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30 September, 2010

NHS doctor suspended for charging elderly man £150 a time for home visits

An NHS doctor has been suspended by the General Medical Council for four months after taking money for home visits to an elderly man. Dr John Stephens, charged £150 a time for call-outs to his home in Harpenden, Hertfordshire. On some occasions he was paid cash and once he asked for a cheque to be made out to his daughter. In all he made ten visits to man's home between March 2007 and December 2008.

The doctor was exposed after the man's wife, Denise Kearns, contacted the Jonathan Vernon-Smith Consumer Programme on BBC Three Counties Radio. The local Primary Health Trust was contacted and an investigation was launched.

Mrs Kearns, 61, said today she was pleased with the outcome of the GMC hearing. She said her 70-year-old husband, known as JB, had worked as a building contractor. She said: 'We did not understand that we did not have to pay for calling the doctor out to our home to see my husband. The amount we paid snowballed. 'At the end of the visit it was always me who asked: "How much do we owe you, doctor?" It went on for a long time. If I didn't have the cash, he would say "Don't worry, you can pay me next time".

Mrs Kearns said she and her husband, who suffers from breathing problems and uses a nebuliser, had not understood that they did not have to pay for home visits. She said: 'We thought that if the doctor was coming into the home, we would have to pay. It went on for a long time.'

The Village Surgery in Harpenden today said Dr Stephens has been suspended from the practice.

Stephens qualified from London University in 1973 and was educated at Guy's Hospital Medical School, working and for a time as a Metropolitan Police Surgeon. On the Village surgery website his interests were listed as postgraduate education and medico-legal practice. He is married with three children and is said to enjoy music, travel and tennis.

In a statement, NHS Hertfordshire said: 'The Primary Care Trust has given evidence to the General Medical Council about this case and a full investigation has taken place. GPs working under contract with the NHS should not be charging individual patients for consultations or visits.'

The GMC hearing in Manchester was told his conduct amounted to an abuse of his professional position, and was exacerbated by the elderly man's vulnerability. But his lawyer said the doctor had an unblemished medical career spanning more than 30 years. He had apologised and offered to repay the money saying his actions were completely out of character.

In its ruling the GMC told Stephens: "The Panel considers that these acts of deception were exacerbated by your acceptance of money from a vulnerable patient, either in your name or in your daughter's name. This was dishonest.'

Before the end of suspension Dr Stephens's case will be reviewed by a Fitness to Practise Panel.

SOURCE



Britons face six year wait for chronic pain treatment

People with chronic pain in Britain have among the longest waits for treatment in Europe, a report has found. Almost eight million people in the UK have chronic pain, most frequently back pain. They have to wait for six years on average for a diagnosis and a further three years before their condition is adequately managed - longer than in most European countries.

When compared to Italy, France and Belgium, British chronic pain sufferers wait twice the time for a diagnosis, according to the Pain Proposal report, sponsored by the drug company Pfizer.

A survey of 2,251 people in Britain with chronic pain, which formed part of the report, found that four in 10 of them said their condition left them unable to work, while a quarter said it had led to depression.

A separate study found that chronic pain accounts for 4.6 million GP appointments every year at a cost of £69 million.

Dr Beverly Collett, Consultant in Pain Medicine, University Hospitals of Leicester and Chair of the Chronic Pain Policy Coalition (CPPC), said: "Chronic pain not only imposes a huge burden on people’s lives but seriously impacts society.

"Inefficiencies in management of chronic pain mean that people with the condition are either not being treated or are waiting years for adequate management, resulting in many people unable to achieve their full potential in the workplace."

SOURCE



A rare attack of sanity in a British court

But no credit to the useless British police

A desperate homeowner who injured a group of thugs with a catapult as they terrorised his neighbourhood has won backing from a judge who threw out the teenagers' claims for damages.

Bruce Harwood, 38, and his neighbours in a converted Georgian townhouse were subjected to a two-year reign of terror by 20 youths who urinated on the front door, threw eggs at the windows and regularly caused disturbances into the early hours.

The electrician finally snapped when the louts followed a car through the electronic gates protecting the Grade II listed building in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire.

As the female driver ran into the building fearing for her safety, electrician Mr Harwood grabbed a catapult he needs for his business and fired a several 'warning volleys' of small ball bearings at them. Three of the louts were accidentally hit, leaving them with minor injuries to their legs and groins, and he was arrested by police.

He has now admitted causing actual bodily harm and been ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid community work. But in a common sense victory for victims of anti-social behaviour, the judge threw out the hoodie-wearing yobs' claims for £1,200 compensation each, saying they 'brought this very much upon themselves'.

Sitting at Cambridge Crown Court, Judge Gareth Hawkesworth said: 'In this incident, it is entirely clear to me that you and the other residents were subjected to a lot of incidents of anti-social behaviour that were deliberate provocations by local youths.

'On this occasion you and other residents had suffered from a number of disturbances that amounted to deliberate provocation. 'You responded by taking a catapult and firing it. Such action easily could have caused serious harm. Your fault was in not notifying police. 'But I think it wholly inappropriate that I should make a compensation order given that they brought this very much upon themselves.'

Speaking after the hearing, Mr Harwood, who has moved out of his £520-a-month penthouse flat and now lives with his fiancee in Northamptonshire, said: 'I was just trying to scare them away and I didn't think I had hit them. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone. 'The police seem to have said to these lads "Poor you, let's get you some compensation" instead of "What the hell were you doing there?" 'This flat was my dream home and we've been under constant bombardment. Most people have moved out because they can't cope.'

It was on the evening of April 11 that 15 teenagers took advantage of the open gate to surge into the grounds of the four storey building, which had eight flats, forcing the terrified car owner to flee into her home. When Mr Harwood went to his window to see what was happening, the gang began chanting 'rich bastards' and started banging on the communal entrance.

Fearing they were going to break in and go on the rampage inside the building, he grabbed the catapult - which he bought for work to fire wire through tubes - and a handful of 38mm ball bearings which he used to fire several warning shots.

During the court case on September 21, Benedict Peers, defending, was reading out a long list of incidents involving the youths when he was stopped on the 13th example. Judge Hawkesworth told him he had heard enough to prove there had been 'provocation'.

Mr Harwood added yesterday: 'We've called police on so many occasions they sometimes don't turn up and have never arrested any of these kids. 'When you have 15 or 20 hoodies screaming and shouting you have to figure some way of getting them out. I was scared they'd get into the building.'

Three of the flats are empty at present because the occupants have had to move out. One of the other residents, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said: 'It's been going on well before Bruce moved in. I'm glad he did something because the police wouldn't.'

SOURCE



Free speech means the freedom to offend

A 'gang' (say the newspapers) of six British men have been arrested after a video of them burning copies of the Koran was posted on YouTube. Frankly, I'm revolted.

I'm revolted that people should publicly burn an artefact that millions of people revere, whether it is the Koran, the Bible, or even the American flag. These are actions which are intended to distress and outrage other people. Why do it?

I'm even more revolted that the laws in the United Kingdom allow people to be arrested for any such action.

Burning a flag or a religious or political book is an expression of an opinion, usually a deeply held opinion, that the item symbolises, or is the cause, of malign actions or beliefs. People should be able to express such opinions, even if it upsets and annoys others, without fear of being arrested and possibly imprisoned.

The United States has been served well for two centuries by a general presumption of free speech, encapsulated in an important amendment to the Constitution. It is felt there that free speech is vital if we are to have frank and open debate and a contest of ideas from which we can all learn and benefit. It is thought so important that it cannot be left to the judgement of officials or the police whether any particular statement is acceptable or not. We should have the same.

Many people in the UK think that the police are more inclined to prosecute attacks on the Islamic faith than on the Christian faith because Christians usually turn the other cheek while Muslims often get very angry indeed. They argue that Christians have even been prevented, by the police, from handing out Christian literature near a mosque; while it is unimaginable that Muslims would be stopped for handing out their texts near to a Christian cathedral.

The correct way to deal with these issues is simple. The right to free speech should apply equally to everyone. We might think that particular words or actions are gratuitously offensive – such as the disparaging nicknames given to racial groups – and as social beings we should argue with people to do that and try to get them to respect other people's sensibilities. But it shouldn't be against any law to offend people. It should certainly be against the law to threaten them or promote violence against them. And it should be against the law to use or threaten violence, even in response to some offensive remark or action. But there's a big difference between calling people offensive names and encouraging people to kill them.

SOURCE



Another attack on breastfeeding in prudish Britain

A young mother breast-feeding her baby was ordered into a changing room at High Street chain Primark

Aimee Edwards, 24, was feeding four-week-old George when a worker told her to use the changing room - or leave the store. The married mother-of-four was so angry that she left her shopping and walked out.

Mrs Edwards said: 'A woman shop assistant said if I wanted to breastfeed I had to go in the changing rooms or leave the store. 'She said it was offending other customers, but there were hardly any other shoppers near me. 'I thought she was joking at first as I have never had a problem in any other shop before.'

Mrs Edwards was shopping with her husband Ben and their children Ruby, three, and Morgan, 20 months, when baby George needed feeding. Mrs Edwards said: 'It's natural for a mum to feed her baby. Why should people feel offended? It's not as if they can see anything. 'I don't see why I should have to hide it. I was with my daughter and I want her to grow up thinking it is a natural part of life. 'I should not be made to feel ashamed. If that's their attitude then I don't know if I want to shop in a place like that.

'I have breast-fed all my children and I have never had this reaction. I don't even think about doing it now after having four children.'

Mrs Edwards from Bridgend, South Wales, was in the Swansea branch of the discount clothes store when the row broke out. She said: 'I put my shopping down and left the store. 'I think it's disgusting that I was doing something natural and I was faced with an ultimatum. 'If people don't like it then don't look. As campaigns say "breast is best", and then you get this kind of reaction.'

A spokesman for Primark, which has 143 stores across the UK, told Mail Online that the company had 'taken steps to ensure breastfeeding is better understood by all employees'. 'A supervisor in Primark Swansea approached a customer who was breastfeeding in the store and offered her the use of a fitting room cubicle which she felt would be more comfortable and would afford some privacy,' said the spokesman.

'Unfortunately, she inadvertently caused offence to the customer who mistakenly perceived that she was not welcome to breastfeed in the store. 'It was not the supervisor's intention to cause any offence - rather to offer assistance.

'However, we sincerely regret any upset that this incident may have caused and have taken steps to ensure that the company policy on breastfeeding is better understood by all Primark employees.

'Primark customers are welcome to breastfeed whilst shopping in our stores should they wish to do so. If any customer requires privacy for this purpose, every effort will be made to accommodate this request where possible.'

SOURCE



Britain's Attorney General orders review of private school charity rules

Controversial rules forcing private schools to offer free places to poor pupils could be scrapped after doubts were raised by the Government’s top law officer. Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, has ordered a review into guidance issued by the charities regulator that effectively requires independent schools to provide more bursaries to children from deprived families.

His intervention could pave the way for a dramatic overhaul of a new “public benefit” test that almost 1,000 schools must pass to remain open and hang on to charitable tax breaks. Analysts claim the Charity Commission guidance jeopardises the future of some fee-paying schools already threatened by falling income in the economic downturn.

Earlier this year, two private prep schools become the first in England to increase the amount of money spent on bursaries to satisfy the rules. It is feared others may be forced to raise fees for existing parents to fund more free places.

On Wednesday, the Attorney General called for a hearing to be held into the commission's guidance after admitting it created “uncertainty as to the operation of charity law in the context of fee-charging schools”. It follows claims from the Independent Schools Council that the commission was acting “illegally” by misinterpreting key charities legislation. They have already petitioned the High Court for a judicial review of the guidance.

Andrew Grant, vice-chairman of the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference, which represents 250 top independent schools, said: “The insistence that public benefit can only be demonstrated through fee remission has seemed to us a clear over-interpretation of the legislation. The provision of education is, ipso facto, a public benefit to the country.”

Under Labour’s 2006 Charities Act, fee-paying schools are no longer automatically entitled to charitable status. They must prove they provide “public benefit” to hang to tax breaks worth around £120m a year to the sector.

The charities regulator issued guidance in late 2008 telling schools how they could meet the new requirement. It said they could theoretically pass the test by offering range of services, including access to swimming pools and concert halls, master-classes in A-level subjects not provided in local state schools and running one of the Government’s academies.

But the document made it clear that providing more bursaries was the most straightforward way of satisfying the rules. It suggested schools should consider "increasing general fee levels in order to offer subsidies to those unable to pay the full cost".

The ISC claim it constituted a “gross misinterpretation” of the law.

The Attorney General’s Office said the Charities Tribunal – a legal panel – would now be asked to clarify key issues surrounding the Charity Commission guidance. It has the ultimate power to rule that parts of it are unlawful and must be changed.

A notice of reference issued to the tribunal says: “There is uncertainty as to the operation of charitable law in the context of fee-charging independent schools. “That uncertainty is contrary to the interests of charity because it means that the charities concerned do not know whether or not they are operating within or without the terms of their constitutions.”

Matthew Burgess, ISC deputy chief executive, said he was “delighted” with the intervention. “The Attorney General has got a role of protector of charity law and we feel that he is making this reference because there are uncertainties as to the way the Charity Commission has behaved in terms of independent schools," he said.

A spokesman for the Charity Commission said: "We accept, like any public body, that the way in which we carry out our statutory responsibilities is subject to legal challenge. "In preparing all our guidance on public benefit, the commission was at all times diligent in consulting charities and others affected, and in making clear the process we had followed.

“We set out our legal reasoning clearly and carefully alongside our guidance. We stand by our approach and the legal analysis which underpins it, and we are confident that the commission has acted reasonably and followed due process."

SOURCE



Popular British TV chef: please don't celebrate excessive thinness



Nigella Lawson has championed an "anti-diet" philosophy and expressed concerned that increasing numbers of young people are suffering from eating disorders.

The television cook, renowned for her indulgent recipes, said she worried that dieting had become "normalised" for teenagers. Seeing her late mother, Vanessa, struggle with eating disorders throughout her life has made her determined to have a positive relationship with food, Lawson said.

