contrast sharply with the liberal policy of the 1960s and early 1970s, which enabled many Moroccans and Turks to settle easily in the Netherlands as "guest workers", brought over to fill jobs in heavy industry. In March 2006 the Netherlands introduced a Civic Integration Examination for would-be permanent migrants, requiring them to take courses in the Dutch language and "social orientation". The latter includes scenes of nudity and homosexuality in a controversial video on Dutch liberal values. The examination can be taken at a Dutch embassy and has to be passed before the applicant can settle in the Netherlands.
Spouses wishing to join a partner in the Netherlands have to take it, regardless of how long the partner has been a Dutch resident. In addition, the partner has to be able to support their spouse by earning at least 120% of the minimum wage.
Permanent resident status depends on the migrant completing an integration programme, which involves more language tests and active engagement with wider Dutch society, for example through an internship or volunteer work. The programme lasts three-and-a-half years, but for asylum seekers and previously settled migrants it is five years. Spiritual leaders such as imams, whose visas are limited to three years, also have to take the integration course.
Pressure to tighten the rules came especially from the popular politician Pim Fortuyn, who took the political establishment by storm in 2002, tapping into widespread concern about growing numbers of poor migrants who spoke little or no Dutch. Attention focused on the marginalisation of young Muslims when in November 2004 the film-maker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a young Dutchman of Moroccan origin. Van Gogh had made a film about domestic abuse of Muslim women.
Migrants from outside the EU are particularly concentrated in Dutch cities, notably Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which was Pim Fortuyn's political stronghold. Morocco and Turkey are the main countries of origin by far. A Dutch-Moroccan pro-integration politician, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is poised to become mayor of Rotterdam.
Compulsory naturalisation ceremonies also feature in the new rules for would-be residents.
In 2006, immigrants formed 19% of the Netherlands' 16.3 million people. The unemployment rate among them was 12.2% - a full 8.5% higher than the rate for Dutch nationals. Family reunifications account for much of the increase in the immigrant population since the 1970s, according to Peter van Krieken, professor of international law at Webster University, Leiden. There was no obligation for these spouses to learn Dutch. He recalls a time when in town halls "you used to see lots of signs in other languages and a court would say 'you can't force people to learn Dutch'."
The Netherlands does not have a big backlog of asylum seekers to process, unlike the UK. Asylum cases have been accelerated through a 48-hour procedure, so that hopeless claims can be eliminated quickly. The number of asylum applications in 2007 was nearly 10,000, with Iraqis and Somalis forming the largest number.
Dutch procedures for illegal immigrants have also been accelerated, with cases now coming under employment law, rather than the penal code. Access to jobs has been targeted, rather than putting the emphasis on deportations. Inspections of work premises are more frequent now and "within 10 days employers can be served with a big fine," Prof Van Krieken says.
Source
Here we go again: "Tips to stay sane are based on hard evidence"
This article does not cite the research behind it but I am pretty certain it will all turn out to be epidemiological. Which makes the evidence very soft indeed. Mental ill health is caused by lack of social participation? Isn't it more likely that people who are mad to start with participate less well socially? Etc., etc.
The audience for Foresight's science futures work is usually government policymakers, but this project has advice for individuals too, including its "five-a-day" for mental wellbeing. They might sound like pure Pollyanna; but they are based on evidence in a paper commissioned by Foresight from the New Economics Foundation.
"Connect with the people around you" reflects compelling evidence of the importance of social interaction. Surveys show that the most significant difference between individuals with mental ill-health and those without it is social participation.
"Be active" is another recommendation with a compelling evidence base. For children, action is essential for thinking and learning. Studies of large groups of individuals born at the same time show that physical activity protects against cognitive decline and against depression and anxiety. Even bouts of exercise of less than ten minutes can make a difference.
"Take notice" is about being aware of sensations around you and of your own thoughts and feelings. Being in this state of "mindfulness" promotes mental wellbeing.
Being aware of what takes place in the present can help to reinstate life priorities, an important consideration for those who have been buffeted by ill-fortune. Think of it as a way of rebooting the mind through joy in the here and now.
"Keep learning" is also strongly backed by evidence. Statistical analysis of group studies shows that learning, almost without regard to subject, is the single greatest predictor of mental wellbeing. It impacts on one's self-esteem, resilience and sense of purpose.
"Give" is perhaps the most surprising of the five-a-day. In one experiment, committing an act of kindness each day for six weeks was associated with an increase in wellbeing.
Increasingly, the Government listens to Foresight. Its recommendations on obesity were included in policy within six months. It will be interesting to see whether Gordon Brown will do the same with this report.
Source
British homeowners ordered to pay $100 to use their own garden gate by council
Nasty Leftist envy at work again.
Residents of a cul-de-sac have been ordered by their council to pay a $100 charge to use their own garden gates. Families living in Tyning Park in Calne, Wiltshire, have been told that they must pay the annual fee for access to the woods behind their homes even though hundreds of people pass through it free of charge every day using a public right of way.
Up to 300 children and their parents use the small strip of trees known as Bentley Wood, which are maintained by the town council as a public amenity, each day going to and from the adjoining John Bentley School.
Although the wood has open access at both ends, several houses in the street have gates backing onto to it to make access easier. But officials at Calne Town Council have resurrected a previously forgotten covenant allowing them to levy a charge for the access. Residents have been told their access will be blocked off if they do not pay. The rule dates back to when the 12 houses were first built in the 1980s but was only recently implemented.
It has left residents decidedly unimpressed. "I don't use the gate very much anyway, hardly at all, but the principle of thing is what gets me," said John Watkins, a resident who is leading opposition to the charge. "The other thing is that it could be a very important emergency access in the event of a fire, for example. "I believe it to be unjust, we need the gate to access the fence for maintenance."
He added: "What gets me is that the council don't maintain the trees in the wood. "A couple of years ago a branch fell on my shed causing a lot of damage. "In all the years the house has been built - we moved here in 1989 - we've never been asked to pay and it seems ridiculous."
Helen Plenty, a member of the town council as well as the local Conservative representative on the District Council, said the situation was "laughable". "The woods are open top and bottom, it is a very small patch of land," she said. "On a regular school day the children are up and down there from school to the main road and nobody bothers about that, it just seems that if you have a property that backs on to the woods apparently the law says you have to pay for it. "It is a bit of a joke really."
Blaming the previous Liberal Democrat administration in the town for the decision to begin levying the charge, Mrs Plenty she called for the council to step in and either scrap the charge or make reduce it to a nominal sum. "The point is that many of the residents bought their homes with the gates already there," she said. "This has been a row going on for a year now, and it really is a daft stalemate."
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As the driver of a 1963 Humber Super Snipe Type 4, I object strongly to this. The Humber costs me a fortune to keep on the road but I love it! And lots of people come up to me and express their pleasure at seeing it. Fortunately, I live in Australia and not in Britain
Britain's Royal Automotive Club Foundation is floating a proposal that would call for the scrapping of all cars more than 18 years old. Rationale:
The RAC Foundation believes that a carefully-designed scrappage scheme would have a double benefit of boosting the new and second hand car industry, whilst helping to make road transport greener by removing the most-polluting vehicles from the road.
I am reasonably certain that they'd find some way to make an exception for Lord Suchandsuch's 1952 Bentley R-Type Continental. Besides: what new industry? Britain's biggest automaker these days is - who? TVR? Morgan? Everyone else has long since sold out.
Bad ideas, of course, have a way of crossing the oceans, so I expect someone to come up with something similar Stateside before too awfully long. Hint: The "most-polluting" vehicle isn't one that's rolled up X number of years; it's one whose engine is so utterly shot that you can see its exhaust from half a mile back. Scrapping those miserable hulks would do more for the urban environment than any amount of "greening" folderol.
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Quis docebit ipsos magistes?
Literacy tests for trainee British teachers show that those who can't spell, teach
Thousands of trainee teachers are struggling to pass literacy tests that require them to spell words such as anxiety, relieved and mathematical. More than 11,000 trainee teachers, just over a quarter of the annual intake, failed to pass the literacy test last year at their first attempt, an increase of 16 per cent since 2001. The findings have prompted concern that new teachers may be struggling with the basic skills they will be charged with passing on to pupils.
David Laws, the Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said: "Spelling is a key basic skill. We need a renewed focus on getting the basics right. "As the number of applicants being accepted on to teaching courses rises, we need to be sure that this isn't being coupled with a decline in standards. The existing minimum qualifications for people wanting to become teachers are too low." Mr Laws said that the economic slowdown should be used as an opportunity to promote teaching as a profession and attract top graduates.
The tests, which are taken online by students training for primary and secondary schools, are designed to raise standards in the profession. Trainees can take them as many times as they want.
Although teachers must have good GCSE passes in English, maths and science and a degree to work in English state schools, the tests were introduced in 2000/01 amid concerns that teacher training did not provide a sufficient grounding in the basics. The figures, obtained by the Liberal Democrats in a Commons written answer, show that the failure rate in numeracy has also risen since the tests were first introduced. Last year 20,000 trainee teachers failed to pass the numeracy test at the first attempt. On average, around half the students had to take the test twice before passing. In ICT, 4,000 failed the test first time.
Research this year from the Spelling Society found that more than half of adults could not spell embarrassed or millennium. A quarter struggled with definitely, accidentally and separate.
The survey found that Britons blame the current state of poor spelling on parents and teachers, with three out of four people believing that spelling among children is worse now than it was ten years ago.
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said that the quality of teacher training had never been higher. "The vast majority of trainee teachers pass all three tests first time round and the bottom line is that no one can start teaching until they have passed them," the department said. "More top-quality teachers than ever before are entering the profession from industry, the public sector and universities, thanks to highest-ever pay levels, golden hellos, better behaviour and discipline, and slashed paperwork."
The Training and Development Agency for Schools said that the average pass rate across all three subjects was more than 83 per cent.
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CASH-STRAPPED BRITISH FAMILIES FACE $2,000-A-YEAR BILL TO HELP THEIR PIG-HEADED GOVERNMENT FIGHT CLIMATE TARGET
Families face a $2,000-a-year bill after the Government committed Britain to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent before 2050. The decision gives the UK the toughest climate change targets in the world and could usher in an era of green taxes and carbon rationing.
Government advisers admit that the shift to a 'low carbon' economy will cost around $48billion a year at today's prices. Divided among the nation's households, this works out at just under o1,000 extra per family. But it is at odds with ministers' support for the expansion of Stansted and Heathrow airports and recent pledges to construct coal-fired power stations.
Announcing the target yesterday, climate change minister Ed Miliband said tough economic conditions were not an excuse to 'row back' on tackling global warming. He accepted the recommendations of the Government's Climate Change Committee, which last week said the UK needed to cut emissions by four-fifths of 1990 values. Previously the Government had committed to a 60 per cent cut.
'In tough economic times, some people will ask whether we should retreat from our climate change objectives,' he said. 'In our view, it would be quite wrong to row back and those who say we should misunderstand the relationship between the economic and environmental tasks we face.' Last week the Committee on Climate Change said the target would cost 1 to 2 per cent of annual gross domestic product - which currently stands at $2.4trillion.
Friends of the Earth's executive director, Andy Atkins, joined green lobbyists in welcoming the announcement. He said: 'Delaying action will land us with a bill for billions as we struggle to deal with the devastating effects of climate change. 'Dramatically cutting our emissions won't mean we have to suffer hardship - the lights will stay on, we will still travel and live in comfortable homes.'
But Bjorn Lomborg, author of the Skeptical Environmentalist, said: 'It is an incredibly inefficient way to do virtually nothing. If the UK managed to cut carbon emissions by 80 per cent, it would mean postponing global warming by an order of less than a 500th of a degree. Is that really what the British population want to spend 2 per cent of its income on?'
The new target does not include aviation or shipping emissions. However, Mr Miliband said they would 'play a part' in the Government's climate strategy. Mr Miliband also pledged to help homes and small businesses generate their own power. He told the Commons the Energy Bill would be amended to introduce a 'feed-in tariff' to guarantee prices for micro-generation projects which are able to supply electricity to the national grid. He insisted commitments to reductions must come from Europe, despite a demand by Poland and six other member states to drop them because of the economic crisis.
Source
Should UK immigration go Dutch?
Are the Dutch handling immigration more efficiently than the British? UK Immigration Minister Phil Woolas thinks so - he has condemned the UK's migration limits and asylum policy and praised Dutch measures. Here BBC News reporters Dominic Casciani and Laurence Peter look at the UK and Dutch systems, respectively
UK SYSTEM
The UK's immigration system has faced massive upheavals and change over the past decade - and it remains a touchy subject on voters' doorsteps. The old migration system was basically a mess - and an open invitation to abuse, chaos, haphazard decision-making and unfair treatment. There were too many entry routes, no proper system for counting who came and went - and no guaranteed means of working out what happened to people who stayed. What made matters politically far worse for the government was the huge surge in asylum applications in the late 1990s.
So it came as little surprise when the former UK Home Secretary, John Reid, described the system in 2006 as "not fit for purpose", after officials released 1,000 foreign prisoners without considering them for deportation. But from those low points, ministers argue that changes in three key areas are bringing benefits:
* Economic immigration for workers
* Access for asylum seekers and refugees
* Settlement, nationality and citizenship.
The multiple entry routes for workers are being progressively replaced with a simpler system. If you are a worker from within the European free market area, you can come and go as you please. If you are from anywhere else, you must score points to come in under one of a number of categories - a successful system used in Australia, among other countries.
Rules have been increasingly tightened for asylum seekers, spouses or dependents. Spouses will soon be expected to sign up to English lessons as a condition of settlement. The minimum age for someone coming into the UK to wed is also being raised to 21, partly to combat forced marriages of vulnerable women.
Critics say the asylum system has gone from chaotic to unfair because of the high rate of rejections. Supporters say it has simply exposed the high number of bogus applications. The new immigration minister concedes that rejected asylum seekers, who cannot work, have been destitute in the UK because of a failure to ensure they are deported in a timely fashion.
Ministers hope to underpin these reforms in two ways. The first is practical - the UK's borders are going electronic with ID cards, biometric applications and checks at airports as people come or go. The second element is about shifting perceptions and creating a sense belonging. The Home Office plans to use a carrot-and-stick approach to ensure migrants go on a "journey towards citizenship". They will have a choice to "earn citizenship" over a minimum of six years - or to go home.
Critics say it is daft and insulting to people who work hard in jobs that the British often do not want to do. But ministers think it is a good social contract that can help to ease the tensions that have built up over immigration. Public citizenship ceremonies have been taking place for some years now - and they were criticised as a bit silly and American. But for more migrants, they are an important moment, with barely a dry eye in the house.
DUTCH SYSTEM
Dutch immigration policy has shifted markedly away from multiculturalism and towards promoting integration and Dutch identity. The new rules for non-EU citizens contrast sharply with the liberal policy of the 1960s and early 1970s, which enabled many Moroccans and Turks to settle easily in the Netherlands as "guest workers", brought over to fill jobs in heavy industry. In March 2006 the Netherlands introduced a Civic Integration Examination for would-be permanent migrants, requiring them to take courses in the Dutch language and "social orientation". The latter includes scenes of nudity and homosexuality in a controversial video on Dutch liberal values. The examination can be taken at a Dutch embassy and has to be passed before the applicant can settle in the Netherlands.
Spouses wishing to join a partner in the Netherlands have to take it, regardless of how long the partner has been a Dutch resident. In addition, the partner has to be able to support their spouse by earning at least 120% of the minimum wage.
Permanent resident status depends on the migrant completing an integration programme, which involves more language tests and active engagement with wider Dutch society, for example through an internship or volunteer work. The programme lasts three-and-a-half years, but for asylum seekers and previously settled migrants it is five years. Spiritual leaders such as imams, whose visas are limited to three years, also have to take the integration course.
Pressure to tighten the rules came especially from the popular politician Pim Fortuyn, who took the political establishment by storm in 2002, tapping into widespread concern about growing numbers of poor migrants who spoke little or no Dutch. Attention focused on the marginalisation of young Muslims when in November 2004 the film-maker Theo van Gogh was murdered by a young Dutchman of Moroccan origin. Van Gogh had made a film about domestic abuse of Muslim women.
Migrants from outside the EU are particularly concentrated in Dutch cities, notably Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which was Pim Fortuyn's political stronghold. Morocco and Turkey are the main countries of origin by far. A Dutch-Moroccan pro-integration politician, Ahmed Aboutaleb, is poised to become mayor of Rotterdam.
Compulsory naturalisation ceremonies also feature in the new rules for would-be residents.
In 2006, immigrants formed 19% of the Netherlands' 16.3 million people. The unemployment rate among them was 12.2% - a full 8.5% higher than the rate for Dutch nationals. Family reunifications account for much of the increase in the immigrant population since the 1970s, according to Peter van Krieken, professor of international law at Webster University, Leiden. There was no obligation for these spouses to learn Dutch. He recalls a time when in town halls "you used to see lots of signs in other languages and a court would say 'you can't force people to learn Dutch'."
The Netherlands does not have a big backlog of asylum seekers to process, unlike the UK. Asylum cases have been accelerated through a 48-hour procedure, so that hopeless claims can be eliminated quickly. The number of asylum applications in 2007 was nearly 10,000, with Iraqis and Somalis forming the largest number.
Dutch procedures for illegal immigrants have also been accelerated, with cases now coming under employment law, rather than the penal code. Access to jobs has been targeted, rather than putting the emphasis on deportations. Inspections of work premises are more frequent now and "within 10 days employers can be served with a big fine," Prof Van Krieken says.
Source
Here we go again: "Tips to stay sane are based on hard evidence"
This article does not cite the research behind it but I am pretty certain it will all turn out to be epidemiological. Which makes the evidence very soft indeed. Mental ill health is caused by lack of social participation? Isn't it more likely that people who are mad to start with participate less well socially? Etc., etc.
The audience for Foresight's science futures work is usually government policymakers, but this project has advice for individuals too, including its "five-a-day" for mental wellbeing. They might sound like pure Pollyanna; but they are based on evidence in a paper commissioned by Foresight from the New Economics Foundation.
"Connect with the people around you" reflects compelling evidence of the importance of social interaction. Surveys show that the most significant difference between individuals with mental ill-health and those without it is social participation.
"Be active" is another recommendation with a compelling evidence base. For children, action is essential for thinking and learning. Studies of large groups of individuals born at the same time show that physical activity protects against cognitive decline and against depression and anxiety. Even bouts of exercise of less than ten minutes can make a difference.
"Take notice" is about being aware of sensations around you and of your own thoughts and feelings. Being in this state of "mindfulness" promotes mental wellbeing.
Being aware of what takes place in the present can help to reinstate life priorities, an important consideration for those who have been buffeted by ill-fortune. Think of it as a way of rebooting the mind through joy in the here and now.
"Keep learning" is also strongly backed by evidence. Statistical analysis of group studies shows that learning, almost without regard to subject, is the single greatest predictor of mental wellbeing. It impacts on one's self-esteem, resilience and sense of purpose.
"Give" is perhaps the most surprising of the five-a-day. In one experiment, committing an act of kindness each day for six weeks was associated with an increase in wellbeing.
Increasingly, the Government listens to Foresight. Its recommendations on obesity were included in policy within six months. It will be interesting to see whether Gordon Brown will do the same with this report.
Source
British homeowners ordered to pay $100 to use their own garden gate by council
Nasty Leftist envy at work again.
Residents of a cul-de-sac have been ordered by their council to pay a $100 charge to use their own garden gates. Families living in Tyning Park in Calne, Wiltshire, have been told that they must pay the annual fee for access to the woods behind their homes even though hundreds of people pass through it free of charge every day using a public right of way.
Up to 300 children and their parents use the small strip of trees known as Bentley Wood, which are maintained by the town council as a public amenity, each day going to and from the adjoining John Bentley School.
Although the wood has open access at both ends, several houses in the street have gates backing onto to it to make access easier. But officials at Calne Town Council have resurrected a previously forgotten covenant allowing them to levy a charge for the access. Residents have been told their access will be blocked off if they do not pay. The rule dates back to when the 12 houses were first built in the 1980s but was only recently implemented.
It has left residents decidedly unimpressed. "I don't use the gate very much anyway, hardly at all, but the principle of thing is what gets me," said John Watkins, a resident who is leading opposition to the charge. "The other thing is that it could be a very important emergency access in the event of a fire, for example. "I believe it to be unjust, we need the gate to access the fence for maintenance."
He added: "What gets me is that the council don't maintain the trees in the wood. "A couple of years ago a branch fell on my shed causing a lot of damage. "In all the years the house has been built - we moved here in 1989 - we've never been asked to pay and it seems ridiculous."
Helen Plenty, a member of the town council as well as the local Conservative representative on the District Council, said the situation was "laughable". "The woods are open top and bottom, it is a very small patch of land," she said. "On a regular school day the children are up and down there from school to the main road and nobody bothers about that, it just seems that if you have a property that backs on to the woods apparently the law says you have to pay for it. "It is a bit of a joke really."
Blaming the previous Liberal Democrat administration in the town for the decision to begin levying the charge, Mrs Plenty she called for the council to step in and either scrap the charge or make reduce it to a nominal sum. "The point is that many of the residents bought their homes with the gates already there," she said. "This has been a row going on for a year now, and it really is a daft stalemate."
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Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Rough NHS nurses
I knew my mother Norma's 81st birthday would be poignant. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier - a terrible twist of fate considering she never smoked - and was not expected to survive the year. But at least, I reasoned, she was being treated at the world-renowned Royal Marsden Hospital in West London. There she would not only receive the best possible treatment but be cared for by dedicated nurses accustomed to looking after the terminally ill. Or so I thought.
But when I arrived on Horder Ward on the morning of my mother's birthday, she was distressed and disorientated. Instead of wearing the white linen pyjamas she had gone to bed in, she was wrapped in an NHS gown. Gradually it emerged that she had woken up in the middle of the night in a pool of blood, terrified she was haemorrhaging. She had rung the bell next to her bed but there was no response. Eventually a nurse turned up to discover my mother's cannula - a tube inserted into her vein and attached to a saline drip - had fallen out of her arm.
The nurse bustled around changing the sheets while my mother sat covered in blood, shivering beside the bed. When she asked for a blanket, the nurse told her to put on her flimsy cotton dressing gown, an offer she declined as she didn't want it covered in blood. Finally she was dressed in a hospital gown, put back into bed and left alone until I arrived in the morning. 'Where are her pyjamas?' I asked the nurse. 'I don't know,' she shrugged.
Not only was it a terrible start to my mother's birthday but an omen of things to come. For the next three weeks, our illusions about palliative care were shattered. We're all familiar with the problems facing the NHS: the chronic shortage of nurses, the drain on funding, target-orientated managers, government edicts. And earlier this year the Royal Marsden had to contend with an additional disaster, a fire that destroyed its top floor. But there's one question that cannot so easily be dismissed: when did hospital nurses stop caring?
My mother's battle against cancer began in January when she went to see a respiratory consultant at Cheltenham General, 15 miles from her home in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, and was diagnosed with cancer of the lower left lobe of her lung. 'A surprise and a shock,' she wrote in her diary, with typical understatement.
Until then she was fit and healthy. We'd spent New Year's Eve together at Somerset House in London, watching the fireworks and walking several miles back to my house in South-West London. Everybody had wished her Happy New Year - she was the oldest person on the streets.
Around 38,300 people are diagnosed with lung cancer each year - 90 per cent of them are smokers. My mother had adenocarcinoma, a cancer commonly found in non-smokers. But there were no signs it had spread. Determined to fight the disease, we asked for her to be referred to the Royal Marsden, a specialist cancer hospital and conveniently close to my home. There she underwent a six-week course of radiotherapy. Her consultant was sensitive and caring, and my mother handled the treatment well, walking a couple of miles to the hospital nearly every day. We were hopeful she would go into remission, and soon she was able to go back to her own home.
However, within a month, she began to get breathless and was taken by ambulance back to Cheltenham General. My brother Justin went with her and described the hospital as vile. Some nurses were disrespectful, unfriendly and unhelpful, others were downright aggressive. On a large mixed ward, my mother had to sleep next to the nurses' station, which was noisy all night. 'A terrible night due to nurses talking, laughing and searching records,' she wrote on July 3. The following night she recorded the name of a nurse who was 'frighteningly angry and shouting because I asked if it would be possible to be quieter'.
How terrible it was to see such a strong woman feeling so vulnerable. The next day I took her back to her home in Cirencester, vowing that when she had to return to hospital, we would get her into the Royal Marsden. Her condition deteriorated and my brother brought her back to London. First she went to the Royal Brompton where we had the most amazing experience of care in the NHS. The Brompton stood out as a beacon of hope. The ward was clean and modern, the consultant gave us his mobile number and the nurses were caring and cheerful. But they couldn't get her sickness under control and my mother was transferred to the Marsden.
Her three-week stay on Horder Ward began on July 25. Walking on to the ward, used for patients in palliative care, our faces fell. The contrast was incredible. Dark and gloomy, it hadn't been renovated for years. It was also incredibly stuffy. Despite a security buzzer, the door was constantly propped open to allow air into the ward. I had to buy my mother a fan on the hottest day of the year. When I complained, I was told she should have asked for one. Dozens of flies were buzzing around the ward but every time she mentioned them the nurses treated her as if she was being precious.
Apparently, Horder Ward had been next in line for renovation when the fire broke out. But why were dying patients being put on the worst ward in the hospital? Had they already been written off? Certainly, morale on the ward was low - on several days there were only three nurses for 13 patients - but that doesn't excuse unfriendliness or lack of caring. I had to remind the nurses repeatedly to call my mother Mrs Joseph, rather than Norma. Shouldn't that be automatic for a woman of 81?
One of the most disturbing things was their total lack of understanding that time is precious for terminally ill people. Staff took ages to come when bleeped - understandable when they were busy with other patients but not when they were in 'meetings' or during staff changeovers. One night my mother lay in agony in for two hours waiting for pain relief. Other nights the bed bells were out of reach and she had to wait until a nurse heard her cries.
During the days she became increasingly upset that nurses took so long to get her up and dressed. It was bad enough that the only bath on the ward was broken during her entire stay, but her showers got later every day. Sometimes she was not washed before lunch. Elderly people like routine, though this seemed to take second place to the nurses' convenience. Once my mother had to finish wrapping her own bandage, presumably because a nurse got distracted. Another day they forgot to give her a mouthwash. She was supposed to get one four times a day.
My mother wasn't the only patient being ignored. I fetched water for the woman in the bed opposite who was thirsty and a blanket for another woman who was freezing. My mother told me that, on one occasion, a male visitor had to help her when she was being sick.
One afternoon I finally lost my temper. A staff nurse had told my mother she had to keep her arm straight because the machine for her saline drip kept bleeping while she was asleep. When I argued that it was unreasonable to expect an 81-year-old woman with terminal lung cancer to sleep with her arm straight all night, she shrugged: 'What do you expect me to do?' 'I expect you to rectify it,' I said. 'It wasn't bleeping before you changed the saline.' Her response: 'She has to work with me.' But as my mother pointed out, she was the one doing all the work.
Another staff nurse, barely out of college, insisted on making my mother's bed the way she had been taught - even though she was not comfortable - due to health and safety rules, and bristled if I tried to help her lift my mother. She also had this infuriating habit of talking to patients in baby language saying things like: 'Let me lift your leggies.' My mother had lung cancer. She hadn't lost her mind.
We finally managed to take my mother back to my home on August 19. Her diary entry for that day says it all: 'At last I can come home to Claudia. A daughter does things far better!'
But that was not the end of our ordeal. In the early hours of August 30, my mother was taken by ambulance to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital because she had a ruptured bowel and was given only hours to live. Even then nurses did not make her a priority. Instead of allowing us to stay with her, they insisted we wait in the visitors' room while they settled her.
Finally we had to wait six hours for an ambulance to bring her home. Thankfully, the prediction was wrong. She did not die that day in hospital. She survived another week, dying on September 7 in my bedroom.
My mother came from a generation that believed hospital nurses were 'angels' ruled over by a strict but warm matron. Well, not any more. We met a few nurses who were brilliant, some who were passable but too many who just didn't seem to care at all. They may as well have been factory workers on a production line. We were hoping to make my mother's last birthday as special as we possibly could, yet the nurses managed to give her - and us - the worst one of her life.
Source
British mothers-to-be offered gift vouchers and beauty treatments to quit smoking
Rewarding bad behaviour? The NHS plans to offer treats to pregnant women who smoke so as to encourage them to quit. Pregnant women who smoke are to be offered gift vouchers and beauty treatments to encourage them to quit. The incentives, which also include baby goods, will go to those women who can prove they have kicked the habit.
Telford and Wrekin NHS Trust in Shropshire plans to begin a pilot scheme soon, having already agreed to the idea in principle. But it has been warned that the move could be seen as the Health Service rewarding bad behaviour.
Expectant mothers who agree to the trials will have various examinations, such as carbon monoxide monitoring, to show if they have recently smoked. Samples may also be taken to prove their bodies are free of nicotine and other harmful substances found in cigarettes.
Dr Kevin Lewis, director of Shropshire's Help 2 Quit service, said the plan could help improve live birth rates, result in better health for newborn babies and cut NHS treatment costs. He added: 'We are dealing with an addiction and we are dealing with human behaviour and we know from studies that people are often not as motivated by the benefits to future health as they are by the here and now.'
Last year, 466 women - equal to 23 per cent of maternities in Telford and Wrekin - were still smoking up to delivery.
Source
In Britain you now need a licence to dispose of your sandwich wrappings
Britain is beginning to make the Soviets look libertarian
Today's edition of Warden Hodges' Britain comes from Liverpool, where war has been declared on the illegal disposal of industrial waste. Every firm in the city is getting a visit from enforcement officers working for a public-private agency set up by the council. Last week it was the turn of Frank Hughes, who runs a small scaffolding hire company. The inspector asked him how he disposes of his waste.
Frank said he doesn't. He explained that scaffolding is a relatively simple business which doesn't generate waste. But you must eat lunch, the inspector retaliated. I bring sandwiches, Frank told him. And before you ask, I take the wrapping home with me. In which case, you're breaking the law, the jobsworth informed him. Sandwich wrappings are classified as industrial waste within the meaning of the Act. You need a licence to dispose of them.
And since you don't have one, you are committing a criminal offence. Frank would be hearing from the litigation department in connection with this heinous crime and could expect a minimum fine of $600. With that, the official ticked all the relevant boxes and goose-stepped his way out, another job well-done. Frank wrote to me in despair. 'I am not making this up,' he assures me.
I don't think you are for a moment, guv. It wouldn't have surprised me if the inspector had produced a roll of CSI-style crime scene tape, cordoned off the building, declared the whole business off-limits, called for armed police back-up and ordered Frank to cease trading immediately. 'Enviro-crime' is the new 'hate crime'. All must be punished, all the time.
Many councils have already hired teams of environmental crime enforcers. In Salford, they have started patrolling the streets looking for any emptied dustbins still on the pavement at 11am. Offenders are issued with fixed-penalty fines. This is particularly distressing for pensioners and for mothers with young children who return from shopping trips to discover they have been nicked. How are people out at work expected to bring in their bins before 11am? Has that occurred to the morons at the Town Hall?
I shouldn't have thought so for a moment. And even if it did, it would be considered a bonus, increasing the potential for punishment and revenue-raising. These are just two, tiny examples of the perverted manner in which those we pay to perform straightforward duties go out of their way to persecute us. By tonight, my inbox will be full of dozens more.
Prevention of illegal dumping is a noble pursuit. No one wants chemicals poured away in suburban gutters, or asbestos casually chucked over the fence of the local children's playground. Too many country hedgerows and city side-streets are besmirched by fly-tipping, an unpleasant but inevitable side-effect of scrapping weekly rubbish collections in the name of saving the polar bears.
But that's no excuse for the Sandwich Stasi. It takes a pedantry bordering on extreme mental illness to define greaseproof paper used for wrapping a round of cheese and pickle as 'industrial waste' - let alone demanding that someone has to possess a licence to dispose of it. Similarly, having the pavements cluttered with empty dustbins isn't particularly desirable. But fining people for not bringing them in by mid-morning is outrageous. What are they supposed to do - take an hour off work or stay at home until the dustmen have been?
Of course, none of this would be necessary if councils hadn't ended the traditional method of rubbish collection. Some of us can remember when dustmen came round to the back of your house, carried your bin to the cart, emptied it and then returned it to whence it came. Now you are expected to wheel your own bin to the front gate - and woe betide you if you don't leave it in exactly the place designated by the council. Even a few inches out and they'll refuse to empty it. Then the 'environmental crime' wardens will come along and issue you with a fine.
Those charged with waste disposal in Britain have taken leave of their senses. They have forgotten that they are public servants. They see themselves as evangelical environmental warriors and the rest of us are their enemy. They now exist purely to bully, fine and punish us.
It is nothing short of monstrous that hard-working, law-abiding small businessmen like Frank Hughes - the backbone of the nation - can be treated in this fashion. While he is doing everything he can to battle through a recession not of his making, his taxes are going towards paying the salary and pension of a jumped-up, otherwise-unemployable twerp who proposes to fine him $600 for 'illegal disposal' of a sandwich wrapping.
For two decades, this column has made a career out of exposing the unbending lunacy and sheer bloody-mindedness of British bureaucrats, but the monster marches ravenously on. At a time when we can least afford it, we are being bled white to finance the Sandwich Stasi and hundreds of thousands of index-linked, spiteful, self-righteous parasites. In another life, these are the very people who would have been loading the cattle trucks to the concentration camps. To the scaffold with the lot of them.
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There's a God-shaped hole in Westminster
Today's politicians - whose favourite summer reading was The God Delusion - have never been more fearful of faith
The Archbishop of Canterbury likes to say that religion is getting increasingly political just as politicians become ever more interested in subjects that have traditionally been the domain of religion. For once, he has never been more right. This week the House of Commons will vote on government proposals to allow the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for scientific research. At the same time, MPs are pushing for changes to the law on abortion. The assisted suicide of the rugby player Daniel James has reopened the debate about euthanasia. The rows over headscarves, the blasphemy law, science education and Lords reform all show how the boundaries have been blurred.
Meanwhile, in the City, Mammon has been exposed as a false god whose worshippers seem to have been sacrified on the altar of the credit crunch. There is a yearning for answers that go beyond interest rates, targets and the public sector borrowing requirement. The bishops have started bashing the bankers. Yet politicians, of all parties, have never been more fearful of faith. It was Alastair Campbell who famously told a journalist: "We don't do God." He forbade Tony Blair to end his television address to the nation in the run-up to the Iraq war with the words: "God bless you."
Certainly, politicians find it easier to "come out" as atheists than to profess that they have a religious faith. Nick Clegg, David Miliband and George Osborne have all said recently that they do not believe in God - something that would be unthinkable in the United States, where presidential candidates compete to win over religious voters. Although David Cameron sends his daughter to a church school, he describes his faith as being "like Magic FM in the Chilterns", something that fades in and out, as if he is rather embarrassed by the whole idea.
There is a curious mismatch here. MPs place their hands on a Bible when they swear the Oath of Allegiance on taking up their seats; prayers are said every day in Parliament - and yet the favourite book for politicians on holiday last year was The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins' atheist tract. It would be hard to find an MP who prefers the God-fearing C.S. Lewis to the divinity-baiting Phillip Pullman.
There has been a believer in Downing Street for the past 11 years. Tony Blair, the first prime minister since Gladstone who slept with a Bible beside his bed, once said that his Christianity and his politics "came together at the same time" - he even claimed that "Jesus was a moderniser". Gordon Brown, who keeps a moral compass under his pillow, regularly cites his father's sermons in his speeches. He wants the markets to rediscover the importance of ethics.
But the cynical hothouse of Westminster is dismissive of the idealism of faith. Most Labour MPs agree instinctively with Karl Marx, that religion is the opium of the masses. As for the new Tories, it is just not right for their Converse trainer image if the Church of England is still seen as the Conservative Party at prayer. It is as if the end of ideological divides has weakened the wider power of belief.
The creeping secularisation of politics was one of the factors that pushed Ruth Kelly, a devout Roman Catholic, into resigning her Cabinet position. It was not only that she disagreed with the Government's proposals on stem-cell research - and as a backbencher she will be able to vote against them tomorrow. She was also disturbed by the way in which her membership of Opus Dei was seen as something weird and even rather dangerous; and she disliked the way in which Mr Blair's Christianity was mocked during the war in Iraq. "The debate in Britain has become incredibly secularised," she explained earlier this month. "Religion is seen as something a bit strange, in the margins. Politics is much the poorer for that because you want people who believe in things to go into politics."
In policy terms, the assumption in Whitehall is that it is bad to believe. The Government's "statement of British values" is unlikely to make any mention of faith; the Department for Communities and Local Government guidelines for councils on what to tell new residents include lots about queuing but nothing on Christianity. A report published by the Church of England earlier this year accused the Government of "deep religious illiteracy" and of having "no convincing moral direction"
When Alice Thomson and I interviewed Phil Woolas last week, his comments on immigration hit the headlines - but it was his suggestion that the Anglican Church would be disestablished that got Downing Street in a jitter. The minister's claim that the link between Church and State would be broken within 50 years because "a modern society is multi-faith" was potential dynamite, with implications for the monarchy, the armed forces and the judiciary as well as Parliament. In fact, Mr Brown has already started to break the link between Church and State - he has given up the power to appoint bishops and is considering a plan to abolish the Act of Settlement, which ensures that only a Protestant can succeed to the throne - but he had hoped to move to the point of disestablishment by stealth.
It would be wrong to suggest that Britain is any longer a Christian country in terms of the population - only 7 per cent of people regularly attend an Anglican church. Yet neither is Britain a secular State like France. Its history, culture and constitutional settlement are based on the link between Church and State. Earlier this year, Nicholas Sarkozy criticised the French republic's obsession with secularism and called for a "blossoming" of religions. "A man who believes is a man who hopes," he said. It is ironic that politicians in this country have abandoned belief - at the very moment that the people need hope.
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British government chasing after wind
Today, my old sparring partner, John Vidal of The Guardian/The Observer, writes a good piece on the impossibilities of meeting Gordon Brown's wind energy targets [`UK wind farm plans on brink of failure', The Observer, October 19]. John does not go far enough, however. The whole project is ill-thought out:
(a)The UK currently accounts for only 1.87% of world carbon emissions, a proportion that is falling quickly with the growth of the developing countries, and especially of China, India, and Brazil. Achieving one third of our energy from wind power by 2020 will have no effect, predictable or otherwise, on climate. Indeed, taking into account the massive amounts of steel, concrete, and transport required in constructing these vast arrays of wind turbines, the development of wind power will actually result in an initial rise in carbon emissions;
(b)Opting for wind power, especially offshore, is the most expensive choice, one that will impose huge costs on electricity generation and distribution, but more importantly on the general public and business consumers, who will be hit by high price rices precisely at a time when recession is already putting households and jobs under severe strain;
(c)Thirdly, an additional argument goes as follows: "Alright, (a) and (b) above might well be true [admitted through gritted teeth], but we must set an example to the rest of the world on climate change, and this will provide a great chance for us to lead the world in technology for a low carbon future." Unfortunately, where wind power is concerned, these points are hopelessly wrong. Meteorologically-speaking, the parts of the world where wind power is a serious option are limited, the UK being an exception, not the rule. Moreover, the idea that we are leading the world in wind-power technology is laughable, as most of the technology, equipment, and engineering comes from abroad, from countries such as Germany.
In essence, Brown's policy is lunacy. As John rightly reports, even the wind power industry itself admits that the targets are completely unrealistic: "A major threat to Britain's ambitions for renewable energy will emerge this week when wind industry leaders admit that targets set for 2020 are looking increasingly unrealistic. They will use a high-profile conference in London to warn Gordon Brown that there is little chance of achieving the government's goal - of wind generating one third of all UK electricity within 12 years - without a huge injection of public money."
I love that last bit - "a huge injection of public money." Of course! But just think of the costs to the consumer, and to the marginal poor in energy terms.
Gordon Brown will tell the delegates at the annual conference of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) that the UK industry is now a world leader. This is `pie-in-the-sky' politics. The harsh realities are that we have a severe shortage of engineers; the rising demand for wind-power equipment cannot be met; companies are currently pulling out of wind power because of rising costs; and two-thirds of proposals are rejected, with even the Ministry of Defence concerned over the effects on its radar coverage.
But most importantly of all, the programme will have no effects on climate change whatsoever. This is Gordon Brown at his Scottish blethering worst. The public should not be fooled.
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British immigration boss: Labour Party responsible for string of failures
Just days after sparking a row by apparently calling for a cap on the number of immigrants coming to the country, Phil Woolas said the Government had implemented policies that had damaged both those moving to the country and the existing population. He said too much money had been spent on translating signs and documents into other languages and not enough on teaching migrants to learn English, leading to segregated communities. Mr Woolas, who only began his new brief two weeks ago, suggested ministers had wrongly shied away from demanding that people coming to Britain speak the language, and accused the country of having an "old world" attitude.
He also criticised Labour's failure to fund asylum removals properly which he said had caused "untold human misery and division".
But last night he was forced to make another embarrassing "clarification" of his latest remarks. He insisted the Government was now making progress but conceded that UK policy on immigration was lagging a decade behind that of other countries. It is estimated that 2.3 million people have moved to Britain since Labour came to power, 84 per cent of them from outside Europe, and a further 7 million are expected by 2031, putting pressure on housing, transport and public services.
Mr Woolas's latest outspoken comments come after he appeared to agree that there should be a limit on the number of people moving to the country from overseas in an interview on Saturday. The following day he denied new schemes were being developed and claimed the new points-based system, allowing only highly skilled or desperately needed workers from outside the EU, would cut numbers.
In a debate with the Dutch justice secretary, Nebahat Albayrak, hosted by the think tank Demos on Monday, Mr Woolas said Britain had "taken great heed" of her country's tough policies but added: "We are about 10 years behind." He admitted British policy had always been centred on how easy it is for people to move to the country rather than how much they integrate later. "Because immigrants have suffered from discrimination, because we have not helped people to earn citizenship, to integrate, we have ended up isolating people to the mutual dissatisfaction of communities."
On the Government's priorities in recent years, he said: "We have put resources into translation in order that people can access their rights. "When you do that, you lessen the opportunity to learn English and you send a message to the exclusively English-speaking population that the migrant doesn't want to learn English."
Mr Woolas went on: "One doesn't have to try very hard to convince a migrant that it would be helpful to learn English. It seems to be a problem once you step into SW1 [the London postal district that covers Downing Street and Parliament] but that's SW1's problem."
On the issue of imposing a limit on migrant numbers, he said: "We are, in this country, completely screwed up because we are asked the question about the cap without understanding what the question means." He said it may be time to rethink the Geneva Convention on how countries deal with refugees but admitted: "Our failure to resource the asylum processes has caused untold human misery and division within our communities," Mr Woolas said.
He insisted his criticisms of immigration and asylum also applied to Conservative administrations but added: "I do accept that the Government didn't provide the framework of policy that anticipated the problems well enough. "The former Home Secretary did say the Home Office was not fit for purpose. I believe it is fit for purpose now but we have had to go through some changes."
The Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "We welcome this admission by the minister. But the public will be sceptical that the Government which spent 11 years building up this problem, is the right one to solve it."
Hours after the Demos event, the Home Office put out a statement from Mr Woolas saying: "Britain's borders are now stronger than ever with asylum applications at an historic low and an immigration offender removed every eight minutes. "We have ramped up performance in dealing with the asylum legacy cases and are now resolving several thousand every month. "My comments put the current successes into historical perspective - making it clear why we have brought in so many of the changes we have."
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I knew my mother Norma's 81st birthday would be poignant. She had been diagnosed with lung cancer six months earlier - a terrible twist of fate considering she never smoked - and was not expected to survive the year. But at least, I reasoned, she was being treated at the world-renowned Royal Marsden Hospital in West London. There she would not only receive the best possible treatment but be cared for by dedicated nurses accustomed to looking after the terminally ill. Or so I thought.
But when I arrived on Horder Ward on the morning of my mother's birthday, she was distressed and disorientated. Instead of wearing the white linen pyjamas she had gone to bed in, she was wrapped in an NHS gown. Gradually it emerged that she had woken up in the middle of the night in a pool of blood, terrified she was haemorrhaging. She had rung the bell next to her bed but there was no response. Eventually a nurse turned up to discover my mother's cannula - a tube inserted into her vein and attached to a saline drip - had fallen out of her arm.
The nurse bustled around changing the sheets while my mother sat covered in blood, shivering beside the bed. When she asked for a blanket, the nurse told her to put on her flimsy cotton dressing gown, an offer she declined as she didn't want it covered in blood. Finally she was dressed in a hospital gown, put back into bed and left alone until I arrived in the morning. 'Where are her pyjamas?' I asked the nurse. 'I don't know,' she shrugged.
Not only was it a terrible start to my mother's birthday but an omen of things to come. For the next three weeks, our illusions about palliative care were shattered. We're all familiar with the problems facing the NHS: the chronic shortage of nurses, the drain on funding, target-orientated managers, government edicts. And earlier this year the Royal Marsden had to contend with an additional disaster, a fire that destroyed its top floor. But there's one question that cannot so easily be dismissed: when did hospital nurses stop caring?
My mother's battle against cancer began in January when she went to see a respiratory consultant at Cheltenham General, 15 miles from her home in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, and was diagnosed with cancer of the lower left lobe of her lung. 'A surprise and a shock,' she wrote in her diary, with typical understatement.
Until then she was fit and healthy. We'd spent New Year's Eve together at Somerset House in London, watching the fireworks and walking several miles back to my house in South-West London. Everybody had wished her Happy New Year - she was the oldest person on the streets.
Around 38,300 people are diagnosed with lung cancer each year - 90 per cent of them are smokers. My mother had adenocarcinoma, a cancer commonly found in non-smokers. But there were no signs it had spread. Determined to fight the disease, we asked for her to be referred to the Royal Marsden, a specialist cancer hospital and conveniently close to my home. There she underwent a six-week course of radiotherapy. Her consultant was sensitive and caring, and my mother handled the treatment well, walking a couple of miles to the hospital nearly every day. We were hopeful she would go into remission, and soon she was able to go back to her own home.
However, within a month, she began to get breathless and was taken by ambulance back to Cheltenham General. My brother Justin went with her and described the hospital as vile. Some nurses were disrespectful, unfriendly and unhelpful, others were downright aggressive. On a large mixed ward, my mother had to sleep next to the nurses' station, which was noisy all night. 'A terrible night due to nurses talking, laughing and searching records,' she wrote on July 3. The following night she recorded the name of a nurse who was 'frighteningly angry and shouting because I asked if it would be possible to be quieter'.
How terrible it was to see such a strong woman feeling so vulnerable. The next day I took her back to her home in Cirencester, vowing that when she had to return to hospital, we would get her into the Royal Marsden. Her condition deteriorated and my brother brought her back to London. First she went to the Royal Brompton where we had the most amazing experience of care in the NHS. The Brompton stood out as a beacon of hope. The ward was clean and modern, the consultant gave us his mobile number and the nurses were caring and cheerful. But they couldn't get her sickness under control and my mother was transferred to the Marsden.
Her three-week stay on Horder Ward began on July 25. Walking on to the ward, used for patients in palliative care, our faces fell. The contrast was incredible. Dark and gloomy, it hadn't been renovated for years. It was also incredibly stuffy. Despite a security buzzer, the door was constantly propped open to allow air into the ward. I had to buy my mother a fan on the hottest day of the year. When I complained, I was told she should have asked for one. Dozens of flies were buzzing around the ward but every time she mentioned them the nurses treated her as if she was being precious.
Apparently, Horder Ward had been next in line for renovation when the fire broke out. But why were dying patients being put on the worst ward in the hospital? Had they already been written off? Certainly, morale on the ward was low - on several days there were only three nurses for 13 patients - but that doesn't excuse unfriendliness or lack of caring. I had to remind the nurses repeatedly to call my mother Mrs Joseph, rather than Norma. Shouldn't that be automatic for a woman of 81?
One of the most disturbing things was their total lack of understanding that time is precious for terminally ill people. Staff took ages to come when bleeped - understandable when they were busy with other patients but not when they were in 'meetings' or during staff changeovers. One night my mother lay in agony in for two hours waiting for pain relief. Other nights the bed bells were out of reach and she had to wait until a nurse heard her cries.
During the days she became increasingly upset that nurses took so long to get her up and dressed. It was bad enough that the only bath on the ward was broken during her entire stay, but her showers got later every day. Sometimes she was not washed before lunch. Elderly people like routine, though this seemed to take second place to the nurses' convenience. Once my mother had to finish wrapping her own bandage, presumably because a nurse got distracted. Another day they forgot to give her a mouthwash. She was supposed to get one four times a day.
My mother wasn't the only patient being ignored. I fetched water for the woman in the bed opposite who was thirsty and a blanket for another woman who was freezing. My mother told me that, on one occasion, a male visitor had to help her when she was being sick.
One afternoon I finally lost my temper. A staff nurse had told my mother she had to keep her arm straight because the machine for her saline drip kept bleeping while she was asleep. When I argued that it was unreasonable to expect an 81-year-old woman with terminal lung cancer to sleep with her arm straight all night, she shrugged: 'What do you expect me to do?' 'I expect you to rectify it,' I said. 'It wasn't bleeping before you changed the saline.' Her response: 'She has to work with me.' But as my mother pointed out, she was the one doing all the work.
Another staff nurse, barely out of college, insisted on making my mother's bed the way she had been taught - even though she was not comfortable - due to health and safety rules, and bristled if I tried to help her lift my mother. She also had this infuriating habit of talking to patients in baby language saying things like: 'Let me lift your leggies.' My mother had lung cancer. She hadn't lost her mind.
We finally managed to take my mother back to my home on August 19. Her diary entry for that day says it all: 'At last I can come home to Claudia. A daughter does things far better!'
But that was not the end of our ordeal. In the early hours of August 30, my mother was taken by ambulance to Chelsea and Westminster Hospital because she had a ruptured bowel and was given only hours to live. Even then nurses did not make her a priority. Instead of allowing us to stay with her, they insisted we wait in the visitors' room while they settled her.
Finally we had to wait six hours for an ambulance to bring her home. Thankfully, the prediction was wrong. She did not die that day in hospital. She survived another week, dying on September 7 in my bedroom.
My mother came from a generation that believed hospital nurses were 'angels' ruled over by a strict but warm matron. Well, not any more. We met a few nurses who were brilliant, some who were passable but too many who just didn't seem to care at all. They may as well have been factory workers on a production line. We were hoping to make my mother's last birthday as special as we possibly could, yet the nurses managed to give her - and us - the worst one of her life.
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British mothers-to-be offered gift vouchers and beauty treatments to quit smoking
Rewarding bad behaviour? The NHS plans to offer treats to pregnant women who smoke so as to encourage them to quit. Pregnant women who smoke are to be offered gift vouchers and beauty treatments to encourage them to quit. The incentives, which also include baby goods, will go to those women who can prove they have kicked the habit.
Telford and Wrekin NHS Trust in Shropshire plans to begin a pilot scheme soon, having already agreed to the idea in principle. But it has been warned that the move could be seen as the Health Service rewarding bad behaviour.
Expectant mothers who agree to the trials will have various examinations, such as carbon monoxide monitoring, to show if they have recently smoked. Samples may also be taken to prove their bodies are free of nicotine and other harmful substances found in cigarettes.
Dr Kevin Lewis, director of Shropshire's Help 2 Quit service, said the plan could help improve live birth rates, result in better health for newborn babies and cut NHS treatment costs. He added: 'We are dealing with an addiction and we are dealing with human behaviour and we know from studies that people are often not as motivated by the benefits to future health as they are by the here and now.'
Last year, 466 women - equal to 23 per cent of maternities in Telford and Wrekin - were still smoking up to delivery.
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In Britain you now need a licence to dispose of your sandwich wrappings
Britain is beginning to make the Soviets look libertarian
Today's edition of Warden Hodges' Britain comes from Liverpool, where war has been declared on the illegal disposal of industrial waste. Every firm in the city is getting a visit from enforcement officers working for a public-private agency set up by the council. Last week it was the turn of Frank Hughes, who runs a small scaffolding hire company. The inspector asked him how he disposes of his waste.
Frank said he doesn't. He explained that scaffolding is a relatively simple business which doesn't generate waste. But you must eat lunch, the inspector retaliated. I bring sandwiches, Frank told him. And before you ask, I take the wrapping home with me. In which case, you're breaking the law, the jobsworth informed him. Sandwich wrappings are classified as industrial waste within the meaning of the Act. You need a licence to dispose of them.
And since you don't have one, you are committing a criminal offence. Frank would be hearing from the litigation department in connection with this heinous crime and could expect a minimum fine of $600. With that, the official ticked all the relevant boxes and goose-stepped his way out, another job well-done. Frank wrote to me in despair. 'I am not making this up,' he assures me.
I don't think you are for a moment, guv. It wouldn't have surprised me if the inspector had produced a roll of CSI-style crime scene tape, cordoned off the building, declared the whole business off-limits, called for armed police back-up and ordered Frank to cease trading immediately. 'Enviro-crime' is the new 'hate crime'. All must be punished, all the time.
Many councils have already hired teams of environmental crime enforcers. In Salford, they have started patrolling the streets looking for any emptied dustbins still on the pavement at 11am. Offenders are issued with fixed-penalty fines. This is particularly distressing for pensioners and for mothers with young children who return from shopping trips to discover they have been nicked. How are people out at work expected to bring in their bins before 11am? Has that occurred to the morons at the Town Hall?
I shouldn't have thought so for a moment. And even if it did, it would be considered a bonus, increasing the potential for punishment and revenue-raising. These are just two, tiny examples of the perverted manner in which those we pay to perform straightforward duties go out of their way to persecute us. By tonight, my inbox will be full of dozens more.
Prevention of illegal dumping is a noble pursuit. No one wants chemicals poured away in suburban gutters, or asbestos casually chucked over the fence of the local children's playground. Too many country hedgerows and city side-streets are besmirched by fly-tipping, an unpleasant but inevitable side-effect of scrapping weekly rubbish collections in the name of saving the polar bears.
But that's no excuse for the Sandwich Stasi. It takes a pedantry bordering on extreme mental illness to define greaseproof paper used for wrapping a round of cheese and pickle as 'industrial waste' - let alone demanding that someone has to possess a licence to dispose of it. Similarly, having the pavements cluttered with empty dustbins isn't particularly desirable. But fining people for not bringing them in by mid-morning is outrageous. What are they supposed to do - take an hour off work or stay at home until the dustmen have been?
Of course, none of this would be necessary if councils hadn't ended the traditional method of rubbish collection. Some of us can remember when dustmen came round to the back of your house, carried your bin to the cart, emptied it and then returned it to whence it came. Now you are expected to wheel your own bin to the front gate - and woe betide you if you don't leave it in exactly the place designated by the council. Even a few inches out and they'll refuse to empty it. Then the 'environmental crime' wardens will come along and issue you with a fine.
Those charged with waste disposal in Britain have taken leave of their senses. They have forgotten that they are public servants. They see themselves as evangelical environmental warriors and the rest of us are their enemy. They now exist purely to bully, fine and punish us.
It is nothing short of monstrous that hard-working, law-abiding small businessmen like Frank Hughes - the backbone of the nation - can be treated in this fashion. While he is doing everything he can to battle through a recession not of his making, his taxes are going towards paying the salary and pension of a jumped-up, otherwise-unemployable twerp who proposes to fine him $600 for 'illegal disposal' of a sandwich wrapping.
For two decades, this column has made a career out of exposing the unbending lunacy and sheer bloody-mindedness of British bureaucrats, but the monster marches ravenously on. At a time when we can least afford it, we are being bled white to finance the Sandwich Stasi and hundreds of thousands of index-linked, spiteful, self-righteous parasites. In another life, these are the very people who would have been loading the cattle trucks to the concentration camps. To the scaffold with the lot of them.