"I think that's probably very much the basis of my anti-diet stance. "It's not that I think it's good to eat unheathily, I don't, but I can see how corrosive obsessive dieting can be.

And what I would say now as a parent - you know, I've got teenage children - is that I'm quite taken aback how much anorexia now seems to be pretty much equal in both sexes. I notice both male and female.

"In many senses it's slightly normalised because people routinely congratulate one another for eating less or for losing weight. 'Have you lost weight?' is meant to be a nice thing to say to someone. So, of course, you don't have to extrapolate very far and that gets to be a celebration of excessive thinness."

Appearing on Daybreak, the ITV1 morning programme, Lawson admitted that she did not set a perfect example for her own children. "I did vow when I had my daughter that I would never become someone who would say, 'I shouldn't eat this or I feel so fat today'. Of course, occasionally one does break that."

Her comments follow the death of Anna Wood, 16, who decided to join her mother on a post-Christmas diet in January last year. Within months, her weight dropped to six-and-a-half stone and she died of a heart attack earlier this year.

Lawson has previously referred to her mother, who died in 1985, as "perpetually dieting". She recalled: "As a consequence, my act of teen rebellion was not being skinny... in my experience, enjoying food is probably a good way of not getting into that binge mentality".

SOURCE



ADHD blamed on genes, not parenting

Nice to see the obvious acknowledged

ATTENTION deficit hyperactivity disorder is a genetic condition rather than a consequence of bad parenting or poor diet, new research suggests.

A landmark study found that children with ADHD are more likely to have differences in the brain caused by duplicated or missing segments of DNA. The research, published today in The Lancet, dispels theories linking the condition to parenting or high-sugar diets, The Australian reports.

Scientists from Cardiff University found that rare copy number variants - where small pieces of DNA are duplicated or deleted - were twice as common in children with ADHD as in those without.

The study identified an overlap between the affected parts of the DNA and those associated with autism and schizophrenia. The most significant was at a particular region on chromosome 16 that has previously been implicated in schizophrenia.

Children with ADHD are excessively restless, impulsive and easily distracted. There is no cure, although medication and behavioural therapy can reduce symptoms. Patterns of ADHD have shown it to be highly heritable. Sufferers are statistically more likely to have a parent with the condition.

Anita Thapar, of the department of psychological medicine and neurology at Cardiff, said the study showed that ADHD was better considered a neurodevelopmental disorder rather than a behavioural problem.

"We hope these findings will help overcome the stigma," Professor Thapar said. "Too often, people dismiss ADHD as being down to bad parenting or poor diet. Now we can say that ADHD is a genetic disease and that the brains of children with this condition develop differently."

Researchers analysed the genomes of 366 children with a diagnosis of ADHD against more than 1000 control samples to search for variations in their genetic make-up. They found 57 large, rare copy number variants in the ADHD sufferers compared with 78 among the 1047 controls.

While the study showed the primary role of genes, it did not exclude the influence of environmental factors and it included only people of European Caucasian descent.

John Williams, of the Wellcome Trust, a funder of the research, said: "These findings are testament to the perseverance of Professor Thapar and colleagues to prove the often unfashionable theory that ADHD is a brain disorder with genetic links."

The researchers said that while autism and ADHD were thought to be separate conditions, the study suggested that they may have a shared biological basis.

Philip Asherson, of the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London, agreed that environment should still be considered a cause. Research on Romanian orphans found that deprivation at an early age could lead to ADHD or other neurological problems, he said.

SOURCE





29 September, 2010

A butchered baby: NHS apologises to family of baby left blind in one eye and brain-damaged after forceps delivery went wrong

A difficult labour should have led to a Caesarian. There is a photo of the baby available but I found it too upsetting to reproduce. The obstetrician should never be allowed to work in obstetrics again. Note that he is not identified -- for his own safety no doubt. Probably yet another overseas-trained incompetent -- JR

An NHS trust apologised to a family today after a baby was left blind in one eye and brain-damaged when hospital medical staff made a catalogue of errors during a routine birth.

Xavier Cutillo's eyeball was detached from its socket and his skull fractured by the misuse of forceps during his delivery at Scunthorpe General Hospital in December last year.

The youngster will never get his sight back in his left eye and his parents, 22-year-old Emma Portogallo and Daniel Cutillo, 23, will have to wait years to see what effect the damage done to his brain will have on his development, according to the family's lawyers, Russell Jones and Walker.

A spokesman for Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said a full investigation and review had been carried out into the incident which led to Xavier's injuries and staff also met the family shortly after the birth to discuss the delivery. He added: 'A number of changes to policy and practice have been implemented to ensure any risk of the circumstances being repeated are minimised. In particular, staff training has been extended and increased in frequency.

'We are extremely sorry for the distress caused to the family and would reiterate that our priority remains the safety of all women and babies at Scunthorpe General Hospital's Maternity Services.'

Miss Portogallo was admitted to hospital on December 21, 2009. She had a long labour and staff made an attempt to deliver the baby by ventouse suction cup. When the first attempt did not work the doctor treating her tried a further seven times to deliver the baby the same way despite advice that no more than three attempts should be made using this method.

When the ventouse method failed again Miss Portogallo was taken from the delivery suite to the operating theatre and given an epidural, but staff did not tell her about what was happening or about any of the associated risks of the procedure. According to Russell Jones and Walker, Miss Portogallo felt "severe tugging" as doctors tried to deliver her baby using forceps. When her son was finally delivered his eyeball was hanging out of its socket and resting on his cheek.

Later that day Xavier, who is now nine months old, was admitted to Sheffield Children's Hospital Foundation NHS Trust so emergency surgery could be performed on his eye, where he was also diagnosed with a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.

Describing her experience, Miss Portogallo said: 'My son will have to live with the consequences of this for the rest of his life. 'The whole experience has been extremely traumatic for both me and Xavier's father Daniel; we've been left physically and emotionally traumatised. 'We don't know yet if he will ever be able to see out of his left eye and he could also be brain damaged. We have to wait and see. 'Having a baby is meant to be one of the happiest days of your life but for us it was a complete nightmare.'

James Bell, a partner at Russell Jones and Walker, said the couple is seeking compensation so they can cover any future medical costs Xavier may need. He added: "The doctors failed to inform Emma of their treatment plan and failed to obtain consent for a forceps delivery. 'Emma was made to sign a consent form agreeing to a forceps delivery after the birth whilst she was in the recovery room in a state of shock. This is completely unacceptable practice.

'My clients were treated appallingly by the NHS trust concerned who have still not said what steps are being taken to discipline or re-educate the doctor who delivered Xavier. 'Such action has to be taken if the public are going to have confidence in NHS maternity services. 'It's no good just closing ranks and hoping that it won't happen again.'

SOURCE



British patient pronounced dead and taken to morgue makes full RECOVERY after undertaker spots him breathing

A man was pronounced dead by ambulance crews - but later found to be breathing by an undertaker, it has emerged. The unnamed patient was seen by paramedics who ran a series of checks before saying he was dead and the body taken to a morgue.

But when he was seen by an undertaker he discovered the man was still breathing - and he later made a full recovery.

The bizarre incident in 2007 was published in a three year report by the South Western Ambulance Service and released under the Freedom of Information Act. It detailed 62 Serious Untoward Incidents (SUIs) - when a patient, member of staff or the public suffers serious injury, harm or unexpected death during a call out. They can occur on health service premises or premises where health care is provided and where actions of health staff are 'likely to cause public concern'.

The report found 23 incidents were blamed on equipment failure and 34 on human error, including nine cases of wrong diagnosis.

In once incident in 2008 a patient with severe chest pains was left to walk unaided up stairs before dying. Footage from CCTV cameras showed the ambulance crew carrying out no checks on the patient as he walked unaided up two flights of steps.

Dr Andy Smith, medical director of the service which covers Cornwall and Isles of Scilly, Devon, Dorset and Somerset, said the serious cases made up a 'very small proportion' of incidents attended. He said: 'When you look at these incidents, it works out at roughly less than three per 100,000 call-outs. 'The service has a culture of openness and staff are encouraged to report any incidents immediately so we can investigate and learn lessons.'

Alan Lofthouse, from the union Unison, added that crews were open when things went wrong. He said: 'We're open to scrutiny from the public, we are all professional and we are all accountable.'

SOURCE



Number of official warnings given to British doctors rises by almost 50% in just two years

A growing number of doctors are being handed warnings for offences such as drink-driving and disorderly behaviour. The General Medical Council issued 262 ‘reprimands’ to GPs, specialists and hospital consultants last year – an increase of 50 per cent in the last two years.

Such warnings are given out for offences including assault and breach of the peace. Although they happen out of work and do not endanger patients, they are deemed to be ‘bringing the medical profession into disrepute’, and the individual is given a slap on the wrist.

The most common offence was drink-driving, which accounted for 37 of all warnings issued – or one in seven. Many other cases, such as disorderly behaviour and assault were also likely to have been triggered by alcohol – prompting concerns that excessive drinking is becoming an increasing problem among doctors.

Earlier this year a report warned that as many as 7 per cent of all doctors had been addicted to alcohol or drugs at some point in their careers – a total of 15,000 professionals.

The report, written by a working group appointed by the Department of Health, said many doctors were increasingly becoming stressed and overworked due to overcrowded wards and excessive Whitehall targets.

These latest figures, revealed following a Freedom of Information request by the BBC, show that two years ago the GMC handed out just 172 reprimands. The watchdog has admitted it is concerned at the rise and will investigate possible causes.

Paul Philip, Director of Standards and Fitness to Practice at the GMC said: ‘It’s important to remember that although there has been an increase in the number of cases referred to us, the numbers still represent a very small proportion of the 230,000 registered doctors.’

SOURCE



An open door to welfare tourists

EU warns Britain it can't stop thousands more migrants claiming welfare handouts

Benefits tourists are set to get the green light to come to Britain and immediately claim handouts totalling £2.5billion a year. According to documents leaked to the Mail, ministers have been warned that restrictions on claims by immigrants are against the law and must be scrapped.

The European Commission's ruling threatens to open the door to tens of thousands who are currently deterred from coming to Britain. At the moment, a 'habitual residency test' is used to establish whether migrants from the EU are eligible for benefits.

To qualify for jobseeker's allowance, employment support allowance, pension credit and income support, they must demonstrate that they either have worked or have a good opportunity to get a job.

But after receiving a complaint that the rules infringed the human rights of EU citizens, the Commission began to examine them. In a letter seen by the Mail, it warns that the restrictions are 'not compatible' with EU law. It says: 'EU law leaves it to member states to determine the details of their social security schemes and social assistance schemes, including the conditions on awarding benefits.

‘However, when making use of this competence, member states have to comply with the fundamental principles of EU law, such as the right to equal treatment on the basis of nationality. Having examined the “right to reside” test... it is not compatible with different legal provisions of EU law.’

The letter, written to the individual who made the complaint and copied to the British government, is dated last December, but Whitehall sources claim ministers in the outgoing Labour government failed to argue against the proposals.

Britain had toughened up its rules in 2004 when the EU was expanding its borders. The restrictions assess the eligibility of those from the EU and from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

But the Commission has begun legal proceedings against Britain to get restrictions on welfare claims by incomers scrapped.

If successful, the Government would be required to remove its deterrents to benefit tourism, including the right-to-reside test and an additional qualification for those claiming jobseeker’s allowance, that they must have worked for 12 months or more. Officials warn the bill could be between £1.3billion and £2.5billion a year – hampering plans to rein in welfare spending.

However, Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is understood to be determined to fight the move through the courts if necessary.

The Whitehall source warned: ‘This has the potential to open the doors of the benefits system to anyone coming here from the entire European economic area, who may have no intention of working or even looking for work but simply wants to claim benefits. 'We already have enough of a problem managing people who want to come here. But this would open up a whole new wave of benefit tourism.’

Last year, 46,957 non-UK nationals took the habitual residence test. Of those, 24,604 passed and 22,353 failed. For the test, they are interviewed and asked about why they have come to the UK, how long they intend to stay and their employment arrangements.

‘Fundamentally this is designed to ensure people aren’t coming to the UK to be benefit tourists,’ added the source.

The Department for Work and Pensions said: ‘We are in discussions with the Commission as, in our view, the current rules are within the law and are right for the UK, and changing them now would not be in our interest.

Our rules fully support the freedom of workers within the EU, whilst making sure that there are reasonable restrictions on access to social security for those who have never worked in the UK. ‘This prevents unsustainable burdens being placed on our social security system. We will argue our case and work towards a favourable outcome.’

The case is specifically between Britain and the Commission, but other countries which impose restrictions on access to welfare for migrants – Denmark, France and Ireland – are likely to be affected too.

Britain’s test was introduced in 1993, but tightened in 2004 after concerns that residents of new member would move to the previous 15 member states to benefit from their generous social welfare systems. Former Labour minister Margaret Hodge has argued restrictions should be toughened further to address voters’ concerns.

SOURCE



New British Labour party leader talks out of both sides of his mouth

Union power yes and no. Budget cuts yes and no -- etc.

Ed Miliband attempted to shake off his ‘Red Ed’ nickname yesterday – insisting he would not back ‘waves of irresponsible strikes’ or oppose every spending cut proposed by the coalition. He sought to put some distance between himself and the union barons who enabled him to inflict a stunning defeat on his elder brother David.

Mr Miliband wanted to portray Labour as the ‘optimists’ who could change the face of Britain. But he immediately prompted confusion over his position on public finances, saying the ‘starting point’ was the last Labour government’s plan to halve the deficit – but then opposing a list of coalition cuts.

He suggested the deficit should be tackled more slowly than Labour had previously proposed to avoid damaging the economic recovery. He added that it was ‘not responsible, it’s irresponsible’ for the Government to call a halt to school building projects or to deny Sheffield Forgemasters an £80million taxpayer-funded loan.