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There's a God-shaped hole in Westminster
Today's politicians - whose favourite summer reading was The God Delusion - have never been more fearful of faith
The Archbishop of Canterbury likes to say that religion is getting increasingly political just as politicians become ever more interested in subjects that have traditionally been the domain of religion. For once, he has never been more right. This week the House of Commons will vote on government proposals to allow the creation of human-animal hybrid embryos for scientific research. At the same time, MPs are pushing for changes to the law on abortion. The assisted suicide of the rugby player Daniel James has reopened the debate about euthanasia. The rows over headscarves, the blasphemy law, science education and Lords reform all show how the boundaries have been blurred.
Meanwhile, in the City, Mammon has been exposed as a false god whose worshippers seem to have been sacrified on the altar of the credit crunch. There is a yearning for answers that go beyond interest rates, targets and the public sector borrowing requirement. The bishops have started bashing the bankers. Yet politicians, of all parties, have never been more fearful of faith. It was Alastair Campbell who famously told a journalist: "We don't do God." He forbade Tony Blair to end his television address to the nation in the run-up to the Iraq war with the words: "God bless you."
Certainly, politicians find it easier to "come out" as atheists than to profess that they have a religious faith. Nick Clegg, David Miliband and George Osborne have all said recently that they do not believe in God - something that would be unthinkable in the United States, where presidential candidates compete to win over religious voters. Although David Cameron sends his daughter to a church school, he describes his faith as being "like Magic FM in the Chilterns", something that fades in and out, as if he is rather embarrassed by the whole idea.
There is a curious mismatch here. MPs place their hands on a Bible when they swear the Oath of Allegiance on taking up their seats; prayers are said every day in Parliament - and yet the favourite book for politicians on holiday last year was The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins' atheist tract. It would be hard to find an MP who prefers the God-fearing C.S. Lewis to the divinity-baiting Phillip Pullman.
There has been a believer in Downing Street for the past 11 years. Tony Blair, the first prime minister since Gladstone who slept with a Bible beside his bed, once said that his Christianity and his politics "came together at the same time" - he even claimed that "Jesus was a moderniser". Gordon Brown, who keeps a moral compass under his pillow, regularly cites his father's sermons in his speeches. He wants the markets to rediscover the importance of ethics.
But the cynical hothouse of Westminster is dismissive of the idealism of faith. Most Labour MPs agree instinctively with Karl Marx, that religion is the opium of the masses. As for the new Tories, it is just not right for their Converse trainer image if the Church of England is still seen as the Conservative Party at prayer. It is as if the end of ideological divides has weakened the wider power of belief.
The creeping secularisation of politics was one of the factors that pushed Ruth Kelly, a devout Roman Catholic, into resigning her Cabinet position. It was not only that she disagreed with the Government's proposals on stem-cell research - and as a backbencher she will be able to vote against them tomorrow. She was also disturbed by the way in which her membership of Opus Dei was seen as something weird and even rather dangerous; and she disliked the way in which Mr Blair's Christianity was mocked during the war in Iraq. "The debate in Britain has become incredibly secularised," she explained earlier this month. "Religion is seen as something a bit strange, in the margins. Politics is much the poorer for that because you want people who believe in things to go into politics."
In policy terms, the assumption in Whitehall is that it is bad to believe. The Government's "statement of British values" is unlikely to make any mention of faith; the Department for Communities and Local Government guidelines for councils on what to tell new residents include lots about queuing but nothing on Christianity. A report published by the Church of England earlier this year accused the Government of "deep religious illiteracy" and of having "no convincing moral direction"
When Alice Thomson and I interviewed Phil Woolas last week, his comments on immigration hit the headlines - but it was his suggestion that the Anglican Church would be disestablished that got Downing Street in a jitter. The minister's claim that the link between Church and State would be broken within 50 years because "a modern society is multi-faith" was potential dynamite, with implications for the monarchy, the armed forces and the judiciary as well as Parliament. In fact, Mr Brown has already started to break the link between Church and State - he has given up the power to appoint bishops and is considering a plan to abolish the Act of Settlement, which ensures that only a Protestant can succeed to the throne - but he had hoped to move to the point of disestablishment by stealth.
It would be wrong to suggest that Britain is any longer a Christian country in terms of the population - only 7 per cent of people regularly attend an Anglican church. Yet neither is Britain a secular State like France. Its history, culture and constitutional settlement are based on the link between Church and State. Earlier this year, Nicholas Sarkozy criticised the French republic's obsession with secularism and called for a "blossoming" of religions. "A man who believes is a man who hopes," he said. It is ironic that politicians in this country have abandoned belief - at the very moment that the people need hope.
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British government chasing after wind
Today, my old sparring partner, John Vidal of The Guardian/The Observer, writes a good piece on the impossibilities of meeting Gordon Brown's wind energy targets [`UK wind farm plans on brink of failure', The Observer, October 19]. John does not go far enough, however. The whole project is ill-thought out:
(a)The UK currently accounts for only 1.87% of world carbon emissions, a proportion that is falling quickly with the growth of the developing countries, and especially of China, India, and Brazil. Achieving one third of our energy from wind power by 2020 will have no effect, predictable or otherwise, on climate. Indeed, taking into account the massive amounts of steel, concrete, and transport required in constructing these vast arrays of wind turbines, the development of wind power will actually result in an initial rise in carbon emissions;
(b)Opting for wind power, especially offshore, is the most expensive choice, one that will impose huge costs on electricity generation and distribution, but more importantly on the general public and business consumers, who will be hit by high price rices precisely at a time when recession is already putting households and jobs under severe strain;
(c)Thirdly, an additional argument goes as follows: "Alright, (a) and (b) above might well be true [admitted through gritted teeth], but we must set an example to the rest of the world on climate change, and this will provide a great chance for us to lead the world in technology for a low carbon future." Unfortunately, where wind power is concerned, these points are hopelessly wrong. Meteorologically-speaking, the parts of the world where wind power is a serious option are limited, the UK being an exception, not the rule. Moreover, the idea that we are leading the world in wind-power technology is laughable, as most of the technology, equipment, and engineering comes from abroad, from countries such as Germany.
In essence, Brown's policy is lunacy. As John rightly reports, even the wind power industry itself admits that the targets are completely unrealistic: "A major threat to Britain's ambitions for renewable energy will emerge this week when wind industry leaders admit that targets set for 2020 are looking increasingly unrealistic. They will use a high-profile conference in London to warn Gordon Brown that there is little chance of achieving the government's goal - of wind generating one third of all UK electricity within 12 years - without a huge injection of public money."
I love that last bit - "a huge injection of public money." Of course! But just think of the costs to the consumer, and to the marginal poor in energy terms.
Gordon Brown will tell the delegates at the annual conference of the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) that the UK industry is now a world leader. This is `pie-in-the-sky' politics. The harsh realities are that we have a severe shortage of engineers; the rising demand for wind-power equipment cannot be met; companies are currently pulling out of wind power because of rising costs; and two-thirds of proposals are rejected, with even the Ministry of Defence concerned over the effects on its radar coverage.
But most importantly of all, the programme will have no effects on climate change whatsoever. This is Gordon Brown at his Scottish blethering worst. The public should not be fooled.
Source
British immigration boss: Labour Party responsible for string of failures
Just days after sparking a row by apparently calling for a cap on the number of immigrants coming to the country, Phil Woolas said the Government had implemented policies that had damaged both those moving to the country and the existing population. He said too much money had been spent on translating signs and documents into other languages and not enough on teaching migrants to learn English, leading to segregated communities. Mr Woolas, who only began his new brief two weeks ago, suggested ministers had wrongly shied away from demanding that people coming to Britain speak the language, and accused the country of having an "old world" attitude.
He also criticised Labour's failure to fund asylum removals properly which he said had caused "untold human misery and division".
But last night he was forced to make another embarrassing "clarification" of his latest remarks. He insisted the Government was now making progress but conceded that UK policy on immigration was lagging a decade behind that of other countries. It is estimated that 2.3 million people have moved to Britain since Labour came to power, 84 per cent of them from outside Europe, and a further 7 million are expected by 2031, putting pressure on housing, transport and public services.
Mr Woolas's latest outspoken comments come after he appeared to agree that there should be a limit on the number of people moving to the country from overseas in an interview on Saturday. The following day he denied new schemes were being developed and claimed the new points-based system, allowing only highly skilled or desperately needed workers from outside the EU, would cut numbers.
In a debate with the Dutch justice secretary, Nebahat Albayrak, hosted by the think tank Demos on Monday, Mr Woolas said Britain had "taken great heed" of her country's tough policies but added: "We are about 10 years behind." He admitted British policy had always been centred on how easy it is for people to move to the country rather than how much they integrate later. "Because immigrants have suffered from discrimination, because we have not helped people to earn citizenship, to integrate, we have ended up isolating people to the mutual dissatisfaction of communities."
On the Government's priorities in recent years, he said: "We have put resources into translation in order that people can access their rights. "When you do that, you lessen the opportunity to learn English and you send a message to the exclusively English-speaking population that the migrant doesn't want to learn English."
Mr Woolas went on: "One doesn't have to try very hard to convince a migrant that it would be helpful to learn English. It seems to be a problem once you step into SW1 [the London postal district that covers Downing Street and Parliament] but that's SW1's problem."
On the issue of imposing a limit on migrant numbers, he said: "We are, in this country, completely screwed up because we are asked the question about the cap without understanding what the question means." He said it may be time to rethink the Geneva Convention on how countries deal with refugees but admitted: "Our failure to resource the asylum processes has caused untold human misery and division within our communities," Mr Woolas said.
He insisted his criticisms of immigration and asylum also applied to Conservative administrations but added: "I do accept that the Government didn't provide the framework of policy that anticipated the problems well enough. "The former Home Secretary did say the Home Office was not fit for purpose. I believe it is fit for purpose now but we have had to go through some changes."
The Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, said: "We welcome this admission by the minister. But the public will be sceptical that the Government which spent 11 years building up this problem, is the right one to solve it."
Hours after the Demos event, the Home Office put out a statement from Mr Woolas saying: "Britain's borders are now stronger than ever with asylum applications at an historic low and an immigration offender removed every eight minutes. "We have ramped up performance in dealing with the asylum legacy cases and are now resolving several thousand every month. "My comments put the current successes into historical perspective - making it clear why we have brought in so many of the changes we have."
Source
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What a funny way to control immigration
A comment from Britain on the incoherent and kneejerk immigration policy of the British Labour Party government
A repentant sinner is one thing; a wilful bloody [For American readers: "Bloody" is a British expletive similar in force to "goddam"] amnesiac is quite another. It is into this latter category that the Government's new immigration minister, Phil Woolas, falls. He didn't take long to stick his head above the parapet after being appointed, did Mr W. A couple of days ago, he was telling us that he wanted to see strict limits on immigration. As a result of the economic downturn, he said: "The question of immigration becomes extremely thorny. it's been too easy to get into this country and it's going to get harder."
Oh, right. When migrants were granted citizenship or indefinite leave to remain, during the good times, was there no thought that things could, conceivably, one day, get worse? Funny basis on which to conduct a policy with lasting effects on people's lives. Anyway, Mr Woolas is emphatic that the population of Britain shouldn't exceed 70 million, as the present trajectory suggests it will.
It gets better. Mr Woolas, now well into his stride, says that employers shouldn't hire immigrants, in order to protect native Britons from unemployment. Employers who prefer to take on migrants because they are "ready, willing and able" to work need to hire the British jobless instead. Oh yes? I can tell Mr Woolas for free that, in the Knightsbridge hairdressing salon that I frequent, they're not going to be giving the lovely, hard-working Magda from Gdansk the push in order to bolster the Government's ability to service the social benefits bill for the unemployed.
And by way of showing how very fierce and tough he is, Mr Woolas is presiding over the closure of a programme that last year allowed 105,000 unskilled temporary workers to come to work here for up to a year. Employers will still be able to hire some migrants in the short term. But the effect of the Government's crackdown has been precisely to restrict the kind of migrants the country needs.
As those of us who get up early enough to listen to Farming Today, or who have friends in farming, can tell Mr Woolas, this crackdown on temporary migrants has actually cut the number of workers that the British economy really does need. Britons can't and won't do the hands-on seasonal work on farms that the Ukrainians can - and the reasons for that deserve scrutiny. But if there aren't the eastern Europeans, the fruit-picking and the rest of it doesn't get done.
However, it's the sheer, unvarnished nerve of Mr Woolas that stands out. The one unambiguous legacy of the 11 years since 2007 has been the increase in immigration and the liberal way in which citizenship, and indefinite leave to remain, have been granted. Some 2.3 million people have come here between 1991 and 2006; only 8 per cent from EU accession states. Well over a million of them have been granted citizenship. Those are the ones we know about.
If the population trajectory of Britain is heading for 70 million, it is not just because of some mass migration movement almost beyond our control, such as climate change or swallows moving south. It is because of the Government's conscious, wilful, light regulatory touch on immigration.
What's more, the realities of the immigration debate have been obscured by the fact that ministers talk about net immigration rather than the overall numbers coming here - in other words, the number of people arriving minus the number of Britons who are leaving. In one way, this makes sense. It's the people actually resident in the country who make calls on schools, benefits and the health service. In another way, it obscures the fact that the ethnic and religious make-up of London, in particular, has changed beyond recognition in a decade. And that has an effect on what is fashionably called social cohesion - in other words, how we all rub along together.
Much of this happened during David Blunkett's tenure as Home Secretary - yep, he who is waiting in the wings for a recall - when he declared that there was "no obvious upper limit" to the extent of immigration. Neither he nor his successors seemed to think that, one day, the sun might not shine, the economy might contract, and their policy of giving nearly everyone who comes here the indefinite right to remain, rather than just a work permit, might look a bit short-sighted.
If we were talking about historic errors that are now acknowledged, Mr Woolas's about-turn - curiously, one that has not been echoed by his boss, Jacqui Smith - would be welcome. But we're set to make things worse. One of Tony Blair's proudest achievements in office was that he bullied the EU into accepting Turkey's candidacy for membership. In this, he was supported by the Tories.
Yet Turkey is a country with only three per cent of its land mass in Europe and a population of more than 80 million and rising. Let me spell out the consequences. Any EU citizen has the automatic right to live and work in other member states. The upshot is that eventually, several million Turks will, if the Government gets its way, be perfectly entitled to come to Britain. Will anyone bet me they won't?
Source
British health boss in U-turn over patients’ top-up care
After at least four deaths and a year of protests about top-up payments, Alan Johnson, the health secretary, is expected to declare that National Health Service rules allowed them all along. In an announcement which is due to be made to parliament at the beginning of November, Johnson is expected to “clarify” government policy, claiming that patients are already permitted to pay for private drugs while continuing to receive NHS care. He will state that the problem arose because of a misinterpretation by some NHS hospitals.
Although it represents a victory for the campaign, led by The Sunday Times, it will be heartbreaking for the families of cancer patients who died after their NHS care was withdrawn because they topped up their treatment. This weekend one family made public an emotional letter telling of the anguish and outrage caused by the NHS decision to withdraw care. The letter, written by Linda Linton, a mother of three who died from bowel cancer at the age of 57, tells how she asked to be discharged from hospital because she feared her rising treatment bills.
Linton had her routine treatment withdrawn by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust because she paid privately for the drug cetuxi-mab which was recommended by her NHS consultant. Linton, from Sittingbourne, Kent, wrote: “I wanted to go home because I was worried about the mounting costs of my treatment, room and food. I was told that if I discharged myself I was at risk of multiple organ failure.”
Linton, who wrote the letter four months before her death in October 2006, explained how the scandal was draining her energy: “It is six in the morning and I should be resting and trying to recover from my ordeal, but I am too upset and angry about what has happened to me . . . “I thought that I could pay for this drug and resume treatment but this is not the case. I have been forced to become a private patient and pay for everything. Could you please inform me who is responsible for the decision to force me out of the NHS?”
Linton was one of dozens of cancer patients who have been told by the NHS that if they top up their care with a private drug recommended by their consultant they will forfeit the rest of their health service care.
John Baron, constituency MP of Linda O’Boyle, who died in March aged 64 after her NHS care was withdrawn because she paid for the cetuxi-mab drug, said of Johnson’s expected announcement: “That will clearly be a U-turn by the government. This position will not fool anybody.” Patients who have been denied NHS care because they bought private drugs are suing for the treatment which has been withdrawn.
Although dozens of NHS trusts have told cancer patients that they cannot buy private drugs while simultaneously receiving NHS care, The Sunday Times revealed in July that numerous others have been allowing top-ups.
Johnson is expected to announce a solution that will avoid creating a two-tier NHS, with patients in the same ward receiving different standards of care according to their ability to pay. The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust treats patients who supplement their NHS care by paying private hospitals or companies for extra drugs. Professor Nick James, a consultant oncologist at the trust, expects Johnson to endorse this approach nationally. “I don’t think they are going to like the spectacle of patients in adjacent beds getting different treatments and one of them getting better at the end of it. They will try to partition it off so that it is invisible to the NHS patients,” James said.
The Department of Health said: “We know there is variation in how individual trusts are applying the current guidance and that is why the secretary of state asked Professor Mike Richards, national clinical director for cancer, to lead a review.”
Source
British heart attack victims face longer journey for surgery as only 54 hospitals can now operate
Unrealistic theory threatens lives
Thousands of heart-attack patients will be forced to travel further for emergency treatment because of a change in the techniques used to save their lives. The Department of Health will announce tomorrow that balloon angioplasty – administered to treat heart attacks caused by blocked arteries – will be made available to nearly every eligible patient. But the procedure is available at only 54 centres across England – about one in every four hospitals – which means instead of being taken to the nearest accident and emergency department, as now, about 25,000 patients will be taken straight to their nearest specialist angioplasty clinic, which could be many miles away.
One of the concerns is that, in practice, patients could still be taken to A&E before being transferred to a specialist unit, which may increase the time it takes to get lifesaving treatment. However, paramedics are to be given training to spot heart attacks that have been caused by blood clots so that patients can be taken directly to an angioplasty centre. Angioplasty is used to treat patients whose heart attacks have been caused by blocked arteries.
About 25,000 of the 60,000 heart attacks treated each year are of this type, and a quarter of those patients are, at present, given the procedure, in which a tiny balloon is inserted into the artery and inflated to clear the blockage. The Government says it aims to treat 97 per cent of eligible heart-attack patients by using angioplasty within three years.
But experts admitted that although the number of centres offering the specialist treatment had risen from 35 in 2006/07 to 54 this year, a further increase was not likely. Cardiologists have described the proposal as a ‘challenge’, as specialist angioplasty units will have to be staffed by an expert team 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the treatment to be effective it should be given within two hours of the heart attack, meaning some hospital trusts may need to double their number of cardiology consultants.
The proposals are the latest stage in the centralisation of NHS care. The Government has long pushed for the creation of ‘superhospitals’ – vast regional centres with specialist clinics catering to population areas of up to two million. Maternity services also face being moved from local hospitals to larger regional units and GPs could move from local surgeries to multi-purpose health centres, or polyclinics.
But Katherine Murphy, spokeswoman for The Patients Association, said the Government had got it ‘completely wrong’. She added: ‘What the Government always fails to consider is the convenience of access for patients. They should be providing a service at local level because that is what patients want.’
At the moment, most patients whose heart attacks have been caused by a clot are treated using thrombolysis – an injection of drugs to dissolve blockages. Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said the NHS had to commit ‘sufficient resources’ to turn the proposals into reality, especially for people in rural areas. He added: ‘We must not replace a first-class thrombolysis service, which is proven to save lives, with a second-class angioplasty service, which might not.’
The Department of Health said: ‘It is preferable to travel further to achieve a better outcome. However, if the journey time is too long, then early thrombolytic treatment is given instead.’
Source
Upset for Greenies in the diaper wars
And the British government tried to hide it!
A [British] government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies [diapers] damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the $100,000 nappy research project and to adopt a "defensive" stance towards its conclusions.
The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them. To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.
The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet. Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the "negative laundry options" outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.
The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2® years would have a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.
Source
Britain: Parents get the blame for naughty children
Loss of standards has wide-ranging effects
Poor parenting is to blame for a major deterioration in the behaviour of primary school pupils over the past five years, a study suggests today. Classroom disruption is a significant problem for teachers, according to researchers at Cambridge University. In interviews with teachers, Professors Maurice Galton and John Macbeath found that many blamed their pupils' unruly behaviour on the inability of parents to control children at home.
Many pupils lacked the social skills required to get on in class, said the researchers, commissioned the National Union of Teachers. "Teachers describe 'highly permissive' parents who admitted to indulging their children, often for the sake of peace or simply because they had run out of alternative incentives and sanctions," the authors added.
Examples included a mother who, after great effort, succeeded in getting her five-year-old to bed at 1am instead of 3am, and a boy of seven who smashed his Sony PlayStation in a tantrum, then would not behave for a week until his mother bought him a new one.
Professors Galton and Macbeath were also told of parents who would do anything to shut their children up "just to get some peace". Their report says schools face "formidable challenges" - particularly in poor areas where there has been "an increase in the incidence of confrontation and conflict".
The researchers, who visited schools they studied five years ago, added: "There appeared to have been a significant and inimical impact on school life from a rapidly changing social scene. "Motivating certain children, it was claimed, had become more difficult because by the time they came to school many of these children had become expert in manipulating adults."
According to Galton and Macbeath, the top five obstacles to teaching are poor pupil behaviour, lack of time for reflection, large class sizes, too many initiatives and an overloaded curriculum. "Children arrive at school knowing too much and not enough," they said.
Source
Just one of glass of wine a day increases women's risk of breast cancer
Findings about alcohol derived from a campaign against it should be treated with a saltmine full of salt
Drinking just one large glass of wine a day increases the chances of developing breast cancer by a fifth, say experts. The amount of alcohol in measures regularly served in wine bars and pubs pushes up the risk of cancer by far more than most women realise, it is claimed. A large glass of wine is the equivalent of three units of alcohol at 12 per cent strength. Drinking two glasses raises the risk by more than a third and it doubles for women who consume nine units or three glasses a day compared with those who do not drink.
However, Government research reveals that four out of five women are ignorant of the breast cancer risk. The findings from the Know Your Limits campaign represent a total of more than four million women who are regularly putting their health in danger.
Doctors believe rising rates of breast cancer are being fuelled by soaring levels of drinking among women, as there has been a steady increase in breast cancer cases in the last ten years when rates should have been falling, or at least reached a plateau, because of mass screening.
Only obesity levels - which are also linked to breast cancer - have shown the same kind of upward trend over the last decade. Around 44,000 British women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and it claims 13,000 lives. Previous research suggests that binge drinking - five or more drinks on one occasion - can double the risk of breast cancer.
It is unclear how drinking alcohol promotes breast cancer but it may work by raising levels of the sex hormone oestrogen in the body. Drinking alcohol is one of the few identified risk factors for developing breast cancer, although the biggest risk factor is increasing age. Four out of five breast cancers diagnosed in the UK occur in women over 50.
Dr Sarah Cant, Policy Manager at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: 'Drinking moderate or high levels of any type of alcoholic drink has many health consequences, including an increased chance of breast cancer. 'Although many factors might affect our risk of getting breast cancer, limiting how much we drink is one thing we can do to try to reduce that risk.'
Public Health Minister-Dawn Primarolo said: 'It's shocking, even for me, to see the potential risks of drinking over recommended guidelines in black and white. 'One large glass of 12 per cent wine takes a woman to her recommended daily limit in just one drink. 'Knowing the potential health consequences enables women to make choices that can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer.'
A separate survey published by Breakthrough Breast Cancer also shows women wrongly blame their genes for getting cancer. A strong genetic history of breast cancer is to blame in only 5 per cent of all breast cancer cases, but nearly two-thirds of women over the age of 50 believe the disease 'runs in the family'.
Source
A comment from Britain on the incoherent and kneejerk immigration policy of the British Labour Party government
A repentant sinner is one thing; a wilful bloody [For American readers: "Bloody" is a British expletive similar in force to "goddam"] amnesiac is quite another. It is into this latter category that the Government's new immigration minister, Phil Woolas, falls. He didn't take long to stick his head above the parapet after being appointed, did Mr W. A couple of days ago, he was telling us that he wanted to see strict limits on immigration. As a result of the economic downturn, he said: "The question of immigration becomes extremely thorny. it's been too easy to get into this country and it's going to get harder."
Oh, right. When migrants were granted citizenship or indefinite leave to remain, during the good times, was there no thought that things could, conceivably, one day, get worse? Funny basis on which to conduct a policy with lasting effects on people's lives. Anyway, Mr Woolas is emphatic that the population of Britain shouldn't exceed 70 million, as the present trajectory suggests it will.
It gets better. Mr Woolas, now well into his stride, says that employers shouldn't hire immigrants, in order to protect native Britons from unemployment. Employers who prefer to take on migrants because they are "ready, willing and able" to work need to hire the British jobless instead. Oh yes? I can tell Mr Woolas for free that, in the Knightsbridge hairdressing salon that I frequent, they're not going to be giving the lovely, hard-working Magda from Gdansk the push in order to bolster the Government's ability to service the social benefits bill for the unemployed.
And by way of showing how very fierce and tough he is, Mr Woolas is presiding over the closure of a programme that last year allowed 105,000 unskilled temporary workers to come to work here for up to a year. Employers will still be able to hire some migrants in the short term. But the effect of the Government's crackdown has been precisely to restrict the kind of migrants the country needs.
As those of us who get up early enough to listen to Farming Today, or who have friends in farming, can tell Mr Woolas, this crackdown on temporary migrants has actually cut the number of workers that the British economy really does need. Britons can't and won't do the hands-on seasonal work on farms that the Ukrainians can - and the reasons for that deserve scrutiny. But if there aren't the eastern Europeans, the fruit-picking and the rest of it doesn't get done.
However, it's the sheer, unvarnished nerve of Mr Woolas that stands out. The one unambiguous legacy of the 11 years since 2007 has been the increase in immigration and the liberal way in which citizenship, and indefinite leave to remain, have been granted. Some 2.3 million people have come here between 1991 and 2006; only 8 per cent from EU accession states. Well over a million of them have been granted citizenship. Those are the ones we know about.
If the population trajectory of Britain is heading for 70 million, it is not just because of some mass migration movement almost beyond our control, such as climate change or swallows moving south. It is because of the Government's conscious, wilful, light regulatory touch on immigration.
What's more, the realities of the immigration debate have been obscured by the fact that ministers talk about net immigration rather than the overall numbers coming here - in other words, the number of people arriving minus the number of Britons who are leaving. In one way, this makes sense. It's the people actually resident in the country who make calls on schools, benefits and the health service. In another way, it obscures the fact that the ethnic and religious make-up of London, in particular, has changed beyond recognition in a decade. And that has an effect on what is fashionably called social cohesion - in other words, how we all rub along together.
Much of this happened during David Blunkett's tenure as Home Secretary - yep, he who is waiting in the wings for a recall - when he declared that there was "no obvious upper limit" to the extent of immigration. Neither he nor his successors seemed to think that, one day, the sun might not shine, the economy might contract, and their policy of giving nearly everyone who comes here the indefinite right to remain, rather than just a work permit, might look a bit short-sighted.
If we were talking about historic errors that are now acknowledged, Mr Woolas's about-turn - curiously, one that has not been echoed by his boss, Jacqui Smith - would be welcome. But we're set to make things worse. One of Tony Blair's proudest achievements in office was that he bullied the EU into accepting Turkey's candidacy for membership. In this, he was supported by the Tories.
Yet Turkey is a country with only three per cent of its land mass in Europe and a population of more than 80 million and rising. Let me spell out the consequences. Any EU citizen has the automatic right to live and work in other member states. The upshot is that eventually, several million Turks will, if the Government gets its way, be perfectly entitled to come to Britain. Will anyone bet me they won't?
Source
British health boss in U-turn over patients’ top-up care
After at least four deaths and a year of protests about top-up payments, Alan Johnson, the health secretary, is expected to declare that National Health Service rules allowed them all along. In an announcement which is due to be made to parliament at the beginning of November, Johnson is expected to “clarify” government policy, claiming that patients are already permitted to pay for private drugs while continuing to receive NHS care. He will state that the problem arose because of a misinterpretation by some NHS hospitals.
Although it represents a victory for the campaign, led by The Sunday Times, it will be heartbreaking for the families of cancer patients who died after their NHS care was withdrawn because they topped up their treatment. This weekend one family made public an emotional letter telling of the anguish and outrage caused by the NHS decision to withdraw care. The letter, written by Linda Linton, a mother of three who died from bowel cancer at the age of 57, tells how she asked to be discharged from hospital because she feared her rising treatment bills.
Linton had her routine treatment withdrawn by Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust because she paid privately for the drug cetuxi-mab which was recommended by her NHS consultant. Linton, from Sittingbourne, Kent, wrote: “I wanted to go home because I was worried about the mounting costs of my treatment, room and food. I was told that if I discharged myself I was at risk of multiple organ failure.”
Linton, who wrote the letter four months before her death in October 2006, explained how the scandal was draining her energy: “It is six in the morning and I should be resting and trying to recover from my ordeal, but I am too upset and angry about what has happened to me . . . “I thought that I could pay for this drug and resume treatment but this is not the case. I have been forced to become a private patient and pay for everything. Could you please inform me who is responsible for the decision to force me out of the NHS?”
Linton was one of dozens of cancer patients who have been told by the NHS that if they top up their care with a private drug recommended by their consultant they will forfeit the rest of their health service care.
John Baron, constituency MP of Linda O’Boyle, who died in March aged 64 after her NHS care was withdrawn because she paid for the cetuxi-mab drug, said of Johnson’s expected announcement: “That will clearly be a U-turn by the government. This position will not fool anybody.” Patients who have been denied NHS care because they bought private drugs are suing for the treatment which has been withdrawn.
Although dozens of NHS trusts have told cancer patients that they cannot buy private drugs while simultaneously receiving NHS care, The Sunday Times revealed in July that numerous others have been allowing top-ups.
Johnson is expected to announce a solution that will avoid creating a two-tier NHS, with patients in the same ward receiving different standards of care according to their ability to pay. The University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust treats patients who supplement their NHS care by paying private hospitals or companies for extra drugs. Professor Nick James, a consultant oncologist at the trust, expects Johnson to endorse this approach nationally. “I don’t think they are going to like the spectacle of patients in adjacent beds getting different treatments and one of them getting better at the end of it. They will try to partition it off so that it is invisible to the NHS patients,” James said.
The Department of Health said: “We know there is variation in how individual trusts are applying the current guidance and that is why the secretary of state asked Professor Mike Richards, national clinical director for cancer, to lead a review.”
Source
British heart attack victims face longer journey for surgery as only 54 hospitals can now operate
Unrealistic theory threatens lives
Thousands of heart-attack patients will be forced to travel further for emergency treatment because of a change in the techniques used to save their lives. The Department of Health will announce tomorrow that balloon angioplasty – administered to treat heart attacks caused by blocked arteries – will be made available to nearly every eligible patient. But the procedure is available at only 54 centres across England – about one in every four hospitals – which means instead of being taken to the nearest accident and emergency department, as now, about 25,000 patients will be taken straight to their nearest specialist angioplasty clinic, which could be many miles away.
One of the concerns is that, in practice, patients could still be taken to A&E before being transferred to a specialist unit, which may increase the time it takes to get lifesaving treatment. However, paramedics are to be given training to spot heart attacks that have been caused by blood clots so that patients can be taken directly to an angioplasty centre. Angioplasty is used to treat patients whose heart attacks have been caused by blocked arteries.
About 25,000 of the 60,000 heart attacks treated each year are of this type, and a quarter of those patients are, at present, given the procedure, in which a tiny balloon is inserted into the artery and inflated to clear the blockage. The Government says it aims to treat 97 per cent of eligible heart-attack patients by using angioplasty within three years.
But experts admitted that although the number of centres offering the specialist treatment had risen from 35 in 2006/07 to 54 this year, a further increase was not likely. Cardiologists have described the proposal as a ‘challenge’, as specialist angioplasty units will have to be staffed by an expert team 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For the treatment to be effective it should be given within two hours of the heart attack, meaning some hospital trusts may need to double their number of cardiology consultants.
The proposals are the latest stage in the centralisation of NHS care. The Government has long pushed for the creation of ‘superhospitals’ – vast regional centres with specialist clinics catering to population areas of up to two million. Maternity services also face being moved from local hospitals to larger regional units and GPs could move from local surgeries to multi-purpose health centres, or polyclinics.
But Katherine Murphy, spokeswoman for The Patients Association, said the Government had got it ‘completely wrong’. She added: ‘What the Government always fails to consider is the convenience of access for patients. They should be providing a service at local level because that is what patients want.’
At the moment, most patients whose heart attacks have been caused by a clot are treated using thrombolysis – an injection of drugs to dissolve blockages. Professor Peter Weissberg, medical director of the British Heart Foundation, said the NHS had to commit ‘sufficient resources’ to turn the proposals into reality, especially for people in rural areas. He added: ‘We must not replace a first-class thrombolysis service, which is proven to save lives, with a second-class angioplasty service, which might not.’
The Department of Health said: ‘It is preferable to travel further to achieve a better outcome. However, if the journey time is too long, then early thrombolytic treatment is given instead.’
Source
Upset for Greenies in the diaper wars
And the British government tried to hide it!
A [British] government report that found old-fashioned reusable nappies [diapers] damage the environment more than disposables has been hushed up because ministers are embarrassed by its findings. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has instructed civil servants not to publicise the conclusions of the $100,000 nappy research project and to adopt a "defensive" stance towards its conclusions.
The report found that using washable nappies, hailed by councils throughout Britain as a key way of saving the planet, have a higher carbon footprint than their disposable equivalents unless parents adopt an extreme approach to laundering them. To reduce the impact of cloth nappies on climate change parents would have to hang wet nappies out to dry all year round, keep them for years for use on younger children, and make sure the water in their washing machines does not exceed 60C.
The conclusions will upset proponents of real nappies who have claimed they can help save the planet. Restricted Whitehall documents, seen by The Sunday Times, show that the government is so concerned by the "negative laundry options" outlined in the report, it has told its media managers not to give its conclusions any publicity.
The report found that while disposable nappies used over 2® years would have a global warming , impact of 550kg of CO2 reusable nappies produced 570kg of CO2 on average. But if parents used tumble dryers and washed the reusable nappies at 90C, the impact could spiral to . 993kg of CO2 A Defra spokesman said the government was shelving plans for future research on nappies.
Source
Britain: Parents get the blame for naughty children
Loss of standards has wide-ranging effects
Poor parenting is to blame for a major deterioration in the behaviour of primary school pupils over the past five years, a study suggests today. Classroom disruption is a significant problem for teachers, according to researchers at Cambridge University. In interviews with teachers, Professors Maurice Galton and John Macbeath found that many blamed their pupils' unruly behaviour on the inability of parents to control children at home.
Many pupils lacked the social skills required to get on in class, said the researchers, commissioned the National Union of Teachers. "Teachers describe 'highly permissive' parents who admitted to indulging their children, often for the sake of peace or simply because they had run out of alternative incentives and sanctions," the authors added.
Examples included a mother who, after great effort, succeeded in getting her five-year-old to bed at 1am instead of 3am, and a boy of seven who smashed his Sony PlayStation in a tantrum, then would not behave for a week until his mother bought him a new one.
Professors Galton and Macbeath were also told of parents who would do anything to shut their children up "just to get some peace". Their report says schools face "formidable challenges" - particularly in poor areas where there has been "an increase in the incidence of confrontation and conflict".
The researchers, who visited schools they studied five years ago, added: "There appeared to have been a significant and inimical impact on school life from a rapidly changing social scene. "Motivating certain children, it was claimed, had become more difficult because by the time they came to school many of these children had become expert in manipulating adults."
According to Galton and Macbeath, the top five obstacles to teaching are poor pupil behaviour, lack of time for reflection, large class sizes, too many initiatives and an overloaded curriculum. "Children arrive at school knowing too much and not enough," they said.
Source
Just one of glass of wine a day increases women's risk of breast cancer
Findings about alcohol derived from a campaign against it should be treated with a saltmine full of salt
Drinking just one large glass of wine a day increases the chances of developing breast cancer by a fifth, say experts. The amount of alcohol in measures regularly served in wine bars and pubs pushes up the risk of cancer by far more than most women realise, it is claimed. A large glass of wine is the equivalent of three units of alcohol at 12 per cent strength. Drinking two glasses raises the risk by more than a third and it doubles for women who consume nine units or three glasses a day compared with those who do not drink.
However, Government research reveals that four out of five women are ignorant of the breast cancer risk. The findings from the Know Your Limits campaign represent a total of more than four million women who are regularly putting their health in danger.
Doctors believe rising rates of breast cancer are being fuelled by soaring levels of drinking among women, as there has been a steady increase in breast cancer cases in the last ten years when rates should have been falling, or at least reached a plateau, because of mass screening.
Only obesity levels - which are also linked to breast cancer - have shown the same kind of upward trend over the last decade. Around 44,000 British women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and it claims 13,000 lives. Previous research suggests that binge drinking - five or more drinks on one occasion - can double the risk of breast cancer.
It is unclear how drinking alcohol promotes breast cancer but it may work by raising levels of the sex hormone oestrogen in the body. Drinking alcohol is one of the few identified risk factors for developing breast cancer, although the biggest risk factor is increasing age. Four out of five breast cancers diagnosed in the UK occur in women over 50.
Dr Sarah Cant, Policy Manager at Breakthrough Breast Cancer, said: 'Drinking moderate or high levels of any type of alcoholic drink has many health consequences, including an increased chance of breast cancer. 'Although many factors might affect our risk of getting breast cancer, limiting how much we drink is one thing we can do to try to reduce that risk.'
Public Health Minister-Dawn Primarolo said: 'It's shocking, even for me, to see the potential risks of drinking over recommended guidelines in black and white. 'One large glass of 12 per cent wine takes a woman to her recommended daily limit in just one drink. 'Knowing the potential health consequences enables women to make choices that can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer.'
A separate survey published by Breakthrough Breast Cancer also shows women wrongly blame their genes for getting cancer. A strong genetic history of breast cancer is to blame in only 5 per cent of all breast cancer cases, but nearly two-thirds of women over the age of 50 believe the disease 'runs in the family'.
Source
Monday, October 20, 2008
SMARTER PEOPLE ARE ALSO HEALTHIER
There have been many studies showing this -- from Terman & Oden in the 1920s on. But I think there is some point in noting the recent high quality study below which also shows that.
More Intelligent, More Dependable Children Live Longer: A 55-Year Longitudinal Study of a Representative Sample of the Scottish Nation
By Ian J. Deary et al.
ABSTRACT-The associations of childhood intelligence and dependability with adult mortality were examined in 1,181 people who were representative of the Scottish nation. Participants were born in 1936 and were followed for mortality from 1968 through early 2003. Higher intelligence and greater dependability were independent, significant predictors of lower mortality: With both factors entered together, the hazard ratio (HR) was 0.80 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.65-0.99, p= .037) per standard deviation increase in intelligence and 0.77 (95% CI: 0.63-0.94, p= .009) per standard deviation increase in dependability. Children in the lower half of the distributions for intelligence and dependability were more than twice as likely to die compared with those who scored in the top half for both these measures (HR = 2.82; 95% CI: 1.81-4.41). Studied together for the first time in a representative sample, these two psychological variables are independent life-course risk factors for mortality. It is important to discover the mechanisms by which they influence survival.
Psychological Science, Volume 19 Issue 9, Pages 874 - 880, 2008
British senior citizen ordered to stop mowing grass because it's too tidy
Brian Hubbard has regularly cut and weeded the small patch of grass outside his three-bedroom home since he moved in four years ago. He also picks up any litter, rakes the leaves and cleans up after the council contractors have left their grass cuttings.
But he has received a letter accusing him of "encroaching" on council land and been told that he must stop tending to the grass and "return the area to its original state within 28 days" or the work would be carried out at his expense.
He said: "I like the place to be tidy and attractive and I know the council's contractors cannot do it all so I decided to help out. "I find it grossly irritating that just because I have taken pride in the area where I live and made it more attractive I have had this threatening letter. "Whoever would have thought that cultivating the grass, cutting it regularly and raking the leaves off could be described as encroachment? Do they want me to put daisies and dandelions in?
"The other day there were people smashing glass over the road. I got a broom, went over and swept it up. Is that encroachment? "This is a perfect example of an overzealous council wasting taxpayers' money. I'm going to ignore the letter and carry on."
Mr Hubbard, a former parish councillor who is retired and in his 70s, lives in the house in the Belmont area of Hereford with his wife, Mary. He received the letter from Herefordshire Council's parks, countryside and leisure development service last week. The letter, which is dated September 8, orders "the removal of garden tools and furnishings and all vegetation not in keeping with the surrounding area". It also accuses Mr Hubbard of "blocking gate way access", "undertaking maintenance" and gives him "28 days to return the area to its original state". The letter warns: "If there is still an encroachment issue with the property further action will be taken which may result in the above works being carried out at your expense."
Heather Davies, councillor for the Belmont area, said the Hubbards should be congratulated and not punished for taking pride in their local area. She said: "When I was on my way to see them the road looked a mess because the grass had been cut but the cuttings left. Mr Hubbard always picks his cuttings up. "If more people were like that the area would look really nice. We should be supporting him because it's brilliant what he does - not sending him letters like this."
Yesterday a spokesman for Herefordshire Council apologised for the tone of the letter and suggested a meeting to discuss the situation. He said: "We are aware of Mr Hubbard's endeavours to tend the land next to his home in Dorchester Way and commend him for his public spiritedness. "We apologise if he feels the letter he received from us is heavy-handed. We are happy to meet Mr Hubbard to discuss the issue." [Big backdown under the searchlight of publicity]
Source
British government retreat on "metric martyrs"
Another victory for publicity over power-mad bureaucrats
Fruit and vegetable traders who sell their produce using imperial measures will not be prosecuted, under guidelines being drawn up by the Government. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said that it was updating advice to councils to ensure that action against so-called metric martyrs was "proportionate, consistent and in the public and consumers' interest".
John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, is expected to issue his proposals within months. They will mean that traders who insist on selling goods in pounds and ounces, despite European Union laws, will not be taken to court by local authorities. It is understood that the decision was prompted by the case of Janet Devers, 64, the East London market trader who was made to pay nearly $10,000 in costs and received a criminal record this month after a prosecution brought by Hackney council. She was found guilty of using imperial weighing scales without an official stamp and of selling vegetables for one pound a bowl rather than counting them out individually.
Mr Denham, who has responsibility for weights and measures as part of his science brief, said: "It is hard to see how it is in the public interest, or in the interests of consumers, to prosecute small traders who have committed what are essentially minor offences. I would like to see an end to this kind of prosecution, which is why I have asked for new guidance to be introduced."
Neil Herron, director of the Metric Martyrs campaign group, said that the decision was a "spectacular victory for people power" and dedicated the victory to Steven Thoburn, a greengrocer from Sunderland who died in 2004 at the age of 39 while fighting a conviction for selling bananas by the pound. Mr Herron said: "Finally we have a government minister with an ounce of common sense."
In 2001 Mr Thoburn became the first man to face prosecution for using scales that could not weigh in metric units. He was given a six-month conditional discharge but his case, along with three others, went to the Court of Appeal, where the convictions were upheld. He took his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, where it was rejected. He died of a heart attack three years later. Mr Thoburn's widow, Leigh, said: "This is absolutely fabulous news, but it is a tragedy that it had to come to this in the first place."
John Gardner, director of the British Weights and Measures Association, said that he "warmly welcomed" the guidance. He said: "The proper role of Trading Standards is to check whether customers are receiving what they pay for, not persecuting shopkeepers and stallholders whose only crime is selling apples in pounds and ounces, not grams and kilos."
Metric measurements were introduced in Britain in the 1970s. Under legislation that came into force on January 2000, all goods sold loose by weight are required to be sold in grams and kilograms. Traders can still display weights in imperial but a conversion must also be given.
A spokesman for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said: "While individual enforcement decisions are rightly a matter for Trading Standards, we are keen to encourage action that is proportionate, consistent and in the public and consumers' interest, which is why the National Weights and Measures Laboratory is updating guidance with local authority bodies for Trading Standards officers. We are reviewing the current legislative framework with a view to making it easier for everyone to understand, business to comply with and Trading Standards officers to enforce."
Source
A truly toxic British ambulance bureaucracy
Woman left to die by the roadside after ambulance bosses refused to let crew cross a county boundary
A student was left dying by the side of a road after an air ambulance 20 miles away was refused permission to cross a county boundary, it has been revealed. Rebecca Wedd, 23, had to wait 42 minutes for medical help after she was hit by a car as she walked with a group of college friends to a summer ball. Police arrived in seven minutes, but it was almost three quarters of an hour after the 999 call when paramedics finally appeared. The national target for answering such a call is eight minutes. Miss Wedd was eventually flown to a nearby hospital but died of her injuries the following day.
It has emerged that an air ambulance crew three minutes away from the scene of the accident was initially refused permission to answer the call from the A433 in Gloucestershire, because it meant crossing a county boundary from Wiltshire. The emergency controller contacted the Wiltshire Air Ambulance after the accident but was told the helicopter could not fly outside the county at night. This was said to be part of a pre-existing arrangement between WAA and Wiltshire Police, which shared the helicopter. The controller then contacted Wiltshire Police directly and persuaded them to bend the rule because of the emergency. Permission was given and the aircraft was finally dispatched at 12.02pm, and arrived at the scene at 12.05am - 43 minutes after the initial 999 call.
Only a minute beforehand, the student graduate was being tended by a paramedic whose ambulance had been flagged down by police. Miss Wedd eventually arrived at hospital an hour and 18 minutes after the accident, and died of her injuries the next day.
The shocking delay in flying the air ambulance was revealed after an internal investigation into the tragedy was made public under the Freedom of Information Act. Miss Wedd's father said he believed his daughter might have been saved but for the delay. Peter Wedd, of Harston, Cambridgeshire, 53, said: 'I cannot understand why that rule applies and why that air ambulance could not fly. 'The bureaucracy that stopped the helicopter from flying that night is unbelievable. Why are these rules there when someone's life is in severe danger? 'The report is a catalogue of disasters. The resources available were not properly managed and someone could have attended to my daughter far, far quicker. 'It's hard to know if that would have made a difference. In my heart of hearts I believe it would.'
The report also highlighted other failings by the Great Western Ambulance Service that night. A nearby ambulance dealing with a less urgent call was not diverted to Rebecca's aid and no ambulances were available in nearby Cirencester because of staff sickness.
At the time Rebecca was killed, Mr Wedd had been rebuilding his life after his wife Carol, 46, died of breast cancer. He has one other daughter Caroline, 22. Rebecca was on her way to the ball at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester in May last year when she was struck.
Source
Stupid British garbage wars
Scourge of fly-tipping switches to the suburbs after weekly bin collections are scrapped
The scourge of fly-tipping has spread to the suburbs, official figures showed yesterday. Illegal rubbish dumping - almost all of it household refuse - is now found as much in genteel and leafy areas as in sink estates and inner cities. The shift of fly-tipping to the suburbs has gone alongside the imposition of fortnightly rubbish collections and strict wheelie bin regulations.
Figures released by the Environment Department showed that half of all fly-tips are found around towns and cities but outside deprived areas. In the past a big majority of recorded fly-tips have been in the poorest and most lawless areas.
They also showed that six out of ten fly-tipping incidents involved household refuse rather than business or industrial waste and that most were dumps of one car boot-load of rubbish. More than one in ten fly-tips were of a single black bag.
Evidence of middle-class fly-tipping produced a new broadside against Labour's compulsory recycling policies from Tories who have made it an election pledge to bring back weekly collections. Local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'These figures illustrate that fly-tipping is rife across the country, hitting Middle England hard. Clearly it is becoming the norm and not the exception. 'Sixty per cent of all fly-tipping is household waste under Labour. Britain's green and pleasant land is now littered by the blot of black bin bags, directly due to Whitehall's policy of bullying town halls into axing weekly collections and adopting over-zealous 'no side waste' policies.'
He added: 'Gordon Brown's new bin taxes look set to make it even worse, by giving perverse financial incentives to irresponsibly fly-tip.'
In the 12 months up to March 2007, the DEFRA breakdown showed that the number of enforcement actions against those dumping rubbish went up by 26 per cent. Overall, there were 1.24million fly-tip incidents, down 7.5 per cent on last year. However the figures do not include Liverpool incidents because of problems over recording in the city.
Minister for waste Jane Kennedy said: 'We still need to work on the serious environmental and social problem of fly-tipping. Local authorities are doing well in the fight against it.'
Fly-tipping has risen in recent years as around half the councils that collect rubbish in England have abandoned weekly pick-ups for fortnightly collections and compulsory recycling schemes.
These have been accompanied by attempts to force families to put out less rubbish, usually involving strict rules. Householders are not allowed to fill bins so their lids are open, rubbish must not be put out at the wrong hours and no 'side waste' left in bags alongside bins is allowed
Source
British airport security a farce too: "Replica bombs were smuggled past security staff in hand luggage during a safety inspection at Britain's second busiest airport. Staff at Gatwick failed to identify artificial explosives carried by undercover transport inspectors from Brussels even though one device was allegedly identified as suspicious by X-ray scanners. The device was apparently handed back to the purported terrorist because the person carrying out the screening did not realise what had been found, according to an airport source. The shortcomings high-lighted by the European commission's inspection this month will be tested again this week in a follow-up audit. Sources at Gatwick claim the work of security staff is being hampered by the need to keep queues to a minimum."
There have been many studies showing this -- from Terman & Oden in the 1920s on. But I think there is some point in noting the recent high quality study below which also shows that.
More Intelligent, More Dependable Children Live Longer: A 55-Year Longitudinal Study of a Representative Sample of the Scottish Nation
By Ian J. Deary et al.
ABSTRACT-The associations of childhood intelligence and dependability with adult mortality were examined in 1,181 people who were representative of the Scottish nation. Participants were born in 1936 and were followed for mortality from 1968 through early 2003. Higher intelligence and greater dependability were independent, significant predictors of lower mortality: With both factors entered together, the hazard ratio (HR) was 0.80 (95% confidence interval, CI: 0.65-0.99, p= .037) per standard deviation increase in intelligence and 0.77 (95% CI: 0.63-0.94, p= .009) per standard deviation increase in dependability. Children in the lower half of the distributions for intelligence and dependability were more than twice as likely to die compared with those who scored in the top half for both these measures (HR = 2.82; 95% CI: 1.81-4.41). Studied together for the first time in a representative sample, these two psychological variables are independent life-course risk factors for mortality. It is important to discover the mechanisms by which they influence survival.
Psychological Science, Volume 19 Issue 9, Pages 874 - 880, 2008
British senior citizen ordered to stop mowing grass because it's too tidy
Brian Hubbard has regularly cut and weeded the small patch of grass outside his three-bedroom home since he moved in four years ago. He also picks up any litter, rakes the leaves and cleans up after the council contractors have left their grass cuttings.
But he has received a letter accusing him of "encroaching" on council land and been told that he must stop tending to the grass and "return the area to its original state within 28 days" or the work would be carried out at his expense.
He said: "I like the place to be tidy and attractive and I know the council's contractors cannot do it all so I decided to help out. "I find it grossly irritating that just because I have taken pride in the area where I live and made it more attractive I have had this threatening letter. "Whoever would have thought that cultivating the grass, cutting it regularly and raking the leaves off could be described as encroachment? Do they want me to put daisies and dandelions in?
"The other day there were people smashing glass over the road. I got a broom, went over and swept it up. Is that encroachment? "This is a perfect example of an overzealous council wasting taxpayers' money. I'm going to ignore the letter and carry on."
Mr Hubbard, a former parish councillor who is retired and in his 70s, lives in the house in the Belmont area of Hereford with his wife, Mary. He received the letter from Herefordshire Council's parks, countryside and leisure development service last week. The letter, which is dated September 8, orders "the removal of garden tools and furnishings and all vegetation not in keeping with the surrounding area". It also accuses Mr Hubbard of "blocking gate way access", "undertaking maintenance" and gives him "28 days to return the area to its original state". The letter warns: "If there is still an encroachment issue with the property further action will be taken which may result in the above works being carried out at your expense."
Heather Davies, councillor for the Belmont area, said the Hubbards should be congratulated and not punished for taking pride in their local area. She said: "When I was on my way to see them the road looked a mess because the grass had been cut but the cuttings left. Mr Hubbard always picks his cuttings up. "If more people were like that the area would look really nice. We should be supporting him because it's brilliant what he does - not sending him letters like this."
Yesterday a spokesman for Herefordshire Council apologised for the tone of the letter and suggested a meeting to discuss the situation. He said: "We are aware of Mr Hubbard's endeavours to tend the land next to his home in Dorchester Way and commend him for his public spiritedness. "We apologise if he feels the letter he received from us is heavy-handed. We are happy to meet Mr Hubbard to discuss the issue." [Big backdown under the searchlight of publicity]
Source
British government retreat on "metric martyrs"
Another victory for publicity over power-mad bureaucrats
Fruit and vegetable traders who sell their produce using imperial measures will not be prosecuted, under guidelines being drawn up by the Government. The Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said that it was updating advice to councils to ensure that action against so-called metric martyrs was "proportionate, consistent and in the public and consumers' interest".
John Denham, the Innovation Secretary, is expected to issue his proposals within months. They will mean that traders who insist on selling goods in pounds and ounces, despite European Union laws, will not be taken to court by local authorities. It is understood that the decision was prompted by the case of Janet Devers, 64, the East London market trader who was made to pay nearly $10,000 in costs and received a criminal record this month after a prosecution brought by Hackney council. She was found guilty of using imperial weighing scales without an official stamp and of selling vegetables for one pound a bowl rather than counting them out individually.
Mr Denham, who has responsibility for weights and measures as part of his science brief, said: "It is hard to see how it is in the public interest, or in the interests of consumers, to prosecute small traders who have committed what are essentially minor offences. I would like to see an end to this kind of prosecution, which is why I have asked for new guidance to be introduced."
Neil Herron, director of the Metric Martyrs campaign group, said that the decision was a "spectacular victory for people power" and dedicated the victory to Steven Thoburn, a greengrocer from Sunderland who died in 2004 at the age of 39 while fighting a conviction for selling bananas by the pound. Mr Herron said: "Finally we have a government minister with an ounce of common sense."
In 2001 Mr Thoburn became the first man to face prosecution for using scales that could not weigh in metric units. He was given a six-month conditional discharge but his case, along with three others, went to the Court of Appeal, where the convictions were upheld. He took his appeal to the European Court of Human Rights, where it was rejected. He died of a heart attack three years later. Mr Thoburn's widow, Leigh, said: "This is absolutely fabulous news, but it is a tragedy that it had to come to this in the first place."
John Gardner, director of the British Weights and Measures Association, said that he "warmly welcomed" the guidance. He said: "The proper role of Trading Standards is to check whether customers are receiving what they pay for, not persecuting shopkeepers and stallholders whose only crime is selling apples in pounds and ounces, not grams and kilos."
Metric measurements were introduced in Britain in the 1970s. Under legislation that came into force on January 2000, all goods sold loose by weight are required to be sold in grams and kilograms. Traders can still display weights in imperial but a conversion must also be given.
A spokesman for the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said: "While individual enforcement decisions are rightly a matter for Trading Standards, we are keen to encourage action that is proportionate, consistent and in the public and consumers' interest, which is why the National Weights and Measures Laboratory is updating guidance with local authority bodies for Trading Standards officers. We are reviewing the current legislative framework with a view to making it easier for everyone to understand, business to comply with and Trading Standards officers to enforce."
Source
A truly toxic British ambulance bureaucracy
Woman left to die by the roadside after ambulance bosses refused to let crew cross a county boundary
A student was left dying by the side of a road after an air ambulance 20 miles away was refused permission to cross a county boundary, it has been revealed. Rebecca Wedd, 23, had to wait 42 minutes for medical help after she was hit by a car as she walked with a group of college friends to a summer ball. Police arrived in seven minutes, but it was almost three quarters of an hour after the 999 call when paramedics finally appeared. The national target for answering such a call is eight minutes. Miss Wedd was eventually flown to a nearby hospital but died of her injuries the following day.
It has emerged that an air ambulance crew three minutes away from the scene of the accident was initially refused permission to answer the call from the A433 in Gloucestershire, because it meant crossing a county boundary from Wiltshire. The emergency controller contacted the Wiltshire Air Ambulance after the accident but was told the helicopter could not fly outside the county at night. This was said to be part of a pre-existing arrangement between WAA and Wiltshire Police, which shared the helicopter. The controller then contacted Wiltshire Police directly and persuaded them to bend the rule because of the emergency. Permission was given and the aircraft was finally dispatched at 12.02pm, and arrived at the scene at 12.05am - 43 minutes after the initial 999 call.
Only a minute beforehand, the student graduate was being tended by a paramedic whose ambulance had been flagged down by police. Miss Wedd eventually arrived at hospital an hour and 18 minutes after the accident, and died of her injuries the next day.
The shocking delay in flying the air ambulance was revealed after an internal investigation into the tragedy was made public under the Freedom of Information Act. Miss Wedd's father said he believed his daughter might have been saved but for the delay. Peter Wedd, of Harston, Cambridgeshire, 53, said: 'I cannot understand why that rule applies and why that air ambulance could not fly. 'The bureaucracy that stopped the helicopter from flying that night is unbelievable. Why are these rules there when someone's life is in severe danger? 'The report is a catalogue of disasters. The resources available were not properly managed and someone could have attended to my daughter far, far quicker. 'It's hard to know if that would have made a difference. In my heart of hearts I believe it would.'
The report also highlighted other failings by the Great Western Ambulance Service that night. A nearby ambulance dealing with a less urgent call was not diverted to Rebecca's aid and no ambulances were available in nearby Cirencester because of staff sickness.
At the time Rebecca was killed, Mr Wedd had been rebuilding his life after his wife Carol, 46, died of breast cancer. He has one other daughter Caroline, 22. Rebecca was on her way to the ball at the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester in May last year when she was struck.
Source
Stupid British garbage wars
Scourge of fly-tipping switches to the suburbs after weekly bin collections are scrapped
The scourge of fly-tipping has spread to the suburbs, official figures showed yesterday. Illegal rubbish dumping - almost all of it household refuse - is now found as much in genteel and leafy areas as in sink estates and inner cities. The shift of fly-tipping to the suburbs has gone alongside the imposition of fortnightly rubbish collections and strict wheelie bin regulations.
Figures released by the Environment Department showed that half of all fly-tips are found around towns and cities but outside deprived areas. In the past a big majority of recorded fly-tips have been in the poorest and most lawless areas.
They also showed that six out of ten fly-tipping incidents involved household refuse rather than business or industrial waste and that most were dumps of one car boot-load of rubbish. More than one in ten fly-tips were of a single black bag.
Evidence of middle-class fly-tipping produced a new broadside against Labour's compulsory recycling policies from Tories who have made it an election pledge to bring back weekly collections. Local government spokesman Eric Pickles said: 'These figures illustrate that fly-tipping is rife across the country, hitting Middle England hard. Clearly it is becoming the norm and not the exception. 'Sixty per cent of all fly-tipping is household waste under Labour. Britain's green and pleasant land is now littered by the blot of black bin bags, directly due to Whitehall's policy of bullying town halls into axing weekly collections and adopting over-zealous 'no side waste' policies.'
He added: 'Gordon Brown's new bin taxes look set to make it even worse, by giving perverse financial incentives to irresponsibly fly-tip.'
In the 12 months up to March 2007, the DEFRA breakdown showed that the number of enforcement actions against those dumping rubbish went up by 26 per cent. Overall, there were 1.24million fly-tip incidents, down 7.5 per cent on last year. However the figures do not include Liverpool incidents because of problems over recording in the city.
Minister for waste Jane Kennedy said: 'We still need to work on the serious environmental and social problem of fly-tipping. Local authorities are doing well in the fight against it.'
Fly-tipping has risen in recent years as around half the councils that collect rubbish in England have abandoned weekly pick-ups for fortnightly collections and compulsory recycling schemes.
These have been accompanied by attempts to force families to put out less rubbish, usually involving strict rules. Householders are not allowed to fill bins so their lids are open, rubbish must not be put out at the wrong hours and no 'side waste' left in bags alongside bins is allowed
Source
British airport security a farce too: "Replica bombs were smuggled past security staff in hand luggage during a safety inspection at Britain's second busiest airport. Staff at Gatwick failed to identify artificial explosives carried by undercover transport inspectors from Brussels even though one device was allegedly identified as suspicious by X-ray scanners. The device was apparently handed back to the purported terrorist because the person carrying out the screening did not realise what had been found, according to an airport source. The shortcomings high-lighted by the European commission's inspection this month will be tested again this week in a follow-up audit. Sources at Gatwick claim the work of security staff is being hampered by the need to keep queues to a minimum."
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Fewer than half of British teenagers achieve basic set of A to C grades at GCSE (Middle school qualification)
Fewer than half of teenagers finish compulsory schooling with a basic set of GCSE qualifications including English and maths, official figures have revealed. Results for the first pupils to go through an entire education under Labour showed that 345,000 last year failed to meet the Government's benchmark for secondary school achievement. Despite a rise on 2007, only 47.2 per cent of pupils achieved the desired five A* to C-grade GCSEs including English and maths, leaving ministers struggling to hit a 53 per cent Treasury target by 2011. One in six pupils finished 11 years of compulsory schooling without achieving a single C grade in any subject.
The GCSE gender gap widened again with girls pulling further ahead. Teachers' leaders declared the scale of failure shameful but ministers insisted trends over the long term showed 'sustained improvement'. Figures for core subjects such as the three Rs, however, showed that attainment is rising more slowly than for other subjects. The proportion gaining any five GCSEs rose sharply to 64.6 per cent - 3.2 percentage points up on last year.
But the numbers able to count English and maths towards those five qualifications - the Government's preferred measure - went up just 0.9 per cent. Only 50 per cent of teenagers were awarded the Government's desired two Cs in science - up just 0.2 per cent on last year.
While the top-performing teenagers celebrated record numbers of A and A* grades, the figures sparked renewed concern over the fate of those at the other end of the spectrum. They showed that the proportion of pupils gaining five GCSEs including English and maths at any level - A* to G - fell 0.1 per cent to 87 per cent.
There was a mixed picture at A-level. The proportion of candidates achieving at least two A-levels was slightly down from last year's 95.2 per cent to 94.6 per cent. However the average point score per candidate was 733.5, up from 731.2 last year.
The gulf between independent schools and state comprehensives continued, with almost one in three pupils at fee-paying schools - 30.3 per cent - emerging with three As at A-level, against 7.6 per cent at comprehensives.
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: 'It is good to see an improvement on last year's results, reflecting the hard work put in by teachers and pupils. 'But there are still far too many pupils leaving school without five A* to C grades including English and maths at GCSE. 'It is truly shameful that half the pupils in England do not achieve this level.'
David Laws, Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said: 'It's completely unacceptable that so many children are still not getting a good basic set of qualifications. 'After 11 years of Labour promises, whatever happened to "education, education, education"?'
The Tories said the gap between rich and poor areas had widened. According to the figures, GCSE results will need to improve at twice their current rate if the Government is to meet its 2011 target. Ministers have introduced a new secondary curriculum with increased flexibility for schools to focus on the three Rs. Schools Minister Jim Knight said: 'These are very positive results that build on the improvements of the last decade.'
Only three in ten school-leavers score C grade or above in a languages GCSE The Government published the figure for the first time this year, aiming to shame schools which neglect languages. Only 30.6 per cent of pupils nationally achieved a good grade in a language this summer and school league tables due out next year will show the proportion at individual secondaries. These will allow parents to judge schools on their performance in languages for the first time. The poor showing follows a 2004 Government decision to make language learning optional for 14-year-olds. The slump in entries for language GCSEs has led to fears our school-leavers will be ill-equipped on the job market.
This summer only 382,228 took GCSEs in languages - down from 559,115 in 2002. French and German suffered particularly while Spanish entries rose but from a lower base. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Russian and Polish also rose but only a few thousand pupils took them. Fewer than a quarter of state schools require GCSE students to learn languages, according to a report last year. It found they are fast becoming the preserve of grammar and fee-paying schools as many comprehensives allow them to decline to 'extremely low levels'. Under plans to reduce academic demands on students, teenagers will be able to gain a 'short' course GCSE in a foreign language without having to show they can speak it. A second short course - worth half a GCSE - will focus only on speaking and listening, meaning students can pass it without ever reading or writing the language.
Source
Green light for 'doggers': British police told to ignore homosexual couples having sex in public places
Police chiefs are being urged to turn a blind eye to some of the more extreme forms of public indecency. Guidelines circulated to senior officers encourage them to ignore 'dogging' and 'cottaging' offences unless enough members of the public complain. The draft rules issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers say prosecutions should only be considered as a last resort for fear of having an 'extreme impact' on offenders' lives. But last night family campaigners reacted angrily, insisting that the laws against public indecency were there for a good reason.
The document on 'policing public sex environments' has been sent to all forces in the UK by Michael Cunningham, deputy chief constable of Lancashire and ACPO spokesman on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 those who take part in ' dogging', where couples meet up for exhibitionist outdoor sex, and cottaging, where men meet for sex in public lavatories, face arrest for outraging public decency, voyeurism and exposure. But the guidance cautions officers against 'knee jerk' reactions. Instead police are told to concentrate on dealing with organised outdoor meetings at known hotspots - by researching sex forums on the internet - and only to prosecute as a 'last resort'.
In the report Mr Cunningham writes that current policing methods 'have adversely affected the relationship between the police and communities' and 'have discouraged users of public sex environments from reporting crime'. Where isolated complaints are made, officers are told 'it may be decided that they should take no action'.
Even where there are persistent problems they should 'inform and dissuade' users of the site before arranging for extra lighting or CCTV cameras to be installed. If that fails police can put on extra patrols, but the guidance stresses that this is only a deterrent and is 'not to detect offences'.
Arresting and prosecuting men for cottaging - some of whom may be married, and living a double life - can have a 'severe' impact on them without solving the problems, Mr Cunningham says. He added: 'The impact can be extreme and can include humiliation, breakdown of relationships and the "outing" of men living in an opposite sex relationship being perceived as "gay".' He refers to cases of 'suicide and self-harm by people who may have been arrested or come into contact with the police'.
ACPO stressed yesterday that the document was a draft being circulated for discussion among police chiefs and the proposals had not been officially adopted.
Hugh McKinney of the National Family Campaign said: 'There is a good reason that we have laws against these types of sexual behaviour in public, namely that they are deemed to be beyond what is acceptable to most reasonable people. 'Is it too much for us to expect the police to enforce the law? After all, they're the only ones who can.'
One serving police officer who patrols gay hotspots in Brighton, said: 'Frankly it seems outrageous that we are effectively being told to turn a blind eye to these sorts of activities, which can cause real distress to most right-thinking people.'
Source
The insane British welfare state again
Families of 12 with a difference: One lives on Dad's 15,000 pound wage... their neighbours get 32,000 benefits (yet still complain)
It is a story which crystalises the dubious values encouraged by the British welfare state. While hardworking Sean and Anne Tate scrimp to afford a few little luxuries for their ten children on his 15,000 lorry driver's salary, a family of the same size two miles away take things a little easier. Harry Crompton, 50, has been out of work for 15 years and his wife Tracey, 40, has never had a job. Yet thanks to the generosity of the welfare state they receive 32,656 a year. The Cromptons have been nicknamed 'Britain's Biggest Freeloaders' by their neighbours in Hull.
Mrs Tate, 43, a stay-at-home mother, could barely believe what she was reading when she saw media coverage of the Cromptons' situation earlier this week. 'I am absolutely furious,' she said. 'The Government want shooting for allowing people to get away with scrounging like this. 'We have worked hard all our lives to provide for our kids, and when you see families like this it makes you wonder why you bother. 'But we have pride in ourselves and would never scrounge like this family. It makes me sick. Gas, water, electricity, council tax has all gone up - we don't get any help with that.'
The Tates bought their three-bedroom house from the council four years ago and built an extension with two extra bedrooms. The Cromptons, by contrast, were provided with two semis knocked together by the council at a cost of 20,000. The couple's only income from paid work is 20 pounds a week from eldest son Michael, who has a factory job. They receive a further 628 a week in income support, disability allowance, carer's allowance, child tax credit, plus 120 a week rent on their seven-bedroom house. A working parent would have to earn 46,500 a year to match their income. The only state handouts the Tates receive is child benefit - which is available to all parents regardless of how much they earn.
Life is cramped to say the least in their home in Hull's Bransholme district. Michael, 23, has moved out, but Gary, 20, Leanne, 18, Brandon, 12, Shaunnah, 11, Mercedes Rose, seven, triplets Madison Rae, Porschia Lillie and Poppie Marie, five, and Jayden, three, still live there.
Over at the Cromptons', the walls are dirty and the floor is covered in videos and magazines. Mrs Crompton says she 'doesn't have much time for cleaning'. The Tates' home and garden are immaculate. Mr Tate, 44, recently installed a new kitchen and designed and built a new marble fireplace in the living room. Mrs Tate said: 'You don't have to live like a tramp. People think you do if you have big family. Everything we have got you work hard for and look after. 'There is a lot of love in any house. In our house. because there are more of us, it goes around. 'We have a lot of fun. We always have a house-full and the children bring their friends as well.'
The Cromptons seem to be less happy with their lot. Earlier this week Mrs Crompton said she would have to be 'very well paid' to make it worth her while getting a job. She added: 'I'm not satisfied with the benefits we get - I want more.' Mr Crompton says he is unable to work due to angina and irritable bowel syndrome. The couple have children Michael, 20, Robin, 19, Matthew, 17, Sarah, 16, Samantha, 14, Harry Andrew, 12, Alex, 11, Kristian, nine, Jesse Lee, seven and Joshua, six.
Source
British immigration boss says restrictions are anti-racist
Although a politician of the Left, his ideas about immigration seem to be thoroughly conservative -- ideas with which few Britons outside the political extremes would disagree
When Phil Woolas was growing up in Lancashire his grammar school was entirely white until the Ugandan Asians arrived. "The first Asian boy who joined my school was nicknamed Banana," says the new Minister for Borders and Immigration. "The teachers called him Banana, the boys called him Banana. He even called himself Banana. I thought it was appalling."
It was, he says, fighting racism that got him into politics. At sixth-form college he joined the Labour Party and ran a campaign against "Paki-bashing". He chose to stand for election as an MP in the Oldham East & Saddleworth constituency, which has a high Pakistani and Kashmiri population. "It's had a race riot, it's had a huge BNP [British National Party] presence and it's a marginal seat. It's a complete crucible," he says. "But we've never had a BNP councillor - I hope I've had something to do with that by getting in and getting dirty."
Mr Woolas describes dealing with immigration as "my lifelong purpose" but he is not going to be pandering to what he calls Hampstead liberals. "I've been brought in to be tougher and to change perceptions," he says. The Government must, he insists, face up to voters' concerns about the level of immigration - particularly as a recession looms. The economic downturn changes everything, he says. "Clearly if people are being made unemployed, then the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny."
Employers should, he believes, put British people first, or they will risk fuelling racism. "In times of economic difficulties, racial stereotyping becomes stronger but also if you've got skills shortages you should, as a government, attempt to fill those skills shortages with your indigenous population."
This is not about colour. He uses the example of the high level of unemployment among the Bangladeshi community in Britain, many of whom he believes could be retrained to fill a shortage of chefs. "Britain has to get working again. The easiest thing for an employer to do is to employ an immigrant. We need to help them to change that."
He adds: "We need a tougher immigration policy and we need to stop seeing it as a dilemma. It's not. It's easy. I'm going to do my best to help the British back to work. The message to them is, if you want less immigration you're going to have to respond with helping us get everyone working who can."
Mr Woolas admits that more and more people will want to come to Britain as a result of the global downturn. "We're the fourth-richest country. Even with a recession we're still going to be attractive to people from poorer countries. The urgency [to sort the system out] becomes greater."
It is clear that he wants to reduce the number of immigrants. "It's been too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder," he says. "As we stand we don't know how many foreign nationals there are. I want to end up in a situation where we know and the public know how many people are coming in and going out of our country."
Although he does not think it is practical to talk about a cap on the number of new arrivals, because the Government cannot predict how many people will be emigrating, he says: "We have to have a population policy and that means at some point we will be able to set a limit on migration. This Government isn't going to allow the population of this country to go up to 70 million. There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving."
Extremists such as the BNP exploit the perception that immigrants receive unfair benefits. Mr Woolas wants to tackle them head on. "I don't believe that we are a country of Alf Garnetts but there's a large element that is discriminatory in its attitude," he says. The problem, according to the minister, is that "the perception that immigrants jump the housing queue is very strong, even though the reality is very different. We must cut back on the few cases of abuse so people see that the system is fair."
He is appalled by stories of immigrants being given million-pound houses at taxpayers' expense. "These are council decisions. They shouldn't do that kind of thing. I just think it's wrong, even if it is rare."
Nor should the NHS accept health tourism. "If you're here legally you should have access to the NHS. If you are here illegally, or - what's the word we use? - clandestinely, you shouldn't. It's a national health service - it's not an international health service."
He opposes an amnesty for people who are already here illegally because he thinks it would encourage more to come. "An amnesty... starts with a discussion among politicians and ends with dead bodies in the back of a truck in Calais."
He believes passionately, however, that those who do become part of the British workforce should be treated with far more respect. "Since Windrush [the Empire Windrush - the ship that carried the first large group of West Indians to Britain in 1948] we have, compared to other rich countries, been liberal in our border controls, but when immigrants get here I think we're cruel to them as a society and I want to turn that around."
Rather than being segregated they should be encouraged to join in. "The immigrant community itself is the strongest advocate of fair and firm immigration rules and the strongest advocate of obeying the law - yet the perception is not that. We have allowed people in here and not helped them to help themselves. Translation [of official documents into other languages] ghettoises people. A Bangladeshi friend told me you can't get a good job in Bangladesh if you can't speak English. You don't need to convince them that they need to speak English - of course they do."
The hijab can, in his view, be divisive. "People wear veils for different reasons: some out of religious conviction. some because they're forced to. It should be up to them, but at school you shouldn't wear one. It's harder to get a good education if you wear a veil as you're more cut off." Women in Muslim communities should be encouraged to work, even if that goes against their culture. "My guiding light is that we have to talk about these things. It is important for everyone."
Mr Woolas wants to make it difficult for people to bring in very young girls from abroad for an arranged marriage. "I am about to increase the age limit of entry by a spouse from 18 to 21. The way in which our society treats some of these boys and girls is a crime. If someone so young from a rural area marries and is brought in to an area that is predominantly of one culture and never goes out, that doesn't help them or society."
He is also concerned about the number of marriages between first cousins in Indian and Pakistani families. "Anyone who knows my community knows there are higher proportions of physical disability amongst the children of first-cousin marriages. It's a cultural issue. The morally right thing is to raise awareness of that. The risk of disability is 4.7 per cent - that's double the average. If your grandparents were first cousins, too, it goes up to 52 per cent. I don't say you shouldn't marry your first cousin, I say if you do, be careful and be screened."
He supports the principle of Muslim faith schools, although he insists "you have to use schools to help break down segregation. They should learn about all faiths - there shouldn't be exclusive access. Children from other faiths should be allowed in." But he also warns Christians that they need to be more accepting of other faiths. The Church of England will, in his view, be disestablished in the end. "It will probably take 50 years but a modern society is multifaith."
His last words are inspired by his old classmate. "I think it [the immigration system] has been too lenient and I want to make it harder, but I also want to be nice to people who do come to settle here. That's what I have wanted to do all my life since the boy came to my school and was called Banana."
Source
Drug abuse a 'cause not effect' of social problems
A bold claim in the heading above. But the last sentence below contradicts the heading. The study is an epidemiological one so it is the last sentence that should be heeded. The article is not yet on line at the journal site but a preprint is available here. It is pleasing to see that obvious confounds such as social class and IQ have been controlled for but many other confounding variables are possible -- particularly in the personality realm. That tendency to risk-taking (for instance) could both cause you to take drugs early and also get you into other trouble is fairly obvious but was not measured in the study. It would have been more interesting to present a fuller psychological and sociological profile of those kids who do take up drugs early.
Drug or alcohol abuse among children under the age of 15 is a cause and not an effect of a host of health and social problems, research has suggested. Early drinking and drug-taking raise the future risk of addiction, teenage pregnancy, failure at school, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and crime, independently of other factors that might predispose to these outcomes, scientists have determined.
The findings, from a study that followed people for 30 years, are particularly significant because they indicate that drug and alcohol abuse at a young age probably contributes directly to subsequent problems. While the link is known from previous research, scientists have struggled to tell whether early substance abuse is a cause of later behavioural and health troubles, or a symptom of deprived social or family circumstances that also explain these issues.
The new study, led by Candice Odgers, of the University of California, Irvine, favours the former hypothesis - that "drugs are bad for kids", rather than "bad kids do drugs". Dr Odgers, who conducted the research while at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Findings from this study are consistent with the message that early substance use leads to significant problems in adolescents' future lives - that drugs are bad for kids - versus the alternative message that young adolescents with a history of problems are just more likely to use drugs early and experience poor outcomes - that bad kids do drugs.
"Even adolescents with no prior history of behavioural problems or family history of substance use problems were at risk for poor health outcomes if they used substances prior to age 15. Universal interventions are required to ensure that all children - not only those entering early adolescence on an at-risk trajectory - require an adequate dose of prevention." [And what would that be? A hit on the head, perhaps??]
In the study, which is published in the journal Psychological Science, Dr Odgers investigated a set of 1,000 young people who were born in the New Zealand town of Dunedin in 1972 and 1973. She found that those who used drugs or alcohol before the age of 15 were between 2.4 and 5 times more likely than their peers to have experienced health or social problems later in life. The effect applied to dropping out of school, becoming addicted to drugs or an alcoholic, having a criminal convicion, becoming pregnant as a teenager, and testing positive for an STI.
Early use was classified as taking drugs or drinking alcohol on numerous occasions, buying them, or using them at school. This eliminated anyone who drank alcohol at home, or who tried the substances on a one-off basis.
Dr Odgers also compared children deemed at high risk of poor health and social outcomes, such as those with prior behavioural problems or from broken families, with low-risk children.
Low-risk children who used drugs or alcohol early still tended to finish secondary school. However, they remained between 2.7 and 3.8 times more likely to have experienced one of the four other social and health problems.
The results, Dr Odgers suggested, mean that it is important to try to prevent early drinking and drug use among all children, not just those from high-risk backgrounds.
Almost 50 per cent of adolescents who used alcohol or drugs before the age of 15 could not have been identified based on child behaviour problems or family risk factors, she said.
The study is indicative of a causal effect, but does not prove it, because children were not randomly assigned to drug-use and non-drug-use groups.
Source
BRITISH CLIMATE TARGETS ARE HOT AIR
In view of the uncertainty over the future direction of the British and the world economies, the timing of Ed Miliband's announcement of new "green" targets was odd to say the least. The younger brother of the Foreign Secretary was only recently installed in the new post of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It might have been imagined that he would take stock of the extraordinary turmoil in the financial world before committing the country to further environmental measures. But Mr Miliband has required just a fortnight to decide that the 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to which the UK had previously signed up was insufficiently ambitious.
There is a lot of ministerial hot air about these targets; new ones are announced long before it is apparent whether existing ones are realistic or achievable. In 1997, the Government said it was going to "reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010". By 2003 this had become an aspiration to "move towards a 20 per cent reduction..." By 2005, it was saying that "emissions of all greenhouse gases would be around 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010".
In 2006 a target was set for "all new homes to be zero carbon within a decade" but in the first month of 2008, just three zero carbon homes were built. The Government then pledged to reduce carbon dioxide by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, which Mr Miliband has now said should rise to 80 per cent in line with a recommendation delivered just last week by the Government-appointed Climate Change Committee. When the 60 per cent target was first recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, it implicitly included emissions from aviation. But Mr Miliband now says aviation and shipping will be excluded, though specific proposals for achieving this tougher target have still to be published.
His statement was hailed as "bold and courageous", yet it amounted to nothing beyond the utterance of some words. This is not to say that there is something inherently wrong with wanting a cleaner environment, simply that announcing ever higher numbers has become something of a political virility test with no obvious connection with the real world, and one that the Conservatives seem happy to go along with.
Mr Miliband said the price to be paid for doing nothing was greater than the cost of acting, though not if it means investment in clean technology dries up as a result. There are so many economic uncertainties that substituting one random and impractical number for another seems precipitate.
Source
British aspirin study attacked
Generalizing from diabetics to all people certainly is pretty crazy. The belching professor just got carried away with the importance of her own work, it would seem. She may be right but her work does not prove it
A specialist has urged patients to keep taking prescribed aspirin, labelling a UK study questioning its benefits as "potentially dangerous". Australian Medical Association Queensland cardiology spokesman David Colquhoun said the Dundee University study which questioned the benefits of daily aspirin to ward off heart attacks was "too small" to guide medical practice.
The study, led by Jill Belch, of the Institute of Cardiovascular Research, involved more than 1200 patients aged over 40 with diabetes and evidence of artery disease who had not suffered a previous heart attack. It found that after eight years there was no overall benefit from aspirin or antioxidant treatment in preventing heart attacks or death. "If you're taking aspirin for secondary prevention because you've had a heart attack or stroke, or have a circulatory problem, then it works," Professor Belch told the Daily Mail. "But it doesn't work if you have none of these problems."
But Associate Professor Colquhoun said previous research had shown "clear unequivocal benefits" in preventing heart attacks in the middle-aged. "Doesn't this professor . . . read the literature?" he said. "To say we have to reassess the place of aspirin in individuals is silly. "This should not make any difference to the way we treat patients. This type of study, I find, is potentially dangerous in the sense that the wrong message can be sent. "It adds nothing to helping us as clinicians but it can help cause confusion in the community. We don't want people to stop taking aspirin."
Professor Belch said there was widespread prescribing of aspirin in diabetes despite the lack of evidence to support its use. But studies showed it could double the risk of stomach bleeding from an ulcer. "Unfortunately, aspirin has side-effects and it's one of the biggest reasons for admission to hospital for drug-related adverse reactions, mainly gastrointestinal bleeding. "Although the risk is relatively small, the numbers taking aspirin is large so it's a major problem."
However, Professor Colquhoun said the very low dose daily gave patients only an "extremely low" chance of internal bleeding.
Source
Fewer than half of teenagers finish compulsory schooling with a basic set of GCSE qualifications including English and maths, official figures have revealed. Results for the first pupils to go through an entire education under Labour showed that 345,000 last year failed to meet the Government's benchmark for secondary school achievement. Despite a rise on 2007, only 47.2 per cent of pupils achieved the desired five A* to C-grade GCSEs including English and maths, leaving ministers struggling to hit a 53 per cent Treasury target by 2011. One in six pupils finished 11 years of compulsory schooling without achieving a single C grade in any subject.
The GCSE gender gap widened again with girls pulling further ahead. Teachers' leaders declared the scale of failure shameful but ministers insisted trends over the long term showed 'sustained improvement'. Figures for core subjects such as the three Rs, however, showed that attainment is rising more slowly than for other subjects. The proportion gaining any five GCSEs rose sharply to 64.6 per cent - 3.2 percentage points up on last year.
But the numbers able to count English and maths towards those five qualifications - the Government's preferred measure - went up just 0.9 per cent. Only 50 per cent of teenagers were awarded the Government's desired two Cs in science - up just 0.2 per cent on last year.
While the top-performing teenagers celebrated record numbers of A and A* grades, the figures sparked renewed concern over the fate of those at the other end of the spectrum. They showed that the proportion of pupils gaining five GCSEs including English and maths at any level - A* to G - fell 0.1 per cent to 87 per cent.
There was a mixed picture at A-level. The proportion of candidates achieving at least two A-levels was slightly down from last year's 95.2 per cent to 94.6 per cent. However the average point score per candidate was 733.5, up from 731.2 last year.
The gulf between independent schools and state comprehensives continued, with almost one in three pupils at fee-paying schools - 30.3 per cent - emerging with three As at A-level, against 7.6 per cent at comprehensives.
Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said: 'It is good to see an improvement on last year's results, reflecting the hard work put in by teachers and pupils. 'But there are still far too many pupils leaving school without five A* to C grades including English and maths at GCSE. 'It is truly shameful that half the pupils in England do not achieve this level.'
David Laws, Liberal Democrat schools spokesman, said: 'It's completely unacceptable that so many children are still not getting a good basic set of qualifications. 'After 11 years of Labour promises, whatever happened to "education, education, education"?'
The Tories said the gap between rich and poor areas had widened. According to the figures, GCSE results will need to improve at twice their current rate if the Government is to meet its 2011 target. Ministers have introduced a new secondary curriculum with increased flexibility for schools to focus on the three Rs. Schools Minister Jim Knight said: 'These are very positive results that build on the improvements of the last decade.'
Only three in ten school-leavers score C grade or above in a languages GCSE The Government published the figure for the first time this year, aiming to shame schools which neglect languages. Only 30.6 per cent of pupils nationally achieved a good grade in a language this summer and school league tables due out next year will show the proportion at individual secondaries. These will allow parents to judge schools on their performance in languages for the first time. The poor showing follows a 2004 Government decision to make language learning optional for 14-year-olds. The slump in entries for language GCSEs has led to fears our school-leavers will be ill-equipped on the job market.
This summer only 382,228 took GCSEs in languages - down from 559,115 in 2002. French and German suffered particularly while Spanish entries rose but from a lower base. Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Russian and Polish also rose but only a few thousand pupils took them. Fewer than a quarter of state schools require GCSE students to learn languages, according to a report last year. It found they are fast becoming the preserve of grammar and fee-paying schools as many comprehensives allow them to decline to 'extremely low levels'. Under plans to reduce academic demands on students, teenagers will be able to gain a 'short' course GCSE in a foreign language without having to show they can speak it. A second short course - worth half a GCSE - will focus only on speaking and listening, meaning students can pass it without ever reading or writing the language.
Source
Green light for 'doggers': British police told to ignore homosexual couples having sex in public places
Police chiefs are being urged to turn a blind eye to some of the more extreme forms of public indecency. Guidelines circulated to senior officers encourage them to ignore 'dogging' and 'cottaging' offences unless enough members of the public complain. The draft rules issued by the Association of Chief Police Officers say prosecutions should only be considered as a last resort for fear of having an 'extreme impact' on offenders' lives. But last night family campaigners reacted angrily, insisting that the laws against public indecency were there for a good reason.
The document on 'policing public sex environments' has been sent to all forces in the UK by Michael Cunningham, deputy chief constable of Lancashire and ACPO spokesman on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003 those who take part in ' dogging', where couples meet up for exhibitionist outdoor sex, and cottaging, where men meet for sex in public lavatories, face arrest for outraging public decency, voyeurism and exposure. But the guidance cautions officers against 'knee jerk' reactions. Instead police are told to concentrate on dealing with organised outdoor meetings at known hotspots - by researching sex forums on the internet - and only to prosecute as a 'last resort'.
In the report Mr Cunningham writes that current policing methods 'have adversely affected the relationship between the police and communities' and 'have discouraged users of public sex environments from reporting crime'. Where isolated complaints are made, officers are told 'it may be decided that they should take no action'.
Even where there are persistent problems they should 'inform and dissuade' users of the site before arranging for extra lighting or CCTV cameras to be installed. If that fails police can put on extra patrols, but the guidance stresses that this is only a deterrent and is 'not to detect offences'.
Arresting and prosecuting men for cottaging - some of whom may be married, and living a double life - can have a 'severe' impact on them without solving the problems, Mr Cunningham says. He added: 'The impact can be extreme and can include humiliation, breakdown of relationships and the "outing" of men living in an opposite sex relationship being perceived as "gay".' He refers to cases of 'suicide and self-harm by people who may have been arrested or come into contact with the police'.
ACPO stressed yesterday that the document was a draft being circulated for discussion among police chiefs and the proposals had not been officially adopted.
Hugh McKinney of the National Family Campaign said: 'There is a good reason that we have laws against these types of sexual behaviour in public, namely that they are deemed to be beyond what is acceptable to most reasonable people. 'Is it too much for us to expect the police to enforce the law? After all, they're the only ones who can.'
One serving police officer who patrols gay hotspots in Brighton, said: 'Frankly it seems outrageous that we are effectively being told to turn a blind eye to these sorts of activities, which can cause real distress to most right-thinking people.'
Source
The insane British welfare state again
Families of 12 with a difference: One lives on Dad's 15,000 pound wage... their neighbours get 32,000 benefits (yet still complain)
It is a story which crystalises the dubious values encouraged by the British welfare state. While hardworking Sean and Anne Tate scrimp to afford a few little luxuries for their ten children on his 15,000 lorry driver's salary, a family of the same size two miles away take things a little easier. Harry Crompton, 50, has been out of work for 15 years and his wife Tracey, 40, has never had a job. Yet thanks to the generosity of the welfare state they receive 32,656 a year. The Cromptons have been nicknamed 'Britain's Biggest Freeloaders' by their neighbours in Hull.
Mrs Tate, 43, a stay-at-home mother, could barely believe what she was reading when she saw media coverage of the Cromptons' situation earlier this week. 'I am absolutely furious,' she said. 'The Government want shooting for allowing people to get away with scrounging like this. 'We have worked hard all our lives to provide for our kids, and when you see families like this it makes you wonder why you bother. 'But we have pride in ourselves and would never scrounge like this family. It makes me sick. Gas, water, electricity, council tax has all gone up - we don't get any help with that.'
The Tates bought their three-bedroom house from the council four years ago and built an extension with two extra bedrooms. The Cromptons, by contrast, were provided with two semis knocked together by the council at a cost of 20,000. The couple's only income from paid work is 20 pounds a week from eldest son Michael, who has a factory job. They receive a further 628 a week in income support, disability allowance, carer's allowance, child tax credit, plus 120 a week rent on their seven-bedroom house. A working parent would have to earn 46,500 a year to match their income. The only state handouts the Tates receive is child benefit - which is available to all parents regardless of how much they earn.
Life is cramped to say the least in their home in Hull's Bransholme district. Michael, 23, has moved out, but Gary, 20, Leanne, 18, Brandon, 12, Shaunnah, 11, Mercedes Rose, seven, triplets Madison Rae, Porschia Lillie and Poppie Marie, five, and Jayden, three, still live there.
Over at the Cromptons', the walls are dirty and the floor is covered in videos and magazines. Mrs Crompton says she 'doesn't have much time for cleaning'. The Tates' home and garden are immaculate. Mr Tate, 44, recently installed a new kitchen and designed and built a new marble fireplace in the living room. Mrs Tate said: 'You don't have to live like a tramp. People think you do if you have big family. Everything we have got you work hard for and look after. 'There is a lot of love in any house. In our house. because there are more of us, it goes around. 'We have a lot of fun. We always have a house-full and the children bring their friends as well.'
The Cromptons seem to be less happy with their lot. Earlier this week Mrs Crompton said she would have to be 'very well paid' to make it worth her while getting a job. She added: 'I'm not satisfied with the benefits we get - I want more.' Mr Crompton says he is unable to work due to angina and irritable bowel syndrome. The couple have children Michael, 20, Robin, 19, Matthew, 17, Sarah, 16, Samantha, 14, Harry Andrew, 12, Alex, 11, Kristian, nine, Jesse Lee, seven and Joshua, six.
Source
British immigration boss says restrictions are anti-racist
Although a politician of the Left, his ideas about immigration seem to be thoroughly conservative -- ideas with which few Britons outside the political extremes would disagree
When Phil Woolas was growing up in Lancashire his grammar school was entirely white until the Ugandan Asians arrived. "The first Asian boy who joined my school was nicknamed Banana," says the new Minister for Borders and Immigration. "The teachers called him Banana, the boys called him Banana. He even called himself Banana. I thought it was appalling."
It was, he says, fighting racism that got him into politics. At sixth-form college he joined the Labour Party and ran a campaign against "Paki-bashing". He chose to stand for election as an MP in the Oldham East & Saddleworth constituency, which has a high Pakistani and Kashmiri population. "It's had a race riot, it's had a huge BNP [British National Party] presence and it's a marginal seat. It's a complete crucible," he says. "But we've never had a BNP councillor - I hope I've had something to do with that by getting in and getting dirty."
Mr Woolas describes dealing with immigration as "my lifelong purpose" but he is not going to be pandering to what he calls Hampstead liberals. "I've been brought in to be tougher and to change perceptions," he says. The Government must, he insists, face up to voters' concerns about the level of immigration - particularly as a recession looms. The economic downturn changes everything, he says. "Clearly if people are being made unemployed, then the question of immigration becomes extremely thorny."
Employers should, he believes, put British people first, or they will risk fuelling racism. "In times of economic difficulties, racial stereotyping becomes stronger but also if you've got skills shortages you should, as a government, attempt to fill those skills shortages with your indigenous population."
This is not about colour. He uses the example of the high level of unemployment among the Bangladeshi community in Britain, many of whom he believes could be retrained to fill a shortage of chefs. "Britain has to get working again. The easiest thing for an employer to do is to employ an immigrant. We need to help them to change that."
He adds: "We need a tougher immigration policy and we need to stop seeing it as a dilemma. It's not. It's easy. I'm going to do my best to help the British back to work. The message to them is, if you want less immigration you're going to have to respond with helping us get everyone working who can."
Mr Woolas admits that more and more people will want to come to Britain as a result of the global downturn. "We're the fourth-richest country. Even with a recession we're still going to be attractive to people from poorer countries. The urgency [to sort the system out] becomes greater."
It is clear that he wants to reduce the number of immigrants. "It's been too easy to get into this country in the past and it's going to get harder," he says. "As we stand we don't know how many foreign nationals there are. I want to end up in a situation where we know and the public know how many people are coming in and going out of our country."
Although he does not think it is practical to talk about a cap on the number of new arrivals, because the Government cannot predict how many people will be emigrating, he says: "We have to have a population policy and that means at some point we will be able to set a limit on migration. This Government isn't going to allow the population of this country to go up to 70 million. There has to be a balance between the number of people coming in and the number of people leaving."
Extremists such as the BNP exploit the perception that immigrants receive unfair benefits. Mr Woolas wants to tackle them head on. "I don't believe that we are a country of Alf Garnetts but there's a large element that is discriminatory in its attitude," he says. The problem, according to the minister, is that "the perception that immigrants jump the housing queue is very strong, even though the reality is very different. We must cut back on the few cases of abuse so people see that the system is fair."
He is appalled by stories of immigrants being given million-pound houses at taxpayers' expense. "These are council decisions. They shouldn't do that kind of thing. I just think it's wrong, even if it is rare."
Nor should the NHS accept health tourism. "If you're here legally you should have access to the NHS. If you are here illegally, or - what's the word we use? - clandestinely, you shouldn't. It's a national health service - it's not an international health service."
He opposes an amnesty for people who are already here illegally because he thinks it would encourage more to come. "An amnesty... starts with a discussion among politicians and ends with dead bodies in the back of a truck in Calais."
He believes passionately, however, that those who do become part of the British workforce should be treated with far more respect. "Since Windrush [the Empire Windrush - the ship that carried the first large group of West Indians to Britain in 1948] we have, compared to other rich countries, been liberal in our border controls, but when immigrants get here I think we're cruel to them as a society and I want to turn that around."
Rather than being segregated they should be encouraged to join in. "The immigrant community itself is the strongest advocate of fair and firm immigration rules and the strongest advocate of obeying the law - yet the perception is not that. We have allowed people in here and not helped them to help themselves. Translation [of official documents into other languages] ghettoises people. A Bangladeshi friend told me you can't get a good job in Bangladesh if you can't speak English. You don't need to convince them that they need to speak English - of course they do."
The hijab can, in his view, be divisive. "People wear veils for different reasons: some out of religious conviction. some because they're forced to. It should be up to them, but at school you shouldn't wear one. It's harder to get a good education if you wear a veil as you're more cut off." Women in Muslim communities should be encouraged to work, even if that goes against their culture. "My guiding light is that we have to talk about these things. It is important for everyone."
Mr Woolas wants to make it difficult for people to bring in very young girls from abroad for an arranged marriage. "I am about to increase the age limit of entry by a spouse from 18 to 21. The way in which our society treats some of these boys and girls is a crime. If someone so young from a rural area marries and is brought in to an area that is predominantly of one culture and never goes out, that doesn't help them or society."
He is also concerned about the number of marriages between first cousins in Indian and Pakistani families. "Anyone who knows my community knows there are higher proportions of physical disability amongst the children of first-cousin marriages. It's a cultural issue. The morally right thing is to raise awareness of that. The risk of disability is 4.7 per cent - that's double the average. If your grandparents were first cousins, too, it goes up to 52 per cent. I don't say you shouldn't marry your first cousin, I say if you do, be careful and be screened."
He supports the principle of Muslim faith schools, although he insists "you have to use schools to help break down segregation. They should learn about all faiths - there shouldn't be exclusive access. Children from other faiths should be allowed in." But he also warns Christians that they need to be more accepting of other faiths. The Church of England will, in his view, be disestablished in the end. "It will probably take 50 years but a modern society is multifaith."
His last words are inspired by his old classmate. "I think it [the immigration system] has been too lenient and I want to make it harder, but I also want to be nice to people who do come to settle here. That's what I have wanted to do all my life since the boy came to my school and was called Banana."
Source
Drug abuse a 'cause not effect' of social problems
A bold claim in the heading above. But the last sentence below contradicts the heading. The study is an epidemiological one so it is the last sentence that should be heeded. The article is not yet on line at the journal site but a preprint is available here. It is pleasing to see that obvious confounds such as social class and IQ have been controlled for but many other confounding variables are possible -- particularly in the personality realm. That tendency to risk-taking (for instance) could both cause you to take drugs early and also get you into other trouble is fairly obvious but was not measured in the study. It would have been more interesting to present a fuller psychological and sociological profile of those kids who do take up drugs early.
Drug or alcohol abuse among children under the age of 15 is a cause and not an effect of a host of health and social problems, research has suggested. Early drinking and drug-taking raise the future risk of addiction, teenage pregnancy, failure at school, sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) and crime, independently of other factors that might predispose to these outcomes, scientists have determined.
The findings, from a study that followed people for 30 years, are particularly significant because they indicate that drug and alcohol abuse at a young age probably contributes directly to subsequent problems. While the link is known from previous research, scientists have struggled to tell whether early substance abuse is a cause of later behavioural and health troubles, or a symptom of deprived social or family circumstances that also explain these issues.
The new study, led by Candice Odgers, of the University of California, Irvine, favours the former hypothesis - that "drugs are bad for kids", rather than "bad kids do drugs". Dr Odgers, who conducted the research while at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London, said: "Findings from this study are consistent with the message that early substance use leads to significant problems in adolescents' future lives - that drugs are bad for kids - versus the alternative message that young adolescents with a history of problems are just more likely to use drugs early and experience poor outcomes - that bad kids do drugs.
"Even adolescents with no prior history of behavioural problems or family history of substance use problems were at risk for poor health outcomes if they used substances prior to age 15. Universal interventions are required to ensure that all children - not only those entering early adolescence on an at-risk trajectory - require an adequate dose of prevention." [And what would that be? A hit on the head, perhaps??]
In the study, which is published in the journal Psychological Science, Dr Odgers investigated a set of 1,000 young people who were born in the New Zealand town of Dunedin in 1972 and 1973. She found that those who used drugs or alcohol before the age of 15 were between 2.4 and 5 times more likely than their peers to have experienced health or social problems later in life. The effect applied to dropping out of school, becoming addicted to drugs or an alcoholic, having a criminal convicion, becoming pregnant as a teenager, and testing positive for an STI.
Early use was classified as taking drugs or drinking alcohol on numerous occasions, buying them, or using them at school. This eliminated anyone who drank alcohol at home, or who tried the substances on a one-off basis.
Dr Odgers also compared children deemed at high risk of poor health and social outcomes, such as those with prior behavioural problems or from broken families, with low-risk children.
Low-risk children who used drugs or alcohol early still tended to finish secondary school. However, they remained between 2.7 and 3.8 times more likely to have experienced one of the four other social and health problems.
The results, Dr Odgers suggested, mean that it is important to try to prevent early drinking and drug use among all children, not just those from high-risk backgrounds.
Almost 50 per cent of adolescents who used alcohol or drugs before the age of 15 could not have been identified based on child behaviour problems or family risk factors, she said.
The study is indicative of a causal effect, but does not prove it, because children were not randomly assigned to drug-use and non-drug-use groups.
Source
BRITISH CLIMATE TARGETS ARE HOT AIR
In view of the uncertainty over the future direction of the British and the world economies, the timing of Ed Miliband's announcement of new "green" targets was odd to say the least. The younger brother of the Foreign Secretary was only recently installed in the new post of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It might have been imagined that he would take stock of the extraordinary turmoil in the financial world before committing the country to further environmental measures. But Mr Miliband has required just a fortnight to decide that the 60 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to which the UK had previously signed up was insufficiently ambitious.
There is a lot of ministerial hot air about these targets; new ones are announced long before it is apparent whether existing ones are realistic or achievable. In 1997, the Government said it was going to "reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 20 per cent on 1990 levels by 2010". By 2003 this had become an aspiration to "move towards a 20 per cent reduction..." By 2005, it was saying that "emissions of all greenhouse gases would be around 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010".
In 2006 a target was set for "all new homes to be zero carbon within a decade" but in the first month of 2008, just three zero carbon homes were built. The Government then pledged to reduce carbon dioxide by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050, which Mr Miliband has now said should rise to 80 per cent in line with a recommendation delivered just last week by the Government-appointed Climate Change Committee. When the 60 per cent target was first recommended by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, it implicitly included emissions from aviation. But Mr Miliband now says aviation and shipping will be excluded, though specific proposals for achieving this tougher target have still to be published.
His statement was hailed as "bold and courageous", yet it amounted to nothing beyond the utterance of some words. This is not to say that there is something inherently wrong with wanting a cleaner environment, simply that announcing ever higher numbers has become something of a political virility test with no obvious connection with the real world, and one that the Conservatives seem happy to go along with.
Mr Miliband said the price to be paid for doing nothing was greater than the cost of acting, though not if it means investment in clean technology dries up as a result. There are so many economic uncertainties that substituting one random and impractical number for another seems precipitate.
Source
British aspirin study attacked
Generalizing from diabetics to all people certainly is pretty crazy. The belching professor just got carried away with the importance of her own work, it would seem. She may be right but her work does not prove it
A specialist has urged patients to keep taking prescribed aspirin, labelling a UK study questioning its benefits as "potentially dangerous". Australian Medical Association Queensland cardiology spokesman David Colquhoun said the Dundee University study which questioned the benefits of daily aspirin to ward off heart attacks was "too small" to guide medical practice.
The study, led by Jill Belch, of the Institute of Cardiovascular Research, involved more than 1200 patients aged over 40 with diabetes and evidence of artery disease who had not suffered a previous heart attack. It found that after eight years there was no overall benefit from aspirin or antioxidant treatment in preventing heart attacks or death. "If you're taking aspirin for secondary prevention because you've had a heart attack or stroke, or have a circulatory problem, then it works," Professor Belch told the Daily Mail. "But it doesn't work if you have none of these problems."
But Associate Professor Colquhoun said previous research had shown "clear unequivocal benefits" in preventing heart attacks in the middle-aged. "Doesn't this professor . . . read the literature?" he said. "To say we have to reassess the place of aspirin in individuals is silly. "This should not make any difference to the way we treat patients. This type of study, I find, is potentially dangerous in the sense that the wrong message can be sent. "It adds nothing to helping us as clinicians but it can help cause confusion in the community. We don't want people to stop taking aspirin."
Professor Belch said there was widespread prescribing of aspirin in diabetes despite the lack of evidence to support its use. But studies showed it could double the risk of stomach bleeding from an ulcer. "Unfortunately, aspirin has side-effects and it's one of the biggest reasons for admission to hospital for drug-related adverse reactions, mainly gastrointestinal bleeding. "Although the risk is relatively small, the numbers taking aspirin is large so it's a major problem."
However, Professor Colquhoun said the very low dose daily gave patients only an "extremely low" chance of internal bleeding.
Source
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Two out of three British public hospitals fail on hygiene and nearly half miss MRSA targets, claims new report
Almost two out of three hospital trusts are failing to tackle dirty wards and deadly infections, a study has revealed. Nearly half missed the target to cut MRSA superbug rates last year and too few are achieving good hygiene standards, according to a Healthcare Commission report.
The independent watchdog's annual 'health check' of the NHS shows improving levels of services but warns that there are still major areas for concern in tackling infections such as MRSA and C.diff. Six out of ten acute and specialist trusts are not meeting government standards on managing infections and cutting MRSA rates. Just 67 of 169 of these trusts complied with all three hygiene standards and met MRSA superbug targets. In total, 48 per cent of hospitals failed to reach a target to cut MRSA infections by at least 60 per cent over three years.
Failures are occurring on one or more of three basic standards on infection control in 114 trusts overall - a quarter of the NHS - up from 111 trusts in the previous year. Of the trusts that failed on basic hygiene, 42 are acute hospitals, 62 primary care, eight mental health and two are ambulance trusts.
For the first time, the watchdog is planning spot checks throughout the NHS, rather than just inspecting hospitals. Under a new system, trusts that cannot show that they are meeting standards on infection control face conditions on their registration when the Care Quality Commission takes over as regulator next April. Healthcare Commission chief executive Anna Walker said NHS trusts also needed to pay attention to other infections. She said: 'We must not take our eye off the other infections such as norovirus, which are as significant for patients if they catch them in hospital.'
In the watchdog's rating of the 391 NHS trusts across England for 2007-08, 42 trusts were ranked excellent on both the quality of services and their use of resources compared with 19 in 2006-07 and two the previous year.
But Derek Butler, chairman of MRSA Action, said some hospitals were making virtually no headway in getting on top of healthcare infections. He said 'Why are we allowing any hospitals not to comply with the hygiene code, we should be sending inspectors in. 'We know 17 hospitals actually had more MRSA cases last year than in 2004, since when they are supposed to have halved their rates.'
Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said 'It's encouraging to see that overall standards are improving in many NHS Trusts, but there are still some disturbing gaps in performance.'
Steve Barnett, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation which represents over 95 per cent of NHS organisations, said 'While the Annual Health Check shows a trend of improvement in healthcare acquired infections, we support a zero tolerance approach and we know NHS organisations are fully committed to achieving this.'
Source
Rain makes you fatter
There could be something in this but if so the Brits should be hugely fat. It rains all the time there. But they seem to be about average for weight, in fact
SUNSHINE not only makes you feel good, but now it has been revealed that it has powers of weight loss, as rain can cause people to gain weight. While it may be the only good news for the drought-ravaged farmers, a team from Aberdeen University found miserable weather made it harder for dieters to shed weight.
They found those who were overweight had lower levels of vitamin D - which is created when the body is exposed to sunlight. The amount of vitamin D in the blood influences the functioning of a hormone called leptin, which tells the brain when the stomach is full. The obese produced a tenth less vitamin D than those of average weight.
Heavy rain, particularly in rural areas, also raises the risk of catching the potentially fatal bug E-coli. The concern is that farmers' slurry contains E.coli O157 bacteria from cattle muck; heavy rain can wash the slurry into streams and form puddles; the bacteria can then be found in mud stuck to boots, or spread by pets.
The Daily Mail reports that people with old injuries maintain that their scars ache when the weather is threatening and the low atmospheric pressure can induce premature labor. Monica Seles, the tennis star who was stabbed in the back during a tennis tournament in Germany, told one interviewer that her scar would tingle when rain was coming.
Source
Almost two out of three hospital trusts are failing to tackle dirty wards and deadly infections, a study has revealed. Nearly half missed the target to cut MRSA superbug rates last year and too few are achieving good hygiene standards, according to a Healthcare Commission report.
The independent watchdog's annual 'health check' of the NHS shows improving levels of services but warns that there are still major areas for concern in tackling infections such as MRSA and C.diff. Six out of ten acute and specialist trusts are not meeting government standards on managing infections and cutting MRSA rates. Just 67 of 169 of these trusts complied with all three hygiene standards and met MRSA superbug targets. In total, 48 per cent of hospitals failed to reach a target to cut MRSA infections by at least 60 per cent over three years.
Failures are occurring on one or more of three basic standards on infection control in 114 trusts overall - a quarter of the NHS - up from 111 trusts in the previous year. Of the trusts that failed on basic hygiene, 42 are acute hospitals, 62 primary care, eight mental health and two are ambulance trusts.
For the first time, the watchdog is planning spot checks throughout the NHS, rather than just inspecting hospitals. Under a new system, trusts that cannot show that they are meeting standards on infection control face conditions on their registration when the Care Quality Commission takes over as regulator next April. Healthcare Commission chief executive Anna Walker said NHS trusts also needed to pay attention to other infections. She said: 'We must not take our eye off the other infections such as norovirus, which are as significant for patients if they catch them in hospital.'
In the watchdog's rating of the 391 NHS trusts across England for 2007-08, 42 trusts were ranked excellent on both the quality of services and their use of resources compared with 19 in 2006-07 and two the previous year.
But Derek Butler, chairman of MRSA Action, said some hospitals were making virtually no headway in getting on top of healthcare infections. He said 'Why are we allowing any hospitals not to comply with the hygiene code, we should be sending inspectors in. 'We know 17 hospitals actually had more MRSA cases last year than in 2004, since when they are supposed to have halved their rates.'
Shadow Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley, said 'It's encouraging to see that overall standards are improving in many NHS Trusts, but there are still some disturbing gaps in performance.'
Steve Barnett, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation which represents over 95 per cent of NHS organisations, said 'While the Annual Health Check shows a trend of improvement in healthcare acquired infections, we support a zero tolerance approach and we know NHS organisations are fully committed to achieving this.'
Source
Rain makes you fatter
There could be something in this but if so the Brits should be hugely fat. It rains all the time there. But they seem to be about average for weight, in fact
SUNSHINE not only makes you feel good, but now it has been revealed that it has powers of weight loss, as rain can cause people to gain weight. While it may be the only good news for the drought-ravaged farmers, a team from Aberdeen University found miserable weather made it harder for dieters to shed weight.
They found those who were overweight had lower levels of vitamin D - which is created when the body is exposed to sunlight. The amount of vitamin D in the blood influences the functioning of a hormone called leptin, which tells the brain when the stomach is full. The obese produced a tenth less vitamin D than those of average weight.
Heavy rain, particularly in rural areas, also raises the risk of catching the potentially fatal bug E-coli. The concern is that farmers' slurry contains E.coli O157 bacteria from cattle muck; heavy rain can wash the slurry into streams and form puddles; the bacteria can then be found in mud stuck to boots, or spread by pets.
The Daily Mail reports that people with old injuries maintain that their scars ache when the weather is threatening and the low atmospheric pressure can induce premature labor. Monica Seles, the tennis star who was stabbed in the back during a tennis tournament in Germany, told one interviewer that her scar would tingle when rain was coming.
Source
Friday, October 17, 2008
Scientists Challenge UK Govt Climate Committee to 'Drop flawed science and the Climate Change millstone - Save the economy'
CO2 is the Gas Of Life ('GOL'), it is not a problem
The recommendation that the UK cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent* is "total madness based on false science" said Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction long range forecasters. "There is no evidence that Carbon dioxide has ever controlled, is controlling or will ever control world temperatures or climate and I challenge the promoters of this nonsense to produce evidence to justify their policies - or drop them, just as 13 world scientists** have similarly challenged the UN.
"Climate Change policy is a millstone around the UK and world economies. The beneficiaries are oil companies who ram up prices with abandon (taking advantage of limits placed on expansion of coal), bio-fuel producers who are increasing food prices and starvation, and the booming industry of climate change parasites such as carbon traders and nuclear power-mongers.
"Taxpayers and the developing world are the losers. There is a world recession now upon us which is being made deeper by Climate Change policies and the perpetrators must be called to account. Banks and industry are going bust yet the green fundamentalists want to impose more of this madness on the world. They actually want to increase their burden on the UK economy and deepen the world recession**.