The new Labour leader insisted he was ‘serious’ about reducing debt, and admitted the party would have been making cuts if it was still in power. ‘There will be cuts and there would have been if we had been in government. 'Some of them will be painful and would have been if we were in government,’ he told the conference.

Despite his attempts to shake off the ‘union puppet’ jibes, Mr Miliband’s debut conference speech was shot through with left-wing rhetoric. The new leader said he would back the unions’ key demand to improve rights of temporary and agency workers. He also backed union calls for a so-called ‘living wage’ of £7.60 an hour, which would effectively raise the minimum wage by 30 per cent.

He hit out at executive pay, suggesting that it should be capped, and also suggested there should be limits to Britain’s flexible labour market rules, which unions claim allow employers to exploit staff.

But as he delivered his message on strikes, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley, joint general secretaries of the giant Unite union, sat grim-faced. Mr Simpson was caught on camera mouthing the word ‘rubbish’.

Mr Miliband said he would not support a return to 1970s-style industrial chaos threatened by some unions. He said: ‘I have no truck, and you should have no truck, with overblown rhetoric about waves of irresponsible strikes. The public won’t support them, I won’t support them. And you shouldn’t support them either.’

But he left the door open to supporting individual strikes, and union leaders later appeared to be relaxed about his rhetoric.

Mr Miliband also lavished generous praise on the union movement for its work – leading the Tories to warn last night that it was still unclear whether Mr Miliband would stand up to his union backers or ‘pander’ to them.

The coalition’s plans to slash the number of prisoners won support from Mr Miliband, who ignored warnings from senior Labour figures about going soft on crime. He said he would not oppose Justice Secretary Ken Clarke’s contentious cuts to short sentences.

Only hours before, Alan Johnson, the shadow Home Secretary who backed David Miliband for the leadership, had given a coded warning to Ed Miliband not to turn his back on tackling crime. But a defiant Mr Miliband said Labour should become the party of civil liberties again – despite its support for draconian DNA databases and ID cards.

SOURCE



Criminals must stop dodging the blame: Britain's black archbishop wants tougher prisons

Criminals should not make excuses for their wrongdoing, the Archbishop of York said last night. Instead of blaming their background, poverty, drink or drugs, they should face up to the cost of their crimes, Dr John Sentamu, the Church of England’s second most senior figure said.

In a tough speech on crime and society, the archbishop said prisons were necessary and condemned the way some offenders are rewarded in jail by being given cable TV and computer games.

But he called for more education in prisons, the jailing of fewer women and lesser criminals, and greater use of ‘restorative’ justice in which the offender gets a chance to make up for his or her crime.

Dr Sentamu acknowledged that some might be more likely to go to jail because of their neighbourhood, poverty, joblessness, drugs or alcohol. But he said: ‘We cannot simply blame society for the rising numbers we see going to prison each year. ‘We are accountable for what we do and what we are – in spite of all aids or hindrances from outside. ‘We are all too prone to find fault with the circumstances in which we find ourselves and this becomes our ready and familiar excuse when our conduct is found wanting.’

He said that since the 1980s there had been a steady drift towards personal interest at the expense of duty. ‘It seems that in modern culture, the rights of the individual are now paramount. But you cannot have rights without obligations and responsibilities. ‘We need to get back to valuing ourselves and our neighbours and understanding that there is a cost involved when a crime is committed – a cost to the criminal, a cost to the victim, and a cost to the community.’

Dr Sentamu said some offenders need to be jailed, and some should never be released. But he added: ‘We need to get away from the Victorian bang ‘em up culture that has been prevalent over recent decades.’ Backing the idea of community punishments, he said: ‘We need to think of a better way to tackle the underlying problems that have contributed to the choices criminals make.’

However, he continued: ‘It is common sense to say that criminals should not be rewarded for being in prison. ‘It is patently not right when we read stories of institutions that offer inmates such things as cable TV and PlayStations, and other non-essential items that many outside of prison cannot afford for their families despite working hard and sticking to the rules.’

The views of Dr Sentamu carry weight because of his long experience in dealing with the aftermath of some of Britain’s most disturbing crimes.

He was a key member of the Macpherson inquiry which produced the influential report into the 1993 murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. He was also involved in reviews following the murders of Damilola Taylor in London and Letitia Shakespeare and Charlene Ellis in Birmingham.

SOURCE



Amazing quackery

The supplier should do a long stretch in jail but don't hold your breath. I don't have much sympathy with the customers though. Anybody gullible enough to believe the claims will probably have a short lifespan anyway



Government health watchdogs have issued an urgent warning about a 'miracle' health drink that contains industrial strength BLEACH.

Hundreds of thousands of bottles of 'Miracle Mineral Solution' have been sold worldwide after makers claimed it cured illnesses including cancer and malaria. But its desperate users have suffered agonising bouts of nausea and diarrhoea after taking just a few drops of the fluid.

Shockingly, the health drink contains 28 per cent sodium chlorite solution - the equivalent to industrial strength bleach and six times the amount in a bottle of Domestos.

The Food Standards Agency has now warned people who have bought the drink to throw it away after Trading Standards received a deluge of complaints. A spokesperson said: 'If you look at a bottle of Domestos that's just 4.5 per cent sodium chlorite.

'The simple fact is not how this solution is taken but that you just shouldn't be drinking bleach full stop. 'We were alerted to the solution after a local authority received a complaint from somebody who had drank it. 'Sodium Chlorite is bleach. Bleach is not on the approved list of foods and it shouldn't be sold as a food supplement.'

Miracle Mineral Solution is sold over the internet by a man who gives his name as 'Jim Humble'. A bottle of the liquid costs £21.98 in American dollars and users must mix it with citric acid. Makers of the liquid claim that the solution can cure a range of illnesses including Hepatitis, cancer, Crohns disease, the flu herpes and TB.

But side-effects include severe nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea, dehydration and reduced blood pressure. If the solution is taken in large enough doses the sodium chlorite could be fatal. It is the equivalent of drinking industrial strength bleach.

An FSA spokesperson added: 'If you have any of this product you should throw it away. If you have consumed MMS and feel unwell you should consult your doctor. 'If the solution is diluted less than instructed, it could cause damage to the gut and red blood cells, potentially resulting in respiratory failure.

'If you are aware of MMS being sold in retail outlets, you should contact your local authority trading standards department.'

Nobody from Miracle Mineral Solutions was available for comment.

SOURCE



Blog Warfare - Warmists attacks their own

Richard Black of the BBC finds out how ugly it can be when you make the mistake (the travesty!) of missing a chance to tell everyone that the Earth's falling apart due to Man-made Global Warming.

It's the first time Richard Black has been on the receiving end. He's a bit put out.

It seems that something new, and not altogether welcome, may be happening in the politicking over climate change.

I have written before of the orchestrated villification that comes the way of climate scientists from some people and organisations who are unconvinced of the case for human-induced climate change - "sceptics", "deniers", as you wish.

This week, for the first time, I am seeing the same pattern from their opponents.

Joe Romm, the physicist-cum-government-advisor-cum-polemicist, posted a blog entry highly critical of the Arctic ice article I wrote last week.

Joe Romm took him to task for doing a story on the hottest year without "mentioning the primary cause of global warming" (according to climate models which are known to be wrong). Romm set lots of emailers onto Black. The original "dreadful" story is just reporting how arctic ice melted fast, but didn't shrink as much as 2007.

Then you can see the cogs turning in Black's mind with the implications:

What about scientists? If researchers publish papers on climate change that do not include cataclysmic warnings of where the world is heading, will they receive the same treatment?

Hello, Richard, yes, exactly, and you are catching up fast on the world in 1990. Around then, an intolerant culture was established that scorned anyone who so much as asked difficult questions. Some eminent scientists were sacked. Al Gores staffers attacked Fred Singer so viperously, that he took them to court and won. But what message did that send to the world's scientists? You can speak your doubts on the hypothesis of man-made-catastrophe, but be prepared to spend thousands on lawyers, risk your job, and lose your friends. Singer won the battle, but Al won that war.

If Richard Black would like the debate to be less polarized and more scientific he could start by getting over his own noxious use of the derogatory term "denier".

This is good news for skeptics. Why, because when bullies do what bullies do, they bite back at their own. For people like Judith Curry and Richard Black, suddenly the depth of the vicious campaign becomes clear, and unless they have a religious belief in man-made global warming, this is the point when they start to wonder just how strong the scientific case is. I've written before about how the bullying creates only brittle support, working only until the tactic is exposed for all to see, and how it helps convert passive borderline skeptics into active trumpeting dissenters.

There is a serious slogging going on in the comments, and it's interesting to watch.

The once cohesive block of the believers in the Big Scare Campaign fragments a bit further. Piece by piece proponents will distance themselves from the unscientific advocacy until all that are left are the religious believers who won't be swayed by any amount of reason.

Bishop Hill points out that there's a BBC science review running at the moment, and wonders if that has had any effect on Richard Black's reporting. The BBC review is starting from a point 10-steps-to-the-left of impartial: Both quacks and climate deniers rarely have anything to say that is real science. That's right, even if you have a Nobel Physics Prize, a BBC editor can group you with "quacks" and ignore everything you say.

More HERE



British councillors shelve planned housing estate... in case cats eat the local dormice

A site for a new housing estate was rejected after planning chiefs said residents' cats might eat dormice in a nearby wood. Councillors in Paddock Wood, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent, voted down a proposed site for 600 homes after deciding it was `too dangerous' for the tiny creatures.

The native Hazel dormouse, which can hibernate for up to six months, is an endangered species in the UK and councillors were worried that the estate would mean scores of hungry cats arriving in the area. They said the cats would hunt in the 40-acre Foal Hurst Wood and devastate the dormouse population.

Labour councillor Ray Moon said the council had a `responsibility to maintain the wood for future generations' and that `having domestic cats living nearby would be disastrous for small mammals'. He said: `The Foal Hurst Wood is an ancient woodland, it has dormice, it offers so many different things to that area.

`I'm willing to stand up and defend the dormice of Foal Hurst Wood on the basis that our schoolchildren want to see our wildlife thriving. `I don't want my grandchildren to grow up and say: "I've never seen a dormouse, what's a dormouse?"'

But independent councillor Ron Goodman was angered by the ruling. He said: `You're trying to make a decision based on what's good for dormice. It's all nonsense. It's crazy.' Mr Goodman begged fellow councillors: `Don't make your mind up just because of some dormice.'

The site was rejected after seven councillors voted it the `least favoured option' of three proposed sites, with one vote against and two abstentions.

Resident Amy Little, 32, said: `How they can get in such a tizzy about dormice is ridiculous.'

Earlier this year, a council in South Wales spent œ190,000 on three 20ft-high road bridges for dormice to stop them being flattened by cars.

SOURCE



David Irving stirring the pot again



He enjoys the publicity

"Controversial British historian David Irving praised Adolf Hitler as 'a great man' and his Gestapo as 'fabulous policeman' on his shocking tour of former Nazi death camps in Poland.

Irving said Hitler was not 'immoral' but was let down by lesser people in the Nazi regime, according to an undercover report by Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. 'Hitler could be very cruel but he was not immoral. He was just surrounded by "little" people,' the paper said Irving told those on a £1,500-a-head tour he has been hosting.

Irving, who was once jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust, also told tourists that the German dictator should be compared to Hannibal, the leader of Carthage that fought against and who almost overpowered Rome. The historian said: 'He was like Hannibal. He held the military forces of the rest of the world for six years. Exactly like Hannibal, but nobody has never denied the greatness of Hannibal. 'Hitler was a great man, one of the greatest Europeans for centuries.'

He added: 'The Gestapo were fabulous policemen. They sent 300,000 to Auschwitz and 800,000 to Treblinka.'

His comments will be studied closely by Polish authorities and are sure to infuriate Holocaust survivors.

Source

He's pretty safe in Poland. Poles almost seem to have an antisemitic gene in them -- so praise for Hitler is something that they tend to understand.

Irving gives free speech protections a pretty good test wherever he goes. He is what Australians call a "stirrer": Someone who is deliberately provocative in order to get a reaction -- a reaction that amuses the stirrer.





28 September, 2010

NHS bosses refuse teenager £10,000 operation to protect his brain

But publicity has produced some wavering

A teenager is being denied a £10,000 NHS operation to rebuild his skull following a motorbike crash. Shaun Kilgariff from Stoke-on-Trent was left fighting for his life last October after the accident left him suffering swelling on the brain. Surgeons had to remove part of his skull to keep him alive and he was in a coma for two weeks. The 18-year-old then had four months of intensive rehabilitation.

Now Sainsbury's worker Shaun, who wears a cap to protect his head, is waiting for an operation to rebuild his skull. His surgeon wants to perform a £10,000 custom bone cranioplasty, which would see a custom-made implant from synthetic materials similar to bone fitted onto his skull. But NHS Stoke-on-Trent is only willing to pay for a £2,500 operation, which would fit a titanium plate.

Specialists have told Shaun, from Stoke on Trent, that the plate is not shaped, would leave him with a square head and would need replacing. Shaun said: 'I've been told the titanium plate will become dislodged over time, which suggests it's unreliable. 'I'd eventually need another operation and I don't want to keep going back into hospital.'

His father Christopher, aged 52, said: 'The £10,000 operation might be more expensive, but the titanium plate will need to be replaced, so it doesn't make financial sense.'

His mother Tina said the family had been told the titanium plate would be 'noticeably square' with a ridge. She said: 'The custom bone implant can be shaped properly and, with Shaun being young, the bone will grow over it, so it will get better in time.'

The family is appealing against NHS Stoke-on-Trent's decision. The trust, which has one other request for an implant, is waiting for specialist advice. In a letter to Shaun's MP Joan Walley, trust chief executive Graham Urwin said: 'The current treatment plan for patients with similar problems to your constituent is for patients to have titanium plates attached to the skull.'

A trust spokesman added: 'The trust and specialist NHS commissioners are reviewing a service development proposal for custom bone implants. 'This process will review many things, including the clinical outcomes and safety of the procedure.'

SOURCE



How this twisted obsession with race makes Britain MORE divided

Munira Mirza

Are race relations in Britain getting worse? If you read the official ­ statistics and look at the ­massive increase in the number of anti-­racism policies and ­initiatives, you might be forgiven for thinking that we are ­suffering the kind of ­race-hate ­epidemic you would ­expect to find in ­apartheid South Africa.

Children as young as three could now be accused of ­racism, reported by zealous teachers who have been ordered to ­highlight any aspect of their pupils’ ­behaviour that might be ­construed as having racist overtones.

Thanks to legislation ­introduced by New Labour, schools now have to inform local authorities of all ‘racist ­incidents’ in the playground - resulting in the reporting of an estimated 250,000 cases. And yet some of these involve primary school children ­calling each other names like ‘chocolate’.

Along with a growing number of people from ethnic minorities, I believe these anti-­racism ­policies are outdated and - more to the point - damaging. By obsessing about race and exaggerating the scale of ­racism, the authorities sow the seeds of mistrust and make ­communities more divided. It is time for a fresh approach that brings people together and emphasises how much we all have in common.

The truth is, Britain is a far more tolerant place than it was 30 years ago, when there was much prejudice and ignorance. People now are increasingly relaxed about living in a multi-ethnic Britain. Indeed, young people have known nothing else and mixed marriages are increasingly common.

Of course, racism still exists, but relations have now improved to a point where many ethnic minority people do not ­experience it as a feature of their everyday life. Research in many fields, such as education and employment, shows that if there is a barrier to achievement today it is social class, rather than race.

Yet, ironically, as racism declines and public attitudes change, government agencies have become ever more ­preoccupied with the issue. It was in 2000 that the Labour government passed a heavy-handed law imposing a duty on all public authorities, such as schools, councils, hospitals and universities, to ‘promote good relations between persons of ­different racial groups’.

As a result, a lot of money is spent on legions of well-paid ‘diversity professionals’ in workplaces, whose job it is to ­monitor racism, run training courses and ensure no one offends anyone.

But rather than stamping out the problem, I believe all this hyper-awareness is ­achieving the opposite result. All the monitoring, training and meddling serve to do is exaggerate the scale of the ­problem and create more ­mistrust between communities. It means that someone of a ­different race ­sitting next to you at work can become a ­potential victim of unwitting racism. As a result, people become afraid to speak their mind or ask difficult questions of anyone of a different ethnicity in case they ‘say the wrong thing’.

To see the negative effects of officialdom’s anti-racism ­policies, I only have to look my hometown of Oldham. In the summer of 2001, it was scarred by serious rioting, ­involving Asian and white youths. Both groups were angry that summer.

The media had reported the existence of alleged ‘no-go areas’ for whites and a sharp rise in racist incidents - but it was the use of clumsy, official diversity policies that helped to heighten the tension.

Professor Ted Cantle, of the Institute of Community ­Cohesion, who was asked to investigate the disturbances, found that the local white and Asian communities lived ­‘parallel lives’.

Although pupils of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin accounted for around a third of the primary school population in the town, there was not as much integration as there should have been because eight out of ten were in schools that were mostly non-white.

Indeed, the riots in Oldham erupted after more than a ­decade of diversity policies that had encouraged people to see ­themselves as different to each other.

A year before the riots, the local police force had followed the recommendation of ACPO, the Association of Chief Police Officers, and adopted a new ­definition of a racist incident as ‘any incident which is ­perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person’. In consequence, the police went into communities and sought to increase the reporting of anything that could be seen as a racist incident.

From being fairly steady throughout the Nineties (with 246 racist incidents reported in Oldham in 1994, 256 in 1996 and 290 in 1998) the number suddenly jumped by 56 per cent in 2000 to 452 - the ­highest rate of incidents in the whole Greater Manchester area). But it wasn’t because race crime had increased - merely that a change in the definition of so-called racist incidents wrongly suggested it had.

More generally, the drive to ‘promote good relations’ in ­Oldham means there has been a clampdown on any behaviour which might be deemed ­offensive. This naturally ­creates resentment.

When I was conducting ­interviews in the town in 2007, I kept hearing claims from locals that the council had banned St George’s flag. I asked various council staff about this claim, but none of them could confirm whether it was true or not. One official guessed it might have been done out of ­sensitivity to local ethnic minorities who ­associated the flag with ­far-Right groups that were resentful of the ­immigrant population. Another even suggested that, if the flag had been banned, it might have been for ‘health and safety reasons’.

Yesterday, a council ­spokesman said that it had not been banned. But, ­crucially, ­everyone I asked - Asian or white - felt that this sort of unnecessary, ­meddlesome decision would have been­ ­‘typical’ of the council.

Similar mistakes are being repeated across the UK, as revealed by reports of over-­zealous council officials, schools and police who have banned Christmas or English flags or other cultural ­expressions for fear of ­offending minority groups.

Even ethnic minorities often see such ­measures as over-­the-top and are irritated when they get the blame.

We know that some stories of political correctness gone mad are exaggerated - but many are not. Ted Cantle, returning to­ ­Oldham some years after his original report into the cause of rioting in the town, noted that there were complaints from the public about the police’s over-zealous ­restrictions on any expression of national pride or cultural festivals.

He also said that, despite all the diversity training and race equality guidelines, people in Oldham wanted to ask ­questions about different faiths and cultures but were afraid to do so because it might be thought ‘politically incorrect’.

Despite the well-intentioned efforts of council officials, teachers and diversity ­professionals, community ­tensions still remain. Inevitably, these grievances can grow and fester in areas of high deprivation.

No doubt, many people ­working in the field of race ­relations sincerely want to make things better. But the trouble is, they are now part of an ­infrastructure costing millions which — by ­constantly drawing attention to racism and trying to ­­micro-manage ordinary people’s behaviour - is actually making things worse.

It is time for all of us - whites and ethnic minorities alike - to put a brake on these anti-racism policies and call for the Government to review the laws that have spawned them. Let’s trust each other and talk about the things we have in common. That’s the real way to ­promote good relations.

SOURCE



More petty bureaucratic tyranny in Britain (1)

Council workmen blast residents for sweeping up leaves 'because it's against the rules'

Community-minded residents have had a ticking off for sweeping up leaves from outside their homes - because it is against council rules.

With the first autumn leaves falling onto their street, families in Blakenall, West Midlands, have dutifully been sweeping them up and putting them into their garden recycling bins. But their actions have been met with a stark warning from binmen, who told them depositing leaves in the brown containers was against council rules.

One pensioner in Guild Avenue was rapped by binmen for going against Walsall Council’s policy, which has been branded 'ridiculous'.

The rules outlined in Street Pride documents state leaves off the highway should not be put into brown bins because of 'contamination'.

Persistent offenders who break waste collection rules, including placing the ‘wrong’ materials in bins, could potentially face a fine of up to £1,000.

Council guidelines state that only grass cuttings, tree and shrub prunings, old plants and flowers, hedge clippings, weeds and leaves from residents’ own gardens can be put into brown bins.

The elderly woman who fell foul of the policy, who does not want to be named, complained to Walsall Councillor Pete Smith, who said it was 'crazy'. 'It’s still good to know some residents still take the trouble to keep the public footpath outside their own home clean,' he said. 'They should be encouraged, not discouraged.'

Now council leader Mike Bird has called for a common sense approach. He said: 'Anyone who has made comments to people about sweeping up leaves is taking the rules to the extreme. 'We are trying to encourage more pride in the community and this is the perfect example of a lady doing that and she should be praised.'

Retired lorry driver, Bill Pittam,79, from, Blakenall, said: 'I’ve always swept up leaves from outside my home and put them in my bin and have been doing for the last 30 years or so.'

Walsall Council, named the best authority in the country for its recycling targets, earlier this month approved a new rubbish collection policy, meaning it can now take enforcement action over those putting the wrong waste in the wrong bins.

SOURCE



More petty bureaucratic tyranny in Britain (2)

Professor slapped with £155 railway fine for getting off his train one stop EARLY

A professor who got off his train one stop before the destination on his ticket was ordered to pay a £155 penalty to leave the station. Martyn Evans was told he would be fined for disembarking at Darlington, near his home, rather than waiting until Durham, where he works at the university’s philosophy department.

The state-run East Coast train company said ticketing regulations meant he could get off only at the stop he had paid for – and nowhere else.

But transport campaigners warned the restriction risked driving passengers off trains and back into their cars.

Professor Evans said: ‘Anyone would understand that you’d be liable to pay extra if you stayed on the train too long. 'But by getting off early, you aren’t even using all of the product that you’ve paid for.’

The father of two bought three advance first-class single tickets from East Coast to cover his triangular journey from Durham to London, London to Birmingham and then back to Durham.

It was nearly 8pm when he arrived back in the North-East, so he decided to disembark one stop early, at Darlington, close to his home in the village of Hurworth. However, when he tried to leave the station, the automatic barrier would not let him out. Station staff told him his ticket was invalid because he had got off the train too early.

He was ordered to pay £155 – the price of a full first-class ticket from Birmingham to Darlington. After complaining, he was allowed to sign an invoice and told he must pay the penalty later.

Professor Evans said: ‘Like most people, it did not enter my mind that I was in default of the terms and conditions by getting off the train early. ‘The whole process made me feel like a wrongdoer from the beginning and that disgusted me more than just the money itself. 'It’s absolute madness – no-one would anticipate you’d be at fault for getting off too early.’

Alexandra Woodsworth, from the Campaign for Better Transport, said: ‘The Government has promised us fair rail fares, but being charged excessively for getting off a stop early doesn’t seem like a fair deal. ‘Passengers need greater flexibility if they are to choose the train over driving or flying, and information about ticket restrictions needs to be made much clearer.’

East Coast has cancelled Professor Evans’s penalty as a ‘goodwill gesture’, but insisted that the policy was standard across the train industry. A spokesman said: ‘The terms and conditions of the advance purchase first-class ticket – the ticket which Professor Evans had used for his journey – clearly state that breaking a journey en route, or starting from an intermediate station, is not permitted.’

A spokesman for the Association of Train Operating Companies said: ‘Hundreds of thousands of people take advantage of cheap advance tickets every week with no problem at all. 'In return for significantly reduced prices, there are certain conditions which apply that are clearly advertised when the tickets are bought.’

Amy Bradley, from the Passenger Focus consumer group, said: ‘There are some very good deals to be had on the railway, but passengers tell us the price of flexibility is too high.’

Earlier this month, Emma Clark and her fiancé Davyd Winter-Bates were fined £57 each by South West Trains for disembarking two stops early during a £6 journey from London to Southampton.

SOURCE



The Farm That Will Milk Britons Of Billions



In all the publicity given to the opening of "the world's largest wind farm" off the Kent coast last week, by far the most important and shocking aspect of this vast project was completely overlooked. Over the coming years we will be giving the wind farm's Swedish owners a total of £1.2 billion in subsidies. That same sum, invested now in a single nuclear power station, could yield a staggering 13 times more electricity, with much greater reliability.

The first all-too-common mistake in the glowing coverage accorded to the inauguration of this Thanet wind farm by the Climate Change Secretary, Chris Huhne, was to accept unquestioningly the claims of the developer, Vattenfall, about its output. The array of 100 three-megawatt (MW) turbines, each the height of Blackpool Tower, will have, it was said, the "capacity" to produce 300MW of electricity, enough to "power" 200,000 (or even 240,000) homes.

This may be true at those rare moments when the wind is blowing at the right speeds. But the wind, of course, is intermittent, and the average output of these turbines will be barely a quarter of that figure. The latest official figures on the website of Mr Huhne's own department show that last year the average output (or "load factor") of Britain's offshore turbines was only 26 per cent of their capacity.

Due to its position, the wind farm's owners will be lucky to get, on average, 75MW from their windmills, a fraction of the output of a proper power station. The total amount of electricity the turbines actually produce will equate to the average electricity usage not of 240,000 homes, but of barely half that number.

A far more significant omission from the media reports, however, was any mention of the colossal subsidies this wind farm will earn. Wind energy is subsidised through the system of Renewables Obligation Certificates (ROCs), unwittingly paid for by all of us through our electricity bills. Our electricity supply companies are obliged to buy offfshore wind energy at three times its normal price, so that each kilowatt hour of electricity receives a 200 per cent subsidy of £100.

This means that the 75MW produced on average by Thanet will receive subsidies of £60 million a year, on top of the £30-40 million cost of the electricity itself. This is guaranteed for the turbines' estimated working life of 20 years, which means that the total subsidy over the next two decades will be some £1.2 billion. Based on the costings of the current French nuclear programme, that would buy 1 gigawatt (1,000MW) of carbon-free nuclear generating capacity, reliably available 24 hours a day – more than 13 times the average output of the wind farm.

The 100 turbines opened last week cost £780 million to build, which means that the £100 million a year its owners hope to earn represents a 13 per cent return on capital, enough to excite the interest of any investor. And these turbines are only the first stage of a project eventually designed to include 341 of them, generating subsidies of £1 billion every five years.

A final claim for the Thanet wind farm (which Mr Huhne boasts is "only the beginning") is that it will create "green jobs" – although the developers say that only 21 of these will be permanent. These are thus costing, in "green subsidies" alone, £3 million per job per year, or £57 million for each job over the next 20 years. The Government gaily prattles about how it wants to create "400,000 green jobs", which on this basis would eventually cost us £22.8 trillion, or 17 times the entire annual output of the UK economy.

If all this sounds dizzyingly surreal, the fact remains that we must begin to grasp just what the green fantasies of Mr Huhne, the EU and the rest are costing us. Even the Queen, we learn, tried to claim a "fuel poverty" allowance for her soaring electricity bills, which have risen 50 per cent in the past year. But a crucial first step towards getting some grip on reality must be for those who report on these wind farms to stop hiding away the colossal price we are all now having to pay for one of the greatest scams of our age.

SOURCE



CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE EXPERT WHO CRIED WOLF

Comment from Britain's "Daily Express" newspaper (Circulation over 600,000)

THIS newspaper has long been in the sceptical camp when it comes to the great man-made global warming scare.