"Genuine green policies to defend bio-diversity and reduce waste should be supported but the deceitful manipulation of the goodwill of many people in order to promote policies of mass taxation, expensive and dangerous energy like nuclear power and cuts in world living standards must be stopped. The UK and the world now need cheap energy solutions like coal to diesel technology which can be made smoke free. The danger for honest green campaigners - unless they break from the stranglehold of the Climate Change lobby - is that when the Global Warming swindle is exposed their spirited defence of nature will be forgotten too.
"CO2 is no problem - it is the Gas of Life (GOL). The problem is Climate Change Policy - not Climate Change which is beyond man's control. Global warming is over. World temperatures have fallen from their peak ten years ago while GOL (CO2) has been rising rapidly. The world was much warmer than now in the Bronze age 4,000 years ago and there was much less GOL (CO2) then. The bounteousness of world vegetation goes up with GOL. We need more GOL not less!
"13 world scientists wrote** to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in July asking for evidence to justify UN Climate Change policy and calling for the UN's climate committee (IPCC) to be made accountable. Tim Yeo MP** (chair of the Parliament Environment Audit Committee) was also written to in July. Neither have acknowledged or replied. The reason is they have nothing to say. I urge members of the public to send the scientists' letter to the UN** to their MP and ask their MPs to make the UN and Tim Yeo+ 'Put Up or Shut Up'. Gordon Brown** was also written to and his office promised to reply".
Source
Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over
Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert. Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones, of University College London. Speaking today at a UCL lecture entitled "Human evolution is over" Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution - natural selection, mutation and random change. "Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns," Professor Jones told The Times.
"Human social change often changes our genetic future," he said, citing marriage patterns and contraception as examples. Although chemicals and radioactive pollution could alter genetics, one of the most important mutation triggers is advanced age in men. This is because cell divisions in males increase with age. "Every time there is a cell division, there is a chance of a mistake, a mutation, an error," he said. "For a 29-year old father [the mean age of reproduction in the West] there are around 300 divisions between the sperm that made him and the one he passes on - each one with an opportunity to make mistakes. "For a 50-year-old father, the figure is well over a thousand. A drop in the number of older fathers will thus have a major effect on the rate of mutation."
Professor Jones added: "In the old days, you would find one powerful man having hundreds of children." He cites the fecund Moulay Ismail of Morocco, who died in the 18th century, and is reputed to have fathered 888 children. To achieve this feat, Ismail is thought to have copulated with an average of about 1.2 women a day over 60 years.
Another factor is the weakening of natural selection. "In ancient times half our children would have died by the age of 20. Now, in the Western world, 98 per cent of them are surviving to 21."
Decreasing randomness is another contributing factor. "Humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom, and we have agriculture to thank for that. Without farming, the world population would probably have reached half a million by now - about the size of the population of Glasgow. "Small populations which are isolated can evolve at random as genes are accidentally lost. World-wide, all populations are becoming connected and the opportunity for random change is dwindling. History is made in bed, but nowadays the beds are getting closer together. We are mixing into a glo-bal mass, and the future is brown."
Source
CO2 is the Gas Of Life ('GOL'), it is not a problem
The recommendation that the UK cut its greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent* is "total madness based on false science" said Piers Corbyn of WeatherAction long range forecasters. "There is no evidence that Carbon dioxide has ever controlled, is controlling or will ever control world temperatures or climate and I challenge the promoters of this nonsense to produce evidence to justify their policies - or drop them, just as 13 world scientists** have similarly challenged the UN.
"Climate Change policy is a millstone around the UK and world economies. The beneficiaries are oil companies who ram up prices with abandon (taking advantage of limits placed on expansion of coal), bio-fuel producers who are increasing food prices and starvation, and the booming industry of climate change parasites such as carbon traders and nuclear power-mongers.
"Taxpayers and the developing world are the losers. There is a world recession now upon us which is being made deeper by Climate Change policies and the perpetrators must be called to account. Banks and industry are going bust yet the green fundamentalists want to impose more of this madness on the world. They actually want to increase their burden on the UK economy and deepen the world recession**.
"Genuine green policies to defend bio-diversity and reduce waste should be supported but the deceitful manipulation of the goodwill of many people in order to promote policies of mass taxation, expensive and dangerous energy like nuclear power and cuts in world living standards must be stopped. The UK and the world now need cheap energy solutions like coal to diesel technology which can be made smoke free. The danger for honest green campaigners - unless they break from the stranglehold of the Climate Change lobby - is that when the Global Warming swindle is exposed their spirited defence of nature will be forgotten too.
"CO2 is no problem - it is the Gas of Life (GOL). The problem is Climate Change Policy - not Climate Change which is beyond man's control. Global warming is over. World temperatures have fallen from their peak ten years ago while GOL (CO2) has been rising rapidly. The world was much warmer than now in the Bronze age 4,000 years ago and there was much less GOL (CO2) then. The bounteousness of world vegetation goes up with GOL. We need more GOL not less!
"13 world scientists wrote** to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in July asking for evidence to justify UN Climate Change policy and calling for the UN's climate committee (IPCC) to be made accountable. Tim Yeo MP** (chair of the Parliament Environment Audit Committee) was also written to in July. Neither have acknowledged or replied. The reason is they have nothing to say. I urge members of the public to send the scientists' letter to the UN** to their MP and ask their MPs to make the UN and Tim Yeo+ 'Put Up or Shut Up'. Gordon Brown** was also written to and his office promised to reply".
Source
Leading geneticist Steve Jones says human evolution is over
Human evolution is grinding to a halt because of a shortage of older fathers in the West, according to a leading genetics expert. Fathers over the age of 35 are more likely to pass on mutations, according to Professor Steve Jones, of University College London. Speaking today at a UCL lecture entitled "Human evolution is over" Professor Jones will argue that there were three components to evolution - natural selection, mutation and random change. "Quite unexpectedly, we have dropped the human mutation rate because of a change in reproductive patterns," Professor Jones told The Times.
"Human social change often changes our genetic future," he said, citing marriage patterns and contraception as examples. Although chemicals and radioactive pollution could alter genetics, one of the most important mutation triggers is advanced age in men. This is because cell divisions in males increase with age. "Every time there is a cell division, there is a chance of a mistake, a mutation, an error," he said. "For a 29-year old father [the mean age of reproduction in the West] there are around 300 divisions between the sperm that made him and the one he passes on - each one with an opportunity to make mistakes. "For a 50-year-old father, the figure is well over a thousand. A drop in the number of older fathers will thus have a major effect on the rate of mutation."
Professor Jones added: "In the old days, you would find one powerful man having hundreds of children." He cites the fecund Moulay Ismail of Morocco, who died in the 18th century, and is reputed to have fathered 888 children. To achieve this feat, Ismail is thought to have copulated with an average of about 1.2 women a day over 60 years.
Another factor is the weakening of natural selection. "In ancient times half our children would have died by the age of 20. Now, in the Western world, 98 per cent of them are surviving to 21."
Decreasing randomness is another contributing factor. "Humans are 10,000 times more common than we should be, according to the rules of the animal kingdom, and we have agriculture to thank for that. Without farming, the world population would probably have reached half a million by now - about the size of the population of Glasgow. "Small populations which are isolated can evolve at random as genes are accidentally lost. World-wide, all populations are becoming connected and the opportunity for random change is dwindling. History is made in bed, but nowadays the beds are getting closer together. We are mixing into a glo-bal mass, and the future is brown."
Source
Thursday, October 16, 2008
NHS wants to spend $800,000 on a yacht
An NHS primary care trust has come up with a novel - and expensive – approach to improving public health. The East Yorkshire trust, now known as NHS Hull, is proposing to spend $800,000 on buying a yacht. The trust believes that the purchase of the vessel, which would be funded from its surplus of $80 million, would help it to raise standards of public health in the area, which includes the constituency of the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson.
Critics of the plan say that the money could be better spent on more conventional needs, such as improving hospital facilities In a briefing paper to explain the proposal, the trust says that “the NHS is no longer just about providing care to those who are sick”. It argues that “we need to tackle the reasons for illness rather than just tackle the outcomes of ill health”.
A suitable vessel has already been identified. It would sail with a crew of unemployed teenagers into the North Sea and around Scandinavia, as part of a training programme to help them into work. The idea is that they would return from the high seas not only with skills such as navigation and engineering, but an understanding of the benefits of healthy living.
The health authority says that over three years this welfare-to-work scheme would help 450 teenagers to lead healthier lives. The scheme would be funded by One Hull, a body that includes the heads of the council, the police service and NHS Hull, as well as representatives from businesses and voluntary groups. One Hull would be expected to cover the estimated $900,000 a year needed to run the scheme for the next three years.
The plan has come under fierce attack. Steve Brady, the opposition leader on Hull City Council, told The Times: “First of all, you would think that there were other problems, such as single-sex wards, to be addressed in Hull. Secondly, the government quan-go is spending public money running the yacht, when for a comparable amount of money it could be delivering hundreds of apprenticeships in skills that Hull needs.”
The proposal has met with derision in the local community. “I did not know that NHS money was for this sort of thing,” wrote a contributor on one of Hull’s online message boards. “I thought it was to provide medical services when you are ill and needing medical care – not to provide a few youngsters with freebies.”
Kath Lavery, chairman of NHS Hull, defended the scheme. “It’s a massive programme of intervention in young people’s lifestyles and choices,” she said. “It’s about showing young people in Hull there’s something good in life and they can make lifestyle choices which hopefully mean they will go into higher education.”
Hull’s primary care trust has in previous years lent money to struggling health authorities. A sum of $80 million has now been returned to the trust, all of which has to be spent in the next two years. About $20 million has been ploughed into the purchase of a local hospital previously run by a charity [They needed to reduce its standards, I guess] , and $240,000 has been used to refurbish existing hospital buildings.
NHS Hull says that the vessel it is proposing to buy is of the type used in the round-the-world clipper yacht race, which was conceived in 1995 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. The boats used in the first races were known as Clipper 60s and named after the old tea clippers. In 2004 new Clipper 68s, which are 68ft long, were designed and built in Shanghai. The mast is 81ft tall.
Source
British government scraps public examinations for 14-year-olds
Being in favour with the teacher is all that matters now. The teenage years bring big changes. Assessment at this age could detect students who are going off the rails and help them to straighten out
National school testing for 14-year-olds in England is to be scrapped as part of a major shake up of testing in primary and secondary education, the Government announced today. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said that Key Stage 3 National Curriculum tests, known as Sats, would be replaced by better and more intensive classroom assessment by teachers and more frequent reporting of pupils' progress to parents.
As part of the reforms, an annual School Report Card will be drawn up for every school in England, awarding it a grade from A-F. The report card will show pupil test scores as well as information on attendance, pupil motivation, and other non-academic measures. The report cards replicate a system currently operating in New York City, which provides parents with a "simpler more understandable and more comprehensive view" of individual school performance, Mr Balls told MPs in the House of Commons.
National Key Stage Two testing for 11-year-olds at the end of primary school will remain. A new expert panel will be created to advise on the implementation of the reforms.
The Conservatives welcomed the move, while the National Union of Teachers called for a suspension of all testing in primary schools.
Mr Balls denied that the measures were a U-Turn, but accepted that the decision to scap the Key Stage 3 tests had been based on the view of both head teachers and education experts who believed the tests, introduced by the Conservatives in 1993, had out lived their usefulness. In recent years, Key Stage 3 tests for 14-year-olds have routinely been condemned as unnecessary because GCSEs and A-Level exams already provide an objective and externally marked measure of school performance.
"These reforms will provide more regular and more comprehensive information to parents about their progress, support heads (and) teachers, to make sure that every child can succeed and strengthen our ability to hold all schools to account, as well as the public's ability to hold government to account," Mr Balls said. "Key Stage Two tests are here to stay. They are essential to give parents, teachers and the public the information they need about the progress of every primary aged child and every primary school. "The final year of primary school is critical to prepare children for the step up to secondary school", he said.
More here
UK: Storm over Big Brother database: "Early plans to create a giant `Big Brother' database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK were last night condemned by the Government's own terrorism watchdog. Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws, said the `raw idea' of the database was `awful' and called for controls to stop government agencies using it to conduct fishing expeditions into the private lives of the public. Today the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is expected to signal the Government's intention to press ahead with proposals."
An NHS primary care trust has come up with a novel - and expensive – approach to improving public health. The East Yorkshire trust, now known as NHS Hull, is proposing to spend $800,000 on buying a yacht. The trust believes that the purchase of the vessel, which would be funded from its surplus of $80 million, would help it to raise standards of public health in the area, which includes the constituency of the Health Secretary, Alan Johnson.
Critics of the plan say that the money could be better spent on more conventional needs, such as improving hospital facilities In a briefing paper to explain the proposal, the trust says that “the NHS is no longer just about providing care to those who are sick”. It argues that “we need to tackle the reasons for illness rather than just tackle the outcomes of ill health”.
A suitable vessel has already been identified. It would sail with a crew of unemployed teenagers into the North Sea and around Scandinavia, as part of a training programme to help them into work. The idea is that they would return from the high seas not only with skills such as navigation and engineering, but an understanding of the benefits of healthy living.
The health authority says that over three years this welfare-to-work scheme would help 450 teenagers to lead healthier lives. The scheme would be funded by One Hull, a body that includes the heads of the council, the police service and NHS Hull, as well as representatives from businesses and voluntary groups. One Hull would be expected to cover the estimated $900,000 a year needed to run the scheme for the next three years.
The plan has come under fierce attack. Steve Brady, the opposition leader on Hull City Council, told The Times: “First of all, you would think that there were other problems, such as single-sex wards, to be addressed in Hull. Secondly, the government quan-go is spending public money running the yacht, when for a comparable amount of money it could be delivering hundreds of apprenticeships in skills that Hull needs.”
The proposal has met with derision in the local community. “I did not know that NHS money was for this sort of thing,” wrote a contributor on one of Hull’s online message boards. “I thought it was to provide medical services when you are ill and needing medical care – not to provide a few youngsters with freebies.”
Kath Lavery, chairman of NHS Hull, defended the scheme. “It’s a massive programme of intervention in young people’s lifestyles and choices,” she said. “It’s about showing young people in Hull there’s something good in life and they can make lifestyle choices which hopefully mean they will go into higher education.”
Hull’s primary care trust has in previous years lent money to struggling health authorities. A sum of $80 million has now been returned to the trust, all of which has to be spent in the next two years. About $20 million has been ploughed into the purchase of a local hospital previously run by a charity [They needed to reduce its standards, I guess] , and $240,000 has been used to refurbish existing hospital buildings.
NHS Hull says that the vessel it is proposing to buy is of the type used in the round-the-world clipper yacht race, which was conceived in 1995 by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston. The boats used in the first races were known as Clipper 60s and named after the old tea clippers. In 2004 new Clipper 68s, which are 68ft long, were designed and built in Shanghai. The mast is 81ft tall.
Source
British government scraps public examinations for 14-year-olds
Being in favour with the teacher is all that matters now. The teenage years bring big changes. Assessment at this age could detect students who are going off the rails and help them to straighten out
National school testing for 14-year-olds in England is to be scrapped as part of a major shake up of testing in primary and secondary education, the Government announced today. Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, said that Key Stage 3 National Curriculum tests, known as Sats, would be replaced by better and more intensive classroom assessment by teachers and more frequent reporting of pupils' progress to parents.
As part of the reforms, an annual School Report Card will be drawn up for every school in England, awarding it a grade from A-F. The report card will show pupil test scores as well as information on attendance, pupil motivation, and other non-academic measures. The report cards replicate a system currently operating in New York City, which provides parents with a "simpler more understandable and more comprehensive view" of individual school performance, Mr Balls told MPs in the House of Commons.
National Key Stage Two testing for 11-year-olds at the end of primary school will remain. A new expert panel will be created to advise on the implementation of the reforms.
The Conservatives welcomed the move, while the National Union of Teachers called for a suspension of all testing in primary schools.
Mr Balls denied that the measures were a U-Turn, but accepted that the decision to scap the Key Stage 3 tests had been based on the view of both head teachers and education experts who believed the tests, introduced by the Conservatives in 1993, had out lived their usefulness. In recent years, Key Stage 3 tests for 14-year-olds have routinely been condemned as unnecessary because GCSEs and A-Level exams already provide an objective and externally marked measure of school performance.
"These reforms will provide more regular and more comprehensive information to parents about their progress, support heads (and) teachers, to make sure that every child can succeed and strengthen our ability to hold all schools to account, as well as the public's ability to hold government to account," Mr Balls said. "Key Stage Two tests are here to stay. They are essential to give parents, teachers and the public the information they need about the progress of every primary aged child and every primary school. "The final year of primary school is critical to prepare children for the step up to secondary school", he said.
More here
UK: Storm over Big Brother database: "Early plans to create a giant `Big Brother' database holding information about every phone call, email and internet visit made in the UK were last night condemned by the Government's own terrorism watchdog. Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, the independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws, said the `raw idea' of the database was `awful' and called for controls to stop government agencies using it to conduct fishing expeditions into the private lives of the public. Today the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, is expected to signal the Government's intention to press ahead with proposals."
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
British legislators demand non-party vote on spanking ban
A new attempt to ban smacking will be launched tomorrow by a cross-party group of MPs, as more than 100 Labour backbenchers demand a free vote on the issue. MPs, led by Kevin Barron, the Labour chairman of the all-party Commons Health Committee, are attempting to stop parents from smacking their children as a "reasonable punishment". They will table amendments to the Children and Young Persons Bill, due to be debated by the Commons tomorrow, to give children the same protection against assault as adults.
Campaigners said that 111 Labour MPs had signed a private letter demanding a free vote on smacking, with some backbenchers warning they are prepared to defy Government whips if ministers do not back down.
The last attempt to impose a full ban on smacking was defeated in 2004 when a compromise was agreed, tightening the law by outlawing punishment which left physical marks or caused mental harm. But campaigners say they want action to give children protection against all physical punishment.
Mr Barron said: "We must act now to end the legal approval of hitting children. It is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that the physical integrity and human dignity of every person is respected. The current law allowing so-called 'reasonable punishment' of children is unjust, unsafe and unclear, and must be abolished once and for all."
Source
EU CLIMATE PACKAGE TO COST 73 BILLION EURO BY 2020
Open Europe has produced the first independent estimate of the cost and wider effects of the EU's new package of climate change measures, currently under negotiation. The outcome of the package is of particular concern at a time when Europe stands on the brink of an economic slowdown, and in some member states, recession.
The plan is the most ambitious EU programme since the launch of the euro. The package, which sets a 20% target for overall emissions reduction by 2020, includes binding targets for 20% of energy to be sourced from renewables and for 10% of transport fuels to come from biofuels. For the UK, the proposals would mean sourcing around 40% of electricity from renewable sources (up from under 5% today), a massive overhaul in Britain's entire energy infrastructure. The package will also make a number of important changes to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, raising concerns over the continuing viability of certain heavy industries in Europe.
Huge economic costs: We estimate that the cost of the package as a whole will be more than 73 billion euro per year by 2020 for the EU 25, and œ9bn per year for the UK.
Higher costs mean more fuel poverty: The package would add 130 - 200 pounds a year to the annual domestic energy bill for a family of four in Britain. This has the potential to push one million extra people into fuel poverty. In terms of its overall economic burden, the package will cost the equivalent of 150 pounds per person per year, or 600 per family of four per year in the UK. This would rise to almost 730 per year if renewable energy technology remains at current levels.
Unnecessarily high costs: Importantly, the study concludes that the EU's proposals are an overpriced solution to climate change. We estimate that the cost of carbon abatement under the package will be 80 - 105 euro/tonne CO2. This is more than double the UK Government's benchmark shadow cost of carbon (42 euro/tonne in 2020), and the estimate of consultants McKinsey of 40 euro/tonne for bringing emissions down to safe levels.
Cost-effectiveness of green policies is now more important than ever: At a time of financial crisis, rising energy costs and the likelihood of economic downturn in Europe, it is essential that climate change policy is cost-effective and reduces carbon emissions with the lowest possible economic impact.
Tough negotiations lie ahead over the next two months: Key elements of the plan were approved by the European Parliament's Environment Committee on Tuesday 7 October. However, the bulk of the negotiations lie ahead. EU heads of state and government will discuss the package at the European Summit next week (15 - 16 October), and it will come before EU Environment Ministers during the EU Environment Council meeting on the 20 - 22 October. The French Presidency of the EU wants to complete the entire process by the end of this year, but faces opposition from some member states such as Poland.
Hugo Robinson, Open Europe Research Director and author of the report said: "At a time of rising energy bills and worries over the economy, the EU's climate change package is the last thing that hard-pressed consumers need.
Now more than ever, it should be obvious that we need to reduce carbon emissions as efficiently and cheaply as possible - but the EU proposals are extremely bad value for money. This means we will pay far more than necessary in fighting climate change; or put another way, we could spend the same amount of money and reduce emissions by a lot more.
It is legitimate for the EU to set targets for absolute carbon emissions reductions, which should be our ultimate priority. However, it is wrong for Brussels to micromanage national energy planning by setting binding targets for renewables and biofuels. This will artificially drive investment towards very high-cost methods of cutting carbon.
The politicians who sign up to this deal will be out of office in ten years time - but pensioners and the poor who will be left with the biggest bills."
To view the full report, "The EU Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package - Are we about to be locked into the wrong policy?", click here (PDF).
Source
NHS dentists accused of unnecessary check-ups
Dentists are calling patients back for routine appointments far sooner than they need to, in an effort to maximise profits, according to the Government's chief dental officer. NHS dentists earn significantly more since new contracts were introduced in England two years ago but officials believe this could be because some are “playing the system”.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) suggests that most healthy patients do not need a check-up more than once every two years. But Barry Cockcroft, the Chief Dental Officer, believes that many patients are being called back for unnecessary appointments as often as every six months, or paying extra for repeat visits for fillings, crowns or other treatments that could be given in one go. Evidence compiled by the Department of Health suggests that as many as 800,000 appointments - one in ten - could be freed up for more needy patients.
NHS dentists saw 27 million patients in England during the past two years - 1.1 million fewer than than in the two years before the new contracts. In the first year of the new system dentists' average annual income rose from 87,000 to 96,000 pounds. For dentists who own their practice, earnings jumped 35 per cent to an average of 172,000.
Treatment costs are now divided into three bands: 16.20 for a check-up or minor treatment; 44.60 for fillings, root canal work or if your dentist needs to take out one or more of your teeth; and 198 for crowns, dentures or bridges. Children and some adults are exempt from the charges and patients should have to pay only once, even if they need several appointments during one course of treatment. But dentists could abuse this by postponing additional treatments until after a subsequent check-up.
Recently, officials have compared NHS returns by dentists, which give each individual patient a code, to see how many people are attending repeat appointments. Mr Cockcroft is now discussing with local health authorities how to amend the contract so that patients are not overcharged.
A Department of Health source said: “Many patients have been seeing their dentist at six-month intervals for years, but there is no evidence to support this as clinically necessary.” Abuse of the system is believed to be more prevalent in the South, where access to NHS dentists is more difficult. “These dentists are seeing the same healthy patients a lot. Instead of recalling them every year or two years they are coming back every three or four months.”
There were no plans to prosecute dentists, the source said. “We don't want to get into trying to court martial people. We just want to stop it.” Peter Ward, chief executive of the British Dental Association, which represents dentists, said it had noted no evidence that patients were being seen more regularly than they had to be.
The Department of Health said: “Dentists are required by law to provide the best possible healthcare to their patients. If a patient has reason to believe that this has not happened then they can report them to their local primary care trust.”
Source
Fat people get worse treatment than drunks and junkies
Fat people are treated worse than alcoholics or drug addicts by society, according to the television presenter Anne Diamond. The former breakfast TV host, who once underwent radical surgery in her battle to lose weight, claimed obesity in Britain has reached crisis levels so quickly that the public do not understand it and stigmatise the seriously overweight. She said the cost of treating illnesses linked to obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease, will bankrupt the National Health Service unless action is taken to help people lose weight. But she added that she feared a likely Conservative government will only blame fat people for their size and not help tackle the problems of poor diet and lack of exercise that lie behind it.
Miss Diamond, 54, who made her name presenting TV-AM in the 1980s, returned to television in 2002 on Celebrity Big Brother having put on 5 stones. She weighed almost 15st when she appeared on ITV's Celebrity Fit Club in 2006, but during filming admitted she had undergone surgery to help her lose weight, having a gastric band fitted to reduce the amount of food she could eat. Miss Diamond is now writing a book about the global obesity epidemic and chaired a discussion at the National Obesity Forum's annual conference in London on Tuesday.
New research suggests three quarters of British adults are already overweight or obese, 10 per cent more than previously feared, with the NHS spending o4.2bn on treating diseases linked to weight last year. Miss Diamond said: "Obesity is one of those things that is hugely stigmatised in society, but the more we talk about it, the more we get it into the open. "We are much more sympathetic to credit card addicts, alcoholics and drug addicts than the obese.
"I think it's because obesity is fairly new - there have always been fat people but they stand out and it's easy to bully them. It's happened so suddenly, in the past 20 to 30 years for adults and in the past five for children. "Most people hate being fat, and just because they fail to lose weight doesn't mean they are lazy - it just means it's difficult."
More here
A new attempt to ban smacking will be launched tomorrow by a cross-party group of MPs, as more than 100 Labour backbenchers demand a free vote on the issue. MPs, led by Kevin Barron, the Labour chairman of the all-party Commons Health Committee, are attempting to stop parents from smacking their children as a "reasonable punishment". They will table amendments to the Children and Young Persons Bill, due to be debated by the Commons tomorrow, to give children the same protection against assault as adults.
Campaigners said that 111 Labour MPs had signed a private letter demanding a free vote on smacking, with some backbenchers warning they are prepared to defy Government whips if ministers do not back down.
The last attempt to impose a full ban on smacking was defeated in 2004 when a compromise was agreed, tightening the law by outlawing punishment which left physical marks or caused mental harm. But campaigners say they want action to give children protection against all physical punishment.
Mr Barron said: "We must act now to end the legal approval of hitting children. It is the responsibility of Parliament to ensure that the physical integrity and human dignity of every person is respected. The current law allowing so-called 'reasonable punishment' of children is unjust, unsafe and unclear, and must be abolished once and for all."
Source
EU CLIMATE PACKAGE TO COST 73 BILLION EURO BY 2020
Open Europe has produced the first independent estimate of the cost and wider effects of the EU's new package of climate change measures, currently under negotiation. The outcome of the package is of particular concern at a time when Europe stands on the brink of an economic slowdown, and in some member states, recession.
The plan is the most ambitious EU programme since the launch of the euro. The package, which sets a 20% target for overall emissions reduction by 2020, includes binding targets for 20% of energy to be sourced from renewables and for 10% of transport fuels to come from biofuels. For the UK, the proposals would mean sourcing around 40% of electricity from renewable sources (up from under 5% today), a massive overhaul in Britain's entire energy infrastructure. The package will also make a number of important changes to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, raising concerns over the continuing viability of certain heavy industries in Europe.
Huge economic costs: We estimate that the cost of the package as a whole will be more than 73 billion euro per year by 2020 for the EU 25, and œ9bn per year for the UK.
Higher costs mean more fuel poverty: The package would add 130 - 200 pounds a year to the annual domestic energy bill for a family of four in Britain. This has the potential to push one million extra people into fuel poverty. In terms of its overall economic burden, the package will cost the equivalent of 150 pounds per person per year, or 600 per family of four per year in the UK. This would rise to almost 730 per year if renewable energy technology remains at current levels.
Unnecessarily high costs: Importantly, the study concludes that the EU's proposals are an overpriced solution to climate change. We estimate that the cost of carbon abatement under the package will be 80 - 105 euro/tonne CO2. This is more than double the UK Government's benchmark shadow cost of carbon (42 euro/tonne in 2020), and the estimate of consultants McKinsey of 40 euro/tonne for bringing emissions down to safe levels.
Cost-effectiveness of green policies is now more important than ever: At a time of financial crisis, rising energy costs and the likelihood of economic downturn in Europe, it is essential that climate change policy is cost-effective and reduces carbon emissions with the lowest possible economic impact.
Tough negotiations lie ahead over the next two months: Key elements of the plan were approved by the European Parliament's Environment Committee on Tuesday 7 October. However, the bulk of the negotiations lie ahead. EU heads of state and government will discuss the package at the European Summit next week (15 - 16 October), and it will come before EU Environment Ministers during the EU Environment Council meeting on the 20 - 22 October. The French Presidency of the EU wants to complete the entire process by the end of this year, but faces opposition from some member states such as Poland.
Hugo Robinson, Open Europe Research Director and author of the report said: "At a time of rising energy bills and worries over the economy, the EU's climate change package is the last thing that hard-pressed consumers need.
Now more than ever, it should be obvious that we need to reduce carbon emissions as efficiently and cheaply as possible - but the EU proposals are extremely bad value for money. This means we will pay far more than necessary in fighting climate change; or put another way, we could spend the same amount of money and reduce emissions by a lot more.
It is legitimate for the EU to set targets for absolute carbon emissions reductions, which should be our ultimate priority. However, it is wrong for Brussels to micromanage national energy planning by setting binding targets for renewables and biofuels. This will artificially drive investment towards very high-cost methods of cutting carbon.
The politicians who sign up to this deal will be out of office in ten years time - but pensioners and the poor who will be left with the biggest bills."
To view the full report, "The EU Climate Action and Renewable Energy Package - Are we about to be locked into the wrong policy?", click here (PDF).
Source
NHS dentists accused of unnecessary check-ups
Dentists are calling patients back for routine appointments far sooner than they need to, in an effort to maximise profits, according to the Government's chief dental officer. NHS dentists earn significantly more since new contracts were introduced in England two years ago but officials believe this could be because some are “playing the system”.
The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) suggests that most healthy patients do not need a check-up more than once every two years. But Barry Cockcroft, the Chief Dental Officer, believes that many patients are being called back for unnecessary appointments as often as every six months, or paying extra for repeat visits for fillings, crowns or other treatments that could be given in one go. Evidence compiled by the Department of Health suggests that as many as 800,000 appointments - one in ten - could be freed up for more needy patients.
NHS dentists saw 27 million patients in England during the past two years - 1.1 million fewer than than in the two years before the new contracts. In the first year of the new system dentists' average annual income rose from 87,000 to 96,000 pounds. For dentists who own their practice, earnings jumped 35 per cent to an average of 172,000.
Treatment costs are now divided into three bands: 16.20 for a check-up or minor treatment; 44.60 for fillings, root canal work or if your dentist needs to take out one or more of your teeth; and 198 for crowns, dentures or bridges. Children and some adults are exempt from the charges and patients should have to pay only once, even if they need several appointments during one course of treatment. But dentists could abuse this by postponing additional treatments until after a subsequent check-up.
Recently, officials have compared NHS returns by dentists, which give each individual patient a code, to see how many people are attending repeat appointments. Mr Cockcroft is now discussing with local health authorities how to amend the contract so that patients are not overcharged.
A Department of Health source said: “Many patients have been seeing their dentist at six-month intervals for years, but there is no evidence to support this as clinically necessary.” Abuse of the system is believed to be more prevalent in the South, where access to NHS dentists is more difficult. “These dentists are seeing the same healthy patients a lot. Instead of recalling them every year or two years they are coming back every three or four months.”
There were no plans to prosecute dentists, the source said. “We don't want to get into trying to court martial people. We just want to stop it.” Peter Ward, chief executive of the British Dental Association, which represents dentists, said it had noted no evidence that patients were being seen more regularly than they had to be.
The Department of Health said: “Dentists are required by law to provide the best possible healthcare to their patients. If a patient has reason to believe that this has not happened then they can report them to their local primary care trust.”
Source
Fat people get worse treatment than drunks and junkies
Fat people are treated worse than alcoholics or drug addicts by society, according to the television presenter Anne Diamond. The former breakfast TV host, who once underwent radical surgery in her battle to lose weight, claimed obesity in Britain has reached crisis levels so quickly that the public do not understand it and stigmatise the seriously overweight. She said the cost of treating illnesses linked to obesity, such as diabetes and heart disease, will bankrupt the National Health Service unless action is taken to help people lose weight. But she added that she feared a likely Conservative government will only blame fat people for their size and not help tackle the problems of poor diet and lack of exercise that lie behind it.
Miss Diamond, 54, who made her name presenting TV-AM in the 1980s, returned to television in 2002 on Celebrity Big Brother having put on 5 stones. She weighed almost 15st when she appeared on ITV's Celebrity Fit Club in 2006, but during filming admitted she had undergone surgery to help her lose weight, having a gastric band fitted to reduce the amount of food she could eat. Miss Diamond is now writing a book about the global obesity epidemic and chaired a discussion at the National Obesity Forum's annual conference in London on Tuesday.
New research suggests three quarters of British adults are already overweight or obese, 10 per cent more than previously feared, with the NHS spending o4.2bn on treating diseases linked to weight last year. Miss Diamond said: "Obesity is one of those things that is hugely stigmatised in society, but the more we talk about it, the more we get it into the open. "We are much more sympathetic to credit card addicts, alcoholics and drug addicts than the obese.
"I think it's because obesity is fairly new - there have always been fat people but they stand out and it's easy to bully them. It's happened so suddenly, in the past 20 to 30 years for adults and in the past five for children. "Most people hate being fat, and just because they fail to lose weight doesn't mean they are lazy - it just means it's difficult."
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Tuesday, October 14, 2008
A look at climate skepticism from Britain's "Greenest" newspaper:
Global warming is happening and we're to blame, right? That's certainly the view of almost every expert in the field. But a die-hard band of naysayers continues to rail against the consensus. Are they completely mad? Judge for yourself...
The caption calls him the "high priest of deceit and global destruction". The picture has him belching fire like a dragon. And who is the subject of this highly personal attack? None other than Al Gore, who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for their success in bringing the climate-change crisis to global public attention.
Not everybody likes Gore and his beliefs about the future of our planet - and especially not Hans Schreuder, the 62-year-old former chemist who runs the Gore-baiting website Ilovemycarbondioxide.com (see page 29). Schreuder is one of the climate-change sceptics who continue to make their case despite the mounting evidence of climate change that we, the public, are presented with every day; despite the unanimous endorsement of climate-change theory by every national academy of science in the industrialised world.
Even President Bush, who stalled developments for so long, has conceded that climate change is real, and caused by man-made carbon emissions. And even Bush has tried, however half-heartedly, to do something about it in the last days of his administration. (Though the big challenge remains to persuade the new major emitters - China and India - to sign any agreement on reductions.)
The sceptics declare that the central evidence for carbon-driven climate change in the reports of the IPCC are nonsense. Specifically, the "hockey stick" graph, which correlates the steep rise in world temperatures to the steep rise in carbon emissions, and which Gore demonstrates, with the help of a hydraulic crane, in his film An Inconvenient Truth. Gore's opponents say there's evidence that world temperatures have, in fact, begun to fall since 2000.
In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Committee voiced "concerns" about the objectivity of the IPCC, suggesting some of the agency's emissions projections were "influenced by political considerations". The committee's claims were subsequently rejected by the Government and the Stern Review on the economics of climate change, but the vested-interests argument unites sceptics, and mirrors the accusations often levelled at them in turn, that they are in the pockets of big oil, big gas, or the US Republican Party.
The sceptics come from the worlds of politics, economics, television and, crucially, science. David Bellamy (opposite), a professor of botany who was formerly the televisual face of eco-evangelism, has been compared with a Holocaust denier because he doesn't believe carbon emissions cause climate change. Climatologist Piers Corbyn (page 25) is convinced climate change is caused by solar activity, not CO2. Economist Ruth Lea (page 25) warns of the IPCC's political and business interests. Martin Durkin (page 28), maker of the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, says the green industry is in too deep to afford to acknowledge scientific law. And the former Chancellor, Nigel Lawson (page 27), maintains that though the science of climate change could be broadly correct, its consequences have been exaggerated.
Should we give their opinions the time of day? Whether you agree or not (and chances are you won't), the climate-change sceptics have no intention of shutting up.
The conservationist: David Bellamy
David Bellamy is an environmental campaigner and former television presenter. He was senior lecturer in Botany at Durham University until 1982, where he is now an honorary professor
"Global warming is the biggest scam since the church sold indulgences back in the Middle Ages. If our Government actually believes that all those people are going to die, why did it build Terminal Five?
"I've been doing research on the stability of ecosystems, which is all tied up with human activity, for 22 years. That's why I became a leading greenie in the early days. I have probably stood on more picket lines than anyone to stop forest-clearing, wind farms and the overfishing of the sea. But when the scientific arguments don't add up, one starts to question them: CO2 levels have risen in the atmosphere, but why don't all the other bits of science fall in around that?
"The speed of retreat of glaciers worldwide has not changed. The latest data shows that both the northern and southern ice caps are actually growing. The recent studies of the ice core show that rises in temperature are followed by a release of carbon dioxide, not the other way around. I'll be in New Zealand soon, and two of the major glaciers there are growing like the clappers. And from 1998 there has been no rise at all in the temperature of the earth. Indeed, all the sunspot data tells us we're headed for 15 very cold years.
"Many peer-reviewed papers show that as CO2 goes up, many plants and forests grow up to 40 per cent faster. The New Scientist has reported that 300,000 square kilometres of former desert are now covered with trees. Why don't we have all those good points publicised?
"Global temperature has risen at a natural rate that began 300 years ago. That slope of change has not changed since then, so how can we say that carbon is the driver? The sun has more correlations with temperature change than carbon. "The whole world is hooked on a fear of carbon, and there really is nothing to fear.
"The scientific consensus is not strong, but every time I turn on the television or read a newspaper, I hear that it is. The BBC constantly tells us the lakes in Africa are drying up because of global warming. The lakes are drying up because of the dams around them, and the fact that we are using that local water to produce cut flowers for the European market. Why aren't we told these things?
"If you go through the peer-reviewed literature on our side of the argument, it's near-unanimous in not predicting climate catastrophe. But it has got to a state of McCarthyism within science. As a university don, I used to try to get every tenth paper of mine into [the weekly science journal] Nature. But Nature will not touch any papers which are anti the global-warming ethic. I have been called a Holocaust denier. If they weren't really frightened they were losing the argument, they wouldn't write those things." '
The economist: Ruth Lea
Ruth Lea is economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, and formerly held positions including director of the Centre for Policy Studies, head of the Policy Unit at the Institute of Directors, and economics editor of ITN
"The foundation of our climate-change policy is the projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We've signed up to the IPCC, as an agency of the UN, and it's portrayed as an impartial, independent scientific organisation. In fact, it's highly political, most of its members are governmental appointees, and it contains a strong element of evangelical environmentalism. But whatever you think about it politically, you have to look at its projections, as they are core to the whole debate.
"The IPCC makes assumptions on economic growth, assumptions on fuel prices and demographics, then it puts all these assumptions into a model, which produces a forecast for carbon-dioxide emissions. Then it puts those results into a climate model, which predicts temperature change for the next century.
"I wouldn't claim to be qualified to speak about the climate models, but as an economist and statistician, I look at its predictions for economic growth, fuel consumption, demographics and so on, and I ask myself how it can possibly know what these will be by the end of the century.
"I made some economic forecasts about six weeks ago, and then we were hit by a financial crisis, so who knows where fuel costs are going? Yet the IPCC says it knows what'll be happening in 100 years' time.
"Climate-change policy is predicated on the IPCC stuff being taken as gospel. When I started to study the economics, I was shocked. Like many people, I assumed the IPCC findings were rock- solid and unquestionable. But when I looked at how it made its projections, I was horrified. I don't think people realise the vast uncertainties. When you hear people saying the temperature is going to rise by four degrees this century, do you hear anyone explaining that there's only a 0.001 probability that will happen? No.
"I wrote a sceptical letter to the FT in 2006, and there was a very dismissive, patronising, curt response from the Royal Society as if to say, 'How dare you question any of this?' I was amazed at its tone. And the writer and environmentalist George Monbiot has accused me of being financed by the oil companies. If only!
"Anybody who disputes the IPCC's projections is branded a Holocaust denier. I find that offensive. If I had relatives who'd been murdered in the Holocaust, I'd be beside myself with anger.
"When I started to utter my views, I discovered there were quite a few vested interests in green industry, not least in carbon-trading. And boy, they didn't like it. Questioning this stuff rips away the foundations of their business.
"There are probably more economists in a position to speak freely than there are scientists - we can afford to. The problem for scientists is that they have to go along with government policy, which currently states that we're all going to be fried alive in the next 50 years."
The climatologist: Piers Corbyn
Piers Corbyn is the maverick weather forecaster and owner of Weather Action, which makes forecasts up to a year in advance based on Corbyn's theory of the 'Solar Weather Technique'
"There's no evidence that carbon dioxide drives world temperatures or climate change. The 'hockey stick' is fraud, Al Gore's film is fraud, and schemes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by machines are a scam.
"Temperatures rose since about 1915, but if you look in more detail, estimates show that they've declined since 2002. As it grew, the global-warming empire set about trying to find data to prove its case, but the data it found actually disproves its case. That's why the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Project doesn't highlight the results that negate the theory.
"The idea that climate change causes extreme weather is preposterous. The average number of landfall storms per decade in the US was higher between 1900 and 1960 than in the past 30 or so years. I've met scientists who've said I'm probably right, but if you're in a university funded to research global warming, you're not going to speak up.
"People say that I oppose climate-change theory because I want my way of forecasting to be proved right. But the reason I think the CO2 theory is wrong is that the CO2 theory is wrong." '
The politician: Nigel Lawson
Now Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer this year published 'An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming', in which he was critical of climate-change policy, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Stern Review
"There has been no global warming this century, and that is apparent from figures produced by the Hadley Centre, the branch of the UK Met Office that monitors world temperatures.
"There's also uncertainty over the impact of climate change, even if it does happen. If you take the trouble to read the IPCC reports, there's a mixed bag of potential consequences, some of them beneficial.
"After the hot summer of 2003, the Department of Health looked into what might happen in the UK if the temperature by 2050 matched predictions. It found there would be an increase in deaths from dehydration of 2,000 per year, but a reduction in deaths from hypothermia of 20,000 per year.
"We're told that there has to be a global agreement to deal with global warming, to cut back drastically on carbon-dioxide emissions, but it's simply not going to happen. The Chinese and Indians have made it clear that they're not going to cut back, and with good reason. Their number-one priority is to get their people out of poverty. That means the most rapid possible rate of growth, which means using the cheapest available form of energy, which, now and for the foreseeable future, is carbon-based energy.
"If warming occurs, we should adapt, as mankind has always done. People live in a whole range of climates already. Technology will develop in ways that we can't predict. We can help poor countries to adapt with aid programmes, which will be infinitely cheaper than wrecking our own economies.
"There is a great clash going on between the developing world and the developed world over this, which is politically dangerous. People as diverse as the EU industry commissioner, President Sarkozy of France, and the Democrats in the US Congress, are saying that if China and India won't cut back emissions, then we must impose tariffs on their goods. That kind of retreat into protectionism would be very damaging economically.
"Still, I think you'll find now that both major parties are giving this issue a lot less prominence than they were a year ago, and that is all to the good. The last thing we want is foolish and damaging commitments being made."'
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UK government proposes speed camera network covering every A-road in the name of fighting global warming.
The UK Commission for Integrated Transport last year proposed a nationwide blanket of speed cameras as a means of fighting global warming. After a series of trials, the Home Office is now set to make this a reality by approving early next year the SPECS3 "distance over time speed measuring device" that will make it impossible to drive on any primary road in Britain without being tracked and subjected to an instant fine for exceeding the posted speed limit.
"With respect to technology, we are in a period of explosive evolution in traffic control technology," a commission report entitled Transport and Climate Change explained. "The Highways Agency already uses several technologies which are either intended to manage speed, or lend themselves to that purpose by monitoring speed and sending drivers messages about their behavior.... Reducing climate impacts of the motorway network should be a major consideration in the development of motorway control and communications technology."
The commission estimated that new SPECS3 cameras could monitor every driver on 31,136 miles of principal rural and urban roads at a cost of US $769,693,415. While the initial investment appears substantial, the commission noted that "enforcing the 70 MPH limit using SPECS would pay for itself within around two years."
The original SPECS systems, first approved in 1999, photographed vehicles when they entered a road, communicating the time of entry via a fiber optic link to a second camera positioned, say, two miles distant. After the second camera had identified the passing vehicle, the amount of time it took the car to pass between the two points was converted into an average speed. The system's limitations included an inability to ticket cars that changed lanes in between camera locations and a purchase price of US $1.4 million to deploy over a distance of just a mile and a quarter.
SPECS3 solves those limitations. It uses an ISDN connection to transmit data between any two cameras in the entire network, as well as the police headquarters, without the need for the expensive dedicated connection. This configuration slashes deployment cost over the same distance to just US $116,000. The system can also track drivers not only as they change lanes, but as they switch between different roads and highways. Pilot projects are already underway in Camden, Surrey and Northern Ireland where road trials began in April. Once established nationwide, records on all vehicle movements20will be stored for five years in a central government Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) server, allowing police to keep tabs on criminals and political opponents. Work on the data center in north London began in 2005 and officials expect real-time, nationwide tracking capability to be available by January.
The original SPECS cameras were found to be quite successful. Between 2000 and 2005, a single camera in Nottinghamshire generated 76,000 tickets worth US $7.2 million. London's entire SPECS network generated as many citations in just three weeks. London camera officials did admit, however, that 5600 tickets were sent to motorists who were completely innocent.
Source
British school pupils are banned from eating tomato ketchup as part of "healthy" eating drive
Ban: Tomato ketchup has been banned from the canteen in a string of Welsh primary schools and replaced with a sauce the cooks make. Primary schools in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, have removed the sauce because it contains 'too much salt and sugar'. The move has been branded 'daft' by some parents. Last week Marmite was banned from school breakfast clubs by Ceredigion Council, in Mid Wales, because of its salt content.
Sharon Chapman, 47, whose eight-year-old son Rory attends Peterston-Super-Ely Primary School said: 'He came home from school and said "We can't have ketchup any more". 'He can live without it and the healthy meals at the school are fantastic, but this seems one step too far. 'Tomato ketchup contains lycopene, which is good for you, but they say it's got a high level of salt and sugar. 'While it's not something you complain about, it seems a bit daft.'
Vale of Glamorgan Council leader Gordon Kemp said: 'It's all part of the healthy-eating programme and I think our council is one of the leading authorities in Wales in this respect.' A Welsh Assembly Government spokesman said: 'We do not tell local authorities not to serve ketchup in schools. 'It is for local authorities to ensure that their school meals are as balanced and healthy as possible.'
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'How I weaned my son off Ritalin and proved discipline is better then drugs'
Earlier this year, Yvonne Dixon's 14-year-old son Jake turned to his mother during the car journey home from school and said calmly: 'If I was still on Ritalin, I think I would have killed myself by now. 'I used to think about throwing myself headfirst through a window. I would sit in my bedroom and cry all the time. 'I didn't want to worry you - I didn't think I could tell anyone what I was feeling.'
Jake, who lives with Yvonne, 44, a nurse, and his stepfather John, a 44-year-old retail manager, is one of the 5 per cent of children diagnosed with ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. What is remarkable about Jake is that he appears cured.
His mother doesn't think that is because he spent three years on Ritalin and a similar drug, dexanphetamin, but is down to old-fashioned discipline. 'I know some parents and medical experts may scoff, but I have seen a miraculous change in my son,' says Yvonne. 'It hasn't been an overnight change, just a steady and consistent improvement in his behaviour over the past six years since I took him off Ritalin.'
Yvonne, who lives in a four-bedroom house in Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, had been told Jake would have to be educated in a special school and need support for the rest of his life. Instead, he is now a bright, articulate teenager who attends a mainstream school and has learned to curb his impulses. 'He holds up a time-out card in class when he feels himself becoming agitated and his concentration goes,' says Yvonne. 'His teacher lets him walk about outside until he feels himself calming down. He is in control of his condition, instead of the other way round.'
Once branded as 'hopelessly disruptive', Jake is taking Btec courses in advanced maths, IT, engineering and travel & tourism. He spends his spare time mending computers for friends and family. And yet he was condemned to a life of chemical dependency from the age of four.
'He was like a zombie on Ritalin,' says Yvonne. 'It was as if all the life had been taken out of him. 'He would rock himself backwards and forwards, crying. All the drug did was keep him quiet and sitting still in class - he didn't learn anything. 'Then, on the way home, tears would be sliding silently down his face. He was utterly miserable. 'I'd relied on the medical profession - of which I am a part - to give me the best advice. 'But I looked at Jake and thought: "This can't be right. You can't go on like this".'
Yvonne believes Ritalin is used to stop children making a nuisance of themselves in overcrowded classrooms. 'It's a scandal,' she says. However, she accepts Jake has problems. As her second child - she has a 19-year-old daughter - she knew there was something different about him before he was a year old. 'There was no eye contact,' she says. 'He didn't like being touched or hugged, and he developed an obsession with lightbulbs. 'He did not take any interest in toys and would never sit still.'
Jake did not speak until he was three, so Yvonne called in a speech therapist. 'She said he was OK, but he'd wake at 5am and take all of his clothes out of the drawers, peel off the wallpaper and once took all the fronts off his chest of drawers.
'His father was in the RAF and was away a lot when Jake was young. 'I do think the stress of coping with our son had a bearing on our marital problems, but it wasn't the whole story. 'It certainly made our time together more fraught because Jake constantly interrupts when you are talking - he can't read social interaction.'
The couple separated when Jake was three, but she claims this did not overly affect him because he does not become emotionally engaged with other people. However, his behavioural problems were all too apparent at nursery. 'He'd run around knocking all the cups out of the other children's hands. The staff would strap him into a chair to keep him still.
'In the past, children like Jake would have just been called naughty, but I believe there is a chemical imbalance in their brains - perhaps they have too much adrenaline. 'What I firmly do not believe is that they should be prescribed powerful drugs.'
At four, Jake was referred by his GP to a paediatrician at Grantham hospital. 'She told us he had ADHD and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Very convenient labels, but I still don't believe they should be controlled by drugs,' says Yvonne. Despite grave reservations, but exhausted by Jake's behaviour and lack of sleep, she agreed to have him put on dexanphetamin. 'This drug, like Ritalin, works on the chemical balance of the brain and has the effect of calming down a child immediately.
'He took it twice a day and the effect was instant. He was like a zombie. 'At first, he would calm down and then, as the effects left him, he went into withdrawal and became utterly miserable. It was terrifying.' A year later, under the advice of the paediatrician, Jake was taken off this drug and put onto Ritalin. 'The effect was the same. I moved him from a big state primary into a village school, but they couldn't cope. 'He just sat there in class, drugged up and learning nothing. It was heartbreaking.'
When Jake was eight, his mother took him off Ritalin. 'I tried an additive-free diet, fish oils and other so-called cures, but nothing worked. He went back to being hyperactive and running round and round,' she says. A year after her divorce, Yvonne had met John, who became her second husband. He took a no-nonsense approach to Jake. 'We decided the way forward was good, old-fashioned discipline.
'In the past, I might have been guilty of giving in to Jake, because he was so persistent. 'I was tired and it was easier to let him race around than try to contain him.' Yvonne created a set routine for Jake: every morning, he gets up at the same time. He is expected to tidy his room and lay out the breakfast things. He has to make eye contact and reply to questions. Manners are vital. 'He has to say please and thank you. I never raise my voice to him, and the atmosphere in the house is always calm,' says Yvonne. 'Everything happens in a specified sequence of events. 'Coming home from school, he has a cup of tea, a snack and then is allowed to go to his bedroom and work on his computer. 'Bedtime is always at the same time, after a bath and reading a book.
'We operate a reward system - if he is late or becomes agitated, he is not allowed to work on his computers. He has learned to control his own behaviour. 'It sounds easy, but it has been a long, slow road. We've had lots of setbacks, because if he can't have what he wants immediately, he could get frustrated. 'But he has learned that I am not going to change my mind and give in to him. 'I have given him boundaries and discipline, and it has worked miracles on his behaviour. The time-out system works at home, too. 'If he feels he is becoming agitated, he has to sit down or go for a walk until he calms down.'
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UK's Largest Teachers' Union Lobbies to Legalise consensual Sex with older Students
Criminalizing otherwise legal sex because one of the parties is a teacher does seem anomalous
The largest UK teachers' union wants the government to decriminalise sex with students who are over the legal age of consent. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said that teachers who have sex with pupils over the age of consent should not be placed on the sex offenders register. Keates called prosecution for statutory rape "a real anomaly in the law that we are concerned about."
NASUWT complained that media reports had misrepresented their position. "To describe the NASUWT's comments on this as 'teachers want the right to bed pupils' as one report has done, simply for pointing out an anomaly which criminalises a teacher but would leave any other adult free from prosecution for the same type of relationship, is a travesty."
Gregory Carlin, however, a child protection activist and head of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition, said that such ideas were another sign of the erosion of legal protections for young people against exploitation. "If the NASUWT philosophy has its day," he said, "exploiting a 16 year old in a brothel would carry no extra penalty." Under the same logic, he said, "Jail guards would be able to take their pick from their charges and foster parents would be spared prosecution for having sex with foster children."
In an official statement dated October 6th, Keates said, "From the time the Sexual Offences legislation was first drafted in 2001 the NASUWT consistently raised the significant anomaly within its provisions. A teacher having a consensual relationship with a pupil over the age of 16 on the roll of the school in which they teach is liable under the Act to prosecution and being placed on the sex offenders register. "However, if the same teacher has a consensual relationship with a young person of the same age who attends another school they would not be prosecuted or classed as sex offenders."
Carlin told LifeSiteNews.com that Keates "knows what she was asking for," which is simply to "legalise sex crimes." List 99 is a secret register of men and women who are barred from working with children by the Department of Education and Skills. Carlin said, "Thousands of teachers are referred to List 99 each year, most of them from the NASUWT. In fact, the referrals doubled between 2003 and 2005."
Source
Harefield (London) transplant deaths review
Heart transplants at Harefield Hospital are being reviewed after four people died within a month of surgery, its NHS trust said. They died after four consecutive operations, conducted by three different surgeons, between July and September. Fifteen transplants have been performed this year at the northwest London hospital. Four people died within 30 days, two inside 90 days and one after 90 days. Last year there were 24 transplants, with no deaths under 30 days. An independent surgeon and cardiologist will carry out the review.
Source
Global warming is happening and we're to blame, right? That's certainly the view of almost every expert in the field. But a die-hard band of naysayers continues to rail against the consensus. Are they completely mad? Judge for yourself...
The caption calls him the "high priest of deceit and global destruction". The picture has him belching fire like a dragon. And who is the subject of this highly personal attack? None other than Al Gore, who last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), for their success in bringing the climate-change crisis to global public attention.
Not everybody likes Gore and his beliefs about the future of our planet - and especially not Hans Schreuder, the 62-year-old former chemist who runs the Gore-baiting website Ilovemycarbondioxide.com (see page 29). Schreuder is one of the climate-change sceptics who continue to make their case despite the mounting evidence of climate change that we, the public, are presented with every day; despite the unanimous endorsement of climate-change theory by every national academy of science in the industrialised world.
Even President Bush, who stalled developments for so long, has conceded that climate change is real, and caused by man-made carbon emissions. And even Bush has tried, however half-heartedly, to do something about it in the last days of his administration. (Though the big challenge remains to persuade the new major emitters - China and India - to sign any agreement on reductions.)
The sceptics declare that the central evidence for carbon-driven climate change in the reports of the IPCC are nonsense. Specifically, the "hockey stick" graph, which correlates the steep rise in world temperatures to the steep rise in carbon emissions, and which Gore demonstrates, with the help of a hydraulic crane, in his film An Inconvenient Truth. Gore's opponents say there's evidence that world temperatures have, in fact, begun to fall since 2000.
In 2005, the House of Lords Economics Committee voiced "concerns" about the objectivity of the IPCC, suggesting some of the agency's emissions projections were "influenced by political considerations". The committee's claims were subsequently rejected by the Government and the Stern Review on the economics of climate change, but the vested-interests argument unites sceptics, and mirrors the accusations often levelled at them in turn, that they are in the pockets of big oil, big gas, or the US Republican Party.
The sceptics come from the worlds of politics, economics, television and, crucially, science. David Bellamy (opposite), a professor of botany who was formerly the televisual face of eco-evangelism, has been compared with a Holocaust denier because he doesn't believe carbon emissions cause climate change. Climatologist Piers Corbyn (page 25) is convinced climate change is caused by solar activity, not CO2. Economist Ruth Lea (page 25) warns of the IPCC's political and business interests. Martin Durkin (page 28), maker of the documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle, says the green industry is in too deep to afford to acknowledge scientific law. And the former Chancellor, Nigel Lawson (page 27), maintains that though the science of climate change could be broadly correct, its consequences have been exaggerated.
Should we give their opinions the time of day? Whether you agree or not (and chances are you won't), the climate-change sceptics have no intention of shutting up.
The conservationist: David Bellamy
David Bellamy is an environmental campaigner and former television presenter. He was senior lecturer in Botany at Durham University until 1982, where he is now an honorary professor
"Global warming is the biggest scam since the church sold indulgences back in the Middle Ages. If our Government actually believes that all those people are going to die, why did it build Terminal Five?
"I've been doing research on the stability of ecosystems, which is all tied up with human activity, for 22 years. That's why I became a leading greenie in the early days. I have probably stood on more picket lines than anyone to stop forest-clearing, wind farms and the overfishing of the sea. But when the scientific arguments don't add up, one starts to question them: CO2 levels have risen in the atmosphere, but why don't all the other bits of science fall in around that?
"The speed of retreat of glaciers worldwide has not changed. The latest data shows that both the northern and southern ice caps are actually growing. The recent studies of the ice core show that rises in temperature are followed by a release of carbon dioxide, not the other way around. I'll be in New Zealand soon, and two of the major glaciers there are growing like the clappers. And from 1998 there has been no rise at all in the temperature of the earth. Indeed, all the sunspot data tells us we're headed for 15 very cold years.
"Many peer-reviewed papers show that as CO2 goes up, many plants and forests grow up to 40 per cent faster. The New Scientist has reported that 300,000 square kilometres of former desert are now covered with trees. Why don't we have all those good points publicised?
"Global temperature has risen at a natural rate that began 300 years ago. That slope of change has not changed since then, so how can we say that carbon is the driver? The sun has more correlations with temperature change than carbon. "The whole world is hooked on a fear of carbon, and there really is nothing to fear.
"The scientific consensus is not strong, but every time I turn on the television or read a newspaper, I hear that it is. The BBC constantly tells us the lakes in Africa are drying up because of global warming. The lakes are drying up because of the dams around them, and the fact that we are using that local water to produce cut flowers for the European market. Why aren't we told these things?
"If you go through the peer-reviewed literature on our side of the argument, it's near-unanimous in not predicting climate catastrophe. But it has got to a state of McCarthyism within science. As a university don, I used to try to get every tenth paper of mine into [the weekly science journal] Nature. But Nature will not touch any papers which are anti the global-warming ethic. I have been called a Holocaust denier. If they weren't really frightened they were losing the argument, they wouldn't write those things." '
The economist: Ruth Lea
Ruth Lea is economic adviser to the Arbuthnot Banking Group, and formerly held positions including director of the Centre for Policy Studies, head of the Policy Unit at the Institute of Directors, and economics editor of ITN
"The foundation of our climate-change policy is the projections made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). We've signed up to the IPCC, as an agency of the UN, and it's portrayed as an impartial, independent scientific organisation. In fact, it's highly political, most of its members are governmental appointees, and it contains a strong element of evangelical environmentalism. But whatever you think about it politically, you have to look at its projections, as they are core to the whole debate.
"The IPCC makes assumptions on economic growth, assumptions on fuel prices and demographics, then it puts all these assumptions into a model, which produces a forecast for carbon-dioxide emissions. Then it puts those results into a climate model, which predicts temperature change for the next century.
"I wouldn't claim to be qualified to speak about the climate models, but as an economist and statistician, I look at its predictions for economic growth, fuel consumption, demographics and so on, and I ask myself how it can possibly know what these will be by the end of the century.
"I made some economic forecasts about six weeks ago, and then we were hit by a financial crisis, so who knows where fuel costs are going? Yet the IPCC says it knows what'll be happening in 100 years' time.
"Climate-change policy is predicated on the IPCC stuff being taken as gospel. When I started to study the economics, I was shocked. Like many people, I assumed the IPCC findings were rock- solid and unquestionable. But when I looked at how it made its projections, I was horrified. I don't think people realise the vast uncertainties. When you hear people saying the temperature is going to rise by four degrees this century, do you hear anyone explaining that there's only a 0.001 probability that will happen? No.
"I wrote a sceptical letter to the FT in 2006, and there was a very dismissive, patronising, curt response from the Royal Society as if to say, 'How dare you question any of this?' I was amazed at its tone. And the writer and environmentalist George Monbiot has accused me of being financed by the oil companies. If only!
"Anybody who disputes the IPCC's projections is branded a Holocaust denier. I find that offensive. If I had relatives who'd been murdered in the Holocaust, I'd be beside myself with anger.
"When I started to utter my views, I discovered there were quite a few vested interests in green industry, not least in carbon-trading. And boy, they didn't like it. Questioning this stuff rips away the foundations of their business.
"There are probably more economists in a position to speak freely than there are scientists - we can afford to. The problem for scientists is that they have to go along with government policy, which currently states that we're all going to be fried alive in the next 50 years."
The climatologist: Piers Corbyn
Piers Corbyn is the maverick weather forecaster and owner of Weather Action, which makes forecasts up to a year in advance based on Corbyn's theory of the 'Solar Weather Technique'
"There's no evidence that carbon dioxide drives world temperatures or climate change. The 'hockey stick' is fraud, Al Gore's film is fraud, and schemes to remove CO2 from the atmosphere by machines are a scam.
"Temperatures rose since about 1915, but if you look in more detail, estimates show that they've declined since 2002. As it grew, the global-warming empire set about trying to find data to prove its case, but the data it found actually disproves its case. That's why the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment Project doesn't highlight the results that negate the theory.
"The idea that climate change causes extreme weather is preposterous. The average number of landfall storms per decade in the US was higher between 1900 and 1960 than in the past 30 or so years. I've met scientists who've said I'm probably right, but if you're in a university funded to research global warming, you're not going to speak up.
"People say that I oppose climate-change theory because I want my way of forecasting to be proved right. But the reason I think the CO2 theory is wrong is that the CO2 theory is wrong." '
The politician: Nigel Lawson
Now Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer this year published 'An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming', in which he was critical of climate-change policy, including the Kyoto Protocol and the Stern Review
"There has been no global warming this century, and that is apparent from figures produced by the Hadley Centre, the branch of the UK Met Office that monitors world temperatures.
"There's also uncertainty over the impact of climate change, even if it does happen. If you take the trouble to read the IPCC reports, there's a mixed bag of potential consequences, some of them beneficial.
"After the hot summer of 2003, the Department of Health looked into what might happen in the UK if the temperature by 2050 matched predictions. It found there would be an increase in deaths from dehydration of 2,000 per year, but a reduction in deaths from hypothermia of 20,000 per year.
"We're told that there has to be a global agreement to deal with global warming, to cut back drastically on carbon-dioxide emissions, but it's simply not going to happen. The Chinese and Indians have made it clear that they're not going to cut back, and with good reason. Their number-one priority is to get their people out of poverty. That means the most rapid possible rate of growth, which means using the cheapest available form of energy, which, now and for the foreseeable future, is carbon-based energy.
"If warming occurs, we should adapt, as mankind has always done. People live in a whole range of climates already. Technology will develop in ways that we can't predict. We can help poor countries to adapt with aid programmes, which will be infinitely cheaper than wrecking our own economies.
"There is a great clash going on between the developing world and the developed world over this, which is politically dangerous. People as diverse as the EU industry commissioner, President Sarkozy of France, and the Democrats in the US Congress, are saying that if China and India won't cut back emissions, then we must impose tariffs on their goods. That kind of retreat into protectionism would be very damaging economically.
"Still, I think you'll find now that both major parties are giving this issue a lot less prominence than they were a year ago, and that is all to the good. The last thing we want is foolish and damaging commitments being made."'
More here
UK government proposes speed camera network covering every A-road in the name of fighting global warming.
The UK Commission for Integrated Transport last year proposed a nationwide blanket of speed cameras as a means of fighting global warming. After a series of trials, the Home Office is now set to make this a reality by approving early next year the SPECS3 "distance over time speed measuring device" that will make it impossible to drive on any primary road in Britain without being tracked and subjected to an instant fine for exceeding the posted speed limit.
"With respect to technology, we are in a period of explosive evolution in traffic control technology," a commission report entitled Transport and Climate Change explained. "The Highways Agency already uses several technologies which are either intended to manage speed, or lend themselves to that purpose by monitoring speed and sending drivers messages about their behavior.... Reducing climate impacts of the motorway network should be a major consideration in the development of motorway control and communications technology."
The commission estimated that new SPECS3 cameras could monitor every driver on 31,136 miles of principal rural and urban roads at a cost of US $769,693,415. While the initial investment appears substantial, the commission noted that "enforcing the 70 MPH limit using SPECS would pay for itself within around two years."
The original SPECS systems, first approved in 1999, photographed vehicles when they entered a road, communicating the time of entry via a fiber optic link to a second camera positioned, say, two miles distant. After the second camera had identified the passing vehicle, the amount of time it took the car to pass between the two points was converted into an average speed. The system's limitations included an inability to ticket cars that changed lanes in between camera locations and a purchase price of US $1.4 million to deploy over a distance of just a mile and a quarter.
SPECS3 solves those limitations. It uses an ISDN connection to transmit data between any two cameras in the entire network, as well as the police headquarters, without the need for the expensive dedicated connection. This configuration slashes deployment cost over the same distance to just US $116,000. The system can also track drivers not only as they change lanes, but as they switch between different roads and highways. Pilot projects are already underway in Camden, Surrey and Northern Ireland where road trials began in April. Once established nationwide, records on all vehicle movements20will be stored for five years in a central government Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) server, allowing police to keep tabs on criminals and political opponents. Work on the data center in north London began in 2005 and officials expect real-time, nationwide tracking capability to be available by January.
The original SPECS cameras were found to be quite successful. Between 2000 and 2005, a single camera in Nottinghamshire generated 76,000 tickets worth US $7.2 million. London's entire SPECS network generated as many citations in just three weeks. London camera officials did admit, however, that 5600 tickets were sent to motorists who were completely innocent.
Source
British school pupils are banned from eating tomato ketchup as part of "healthy" eating drive
Ban: Tomato ketchup has been banned from the canteen in a string of Welsh primary schools and replaced with a sauce the cooks make. Primary schools in the Vale of Glamorgan, South Wales, have removed the sauce because it contains 'too much salt and sugar'. The move has been branded 'daft' by some parents. Last week Marmite was banned from school breakfast clubs by Ceredigion Council, in Mid Wales, because of its salt content.
Sharon Chapman, 47, whose eight-year-old son Rory attends Peterston-Super-Ely Primary School said: 'He came home from school and said "We can't have ketchup any more". 'He can live without it and the healthy meals at the school are fantastic, but this seems one step too far. 'Tomato ketchup contains lycopene, which is good for you, but they say it's got a high level of salt and sugar. 'While it's not something you complain about, it seems a bit daft.'
Vale of Glamorgan Council leader Gordon Kemp said: 'It's all part of the healthy-eating programme and I think our council is one of the leading authorities in Wales in this respect.' A Welsh Assembly Government spokesman said: 'We do not tell local authorities not to serve ketchup in schools. 'It is for local authorities to ensure that their school meals are as balanced and healthy as possible.'
Source
'How I weaned my son off Ritalin and proved discipline is better then drugs'
Earlier this year, Yvonne Dixon's 14-year-old son Jake turned to his mother during the car journey home from school and said calmly: 'If I was still on Ritalin, I think I would have killed myself by now. 'I used to think about throwing myself headfirst through a window. I would sit in my bedroom and cry all the time. 'I didn't want to worry you - I didn't think I could tell anyone what I was feeling.'
Jake, who lives with Yvonne, 44, a nurse, and his stepfather John, a 44-year-old retail manager, is one of the 5 per cent of children diagnosed with ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. What is remarkable about Jake is that he appears cured.
His mother doesn't think that is because he spent three years on Ritalin and a similar drug, dexanphetamin, but is down to old-fashioned discipline. 'I know some parents and medical experts may scoff, but I have seen a miraculous change in my son,' says Yvonne. 'It hasn't been an overnight change, just a steady and consistent improvement in his behaviour over the past six years since I took him off Ritalin.'
Yvonne, who lives in a four-bedroom house in Ingoldsby, Lincolnshire, had been told Jake would have to be educated in a special school and need support for the rest of his life. Instead, he is now a bright, articulate teenager who attends a mainstream school and has learned to curb his impulses. 'He holds up a time-out card in class when he feels himself becoming agitated and his concentration goes,' says Yvonne. 'His teacher lets him walk about outside until he feels himself calming down. He is in control of his condition, instead of the other way round.'
Once branded as 'hopelessly disruptive', Jake is taking Btec courses in advanced maths, IT, engineering and travel & tourism. He spends his spare time mending computers for friends and family. And yet he was condemned to a life of chemical dependency from the age of four.
'He was like a zombie on Ritalin,' says Yvonne. 'It was as if all the life had been taken out of him. 'He would rock himself backwards and forwards, crying. All the drug did was keep him quiet and sitting still in class - he didn't learn anything. 'Then, on the way home, tears would be sliding silently down his face. He was utterly miserable. 'I'd relied on the medical profession - of which I am a part - to give me the best advice. 'But I looked at Jake and thought: "This can't be right. You can't go on like this".'
Yvonne believes Ritalin is used to stop children making a nuisance of themselves in overcrowded classrooms. 'It's a scandal,' she says. However, she accepts Jake has problems. As her second child - she has a 19-year-old daughter - she knew there was something different about him before he was a year old. 'There was no eye contact,' she says. 'He didn't like being touched or hugged, and he developed an obsession with lightbulbs. 'He did not take any interest in toys and would never sit still.'
Jake did not speak until he was three, so Yvonne called in a speech therapist. 'She said he was OK, but he'd wake at 5am and take all of his clothes out of the drawers, peel off the wallpaper and once took all the fronts off his chest of drawers.
'His father was in the RAF and was away a lot when Jake was young. 'I do think the stress of coping with our son had a bearing on our marital problems, but it wasn't the whole story. 'It certainly made our time together more fraught because Jake constantly interrupts when you are talking - he can't read social interaction.'
The couple separated when Jake was three, but she claims this did not overly affect him because he does not become emotionally engaged with other people. However, his behavioural problems were all too apparent at nursery. 'He'd run around knocking all the cups out of the other children's hands. The staff would strap him into a chair to keep him still.
'In the past, children like Jake would have just been called naughty, but I believe there is a chemical imbalance in their brains - perhaps they have too much adrenaline. 'What I firmly do not believe is that they should be prescribed powerful drugs.'
At four, Jake was referred by his GP to a paediatrician at Grantham hospital. 'She told us he had ADHD and OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Very convenient labels, but I still don't believe they should be controlled by drugs,' says Yvonne. Despite grave reservations, but exhausted by Jake's behaviour and lack of sleep, she agreed to have him put on dexanphetamin. 'This drug, like Ritalin, works on the chemical balance of the brain and has the effect of calming down a child immediately.
'He took it twice a day and the effect was instant. He was like a zombie. 'At first, he would calm down and then, as the effects left him, he went into withdrawal and became utterly miserable. It was terrifying.' A year later, under the advice of the paediatrician, Jake was taken off this drug and put onto Ritalin. 'The effect was the same. I moved him from a big state primary into a village school, but they couldn't cope. 'He just sat there in class, drugged up and learning nothing. It was heartbreaking.'
When Jake was eight, his mother took him off Ritalin. 'I tried an additive-free diet, fish oils and other so-called cures, but nothing worked. He went back to being hyperactive and running round and round,' she says. A year after her divorce, Yvonne had met John, who became her second husband. He took a no-nonsense approach to Jake. 'We decided the way forward was good, old-fashioned discipline.
'In the past, I might have been guilty of giving in to Jake, because he was so persistent. 'I was tired and it was easier to let him race around than try to contain him.' Yvonne created a set routine for Jake: every morning, he gets up at the same time. He is expected to tidy his room and lay out the breakfast things. He has to make eye contact and reply to questions. Manners are vital. 'He has to say please and thank you. I never raise my voice to him, and the atmosphere in the house is always calm,' says Yvonne. 'Everything happens in a specified sequence of events. 'Coming home from school, he has a cup of tea, a snack and then is allowed to go to his bedroom and work on his computer. 'Bedtime is always at the same time, after a bath and reading a book.
'We operate a reward system - if he is late or becomes agitated, he is not allowed to work on his computers. He has learned to control his own behaviour. 'It sounds easy, but it has been a long, slow road. We've had lots of setbacks, because if he can't have what he wants immediately, he could get frustrated. 'But he has learned that I am not going to change my mind and give in to him. 'I have given him boundaries and discipline, and it has worked miracles on his behaviour. The time-out system works at home, too. 'If he feels he is becoming agitated, he has to sit down or go for a walk until he calms down.'
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UK's Largest Teachers' Union Lobbies to Legalise consensual Sex with older Students
Criminalizing otherwise legal sex because one of the parties is a teacher does seem anomalous
The largest UK teachers' union wants the government to decriminalise sex with students who are over the legal age of consent. Chris Keates, the general secretary of the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT), said that teachers who have sex with pupils over the age of consent should not be placed on the sex offenders register. Keates called prosecution for statutory rape "a real anomaly in the law that we are concerned about."
NASUWT complained that media reports had misrepresented their position. "To describe the NASUWT's comments on this as 'teachers want the right to bed pupils' as one report has done, simply for pointing out an anomaly which criminalises a teacher but would leave any other adult free from prosecution for the same type of relationship, is a travesty."
Gregory Carlin, however, a child protection activist and head of the Irish Anti-Trafficking Coalition, said that such ideas were another sign of the erosion of legal protections for young people against exploitation. "If the NASUWT philosophy has its day," he said, "exploiting a 16 year old in a brothel would carry no extra penalty." Under the same logic, he said, "Jail guards would be able to take their pick from their charges and foster parents would be spared prosecution for having sex with foster children."
In an official statement dated October 6th, Keates said, "From the time the Sexual Offences legislation was first drafted in 2001 the NASUWT consistently raised the significant anomaly within its provisions. A teacher having a consensual relationship with a pupil over the age of 16 on the roll of the school in which they teach is liable under the Act to prosecution and being placed on the sex offenders register. "However, if the same teacher has a consensual relationship with a young person of the same age who attends another school they would not be prosecuted or classed as sex offenders."
Carlin told LifeSiteNews.com that Keates "knows what she was asking for," which is simply to "legalise sex crimes." List 99 is a secret register of men and women who are barred from working with children by the Department of Education and Skills. Carlin said, "Thousands of teachers are referred to List 99 each year, most of them from the NASUWT. In fact, the referrals doubled between 2003 and 2005."
Source
Harefield (London) transplant deaths review
Heart transplants at Harefield Hospital are being reviewed after four people died within a month of surgery, its NHS trust said. They died after four consecutive operations, conducted by three different surgeons, between July and September. Fifteen transplants have been performed this year at the northwest London hospital. Four people died within 30 days, two inside 90 days and one after 90 days. Last year there were 24 transplants, with no deaths under 30 days. An independent surgeon and cardiologist will carry out the review.
Source
Monday, October 13, 2008
Police called in to prevent 'havoc' at school entrance exam in Britain
British parents know the value of "Grammar" (selective) schools but the British government does not. It is trying to abolish them instead of building more. A British "Grammar" school is a publicly-funded school run along private school lines -- with admission dependant upon passing an entrance exam. British Leftists hate them because they are "elitist". But the Leftist alternatives -- non-selective "comprehensive" schools -- are often a behavioural sink -- thus preventing even bright children from learning and so closing off their advancement to higher education
Police had to be called to a top grammar school to prevent havoc during an entrance exam day. Officers had to patrol the car park as visitors came to sit the 11-plus exam and threatened to cause chaos at the school. Nearly 1,500 pupils were competing for 126 places at Wallington County Grammar School in Sutton, Surrey.
Competition for highly-rated grammar schools has risen as parents are looking at cheaper alternatives to private schools during the financial crisis. The Good Schools Guide shows applications at almost one in five private schools has dropped by 10 per cent in four years. Highly rated grammar schools on the other hand attract at least 10 applicants for every place, especially schools such as Wallington which do well in the exam league tables without demanding fees.
Wallington, an 880-pupil school which admits girls in the sixth form, obtained five GCSEs at grades A* to C (including English and maths) for 98 per cent of its pupils last year. Tina Marden, admissions secretary, said: "We had 1,496 applications for 126 places this year and we are still expecting some 'lates'. "We had to have the police down to control parking... we are on a red route and, if we didn't, people would cause havoc."
Robert McCartney QC, chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, said that applications across the country have risen in record numbers. He said: "Many aspirational parents who want their children to have a good education have tightened their belts and gone without other things to give them a place at independent school. "One of the effects of the credit crunch is that those people that were just able to make the fees are no longer able to do so. "Because of the poor state of the comprehensive system, they are desperate to get their children into grammar schools."
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed they were asked to attend last month's exams at the grammar school.
Source
Another example of making mountains out of pimples
I regularly characterize medical research as making mountains out of pimples so another example of it might help reinforce what I mean by that. I mentioned this study on the 10th so I will not reproduce it again. Instead I want to point out that its conclusions, although correct, were not only trivial but rather misleading.
What was found was that autism was 7 times more common among mathematics students at Cambridge university than it was among students in other fields at that university. But how was that finding arrived at? It was arrived at by taking 378 mathematics students and comparing them with a group of 414 non-mathematics students. And there were 7 autistic people in the mathematics group but only one autistic person in the other group. So the "7 times" conclusion was totally correct. But was it important?
It was in fact totally trivial. What was really found was that the incidence of autism among students at Cambridge was very rare -- even among mathematics students. Putting it another way, it is very rare for mathematics students to be autistic. Only 1.8% of them were autistic in fact. And putting it that way gives roughly the opposite impression to the impression given by the original report. What the original report presented as interesting is in fact of no importance whatsoever.
And that sort of finding is absolutely typical of what is reported in epidemiological research. In fact it is a much stronger finding than is generally reported. Where a 700% difference was reported above, a 50% difference would be about the average in epidemiological research. Most epidemiological research is the modern-day equivalent of the old mediaeval debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: An argument about trivia.
British city promises to ban jargon
What a rarity!
British parents know the value of "Grammar" (selective) schools but the British government does not. It is trying to abolish them instead of building more. A British "Grammar" school is a publicly-funded school run along private school lines -- with admission dependant upon passing an entrance exam. British Leftists hate them because they are "elitist". But the Leftist alternatives -- non-selective "comprehensive" schools -- are often a behavioural sink -- thus preventing even bright children from learning and so closing off their advancement to higher education
Police had to be called to a top grammar school to prevent havoc during an entrance exam day. Officers had to patrol the car park as visitors came to sit the 11-plus exam and threatened to cause chaos at the school. Nearly 1,500 pupils were competing for 126 places at Wallington County Grammar School in Sutton, Surrey.
Competition for highly-rated grammar schools has risen as parents are looking at cheaper alternatives to private schools during the financial crisis. The Good Schools Guide shows applications at almost one in five private schools has dropped by 10 per cent in four years. Highly rated grammar schools on the other hand attract at least 10 applicants for every place, especially schools such as Wallington which do well in the exam league tables without demanding fees.
Wallington, an 880-pupil school which admits girls in the sixth form, obtained five GCSEs at grades A* to C (including English and maths) for 98 per cent of its pupils last year. Tina Marden, admissions secretary, said: "We had 1,496 applications for 126 places this year and we are still expecting some 'lates'. "We had to have the police down to control parking... we are on a red route and, if we didn't, people would cause havoc."
Robert McCartney QC, chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, said that applications across the country have risen in record numbers. He said: "Many aspirational parents who want their children to have a good education have tightened their belts and gone without other things to give them a place at independent school. "One of the effects of the credit crunch is that those people that were just able to make the fees are no longer able to do so. "Because of the poor state of the comprehensive system, they are desperate to get their children into grammar schools."
A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed they were asked to attend last month's exams at the grammar school.
Source
Another example of making mountains out of pimples
I regularly characterize medical research as making mountains out of pimples so another example of it might help reinforce what I mean by that. I mentioned this study on the 10th so I will not reproduce it again. Instead I want to point out that its conclusions, although correct, were not only trivial but rather misleading.
What was found was that autism was 7 times more common among mathematics students at Cambridge university than it was among students in other fields at that university. But how was that finding arrived at? It was arrived at by taking 378 mathematics students and comparing them with a group of 414 non-mathematics students. And there were 7 autistic people in the mathematics group but only one autistic person in the other group. So the "7 times" conclusion was totally correct. But was it important?
It was in fact totally trivial. What was really found was that the incidence of autism among students at Cambridge was very rare -- even among mathematics students. Putting it another way, it is very rare for mathematics students to be autistic. Only 1.8% of them were autistic in fact. And putting it that way gives roughly the opposite impression to the impression given by the original report. What the original report presented as interesting is in fact of no importance whatsoever.
And that sort of finding is absolutely typical of what is reported in epidemiological research. In fact it is a much stronger finding than is generally reported. Where a 700% difference was reported above, a 50% difference would be about the average in epidemiological research. Most epidemiological research is the modern-day equivalent of the old mediaeval debate about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: An argument about trivia.
British city promises to ban jargon
What a rarity!
"Their meaning has become one of the most perplexing riddles of modern life, but soon "stakeholder engagements" and "multi-agency approaches" could be a thing of the past, in part of the country at least.
A council has banned seven of the most bewildering jargon phrases when speaking to members of the public. Civil enforcement officers, school crossing patrollers and civic amenity sites will become traffic wardens, lollipop ladies and rubbish tips, under new guidelines from Harrow Council. The list of banned phrases was drawn up after Harrow councillors asked a panel of local people about their experiences of dealing with council staff.
Councillor Paul Osborn said: "Our residents want to hear plain speaking and that is what we'll deliver. Every organisation uses jargon to some degree, but councils have been among the worst offenders." The council has also promised to answer phone calls within 30 seconds, acknowledge e-mails within 24 hours and make sure visitors are seen within 15 minutes.
Source
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Britain's candyfloss garbage collectors
"Health and safety" again. Just an excuse for an arrogant bureaucracy that cannot be bothered to do the work that people have been forced to pay for
A council is refusing to empty wheelie bins if they are left on gravel driveways - in case they injure binmen. Bosses at West Wiltshire district council fear stones could become trapped in the wheels and cause the bins to topple over. Only months ago the same council refused to empty wheelies which its binmen could not pull using just two fingers.
The latest policy came to light when binmen repeatedly refused to touch the bin left out by Mark Birkett, 38, in Trowbridge, because the wheels were on his gravel drive. Mr Birkett said: 'I can pull it 30ft down my drive but they cannot pull it just a few inches over gravel. 'They only have to pull the bins literally a couple of inches over the gravel and it is downhill. 'But I was told they would not be pulled across the gravel for health and safety reasons', Mr Birkett said.
'I laughed at first. I just could not believe it. I think these health and safety rules are bonkers.' 'I have to submit to these rules or else my bins are not emptied.'
Councillor Ernie Clark, who took up the case, said: 'It is health and safety gone mad. It is lunacy. It is not really even gravel. It is gravel compacted into a hard surface.' Following complaints, the council says it will now collect bins from loose driveways so long as they are the other way round with the wheels on the pavement.
In June, binmen in Warminster refused to empty a green bin because they could not lift it with two fingers.
Source
Bureaucratized Britain again
Good Samaritan threatened with arrest after organising whip-round for oldster's $230 penalty fare. The conductor should be fired for sooling the police onto a kind man
Lena Ainscow was forced to hand over 115 pounds after a train conductor said she boarded the wrong train. Mr Wrigglesworth, a 32-year-old stand-up comedian from East London, intervened to help the pensioner and pleaded with the train guard for leniency. When he was told he should not interfere, he started a whip-round among fellow passengers.
He said: 'I couldn't sit there and let this helpless woman deal with it on her own. I got a paper bag from the buffet car and told the other passengers that if we all gave 50p or one pound we would get the money in no time. 'Everyone was happy to help and someone even put in 30 pounds.'
The ticket was duly bought, but when Mr Wrigglesworth got off the train at Euston he was met by transport police officers. He said: 'Thankfully a couple of the other passengers helped to explain. Once the police had been put in the picture they walked away.'
Mrs Ainscow said: 'Tom really spoke up for me - he was marvellous. The train was only half full. I don't know why the manager had to make me buy another ticket. 'It was a simple mistake - and not mine either.' Her daughter added: 'Tom has restored my faith in mankind. He was an angel. I dread to think what would have happened to my mother if he hadn't been there.'
A spokesman for Virgin Trains said: 'We apologise for the distress caused to both passengers and have launched an investigation into the incident.'
Source
Scottish government soft on illegals
The policies advocated below come from the new Scottish Nationalist government and tend to show that even a Nationalist government is still to the Left of Britain as a whole. Overall, Scots are an immovable Leftist lump in Britain -- reminiscent of Jews in the USA
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill clashed with senior immigration officials yesterday over the impact that major reforms to UK asylum law would have in Scotland. Setting out the Scottish Government's "clear lines in the sand", Mr MacAskill said he was opposed to detaining children prior to removal from the country and wanted to see asylum seekers integrated into communities from "day one" of their arrival in the UK.
Speaking at a conference organised by the Scottish Refugee Council in Glasgow, the minister also backed the idea of allowing people to work while their asylum claim is being processed.
His stance is likely to inflame tensions between the devolved administration and Westminster, which has reserved power over asylum and immigration issues, ahead of an overhaul of legislation which is intended to simplify decades of separate laws covering both issues.
As part of the consultation on the Immigration and Citizenship Bill, due to be laid before parliament early next year, First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the Home Secretary to push for a "flexible" approach which would take account of Scotland's situation and ensure its effect on devolved areas of responsibility were highlighted, Mr MacAskill said. He added: "We welcome moves to speed up the immigration process and bring greater transparency. But we have to ensure that Scotland's particular needs, as well as values, are taken account of. "Asylum seekers and refugees who move to Scotland bring with them valuable skills and experiences and it makes sense for us and for them to utilise those."
The Justice Secretary also disclosed that the Borders and Immigration Agency (BIA) is working with the Scottish Government, SRC and councils to pilot an alternative system of removing families whose asylum claims have been rejected to avoid the need to lock them up in removal centres such as Dungavel, in Lanarkshire.
Lin Homer, BIA's chief executive who attended yesterday's conference in Glasgow, said she welcomed consultation and was open to the idea of regional variations in applying UK asylum policy - an approach which she said had already borne fruit with the establishment of the regional BIA covering Scotland and Northern Ireland. But she added: "We're not after a position where there are basic differences in how asylum applicants are treated in the system depending on where they enter. That seems to go against their human rights and the basic principle that you have to be consistent across the piece."
Ms Homer said the UK Government was opposed to allowing asylum seekers to work while their claim was being processed and wanted to ensure they integrated into communities only if they received approval to remain in the UK. But she claimed BIA has had notable success in bringing down the time it takes to process asylum claims and was now on target to finalise 60% of claims within six months by the end of the year.
Source
Down with the filthy rich misanthropes
Recent events confirm that anti-human super-wealthy capitalists are in the vanguard of climate change hysteria
Many green activists and commentators think that anyone who dares to criticise the apparent consensus on the science and politics of climate change must be in the pay of big business. In truth, as a meeting in London on Monday night powerfully illustrated, the megabucks are really on the side of those who think humanity is screwing up the planet.
The event was the launch of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Like a few people, I assumed that the `Grantham' bit referred to the birthplace of an earlier promoter of climate change fears, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In fact, it refers to the wealthy chairman of GMO, a large investment management company: Jeremy Grantham. Grantham has donated 12million pounds to the London School of Economics (LSE) to fund the institute. He has also forked out another 12million to Imperial College London for the similarly named Grantham Institute for Climate Change (1)
No wonder, then, that the chair of LSE, Howard Davies - once the head of the Financial Services Authority and a former deputy governor of the Bank of England - was more than a little fawning over the `extremely generous' Grantham. The new LSE institute will be headed by Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK government-commissioned report, The Economics of Climate Change, published in 2006. The Stern Review argued that the costs of reducing CO2 emissions to avoid climate change would be far lower than the costs of failing to take action, using assumptions that attracted considerable scorn from other economists (2). With Lord Nick at the helm, we can be sure that the institute will not be a hotbed of climate scepticism but rather will be intellectual armoury for those who want to clamp down on economic development.
Stern was the main attraction at the launch on Monday, but Grantham's introductory remarks were the most illuminating: they provided a startling insight into the pessimism of today's super-rich. Grantham declared: `Climate change is far and away the most important issue in finance, in government, in life in general. I believe firmly that Malthius [sic] was right. he just got his timing wrong. We're engaged in the third great die-off since the beginning of the earth. The first was definitely caused by a meteorite, the second one probably was, and the third one has been caused by the effect of humans hitting the earth about as powerfully as a meteorite. We've been around for about 500,000 years and for 99 per cent of that time, we were a pretty harmless species. We ended up with about 15million people, 5,000 years ago. Then, in the final one per cent of our lives, we went from 15million to six-and-a-half billion. Needless to say, we can't repeat that multiplying effect.'
Grantham went on to say that most of this `action' had in fact occurred over the past 300 years, with the boom in population coming about as a result of what he described as `the unfortunate hydrocarbon revolution'. Presumably, he was referring to the benefits of coal, gas and oil which have allowed billions of people to live in relative comfort to a ripe old age for the first time in human existence, at least in the developed world. However, such trifles are of little concern to a man whose company handles $150billion of assets. At a time when greens ask why their critics take money from big business, it is just as relevant to ask why famous universities like LSE and Imperial are tugging their institutional forelocks to a moneybag misanthrope like Grantham. (Though with the humanity-hating John Gray also on the LSE staff, Grantham must seem like a little ray of sunshine.)
For Grantham, the idea of setting up the LSE institute came after `the penny had dropped that the hard science was slowly and finally winning an uphill struggle against what we in the US call "the deniers", who have been a powerful and effective lobby. Now the war, the frontline, is really in the economics and the cost of all this. There, the opposition is much more formidable. There are serious, respectable, well-respected economists who disagree with the good guys. They are completely misguided, but they are respectable.' Note the implication that those who have criticised the science of climate change are anything but respectable.
There is no doubt what direction this institute will take. The Stern Review was a hugely important piece of advocacy research, precisely designed to counter all those foolish types who believe that spending a fortune dragging society towards some kind of low-carbon future might be irrational in the absence of viable technology. Now the war on the `misguided' will have the backing of the LSE's reputation, too.
The notion that it is climate change sceptics who have been buying influence looks pretty shabby when viewed in the context of Grantham's remarks. The world of climate change hysteria has numerous big political backers, like Thatcher, former US vice-president Al Gore, and current British prime minister Gordon Brown, who commissioned the Stern Review when he was chancellor of the exchequer. High-level figures in the upper echelons of many big firms - including fossil fuel companies such as Shell and BP that have faced so much criticism from greens - have declared that climate change is the number one issue facing humanity. Multibillionaire Richard Branson, airline boss and wannabe spaceline boss through Virgin Galactic, declared last month: `To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change.'
Then there are those whose wealth is inherited, like Zac Goldsmith - worth roughly œ300million - who publishes the Ecologist magazine, and David de Rothschild, a member of the super-rich banking family and author of the personal austerity guide, The Global Warming Survival Handbook (4). For a long time, the money and the influence have been on the side of the greens. Not the smelly, unwashed treehuggers, of course - posh though many of them are - but the ones walking the corridors of power in politics and business.
One greenie with influence who has been in the news rather a lot lately is the US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson. The man in charge of saving the US banking system has apparently spent $100million of his personal wealth on environmental causes - with the whole lot, some $700million, promised to conservation when his body decides to `bail out' from this mortal coil (5). And Paulson is not only generous with his own cash: as boss of Goldman Sachs, he persuaded the board to hand over 680,000 acres of forest in Tierra del Fuego owned by the bank to the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose board of trustees includes Paulson's son, Merritt
It may not come as a shock to find that those involved heavily in the unproductive, if still important, sphere of finance should believe that there is little point to the human race. When you are a member of a strand of society that is widely regarded as parasitic on the rest, the notion that the whole of humanity is parasitical on the planet is not a huge intellectual leap. But once you have ruled out suicide as an option, you need some reason to keep going. `Saving the planet' has become a mission statement both for the pointlessly rich and the political class. As former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson noted in a talk at the LSE bookshop in July, people `want to believe there is more to life than everyday getting and spending' - and that includes the fabulously wealthy and the politically ambitious.
It's not just a matter of finding a worldview to provide a sense of purpose. In the midst of a financial crisis, some might argue that environmental concerns should be the last thing on our minds. But along with his blunt demand that Europeans must cut their per capita CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 (for Americans, he argued for a 90 per cent cut), Lord Stern also suggested on Monday night that perhaps the way out of the financial crisis was to embrace the environmental outlook. Renewable energy and energy conservation, green manufacturing and a low-carbon infrastructure could be just the ticket, he suggested, to boost the economy. Far from being anti-growth, he said, going green could be good for our wallets as well as our conscience.
It is certainly true that there are plenty of eco-entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on our fear of the future, doing everything from building windmills to trading carbon emission licences. But it seems unlikely that an emphasis on reducing the human impact on the planet, rather than expanding our capacity to generate wealth and provide for the billions of people living on next-to-nothing, could be in the interests of anyone but the new green elites. No wonder they're splashing the cash.
Source
"Health and safety" again. Just an excuse for an arrogant bureaucracy that cannot be bothered to do the work that people have been forced to pay for
A council is refusing to empty wheelie bins if they are left on gravel driveways - in case they injure binmen. Bosses at West Wiltshire district council fear stones could become trapped in the wheels and cause the bins to topple over. Only months ago the same council refused to empty wheelies which its binmen could not pull using just two fingers.
The latest policy came to light when binmen repeatedly refused to touch the bin left out by Mark Birkett, 38, in Trowbridge, because the wheels were on his gravel drive. Mr Birkett said: 'I can pull it 30ft down my drive but they cannot pull it just a few inches over gravel. 'They only have to pull the bins literally a couple of inches over the gravel and it is downhill. 'But I was told they would not be pulled across the gravel for health and safety reasons', Mr Birkett said.
'I laughed at first. I just could not believe it. I think these health and safety rules are bonkers.' 'I have to submit to these rules or else my bins are not emptied.'
Councillor Ernie Clark, who took up the case, said: 'It is health and safety gone mad. It is lunacy. It is not really even gravel. It is gravel compacted into a hard surface.' Following complaints, the council says it will now collect bins from loose driveways so long as they are the other way round with the wheels on the pavement.
In June, binmen in Warminster refused to empty a green bin because they could not lift it with two fingers.
Source
Bureaucratized Britain again
Good Samaritan threatened with arrest after organising whip-round for oldster's $230 penalty fare. The conductor should be fired for sooling the police onto a kind man
Lena Ainscow was forced to hand over 115 pounds after a train conductor said she boarded the wrong train. Mr Wrigglesworth, a 32-year-old stand-up comedian from East London, intervened to help the pensioner and pleaded with the train guard for leniency. When he was told he should not interfere, he started a whip-round among fellow passengers.
He said: 'I couldn't sit there and let this helpless woman deal with it on her own. I got a paper bag from the buffet car and told the other passengers that if we all gave 50p or one pound we would get the money in no time. 'Everyone was happy to help and someone even put in 30 pounds.'
The ticket was duly bought, but when Mr Wrigglesworth got off the train at Euston he was met by transport police officers. He said: 'Thankfully a couple of the other passengers helped to explain. Once the police had been put in the picture they walked away.'
Mrs Ainscow said: 'Tom really spoke up for me - he was marvellous. The train was only half full. I don't know why the manager had to make me buy another ticket. 'It was a simple mistake - and not mine either.' Her daughter added: 'Tom has restored my faith in mankind. He was an angel. I dread to think what would have happened to my mother if he hadn't been there.'
A spokesman for Virgin Trains said: 'We apologise for the distress caused to both passengers and have launched an investigation into the incident.'
Source
Scottish government soft on illegals
The policies advocated below come from the new Scottish Nationalist government and tend to show that even a Nationalist government is still to the Left of Britain as a whole. Overall, Scots are an immovable Leftist lump in Britain -- reminiscent of Jews in the USA
Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill clashed with senior immigration officials yesterday over the impact that major reforms to UK asylum law would have in Scotland. Setting out the Scottish Government's "clear lines in the sand", Mr MacAskill said he was opposed to detaining children prior to removal from the country and wanted to see asylum seekers integrated into communities from "day one" of their arrival in the UK.
Speaking at a conference organised by the Scottish Refugee Council in Glasgow, the minister also backed the idea of allowing people to work while their asylum claim is being processed.
His stance is likely to inflame tensions between the devolved administration and Westminster, which has reserved power over asylum and immigration issues, ahead of an overhaul of legislation which is intended to simplify decades of separate laws covering both issues.
As part of the consultation on the Immigration and Citizenship Bill, due to be laid before parliament early next year, First Minister Alex Salmond has written to the Home Secretary to push for a "flexible" approach which would take account of Scotland's situation and ensure its effect on devolved areas of responsibility were highlighted, Mr MacAskill said. He added: "We welcome moves to speed up the immigration process and bring greater transparency. But we have to ensure that Scotland's particular needs, as well as values, are taken account of. "Asylum seekers and refugees who move to Scotland bring with them valuable skills and experiences and it makes sense for us and for them to utilise those."
The Justice Secretary also disclosed that the Borders and Immigration Agency (BIA) is working with the Scottish Government, SRC and councils to pilot an alternative system of removing families whose asylum claims have been rejected to avoid the need to lock them up in removal centres such as Dungavel, in Lanarkshire.
Lin Homer, BIA's chief executive who attended yesterday's conference in Glasgow, said she welcomed consultation and was open to the idea of regional variations in applying UK asylum policy - an approach which she said had already borne fruit with the establishment of the regional BIA covering Scotland and Northern Ireland. But she added: "We're not after a position where there are basic differences in how asylum applicants are treated in the system depending on where they enter. That seems to go against their human rights and the basic principle that you have to be consistent across the piece."
Ms Homer said the UK Government was opposed to allowing asylum seekers to work while their claim was being processed and wanted to ensure they integrated into communities only if they received approval to remain in the UK. But she claimed BIA has had notable success in bringing down the time it takes to process asylum claims and was now on target to finalise 60% of claims within six months by the end of the year.
Source
Down with the filthy rich misanthropes
Recent events confirm that anti-human super-wealthy capitalists are in the vanguard of climate change hysteria
Many green activists and commentators think that anyone who dares to criticise the apparent consensus on the science and politics of climate change must be in the pay of big business. In truth, as a meeting in London on Monday night powerfully illustrated, the megabucks are really on the side of those who think humanity is screwing up the planet.
The event was the launch of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Like a few people, I assumed that the `Grantham' bit referred to the birthplace of an earlier promoter of climate change fears, former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. In fact, it refers to the wealthy chairman of GMO, a large investment management company: Jeremy Grantham. Grantham has donated 12million pounds to the London School of Economics (LSE) to fund the institute. He has also forked out another 12million to Imperial College London for the similarly named Grantham Institute for Climate Change (1)
No wonder, then, that the chair of LSE, Howard Davies - once the head of the Financial Services Authority and a former deputy governor of the Bank of England - was more than a little fawning over the `extremely generous' Grantham. The new LSE institute will be headed by Lord Nicholas Stern, author of the UK government-commissioned report, The Economics of Climate Change, published in 2006. The Stern Review argued that the costs of reducing CO2 emissions to avoid climate change would be far lower than the costs of failing to take action, using assumptions that attracted considerable scorn from other economists (2). With Lord Nick at the helm, we can be sure that the institute will not be a hotbed of climate scepticism but rather will be intellectual armoury for those who want to clamp down on economic development.
Stern was the main attraction at the launch on Monday, but Grantham's introductory remarks were the most illuminating: they provided a startling insight into the pessimism of today's super-rich. Grantham declared: `Climate change is far and away the most important issue in finance, in government, in life in general. I believe firmly that Malthius [sic] was right. he just got his timing wrong. We're engaged in the third great die-off since the beginning of the earth. The first was definitely caused by a meteorite, the second one probably was, and the third one has been caused by the effect of humans hitting the earth about as powerfully as a meteorite. We've been around for about 500,000 years and for 99 per cent of that time, we were a pretty harmless species. We ended up with about 15million people, 5,000 years ago. Then, in the final one per cent of our lives, we went from 15million to six-and-a-half billion. Needless to say, we can't repeat that multiplying effect.'
Grantham went on to say that most of this `action' had in fact occurred over the past 300 years, with the boom in population coming about as a result of what he described as `the unfortunate hydrocarbon revolution'. Presumably, he was referring to the benefits of coal, gas and oil which have allowed billions of people to live in relative comfort to a ripe old age for the first time in human existence, at least in the developed world. However, such trifles are of little concern to a man whose company handles $150billion of assets. At a time when greens ask why their critics take money from big business, it is just as relevant to ask why famous universities like LSE and Imperial are tugging their institutional forelocks to a moneybag misanthrope like Grantham. (Though with the humanity-hating John Gray also on the LSE staff, Grantham must seem like a little ray of sunshine.)
For Grantham, the idea of setting up the LSE institute came after `the penny had dropped that the hard science was slowly and finally winning an uphill struggle against what we in the US call "the deniers", who have been a powerful and effective lobby. Now the war, the frontline, is really in the economics and the cost of all this. There, the opposition is much more formidable. There are serious, respectable, well-respected economists who disagree with the good guys. They are completely misguided, but they are respectable.' Note the implication that those who have criticised the science of climate change are anything but respectable.
There is no doubt what direction this institute will take. The Stern Review was a hugely important piece of advocacy research, precisely designed to counter all those foolish types who believe that spending a fortune dragging society towards some kind of low-carbon future might be irrational in the absence of viable technology. Now the war on the `misguided' will have the backing of the LSE's reputation, too.
The notion that it is climate change sceptics who have been buying influence looks pretty shabby when viewed in the context of Grantham's remarks. The world of climate change hysteria has numerous big political backers, like Thatcher, former US vice-president Al Gore, and current British prime minister Gordon Brown, who commissioned the Stern Review when he was chancellor of the exchequer. High-level figures in the upper echelons of many big firms - including fossil fuel companies such as Shell and BP that have faced so much criticism from greens - have declared that climate change is the number one issue facing humanity. Multibillionaire Richard Branson, airline boss and wannabe spaceline boss through Virgin Galactic, declared last month: `To my mind there is no greater or more immediate challenge than that posed by climate change.'
Then there are those whose wealth is inherited, like Zac Goldsmith - worth roughly œ300million - who publishes the Ecologist magazine, and David de Rothschild, a member of the super-rich banking family and author of the personal austerity guide, The Global Warming Survival Handbook (4). For a long time, the money and the influence have been on the side of the greens. Not the smelly, unwashed treehuggers, of course - posh though many of them are - but the ones walking the corridors of power in politics and business.
One greenie with influence who has been in the news rather a lot lately is the US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson. The man in charge of saving the US banking system has apparently spent $100million of his personal wealth on environmental causes - with the whole lot, some $700million, promised to conservation when his body decides to `bail out' from this mortal coil (5). And Paulson is not only generous with his own cash: as boss of Goldman Sachs, he persuaded the board to hand over 680,000 acres of forest in Tierra del Fuego owned by the bank to the Wildlife Conservation Society, whose board of trustees includes Paulson's son, Merritt
It may not come as a shock to find that those involved heavily in the unproductive, if still important, sphere of finance should believe that there is little point to the human race. When you are a member of a strand of society that is widely regarded as parasitic on the rest, the notion that the whole of humanity is parasitical on the planet is not a huge intellectual leap. But once you have ruled out suicide as an option, you need some reason to keep going. `Saving the planet' has become a mission statement both for the pointlessly rich and the political class. As former UK chancellor Nigel Lawson noted in a talk at the LSE bookshop in July, people `want to believe there is more to life than everyday getting and spending' - and that includes the fabulously wealthy and the politically ambitious.
It's not just a matter of finding a worldview to provide a sense of purpose. In the midst of a financial crisis, some might argue that environmental concerns should be the last thing on our minds. But along with his blunt demand that Europeans must cut their per capita CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 (for Americans, he argued for a 90 per cent cut), Lord Stern also suggested on Monday night that perhaps the way out of the financial crisis was to embrace the environmental outlook. Renewable energy and energy conservation, green manufacturing and a low-carbon infrastructure could be just the ticket, he suggested, to boost the economy. Far from being anti-growth, he said, going green could be good for our wallets as well as our conscience.
It is certainly true that there are plenty of eco-entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on our fear of the future, doing everything from building windmills to trading carbon emission licences. But it seems unlikely that an emphasis on reducing the human impact on the planet, rather than expanding our capacity to generate wealth and provide for the billions of people living on next-to-nothing, could be in the interests of anyone but the new green elites. No wonder they're splashing the cash.
Source
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Only in Britain
Gardener Ordered to Remove Barbed Wire Fence on Grounds It Could 'Wound Thieves'
A British gardener's local council has ordered him to remove a 3-foot high barbed wire fence around his property in case thieves hurt themselves on it, the Daily Mail reported Thursday. Bill Malcolm, 61, installed the wire at his Worcester property after burglars robbed his tool shed and vegetable plots three times in four months, stealing more than $500 worth of hardware.
But Malcolm's local council told him the wire was a health and safety hazard and warned him they would remove it by force if he did not do it himself, the Mail reported. "The council said they were unhappy about the precautions I had made but my response was to tell them that only someone climbing over on to my allotment could possibly hurt themselves," Malcolm told the Mail. "They shouldn't be trespassing in the first place but the council apologized and said they didn't want to be sued by a wounded thief."
The council said that a fence on the property must be a post or rail fence, not barbed wire. "With regard to the barbed wire, when this is identified on site, we are obliged to request its removal or remove it on health and safety grounds to the general public as this is a liability issue," a council spokeswoman told the Mail.
Source
British council workers fired over giving mother $340,000 a year in welfare benefits
Publicity works (See here): Three council workers have been sacked after an Afghan mother was given $340,000 a year in benefits to live in a $2.4 million home
Ealing Council was paying mother-of-seven Toorpakai Saiedi housing allowance of 12,458 pounds a month, nearly five times the rent for a similar property in the same road. She also received 400 pounds a week in benefits. The sacked housing officers, David Lewis, Gemma Calliste and Salma Khan claim they have been made scapegoats by Ealing Council.
Mr Lewis, 37, said: "We are shocked and stunned that we've lost out jobs as we were just doing what we were told. "We were just doing our job, but it's a stupid system. I thought 12,000 a month was a lot but it was agreed by Rent Services so it was OK. "We have basically been sacked with no notice. We were about to get permanent contracts and all of that has been taken away from us."
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell has now called for a review into housing benefits. Mr Purnell said: "It was never intended that the Local Housing Allowance could result in a payment of this magnitude and I am shocked and concerned by this situation. "I have already asked my officials to carefully examine this issue as part of our current Review of Housing benefit and expect them to report to me as a matter or urgency."
Source
UK's new 'Climate Change Secretary' mocked
Whether you are a climate-change denier, a sceptic or a believer in the scientific consensus on global warming, you have to admit that there is something preposterous about making someone Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It's a bit like giving King Canute added responsibility for sea level rise: it implies that he can do something about it.
Given that there is a less than 50 per cent chance, in my view, that mankind could do something about its greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent dangerous climate change - thereby proving itself rational - Ed Miliband, the newly appointed Secretary, would appear to have his work cut out.
Given, too, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that there is only a 95 per cent probability that man-made factors caused the warming we have seen, you might think that Gordon Brown might have seen fit to create a few more new posts in his reshuffle.
The suggestion from the sceptic, Philip Stott, is that if the Prime Minister wanted to leave no stone unturned, he might also have created a minister for cosmic ray fluxes, solar magnetic cycles and sunspots; a minister for meteorites and cosmic dust, a minister for the earth's orbit, tilt, wobble, shape and velocity; a minister for volcanic eruptions and ocean circulations; and a minister for water vapour, clouds and atmospheric gases.
All of those have something to do with climate change. The unresolved question is how much.
Seriously, though, the new Energy and Climate Change post is a way of dealing with a serious problem: relentless squabbling between what used to be called BERR and what still is called DEFRA. That was a recipe for nothing happening at all, for example, on the timetable for cleaner coal-fired power stations.
One can see the point of the tradeoffs being made in Mr Miliband's head, rather than in two separate departments, between the long-term need for clean coal and the short term need to keep the lights on.
But there is no use pretending that the political landscape hasn't changed. With the new remit comes new dangers - in this case the suspicion is that what has been created is the ministry for nuclear power, wind farms and the Severn Barrage. And toffee nuts to the environment.
Source
British bureaucrats are STILL losing data: "A computer hard drive with the private details of 700,000 Armed Forces personnel and potential applicants is missing, The Ministry of Defence said today. The portable drive contains the names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving licence details of around 100,000 serving personnel across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF, plus their next-of-kin details. It also has data on 600,000 potential services applicants and the names of their referees. Officials are 'not ruling out' the risk that bank account details of personnel were held on the drive, which belonged to its IT contractor EDS. The department said it learned of the loss on Wednesday and MoD Police were investigating. The missing drive is the latest information security breach to hit the MoD"
Gardener Ordered to Remove Barbed Wire Fence on Grounds It Could 'Wound Thieves'
A British gardener's local council has ordered him to remove a 3-foot high barbed wire fence around his property in case thieves hurt themselves on it, the Daily Mail reported Thursday. Bill Malcolm, 61, installed the wire at his Worcester property after burglars robbed his tool shed and vegetable plots three times in four months, stealing more than $500 worth of hardware.
But Malcolm's local council told him the wire was a health and safety hazard and warned him they would remove it by force if he did not do it himself, the Mail reported. "The council said they were unhappy about the precautions I had made but my response was to tell them that only someone climbing over on to my allotment could possibly hurt themselves," Malcolm told the Mail. "They shouldn't be trespassing in the first place but the council apologized and said they didn't want to be sued by a wounded thief."
The council said that a fence on the property must be a post or rail fence, not barbed wire. "With regard to the barbed wire, when this is identified on site, we are obliged to request its removal or remove it on health and safety grounds to the general public as this is a liability issue," a council spokeswoman told the Mail.
Source
British council workers fired over giving mother $340,000 a year in welfare benefits
Publicity works (See here): Three council workers have been sacked after an Afghan mother was given $340,000 a year in benefits to live in a $2.4 million home
Ealing Council was paying mother-of-seven Toorpakai Saiedi housing allowance of 12,458 pounds a month, nearly five times the rent for a similar property in the same road. She also received 400 pounds a week in benefits. The sacked housing officers, David Lewis, Gemma Calliste and Salma Khan claim they have been made scapegoats by Ealing Council.
Mr Lewis, 37, said: "We are shocked and stunned that we've lost out jobs as we were just doing what we were told. "We were just doing our job, but it's a stupid system. I thought 12,000 a month was a lot but it was agreed by Rent Services so it was OK. "We have basically been sacked with no notice. We were about to get permanent contracts and all of that has been taken away from us."
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions James Purnell has now called for a review into housing benefits. Mr Purnell said: "It was never intended that the Local Housing Allowance could result in a payment of this magnitude and I am shocked and concerned by this situation. "I have already asked my officials to carefully examine this issue as part of our current Review of Housing benefit and expect them to report to me as a matter or urgency."
Source
UK's new 'Climate Change Secretary' mocked
Whether you are a climate-change denier, a sceptic or a believer in the scientific consensus on global warming, you have to admit that there is something preposterous about making someone Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. It's a bit like giving King Canute added responsibility for sea level rise: it implies that he can do something about it.