It is not the warnings of some scientists about the possible impact of climate change that are most objectionable but rather their elevation into an orthodoxy that it is not permissible to challenge.

Yet there has always been the whiff of hyperbole surrounding claims made by the high priests of the climate change
movement.

One of the most alarming predictions was the forecast of Dr Rajendra Pachauri that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035, causing an environmental disaster. As chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the official United Nations body in this area, Dr Pachauri's warning commanded massive attention. But now even he admits it was not justified.

So no wonder he is under pressure to step down. In Britain even adherents of the climate change panic wish him to depart. As Tim Yeo, chairman of the all-party Commons committee on the subject, observes: "Climate science needs a guarantee of utmost reliability and Dr Pachauri can no longer guarantee that."

It is obvious that Dr Pachauri should resign and take the rest of his discredited panel with him. But there is a very good reason why those who first challenged his views need not bother to press the issue: while Dr Pachauri and his allies remain in place few people will believe future IPCC scare stories about the world drastically overheating.

SOURCE



All-boy prep school boom in Britain as parents reject 'macho culture' of mixed primaries

All-boys schools are booming as parents shun mixed schools which put boys under pressure to act 'tough' and play the fool, it was claimed today. New figures show a surge in pupil numbers at single-sex prep schools which cater for boys up to the age of 13.

The trend is a reversal of the picture only a decade ago, when demand for girls' schools was growing strongly.

Head teachers' leaders revealed that parents are increasingly concerned about a macho culture at some mixed schools where boys consider it 'cool to be a fool'. They feel their sons are more likely to grow up 'fully rounded' at a single-sex school, instead of merely 'half a boy' at some co-educational schools.

It was also claimed that 'savvy' parents nowadays are increasingly splitting their families between different schools, rather than opting for the convenience of the same primary or secondary for all siblings. Some parents may be choosing mixed schools for their daughters but all-boys schools for their sons, it was suggested. This may result in them paying for private education, since there are significantly fewer single-sex primary schools in the state system than the independent sector.

Other experts suggest that, during a recession, parents are more likely to invest in private education for boys rather than girls. This is because they believe that daughters are more likely to succeed wherever they are educated, whereas boys may need extra support.

Figures issued by the Independent Association of Preparatory Schools, representing 600 private prep schools, show that nearly a third of single-sex boys' schools - 29 per cent - showed strong growth in numbers this year. These schools registered an increase in September enrolments of three per cent or more, it emerged.

Girls' and mixed schools showed a more mixed picture.

David Hanson, chief executive of IAPS, highlighted TV's recent 'Britain's Youngest Boarders' programme, which followed the progress of three youngsters at an all-boys prep school. 'Those little boys could succeed academically and yet be fully-rounded, caring and have all the cuddly toys and so on, without anybody at any point saying "you're soft",' he said.

'It was great to see it from their perspective, that in an all-boys environment, they could be a fully rounded little boy, rather than half a boy, in some other environment where you have to pretend to be tough and act cool, and not want to learn, because it's cool to be a fool.'

He went on: 'In the past, the received wisdom was this, that parents want boys to be in co-ed schools because it's civilising, and parents want the girls to be in single-sex schools because then girls can achieve without boys slowing them down and being disruptive. 'This was received parental wisdom.

'What we see in the data now is the polar opposite - parents saying actually I think I want my boy to be in a single-sex school because I feel he will do better there, but I would probably like my daughter to be in a co-ed school. 'That seems to be a complete turnaround to where we were five, ten years ago, in terms of the messages we were getting.'

Mr Hanson added that a strong diet of sport was a 'big driver' of demand for boys' prep schools. 'We know that sport has a big part to play,' he said. 'A lot of parents will say that they worry that in maintained school their child is never off the floor or out of the chair.'

Andy Falconer, chairman of IAPS and head of St Olave's Prep School, in York, said some parents found their sons did better apart from girls at primary school because girls mature more quickly. Others felt it was important for children to taught in a mixed school because 'that's the real world'.

He added: 'Parents are now much more savvy about shopping around, and rightly, picking the right thing for their child, rather than the convenience element of having everybody in the one school, because there's the one school run.'

Figures were released on Monday as heads gathered in London for the IAPS annual conference suggested that prep school numbers are bearing up in most schools despite the recession.

Mr Hanson added: 'These figures support what we know anecdotally: even in difficult circumstances, parents are willing to sacrifice holidays, new cars and other material goods to continue to give their children a quality education.'

SOURCE





27 September, 2010

Doctors are not spotting potential-fatal complications in keyhole surgery: watchdog

Surgeons are failing to notice complications after 'keyhole' surgery which have led to the deaths of 11 patients and hundreds more being harmed, a NHS watchdog has warned.

Key-hole surgery is increasingly being used in the NHS because patients heal faster as their wounds are smaller and can go home sooner, meaning money is saved. Tens of thousands of operations are conducted using keyhole methods with many patients able to go home the same day.

However a warning was issued to hospitals and surgeons using the technique after it was found that complications were being missed.

During the operations, known as laparoscopic surgery, instruments are inserted into the body through one or more tiny incisions instead of cutting open a large section of the abdomen. The instruments have lights and cameras on them, as well as tools needed for the operation.

Gallbladder removal is mostly done laparpscopically and female sterilisation, cancer operations, hernia repairs, appendix removals among others are also routinely done via this method.

The National Patient Safety Agency has issued an alert to the NHS after a series of cases where surgeons had damaged the internal organs of patients during these operations. In some cases the mistake was noticed and repaired before the operation was completed but in others the damage went unnoticed until the patient's condition deteriorated afterwards.

The NPSA has been informed of 11 cases where the patient died and around 500 more where damage occurred between April 2005 and April 2010.

Some patients were returned to the operating theatre for emergency operations to repair the damage. However, in at least one case, no theatre was available and the patient died. In other cases the patient died despite emergency attempts to repair the damage or they died before an emergency operation was scheduled.

Damage included internal bleeding, perforation of other organs such as bladder, bowel, stomach, throat, or womb which can lead to loss of vital fluids or severe infections.

In some cases the patients or their relatives pursued legal action.

The alert said: "A review of national incident data showed a number of cases where patients had suffered significant harm during laparoscopic procedures. "It is evident that organisational policies and procedures to identify and act upon the deterioration of patients after laparoscopic surgery are not consistent or, in many cases, not available."

The alert highlighted ways in which surgeons, ward staff and GPs can identify complications that may occur as a result of the surgery. All hospitals where keyhole methods are used must ensure they have policies in place to identify complications and check patients thoroughly for problem signs before they are discharged home.

When patients are discharged they should have information about danger signs, know where to seek help if they experience symptoms and their GP should be informed of their operation.

Mike Parker, Royal College of Surgeons council member and past-president of Association of Laparoscopic Surgeons: “This advice from the NPSA should come as reminder to all centres offering laparoscopic surgery that the monitoring of patients after their operation must be undertaken consistently and thoroughly.

"Providing good quality information and the availability of professional support after leaving hospital is basic stuff and will prevent deaths. "This type of operation is becoming more widely adopted in the NHS because they have been proven to offer fewer complications and shorter length of stay than the old open procedures they replace – but that should be no excuse for complacency.”

SOURCE



The Year 11 asylum seeker pupil who was really 23: Pair in their 20s found going to school face deportation from Britain

Claiming to be children is a common ploy among young-looking illegals

Two Guinean asylum seekers have been removed from a secon­dary school and are being inves­tigated by immigration authorities after teachers discovered they were in their 20s.

The pair had been attending classes at Acklam Grange School in Middlesbrough for a year before their real ages were dis­covered, and they now face pos­sible deport­ation.

They have been living in council accommodation in the Teesside town with two girls, who they say are their sisters, and a male guardian, who claims to be a relative.

In a further twist, one of the men, now revealed to be 23, has allegedly formed a relationship with a 14-year-old girl at the school, to the alarm of teachers.

Teaching staff became suspicious of the ages of the two men in March following conversations with them. The teachers informed headteacher John Bate, who in turn alerted Middles­brough Council, and this week the authority withdrew the male pupils from the school.

investigations into their identity, it was revealed that one of the men, Ibrahim Sory Diallo, who claimed to be 15 and was studying in Year 11, has been found to be aged 23.

The other man, who is understood to have claimed to be 14 and was study­ing in Year 9, has been ruled to be aged in his early 20s.

The men are being investigated by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) and, as adults, are not protected by laws that forbid the deportation of minors.

There are no concerns about the ages of the sisters, who are in Year 8. They have been allowed to remain in the school and are still living in local authority accommodation.

Mr Bate, 59, said: ‘This family was presented to us and welcomed by us as being aged accordingly for the school. We commonly take children from all over the world.

‘Staff alerted me after picking up an issue within the family through conversations with the pupils. They reported it to me and I acted immediately by informing the education authority and other outside agencies. ‘There was nothing about their appearance that looked out of the ­ordinary and there were no disciplinary issues with any of them. ‘They came with a guardian, not their father, but we are in touch with him through the refugee service.’

A Middlesbrough Council spokesman said: ‘Concerns were raised over the age of two students. The decision was taken to remove them from the mainstream school following advice from the UK Border Agency.’

Matthew Coats, Head of Immigration at UKBA, said: ‘Where a new investigation is brought to light we will investigate and work with the appropriate authorities to ensure our immigration laws are not evaded by those who try to cheat the system.’

Police sources have revealed that a man named Ibrahim Sory Diallo, who gave his birth date as June 1995, was arrested in May on suspicion of assault and actual bodily harm against another male – but the case was dropped four weeks later.

SOURCE



Some secular hatred of the Vatican

BOOK REVIEW OF "The Case of the Pope: Vatican Accountability for Human Rights Abuse", by Geoffrey Robertson, a prominent Leftist lawyer in Britain who dreams of a worldwide Leftist tyranny -- in the guise of anti-tyranny, of course. The reviewer is Brendan O'Neill, a modern Marxist (or something) from a Catholic background! Brendy has a good heart, though -- JR

Robertson wants to throw open the doors of the Holy See, which he views as an irritating island of stick-in-the-mud sovereignty, and drag the pope of Rome himself before the kangaroo courts of so-called international justice. Truly, he will not be happy until his righteous writ extends everywhere.

The most alarming thing about Robertson’s book - The Case of the Pope - is that it is being treated so seriously by commentators. Written in the style of a legal document, with a list of 245 points against the Vatican, the book covers everything from the child abuse scandal that has rocked the church to the phoney nature of the Holy See’s sovereignty to the role that the Holy See plays in pressuring small nations at the UN to accept its dogma on condoms and abortion.

Yet those who have welcomed the book as a simple, clear-eyed, lawyerly argument against Holy See sovereignty, and for the potential arrest and trial of the pope, are overlooking the full-on political war that Robertson has spearheaded against the institution of sovereignty for more than 10 years now. His new attack on the Vatican, published by Penguin to coincide with Benedict’s visit to Britain, should be properly seen, not as a radical assertion of liberal humanist values over the institutionalisation of religious obscurantism, but as the latest salvo by a leading figure in the meddle-hungry human rights industry against the old ideals of sovereign equality and non-interference in other states’ affairs.

It will come as no surprise that Robertson’s tract is infused with some of the middle-class prejudices against Catholics that came to the fore of liberal public debate in Britain during Benedict’s visit. There’s the old line about Catholics being brainwashed by their priests; they are ‘indoctrinated from their childhood’ until they develop such ‘emotional and psychological respect’ for their priests that they’ll do anything the men in dog collars ask.

There’s the idea that Third World Catholics in particular are prone to turning priestly propaganda into real acts of violence, a bit like attack dogs. We’re told that ‘in Brazil and other Catholic countries’ there have been ‘macho muggings’ of gays, possibly brought about by Benedict’s decision to ‘unleash the full force of [the Catholic Church’s views on homosexuality]’. The priest speaks and the people act, because, as one expert quoted by Robertson puts it, ‘priests take the place of Jesus Christ and are to be obeyed at all costs, and never questioned or criticised’. They’re easily brainwashed, these Caflicks.

Then there is the argument that some Catholic views are so out there, so off the wall, that when they are spouted by Benedict, who exercises great influence over his flock, they become dangerous and might therefore have to be censored. Robertson argues that while it is wrong to censor ordinary individuals who make religious anti-gay comments in public, ‘Pope Benedict XVI is no voice in the wilderness’ – ‘were he to repeat in a public sermon [in Britain] his oft-stated view that homosexuality is “evil” and gays are all people with defective personalities, he would be using the full force of his spiritual office to vilify a section of the population protected by equality legislation and public order law’. In such circumstances, ‘the Home Office could not… permit his entry’, decrees Robertson.

However much Robertson tries to dress this up in the language of equality and protecting certain sections of the population from harm, it still amounts to suggesting that the state ought sometimes to interfere with and restrict people’s freedom of religion. In the Catholic case in particular – where Robertson and others seriously believe that Catholic kids are turned into priest-respecting automatons and the pope has a special hold over every Catholic’s heart and mind – the state might have to curb religious speech in the interests of preventing public disorder. And macho muggings.

While this kind of outlook has become par for the course in liberal, atheistic, so-called humanist circles in Britain, the more striking part of Robertson’s book is his stinging attack on the idea of Holy See sovereignty. I should state right now that I am no old-fashioned defender of sovereignty, especially not the Vatican’s sovereignty. As an internationalist, I can think of far better ways to organise world affairs than to divide mankind into different, often conflicting sovereign territories. I do, however, defend a people’s right to fight for and assert their self-determination against both international intervention and tyrannical rulers. And as a radical humanist, I am implacably opposed to the tiny, population-less Holy See having permanent observer status at the United Nations, where it does indeed lobby behind the scenes for restrictions on the exercise of reproductive rights, especially in the Third World.

Yet it’s important to recognise why Robertson and other intervention-happy human rights activists are so hostile to the institution of sovereignty: it’s because they view it as a barrier to having the ‘international community’ barge its way into usually small, normally black or brown states to arrest the ‘scoundrels’ who run them. In short, the sins of the tradition of sovereignty pale almost into insignificance when compared with the gung-ho, border-busting, World Police-style system that Robertson and Co. would like to replace sovereignty with.

Those championing Robertson’s apparently liberal assault on Vatican sovereignty are overlooking, or ignoring, the fact that he has previous form on this issue. In the post-Cold War period, Robertson has been amongst the most vehement critics of sovereignty. It’s a ‘pernicious doctrine’, he has argued; a ‘stumbling block for the development of international justice’; it is ‘the refuge of scoundrels’. In 1998, in that liberal interventionist moment which culminated in the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia (600 civilians dead), Robertson was on the side of ‘humanitarian’ interventionists such as Tony Blair and Bill Clinton when he said, ‘It has taken half a century but we seem at last to be working out a way to bring tyrants to justice. Why did it take so long? The problem is that the world has always been organised on the principle of “sovereignty” of the state, [the idea that] there must be no intervention in their internal affairs.’

This principle of non-intervention (which, for the record, from Aden to Vietnam to Panama, was never adhered to by Western powers during the Cold War period) is viewed by Robertson and others as a barrier to them fulfilling their fantasy about being knights in shining armour who can save the destitute and downtrodden of the world. Robertson has over the years attacked any state that jealously guarded its sovereignty rather than opening itself up to ‘international justice’. China is ‘the most obsessive defender of state sovereignty’, he has declared; that pesky Colonel Gaddafi, when elected chairman of the African Union, turned it into ‘the main opponent of the International Criminal Court, guaranteeing to protect Omar al-Bashir from its arrest warrant over his alleged crimes in Darfur’.

In an interview with the Guardian in 2008, Robertson even shared his fantasies about setting up a ‘Convention Against Tyranny’, which, the interviewer told us, would be ‘capable of giving legal justification in order to overthrow evildoers’. This is how Robertson sees himself: as a warrior against the ‘Machiavellian doctrine’ of sovereignty because it stands in the way of his pursuit of those whom the ‘international community’ decree to be ‘evil’.

In Robertson’s ideal world, the basis upon which the righteous of the international community (the West) should be permitted to force their way into those scoundrel-like states that hide behind sovereignty (the rest) should be expanded. At present, intervention is largely confined to situations where ‘genocide’ is occurring; Robertson argued in 2008 for a situation where ‘other forms of barbarism’ could be cited as a justification for the overthrow of evildoers, including, for example, ‘the Taliban’s denial of education to women and girls’. In short, any sinning state, any entity judged by international law to be wicked, should be subject to Robertson and Co.’s sword of justice.

And what a terrible sword it can be. A great irony of The Case of the Pope is that such is the extent of Robertson’s fervour for war against evil that he makes the pope look like a paragon of peace and justice in comparison. Robertson slams the Vatican for ‘regularly condemn[ing] wars – no matter how just’. And one of those ‘just’ wars that the Vatican opposed was ‘the first Gulf War, to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, which he had unlawfully invaded’. Otherwise known as the war that left 180,000 Iraqis dead, entire towns destroyed, and most of Iraq in a state not too far from the ‘Stone Age’, as one boastful American official described it. It seems that any level of tyranny is justified in combating tyranny; all forms of barbarism can be deployed in the fight against ‘other forms of barbarism’. When you have right on your side, you can do no wrong. The kind of one-eyed self-righteousness that can make someone think that the ‘international community’ is combating tyranny even as it massacres thousands really puts so-called Catholic self-delusion into perspective, and makes the idea of papal infallibility seem almost meek in comparison.

The authoritarianism and divisiveness of the post-sovereignty system of ‘international justice’ is best summed up in the International Criminal Court. Robertson was an early cheerleader, of course, arguing in 2000 that the ICC would be a ‘court for all the world’. Really? Finally instituted in 2002, the ICC is in reality a racist institution which drags African leaders to be tried for crimes against humanity. Its cases have included Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic and Darfur/Sudan.

What do all the defendants have in common? That’s right, they are all what the old colonialists would have at least more honestly described as ‘niggers’. As Courtenay Griffiths QC, the defence lawyer for Charles Taylor at The Hague, recently said: ‘How is it possible that in 2010 we have a situation where every indicted individual at the ICC is African and every investigation is, guess where, Africa…? [T]he ICC was set up to try those lesser breeds without the law – the Africans. This is the same civilising mission from the late nineteenth century and I find it, as a black man, totally objectionable.’

This is what the liberal-elite war on sovereignty has resulted in: not increased internationalism and global equality, but their opposite – the jungle-style division of the world into the righteous forces of the West and the savages ‘over there’, and wars which have left thousands dead (but it doesn’t matter, because they died in the name of ‘combating tyranny’). Robertson’s arguments against Holy See sovereignty need to be seen in this light. Far from being a positive assertion of secularism over the international privileging of a particular religion, this looks to me more like an attempted final blow against the institution of sovereignty, the haranguing of an institution that continues jealously to guard its right to sovereign independence and integrity and the non-interference of other states and their agents in its affairs. Okay, there’s nothing positive about Holy See sovereignty; but nor is there anything positive in what motivates the main arguments against Holy See sovereignty today.

The great irony is that the human-rights lobby today plays a role that is not too dissimilar from the Catholic Church’s role of yesteryear. Robertson quotes a nineteenth-century historian who said that the then Vatican was attempting to ‘establish a power which would be the most formidable enemy of liberty… throughout the world’. In short, the Vatican had global ambitions; it longed to make everyone submit to its religious ethos and worldview and to assert its moral authority across the nations. Ring a bell?

SOURCE



The British Labor Party lurches Left

It's in their genes --but it should ensure a Tory victory at the next election

In his first interview since his surprise win over his brother David in the party’s leadership election, Mr Miliband insisted he was his “own man” and not in thrall to the unions, whose support gave him victory.

The former energy secretary said he was tough enough to make difficult decisions and pledged to fight for hard-working “Middle England” families.

But despite insisting that the party would not “lurch to the Left” under his leadership, he spoke of plans for new taxes for higher paid workers, an assault on City bankers and new trade union rights for employees. He refused to condemn forthcoming strikes and indicated he would oppose Coalition plans to reform public sector pensions.

In a direct attempt to appeal to those traditional Labour voters alienated by Mr Blair’s premiership, Mr Miliband said: “The era of New Labour has passed. A new generation has taken over.”

But he left himself open to accusations that his attempt to reposition the party is less significant than he has suggested when it emerged that he may offer his brother – an arch Blairite – the crucial post of shadow chancellor. His claim to be working to unite the party was also weakened when, within hours, his comments drew criticism from MPs close to Mr Blair and David Miliband.

At a Progress Rally in Manchester, where the party’s annual conference is being held, Ben Bradshaw, the shadow culture secretary, said activists should declare “very firmly” that “New Labour is not yet dead”.

Jim Murphy, another former Cabinet minister and a close ally of David Miliband, said the party did “absolutely remarkable things as New Labour”.

Margaret Hodge, the MP for Barking, said she was worried the party might “write off all the things that brought Labour three election victories in a row”. Ed Miliband must use his first conference speech as leader to demonstrate the party “was not in the pockets of the trade unions”, she said.

One angry Blairite MP said: “We cannot just put Tony Blair in a box. We cannot totally disown New Labour as this lot seem to want to.”

Mr Miliband beat his brother by a wafer-thin margin after four rounds of voting. He had been consistently behind in support from fellow MPs and party members, and only edged ahead with the help of the unions. He yesterday insisted he would not be in thrall to the unions, and told the BBC: “I’m nobody’s man. I’m my own man and I’m very, very clear about that.” He added: “It’s not about some lurch to the Left, absolutely not.”

He dismissed claims that he wanted to do to Labour what Margaret Thatcher did to the Tories when she took over as leader. He described his nickname “Red Ed” as “both tiresome and rubbish”.

Mr Miliband denied that he lacked the required steel to lead his party. “I can take the toughest of decisions that you’re required to do as Leader of the Opposition and hopefully as prime minister.”

He claimed to want to represent the middle classes. “I think there are big injustices that we need to deal with in Britain — many of them affecting so-called Middle England in this country.

“People who are working hard, working long hours. They don’t have enough time to see their kids. They’re worried about their kids getting into debt. They’re worried about housing. They’re the people I want to speak for in this country.”

Labour has been thrown into turmoil by Mr Miliband’s shock victory. Tory insiders are known to be delighted by the outcome because they believe that, despite his claims to the contrary, his Left-wing leanings will alienate the middle class vote at the next election.

The election of the younger Miliband could provoke his brother to stand down. David Miliband is clearly devastated at being deprived of the leadership after coveting it for several years. Asked what role his brother might play in opposition, Ed Miliband said: “He needs time to think about the contribution he can make. I think he can make a very big contribution to British politics, but he needs the space to do that.”

Last night, David Miliband gave the strongest hint yet he was considering stepping away from front-line politics, if not immediately then in six to 12 months. In Manchester, he said he would not do anything yet to distract from his brother’s first day in the job. “Today is not a day to take anything away from what Ed is doing. I think he has made a great start.”

Yesterday it emerged that Ed Miliband is considering offering his brother the job of shadow chancellor to make up for the disappointment. There is no guarantee he would accept but if he did, the new leader risks angering Ed Balls, who is keen to shadow George Osborne.

Ed Miliband was asked to condemn the long-running British Airways dispute and planned BBC industrial action which is threatening to blackout the Conservative conference. But he replied: “I’m not going to adjudicate on every strike. But what I am going to say to you is that they should always be a last resort.” He also failed to back what will be controversial changes to the gold-plated system of public sector pensions. Mr Miliband indicated that he would not oppose all the public sector cuts being planned by the Coalition.

He also said he would look again at Alistair Darling’s plan to halve the deficit in four years, suggesting that a greater tax take was possible to compensate for fewer cuts. His declaration of the death of New Labour was welcomed by the union bosses.

Paul Kenny, the general secretary of Unison, said: “It had its time and now it has gone. The general public don’t trust it any more. People like Mandelson, and a certain degree Tony Blair, are harking back to a golden era, which of course people do when they get older like that. But the reality is it has had its time.”

Other union bosses were also quick to back Ed Miliband, but warned him to remain true to what he had said during the four-month leadership campaign.

Yesterday, Lord Kinnock [The Welsh windbag: a famous loser], a supporter of Ed Miliband, claimed David Miliband lost out because Tony Blair and Lord Mandelson both backed him. “I think Peter Mandelson’s book and his utterings afterwards may have made a difference that damaged the case of David Miliband,” he said

SOURCE



Every British parent will end up on vetting database unless it is scrapped, warns think tank

A national anti-paedophile database is "poisoning" relations between generations and even increasing the risk to children, a report has warned.

The controversial vetting system, designed to check adults who work with children, has become so out of control that it could eventually cover the majority of the population because most people come in to regular contact with youngsters, think tank Civitas predicts. The system, which is under review by the Government, also threatens to undermine David Cameron's desire for a "Big Society".

Unless the rules are dramatically scaled back, the report warns that volunteering will plummet. Adults will also become less willing to intervene when children are misbehaving, or help those in distress for fear of being seen as potential child abusers.

The proposed Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) was created by the last Labour Government and would involve at least nine million people who want to work with children or vulnerable adults having to register on a database and have criminal record checks.

The plan was met by a wave of intense criticism amid claims it was over restrictive and would even hit parents who signed up for driving rotas for weekly sports events or clubs.

In June, the new Coalition Government halted the scheme, which was due to start the following month, and is currently reviewing it's future, with plans to scale back its scope to "common sense" levels.

But in the report for Civitas today, respected sociologist Prof Frank Furedi, and co-author Jennie Bristow, warn unless the Government gets rid of the scheme altogether then nothing will change. Their study, Licensed to Hug, calls for a radical new approach to the way adults and children can interact that is "based on the assumption that the majority of adults have no predatory attitudes towards children".

The previous Government stressed the vetting system would not target those parents who make private arrangements that bring them in to contact with children, such as picking up a neighbour's child. But Prof Furedi said such assertions "ignores the reality that adults interacting with their own children in public will generally be interacting with other people's children as well, and on that basis they can be targeted for vetting".

The report said the system has resulted in society widely accepting "the principle that adults spending time with children who are not their own should have some kind of licence to do so".

"The logical consequence of demanding that some adults need to 'pass the paedophile test' is to set up an expectation that other adults, organising play dates or giving children lifts in their car, should have their motives similarly scrutinised," it adds. "Given the extent to which this scheme seems likely gradually to encompass all parents, as well as adults working or volunteering with children, the logic is that the majority of the adult population will sooner or later find itself on the vetting database."

The report, a revision of a study first published in 2008, said the Vetting and Barring Scheme is "gaining the dubious distinction of being the most unpopular piece of regulation ever developed". "Under the guise of protecting children from abuse, heavy-handed regulations not only discouraged volunteering and undermined trust, but also created a false sense of security."

Prof Furedi also warned that most adults now will simply comply with vetting rules for fear that refusing will fuel suspicion or leave them barred from being involved in whatever the activity.

He said a criminal records check is starting to be seen in similar terms to having a First Aid certificate or teaching qualification, "as though being officially cleared of child abuse give these adults some particular knowledge of, and skill with, children, whilst the rest of the adult population is effectively blacklisted and cautioned to keep its distance."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Registration with the Vetting and Barring Scheme (VBS) was halted in June to allow the new Government to bring the criminal records and Vetting and Barring regime back to common sense levels. "The terms of reference for the remodelling of the VBS and of the criminal records regime are currently being considered and a further announcement will be made shortly.”

SOURCE



Gifted children crippled by the system

One problem is that no allowance is made for the fact that they see the world differently -- Another is that the world is designed around average people. Report below from Britain

Exceptionally talented children are just as likely to fail in life as succeed according to a new study. In one of the most extensive studies carried out, research found that out of 210 gifted children followed into later life, only three per cent were found to fulfil their early promise.