Given that there is a less than 50 per cent chance, in my view, that mankind could do something about its greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent dangerous climate change - thereby proving itself rational - Ed Miliband, the newly appointed Secretary, would appear to have his work cut out.
Given, too, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change admits that there is only a 95 per cent probability that man-made factors caused the warming we have seen, you might think that Gordon Brown might have seen fit to create a few more new posts in his reshuffle.
The suggestion from the sceptic, Philip Stott, is that if the Prime Minister wanted to leave no stone unturned, he might also have created a minister for cosmic ray fluxes, solar magnetic cycles and sunspots; a minister for meteorites and cosmic dust, a minister for the earth's orbit, tilt, wobble, shape and velocity; a minister for volcanic eruptions and ocean circulations; and a minister for water vapour, clouds and atmospheric gases.
All of those have something to do with climate change. The unresolved question is how much.
Seriously, though, the new Energy and Climate Change post is a way of dealing with a serious problem: relentless squabbling between what used to be called BERR and what still is called DEFRA. That was a recipe for nothing happening at all, for example, on the timetable for cleaner coal-fired power stations.
One can see the point of the tradeoffs being made in Mr Miliband's head, rather than in two separate departments, between the long-term need for clean coal and the short term need to keep the lights on.
But there is no use pretending that the political landscape hasn't changed. With the new remit comes new dangers - in this case the suspicion is that what has been created is the ministry for nuclear power, wind farms and the Severn Barrage. And toffee nuts to the environment.
Source
British bureaucrats are STILL losing data: "A computer hard drive with the private details of 700,000 Armed Forces personnel and potential applicants is missing, The Ministry of Defence said today. The portable drive contains the names, addresses, passport numbers, dates of birth and driving licence details of around 100,000 serving personnel across the Army, Royal Navy and RAF, plus their next-of-kin details. It also has data on 600,000 potential services applicants and the names of their referees. Officials are 'not ruling out' the risk that bank account details of personnel were held on the drive, which belonged to its IT contractor EDS. The department said it learned of the loss on Wednesday and MoD Police were investigating. The missing drive is the latest information security breach to hit the MoD"
Friday, October 10, 2008
Incompetent NHS anaesthetist kills toddler
A toddler who died after emergency surgery for croup had been left in the care of an inexperienced doctor, an inquest has heard. Indya Trevelyan stopped breathing minutes after two consultants had carried out a complicated procedure to unblock her airway. The 20-month-old had been admitted to hospital with the common childhood respiratory infection, which causes a severe cough. But her breathing became laboured and she was given anaesthetic by staff at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton.
Brighton Coroner's Court heard consultant surgeons Simon Watts and James McGilligan then carried out an emergency tracheotomy to help her breathe. The child's parents Sian, 37, and Nigel, 43, from Crawley, West Sussex, were told the operation on April 15 had been a success. But staff then informed the couple their daughter was being resuscitated.
The inquest was told the consultants had used stitches to fasten down the tracheotomy tube, which had been threaded into Indya's throat to bypass her swollen airway. They then left anaesthetist Dr David Campbell in charge after they finished - even though he had no experience of tracheotomy. The tube became dislodged when she coughed or moved, and when Dr Campbell tried to reinsert it he ripped out the stitches. Indya suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest which led to her death on April 18, after she was transferred to intensive care at the Evelina Children's Hospital in London.
An interim report from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust concluded her death was 'preventable'. It found the surgeons had 'no plan for the unexpected' and that 'no one took the lead' after she stopped breathing. The report blamed 'weak communication' and stated: 'Indya's preventable death arose out of false assumptions that systems do work.' The hospital is to review doctors' training in the light of the findings.
The inquest heard that Mr McGilligan, an ear, nose and throat specialist, did not leave instructions on how he carried out the operation or how to reinsert the breathing tube. The consultant said: 'I didn't write what the sutures (stitches) were there for, but it was my presumption that anyone would follow why they were there.' He said the stitches had been dislodged by theatre staff trying to replace the tube.
When he realised the tube had blood round it and had become displaced, he moved Indya's windpipe and put the tube back in place. He added: 'In hindsight I would have let everyone in the hospital know what the sutures were there for.' Turning to Indya's parents, he said: 'I want you to know this has rocked our department to the very core. We are terribly saddened by what happened.'
Mrs Trevelyan, who had to be helped into the court by her parents, was clutching Indya's favourite cuddly toy, of the character Laa Laa from the BBC children's television programme Teletubbies. Speaking after the first day of the inquest in August, she described her daughter's treatment as 'appalling'. She said: 'I had dreamt of being a mum for so long. When she first looked up at me the intense love I felt was overwhelming. She was my beautiful angel.'
Croup is an infection of the voice box and the airway to the lungs. It is characterised by a seal-like, barking cough. It affects young children aged between six months and three years. The inquest continues.
Source
BBC's $1,000,000 legal bill for their vicious attack on a private fertility clinic
No big guesses are needed to conclude that the BBC hated the fact that he was both private and much more successful than the NHS
The BBC faces a legal bill of around 500,000 pounds after the collapse of part of its defence to allegations of misleading viewers during a Panorama investigation into a clinic owned by a wealthy fertility expert. Mohamed Taranissi, 54, claimed the flagship current affairs show tricked viewers into believing he enhanced his reputation by offering 'unnecessary and unproven' IVF treatment to wealthy couples desperate to give birth.
During the Panorama investigation into Mr Taranissi an undercover reporter posing as a patient went to one of his Central London clinics, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre. In the High Court, Richard Rampton QC, for Mr Taranissi, said the BBC's legal argument that it had stuck to the rules of 'responsible journalism' had 'blown up in a puff of smoke' as solicitors probed the depth of its research.
On Wednesday, Mr Justice Eady ordered the BBC to make an interim payment to Mr Taranissi, estimated at $1,000,000, covering his legal fees to date after the corporation decided to withdraw one of its defences to his libel action.
Adrienne Page QC, for the BBC, said it could still recover the costs plus extra fees if it successfully defends the libel action on grounds of justification when the full trial begins in January.
Source
How the hippies turned into their parents
They were the generation of free love, mind-expanding drugs and a contempt for all things conventional. Yet as old age approaches for the hippies, rebellion now tends to be the last thing on their mind. Their retirement years are likely to be spent pursuing home improvements, saving for holidays and going for long walks, a study suggests.
They will be richer than their parents were because of decades of rising house prices - but much of their extra money will go on subsidising children and grandchildren.
The main thing which sets them apart is that they will still be playing the same old music they liked when they were young, according to the Government- funded research. The paper, published by the Economic and Social Research Council, suggests that the baby-boom children born between the end of the Second World War and the mid-1950s still think of themselves as young. But they are beginning to behave in much the same way as did their parents.
'Most members of the baby-boom generation - once the first teenagers of a more affluent consumer society - have modest ideas for their retirement,' said the report. 'Most maintain a traditional pattern - watching films and television, playing records or going for long walks.' The study, based on evidence from existing large-scale surveys and detailed interviews with 150 people approaching retirement age, was led by Dr Rebecca Leach of Keele University. It said there was 'only limited evidence that first-wave boomers are developing new third-age lifestyles'.
Dr Leach said: 'Most have fairly modest aspirations, hoping at best to maintain current lifestyles and activities provided health and finances permit them to do so. 'The range of lifestyles is greater than would have been the case with previous generations but there is little evidence of alternative models of consumption.' She said the surveys showed that only around one in 20 of the hippie generation now uses the alternative medicines which were the height of fashion in the 1970s.
Rather than following alternative lifestyles, the baby boomers are the generation obsessed with their houses, the report said. The explosion in home ownership since the 1950s means a third own their homes outright, half have mortgages and one in six have second homes. 'Home improvements form a significant part of boomer lifestyles,' the report said. 'So does increasing value of homes, especially in terms of using housing to fund retirement.'
The harm done to expectations of income from their homes by the credit crunch adds to other financial pressures that early generations did not have. Four out of ten of those in their late 50s still have children living at home. More than a third are also supporting grandchildren, for example by paying for childcare, and around half spend some time or money caring for their own parents.
Source
Vicious metric law enforcement in Britain
Market trader gets a criminal record for selling fruit and veg by the pound
A market trader was convicted yesterday of selling fruit and vegetables using imperial measures - even though the EU says it should not be an offence. Metric martyr Janet Devers, 64, said she had been made a 'scapegoat' after being sentenced for selling goods on her market stall in pounds rather than kilos. The mother of two fought back tears as she was ordered by magistrates to pay almost $10,000 in costs and told she would have a criminal record after being found guilty of eight offences under the Weights and Measures Act.
As part of the landmark case, the greengrocer was also convicted of selling vegetables for $2 a bowl rather than counting them out individually - a practice commonplace amongst Britain's 40,000 market traders who use bowls to help customers baffled by grams and kilograms. Now the pensioner, from Wanstead, East London, faces financial ruin as the costs of fighting the case could see her lose her market stall in nearby Dalston. It has been in the family for more than 60 years since her mother Irene Hunt became one of the first woman to run a stall in the East End during the Blitz.
The verdict, which has outraged campaigners, comes a year after EU said it would no longer force Britain to adopt the metric system of weights and measures. It became illegal to sell any goods in Britain in non-metric weights and measures under the EU's compulsory metrication policy in 2000. In September last year, Gunther Verheugen, European Commission vice president for enterprise and industry, said Brussels never intended to criminalise those who sold in pounds and ounces. But the laws under which Mrs Devers was prosecuted are still on the UK statute books.
Just a few days after Mr Verheugen made his remarks trading standards officials from Hackney Council, supported by two police officers, arrived at Mrs Devers's market stall to confiscate two sets of imperial, non-metric scales.
Today, at Thames Magistrates' Court, in the first UK prosecution since the EU ruling, she was convicted of using imperial scales without an official stamp and selling scotch bonnet peppers, okra, pak choi and peppers in bowls for $2 without giving the quantity or weight of produce in the bowl.
The pensioner was given a two-year conditional discharge, although magistrates accepted that she was only trying to offer customers value for money. Dr Patrick Davies, chairman of the bench, said: 'We note that you said you were doing this in the interests of your customers, although you ought to have known you were breaking the law in doing so.'
Outside court Mrs Devers said: 'I'm incredibly worried about my financial future. I can't believe they prosecuted me for something that every market trader in London - in the UK - is doing. I've been made a scapegoat. 'The fact that they have given me a conditional discharge just shows that they think it is a big mistake to take me to court. 'Having a criminal record means I can't go and see my cousins in America. My daughter wants to go and live out there which means I might not see her. It's farcical.'
A spokesman for Hackney Council said: 'We are satisfied with the outcome of this case, but regret that legal action is required. It would have been much better if Mrs Devers had complied with the law 18 months ago.'
Source
$340,000 a year is spent on an Afghan single mother... A story that sums up the howling insanity of modern Britain
One person who will not be losing any sleep over the impact of the financial crisis is Toorpakai Saiedi, an Afghan mother of seven living in West London and receiving $340,000 a year in benefits. While millions worry about the prospect of losing their jobs, their homes, their savings and their pensions, she is luxuriating in a $2.4 million double-fronted, seven-bedroom Edwardian villa - her staggering rent of more than $24,000 a month picked up by the British taxpayer. Ealing Council has a statutory duty to find accommodation for the family. But because it didn't have anything big enough on its books, it approached a private letting agent - and then agreed a rent five times the going rate.
Saiedi says: 'It's like winning the lottery. It's a lot of money but the council pay it.' This incredible 'Local Housing Allowance' was calculated under new rules introduced in April and is supposed to reflect the market rate, the claimant's income and the number of people living in the house. It's all explained in a leaflet printed in English, Polish, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Somali, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and scribble. I can't even understand the one written in English. Nor work out how they arrived at a rent of 12,458 pounds - when a comparable property in the same street was recently let for 2,500 pounds.
But Mrs Saiedi isn't complaining and neither is her lucky landlord, Ajit Panesar, who is getting the same kind of return from a refugee living in a scruffy suburb as the Duke of Westminster would receive from a maharajah leasing a mansion in Mayfair.
If ever a single news story summed up the howling insanity of Brown's Britain, this surely has to be it. It's difficult to decide on what precise level this lunacy is most outrageous. After the Afghan aircraft hijackers landed at Stansted in 2000, I wrote that in five years' time, they'd still be here. Who could have guessed then that eight years on there would be an estimated 75,000 Afghans in Britain. That's just those we know about. It is not recorded how many of them are working, paying taxes and contributing to the economy and how many, like the Saiedi clan, are living off the State.
Around the time of the hijack, I even invented a spoof game show called ASYLUM!, which is still doing the rounds on the internet. The premise was that all you needed to do was turn up in Britain, utter the magic word 'asylum' and you would be shown directly to a council house and showered with benefits. It was supposed to be a joke, not a template for government. But that is pretty much what Labour's open- door, no-questions-asked immigration policy has amounted to.
We all accept that Britain has a responsibility to take in some of the world's genuine refugees. But the reason we get more than our fair share is because we are both a soft touch and an international laughing stock.
Let me make it clear, I don't blame anyone for coming here to make a better life. But I can't help wondering: if it were not for the lavish benefits on offer how many would bother, when they would clearly be happier in a country with which they were more culturally aligned. It's not the fault of immigrants, or even those international terrorists who set up shop here, that they are allowed to take advantage of our perverse welfare and legal system. It is the fault of those who make the rules and decide how they should be enforced - or not, as the case may be.
Mass immigration is one of the main reasons we have a housing crisis. Council stock has run out. And with local authorities prepared to pay $25,000 a month to private landlords to house an eight-strong family of Afghans, what chance has a local young couple got of ever finding reasonably-priced accommodation?
Given that the explanatory leaflet is printed in so many different languages, it is probably right to assume that the council expects the overwhelming demand for housing benefit to come from foreign nationals....
I sometimes think there are two Britains - one where most of us live and another which the government runs. In this parallel public sector universe, the party never ends. I'm sure the benefit office didn't think twice about doling out $2,500 a month to house the Saiedis. After all, it's not their money. And there's never been any indication that the tap is going to be turned off. The public sector is awash with money. Gordon Brown has hosed them down with our hard-earned cash. Government spending has more than doubled in the past ten years.
And when it looked as if the money was going to run out, Gordon just went on a borrowing spree - which is one of the reasons the International Monetary Fund says Britain is uniquely ill-equipped to cope with the credit crunch.
Officially, there are another 800,000 on the public payroll under Labour, but add in those 'working' for quangos and you can bet it's well over a million. The Guardian jobs supplement yesterday was again offering the usual exciting range of opportunities for 'cluster managers' and 'support facilitators' - salaries up to 86,000 pounds and one for yourself. One in five now works for the State. Not for them the harsh economic realities of the private sector, protected as they are by their taxpayer-funded, gold-plated pensions and index-linked pay packets.
While firms go to the wall every day, there's never any suggestion of clearing out the inefficient, eye-wateringly expensive, unproductive legions of supernumeraries cluttering up town halls and government offices. They spend their days dreaming up new ways to interfere in our lives and waste our money. Any hint that there may have to be economies and Labour, the unions and the BBC start screaming about ' schools'n'ospitals' and 'Tory cuts' and the proposals are quietly abandoned.
At the Conservative conference, George Osborne said that to help people out in difficult times, increases in council tax - which has doubled under Labour - should be capped at 2 per cent. Capped? It should be cut by at least 50 per cent. Councils, predictably, went berserk and said they wouldn't co-operate. They have become addicted to spending and have been encouraged by a profligate government which thinks that at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty it's a good idea to pay an Afghan family $340,000 a year in benefits so they can live in a house way beyond both their means and their wildest dreams. Your best bet for beating the credit crunch is getting a job in government or claiming to be an Afghan asylum seeker.
In the words of Toorpakai Saiedi: 'It's like winning the lottery.' And she didn't even have to buy a ticket. We are all going to hell in a handcart.
Source
SURVEY: 80% OF BRITONS "SCEPTICAL ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING"
The rising price of flights has prompted 50% of Brits to change their travel plans, according to a survey of 2,000 members of European travel portal trivago.co.uk. The poll found that 10% flew less, 21% stayed at home and 4% did not make any long-distance trips.
But only 16% of Brits changed their travel plans due to climate change, and over 80% are skeptical about global warming. In fact, 40% believe it is all media hype and only 4% of respondents have cut back on flying because of environmental concerns.
Source
WELCOME TO THE DARK AGES: "NO COAL EQUALS NO LIGHTS. NO POWER. NO FUTURE"
The future of coal-fired power generation in Europe was called into question yesterday after a European Parliament committee backed new laws that would force power companies to pay for all of their carbon dioxide emissions from 2013.
The decision, which could cost the power industry $46 billion a year and trigger a steep rise in electricity bills, represents a huge boost for Europe's renewable energy industry. It also casts fresh doubt over the likelihood of a œ1.5 billion coal-fired power plant being built at Kingsnorth, Kent, by E.ON, the German power group.
In addition, it flies in the face of British government policy. Last month, John Hutton, the former business secretary, told the Labour Party conference that "no coal . . . equals no lights. No power. No future."
Chris Davies, an MEP who backed the legislation, said that the decision by the European Parliament's environment committee "effectively prevents the building of new coal-fired power plants from 2015 unless equipped with CCS [carbon capture and storage technology]". The new rules require final approval from the European Parliament and EU countries. If granted, they will transform the economics of burning coal to generate electricity.
The move came despite fierce resistance from power industry lobbyists, who said that that the EU's aggressive emissions-cutting targets should be weakened because of the global financial crisis.
Avril Doyle, an Irish MEP on the committee, said: "For all the trouble we have, the single greatest challenge facing us is climate change."
The committee backed proposed changes to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), an existing programme in which the bulk of permits are handed out to energy companies for free. Members voted in favour of auctioning all emissions permits after 2013 for power companies. The committee proposed that other polluting industries, such as steelmaking, should pay for 15 per cent of permits in 2013, rising to 100 per cent by 2020. It had been unclear how the ETS programme would evolve after 2012.
The committee also offered to plough $10 billion from the scheme into carbon capture and storage (CCS) research, an untried technology designed to strip out greenhouse gases at source and store them underground.
The bill is a key plank of the EU's plan to reduce Europe's carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. The CBI welcomed the scheme last night, saying that it would provide greater clarity for businesses.
Europe's renewable energy industry also endorsed the decision. Maria McCaffery, of the British Wind Energy Association, said: "This new target underlines the urgency of action to deliver clean, sustainable energy now if we are to keep global temperatures within acceptable limits."
A spokeswoman for E.ON, which relies heavily on coal-fired power stations in Germany, as well as in the UK, said: "We are taking our time to review and assess the decision."
A vote before the full European Parliament is likely in December, although opposition is expected from some heavily coal-dependent countries, such as Poland. France, which has the EU presidency at the moment, wants to enshrine the Bill in law by the end of the year.
Source
"Right and wrong" makes a comeback in British schools
Apparently "extremism" now joins "racism" in being one of the few things that are wrong
Schools are being given advice on how to prevent pupils becoming drawn to violent extremism and terrorism. Guidelines are being made available to primary and secondary schools in England to help them discuss the issues surrounding extremist views. Schools Secretary Ed Balls said schools could play a "key role" in getting young people to reject extremism.
Schools should have a named teacher to whom pupils can report any concerns of grooming by extremist groups. Teachers should protect the well-being of pupils who may be vulnerable to being drawn to extremism, says the government's "Learning together to be safe" kit. ' Mr Balls said the initiative was a direct response to a call from schools for support and advice to tackle extremism. "This is not about asking teachers to be monitors and to be doing surveillance, that's not their job. "But if something concerns them, we want them to know who to turn to for help," he said.
"Violent extremism influenced by Al-Qaeda currently poses the greatest security threat but other forms of extremism and hate- or race-based prejudice are also affecting our communities and causing alienation and disaffection amongst young people," he added. "The toolkit shows how education can be used to tackle all forms of extremism and build a stronger, safer society."
Mr Balls said a security response to terrorism was not enough and that the underlying issues must be addressed. "Our goal must be to empower our young people to come together to expose violent extremists and reject cruelty and violence in whatever form it takes," he said.
Hatch End High School in Harrow, north-west London, is one of the schools that has been involved with producing the guidance. Head teacher Alan Jones said the important thing was to keep children safe and secure. "By bringing things into the open, by discussing these sorts of things in school, we're actually improving the safety of all our children."
Mr Jones said while schools were there to teach academic subjects, they also had a duty to develop the wider person. "It's important to teach about everything in life, to prepare young people to be world citizens," he said. The National Union of Teachers welcomed the guidance, saying violent political groups presented a significant threat to large numbers of people. Acting general secretary Christine Blower said: "Terrorist threats have to be tackled. "It's worth remembering that groups such as those from the far right can pose intimidatory threats to their communities, as serious as those from al-Qaeda."
And Chris Keates of the NASUWT teachers' union welcomed the way the government had taken on board its representations to ensure the toolkit covered the extremism of fascist and racist groups. But Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, was more critical. "We have a duty of care to try to prevent young people descending into illegal activities which could ruin their lives," she said. "But teachers are not trained to deal with radicalisation. We are not spy catchers. "School staff believe in having reasoned discussions with pupils, and will welcome the practical advice in the government's anti-extremism tool-kit which builds on the work already being done in schools and colleges. "
But despite what Ed Balls says, the tool-kit over-emphasises concerns about al-Qaeda, while the reality is that more staff in schools and colleges are trying to combat intolerance towards minority groups such as gays and lesbians and travellers, racism, and violence from animal rights extremists."
Anthony Glees, Professor of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said it was wrong to target young children. "It's very important that the government has recognised that school teachers and their pupils need to be alerted to the growing threat of radicalisation amongst the young and MI5 has alerted us to this some time ago. "This is good. It's a sophisticated, security-led tool kit although I have to say putting this over to kids who are five-years-old is ridiculous. This is a problem for 12 years and above. "This is a mistake. You should allow all British children a certain amount of innocence and happy childhood days. They don't need to know all the things they are being told."
Source
Autism genes can add up to genius
No surprise: Intellectual gifts and certain brain disorders are closely related. Autistic people often have exceptional abilities in non-social fields
Some people with autism have amazed experts with their outstanding memories, mathematical skills or musical talent. Now scientists have found that the genes thought to cause autism may also confer mathematical, musical and other skills on people without the condition. The finding has emerged from a study of autism among 378 Cambridge University students, which found the condition was up to seven times more common among mathematicians than students in other disciplines. It was also five times more common in the siblings of mathematicians.
If confirmed, it could explain why autism - a disability that makes it hard to communicate with, and relate to, others - continues to exist in all types of society. It suggests the genes responsible are usually beneficial, causing the disease only if present in the wrong combinations. "Our understanding of autism is undergoing a transformation," said Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the autism research centre at Cambridge, who led the study. "It seems clear that genes play a significant role in the causes of autism and that those genes are also linked to certain intellectual skills." parent association between autism and intellectual gifts in specific fields. This has made autism a hot topic in popular culture, from films such as Rain Man, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, to books such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.
Some people with autism have become renowned for their creativity. The British artist Stephen Wiltshire, 34, was mute as a child and diagnosed with classic autism. He began drawing at the age of five and soon completed cityscapes. One of his feats was to draw a stunningly detailed panoramic view of Tokyo from memory after a short helicopter ride. He has since opened a gallery.
Autism and the related Asperger's syndrome are among the commonest mental afflictions, affecting about 600,000 Britons. Boys are four times as likely as girls to develop it. Autistic people can have special skills but they also tend to suffer from anxiety, obsessive behaviour and other problems that far outweigh any advantages.
The fact that autism runs in families shows that it is partly genetic in origin, but evolutionary theory suggests genes causing such a debilitating conditions ought to have been weeded out of the population. The Cambridge study hints at why this has not happened, suggesting that with variations in the way they are combined, such genes are beneficial.
On their own, such studies have to be treated cautiously because the numbers involved are small. In the Cambridge study, seven of 378 maths students were found to be autistic, compared with only one among the 414 students in the control group. Other studies, however, have found similar patterns. Baron-Cohen, whose cousin Sacha Baron Cohen is the comic actor behind the Ali G and Borat characters, said: "Separate studies have shown that the fathers and grandfathers of children with autism are twice as likely to work in engineering. Science students also have more relatives with autism than those in the humanities."
His research, set out last week in a meeting at the Royal Society, coincides with separate research showing nearly a third of people with autism may have "savant" skills. Patricia Howlin, professor of clinical child psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, studied 137 people with autism; 39 of them (29%) possessed an exceptional mental skill. The most common was outstanding memory. She said: "It had been thought that only about 5%-10% of people with autism had such skills, but nobody had measured it properly, and it seems the number is far higher. If we could foster these skills, many more people with autism could live independently and even become high achievers."
The idea that autism may have positive aspects is finding favour among some of those with the condition. Some resent being labelled disabled and have begun describing those without autism as "neurotypicals" to make the point that they could be the ones missing out. Professor Allan Snyder, director of the centre for the mind at the University of Sydney, said: "Autism ranges from the classical picture of severe mental impairment at one end of the spectrum to Nobel prize-win-ning genius at the other. Both extremes have core autistic features, such as preoccupation with detail, obsessional interests and difficulties in understanding other people's perspectives."
Temple Grandin, 61, was diagnosed with autism as a child and is now professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She said: "People with autism have played a vital role in human evolution and culture. Before computers it would have taken someone with an autistic-type memory to design great cathedrals, while scientists such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein show every sign of having been autistic. The world owes a great deal to those who design and programme computers, many of whom show autistic traits."
For Baron-Cohen the next step is to find the genes linked with autism; he is working with Professor Ian Craig of King's College to scan the DNA of hundreds of autistic people - and of mathematicians. For latest papers on autism research, go to www.autismresearchcentre.com
A concert at the Savoy Theatre in London's west end will tonight showcase musicians with autism, and an exhibition starting tomorrow at London's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the Mall features the art of people with autism. For details go to www.theambassadors.com/savoy. Autism Art and Music Details at: www.autismart.org
The Autism Research Centre has produced The Transporters, a DVD-based animation that helps autistic children to learn about emotions by looking at faces on mechanical vehicles. The Transporters DVD (aimed at children with autism) is available online at www.thetransporters.com
Source
Chemotherapy drug `is safer cure for testicular cancer'
Sounds very good news
A single injection of a chemotherapy drug can cure a common type of testicular cancer, researchers say. Carboplatin, which is often used to treat ovarian and lung cancer, can replace radiotherapy to cure early-stage seminoma, which mainly affects men in their 40s, a study has found. The drug is being hailed as a "safer cure" for the cancer by experts, with fewer long-term risks.
Testicular cancers are usually either seminomas or nonseminomas. About 40 to 45 per cent of testicular cancers are early-stage seminomas - accounting for 800 cases each year in Britain. Patients are usually first treated with surgery to remove the testis where the disease is detected, but the cancer can develop in the other testis in one in 20 men.
Patients given carboplatin experienced fewer side-effects and were able to return to their normal lives earlier than those undergoing radiotherapy, prompting experts to hail the treatment as a "safer cure" for seminoma. In the largest trial for the disease, funded by the Medical Research Council, a carboplatin injection was used to treat 573 patients with early-stage seminoma and compared with two or three weeks of daily radiotherapy, the standard treatment, given to 904 patients. Of the patients given carboplatin, 5 per cent relapsed - virtually all within three years - and after further successful treatment, none had died from their testicular cancer.
Ben Mead, honorary senior lecturer in medical oncology at the University of Southampton, who led the study, said: "We were pleased by the results of this huge trial. Giving patients a carboplatin injection rather than radiotherapy is less unpleasant with fewer long-term risks."
Source
A toddler who died after emergency surgery for croup had been left in the care of an inexperienced doctor, an inquest has heard. Indya Trevelyan stopped breathing minutes after two consultants had carried out a complicated procedure to unblock her airway. The 20-month-old had been admitted to hospital with the common childhood respiratory infection, which causes a severe cough. But her breathing became laboured and she was given anaesthetic by staff at the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton.
Brighton Coroner's Court heard consultant surgeons Simon Watts and James McGilligan then carried out an emergency tracheotomy to help her breathe. The child's parents Sian, 37, and Nigel, 43, from Crawley, West Sussex, were told the operation on April 15 had been a success. But staff then informed the couple their daughter was being resuscitated.
The inquest was told the consultants had used stitches to fasten down the tracheotomy tube, which had been threaded into Indya's throat to bypass her swollen airway. They then left anaesthetist Dr David Campbell in charge after they finished - even though he had no experience of tracheotomy. The tube became dislodged when she coughed or moved, and when Dr Campbell tried to reinsert it he ripped out the stitches. Indya suffered a cardio-respiratory arrest which led to her death on April 18, after she was transferred to intensive care at the Evelina Children's Hospital in London.
An interim report from Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust concluded her death was 'preventable'. It found the surgeons had 'no plan for the unexpected' and that 'no one took the lead' after she stopped breathing. The report blamed 'weak communication' and stated: 'Indya's preventable death arose out of false assumptions that systems do work.' The hospital is to review doctors' training in the light of the findings.
The inquest heard that Mr McGilligan, an ear, nose and throat specialist, did not leave instructions on how he carried out the operation or how to reinsert the breathing tube. The consultant said: 'I didn't write what the sutures (stitches) were there for, but it was my presumption that anyone would follow why they were there.' He said the stitches had been dislodged by theatre staff trying to replace the tube.
When he realised the tube had blood round it and had become displaced, he moved Indya's windpipe and put the tube back in place. He added: 'In hindsight I would have let everyone in the hospital know what the sutures were there for.' Turning to Indya's parents, he said: 'I want you to know this has rocked our department to the very core. We are terribly saddened by what happened.'
Mrs Trevelyan, who had to be helped into the court by her parents, was clutching Indya's favourite cuddly toy, of the character Laa Laa from the BBC children's television programme Teletubbies. Speaking after the first day of the inquest in August, she described her daughter's treatment as 'appalling'. She said: 'I had dreamt of being a mum for so long. When she first looked up at me the intense love I felt was overwhelming. She was my beautiful angel.'
Croup is an infection of the voice box and the airway to the lungs. It is characterised by a seal-like, barking cough. It affects young children aged between six months and three years. The inquest continues.
Source
BBC's $1,000,000 legal bill for their vicious attack on a private fertility clinic
No big guesses are needed to conclude that the BBC hated the fact that he was both private and much more successful than the NHS
The BBC faces a legal bill of around 500,000 pounds after the collapse of part of its defence to allegations of misleading viewers during a Panorama investigation into a clinic owned by a wealthy fertility expert. Mohamed Taranissi, 54, claimed the flagship current affairs show tricked viewers into believing he enhanced his reputation by offering 'unnecessary and unproven' IVF treatment to wealthy couples desperate to give birth.
During the Panorama investigation into Mr Taranissi an undercover reporter posing as a patient went to one of his Central London clinics, the Assisted Reproduction and Gynaecology Centre. In the High Court, Richard Rampton QC, for Mr Taranissi, said the BBC's legal argument that it had stuck to the rules of 'responsible journalism' had 'blown up in a puff of smoke' as solicitors probed the depth of its research.
On Wednesday, Mr Justice Eady ordered the BBC to make an interim payment to Mr Taranissi, estimated at $1,000,000, covering his legal fees to date after the corporation decided to withdraw one of its defences to his libel action.
Adrienne Page QC, for the BBC, said it could still recover the costs plus extra fees if it successfully defends the libel action on grounds of justification when the full trial begins in January.
Source
How the hippies turned into their parents
They were the generation of free love, mind-expanding drugs and a contempt for all things conventional. Yet as old age approaches for the hippies, rebellion now tends to be the last thing on their mind. Their retirement years are likely to be spent pursuing home improvements, saving for holidays and going for long walks, a study suggests.
They will be richer than their parents were because of decades of rising house prices - but much of their extra money will go on subsidising children and grandchildren.
The main thing which sets them apart is that they will still be playing the same old music they liked when they were young, according to the Government- funded research. The paper, published by the Economic and Social Research Council, suggests that the baby-boom children born between the end of the Second World War and the mid-1950s still think of themselves as young. But they are beginning to behave in much the same way as did their parents.
'Most members of the baby-boom generation - once the first teenagers of a more affluent consumer society - have modest ideas for their retirement,' said the report. 'Most maintain a traditional pattern - watching films and television, playing records or going for long walks.' The study, based on evidence from existing large-scale surveys and detailed interviews with 150 people approaching retirement age, was led by Dr Rebecca Leach of Keele University. It said there was 'only limited evidence that first-wave boomers are developing new third-age lifestyles'.
Dr Leach said: 'Most have fairly modest aspirations, hoping at best to maintain current lifestyles and activities provided health and finances permit them to do so. 'The range of lifestyles is greater than would have been the case with previous generations but there is little evidence of alternative models of consumption.' She said the surveys showed that only around one in 20 of the hippie generation now uses the alternative medicines which were the height of fashion in the 1970s.
Rather than following alternative lifestyles, the baby boomers are the generation obsessed with their houses, the report said. The explosion in home ownership since the 1950s means a third own their homes outright, half have mortgages and one in six have second homes. 'Home improvements form a significant part of boomer lifestyles,' the report said. 'So does increasing value of homes, especially in terms of using housing to fund retirement.'
The harm done to expectations of income from their homes by the credit crunch adds to other financial pressures that early generations did not have. Four out of ten of those in their late 50s still have children living at home. More than a third are also supporting grandchildren, for example by paying for childcare, and around half spend some time or money caring for their own parents.
Source
Vicious metric law enforcement in Britain
Market trader gets a criminal record for selling fruit and veg by the pound
A market trader was convicted yesterday of selling fruit and vegetables using imperial measures - even though the EU says it should not be an offence. Metric martyr Janet Devers, 64, said she had been made a 'scapegoat' after being sentenced for selling goods on her market stall in pounds rather than kilos. The mother of two fought back tears as she was ordered by magistrates to pay almost $10,000 in costs and told she would have a criminal record after being found guilty of eight offences under the Weights and Measures Act.
As part of the landmark case, the greengrocer was also convicted of selling vegetables for $2 a bowl rather than counting them out individually - a practice commonplace amongst Britain's 40,000 market traders who use bowls to help customers baffled by grams and kilograms. Now the pensioner, from Wanstead, East London, faces financial ruin as the costs of fighting the case could see her lose her market stall in nearby Dalston. It has been in the family for more than 60 years since her mother Irene Hunt became one of the first woman to run a stall in the East End during the Blitz.
The verdict, which has outraged campaigners, comes a year after EU said it would no longer force Britain to adopt the metric system of weights and measures. It became illegal to sell any goods in Britain in non-metric weights and measures under the EU's compulsory metrication policy in 2000. In September last year, Gunther Verheugen, European Commission vice president for enterprise and industry, said Brussels never intended to criminalise those who sold in pounds and ounces. But the laws under which Mrs Devers was prosecuted are still on the UK statute books.
Just a few days after Mr Verheugen made his remarks trading standards officials from Hackney Council, supported by two police officers, arrived at Mrs Devers's market stall to confiscate two sets of imperial, non-metric scales.
Today, at Thames Magistrates' Court, in the first UK prosecution since the EU ruling, she was convicted of using imperial scales without an official stamp and selling scotch bonnet peppers, okra, pak choi and peppers in bowls for $2 without giving the quantity or weight of produce in the bowl.
The pensioner was given a two-year conditional discharge, although magistrates accepted that she was only trying to offer customers value for money. Dr Patrick Davies, chairman of the bench, said: 'We note that you said you were doing this in the interests of your customers, although you ought to have known you were breaking the law in doing so.'
Outside court Mrs Devers said: 'I'm incredibly worried about my financial future. I can't believe they prosecuted me for something that every market trader in London - in the UK - is doing. I've been made a scapegoat. 'The fact that they have given me a conditional discharge just shows that they think it is a big mistake to take me to court. 'Having a criminal record means I can't go and see my cousins in America. My daughter wants to go and live out there which means I might not see her. It's farcical.'
A spokesman for Hackney Council said: 'We are satisfied with the outcome of this case, but regret that legal action is required. It would have been much better if Mrs Devers had complied with the law 18 months ago.'
Source
$340,000 a year is spent on an Afghan single mother... A story that sums up the howling insanity of modern Britain
One person who will not be losing any sleep over the impact of the financial crisis is Toorpakai Saiedi, an Afghan mother of seven living in West London and receiving $340,000 a year in benefits. While millions worry about the prospect of losing their jobs, their homes, their savings and their pensions, she is luxuriating in a $2.4 million double-fronted, seven-bedroom Edwardian villa - her staggering rent of more than $24,000 a month picked up by the British taxpayer. Ealing Council has a statutory duty to find accommodation for the family. But because it didn't have anything big enough on its books, it approached a private letting agent - and then agreed a rent five times the going rate.
Saiedi says: 'It's like winning the lottery. It's a lot of money but the council pay it.' This incredible 'Local Housing Allowance' was calculated under new rules introduced in April and is supposed to reflect the market rate, the claimant's income and the number of people living in the house. It's all explained in a leaflet printed in English, Polish, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Punjabi, Somali, Urdu, Vietnamese, Welsh and scribble. I can't even understand the one written in English. Nor work out how they arrived at a rent of 12,458 pounds - when a comparable property in the same street was recently let for 2,500 pounds.
But Mrs Saiedi isn't complaining and neither is her lucky landlord, Ajit Panesar, who is getting the same kind of return from a refugee living in a scruffy suburb as the Duke of Westminster would receive from a maharajah leasing a mansion in Mayfair.
If ever a single news story summed up the howling insanity of Brown's Britain, this surely has to be it. It's difficult to decide on what precise level this lunacy is most outrageous. After the Afghan aircraft hijackers landed at Stansted in 2000, I wrote that in five years' time, they'd still be here. Who could have guessed then that eight years on there would be an estimated 75,000 Afghans in Britain. That's just those we know about. It is not recorded how many of them are working, paying taxes and contributing to the economy and how many, like the Saiedi clan, are living off the State.
Around the time of the hijack, I even invented a spoof game show called ASYLUM!, which is still doing the rounds on the internet. The premise was that all you needed to do was turn up in Britain, utter the magic word 'asylum' and you would be shown directly to a council house and showered with benefits. It was supposed to be a joke, not a template for government. But that is pretty much what Labour's open- door, no-questions-asked immigration policy has amounted to.
We all accept that Britain has a responsibility to take in some of the world's genuine refugees. But the reason we get more than our fair share is because we are both a soft touch and an international laughing stock.
Let me make it clear, I don't blame anyone for coming here to make a better life. But I can't help wondering: if it were not for the lavish benefits on offer how many would bother, when they would clearly be happier in a country with which they were more culturally aligned. It's not the fault of immigrants, or even those international terrorists who set up shop here, that they are allowed to take advantage of our perverse welfare and legal system. It is the fault of those who make the rules and decide how they should be enforced - or not, as the case may be.
Mass immigration is one of the main reasons we have a housing crisis. Council stock has run out. And with local authorities prepared to pay $25,000 a month to private landlords to house an eight-strong family of Afghans, what chance has a local young couple got of ever finding reasonably-priced accommodation?
Given that the explanatory leaflet is printed in so many different languages, it is probably right to assume that the council expects the overwhelming demand for housing benefit to come from foreign nationals....
I sometimes think there are two Britains - one where most of us live and another which the government runs. In this parallel public sector universe, the party never ends. I'm sure the benefit office didn't think twice about doling out $2,500 a month to house the Saiedis. After all, it's not their money. And there's never been any indication that the tap is going to be turned off. The public sector is awash with money. Gordon Brown has hosed them down with our hard-earned cash. Government spending has more than doubled in the past ten years.
And when it looked as if the money was going to run out, Gordon just went on a borrowing spree - which is one of the reasons the International Monetary Fund says Britain is uniquely ill-equipped to cope with the credit crunch.
Officially, there are another 800,000 on the public payroll under Labour, but add in those 'working' for quangos and you can bet it's well over a million. The Guardian jobs supplement yesterday was again offering the usual exciting range of opportunities for 'cluster managers' and 'support facilitators' - salaries up to 86,000 pounds and one for yourself. One in five now works for the State. Not for them the harsh economic realities of the private sector, protected as they are by their taxpayer-funded, gold-plated pensions and index-linked pay packets.
While firms go to the wall every day, there's never any suggestion of clearing out the inefficient, eye-wateringly expensive, unproductive legions of supernumeraries cluttering up town halls and government offices. They spend their days dreaming up new ways to interfere in our lives and waste our money. Any hint that there may have to be economies and Labour, the unions and the BBC start screaming about ' schools'n'ospitals' and 'Tory cuts' and the proposals are quietly abandoned.
At the Conservative conference, George Osborne said that to help people out in difficult times, increases in council tax - which has doubled under Labour - should be capped at 2 per cent. Capped? It should be cut by at least 50 per cent. Councils, predictably, went berserk and said they wouldn't co-operate. They have become addicted to spending and have been encouraged by a profligate government which thinks that at a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty it's a good idea to pay an Afghan family $340,000 a year in benefits so they can live in a house way beyond both their means and their wildest dreams. Your best bet for beating the credit crunch is getting a job in government or claiming to be an Afghan asylum seeker.
In the words of Toorpakai Saiedi: 'It's like winning the lottery.' And she didn't even have to buy a ticket. We are all going to hell in a handcart.
Source
SURVEY: 80% OF BRITONS "SCEPTICAL ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING"
The rising price of flights has prompted 50% of Brits to change their travel plans, according to a survey of 2,000 members of European travel portal trivago.co.uk. The poll found that 10% flew less, 21% stayed at home and 4% did not make any long-distance trips.
But only 16% of Brits changed their travel plans due to climate change, and over 80% are skeptical about global warming. In fact, 40% believe it is all media hype and only 4% of respondents have cut back on flying because of environmental concerns.
Source
WELCOME TO THE DARK AGES: "NO COAL EQUALS NO LIGHTS. NO POWER. NO FUTURE"
The future of coal-fired power generation in Europe was called into question yesterday after a European Parliament committee backed new laws that would force power companies to pay for all of their carbon dioxide emissions from 2013.
The decision, which could cost the power industry $46 billion a year and trigger a steep rise in electricity bills, represents a huge boost for Europe's renewable energy industry. It also casts fresh doubt over the likelihood of a œ1.5 billion coal-fired power plant being built at Kingsnorth, Kent, by E.ON, the German power group.
In addition, it flies in the face of British government policy. Last month, John Hutton, the former business secretary, told the Labour Party conference that "no coal . . . equals no lights. No power. No future."
Chris Davies, an MEP who backed the legislation, said that the decision by the European Parliament's environment committee "effectively prevents the building of new coal-fired power plants from 2015 unless equipped with CCS [carbon capture and storage technology]". The new rules require final approval from the European Parliament and EU countries. If granted, they will transform the economics of burning coal to generate electricity.
The move came despite fierce resistance from power industry lobbyists, who said that that the EU's aggressive emissions-cutting targets should be weakened because of the global financial crisis.
Avril Doyle, an Irish MEP on the committee, said: "For all the trouble we have, the single greatest challenge facing us is climate change."
The committee backed proposed changes to the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), an existing programme in which the bulk of permits are handed out to energy companies for free. Members voted in favour of auctioning all emissions permits after 2013 for power companies. The committee proposed that other polluting industries, such as steelmaking, should pay for 15 per cent of permits in 2013, rising to 100 per cent by 2020. It had been unclear how the ETS programme would evolve after 2012.
The committee also offered to plough $10 billion from the scheme into carbon capture and storage (CCS) research, an untried technology designed to strip out greenhouse gases at source and store them underground.
The bill is a key plank of the EU's plan to reduce Europe's carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. The CBI welcomed the scheme last night, saying that it would provide greater clarity for businesses.
Europe's renewable energy industry also endorsed the decision. Maria McCaffery, of the British Wind Energy Association, said: "This new target underlines the urgency of action to deliver clean, sustainable energy now if we are to keep global temperatures within acceptable limits."
A spokeswoman for E.ON, which relies heavily on coal-fired power stations in Germany, as well as in the UK, said: "We are taking our time to review and assess the decision."
A vote before the full European Parliament is likely in December, although opposition is expected from some heavily coal-dependent countries, such as Poland. France, which has the EU presidency at the moment, wants to enshrine the Bill in law by the end of the year.
Source
"Right and wrong" makes a comeback in British schools
Apparently "extremism" now joins "racism" in being one of the few things that are wrong
Schools are being given advice on how to prevent pupils becoming drawn to violent extremism and terrorism. Guidelines are being made available to primary and secondary schools in England to help them discuss the issues surrounding extremist views. Schools Secretary Ed Balls said schools could play a "key role" in getting young people to reject extremism.
Schools should have a named teacher to whom pupils can report any concerns of grooming by extremist groups. Teachers should protect the well-being of pupils who may be vulnerable to being drawn to extremism, says the government's "Learning together to be safe" kit. ' Mr Balls said the initiative was a direct response to a call from schools for support and advice to tackle extremism. "This is not about asking teachers to be monitors and to be doing surveillance, that's not their job. "But if something concerns them, we want them to know who to turn to for help," he said.
"Violent extremism influenced by Al-Qaeda currently poses the greatest security threat but other forms of extremism and hate- or race-based prejudice are also affecting our communities and causing alienation and disaffection amongst young people," he added. "The toolkit shows how education can be used to tackle all forms of extremism and build a stronger, safer society."
Mr Balls said a security response to terrorism was not enough and that the underlying issues must be addressed. "Our goal must be to empower our young people to come together to expose violent extremists and reject cruelty and violence in whatever form it takes," he said.
Hatch End High School in Harrow, north-west London, is one of the schools that has been involved with producing the guidance. Head teacher Alan Jones said the important thing was to keep children safe and secure. "By bringing things into the open, by discussing these sorts of things in school, we're actually improving the safety of all our children."
Mr Jones said while schools were there to teach academic subjects, they also had a duty to develop the wider person. "It's important to teach about everything in life, to prepare young people to be world citizens," he said. The National Union of Teachers welcomed the guidance, saying violent political groups presented a significant threat to large numbers of people. Acting general secretary Christine Blower said: "Terrorist threats have to be tackled. "It's worth remembering that groups such as those from the far right can pose intimidatory threats to their communities, as serious as those from al-Qaeda."
And Chris Keates of the NASUWT teachers' union welcomed the way the government had taken on board its representations to ensure the toolkit covered the extremism of fascist and racist groups. But Dr Mary Bousted, general secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, was more critical. "We have a duty of care to try to prevent young people descending into illegal activities which could ruin their lives," she said. "But teachers are not trained to deal with radicalisation. We are not spy catchers. "School staff believe in having reasoned discussions with pupils, and will welcome the practical advice in the government's anti-extremism tool-kit which builds on the work already being done in schools and colleges. "
But despite what Ed Balls says, the tool-kit over-emphasises concerns about al-Qaeda, while the reality is that more staff in schools and colleges are trying to combat intolerance towards minority groups such as gays and lesbians and travellers, racism, and violence from animal rights extremists."
Anthony Glees, Professor of security and intelligence studies at the University of Buckingham, said it was wrong to target young children. "It's very important that the government has recognised that school teachers and their pupils need to be alerted to the growing threat of radicalisation amongst the young and MI5 has alerted us to this some time ago. "This is good. It's a sophisticated, security-led tool kit although I have to say putting this over to kids who are five-years-old is ridiculous. This is a problem for 12 years and above. "This is a mistake. You should allow all British children a certain amount of innocence and happy childhood days. They don't need to know all the things they are being told."
Source
Autism genes can add up to genius
No surprise: Intellectual gifts and certain brain disorders are closely related. Autistic people often have exceptional abilities in non-social fields
Some people with autism have amazed experts with their outstanding memories, mathematical skills or musical talent. Now scientists have found that the genes thought to cause autism may also confer mathematical, musical and other skills on people without the condition. The finding has emerged from a study of autism among 378 Cambridge University students, which found the condition was up to seven times more common among mathematicians than students in other disciplines. It was also five times more common in the siblings of mathematicians.
If confirmed, it could explain why autism - a disability that makes it hard to communicate with, and relate to, others - continues to exist in all types of society. It suggests the genes responsible are usually beneficial, causing the disease only if present in the wrong combinations. "Our understanding of autism is undergoing a transformation," said Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, director of the autism research centre at Cambridge, who led the study. "It seems clear that genes play a significant role in the causes of autism and that those genes are also linked to certain intellectual skills." parent association between autism and intellectual gifts in specific fields. This has made autism a hot topic in popular culture, from films such as Rain Man, which starred Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, to books such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime.
Some people with autism have become renowned for their creativity. The British artist Stephen Wiltshire, 34, was mute as a child and diagnosed with classic autism. He began drawing at the age of five and soon completed cityscapes. One of his feats was to draw a stunningly detailed panoramic view of Tokyo from memory after a short helicopter ride. He has since opened a gallery.
Autism and the related Asperger's syndrome are among the commonest mental afflictions, affecting about 600,000 Britons. Boys are four times as likely as girls to develop it. Autistic people can have special skills but they also tend to suffer from anxiety, obsessive behaviour and other problems that far outweigh any advantages.
The fact that autism runs in families shows that it is partly genetic in origin, but evolutionary theory suggests genes causing such a debilitating conditions ought to have been weeded out of the population. The Cambridge study hints at why this has not happened, suggesting that with variations in the way they are combined, such genes are beneficial.
On their own, such studies have to be treated cautiously because the numbers involved are small. In the Cambridge study, seven of 378 maths students were found to be autistic, compared with only one among the 414 students in the control group. Other studies, however, have found similar patterns. Baron-Cohen, whose cousin Sacha Baron Cohen is the comic actor behind the Ali G and Borat characters, said: "Separate studies have shown that the fathers and grandfathers of children with autism are twice as likely to work in engineering. Science students also have more relatives with autism than those in the humanities."
His research, set out last week in a meeting at the Royal Society, coincides with separate research showing nearly a third of people with autism may have "savant" skills. Patricia Howlin, professor of clinical child psychology at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, studied 137 people with autism; 39 of them (29%) possessed an exceptional mental skill. The most common was outstanding memory. She said: "It had been thought that only about 5%-10% of people with autism had such skills, but nobody had measured it properly, and it seems the number is far higher. If we could foster these skills, many more people with autism could live independently and even become high achievers."
The idea that autism may have positive aspects is finding favour among some of those with the condition. Some resent being labelled disabled and have begun describing those without autism as "neurotypicals" to make the point that they could be the ones missing out. Professor Allan Snyder, director of the centre for the mind at the University of Sydney, said: "Autism ranges from the classical picture of severe mental impairment at one end of the spectrum to Nobel prize-win-ning genius at the other. Both extremes have core autistic features, such as preoccupation with detail, obsessional interests and difficulties in understanding other people's perspectives."
Temple Grandin, 61, was diagnosed with autism as a child and is now professor of animal sciences at Colorado State University. She said: "People with autism have played a vital role in human evolution and culture. Before computers it would have taken someone with an autistic-type memory to design great cathedrals, while scientists such as Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein show every sign of having been autistic. The world owes a great deal to those who design and programme computers, many of whom show autistic traits."
For Baron-Cohen the next step is to find the genes linked with autism; he is working with Professor Ian Craig of King's College to scan the DNA of hundreds of autistic people - and of mathematicians. For latest papers on autism research, go to www.autismresearchcentre.com
A concert at the Savoy Theatre in London's west end will tonight showcase musicians with autism, and an exhibition starting tomorrow at London's Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) in the Mall features the art of people with autism. For details go to www.theambassadors.com/savoy. Autism Art and Music Details at: www.autismart.org
The Autism Research Centre has produced The Transporters, a DVD-based animation that helps autistic children to learn about emotions by looking at faces on mechanical vehicles. The Transporters DVD (aimed at children with autism) is available online at www.thetransporters.com
Source
Chemotherapy drug `is safer cure for testicular cancer'
Sounds very good news
A single injection of a chemotherapy drug can cure a common type of testicular cancer, researchers say. Carboplatin, which is often used to treat ovarian and lung cancer, can replace radiotherapy to cure early-stage seminoma, which mainly affects men in their 40s, a study has found. The drug is being hailed as a "safer cure" for the cancer by experts, with fewer long-term risks.
Testicular cancers are usually either seminomas or nonseminomas. About 40 to 45 per cent of testicular cancers are early-stage seminomas - accounting for 800 cases each year in Britain. Patients are usually first treated with surgery to remove the testis where the disease is detected, but the cancer can develop in the other testis in one in 20 men.
Patients given carboplatin experienced fewer side-effects and were able to return to their normal lives earlier than those undergoing radiotherapy, prompting experts to hail the treatment as a "safer cure" for seminoma. In the largest trial for the disease, funded by the Medical Research Council, a carboplatin injection was used to treat 573 patients with early-stage seminoma and compared with two or three weeks of daily radiotherapy, the standard treatment, given to 904 patients. Of the patients given carboplatin, 5 per cent relapsed - virtually all within three years - and after further successful treatment, none had died from their testicular cancer.
Ben Mead, honorary senior lecturer in medical oncology at the University of Southampton, who led the study, said: "We were pleased by the results of this huge trial. Giving patients a carboplatin injection rather than radiotherapy is less unpleasant with fewer long-term risks."
Source
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Filipina sex not funny
As I read it, the skit is actually mocking Northerners. There is prejudice against Northerners in Britain the way there is prejudice against Southerners in the USA.
British government attacking successful private schools
Five independent schools are to be investigated by the Charity Commission to see if they meet the Government's tough new charity requirement to offer a "public benefit" by helping poor as well as rich people. Those that fail could be required to replace their trustee boards and ordered to make changes such as allotting more cash for bursaries and sharing facilities with state school pupils.
The five include Manchester Grammar School (fees o9,000 a year), which is one of the top ten performing private boys' schools in the country at GCSE and which volunteered to be among the first fee-paying charities to undergo a public benefit test.
Charitable status brings independent schools tax breaks worth around o100 million a year and adds considerably to their fundraising credibility. New charity laws require organisations that charge fees to "earn" these benefits by offering some kind of benefit in kind to the wider community.
The other school charities being investigated are Manor House School Trust, operating in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire; Pangbourne College in Berkshire; St Anselm's School Trust in Derbyshire; and Highfield Priory School in Lancashire. The results of the review will published in the spring.
Source
As I read it, the skit is actually mocking Northerners. There is prejudice against Northerners in Britain the way there is prejudice against Southerners in the USA.
"One of Britiain's top comedians has got himself involved in a diplomatic incident in Manila today after Filipino officials failed to see the funny side of a sketch that mocked domestic workers living in Britain.
The Philippines' Foreign Secretary summoned the British Ambassador to explain why the BBC had broadcast a comedy skit involving Harry Enfield, in which a Filipina housemaid was cajoled into having sex with a British suburbanite.
Raul Gonzalez, the country's justice minister, also spoke out pledging to sign a petition that demanded an apology from the national broadcaster. "I don't like our fellow Filipinos to be insulted," he said.
The petition has been set up by a group called the Philippine Foundation, which is calling for the re-education of the BBC after the episode of Harry and Paul was broadcast last month. It says: "This particular sketch is completely disgraceful, distasteful and a great example of gutter humour."
Source
British government attacking successful private schools
Five independent schools are to be investigated by the Charity Commission to see if they meet the Government's tough new charity requirement to offer a "public benefit" by helping poor as well as rich people. Those that fail could be required to replace their trustee boards and ordered to make changes such as allotting more cash for bursaries and sharing facilities with state school pupils.
The five include Manchester Grammar School (fees o9,000 a year), which is one of the top ten performing private boys' schools in the country at GCSE and which volunteered to be among the first fee-paying charities to undergo a public benefit test.
Charitable status brings independent schools tax breaks worth around o100 million a year and adds considerably to their fundraising credibility. New charity laws require organisations that charge fees to "earn" these benefits by offering some kind of benefit in kind to the wider community.
The other school charities being investigated are Manor House School Trust, operating in Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire; Pangbourne College in Berkshire; St Anselm's School Trust in Derbyshire; and Highfield Priory School in Lancashire. The results of the review will published in the spring.
Source
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Here's all you need to know about the financial crisis
Two British comedians get perilously close to the truth
The alarming thing is that the video is 12 months old yet it is totally up to date. Even comedians could foresee what the Democrat Congresscritters could not. (H/T Agmates)
Naughty, naughty!