Professor Joan Freeman, said that of 210 children in her study, 'maybe only half a dozen might have been what we might consider conventionally successful.' 'At the age of six or seven, the gifted child has potential for amazing things, but many of them are caught in situations where their potentials is handicapped.'

Professor Freeman tracked the development of children who had exceptional ability in fields such as maths, art or music from 1974 to the present day. Many of those who failed to excel did so because the 'gifted' children were treated and in some cases robbed of their childhood, the study found. In some cases pushy parents put the children under too much pressure, or they were separated from their peer group, so they ended up having few friends.

The research findings follow a decision earlier this year to scrap a £20 million National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth set up by the government eight years ago. While meant to aid high achievers in state schools, it was considered to have failed to live up to its intended purpose.

Professor Freeman is keen to emphasise that 'the gifted' are no more emotionally fragile than anyone else - and may even have 'greater emotional strength.' But she said that 'being gifted means being better able to deal with things intellectually but not always emotionally.' She adds: 'I want to stress that the gifted are normal people. But they face special challenges, especially unreal expectations, notably being seen as strange and unhappy.

'Others such as parents and teachers, can feel threatened by them and react with put-downs. What they need is acceptance for who they are, appropriate opportunities to develop their potential and reliable moral support.'

An example of a child prodigy who failed to achieve early promise includes Andrew Halliburton, who studied maths at secondary school level at the age of eight. He quit university and ended up working at a McDonald's burger restaurant, although he now plans to return to study.

Other examples of the differing paths gifted children can take is illustrated by Anna Markland and Jocelyn Lavin, who both started at Chetham's school of music, in Manchester on the same day at 11.

Markland, now 46, from Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, went on to be the BBC Young Musician of the Year, 1982. She went on to study music at Oxford, did two years postgraduate study, and now is a profesional musician, which for her is 'the best job in the world.'

By contrast, her friend Jocelyn turned her back on music to pursue science, and got the best A-level grades of all 210 children in the study - six A grades. But after going to University College London at 17 she failed her finals in Maths and Astronomy and left without a degree. After 20 years as a school maths teacher she has resigned, and her home is under threat of repossession because of mortgage arrears. She said: 'I didn't know what I wanted to do, apart from go into space', she said in the book.

Part of the problem for the gifted, Professor Freeman says, is that often the gifted excel in many areas - and may have to try out several things before they settle in one discipline.

Ultimately attempts to 'hothouse' children will fail if they are put under enormous pressure to perform. She writes: 'The pleasures and creativity of childhood are the basis of all great work. Don't take childhood away from children.'

SOURCE



This weeks miracle food: Watercress

We get a new one of these most weeks. It's all theory, of course, including reference to that seemingly indestructible myth: anti-oxidants. There's no epidemiology and no use of even an animal model to demonstrate an effect on morbidity. But it apparently does everything except water your garden

Watercress is often placed to the side of a plate as a decorative garnish, but it has been revered for its health properties for centuries.

While these health claims may be debatable, watercress is packed with 15 essential vitamins and minerals. Now, scientists believe a daily dose may help combat breast cancer.

This month, researchers at Southampton University discovered that within hours of eating 3oz of watercress a day – about a full cereal bowl – a small group of breast cancer survivors had a higher level of cancer-fighting molecules in their blood.

They found the compound phenethyl isothiocyanate – which gives watercress its peppery taste – blocks the hypoxia-inducible factor protein which helps cancer tumours grow. They also found watercress helps ‘turn off’ the signals that cancer cells send out asking the body for more blood and oxygen.

Professor Graham Packham, who led the research, said: ‘I was surprised that eating one portion produced significant levels of this compound in the blood. It has the potential to have the same effect with other cancers.’

In fact, this is not the first time watercress – whose Latin name means ‘nose-twister’ – has been found to combat cancer. In 2007, Irish scientists revealed that a daily portion reduced DNA damage to blood cells, considered an important trigger in the development of cancer.

The trial involved 60 healthy men and women who ate 3oz of fresh watercress every day for eight weeks. They found that in addition to reducing DNA damage, the cress also increased the ability of cells to resist damage from free radicals.

But its cancer-preventative properties are not the only benefit. ‘Watercress is full of nutrients including iron, calcium and Vitamin A and C,’ says dietician Katie Peck. ‘It is low in sodium and high in water, so it is very low in calories.’

It is an excellent source of natural phytonutrients, substances in plants that have antioxidant properties such as isothiocyanates, flavonoids and carotenoids.

It also contains folate, which helps maintain normal blood levels of homocysteine (high levels are associated with an increased coronary heart disease risk) as well as decreasing the risk of neural tube defects such as spina bifida.

Consultant dietician Sian Porter says: ‘Watercress also contains lutein, a carotenoid which is a plant component that provides the deep orange, yellow and red colours in fruit and vegetables. They have a role in helping to stay healthy and keep heart disease, cancer and macular degeneration at bay.’

SOURCE



British municipality slaps ban on mother-in-law jokes for being 'offensively sexist'

We read:

"Mother-in-law jokes, once the bedrock of British comedy, have been banned by the London Borough of Barnet because they are ‘offensively sexist’ and disrespectful to ‘family elders’.

In a council publication, staff are told not to indulge in the gags, which made the careers of classic comics Les Dawson and Bob Monkhouse.

The booklet, Cultural Awareness: General Problems, warns: ‘Humour can be incredibly culture-specific, and is very open to misinterpretation or even offense [sic] by other cultures. And don’t forget when you don’t know what people are laughing at, it is very easy to imagine that they are laughing at you.’

The guide, obtained by The Mail on Sunday through a Freedom of Information request, adds: ‘British mother-in-law jokes, as well as offensively ­sexist in their own right, can also be seen as offensive on the grounds that they disrespect elders or parents.’

The ban has been greeted with a mixture of anger and bemusement. Dom Joly, the comedian, broadcaster and author, described the advice as ‘completely insane’. He said: ‘All comedy is basically about taking the **** out of someone. You either ban it all and end up living in a place like North Korea or you leave well enough alone.’

Source

An heretical church: "The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that the Anglican Church has "no problem" with homosexuals being bishops but he was not "positive" about them having relationships. While recognising that he was simplifying the Church's position, Dr Williams said in an interview: "There's no problem about a gay person who's a bishop. It's about the fact that there are traditionally, historically, standards that the clergy are expected to observe." Asked what was wrong with a homosexual bishop having a partner, he said: "I think because the scriptural and traditional approach to this doesn't give much ground for being positive about it." He said the issue remained a particularly divisive one: "The Church at the moment doesn't quite know what to make of it."



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





26 September, 2010

British government orders action on NHS 'chemical cosh' which kills thousands

Ministers are to order a clampdown on the use of drugs which kill thousands of elderly people every year

Doctors will be told to stop prescribing too many medications which act as a "chemical cosh" for those with dementia, and shorten the lives of 1,800 people a year. The action is part of a plan to improve the care of those with dementia, by improving the training of nurses and doctors, and closely monitoring the quality of services provided by care homes and hospitals.

Care homes will be told to review the use of all medications given to people with dementia, to reduce the numbers of people prescribed antipsychotic drugs which should only be used as a last resort.

Last year a major report found that 180,000 patients are prescribed the treatments each year, despite the fact they do not benefit three quarters of those given them, and can cause death, or major side effects, such as strokes.

Care Minister Paul Burstow has been campaigning for years against the misuse of such drugs. He told The Sunday Telegraph: "Far too many prescriptions of antipsychotics are not clinically justified and can lead to premature death. We want to dramatically cut the use of these drugs among elderly people.

On Tuesday, he will announce a plan, expected to be backed by around £200m funding, to improve all aspects of dementia care, so that sufferers are diagnosed earlier, and receive better care when they are in hospitals and care homes.

Training for GPs will be boosted, so that the condition is detected sooner, with more people referred to specialist clinics which can distinguish between everyday memory problems and the first signs of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. All local services will be required to publish detailed information about the quality of service they provide.

Mr Burstow said: "The system at the moment often works around failure and crisis management of elderly care. We must change that. "Large numbers of people are left undiagnosed with dementia which means patients and their families don't know what is happening or how to plan ahead until it is too late. "We want to get earlier identification so patients can have a more dignified journey through the condition."

Prof Alistair Burns, national clinical director for dementia, said staff caring for those with dementia needed to try to find alternative ways to deal with patients when they became agitated. In one pilot scheme, two thirds of residents in a care home who were on antipsychotic medication were taken off the drugs after their cases were reviewed. Alternative strategies, such as attempting to detect the triggers for agitation, could be more effective, said Prof Burns.

The professor of old age psychiatry at the University of Manchester cited the case of an elderly widow with dementia who became anxious every evening at 6pm. After sensitive questioning, staff realised that her agitation stemmed from thinking that she ought to be preparing her husband's evening meal. Once she was given the task of setting tables for other residents at the end of each day, her anxiety was reduced.

More than 700,000 people in Britain are believed to suffer from dementia, a figure which is predicted to rise to more than 1 million within a decade, as the population ages. Among those over the age of 65, one in three will die with a form of the disease.

Prof Burns said: “We know that two thirds of people suffering from dementia never get a diagnosis, which should be the starting point to ensure that they can get support and interventions which can help to delay crises”.

SOURCE



"Red Ed" becomes leader of the British Labour Party

What Labour MPs were calling the doomsday scenario has happened. David Miliband won amongst Labour MPs and party members but a massive union vote delivered the leadership for his brother Ed. Opponents are already asking what legitimacy a party leader has who lost among both his own MPs and party members.

But this campaign has shown that Ed Miliband is a formidable opponent. He was by far the most natural politician of the five candidates. He has the communication skills that a modern politician so desperately needs.

The Ed Miliband campaign first became convinced that they were going to win when Lord Mandelson started attacking Ed. They believed Mandelson’s intervention showed that the party establishment was rattled and that the insurgent had the momentum.

This fight with the leading representative of the party’s old guard might have presaged Ed’s victory, but it also hints at the trouble to come. Many in the Labour Party fear they have elected someone who can win an internal leadership election but not a General Election. They worry that the reason Neil Kinnock has backed Ed Miliband so vigorously is that he sees him as his political heir.

At the start of this contest, David Miliband had the money and the big- name backing. The Chancellor and the Home Secretary from the last Government were both behind him and his campaign was being run by the man who had co-ordinated Labour’s General Election efforts. But Ed always had something that David didn’t have: an understanding of how to make the party love him.

The attacks on Ed Miliband from the Blairite old guard have been so strident because they fear what he represents – the end of the New Labour project. They are right. He heralds a distinct move to the Left.

Ed Miliband is not a politician searching for the centre ground. Instead, he is an ideological Left-winger. He wants higher taxes, more spending and more regulation.

During his leadership campaign, he made, according to the Tories, £28 billion worth of spending commitments at a time when Britain urgently needs spending cuts to deal with its unsustainable deficit.

The Tories have long wanted Ed Miliband to win. When I asked a Cabinet minister recently which Miliband he’d prefer to take on, he danced a little jig of joy as he said Ed. The Tories can’t believe that Labour have elected a candidate who wants to move the party on from the strategy that won it three Election victories.

Already, the Tories are planning to push him constantly to say what he would do about the deficit. In the words of one Tory involved in the preparations for dealing with the new Labour leader, ‘the deficit is the one thing that they can’t deal with’.

More HERE



I Think, Therefore I’m Guilty

Everyone can agree that today’s Britain — which we’re always being told has become so much more liberal — is the very model of a forward-looking, tolerant society in which freedom of expression is paramount. Correct?

If only. In fact, the intellectual trend in Britain is a remorseless slide towards a dark age of intolerance, reverting to a reason-suppressing, heresy-hunting culture in which certain opinions are being turned into thought crimes.

Astoundingly, people are being arrested by the police — even if the case against them eventually falls — because of what they have said. They are not inciting violence or any criminal activity. They are merely expressing a point of view. Yet for that they may find the police feeling their collars.

It is difficult to say when, exactly, the priorities of the British police shifted from the prevention of criminal offences towards criminalising people for causing offence. The police have become the thin blue line against the Wrong Opinion. Instead of protecting society against oppression, British police officers have become the agents of oppression.

Freedom of religious expression, for example, is a bedrock principle of an open society. Yet if Christians express their religious opposition to homosexuality, they are treated like criminals.

Dale McAlpine, a Christian preacher in Cumbria, was carted off by the police, locked in a cell for seven hours and charged with using abusive or insulting words or behaviour after telling a passer-by that he believed homosexuality was a crime against God.

Harry Hammond, an evangelist, was convicted of a public order offence and fined for holding a placard saying ‘Stop Homosexuality, Stop Lesbianism, Jesus is Lord’ at a street demonstration in Bournemouth — even though he was attacked by members of the public who poured soil and water over him.

Pensioners have even found the police on their doorstep accusing them of ‘hate crime’ for objecting to the local council about a gay pride march or merely asking if they could distribute Christian leaflets alongside the gay rights literature.

Such Christians are far from alone in finding that certain opinions are now forbidden. Across public life — in academic, legal, governmental, scientific and media circles and beyond — an atmosphere is being engendered which is inimical to independent thought.

And this is often amplified to incendiary levels through the electronic lynch-mob of the internet. Writers who bust the boundaries of permitted thinking may become the target of frenzied denunciation by a global army of haters whipping up a campaign for the dissident to be boycotted, banned or sacked.

After Jan Moir suggested in the Daily Mail that the death of the gay Boyzone singer Stephen Gately was linked to a louche lifestyle, she was subjected to a fireball of vilification on the internet, Twitter and Facebook.

The Crown Prosecution Service then said ‘the Metropolitan Police passed the article’ to them ‘to determine whether or not any crime had been committed’, but Moir would not be prosecuted.

Prosecuted! For making what at most was a tasteless remark? What on earth has Britain come to when the CPS entertains this as a serious possibility?

Moir’s particular thought crime was unwittingly to desecrate the hallowed shrine of victim culture. Certain groups of ‘victimised’ people — lone mothers, ethnic minorities, Muslims, gays — enjoy a kind of Protected Species status, in that they must never be offended; nor can any fault ever be laid at their door.