Gasp! British clergyman attacks the holy of holies:
Paedophile hysteria preventing men from applying to work in British grade schools
The lack of male teachers may be having a serious effect on boys' performance in the classroom as many miss out on strong role models at a young age, according to Tanya Byron, the child psychologist. She said the shortage particularly hit children from single-parent families who often went without father figures in the home.
The comments came as a campaign was launched by the Government's Training and Development Agency for Schools to recruit more men into the primary sector. According to official figures, fewer than one in eight primary school teachers are male, and numbers plummet to just one in 50 among those working in reception and nursery classes.
Dr Byron is the presenter of a television show on problem children called Little Angels, as well as a Government advisor on internet safety. She said paranoia about child abuse was driving many men out of the classroom. "There is this paranoid, over-the-top concern about paedophilia and child molestation - that it is not safe to leave children with men," she said. "These themes are running through society to such an extent that attitudes have become skewed and our anxiety does ultimately discriminate against men. This puts men off from working in primary schools because they are concerned about how they will be viewed and what parents will think of them. We have to challenge these negative and unhelpful belief systems."
Research by the TDA showed almost half of men believed male primary school teachers helped them develop at a young age. In a survey of 800 adults, it was revealed a third were challenged to work harder because of men in the primary years, while 50 per cent were more likely to report problems such as bullying to male teachers.
Dr Byron said boys - many of whom struggle to sit still at a young age - worked better with men. They also needed more exposure to males in school to show that learning was not a feminine virtue, she said. She added that positive male role models were particularly important for boys from single-parent households. "The need for strong male role models as constants in the lives of young children is more apparent than ever in light of the increasing numbers of children experiencing breakdown of the traditional family unit, growing up in single-parent families or not having a male figure at home," she said. "Male primary school teachers can often be stable and reliable figures in the lives of the children that they teach. They inspire children to feel more confident, to work harder and to behave better."
The TDA today urged men to consider applying for teacher training courses, with students and jobseekers now having less than nine weeks to apply for courses which start next year. In 2006-07, fewer than a quarter of primary and secondary school teaching qualifications were obtained by men - the lowest figure in five years.
Source
You can't park here! Say British hospitals
More of that socialist "compassion"
Lying in the harshly lit anaesthesia room at Great Ormond Street Hospital, my four-year-old son Jimi was frightened. So as his little body collapsed under the weight of the drugs, common sense told me this was the `good bit' - that now he was asleep he wasn't in pain. Diagnosed a year ago with juvenile arthritis - a childhood form of the disease that causes swelling in sufferers' joints, making their limbs seize up so they struggle to walk - he was having steroids injected into his ankles to make them stronger. It is the latest in a string of intrusive and gruelling treatments, including chemotherapy and a cocktail of painkillers, that he has bravely endured to combat his condition.
Forty-five angst-ridden minutes later, he came round from the anaesthetic, groggy and disorientated. We were told to keep him off his feet for at least 24 hours. Carrying him away in our arms, I thought that although Jimi, myself and my partner Simon Boswell were exhausted, at least the worst was over. But arriving back at our car, we came across yet another obstacle to an already traumatic morning. A traffic warden or, as Jimi calls them, a `green man', on account of the colour of his synthetic uniform, was putting a parking ticket on our windscreen.
Because we had arrived back 20 minutes late, we were being fined 60 pounds. I lost my temper. I have spent the past year worried sick about my son's health. I had been pacing our North London home since 4.30am and the last thing I needed was a `Civil Enforcement Officer' - as they are called nowadays - laying down the law to us. He didn't speak, other than to reel off a string of numbers - presumably our offending code - and summon his `co-officer' from across the street. The pair then repeated the numbers to each other, more inaudible machines than human beings.
As I reached in to secure Jimi's seat belt I snapped: `Do you think we're here for a cup of tea and a sodding sandwich? This is a children's HOSPITAL. Our son has just had an OPERATION. For 20 minutes you're fining us 60 pounds? Shame on you!' To their credit they had the good grace to seem embarrassed but their shame was scant compensation. This was the second fine we had received in as many weeks, and it has left both Simon and me incandescent with rage.
Surely, with the parents of a sick child, they could have exercised compassion. Shouldn't a guaranteed parking space in the proximity of any hospital be a patient's right? What are we supposed to do, call an ambulance every time Jimi needs treatment? As difficult as it is to accept sometimes, we are the lucky ones. This spring Camden Council, the London borough under whose control Great Ormond Street lies, issued us with a disabled blue badge. This allows us to park for up to three hours at a time on the single yellow line outside the hospital, which only badge-holders and ambulances are allowed to do. It is a laminated card with a cardboard clock you adjust to show when you parked.
We had arrived at the sick children's hospital at 7am one day last month, the time all youngsters awaiting an operation under anaesthetic are expected to turn up. Wardens control the area from 8.30am. At 11.20am Simon had left us in our hospital room to check on the car. He knew he needed to move it but there was nowhere to go. Parking in London is exorbitant for everyone. However, at Great Ormond Street Hospital there isn't even a car park to complain about. So, unsurprisingly, the street was packed.
Simon adjusted the cardboard clock to 11.20, assuming, wrongly, that wardens patrolling the area would understand our predicament and allow us more time. For both of us, it was the last straw.
Only a week earlier, while waiting for Jimi's pre-operation assessment, we had been fined another 60 pounds. Simon had accidently left our badge - showing the prerequisite photograph of our son's face, along with the badge details, issue number and expiry date - the wrong side up in the car. It was an innocent mistake but one the traffic warden, the same man on both occasions, was prepared to penalise us for.
Technically, of course, we were in the wrong. But isn't 120 of fines, received while clearly visiting a hospital, rather disproportionate? And is the surrounding area of a hospital, which has scandalously limited parking, really a fit zone in which aggressively to pursue council targets? We're not the only ones for whom proximity to the hospital is of paramount importance and I am sure many other parents have encountered the same problems. Nor is this solely an issue for the capital. Hospitals around Britain - ones that do have car parks - often charge an outrageous fee.
Before we were given our disabled badge, we frequented pay-and-display areas other relatives are still forced to use. It costs 20p for five minutes in these - 4.80 per hour - and the maximum stay is two hours. In the year it took for Jimi to be diagnosed we would often have to wait up to five hours to see a consultant. We were never given a precise time for these appointments. Both Simon, a composer, and I would have to take time off work simply to deal with the parking problems, spending hundreds of pounds in the process.
We thought a blue badge would afford us the simple luxury of being able to care for our son - who has been in and out of hospital up to four times a week for the past 12 months - instead of worrying about our car. Evidently, we were wrong.
As a society, we seem to have relinquished responsibility to an automated tribe of traffic wardens who don't even have the manners to offer an explanation. All individuality has been stripped away in their zealous attempts to catch out decent, taxpaying citizens so they can reach the financial targets set by their relentless bosses. They hunt like pariah dogs and relatives of the vulnerable and ill are not their only targets. They will prey on anyone who will help them increase their revenue. I admit that being a traffic warden must be a horrible job. But would it really hurt them to look us in the eye as they slap on their extortionate fines?
Needless to say, we haven't paid either fine. Simon has written to Camden Council arguing our case and asking how they can justify their employees' uncaring attitude. They say they will consider any mitigating circumstances when processing the appeal. I don't blame Great Ormond Street, who are doing a fantastic job caring for our son.
But I worry that unless the council finds more space for patients and their relatives to park in, and exercises more tolerance towards its targets, it is not just his health that will suffer. Countless other sick children will not be able to receive the medical attention they require - simply because their parents cannot park near enough to the hospital.
Source
Two British comedians get perilously close to the truth
The alarming thing is that the video is 12 months old yet it is totally up to date. Even comedians could foresee what the Democrat Congresscritters could not. (H/T Agmates)
Naughty, naughty!
Gasp! British clergyman attacks the holy of holies:
"A Church of England priest has been ordered to remove comments from his blog calling for gay men to have their backsides tattooed with a warning about sodomy.
Reverend Peter Mullen wrote: "Let us make it obligatory for homosexuals to have their backsides tattooed with the slogan SODOMY CAN SERIOUSLY DAMAGE YOUR HEALTH and their chins with FELLATIO KILLS."
The clergyman, who ministers to parishes in the City of London financial district, was yesterday ordered to remove the comments by the Diocese of London, which said his comments were "highly offensive" and did not reflect its views.
But Mullen, 66, insisted his remarks were "light-hearted jokes" and "satirical".
Source
Paedophile hysteria preventing men from applying to work in British grade schools
The lack of male teachers may be having a serious effect on boys' performance in the classroom as many miss out on strong role models at a young age, according to Tanya Byron, the child psychologist. She said the shortage particularly hit children from single-parent families who often went without father figures in the home.
The comments came as a campaign was launched by the Government's Training and Development Agency for Schools to recruit more men into the primary sector. According to official figures, fewer than one in eight primary school teachers are male, and numbers plummet to just one in 50 among those working in reception and nursery classes.
Dr Byron is the presenter of a television show on problem children called Little Angels, as well as a Government advisor on internet safety. She said paranoia about child abuse was driving many men out of the classroom. "There is this paranoid, over-the-top concern about paedophilia and child molestation - that it is not safe to leave children with men," she said. "These themes are running through society to such an extent that attitudes have become skewed and our anxiety does ultimately discriminate against men. This puts men off from working in primary schools because they are concerned about how they will be viewed and what parents will think of them. We have to challenge these negative and unhelpful belief systems."
Research by the TDA showed almost half of men believed male primary school teachers helped them develop at a young age. In a survey of 800 adults, it was revealed a third were challenged to work harder because of men in the primary years, while 50 per cent were more likely to report problems such as bullying to male teachers.
Dr Byron said boys - many of whom struggle to sit still at a young age - worked better with men. They also needed more exposure to males in school to show that learning was not a feminine virtue, she said. She added that positive male role models were particularly important for boys from single-parent households. "The need for strong male role models as constants in the lives of young children is more apparent than ever in light of the increasing numbers of children experiencing breakdown of the traditional family unit, growing up in single-parent families or not having a male figure at home," she said. "Male primary school teachers can often be stable and reliable figures in the lives of the children that they teach. They inspire children to feel more confident, to work harder and to behave better."
The TDA today urged men to consider applying for teacher training courses, with students and jobseekers now having less than nine weeks to apply for courses which start next year. In 2006-07, fewer than a quarter of primary and secondary school teaching qualifications were obtained by men - the lowest figure in five years.
Source
You can't park here! Say British hospitals
More of that socialist "compassion"
Lying in the harshly lit anaesthesia room at Great Ormond Street Hospital, my four-year-old son Jimi was frightened. So as his little body collapsed under the weight of the drugs, common sense told me this was the `good bit' - that now he was asleep he wasn't in pain. Diagnosed a year ago with juvenile arthritis - a childhood form of the disease that causes swelling in sufferers' joints, making their limbs seize up so they struggle to walk - he was having steroids injected into his ankles to make them stronger. It is the latest in a string of intrusive and gruelling treatments, including chemotherapy and a cocktail of painkillers, that he has bravely endured to combat his condition.
Forty-five angst-ridden minutes later, he came round from the anaesthetic, groggy and disorientated. We were told to keep him off his feet for at least 24 hours. Carrying him away in our arms, I thought that although Jimi, myself and my partner Simon Boswell were exhausted, at least the worst was over. But arriving back at our car, we came across yet another obstacle to an already traumatic morning. A traffic warden or, as Jimi calls them, a `green man', on account of the colour of his synthetic uniform, was putting a parking ticket on our windscreen.
Because we had arrived back 20 minutes late, we were being fined 60 pounds. I lost my temper. I have spent the past year worried sick about my son's health. I had been pacing our North London home since 4.30am and the last thing I needed was a `Civil Enforcement Officer' - as they are called nowadays - laying down the law to us. He didn't speak, other than to reel off a string of numbers - presumably our offending code - and summon his `co-officer' from across the street. The pair then repeated the numbers to each other, more inaudible machines than human beings.
As I reached in to secure Jimi's seat belt I snapped: `Do you think we're here for a cup of tea and a sodding sandwich? This is a children's HOSPITAL. Our son has just had an OPERATION. For 20 minutes you're fining us 60 pounds? Shame on you!' To their credit they had the good grace to seem embarrassed but their shame was scant compensation. This was the second fine we had received in as many weeks, and it has left both Simon and me incandescent with rage.
Surely, with the parents of a sick child, they could have exercised compassion. Shouldn't a guaranteed parking space in the proximity of any hospital be a patient's right? What are we supposed to do, call an ambulance every time Jimi needs treatment? As difficult as it is to accept sometimes, we are the lucky ones. This spring Camden Council, the London borough under whose control Great Ormond Street lies, issued us with a disabled blue badge. This allows us to park for up to three hours at a time on the single yellow line outside the hospital, which only badge-holders and ambulances are allowed to do. It is a laminated card with a cardboard clock you adjust to show when you parked.
We had arrived at the sick children's hospital at 7am one day last month, the time all youngsters awaiting an operation under anaesthetic are expected to turn up. Wardens control the area from 8.30am. At 11.20am Simon had left us in our hospital room to check on the car. He knew he needed to move it but there was nowhere to go. Parking in London is exorbitant for everyone. However, at Great Ormond Street Hospital there isn't even a car park to complain about. So, unsurprisingly, the street was packed.
Simon adjusted the cardboard clock to 11.20, assuming, wrongly, that wardens patrolling the area would understand our predicament and allow us more time. For both of us, it was the last straw.
Only a week earlier, while waiting for Jimi's pre-operation assessment, we had been fined another 60 pounds. Simon had accidently left our badge - showing the prerequisite photograph of our son's face, along with the badge details, issue number and expiry date - the wrong side up in the car. It was an innocent mistake but one the traffic warden, the same man on both occasions, was prepared to penalise us for.
Technically, of course, we were in the wrong. But isn't 120 of fines, received while clearly visiting a hospital, rather disproportionate? And is the surrounding area of a hospital, which has scandalously limited parking, really a fit zone in which aggressively to pursue council targets? We're not the only ones for whom proximity to the hospital is of paramount importance and I am sure many other parents have encountered the same problems. Nor is this solely an issue for the capital. Hospitals around Britain - ones that do have car parks - often charge an outrageous fee.
Before we were given our disabled badge, we frequented pay-and-display areas other relatives are still forced to use. It costs 20p for five minutes in these - 4.80 per hour - and the maximum stay is two hours. In the year it took for Jimi to be diagnosed we would often have to wait up to five hours to see a consultant. We were never given a precise time for these appointments. Both Simon, a composer, and I would have to take time off work simply to deal with the parking problems, spending hundreds of pounds in the process.
We thought a blue badge would afford us the simple luxury of being able to care for our son - who has been in and out of hospital up to four times a week for the past 12 months - instead of worrying about our car. Evidently, we were wrong.
As a society, we seem to have relinquished responsibility to an automated tribe of traffic wardens who don't even have the manners to offer an explanation. All individuality has been stripped away in their zealous attempts to catch out decent, taxpaying citizens so they can reach the financial targets set by their relentless bosses. They hunt like pariah dogs and relatives of the vulnerable and ill are not their only targets. They will prey on anyone who will help them increase their revenue. I admit that being a traffic warden must be a horrible job. But would it really hurt them to look us in the eye as they slap on their extortionate fines?
Needless to say, we haven't paid either fine. Simon has written to Camden Council arguing our case and asking how they can justify their employees' uncaring attitude. They say they will consider any mitigating circumstances when processing the appeal. I don't blame Great Ormond Street, who are doing a fantastic job caring for our son.
But I worry that unless the council finds more space for patients and their relatives to park in, and exercises more tolerance towards its targets, it is not just his health that will suffer. Countless other sick children will not be able to receive the medical attention they require - simply because their parents cannot park near enough to the hospital.
Source
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
The first snow of the year... and it's only October
Any hope of a mild winter were dashed today when winter's first snow made an early appearance. It seems amazing that only a week ago, the sun was out and there was even optimistic talk of a dry season. But temperatures plunged to below zero overnight and today neighbours in the Highlands were left shovelling their driveways after a surprise snowfall.
Cairngorm in Scotland is the first place to see the snow but the rest of the country isn't in for much better weather. Torrential downpours and gale force winds are on the way this weekend. Those braving the outdoors will need waterproofs and umbrellas to hand, with 1.2in (30mm) of rain predicted in some parts. Following the relatively sunny and dry end to September, classic autumn conditions are now likely in many areas.....
Temperatures in London on Monday could reach a balmy 64f (18c) and 59f (15c) or 61f (16c) in other areas. But the overall outlook for the immediate future appears wet and gloomy. We should hardly be surprised. Following last year's record-breaking wet summer, weather statistics show the summer of 2008 was anything but average as well. In fact, it was one of the wettest and least sunny on record.
We had the dullest August since records began in 1929 and a well below par 463.9 hours of sunshine between June 1 and August 31. August was the sixth wettest since 1914 and some parts of the country experienced double the average summer rainfall.
Source
Britain's heartless and rigid socialist bureaucracy again
Not a hint of any human kindness, decency or fellow-feeling: Politicized police refuse to allow mother to lay flowers at death scene of her young sons
The mother of two young children killed in a fire at their family home has been marched away by police after trying to lay flowers on her own doorstep. Denise Goldsmith, 29, said she wanted to pay tribute to her sons Lewis, seven, and Taylor, five, who died when a blaze broke out at their house in the coastal town of Eastbourne, Sussex. The mother was locked out of the property on Saturday afternoon while her children were trapped inside as the flames tore through the house.
She returned to the scene yesterday, and witnesses said that she became hysterical when police told her she could not pass a cordon while forensics teams worked at the property. She pleaded: "Let me in, I need to leave these flowers for my boys. I need to get through, this is my home."
Mrs Goldsmith and members of her family then hit out at officers, according to witnesses, and were led back to their car and advised to leave. A forensic investigator finally retrieved the bunch of flowers, which had been dropped on the road, and placed it on the doorstep behind the cordon.
Jason Maynard, 35, who attempted to save the children, revealed their "devastating" last moments. He said that Mrs Goldsmith had run out of the house to seek help tackling the fire - leaving the children inside - but had locked herself out when the front door slammed behind her. The boys were left trapped inside. Mr Maynard, who was in a neighbouring house when he heard shouting and went outside, said: "The mother was outside on the path, just screaming the place down. She couldn't get back in. "She told me her kids were playing inside, under the stairs. She was screaming, please save my kids, get them out, my kids, my kids, my kids. "The kids wouldn't have been able to reach the door latch to let themselves out. They were just trapped."
The witness said that attempts to break into the house were futile. "The kitchen had already caught fire. The house was just full of flames and there was a huge amount of smoke. "There was nothing we could do. When the fire brigade turned up they battered the door down and went inside, then brought the kids' bodies out and laid them on the pavement. "It's absolutely heartbreaking."
Linda Carey, a friend of the children's father, Stuart Jenkins, said: "Both Stuart and Denise absolutely doted on those boys. I have no idea how she must be feeling right now. "Doctors have put her on sedatives to calm her down. But she must be absolutely torn apart."
Source
Two good letters to "The Telegraph"
1). Your correspondent who contradicted Christopher Booker and expressed approval for the BBC's climate change programme (Letters, September 28) quoted figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for past CO2 atmospheric levels which are based on pure guesswork.
The CO2 figures for the past 650,000 years of 180-300 parts per million (ppm) are a guess based on corrected ice core data. Since they were published the corrections have been found to be wrong, based on supposition and giving figures that were too low.
Research into sedimentary carbon isotope data shows higher figures, and the fact that CO2 is not a fixed quantity but has varied over time after temperature changes. This would indicate that CO2 did not drive climate.
There is also the problem with CO2 atmospheric residence time, which the IPCC maintains is 200 years. Recent research by at least 20 independent scientists has given the true figure as 5-10 years. This discrepancy is a serious error and is the problem with the IPCC models, which do not work.
The greenhouse effect is also in question. It might have been proved over a century ago by good scientists, but science moves on and current research shows that this well-known effect is a false trail.
2). Writing in support of the BBC's position on climate change, your correspondent says "the onus is on the sceptics to explain why this [increase in atmospheric CO2 levels] should not cause climate change". The answer is well known to everyone in the climate debate. The relationship between CO2 levels and the greenhouse "forcing effect" is logarithmic. It is a law of diminishing returns.
The higher the level of CO2, the less effect any further increase will have. If the current level were, say, 20 ppm, the effect of adding an extra 20 ppm would be dramatic. But at the current level of around 380 ppm, the effect of an extra 20 ppm is trivial.
I have discussed this point with scientists on the IPCC and they accept it as fact, but then they postulate complex feedback mechanisms between CO2 and water vapour to justify their alarmist position.
Source
Oh Dear! More flawed logic. A British upper class lady writing below ignores the role of social class
Personality traits are highly heritable so what was probably found in the research was that upper class mothers had greater self-confidence and that they expected more of their children. That their children had greater self-confidence could therefore have been a matter of simple genetic inheritance, not a product of expectations or anything else
A study by the University of London reported last week in New Scientist magazine revealed that determined mothers, in particular, tend to produce ultra-confident daughters. This has been widely misinterpreted to mean that becoming the modern-day equivalent of an old-fashioned stage mother is a good thing. What the study actually shows is the importance of having confidence in your children, which is not remotely the same thing as being pushy: it is arguably the exact opposite. Have confidence in their abilities, the study concludes, and they will have few issues with self-esteem.
This does not mean forcing them to do five A-levels. It means not snorting and saying, “Yeah, right,” when your child announces she would like to be foreign secretary; and it also means, surely, leading by example, which probably means working – because it’s harder to be ambitious and confident when you’re milling about vacuuming or putting a load of washing on.
A closer look at the study reveals that there were 300 boys and girls involved, born in 1970. When the children were aged 10, their mothers were asked at what age they believed their child would leave school – a question chosen to illustrate each mother’s belief in her child’s capabilities [And which would have correlated highly with the mother's class rank] . Twenty years later the children themselves answered questions designed to measure their self-confidence.
Those whose mothers had high hopes for them were more likely to report that they felt in control of their lives by the age of 30. The answers also showed that the self-esteem of the women was linked to their mothers’ belief in them as they were growing up, regardless of other factors such as class and education. In addition, a mother’s own confidence and ambition were deemed likely to have rubbed off on her daughter.
I’m stumbling along in the dark like everybody else when it comes to child-rearing, but this study makes perfect sense to me. I was fortunate enough to have a mother [Her mother was an obviously clever Indian lady who married -- several times -- into the upper strata of British society] who thought my ambitions were a bit low-key – when I wanted to be a nurse, she said I should be a doctor; when I wanted to learn Italian, she asked what was wrong with Arabic or Chinese; when I said I might be a journalist, she wondered what on earth was wrong with me – what about the Nobel for literature? She was not remotely pushy – I don’t recall her ever looking over my homework – but she had absolute faith in me.
I don’t ever look at my own children’s homework either (in some circles this is akin to child abuse) because they are perfectly intelligent teenagers who don’t need their mummy to help with commas or write their essays for them on the sly, and I have absolute faith in them. They spend a lot of time just sort of hanging out. No doubt they could be honing their intellects instead of going to see bands or drawing cartoons. But they are their own creatures, for better or worse – not some tragic experiment in creating the version of myself that I’d have liked to be.
Everyone wants the best for their children, whether they are pushy parents or the more shambolic kind. I may be completely allergic to pushiness, but I don’t deny that it has its advantages. Where it fails is in creating confident, relaxed, well-rounded people who are socially at ease wherever they may land. Which is to say, happy people. Tell your children to aim high and let them get on with it.
Source.
The writer above is India Knight. Her mother was certainly a clever lady. The Christian name "India" is the sort of name one does find in British upper class circles but could also be portrayed as a frank admission of her Indian origins. The daughter is similarly clever (as one would expect from someone who writes regularly for "The Times"). Her surname "Knight" is adopted from one of her eminent stepfathers. I do not mean to mock the lady, however. Her devotion to her severely handicapped child shows great character. I actually admire how she has made her way so well in British society.
British TV program scraps script after footballers' complaints
"There is intense rivalry in Scotland between the two major football (soccer) teams: Rangers and Celtics. Protestants support the one and Catholics the other.
Any hope of a mild winter were dashed today when winter's first snow made an early appearance. It seems amazing that only a week ago, the sun was out and there was even optimistic talk of a dry season. But temperatures plunged to below zero overnight and today neighbours in the Highlands were left shovelling their driveways after a surprise snowfall.
Cairngorm in Scotland is the first place to see the snow but the rest of the country isn't in for much better weather. Torrential downpours and gale force winds are on the way this weekend. Those braving the outdoors will need waterproofs and umbrellas to hand, with 1.2in (30mm) of rain predicted in some parts. Following the relatively sunny and dry end to September, classic autumn conditions are now likely in many areas.....
Temperatures in London on Monday could reach a balmy 64f (18c) and 59f (15c) or 61f (16c) in other areas. But the overall outlook for the immediate future appears wet and gloomy. We should hardly be surprised. Following last year's record-breaking wet summer, weather statistics show the summer of 2008 was anything but average as well. In fact, it was one of the wettest and least sunny on record.
We had the dullest August since records began in 1929 and a well below par 463.9 hours of sunshine between June 1 and August 31. August was the sixth wettest since 1914 and some parts of the country experienced double the average summer rainfall.
Source
Britain's heartless and rigid socialist bureaucracy again
Not a hint of any human kindness, decency or fellow-feeling: Politicized police refuse to allow mother to lay flowers at death scene of her young sons
The mother of two young children killed in a fire at their family home has been marched away by police after trying to lay flowers on her own doorstep. Denise Goldsmith, 29, said she wanted to pay tribute to her sons Lewis, seven, and Taylor, five, who died when a blaze broke out at their house in the coastal town of Eastbourne, Sussex. The mother was locked out of the property on Saturday afternoon while her children were trapped inside as the flames tore through the house.
She returned to the scene yesterday, and witnesses said that she became hysterical when police told her she could not pass a cordon while forensics teams worked at the property. She pleaded: "Let me in, I need to leave these flowers for my boys. I need to get through, this is my home."
Mrs Goldsmith and members of her family then hit out at officers, according to witnesses, and were led back to their car and advised to leave. A forensic investigator finally retrieved the bunch of flowers, which had been dropped on the road, and placed it on the doorstep behind the cordon.
Jason Maynard, 35, who attempted to save the children, revealed their "devastating" last moments. He said that Mrs Goldsmith had run out of the house to seek help tackling the fire - leaving the children inside - but had locked herself out when the front door slammed behind her. The boys were left trapped inside. Mr Maynard, who was in a neighbouring house when he heard shouting and went outside, said: "The mother was outside on the path, just screaming the place down. She couldn't get back in. "She told me her kids were playing inside, under the stairs. She was screaming, please save my kids, get them out, my kids, my kids, my kids. "The kids wouldn't have been able to reach the door latch to let themselves out. They were just trapped."
The witness said that attempts to break into the house were futile. "The kitchen had already caught fire. The house was just full of flames and there was a huge amount of smoke. "There was nothing we could do. When the fire brigade turned up they battered the door down and went inside, then brought the kids' bodies out and laid them on the pavement. "It's absolutely heartbreaking."
Linda Carey, a friend of the children's father, Stuart Jenkins, said: "Both Stuart and Denise absolutely doted on those boys. I have no idea how she must be feeling right now. "Doctors have put her on sedatives to calm her down. But she must be absolutely torn apart."
Source
Two good letters to "The Telegraph"
1). Your correspondent who contradicted Christopher Booker and expressed approval for the BBC's climate change programme (Letters, September 28) quoted figures from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for past CO2 atmospheric levels which are based on pure guesswork.
The CO2 figures for the past 650,000 years of 180-300 parts per million (ppm) are a guess based on corrected ice core data. Since they were published the corrections have been found to be wrong, based on supposition and giving figures that were too low.
Research into sedimentary carbon isotope data shows higher figures, and the fact that CO2 is not a fixed quantity but has varied over time after temperature changes. This would indicate that CO2 did not drive climate.
There is also the problem with CO2 atmospheric residence time, which the IPCC maintains is 200 years. Recent research by at least 20 independent scientists has given the true figure as 5-10 years. This discrepancy is a serious error and is the problem with the IPCC models, which do not work.
The greenhouse effect is also in question. It might have been proved over a century ago by good scientists, but science moves on and current research shows that this well-known effect is a false trail.
2). Writing in support of the BBC's position on climate change, your correspondent says "the onus is on the sceptics to explain why this [increase in atmospheric CO2 levels] should not cause climate change". The answer is well known to everyone in the climate debate. The relationship between CO2 levels and the greenhouse "forcing effect" is logarithmic. It is a law of diminishing returns.
The higher the level of CO2, the less effect any further increase will have. If the current level were, say, 20 ppm, the effect of adding an extra 20 ppm would be dramatic. But at the current level of around 380 ppm, the effect of an extra 20 ppm is trivial.
I have discussed this point with scientists on the IPCC and they accept it as fact, but then they postulate complex feedback mechanisms between CO2 and water vapour to justify their alarmist position.
Source
Oh Dear! More flawed logic. A British upper class lady writing below ignores the role of social class
Personality traits are highly heritable so what was probably found in the research was that upper class mothers had greater self-confidence and that they expected more of their children. That their children had greater self-confidence could therefore have been a matter of simple genetic inheritance, not a product of expectations or anything else
A study by the University of London reported last week in New Scientist magazine revealed that determined mothers, in particular, tend to produce ultra-confident daughters. This has been widely misinterpreted to mean that becoming the modern-day equivalent of an old-fashioned stage mother is a good thing. What the study actually shows is the importance of having confidence in your children, which is not remotely the same thing as being pushy: it is arguably the exact opposite. Have confidence in their abilities, the study concludes, and they will have few issues with self-esteem.
This does not mean forcing them to do five A-levels. It means not snorting and saying, “Yeah, right,” when your child announces she would like to be foreign secretary; and it also means, surely, leading by example, which probably means working – because it’s harder to be ambitious and confident when you’re milling about vacuuming or putting a load of washing on.
A closer look at the study reveals that there were 300 boys and girls involved, born in 1970. When the children were aged 10, their mothers were asked at what age they believed their child would leave school – a question chosen to illustrate each mother’s belief in her child’s capabilities [And which would have correlated highly with the mother's class rank] . Twenty years later the children themselves answered questions designed to measure their self-confidence.
Those whose mothers had high hopes for them were more likely to report that they felt in control of their lives by the age of 30. The answers also showed that the self-esteem of the women was linked to their mothers’ belief in them as they were growing up, regardless of other factors such as class and education. In addition, a mother’s own confidence and ambition were deemed likely to have rubbed off on her daughter.
I’m stumbling along in the dark like everybody else when it comes to child-rearing, but this study makes perfect sense to me. I was fortunate enough to have a mother [Her mother was an obviously clever Indian lady who married -- several times -- into the upper strata of British society] who thought my ambitions were a bit low-key – when I wanted to be a nurse, she said I should be a doctor; when I wanted to learn Italian, she asked what was wrong with Arabic or Chinese; when I said I might be a journalist, she wondered what on earth was wrong with me – what about the Nobel for literature? She was not remotely pushy – I don’t recall her ever looking over my homework – but she had absolute faith in me.
I don’t ever look at my own children’s homework either (in some circles this is akin to child abuse) because they are perfectly intelligent teenagers who don’t need their mummy to help with commas or write their essays for them on the sly, and I have absolute faith in them. They spend a lot of time just sort of hanging out. No doubt they could be honing their intellects instead of going to see bands or drawing cartoons. But they are their own creatures, for better or worse – not some tragic experiment in creating the version of myself that I’d have liked to be.
Everyone wants the best for their children, whether they are pushy parents or the more shambolic kind. I may be completely allergic to pushiness, but I don’t deny that it has its advantages. Where it fails is in creating confident, relaxed, well-rounded people who are socially at ease wherever they may land. Which is to say, happy people. Tell your children to aim high and let them get on with it.
Source.
The writer above is India Knight. Her mother was certainly a clever lady. The Christian name "India" is the sort of name one does find in British upper class circles but could also be portrayed as a frank admission of her Indian origins. The daughter is similarly clever (as one would expect from someone who writes regularly for "The Times"). Her surname "Knight" is adopted from one of her eminent stepfathers. I do not mean to mock the lady, however. Her devotion to her severely handicapped child shows great character. I actually admire how she has made her way so well in British society.
British TV program scraps script after footballers' complaints
"There is intense rivalry in Scotland between the two major football (soccer) teams: Rangers and Celtics. Protestants support the one and Catholics the other.
"Television bosses in Britain have been forced to change an episode of a staple daytime soap opera after dozens of complaints over a jibe directed at Scottish football side Rangers. Britain's biggest commercial broadcaster ITV said the script for a forthcoming episode of Coronation Street, a Manchester-based program and the country's longest-running television soap, was altered after several fans of the Glasgow club voiced displeasure at the joke.
Character Tony Gordon, played by Scottish actor Gray O'Brien, said on the show that he "could no more be interested in Rosie Webster than I could support Glasgow Rangers''. According to an ITV spokesman, the dialogue seemed "to have caused some upset''.
As such, one of the character's lines in an upcoming episode - that he was allergic to "warm beer, the English national anthem and Glasgow Rangers'' - has now been dropped.
Source
Monday, October 06, 2008
The world's biggest computer botch-up: Take a bow NHS
Patients `at risk' from flawed $25BILLION IT system
An NHS computer system intended to revolutionise patient care has so many software flaws that seriously ill or badly injured patients are at risk of being inaccurately diagnosed, according to an internal health service document. An assessment of the system at the first hospital to launch it, the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in north London, details a catalogue of software glitches and design faults. It warns that the problems pose a possible "risk to patients by underestimation of clinical condition".
According to the document, the system, which is being used in the accident and emergency department, is routinely crashing, patient information is intermittently "lost" and some staff are reverting to pen and paper. Extra staff have been drafted in to help cope.
Tony Collins, executive editor of Computer Weekly, said the document, disclosed by an NHS employee, warned that some of the problems could "continue indefinitely". He said: "This is the centrepiece of the Connecting for Health programme [the government's plan to computerise NHS records] and it isn't working properly." Hospital officials said this weekend that continuing problems were being "vigorously" pursued with the contractors while staff were being vigilant to ensure patient safety was not compromised.
The report is the latest setback for the 12 billion pound Connecting for Health programme, which was meant to provide a single nationwide IT system for the NHS containing records for every patient by 2010. While some elements of the programme have been introduced ahead of schedule, the patient record system has been beset with delays and software problems.
Last June the Royal Free became the first trust to launch the most advanced version. To protect patient confidentiality, records can be accessed only with a swipe card and a code. The launch was a key test for Connecting for Health, which has faced questions about the reliability of its systems and whether patient confidentiality could be easily compromised with computerised records. Two months after the launch there were reports of missing data and delays in booking patient appointments.
Now an assessment of the new system at the Royal Free has uncovered a series of problems, which appear to be unlikely to be fixed in the short term. The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust said the implementation of the new system was initially better than expected but there were continuing problems that would "take some time" to rectify.
Source
NHS child loses out as surgeon gives liver transplant to private patient from the Gulf
$$$$$$$???
A senior surgeon broke NHS guidelines by transplanting part of a donated liver into a private overseas patient instead of saving it for someone on Britain's waiting list. Professor Nigel Heaton, head of the transplant unit at King's College Hospital in London, transplanted part of the liver into a boy from one of the Gulf states.
The surgeon was the subject of a formal investigation after other doctors said that a child on the NHS organ waiting list should have been given priority. National guidelines state that, because of the acute shortage of donor organs in Britain, livers must be offered to all other NHS centres before they can be given to a patient from outside the EU. There are about 400 NHS patients on the liver transplant waiting list - 20 per cent of whom will die before a suitable organ can be found.
The incident sparked fury among surgeons at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, which first received the liver from a 40-year-old donor. After instructions from UK Transplant, which co-ordinates NHS transplant services, the Leeds surgeons sent the liver to King's for a `super-urgent' adult NHS patient on the understanding that it was to be used solely for that person. St James's only learned the following day that Prof Heaton had split the liver into two when a member of staff from King's contacted them.
Prof Heaton had used the larger right portion for an adult NHS patient and transplanted the left lobe into a seven-year-old boy who had rejected an earlier liver and was seriously ill. He later died.
A senior medical source said: `This was clearly a violation of procedure. It should have been offered back to every other hospital within the NHS and then throughout Europe before going to a non-NHS recipient. `There is no process for it to go to a non-entitled patient on compassionate grounds. It just doesn't happen.'
David Mayer, chairman of UK Transplant's Liver Advisory Group, said the Leeds doctors had been extremely concerned because they had a sick child, an NHS patient, who could have benefited if they had known the liver was to be split. He added: `If we were to provide livers for the world from the UK, then UK patients would be enormously disadvantaged.'
The procedure of splitting livers has been developed in recent years to counter the shortage of donor organs, particularly for children. Because livers are able to regenerate relatively quickly, two patients, usually an adult and a child, can be treated with one organ. Normally, livers from donors aged over 40 are considered too old to split, so UK Transplant had not expected this to happen in this case.
In a statement, King's said they had applied to have the Gulf state's child considered for priority liver transplantation on compassionate grounds and that there had been no objections. They said that the investigating panel had found that guidelines had been breached and that it had recommended that King's review its practices and ensure all staff were aware of transplant guidelines. A King's hospital spokesman confirmed that Prof Heaton had been paid for the original transplant on the private patient - which had been rejected - but had received no further fee for the second operation.
The surgeon, who lives in a 1million pound detached house in Beckenham, Kent, gave George Best a liver transplant three years before the alcoholic ex-footballer died of multiple organ failure. Earlier this year, this newspaper revealed that King's had agreed with the Greek and Cypriot governments to treat patients from those countries privately using NHS livers, charging around 85,000 pounds per operation.
King's has given livers from UK donors to 22 private patients from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in the past five years. The hospital has made more than 4million from performing transplants on overseas patients in that time.
Source
British politician who spoke the truth about Muslims is put in charge of immigration policy
Muslim groups expressed anger last night after a Labour politician who has been at the centre of a series of race controversies was made Immigration Minister. Phil Woolas, previously an Environment Minister, was handed the brief despite infuriating the Pakistani community earlier this year by warning they were fuelling birth defects by inter-marrying. He also caused anger following the Oldham race riots by calling for 'the reality of anti-white racism' to be acknowledged.
Last night, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee condemned his appointment. A spokesman said: 'Phil Woolas has a track record of insensitive, inappropriate outbursts that have verged on Islamophobia. 'He is a Minister clearly out of his depth. We will monitor his work for any more signs of his all too obvious antipathy towards British Muslims.'
His appointment was part of a raft of junior ministerial changes announced by Gordon Brown yesterday, including rewards for MPs who led the famous 'curry-house' plot against Tony Blair....
Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, embarrassed Downing Street in February by arguing that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. 'Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages,' he said. 'If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue.' It is estimated that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. The likelihood of unrelated couples having children with genetic disorders is about 100-1, but it rises to one in eight for first cousins. British Pakistani children account for as many as one-third of birth defects, despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.
After Muslim groups accused Mr Woolas of 'flirting with Islamophobia', Downing Street was quick to stress that he was speaking in his capacity as a constituency MP. It followed a series of outspoken remarks in defence of the white working class which began when he warned after the Oldham race riots in 2001 that Labour would lose out to the British National Party unless it did more to 'create a country at ease with itself'.
Last year, in an article for The Mail on Sunday, he said: 'Among the groups who are missing out and who suffer genuine discrimination is the white teenage underclass. 'Such people are fashionably dismissed as "chav scum" or "trailer trash". 'But to say such things is to be as guilty of stereotyping as those who say that all Muslims support terrorists.'
Source
New British immigration boss may cap numbers
The new immigration minister has hinted that Labour may take the political risk of adopting a “balanced migration” policy to restrict population growth in Britain. In his first interview since being given the job yesterday, Phil Woolas vowed to toughen the current legislation, claiming that it was vital to “provide confidence to the indigenous population that migration is under control”.
Woolas expressed sympathy with a campaign led by Frank Field, the Labour rebel, who has called for a statutory limit on the number of foreigners allowed to settle in Britain. “On a common sense level there has to be a limit to the population,” said Woolas. “You have to have a policy that thinks about the population implication as well as the immigration implications.”
The government is introducing an Australian-style points system. This is aimed at ensuring that high-skilled migrants are welcomed while nonEuropean Union nationals with no useful job skills are barred.
Woolas said the government should be ready to go further in limiting migration: “On the one hand is the rationale that we have got to strengthen our economy. But we have got to provide reassurance to communities that the numbers coming in are not bad for us. “Community cohesion is crucial. After the economy, this is probably the biggest concern facing the population.” He also signalled that there would be new restrictions on people coming from overseas to get married.
Field has argued that successive ministers have failed to consider the way immigration has boosted population levels. According to one estimate, within 50 years Britain could become the most densely populated country in the EU except Malta. England recently overtook the population density of Holland. In the long term Field wants to see a “balanced” policy with annual immigration levels directly linked to birth rates and the numbers of Britons emmigrating.
Until now Labour ministers have tended to duck any discussions of “population policy”, preferring to empha-sise the economic benefits of “controlled migration”. Woolas’s appointment in the ministerial reshuffle heralds a change in direction.
Source
Transgender students force restroom change in British university
No privacy at the University of Manchester. I wonder how many sexual assaults it will take before they reverse this policy?
The ladies' lavatory is now simply labelled "toilet" while the mens' has become "toilets with urinals". The student union decided to change the signs during a meeting of its executive in the summer following a number of complaints from transgender students. Women's officer Jennie Killip refused to say how many people had complained, and there are no figures for how many transgender people there are among the university's 35,000 population. She said: "If you were born female, still presently quite feminine, but defined as a man you should be able to go into the men's toilets.
"You don't necessarily have to have had gender reassignment surgery, but you could just define yourself as a man, feel very masculine in yourself, feel that in fact being a woman is not who you are. "Transgender people can face violence and abuse when they go into toilets and we wanted to provide a place where they can feel comfortable. "I have had complaints from people who said we didn't have any facilities for them."
But the switch has caused consternation among many of the students returning from their summer break. Second-year student Jane McConnell, 19, a news editor on the Student Direct student newspaper, said: "While these signs might be appropriate for people with different sexualities, I also think that many people from different religious and ethnic groups are going to feel uncomfortable using these facilities. "Even though they're just two signs, at the end of the day, toilets should be for women and for men specifically, not for both." Another student said: "This is ridiculous. It is just too much political correctness".
Source
Scotland: Infant pupils to get "free" meals
"There aint no such thing as a free lunch" -- just something somebody else pays for
All pupils will receive free meals in the first three years of primary school, the Scottish Government has announced. The service will begin in 2010 after a pilot in several areas, which saw the take-up of meals rise from 53% to 75%. Council umbrella group Cosla denied claims from some authorities that services would have to be cut to pay for the move.
Ministers said helping children in their early years was a priority. The Scottish Government said councils would be expected to find the money for the scheme from the funding settlement already agreed. Scottish Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop said the year-long, $10m pilot scheme, involving 35,000 pupils in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire, Fife and the Borders, was a success. The pilot also reported that parents and teachers were positive about the scheme, while some pupils enjoyed trying new foods. "This government has made it a priority to help children in their early years and this initiative does just that, providing every child with a free school meal in their first years at primary school," said Ms Hyslop.
The Scottish Government has already published guidance to help school catering staff produce healthy meals. According to Labour, the education conveners of several local authorities - including North Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh and the leader of Inverclyde Council - raised concern over whether they could pay for the service, with some saying they would have to make cuts to fund it. But Cosla president Pat Watters told BBC Scotland there was $80m in the budget to provide free school meals to primaries one, two and three. He added: "There is no reason why anyone should have to cut anything to fund this. This is a government funded project."
Labour education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin also raised concerns about the funding, adding: "Local authorities are already struggling to employ newly qualified teachers and reduce class sizes, but some schools can't even afford photocopying."
Liz Smith, of the Scottish Tories, questioned whether a blanket free meals policy would target the right pupils, while the Liberal Democrats' Margaret Smith said ministers had "failed to make the case" that the plan was the best way to tackle poor diets.
But John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said the announcement was "a massive step forward" in the campaign to ensure healthy meals for children, whatever their home circumstances. "It will help boost children's health, education and wellbeing and provide a really welcome benefit to hard pressed families across Scotland," he said.
A two-year free school meals pilot in primaries is due to start in England next year, while the Welsh Assembly administration said it was currently focussing on improving nutritional standards.
Source
UK Beach 2 Miles Inland in 43 AD
So much for sea level rise:
The `lost' beach where the Romans landed 2,000 years ago to begin their invasion of Britain has been uncovered by archaeologists. The remains of the shingle harbour were buried beneath 6ft of soil nearly two miles inland from the modern Kent coast. It lies close to the remains of the Roman fort of Richborough near Sandwich, one of the most important Roman sites in England and once the gateway to the British Isles.
Daily Mail: `Uncovered, the `lost' beach where the Romans got a toehold on Britain'
Source
Patients `at risk' from flawed $25BILLION IT system
An NHS computer system intended to revolutionise patient care has so many software flaws that seriously ill or badly injured patients are at risk of being inaccurately diagnosed, according to an internal health service document. An assessment of the system at the first hospital to launch it, the Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust in north London, details a catalogue of software glitches and design faults. It warns that the problems pose a possible "risk to patients by underestimation of clinical condition".
According to the document, the system, which is being used in the accident and emergency department, is routinely crashing, patient information is intermittently "lost" and some staff are reverting to pen and paper. Extra staff have been drafted in to help cope.
Tony Collins, executive editor of Computer Weekly, said the document, disclosed by an NHS employee, warned that some of the problems could "continue indefinitely". He said: "This is the centrepiece of the Connecting for Health programme [the government's plan to computerise NHS records] and it isn't working properly." Hospital officials said this weekend that continuing problems were being "vigorously" pursued with the contractors while staff were being vigilant to ensure patient safety was not compromised.
The report is the latest setback for the 12 billion pound Connecting for Health programme, which was meant to provide a single nationwide IT system for the NHS containing records for every patient by 2010. While some elements of the programme have been introduced ahead of schedule, the patient record system has been beset with delays and software problems.
Last June the Royal Free became the first trust to launch the most advanced version. To protect patient confidentiality, records can be accessed only with a swipe card and a code. The launch was a key test for Connecting for Health, which has faced questions about the reliability of its systems and whether patient confidentiality could be easily compromised with computerised records. Two months after the launch there were reports of missing data and delays in booking patient appointments.
Now an assessment of the new system at the Royal Free has uncovered a series of problems, which appear to be unlikely to be fixed in the short term. The Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust said the implementation of the new system was initially better than expected but there were continuing problems that would "take some time" to rectify.
Source
NHS child loses out as surgeon gives liver transplant to private patient from the Gulf
$$$$$$$???
A senior surgeon broke NHS guidelines by transplanting part of a donated liver into a private overseas patient instead of saving it for someone on Britain's waiting list. Professor Nigel Heaton, head of the transplant unit at King's College Hospital in London, transplanted part of the liver into a boy from one of the Gulf states.
The surgeon was the subject of a formal investigation after other doctors said that a child on the NHS organ waiting list should have been given priority. National guidelines state that, because of the acute shortage of donor organs in Britain, livers must be offered to all other NHS centres before they can be given to a patient from outside the EU. There are about 400 NHS patients on the liver transplant waiting list - 20 per cent of whom will die before a suitable organ can be found.
The incident sparked fury among surgeons at St James's University Hospital in Leeds, which first received the liver from a 40-year-old donor. After instructions from UK Transplant, which co-ordinates NHS transplant services, the Leeds surgeons sent the liver to King's for a `super-urgent' adult NHS patient on the understanding that it was to be used solely for that person. St James's only learned the following day that Prof Heaton had split the liver into two when a member of staff from King's contacted them.
Prof Heaton had used the larger right portion for an adult NHS patient and transplanted the left lobe into a seven-year-old boy who had rejected an earlier liver and was seriously ill. He later died.
A senior medical source said: `This was clearly a violation of procedure. It should have been offered back to every other hospital within the NHS and then throughout Europe before going to a non-NHS recipient. `There is no process for it to go to a non-entitled patient on compassionate grounds. It just doesn't happen.'
David Mayer, chairman of UK Transplant's Liver Advisory Group, said the Leeds doctors had been extremely concerned because they had a sick child, an NHS patient, who could have benefited if they had known the liver was to be split. He added: `If we were to provide livers for the world from the UK, then UK patients would be enormously disadvantaged.'
The procedure of splitting livers has been developed in recent years to counter the shortage of donor organs, particularly for children. Because livers are able to regenerate relatively quickly, two patients, usually an adult and a child, can be treated with one organ. Normally, livers from donors aged over 40 are considered too old to split, so UK Transplant had not expected this to happen in this case.
In a statement, King's said they had applied to have the Gulf state's child considered for priority liver transplantation on compassionate grounds and that there had been no objections. They said that the investigating panel had found that guidelines had been breached and that it had recommended that King's review its practices and ensure all staff were aware of transplant guidelines. A King's hospital spokesman confirmed that Prof Heaton had been paid for the original transplant on the private patient - which had been rejected - but had received no further fee for the second operation.
The surgeon, who lives in a 1million pound detached house in Beckenham, Kent, gave George Best a liver transplant three years before the alcoholic ex-footballer died of multiple organ failure. Earlier this year, this newspaper revealed that King's had agreed with the Greek and Cypriot governments to treat patients from those countries privately using NHS livers, charging around 85,000 pounds per operation.
King's has given livers from UK donors to 22 private patients from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in the past five years. The hospital has made more than 4million from performing transplants on overseas patients in that time.
Source
British politician who spoke the truth about Muslims is put in charge of immigration policy
Muslim groups expressed anger last night after a Labour politician who has been at the centre of a series of race controversies was made Immigration Minister. Phil Woolas, previously an Environment Minister, was handed the brief despite infuriating the Pakistani community earlier this year by warning they were fuelling birth defects by inter-marrying. He also caused anger following the Oldham race riots by calling for 'the reality of anti-white racism' to be acknowledged.
Last night, the Muslim Public Affairs Committee condemned his appointment. A spokesman said: 'Phil Woolas has a track record of insensitive, inappropriate outbursts that have verged on Islamophobia. 'He is a Minister clearly out of his depth. We will monitor his work for any more signs of his all too obvious antipathy towards British Muslims.'
His appointment was part of a raft of junior ministerial changes announced by Gordon Brown yesterday, including rewards for MPs who led the famous 'curry-house' plot against Tony Blair....
Mr Woolas, the Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, embarrassed Downing Street in February by arguing that marriages between first cousins are a factor in birth defects and inherited conditions. 'Part of the risk, I am told by the health service, is first-cousin marriages,' he said. 'If you are supportive of the Asian community then you have a duty to raise this issue.' It is estimated that 55 per cent of British Pakistanis are married to first cousins. The likelihood of unrelated couples having children with genetic disorders is about 100-1, but it rises to one in eight for first cousins. British Pakistani children account for as many as one-third of birth defects, despite making up only three per cent of all UK births.
After Muslim groups accused Mr Woolas of 'flirting with Islamophobia', Downing Street was quick to stress that he was speaking in his capacity as a constituency MP. It followed a series of outspoken remarks in defence of the white working class which began when he warned after the Oldham race riots in 2001 that Labour would lose out to the British National Party unless it did more to 'create a country at ease with itself'.
Last year, in an article for The Mail on Sunday, he said: 'Among the groups who are missing out and who suffer genuine discrimination is the white teenage underclass. 'Such people are fashionably dismissed as "chav scum" or "trailer trash". 'But to say such things is to be as guilty of stereotyping as those who say that all Muslims support terrorists.'
Source
New British immigration boss may cap numbers
The new immigration minister has hinted that Labour may take the political risk of adopting a “balanced migration” policy to restrict population growth in Britain. In his first interview since being given the job yesterday, Phil Woolas vowed to toughen the current legislation, claiming that it was vital to “provide confidence to the indigenous population that migration is under control”.
Woolas expressed sympathy with a campaign led by Frank Field, the Labour rebel, who has called for a statutory limit on the number of foreigners allowed to settle in Britain. “On a common sense level there has to be a limit to the population,” said Woolas. “You have to have a policy that thinks about the population implication as well as the immigration implications.”
The government is introducing an Australian-style points system. This is aimed at ensuring that high-skilled migrants are welcomed while nonEuropean Union nationals with no useful job skills are barred.
Woolas said the government should be ready to go further in limiting migration: “On the one hand is the rationale that we have got to strengthen our economy. But we have got to provide reassurance to communities that the numbers coming in are not bad for us. “Community cohesion is crucial. After the economy, this is probably the biggest concern facing the population.” He also signalled that there would be new restrictions on people coming from overseas to get married.
Field has argued that successive ministers have failed to consider the way immigration has boosted population levels. According to one estimate, within 50 years Britain could become the most densely populated country in the EU except Malta. England recently overtook the population density of Holland. In the long term Field wants to see a “balanced” policy with annual immigration levels directly linked to birth rates and the numbers of Britons emmigrating.
Until now Labour ministers have tended to duck any discussions of “population policy”, preferring to empha-sise the economic benefits of “controlled migration”. Woolas’s appointment in the ministerial reshuffle heralds a change in direction.
Source
Transgender students force restroom change in British university
No privacy at the University of Manchester. I wonder how many sexual assaults it will take before they reverse this policy?
The ladies' lavatory is now simply labelled "toilet" while the mens' has become "toilets with urinals". The student union decided to change the signs during a meeting of its executive in the summer following a number of complaints from transgender students. Women's officer Jennie Killip refused to say how many people had complained, and there are no figures for how many transgender people there are among the university's 35,000 population. She said: "If you were born female, still presently quite feminine, but defined as a man you should be able to go into the men's toilets.
"You don't necessarily have to have had gender reassignment surgery, but you could just define yourself as a man, feel very masculine in yourself, feel that in fact being a woman is not who you are. "Transgender people can face violence and abuse when they go into toilets and we wanted to provide a place where they can feel comfortable. "I have had complaints from people who said we didn't have any facilities for them."
But the switch has caused consternation among many of the students returning from their summer break. Second-year student Jane McConnell, 19, a news editor on the Student Direct student newspaper, said: "While these signs might be appropriate for people with different sexualities, I also think that many people from different religious and ethnic groups are going to feel uncomfortable using these facilities. "Even though they're just two signs, at the end of the day, toilets should be for women and for men specifically, not for both." Another student said: "This is ridiculous. It is just too much political correctness".
Source
Scotland: Infant pupils to get "free" meals
"There aint no such thing as a free lunch" -- just something somebody else pays for
All pupils will receive free meals in the first three years of primary school, the Scottish Government has announced. The service will begin in 2010 after a pilot in several areas, which saw the take-up of meals rise from 53% to 75%. Council umbrella group Cosla denied claims from some authorities that services would have to be cut to pay for the move.
Ministers said helping children in their early years was a priority. The Scottish Government said councils would be expected to find the money for the scheme from the funding settlement already agreed. Scottish Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop said the year-long, $10m pilot scheme, involving 35,000 pupils in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire, Fife and the Borders, was a success. The pilot also reported that parents and teachers were positive about the scheme, while some pupils enjoyed trying new foods. "This government has made it a priority to help children in their early years and this initiative does just that, providing every child with a free school meal in their first years at primary school," said Ms Hyslop.
The Scottish Government has already published guidance to help school catering staff produce healthy meals. According to Labour, the education conveners of several local authorities - including North Lanarkshire, East Dunbartonshire, Edinburgh and the leader of Inverclyde Council - raised concern over whether they could pay for the service, with some saying they would have to make cuts to fund it. But Cosla president Pat Watters told BBC Scotland there was $80m in the budget to provide free school meals to primaries one, two and three. He added: "There is no reason why anyone should have to cut anything to fund this. This is a government funded project."
Labour education spokeswoman Rhona Brankin also raised concerns about the funding, adding: "Local authorities are already struggling to employ newly qualified teachers and reduce class sizes, but some schools can't even afford photocopying."
Liz Smith, of the Scottish Tories, questioned whether a blanket free meals policy would target the right pupils, while the Liberal Democrats' Margaret Smith said ministers had "failed to make the case" that the plan was the best way to tackle poor diets.
But John Dickie, head of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland, said the announcement was "a massive step forward" in the campaign to ensure healthy meals for children, whatever their home circumstances. "It will help boost children's health, education and wellbeing and provide a really welcome benefit to hard pressed families across Scotland," he said.
A two-year free school meals pilot in primaries is due to start in England next year, while the Welsh Assembly administration said it was currently focussing on improving nutritional standards.
Source
UK Beach 2 Miles Inland in 43 AD
So much for sea level rise:
The `lost' beach where the Romans landed 2,000 years ago to begin their invasion of Britain has been uncovered by archaeologists. The remains of the shingle harbour were buried beneath 6ft of soil nearly two miles inland from the modern Kent coast. It lies close to the remains of the Roman fort of Richborough near Sandwich, one of the most important Roman sites in England and once the gateway to the British Isles.
Daily Mail: `Uncovered, the `lost' beach where the Romans got a toehold on Britain'
Source
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Live from the obesity crisis ground zero: Your fearless correspondent embedded in Rotherham disguises himself as a banana to meet our Minister of Food
By British humourist, Giles Coren. I laughed as soon as I saw who was writing this piece. I enjoy him as much as I enjoyed his late father (Alan Coren) in the now sadly vanished "Punch" magazine. I am so glad that the Coren humour seems to be hereditary. You may have to "get" British humour to be amused as I am, however. He's utterly crazy! It is, of course satire
Compared with all the other columns you will have read this week, this one may come as a bit of a surprise. Indeed, it may well be unique as a media entity, tout court, in not having been constructed from the floor of the Conservative Party conference, the US election campaign trail, or the New York Stock Exchange.
Astounding though it may seem, I have not been out sneaking around the lavatories of the International Conference Centre in Birmingham to get a real sense of how many Tory delegates wash their hands after widdling (in order to bring my own special brand of wit and insight to the conference coverage), nor have I been interviewing bagel vendors on Wall Street so as to create colourful prose about how declining pretzel sales presage fiscal Armageddon.
I am not writing this on a laptop from my seat on Barack Obama's plane, only seven rows behind the man himself, from where I am able almost to see the actual ears of the man who may become the first black US president - thus giving my prose added urgency and weight - nor am I reporting live from the McCain Oven Chips HQ in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, whence I can bring you a hilarious sideways look at the US election through the eyes of the frozen potato people who coincidentally share the name of one of the candidates (a candidate who, funnily enough, looks just like a potato, except with smaller eyes).
Unique among columnists this week, I am not “on the ground” anywhere at all (isn't it marvellous how the self-aggrandising locational tics of the war correspondent have sneaked into the general reporter's argot?), I am just sitting here, poking through the newspapers in search of something that can be written about from a suburban desk in the weary gap between breakfast and lunch - anything but the US election, the financial crisis and the Tory conference.
Hang on, is that the phone? Rats. That was the new Saturday editor of The Times. She says that Jamie Oliver was mean about fat people in Rotherham in a television programme on Tuesday. He's set up some sort of Ministry of Food and she wants me to get down there pronto and sketch the scene on the, er, ground.
Rotherham, October 3, 16.43 BST
Here at obesity crisis ground zero the air is thick with the smell of saturated fat burning on dirty griddles. I'm in Rotherham, which I think is in Scotland somewhere. Anyway the people are enormous and talk funny and it's cold.
I'm here to get a real sense of Food Minister Jamie Oliver's campaign to do something excellent relating to food, make people thinner or less spotty or something, and the best way, as we know, is to embed oneself on the ground and just get a real flavour of...Bang!
None of us knows what that explosion was, but I have taken cover under a table with all the other journalists while we wait for the all-clear from the security forces. My heart is going like the clappers, largely because I have done nothing but stand around drinking bad filter coffee for the past four hours. Many of us are now copulating furiously in a bizarre response to the feeling that this may be our last hour on Earth.
17.36 BST
The all-clear has been sounded. Apparently the explosion was down to a deprived fat kid blowing up a Monster Munch bag for larks. This is a sad, forgotten corner of the world and such cynical pranks are what pass for fun around here. But you should have seen the kid: three tons if he was a stone. One of those grotesque little porkers with a great big, pink head so squishy that his eyes looked like someone had poked them into Play-Doh with a screwdriver. His hair was shaved in a number one crop because these people are so poor that they cannot afford scissors, and he wore a baggy grey tracksuit that made him look like a snowman on the melt.
Jamie Oliver said of the diet here in Rotherham: “I've been to Soweto and I've seen Aids orphans eating better than that.” And I can see his point. This kid was way more disgusting to look at than those African babies with the balloony stomachs and the flies in their eyes.
18.07 BST
Like Jamie Oliver, I've seen the ravages wreaked on their people by monsters such as Richard Mugabe and Goran Ivanisevic, but even I was unprepared for what I saw when benefit-scrounging single mum Natasha opened the bottom drawer of her fridge: chocolate bars and sweets!
It was horrific. Where does she keep the frisee? Ha ha. No, she's working class. She doesn't eat lettuce. According to one “insider” (actually it was the cab driver who took me from the airport, we proper sketchwriters always put in a bit about what the cab driver said; he's usually the only person we talk to apart from the hooker in the hotel bar), she feeds her children kebabs and chips every day instead of making fresh polenta and stuff. Which even Richard Mugabe doesn't do.
19.03 BST
This is hard. One of Jamie's producers comes in with a special “no-bread sandwich”, and a half a dozen locals - so fat you could render them down and grease the wheels of commerce for a century - gather round to poke and touch like people in the Amazon when they see a white person, such as Kate Adie or someone. “It's from Pret A Manger in London,” says the girl. “It's carb-free and helps me stay thin enough to hold on to my job in television.”
The local people - so fat you wonder if they'll ever drop below $100 a barrel again - look baffled. “Job?”, they mouth. “What's a job?” It's so sad. Now that they've closed the pits, these people haven't even got ponies to eat.
19.57 BST
“Come friendly bombs and fall on Rotherham” - if you'll forgive my paraphrasing of Thomas Coleridge. We colour writers always quote a poem at this stage to lend our vision a bit of heart. No, but seriously, this is the town where those mums pushed pies and chips under the school fence when Jamie was trying to make their children eat healthy food in his last show. Bombing is too good for them. They're so fat that they're actually wearing out the ground so fast that by 2035, according to Jamie's researchers, Rotherham will be 1,000ft below sea-level.
20.09 BST
Finally, the great man himself, James Fitzgerald Millhouse Oliver, arrives, ten hours late, in a motorcade, flanked by armoured elephants, no, wait, those are local security guards. The other journalists gather round, but your correspondent is more original than that. I disguise myself as a banana (the first time I have gone native since I reported from Shepherds Bush in a full burka on what it was like to be constantly mistaken for John Simpson) and press through the throng.
Mistaking me for a harmless piece of fruit, Jamie comes over to say hello (it is the first piece of fruit he has seen in Rotherham). And guess what? He's actually quite fat. Ha ha! Talk about irony.
This is Giles Coren, for The Times, on the ground in Rotherham.
And it is indeed from The Times -- a top-quality newspaper that also manages to be a treasure-trove of British humour. British writers seem to be able to put an amusing spin on almost anything
British teacher junket cancelled
It could not stand the light of publicity
Teachers who planned to hold a training conference at a Costa del Sol resort will instead attend sessions in classrooms at their school in Staffordshire after complaints from parents. The trip to Marbella by staff at Edensor Technology College in Longton, planned for today and tomorrow, was cancelled yesterday morning. The school could be liable for costs of up to $40,000 because of the short notice, according to Stoke-on-Trent council. Mark Meredith, the mayor, said that it was unclear whether money spent in advance could be reclaimed. "There are guesstimates going around - it could be $40,000 or more," he said in a radio interview. ""The school is investigating this. But these are the questions that the governors will be putting to the head teacher."
Richard Mercer, the headmaster, said in a statement: "Following the publicity concerning the proposed visit to Marbella for training purposes by staff, it has been decided to cancel the trip. The training programme will now take place at the school. It was felt that due to the pressure from media interest in the trip it would be unfair to the staff, the pupils and parents." About 80 members of the teaching staff were to have stayed at the hotel until Sunday, the Stoke Sentinel had disclosed on Wednesday.
The trip angered parents, whose children would have been off school while the teachers were away at the beachside resort. Andy Sales, 34, said: "Why isn't this money being spent on our kids? Parents are having to take time off work or are paying for extra childcare while the staff are enjoying the sun at the school's expense."
Mr Mercer said that it was "more cost-effective" to go abroad as it is the end of Marbella's peak season. "If parents think this is a `jolly', they should join us and find out how hard the staff work." [Give us a break!] In a further statement, released through the council yesterday, Mr Mercer said that the school budget allowed for an annual staff conference. Governors considered nine quotes for Britain and abroad and the Marbella hotel was "the best value for money".
Mr Meredith said: "My personal view is that it was a barmy decision to hold the session in Spain. I'm pleased that they have come to their senses."
Source
CAMBRIDGE ECONOMETRICS PREDICT RENEWABLES FAILURE
The [British] Government will fail to reach its goal of producing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, a group of academics has predicted.
According to figures contained in Cambridge Econometrics' UK Energy and the Environment report, renewables will account for only approximately 5 per cent of UK electricity sales to final users by 2010, just half of the 10 per cent target.
The report argues that, even if electricity demand were to grow at around 1 to 1.5 per cent per annum between 2010 and 2020 and fossil fuel prices were to remain relatively high, the share of renewables in UK electricity sales is only expected to increase to around 10.25 per cent by 2015.
This is still short of the 15 per cent target set by the Government under its renewable obligation scheme.
Cambridge Econometrics' researchers put the forecast failure down to the expectation that fossil fuel generation will remain an important contributor towards meeting the UK's electricity needs over the next 12 years.
Professor Paul Ekins of King's College London, a senior consultant to Cambridge Econometrics and co-editor of the report, said: "These forecasts provide a timely reality check about the progress that the UK is likely to make over the next twelve years towards achieving its goal of at least a 26 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and at least a 60 per cent reduction by 2050.
"The headline message from these forecasts is that, despite all the rhetoric about the urgency of tackling climate change, the Government has seemingly still not understood the stringency of policies required to move the UK towards a low-carbon economy.
"The forecasts also indicate that, despite high energy prices, the Government's policies to promote a low-carbon future are not yet sufficient to meet the carbon challenge restated most recently in the May 2007 Energy White Paper and the Climate Change Bill."
Source
Nine-year-old Muslim girl in Britain rescued from forced marriage
The disclosure comes as official figures show that nearly 60 children aged 15 or under have been rescued by the Government's Forced Marriage Unit in the past four years. The cases are feared to be the tip of the iceberg. They will fuel concerns, first raised earlier this year, that large numbers of children are disappearing from British schools to be forced into wedlock overseas.
A charity which runs a national helpline on forced marriage and "honour"-based crimes, Karma Nirvana, revealed that in one incident a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into council care after her parents told her she was to wed. Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, said that on average four children a month aged under 16 have contacted its helpline since it launched in April. "The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old," she said. "The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed. "Ultimately, with the help of the Forced Marriage Unit, she was dealt with through child protection procedures. She was assessed and, thankfully, taken into foster care."
Ms Sanghera called on ministers to make sure primary school children are taught about forced marriage and given advice on how to avoid becoming a victim.
The Forced Marriage Unit has helped rescue 58 underage children since it was set up in January 2005, including 11 under-16s so far this year. The youngest victim this year was 13, one was 14 and nine were 15. The unit deals with 5,000 inquiries and 300 cases of forced marriage a year. A third of inquiries come from under 18s. The youngest victim repatriated by the unit, which is jointly funded by the Home Office and the Foreign Office, was an 11-year-old girl who was flown back to Britain from Dhaka, Bangladesh, last year after her parents had agreed to marry her to a local man.
Ms Sanghera, who herself fled home after being threatened with forced marriage at the age of 15, said: "I currently have cases involving four children aged 11 to 14 who were forced to marry or were at risk, and have now been made wards of court. "You don't just get forced into a marriage at 16 or 17; this is happening to very young children. We certainly have had cases of minors being sexually abused. "If you are forced into marriage as a minor you will be multiple-raped, because as a child you are legally unable to give consent. "But we have no idea how many children under 16 are at risk, and this is compounded by a reluctance of schools to engage with the issue. Many schools shy away due to supposed cultural sensitivities." She went on: "There will be children sitting in our classrooms this week who have already had identified for them a husband or a wife. "These marriages can be prevented by identifying the signs in school or teachers believing pupils when they raise it."
The problem is particularly prevalent in Pakistani communities, where betrothing offspring to their first cousins is common practice, said Ms Sanghera. "It happens across all races but there is a disproportionate number of cases within the Pakistani community, and we need to recognise that," she said. "At Karma Nirvana we have noticed a significant trend of young people aged 14, 15 and 16 coming forward for our services. "We need reassurance from schools, especially headteachers, that existing Department for Children, Schools and Families posters giving advice about forced marriage are displayed in primary and secondary schools. "We also believe there should be proper headcounts of pupils after the summer holidays, so that steps can be taken if any children have disappeared from the register. I think what the schools discover will alarm them." She estimated there could be a dozen cases a year in some medium-sized comprehensive schools with significant numbers of Asian children.
A nine-month study by Karma Nirvana in 2006 followed the fortunes of 15 girls aged 10 to 18 in Derby, where the charity is based. By the end of the study, four had been taken abroad including a 17-year-old who had subsequently returned to the UK after being wed to a 35-year-old man.
Earlier this year a report by the Commons' all-party Home Affairs Select Committee said 2,089 pupils were unaccounted for in just 14 local council areas of England and Wales. A proportion of these are believed to have been children removed from education and forced into marriages overseas.
Source
Cash strapped British Navy cuts destroyer fleet : "The Fleet now has just five air defence warships left to protect vessels missile or aircraft attack at a time when other nations such as China, India and Iran are investing heavily in anti-ship warfare. Three Type 42 destroyers – Exeter, Nottingham and Southampton – have been "parked up" in Portsmouth at "reduced readiness" up to two years before they were due to be decommissioned. Britain's force of destroyers and frigates has now been reduced from 35 to 22 in the last decade despite government promises it would not slip below 25. It will be another two years before the first of six of the highly sophisticated Type 45 destroyers can be deployed on operations leaving a "gaping hole" in defences. Senior Navy commanders have told The Daily Telegraph that the nation is taking "serious risks" in protecting carrier groups or amphibious flotillas and have accused the Government of neglecting the Fleet that protects the 90 per cent of Britain's imported trade"
By British humourist, Giles Coren. I laughed as soon as I saw who was writing this piece. I enjoy him as much as I enjoyed his late father (Alan Coren) in the now sadly vanished "Punch" magazine. I am so glad that the Coren humour seems to be hereditary. You may have to "get" British humour to be amused as I am, however. He's utterly crazy! It is, of course satire
Compared with all the other columns you will have read this week, this one may come as a bit of a surprise. Indeed, it may well be unique as a media entity, tout court, in not having been constructed from the floor of the Conservative Party conference, the US election campaign trail, or the New York Stock Exchange.
Astounding though it may seem, I have not been out sneaking around the lavatories of the International Conference Centre in Birmingham to get a real sense of how many Tory delegates wash their hands after widdling (in order to bring my own special brand of wit and insight to the conference coverage), nor have I been interviewing bagel vendors on Wall Street so as to create colourful prose about how declining pretzel sales presage fiscal Armageddon.
I am not writing this on a laptop from my seat on Barack Obama's plane, only seven rows behind the man himself, from where I am able almost to see the actual ears of the man who may become the first black US president - thus giving my prose added urgency and weight - nor am I reporting live from the McCain Oven Chips HQ in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, whence I can bring you a hilarious sideways look at the US election through the eyes of the frozen potato people who coincidentally share the name of one of the candidates (a candidate who, funnily enough, looks just like a potato, except with smaller eyes).
Unique among columnists this week, I am not “on the ground” anywhere at all (isn't it marvellous how the self-aggrandising locational tics of the war correspondent have sneaked into the general reporter's argot?), I am just sitting here, poking through the newspapers in search of something that can be written about from a suburban desk in the weary gap between breakfast and lunch - anything but the US election, the financial crisis and the Tory conference.
Hang on, is that the phone? Rats. That was the new Saturday editor of The Times. She says that Jamie Oliver was mean about fat people in Rotherham in a television programme on Tuesday. He's set up some sort of Ministry of Food and she wants me to get down there pronto and sketch the scene on the, er, ground.
Rotherham, October 3, 16.43 BST
Here at obesity crisis ground zero the air is thick with the smell of saturated fat burning on dirty griddles. I'm in Rotherham, which I think is in Scotland somewhere. Anyway the people are enormous and talk funny and it's cold.
I'm here to get a real sense of Food Minister Jamie Oliver's campaign to do something excellent relating to food, make people thinner or less spotty or something, and the best way, as we know, is to embed oneself on the ground and just get a real flavour of...Bang!
None of us knows what that explosion was, but I have taken cover under a table with all the other journalists while we wait for the all-clear from the security forces. My heart is going like the clappers, largely because I have done nothing but stand around drinking bad filter coffee for the past four hours. Many of us are now copulating furiously in a bizarre response to the feeling that this may be our last hour on Earth.
17.36 BST
The all-clear has been sounded. Apparently the explosion was down to a deprived fat kid blowing up a Monster Munch bag for larks. This is a sad, forgotten corner of the world and such cynical pranks are what pass for fun around here. But you should have seen the kid: three tons if he was a stone. One of those grotesque little porkers with a great big, pink head so squishy that his eyes looked like someone had poked them into Play-Doh with a screwdriver. His hair was shaved in a number one crop because these people are so poor that they cannot afford scissors, and he wore a baggy grey tracksuit that made him look like a snowman on the melt.
Jamie Oliver said of the diet here in Rotherham: “I've been to Soweto and I've seen Aids orphans eating better than that.” And I can see his point. This kid was way more disgusting to look at than those African babies with the balloony stomachs and the flies in their eyes.
18.07 BST
Like Jamie Oliver, I've seen the ravages wreaked on their people by monsters such as Richard Mugabe and Goran Ivanisevic, but even I was unprepared for what I saw when benefit-scrounging single mum Natasha opened the bottom drawer of her fridge: chocolate bars and sweets!
It was horrific. Where does she keep the frisee? Ha ha. No, she's working class. She doesn't eat lettuce. According to one “insider” (actually it was the cab driver who took me from the airport, we proper sketchwriters always put in a bit about what the cab driver said; he's usually the only person we talk to apart from the hooker in the hotel bar), she feeds her children kebabs and chips every day instead of making fresh polenta and stuff. Which even Richard Mugabe doesn't do.
19.03 BST
This is hard. One of Jamie's producers comes in with a special “no-bread sandwich”, and a half a dozen locals - so fat you could render them down and grease the wheels of commerce for a century - gather round to poke and touch like people in the Amazon when they see a white person, such as Kate Adie or someone. “It's from Pret A Manger in London,” says the girl. “It's carb-free and helps me stay thin enough to hold on to my job in television.”
The local people - so fat you wonder if they'll ever drop below $100 a barrel again - look baffled. “Job?”, they mouth. “What's a job?” It's so sad. Now that they've closed the pits, these people haven't even got ponies to eat.
19.57 BST
“Come friendly bombs and fall on Rotherham” - if you'll forgive my paraphrasing of Thomas Coleridge. We colour writers always quote a poem at this stage to lend our vision a bit of heart. No, but seriously, this is the town where those mums pushed pies and chips under the school fence when Jamie was trying to make their children eat healthy food in his last show. Bombing is too good for them. They're so fat that they're actually wearing out the ground so fast that by 2035, according to Jamie's researchers, Rotherham will be 1,000ft below sea-level.
20.09 BST
Finally, the great man himself, James Fitzgerald Millhouse Oliver, arrives, ten hours late, in a motorcade, flanked by armoured elephants, no, wait, those are local security guards. The other journalists gather round, but your correspondent is more original than that. I disguise myself as a banana (the first time I have gone native since I reported from Shepherds Bush in a full burka on what it was like to be constantly mistaken for John Simpson) and press through the throng.
Mistaking me for a harmless piece of fruit, Jamie comes over to say hello (it is the first piece of fruit he has seen in Rotherham). And guess what? He's actually quite fat. Ha ha! Talk about irony.
This is Giles Coren, for The Times, on the ground in Rotherham.
And it is indeed from The Times -- a top-quality newspaper that also manages to be a treasure-trove of British humour. British writers seem to be able to put an amusing spin on almost anything
British teacher junket cancelled
It could not stand the light of publicity
Teachers who planned to hold a training conference at a Costa del Sol resort will instead attend sessions in classrooms at their school in Staffordshire after complaints from parents. The trip to Marbella by staff at Edensor Technology College in Longton, planned for today and tomorrow, was cancelled yesterday morning. The school could be liable for costs of up to $40,000 because of the short notice, according to Stoke-on-Trent council. Mark Meredith, the mayor, said that it was unclear whether money spent in advance could be reclaimed. "There are guesstimates going around - it could be $40,000 or more," he said in a radio interview. ""The school is investigating this. But these are the questions that the governors will be putting to the head teacher."
Richard Mercer, the headmaster, said in a statement: "Following the publicity concerning the proposed visit to Marbella for training purposes by staff, it has been decided to cancel the trip. The training programme will now take place at the school. It was felt that due to the pressure from media interest in the trip it would be unfair to the staff, the pupils and parents." About 80 members of the teaching staff were to have stayed at the hotel until Sunday, the Stoke Sentinel had disclosed on Wednesday.
The trip angered parents, whose children would have been off school while the teachers were away at the beachside resort. Andy Sales, 34, said: "Why isn't this money being spent on our kids? Parents are having to take time off work or are paying for extra childcare while the staff are enjoying the sun at the school's expense."
Mr Mercer said that it was "more cost-effective" to go abroad as it is the end of Marbella's peak season. "If parents think this is a `jolly', they should join us and find out how hard the staff work." [Give us a break!] In a further statement, released through the council yesterday, Mr Mercer said that the school budget allowed for an annual staff conference. Governors considered nine quotes for Britain and abroad and the Marbella hotel was "the best value for money".
Mr Meredith said: "My personal view is that it was a barmy decision to hold the session in Spain. I'm pleased that they have come to their senses."
Source
CAMBRIDGE ECONOMETRICS PREDICT RENEWABLES FAILURE
The [British] Government will fail to reach its goal of producing 15 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, a group of academics has predicted.
According to figures contained in Cambridge Econometrics' UK Energy and the Environment report, renewables will account for only approximately 5 per cent of UK electricity sales to final users by 2010, just half of the 10 per cent target.
The report argues that, even if electricity demand were to grow at around 1 to 1.5 per cent per annum between 2010 and 2020 and fossil fuel prices were to remain relatively high, the share of renewables in UK electricity sales is only expected to increase to around 10.25 per cent by 2015.
This is still short of the 15 per cent target set by the Government under its renewable obligation scheme.
Cambridge Econometrics' researchers put the forecast failure down to the expectation that fossil fuel generation will remain an important contributor towards meeting the UK's electricity needs over the next 12 years.
Professor Paul Ekins of King's College London, a senior consultant to Cambridge Econometrics and co-editor of the report, said: "These forecasts provide a timely reality check about the progress that the UK is likely to make over the next twelve years towards achieving its goal of at least a 26 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and at least a 60 per cent reduction by 2050.
"The headline message from these forecasts is that, despite all the rhetoric about the urgency of tackling climate change, the Government has seemingly still not understood the stringency of policies required to move the UK towards a low-carbon economy.
"The forecasts also indicate that, despite high energy prices, the Government's policies to promote a low-carbon future are not yet sufficient to meet the carbon challenge restated most recently in the May 2007 Energy White Paper and the Climate Change Bill."
Source
Nine-year-old Muslim girl in Britain rescued from forced marriage
The disclosure comes as official figures show that nearly 60 children aged 15 or under have been rescued by the Government's Forced Marriage Unit in the past four years. The cases are feared to be the tip of the iceberg. They will fuel concerns, first raised earlier this year, that large numbers of children are disappearing from British schools to be forced into wedlock overseas.
A charity which runs a national helpline on forced marriage and "honour"-based crimes, Karma Nirvana, revealed that in one incident a nine-year-old girl from a Pakistani family in the east Midlands was taken into council care after her parents told her she was to wed. Jasvinder Sanghera, director of Karma Nirvana, said that on average four children a month aged under 16 have contacted its helpline since it launched in April. "The youngest child we have dealt with was nine years old," she said. "The girl told her teacher she was going to be forced to marry someone and initially she was not believed. "Ultimately, with the help of the Forced Marriage Unit, she was dealt with through child protection procedures. She was assessed and, thankfully, taken into foster care."
Ms Sanghera called on ministers to make sure primary school children are taught about forced marriage and given advice on how to avoid becoming a victim.
The Forced Marriage Unit has helped rescue 58 underage children since it was set up in January 2005, including 11 under-16s so far this year. The youngest victim this year was 13, one was 14 and nine were 15. The unit deals with 5,000 inquiries and 300 cases of forced marriage a year. A third of inquiries come from under 18s. The youngest victim repatriated by the unit, which is jointly funded by the Home Office and the Foreign Office, was an 11-year-old girl who was flown back to Britain from Dhaka, Bangladesh, last year after her parents had agreed to marry her to a local man.
Ms Sanghera, who herself fled home after being threatened with forced marriage at the age of 15, said: "I currently have cases involving four children aged 11 to 14 who were forced to marry or were at risk, and have now been made wards of court. "You don't just get forced into a marriage at 16 or 17; this is happening to very young children. We certainly have had cases of minors being sexually abused. "If you are forced into marriage as a minor you will be multiple-raped, because as a child you are legally unable to give consent. "But we have no idea how many children under 16 are at risk, and this is compounded by a reluctance of schools to engage with the issue. Many schools shy away due to supposed cultural sensitivities." She went on: "There will be children sitting in our classrooms this week who have already had identified for them a husband or a wife. "These marriages can be prevented by identifying the signs in school or teachers believing pupils when they raise it."
The problem is particularly prevalent in Pakistani communities, where betrothing offspring to their first cousins is common practice, said Ms Sanghera. "It happens across all races but there is a disproportionate number of cases within the Pakistani community, and we need to recognise that," she said. "At Karma Nirvana we have noticed a significant trend of young people aged 14, 15 and 16 coming forward for our services. "We need reassurance from schools, especially headteachers, that existing Department for Children, Schools and Families posters giving advice about forced marriage are displayed in primary and secondary schools. "We also believe there should be proper headcounts of pupils after the summer holidays, so that steps can be taken if any children have disappeared from the register. I think what the schools discover will alarm them." She estimated there could be a dozen cases a year in some medium-sized comprehensive schools with significant numbers of Asian children.
A nine-month study by Karma Nirvana in 2006 followed the fortunes of 15 girls aged 10 to 18 in Derby, where the charity is based. By the end of the study, four had been taken abroad including a 17-year-old who had subsequently returned to the UK after being wed to a 35-year-old man.
Earlier this year a report by the Commons' all-party Home Affairs Select Committee said 2,089 pupils were unaccounted for in just 14 local council areas of England and Wales. A proportion of these are believed to have been children removed from education and forced into marriages overseas.
Source
Cash strapped British Navy cuts destroyer fleet : "The Fleet now has just five air defence warships left to protect vessels missile or aircraft attack at a time when other nations such as China, India and Iran are investing heavily in anti-ship warfare. Three Type 42 destroyers – Exeter, Nottingham and Southampton – have been "parked up" in Portsmouth at "reduced readiness" up to two years before they were due to be decommissioned. Britain's force of destroyers and frigates has now been reduced from 35 to 22 in the last decade despite government promises it would not slip below 25. It will be another two years before the first of six of the highly sophisticated Type 45 destroyers can be deployed on operations leaving a "gaping hole" in defences. Senior Navy commanders have told The Daily Telegraph that the nation is taking "serious risks" in protecting carrier groups or amphibious flotillas and have accused the Government of neglecting the Fleet that protects the 90 per cent of Britain's imported trade"
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Unbelievably low standards in British medicine
Blood-pressure tests are about the most routine aspect of medical practice that there is -- but not in Britain, apparently. It is usually very difficult to change doctors in Britain and I myself noted a "take it or leave it" attitude among British GPs when I was there. In Australia it is as easy as pie to change doctors and Australian doctors are much more polite, attentive and obliging. Funny that! So I am not really surprised that the complacent attitude of British GPs extended to the low level of care described below. A simple blood-pressure test could have saved a life
The family of a documentary film-maker who died of heart failure at the age of 43 won six-figure damages yesterday from three doctors who failed to diagnose and treat his worsening condition. Nick Rossiter, who created the popular art programme Sister Wendy’s Odyssey, had been suffering “increasingly severe” hypertension before he had a fatal cardiac arrest in July 2004.
Mr Justice Foskett, sitting at the High Court, was told that Mr Rossiter’s death would have been avoided had Pearl Chin, Cathy Benson and Sharon Alikhani, GPs at the Westbourne Grove Surgery, West London, prescribed appropriate medication from December 2003 onwards. The three GPs, who treated Mr Rossiter between 2001 and his death, admitted to a breach of duty in having failed to spot and appropriately treat his hypertension.
Mr Rossiter left a widow, Beatrice Ballard, a celebrated television producer in her own right, and two daughters, Alice, 11, and Pandora, 9. The amount of damages was not disclosed in court but Ms Ballard, the daughter of the novelist J. G. Ballard, said: “No amount of money can replace my children’s father, but it will help in securing their future.” The judge described the loss as “almost impossible to value”.
The court was told that Mr Rossiter had visited Westbourne Grove Surgery two months before his death, but left without receiving a vital blood-pressure test. The defence had argued that Mr Rossiter may not have completed his course of medication even if he had been prescribed it. But Ms Ballard’s barrister, Henry Whitcomb, dismissed the claim on the grounds that Mr Rossiter was a highly intelligent man who had given up smoking and was “absolutely devoted to his family”.
After the decision, the family’s solicitor, John Pickering, said: “The end of this case comes as a huge relief to Nicholas’s wife, and will provide a secure future for their daughters. Doctors Chin, Benson and Alikhani . . . did not treat him with antihypertensive medication as they should have done. “His family are relieved that this matter is now closed and they can move on with their lives.”
Source
Shock! British Ambassador called Obama 'liberal'
Definitely a nasty word:
BRITISH WOMEN HAVE FIRMER TITS THAN INDIANS AND AFRICANS
Does that sound a bit crass? It is in fact just a plain English translation of the study below
Ethnic Variations in Mammographic Density: A British Multiethnic Longitudinal Study
By Valerie A. McCormack et al
It is not known whether the 20-30% lower breast cancer incidence rates in first-generation South Asian and Afro-Caribbean women relative to Caucasian women in the United Kingdom are reflected in mammographic density. The authors conducted a United Kingdom population-based multiethnic study of mammographic density at ages 50-64 years in 645 women. Data on breast cancer risk factors were obtained using a questionnaire/telephone interview. Threshold percent density was assessed on 5,277 digitized mammograms taken in 1995-2004 and was analyzed using multilevel models. Both ethnic minorities were characterized by more protective breast cancer risk factor distributions than Caucasians, such as later menarche, shorter stature, higher parity, earlier age at first birth, and less use of hormone therapy, but they had a higher mean body mass index; the last four factors were associated with lower mammographic density. Age-adjusted percent mammographic densities in Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians were 5.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 3.5, 7.5) and 5.9% (95% CI: 3.6, 8.0) lower, respectively, than in Caucasians. Lower densities were partly attributed to higher body mass index, less use of hormone therapy, and a protective reproductive history, but these factors did not account entirely for ethnic differences, since fully adjusted mean densities were 1.3% (95% CI: -1.3, 3.7) and 3.8% (95% CI: 1.1, 6.3) lower, respectively. Ethnic differences in mammographic density are consistent with those for breast cancer risk.
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(4):412-421
British street cleaner attacked by Muslim mob
A COUNCIL street sweeper was racially assaulted as he cleaned a Westhulme subway. The 48-year-old was cleaning the Featherstall Road subway close to the Martha Street entrance at 9.20am on Tuesday when a gang of six Asian youths smashed a wooden post through the side window. They then rained blows on the sweeper with clubs, posts and bats and hit the victim's leg as he tried to get out of the vehicle.
As the attack took place, the gang shouted, "Asians rule supreme" and "get out of our area white scum". They ran away when the victim called the police. The victim, who has worked for the council for four years, was left shaken and had to take the rest of the day off work.
Oldham Council's service director for Streetscene. Mark Odell. confirmed that a member of the road sweeping team was involved in an incident while cleaning the subway at Featherstall Road roundabout. He added: "The worker reported the incident to the police who attended the scene and took a statement. "As a result of the incident we have reviewed our risk assessments and made some changes to the way our road sweeping staff operate in future. "Thankfully incidents where our staff are abused or worse by members of the public are rare."
Police say they are treating the matter as a racially aggravated incident and are investigating.
Source
Cane is needed again to give children a lesson say a fifth of British teachers
A fifth of teachers would like to see the cane re-introduced in Britain's schools, research has found. They said children's behaviour had deteriorated to the point that caning would be an effective punishment. The survey of more than 6,000 teachers by the Times Educational Supplement found that a fifth supported the right to use corporal punishment in extreme cases.
Judith Cookson, a supply teacher, said: “Children's behaviour is absolutely outrageous in the majority of schools. I am a supply teacher, so I see many schools, and there are no sanctions. There are too many anger management people and their ilk who give children the idea that it is their right to flounce out of lessons for time out because they have problems with their temper. They should be caned instead.”
Ravi Kasinathan, a primary teacher who also “strongly” supported the idea, said: “There is justification, or an argument, for bringing back corporal punishment, if only as a deterrent. I believe some children just don't respond to the current sanctions.”
The survey suggests that support for corporal punishment is strongest among secondary teachers: 22 per cent back the idea, compared with 16 per cent of primary teachers. It also uncovers much lower support among heads and deputy and assistant heads: 12 per cent, compared with 22 per cent of teachers.
John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Thankfully, corporal punishment is no longer on the agenda, except in the most uncivilised countries. I am sure that this barbaric punishment has disappeared for ever.”
An official at the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “Violence against children is clearly unacceptable and illegal.”
Source
Bigotry against Indians from British immigration officials
There have been a lot of reports like this. Brits are getting tired of the constant influx of foreigners and it shows at times. There is a lot of resentment of Indians because they work hard and do well economically as a result. So they become a convenient outlet for frustration
Overly zealous British home ministry officials are "humiliating, harassing and abusing" legal Indian and other migrants at airports across the country, a campaigning group said today. "Though migrants are used to discrimination and harassment, these new revelations show how the treatment of legal immigrants by border control now has stooped to the lowest of levels," the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) Forum said in a statement.
The British home ministry was unable to offer a comment immediately, but said it was looking into the complaint.
The group, which won a high-profile case against the government this year, said migrants who were in Britain under the HSMP visa were suffering at the hands of "overly zealous immigration officers" at some of Britain's busiest airports like Heathrow, Manchester and Belfast. "Our members complain that upon their and their families' return from trips abroad, they are harshly discriminated against by the immigration authorities, though they are fully legally entitled to re-enter the country to continue contributing to the British economy," said Mr Amit Kapadia, executive director of the forum.
It said immigration officers not only lecture migrants, and offer unsolicited advice, but have also detained and threatened to deport without reason. It gave the example of Pooja Tandon, who was detained at Heathrow airport while returning from a holiday in Switzerland with her husband, child and parents. It quoted her as saying the immigration officer lectured them about "finding alternative employment" and about "the shifts we work and child care arrangements." "He then said he is detaining us for further enquiry and if he is not satisfied with it, then he will deport us," although the family was let off with a verbal warning.
Pooja Tandon added: "We are really shaken by this incident. We felt being treated like criminals. We pay our taxes and national insurance and all other bills, and are being threatened this way."
In a second instance, a doctor who has been in Britain for a decade was questioned by an airport immigration officer about his using the state health service for the delivery of their son, when all tax-paying foreigners are entitled to the National Health Service. "The immigration official had no legal position to threaten, abuse and intrusively demand information about the sensitive and private medical care of a legal migrant worker," the HSMP Forum said.
In a third case, an HSMP migrant was detained for a few days and was about to be deported to his country of origin because he was not working in his field of expertise, "when in reality HSMP visas do not have any such restrictions."
"It is clear from these cases that Immigration Officers have tried to take the law in their own hand," the forum said.
Source
Blood-pressure tests are about the most routine aspect of medical practice that there is -- but not in Britain, apparently. It is usually very difficult to change doctors in Britain and I myself noted a "take it or leave it" attitude among British GPs when I was there. In Australia it is as easy as pie to change doctors and Australian doctors are much more polite, attentive and obliging. Funny that! So I am not really surprised that the complacent attitude of British GPs extended to the low level of care described below. A simple blood-pressure test could have saved a life
The family of a documentary film-maker who died of heart failure at the age of 43 won six-figure damages yesterday from three doctors who failed to diagnose and treat his worsening condition. Nick Rossiter, who created the popular art programme Sister Wendy’s Odyssey, had been suffering “increasingly severe” hypertension before he had a fatal cardiac arrest in July 2004.
Mr Justice Foskett, sitting at the High Court, was told that Mr Rossiter’s death would have been avoided had Pearl Chin, Cathy Benson and Sharon Alikhani, GPs at the Westbourne Grove Surgery, West London, prescribed appropriate medication from December 2003 onwards. The three GPs, who treated Mr Rossiter between 2001 and his death, admitted to a breach of duty in having failed to spot and appropriately treat his hypertension.
Mr Rossiter left a widow, Beatrice Ballard, a celebrated television producer in her own right, and two daughters, Alice, 11, and Pandora, 9. The amount of damages was not disclosed in court but Ms Ballard, the daughter of the novelist J. G. Ballard, said: “No amount of money can replace my children’s father, but it will help in securing their future.” The judge described the loss as “almost impossible to value”.
The court was told that Mr Rossiter had visited Westbourne Grove Surgery two months before his death, but left without receiving a vital blood-pressure test. The defence had argued that Mr Rossiter may not have completed his course of medication even if he had been prescribed it. But Ms Ballard’s barrister, Henry Whitcomb, dismissed the claim on the grounds that Mr Rossiter was a highly intelligent man who had given up smoking and was “absolutely devoted to his family”.
After the decision, the family’s solicitor, John Pickering, said: “The end of this case comes as a huge relief to Nicholas’s wife, and will provide a secure future for their daughters. Doctors Chin, Benson and Alikhani . . . did not treat him with antihypertensive medication as they should have done. “His family are relieved that this matter is now closed and they can move on with their lives.”
Source
Shock! British Ambassador called Obama 'liberal'
Definitely a nasty word:
"Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's Ambassador in Washington, was last night thrust into political controversy after the leak to a newspaper of a seven-page candid assessment he delivered on Barack Obama.
His letter to Downing Street, written earlier this summer ahead of the Democratic nominee's trip to Europe, contains a level of criticism that will be deeply embarrassing to the Government.
He describes Mr Obama's "decidedly liberal" voting record in the Senate where "the main impression is of someone who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his presidential ambitions".
Source
BRITISH WOMEN HAVE FIRMER TITS THAN INDIANS AND AFRICANS
Does that sound a bit crass? It is in fact just a plain English translation of the study below
Ethnic Variations in Mammographic Density: A British Multiethnic Longitudinal Study
By Valerie A. McCormack et al
It is not known whether the 20-30% lower breast cancer incidence rates in first-generation South Asian and Afro-Caribbean women relative to Caucasian women in the United Kingdom are reflected in mammographic density. The authors conducted a United Kingdom population-based multiethnic study of mammographic density at ages 50-64 years in 645 women. Data on breast cancer risk factors were obtained using a questionnaire/telephone interview. Threshold percent density was assessed on 5,277 digitized mammograms taken in 1995-2004 and was analyzed using multilevel models. Both ethnic minorities were characterized by more protective breast cancer risk factor distributions than Caucasians, such as later menarche, shorter stature, higher parity, earlier age at first birth, and less use of hormone therapy, but they had a higher mean body mass index; the last four factors were associated with lower mammographic density. Age-adjusted percent mammographic densities in Afro-Caribbeans and South Asians were 5.6% (95% confidence interval (CI): 3.5, 7.5) and 5.9% (95% CI: 3.6, 8.0) lower, respectively, than in Caucasians. Lower densities were partly attributed to higher body mass index, less use of hormone therapy, and a protective reproductive history, but these factors did not account entirely for ethnic differences, since fully adjusted mean densities were 1.3% (95% CI: -1.3, 3.7) and 3.8% (95% CI: 1.1, 6.3) lower, respectively. Ethnic differences in mammographic density are consistent with those for breast cancer risk.
American Journal of Epidemiology 2008 168(4):412-421
British street cleaner attacked by Muslim mob
A COUNCIL street sweeper was racially assaulted as he cleaned a Westhulme subway. The 48-year-old was cleaning the Featherstall Road subway close to the Martha Street entrance at 9.20am on Tuesday when a gang of six Asian youths smashed a wooden post through the side window. They then rained blows on the sweeper with clubs, posts and bats and hit the victim's leg as he tried to get out of the vehicle.
As the attack took place, the gang shouted, "Asians rule supreme" and "get out of our area white scum". They ran away when the victim called the police. The victim, who has worked for the council for four years, was left shaken and had to take the rest of the day off work.
Oldham Council's service director for Streetscene. Mark Odell. confirmed that a member of the road sweeping team was involved in an incident while cleaning the subway at Featherstall Road roundabout. He added: "The worker reported the incident to the police who attended the scene and took a statement. "As a result of the incident we have reviewed our risk assessments and made some changes to the way our road sweeping staff operate in future. "Thankfully incidents where our staff are abused or worse by members of the public are rare."
Police say they are treating the matter as a racially aggravated incident and are investigating.
Source
Cane is needed again to give children a lesson say a fifth of British teachers
A fifth of teachers would like to see the cane re-introduced in Britain's schools, research has found. They said children's behaviour had deteriorated to the point that caning would be an effective punishment. The survey of more than 6,000 teachers by the Times Educational Supplement found that a fifth supported the right to use corporal punishment in extreme cases.
Judith Cookson, a supply teacher, said: “Children's behaviour is absolutely outrageous in the majority of schools. I am a supply teacher, so I see many schools, and there are no sanctions. There are too many anger management people and their ilk who give children the idea that it is their right to flounce out of lessons for time out because they have problems with their temper. They should be caned instead.”
Ravi Kasinathan, a primary teacher who also “strongly” supported the idea, said: “There is justification, or an argument, for bringing back corporal punishment, if only as a deterrent. I believe some children just don't respond to the current sanctions.”
The survey suggests that support for corporal punishment is strongest among secondary teachers: 22 per cent back the idea, compared with 16 per cent of primary teachers. It also uncovers much lower support among heads and deputy and assistant heads: 12 per cent, compared with 22 per cent of teachers.
John Dunford, of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “Thankfully, corporal punishment is no longer on the agenda, except in the most uncivilised countries. I am sure that this barbaric punishment has disappeared for ever.”
An official at the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “Violence against children is clearly unacceptable and illegal.”
Source
Bigotry against Indians from British immigration officials
There have been a lot of reports like this. Brits are getting tired of the constant influx of foreigners and it shows at times. There is a lot of resentment of Indians because they work hard and do well economically as a result. So they become a convenient outlet for frustration
Overly zealous British home ministry officials are "humiliating, harassing and abusing" legal Indian and other migrants at airports across the country, a campaigning group said today. "Though migrants are used to discrimination and harassment, these new revelations show how the treatment of legal immigrants by border control now has stooped to the lowest of levels," the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) Forum said in a statement.
The British home ministry was unable to offer a comment immediately, but said it was looking into the complaint.
The group, which won a high-profile case against the government this year, said migrants who were in Britain under the HSMP visa were suffering at the hands of "overly zealous immigration officers" at some of Britain's busiest airports like Heathrow, Manchester and Belfast. "Our members complain that upon their and their families' return from trips abroad, they are harshly discriminated against by the immigration authorities, though they are fully legally entitled to re-enter the country to continue contributing to the British economy," said Mr Amit Kapadia, executive director of the forum.
It said immigration officers not only lecture migrants, and offer unsolicited advice, but have also detained and threatened to deport without reason. It gave the example of Pooja Tandon, who was detained at Heathrow airport while returning from a holiday in Switzerland with her husband, child and parents. It quoted her as saying the immigration officer lectured them about "finding alternative employment" and about "the shifts we work and child care arrangements." "He then said he is detaining us for further enquiry and if he is not satisfied with it, then he will deport us," although the family was let off with a verbal warning.
Pooja Tandon added: "We are really shaken by this incident. We felt being treated like criminals. We pay our taxes and national insurance and all other bills, and are being threatened this way."
In a second instance, a doctor who has been in Britain for a decade was questioned by an airport immigration officer about his using the state health service for the delivery of their son, when all tax-paying foreigners are entitled to the National Health Service. "The immigration official had no legal position to threaten, abuse and intrusively demand information about the sensitive and private medical care of a legal migrant worker," the HSMP Forum said.
In a third case, an HSMP migrant was detained for a few days and was about to be deported to his country of origin because he was not working in his field of expertise, "when in reality HSMP visas do not have any such restrictions."
"It is clear from these cases that Immigration Officers have tried to take the law in their own hand," the forum said.
Source
Friday, October 03, 2008
EU attack on free speech -- via Britain
I am more Zionist than most Jews but criminalizing what nutcases say just makes it seem as if they might be right
I am more Zionist than most Jews but criminalizing what nutcases say just makes it seem as if they might be right
"Australian Holocaust revisionist Gerald Toben has been arrested at London's Heathrow airport. The Metropolitan Police extradition unit executed a European Union arrest warrant issued by German authorities at Heathrow Airport at 11.30am (8.30pm Wednesday AEST).
The arrest warrant accuses 64-year-old Toben, who also uses the first name Fredrick, of publishing material on the internet "of an anti-Semitic and/or revisionist nature" in Australia, Germany and other countries. The alleged Holocaust denier was due to appear at City of Westminster Magistrates Court later today.
Source
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Big natural climate change very recently
WINTER 1947, when Britain could have used some global warming
After the Second World War Britain was bombed out, bankrupt, exhausted and desperately short of fuel. The winter of 1947 sank the country to a level of deprivation unknown even during the war. A catalogue of weather calamities precipitated a national crisis and changed Britain and the rest of Europe for decades afterwards.
The winter began deceptively, with just a brief cold snap before Christmas 1946. Snow lay thick on the ground when, in mid-January, temperatures soared so high that it felt as if spring had arrived early. The snow thawed so rapidly that it set off floods - just as hurricane-force winds brought down roofs, trees and even houses and a railway bridge in Birmingham. But real winter arrived soon afterwards as the country was gripped in an Arctic freeze that lasted for two months, with snow whipped into monstrous drifts that buried roads and railways. The temperature fell to -21C at Woburn, Buckinghamshire.
On February 20 the Dover to Ostend ferry service was suspended because of pack-ice off the Belgian coast. It became the coldest February ever recorded - and there was virtually no sunshine for almost the whole month.
The freeze paralysed coalmines, with coal stocks often stuck at the collieries by railways and roads buried in snow. Even carrying coal by sea was hazardous, with storms, fog and iced-over harbours.
A week after the freeze began, the Minister of Fuel and Power, Emmanuel Shinwell, ordered electricity supplies to be cut to industry, and domestic electricity supplies to be turned off for five hours each day, to conserve coal stocks. Whitehall and Buckingham Palace were reduced to working by candlelight. Television was closed down, radio output reduced, newspapers cut in size and magazines ordered to stop publishing. The emergency package hardly made a difference to power supplies but was a crushing blow to public morale.
Food supplies shrank alarmingly and rations were cut even lower than they had been during the war. Farms were frozen or snowed under, and vegetables were in such short supply that pneumatic drills were used to dig up parsnips from frozen fields. For the first time, potatoes were rationed after some 70,000 tons of them were destroyed by the cold.
The Government tried a deeply unpopular campaign to encourage everyone to eat a cheap South African fish called snoek, millions of tins of which had been imported - but it tasted disgusting and was used eventually as cat food.
Those delivering food supplies were battling to get through blizzards and snowdrifts, and The Attlee Government was seriously worried that the country could slide into famine.
March turned out even worse than February. March 5 brought the worst blizzard of the 20th century. Supplies of food shrank so low that in some places the police asked for authority to break open stranded lorries carrying food cargoes. On March 6 The Times reported: "The blizzard has virtually cut England in two. It is almost impossible to get from South to North."
Eventually, on March 10, a sustained thaw set in - and triggered another spectacular disaster. After weeks of deep frost, the ground was so hard that the melting snow ran off into raging torrents of floodwater and, to make things worse, a huge storm dropped heavy rain. Indeed, it was the wettest March on record in England and Wales. The winds whipped up floodwater into waves that breached dykes in the Fens, flooding 100 square miles of rich farmland, and houses collapsed. Canada sent food parcels to stricken villages in Suffolk, and the prime minister of Ontario even offered to help to dish them out.
It is difficult to imagine a worse run of weather, although the Government was blamed for the food and fuel crises. Elected in the summer of 1945 with a landslide majority, the Labour administration had embarked on a radical programme of nationalisation, including the health service, coalmining, electricity supply and railways. But it was caught unprepared when people began to buy electric fires and immersion heaters, and power stations could not meet the rising demand for energy.
Yet despite the collapsing economy and threat of starvation, the Government carried on behaving as if it were in control of a world superpower. Military expenditure was 15 per cent of GDP - far higher than before the war - and included the development of Britain's own nuclear bomb, as well as forces stationed in Europe and across the Empire. With a hugely ambitious programme of free healthcare and reconstruction, it was simply unsustainable. The winter of 1947 led to savage cuts in public spending at home and contributed to the humiliating devaluation of sterling from $4 to $2.80 the next year.
Less than two years after winning the war, the nation was left freezing cold, plunged into darkness and on the brink of starvation - and for many people it showed that national planning and socialism did not work. Labour was turned out of office in a landslide defeat at the next general election.
Source
Oxford 'is not a social security office'
Chancellor of university rejects government plan to attract more state pupils
Oxford University should not be treated by the Government as "a social security office" to widen participation in higher education among disadvantaged pupils from state schools, its chancellor said yesterday. Oxford had "no chance" of increasing state school admissions to meet targets so long as the gap in exam performance existed, Lord Patten of Barnes told the annual meeting of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).
Research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed the gap in performance between Britain's private and state schools was the widest in the Western world, he said, adding: "The sense that many universities have is that they are being asked to make up for the deficiencies of secondary education. If this were the aim, it would be a fool's mission."Latest figures show that 53 per cent of Oxford's student intake is from state schools. The target is to raise this to 62 per cent by the end of the decade.
Lord Patten's comments were coupled with a plea to charge middle-class parents more for a child's university tuition by lifting the current fees cap of 3,140 pounds per annum. "It is surely a mad world in which parents or grandparents are prepared to shell out tens of thousands to put their
WINTER 1947, when Britain could have used some global warming
After the Second World War Britain was bombed out, bankrupt, exhausted and desperately short of fuel. The winter of 1947 sank the country to a level of deprivation unknown even during the war. A catalogue of weather calamities precipitated a national crisis and changed Britain and the rest of Europe for decades afterwards.
The winter began deceptively, with just a brief cold snap before Christmas 1946. Snow lay thick on the ground when, in mid-January, temperatures soared so high that it felt as if spring had arrived early. The snow thawed so rapidly that it set off floods - just as hurricane-force winds brought down roofs, trees and even houses and a railway bridge in Birmingham. But real winter arrived soon afterwards as the country was gripped in an Arctic freeze that lasted for two months, with snow whipped into monstrous drifts that buried roads and railways. The temperature fell to -21C at Woburn, Buckinghamshire.
On February 20 the Dover to Ostend ferry service was suspended because of pack-ice off the Belgian coast. It became the coldest February ever recorded - and there was virtually no sunshine for almost the whole month.
The freeze paralysed coalmines, with coal stocks often stuck at the collieries by railways and roads buried in snow. Even carrying coal by sea was hazardous, with storms, fog and iced-over harbours.
A week after the freeze began, the Minister of Fuel and Power, Emmanuel Shinwell, ordered electricity supplies to be cut to industry, and domestic electricity supplies to be turned off for five hours each day, to conserve coal stocks. Whitehall and Buckingham Palace were reduced to working by candlelight. Television was closed down, radio output reduced, newspapers cut in size and magazines ordered to stop publishing. The emergency package hardly made a difference to power supplies but was a crushing blow to public morale.
Food supplies shrank alarmingly and rations were cut even lower than they had been during the war. Farms were frozen or snowed under, and vegetables were in such short supply that pneumatic drills were used to dig up parsnips from frozen fields. For the first time, potatoes were rationed after some 70,000 tons of them were destroyed by the cold.
The Government tried a deeply unpopular campaign to encourage everyone to eat a cheap South African fish called snoek, millions of tins of which had been imported - but it tasted disgusting and was used eventually as cat food.
Those delivering food supplies were battling to get through blizzards and snowdrifts, and The Attlee Government was seriously worried that the country could slide into famine.
March turned out even worse than February. March 5 brought the worst blizzard of the 20th century. Supplies of food shrank so low that in some places the police asked for authority to break open stranded lorries carrying food cargoes. On March 6 The Times reported: "The blizzard has virtually cut England in two. It is almost impossible to get from South to North."
Eventually, on March 10, a sustained thaw set in - and triggered another spectacular disaster. After weeks of deep frost, the ground was so hard that the melting snow ran off into raging torrents of floodwater and, to make things worse, a huge storm dropped heavy rain. Indeed, it was the wettest March on record in England and Wales. The winds whipped up floodwater into waves that breached dykes in the Fens, flooding 100 square miles of rich farmland, and houses collapsed. Canada sent food parcels to stricken villages in Suffolk, and the prime minister of Ontario even offered to help to dish them out.
It is difficult to imagine a worse run of weather, although the Government was blamed for the food and fuel crises. Elected in the summer of 1945 with a landslide majority, the Labour administration had embarked on a radical programme of nationalisation, including the health service, coalmining, electricity supply and railways. But it was caught unprepared when people began to buy electric fires and immersion heaters, and power stations could not meet the rising demand for energy.
Yet despite the collapsing economy and threat of starvation, the Government carried on behaving as if it were in control of a world superpower. Military expenditure was 15 per cent of GDP - far higher than before the war - and included the development of Britain's own nuclear bomb, as well as forces stationed in Europe and across the Empire. With a hugely ambitious programme of free healthcare and reconstruction, it was simply unsustainable. The winter of 1947 led to savage cuts in public spending at home and contributed to the humiliating devaluation of sterling from $4 to $2.80 the next year.
Less than two years after winning the war, the nation was left freezing cold, plunged into darkness and on the brink of starvation - and for many people it showed that national planning and socialism did not work. Labour was turned out of office in a landslide defeat at the next general election.
Source
Oxford 'is not a social security office'
Chancellor of university rejects government plan to attract more state pupils
Oxford University should not be treated by the Government as "a social security office" to widen participation in higher education among disadvantaged pupils from state schools, its chancellor said yesterday. Oxford had "no chance" of increasing state school admissions to meet targets so long as the gap in exam performance existed, Lord Patten of Barnes told the annual meeting of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference (HMC).
Research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development showed the gap in performance between Britain's private and state schools was the widest in the Western world, he said, adding: "The sense that many universities have is that they are being asked to make up for the deficiencies of secondary education. If this were the aim, it would be a fool's mission."Latest figures show that 53 per cent of Oxford's student intake is from state schools. The target is to raise this to 62 per cent by the end of the decade.
Lord Patten's comments were coupled with a plea to charge middle-class parents more for a child's university tuition by lifting the current fees cap of 3,140 pounds per annum. "It is surely a mad world in which parents or grandparents are prepared to shell out tens of thousands to put their