To offend or criticise them is to be guilty of hate crime. But since hatred is a subjective notion, this has opened the way for an oppressive culture of coercion, double standards and injustice.

Offending such groups has become a hanging offence — and that includes protesting against this very phenomenon.

It took Robin Page, chairman of the Countryside Restoration Trust, some five years to clear his name after he was arrested for remarking at a 2002 rally against the government’s anti-hunting laws: ‘If you are a black vegetarian Muslim asylum-seeking one-legged lesbian lorry driver, I want the same rights as you.’

To enforce the dogma of thought crime, language has been hijacked and turned inside out. Dissent has been relabelled as either hatred or insanity. Those who disagree with current orthodoxies are therefore deemed to be either bad or mad.

These modern heretics are demonised as Europhobes, homophobes, xenophobes or Islamophobes. They can therefore safely be purged from all positions of influence and their ideas trashed without any discussion.

The taunt of ‘phobia’, or irrational fear, is used along with outright accusations of insanity to place rational dissent beyond the pale. As the former Today programme editor Rod Liddle recently revealed, a BBC apparatchik said to him of Lord Pearson of Rannoch and other Eurosceptics (whose views happen to be shared by half or more of the population): ‘Rod, you do realise that these people are mad?’

Just such a charge was made by totalitarian movements from the medieval Catholic church by way of the Jacobins all the way to Stalin’s secret police.

In similar vein, the rational anxieties of millions about mass immigration or militant Islam destroying the culture of the country are held merely to demonstrate that ordinary people are racist bigots or Islamophobes.

The great gift bequeathed to us by the 18th-century Enlightenment is the freedom to disagree. This is now in eclipse. The intelligentsia — the supposed custodians of reason and intellectual freedom — has turned itself into an inquisition, complete with an index of prohibited ideas.

Nowhere is this more starkly displayed than in the hounding of scientists and others who question man-made global warming theory.

Such sceptics are vilified, smeared, denied funding and even — according to the renowned meteorologist and IPCC reviewer Professor Richard Lindzen — intimidated into telling lies to shore up the theory.

Assertions wholly inimical to science, such as ‘the argument is over’ or that global warming is the belief of a scientific ‘consensus’ — the claim once used by the medieval church to stifle Galileo — are deployed to ensure the argument is over before it can begin.

More viciously still, these dissenters have been dubbed ‘climate change deniers’ to equate their views with Holocaust denial. Not only are they thus likened to Nazi sympathisers, but rejecting man-made global warming theory — for which many of the best brains in climate-related science say there is scant or no evidence — is equated with the genocide of the Jews.

Without the freedom to question and argue, science cannot thrive — and without science, reason would be crippled and modernity would grind to a halt. Which is of course the aim of the environmental movement, whose roots lie in a stream of pagan, irrational and proto-fascist thinking which goes back to the counter-Enlightenment.

‘Politically correct’ views all derive from anti-Western, secular ideologies such as anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, utilitarianism, feminism, multiculturalism and environmentalism. These all share the aim of overturning the established order in the West.

So any groups who have power within that order can never be offended or hurt because they are themselves offensive and hurtful, while ‘powerless’ groups can never be other than victims.

This obsession with power is, of course, a Marxist position; indeed, ‘political correctness’ is a form of cultural Marxism. But how has good old empirical, pragmatic, anti-ideological Britain succumbed to such extremism?

Part of the explanation is that, with the collapse of Soviet communism, the left shifted its focus from economics and politics to the cultural arena. Employing Gramsci’s tactic of ‘the long march through the institutions’, it captured the citadels of the culture for a variety of utopian ideas.

Class divisions would give way to equality, capitalist despoliation of the earth would be replaced by pre-lapsarian agrarian communes and all hatred, prejudice and irrationality would be excised from the human heart.

Like all ideologies, these utopian fantasies wrenched facts and evidence to fit their governing idea. Independent thought thus became impossible — which inevitably resulted in an attack upon freedom, because reason and liberty are inseparable bed-fellows.

Because these creeds purported to embody unchallengeable truths, they could permit no dissent. Reason was thus replaced by bullying, intimidation and the suppression of debate.

What we are living through is therefore a fresh mutation of the previous despotisms of first the medieval church and then the totalitarian political movements of the 20th century.

The West has now fallen victim to a third variation on the theme: cultural totalitarianism, or a dictatorship of virtue. For, in a pattern that goes back to the French Revolution, the left believes that its secular, materialistic, individualistic and utilitarian values represent not a point of view but virtue itself.

To oppose such coercive behaviour or uphold factual evidence in the face of ideological distortion is thus to be damned automatically as evil, mad and extreme.

But here’s the really striking thing. Progressive intellectuals who scorn ‘the right’ as knuckle-dragging extremists are themselves promoting a range of secular fantasies which uncannily mirror pre-Enlightenment religious fanaticism.

Anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, environmentalism, scientism, egalitarianism, anti-racism, libertinism, moral relativism and multiculturalism are all quasi-religious movements — evangelical, dogmatic, millenarian and with enforcement mechanisms to stamp out heresy.

Some would call all this tyranny. But to progressives, tyranny occurs only when their utopia is denied. Virtue therefore has to be coerced for the good of the people at the receiving end.

Since progressivism is all about creating the perfect society, it is therefore incontestably virtuous; and so — like Robespierre’s Committee of Public Safety, like Stalinism, like Islam — it is incapable of doing anything bad. Unlike everyone else, of course, for whom it follows they can do nothing but bad.

Accordingly, progressives feel justified in trying to stifle all dissent. Never engaging with the actual argument, they instead use gratuitous abuse to turn their opponents into pariahs (while they themselves, failing to grasp the point about evidence, characterise all reasoned arguments against them as outrageous ‘insults’).

So if you are a white Christian man upholding traditional family values and expressing a desire to stop immigration and leave the EU, while being sceptical of man-made global warming and believing that Darwinian evolution does not explain the origin of life on earth, Britain is no longer your country.

But don’t worry. Utopia is taking its place. The police are on their way to tell you.

SOURCE



Each teaching post 'chased by 17 applicants'

Desperation for jobs in Scotland

There were more than 75,000 applications for just 4,520 teacher jobs in Scotland. Every teaching vacancy in Scotland is being chased by an average of 17 applicants, according to official figures. The competition for the posts varied from 49 for each job in Stirling to three per vacancy in Shetland.

The Liberal Democrats, who obtained the details through freedom of information requests, said the figures showed teachers' talents were "being wasted". Education Secretary Michael Russell said the numbers were "a concern".

In total, 75,579 applications were made for 4,520 vacancies in 2009-10 - an average of about 17 for each position. The average number of applications per job included 14 in Aberdeenshire, 21 in Dundee, 27 in Edinburgh and six in Glasgow.

Lib Dem education spokeswoman Margaret Smith said the figures "will be deeply concerning for teachers". She added: "The SNP said they would maintain the record number of teachers they inherited from the previous executive but teacher numbers are down by 3,000.

"Scotland's young people are also missing out on the opportunity to learn from newly-trained, enthusiastic teachers who have a wealth of talent and skill, being wasted as they struggle to find jobs."

Education Secretary Michael Russell said: "The difficulties faced by teachers looking for a post is a concern. "Scotland is already unique in guaranteeing a year's employment after graduation from initial teacher education, but we want to do more and we are examining ways we can provide further help.

"While recent figures show that teacher unemployment is lower in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK, we are still working hard to address the issue and have cut student intake, which will reduce competition for jobs."

SOURCE



Screen time leads to saggy faces for women (?)

This is just one person's opinion. It's not even epidemiology

A leading cosmetic surgeon has identified a growing phenomenon described as 'computer face' among professional women who work for long hours in front of their computers.

Dr Michael Prager, a Botox specialist, said that, of all his clientele, office workers were most likely to show premature signs of ageing. "If you are one of the unfortunate people who frown or squint while they are concentrating at the screen then, over time, you will inevitably end up with frown lines,'" he said.

"What is perhaps more surprising is the number of women with saggy jowls because they are sitting in one position for so long. "If you spend most of the time looking down then the neck muscles shorten and go saggy, eventually giving you a second neck.

He warned the problem is set to get worse as a generation grows up using computers throughout their working life. He said: "The women I am seeing at the moment have only been using computers at work for the last decade or so. "But women in their 20s have grown up with them and use them for every single task. It will be completely different for them and I think the problem is going to become much, much worse. "In another ten years, they could be looking quite awful."

Dr Prager, who has a practice near Harley Street, said he encourages his clients to put a mirror next to their computer so they can see if they are frowning at the screen. He said: "When people are stressed or thinking hard about something then they will often put on a "grumpy face" without even knowing what they are doing. "When my clients put a mirror next to their desk they are often shocked by the angry, frowning face which stares back at them."

According to Dr Prager there are several simple steps which can help stave off 'computer face', such as regular screen breaks and stretching the neck muscles. He added, perhaps not surprisingly, that after a couple of sessions of Botox, the habit of 'grumpy face' can be overcome.

SOURCE



New Scientist permits the sun to join the climate club

It does seem as if the AGW establishment are preparing the ground for admitting that the sun is perhaps critical for climate. The New Scientist runs an editorial today grudgingly admitting that “The sun’s activity has a place in climate science”.

FOR many years, any mention of the sun’s influence on climate has been greeted with suspicion.

People who believe human activity has no effect on the climate staked a claim on the sun’s role, declaring it responsible for the long-term warming trend in global temperatures. Climate scientists were often uneasy about discussing it, fearful that any concession would be misunderstood by the public and seen as an admission that climate sceptics are right.

No one has ever denied that the sun has an effect on climate. But the consensus view has always been that variations in the sun’s activity, such as the 11-year sunspot cycle, have insignificant effects. While this remains true, the latest findings show that the sun might be significant on a more regional scale. It seems changes in solar activity can have consequences ranging from higher rainfall in the tropics to extreme weather events in the north.

But then they go out of their way in this article (see “The sun joins the climate club”) to denigrate the sun.

THE idea that changes in the sun’s activity can influence the climate is making a comeback, after years of scientific vilification, thanks to major advances in our understanding of the atmosphere.

The findings do not suggest – as climate sceptics frequently do – that we can blame the rise of global temperatures since the early 20th century on the sun. “There are extravagant claims for the effects of the sun on global climate,” says Giles Harrison, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Reading, UK. “They are not supported.”

Where solar effects may play a role is in influencing regional weather patterns over the coming decades. Predictions on these scales of time and space are crucial for nations seeking to prepare for the future.

Over the famous 11-year solar cycle, the sun’s brightness varies by just 0.1 per cent. This was seen as too small a change to impinge on the global climate system, so solar effects have generally been left out of climate models. However, the latest research has changed this view, and the next report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), due in 2013, will include solar effects in its models.

But the sun does not much care (Beware the Icarus Syndrome) I think for the scientific establishment and will continue to do its own thing.

SOURCE





25 September, 2010

Cambridge historian dies after junior doctor misses heart condition

The constant use by the NHS of partly-trained junior doctors in highly responsible positions was bound to produce outcomes like this -- the tragic and avoidable death of a relatively young man with much still to contribute

A Cambridge University historian died after a junior doctor working his second shift mistook a fatal heart condition for mild chest pains, an inquest heard. Emile Perreau-Saussine, 37, died several hours after he was rushed to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge with chest pains.

A junior doctor spotted a change in the lecturer's heartbeat but failed to realise that this was a symptom of a torn aorta. Mr Perreau-Saussine was diagnosed with "atypical" chest pain and died hours later from a massive heart attack.

Surgeon Prof John Wallwork told an inquest at Huntingdon Coroners' Court, Cambs, that the academic would have survived if the tear had been spotted. In his report Prof Wallwork said: "In my opinion the differential diagnoses in this young patient, who was previously fit, with sudden onset of severe chest pain radiating to his back, should have included aortic dissection.

"Had this been done and appropriate investigations taken place it is likely that Mr Perreau-Saussine would have been referred for emergency repair of his aortic dissection prior to his arrest and, in a reasonably fit young man, the risks of surgery would have been approximately 5-10 per cent."

Coroner David Morris adjourned the inquest on Thursday so that more information can be gathered, especially over timings for blood tests and an x-ray. He said: "Professor Wallwork has indicated that perhaps the service provided by Addenbrooke's Hospital in this case was less than optimal."

Mr Perreau-Saussine's wife Amanda Perreau-Saussine demanded Addenbrooke's Hospital make improvements to prevent other patients from dying. She said: "We hope that improvements in treatment procedures will emerge from the investigation today into the failure to diagnose and treat Emile's aortic dissection.

"Emile's gentleness and candour, seriousness and mischievous joy shone through his gestures and his grin. "And for all of us who love Emile, in the books he has left us, in his growing children, in the joyful and serious conversation that his numerous friends will continue with him, Emile is indelible. "

Emile Perreau-Saussine, who was the world's leading expert on philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, wrote widely in English and French on a wide range of subjects.

He was rushed to Addenbrooke's Hospital in February this year after he fell ill with chest pains. The inquest heard he was examined by a team of junior doctors, one of whom was working his first or second shift. The inexperienced doctor discovered a heart murmer but did not realise that his aorta blood vessel had torn.

Dr Fraz Mir, from Addenbrooke's Hospital, said: "I think the hospital has admitted that we got it wrong in these circumstances - it should have been diagnosed." He told the inquest that the junior doctors who were involved in the care of Emile may never have come across a torn aorta before.

A post mortem examination showed that the academic, who lectured at Fitzwilliam and Pembroke colleges, died from natural causes stemming from a tear to the root of his aorta.

The inquest has been adjourned until a date yet to be set. The hospital has since made a number of changes to his systems following the tragic death of the academic.

SOURCE



British carpenter who paid for 5,000 leaflets to find a job loses benefits...because he was 'not actively looking for work'

The insanity of bureaucratic Britain again

After two months claiming Jobseeker’s Allowance and no sign of work on the horizon, Adam Pay decided to do something about it.

The carpenter, who had been made redundant, printed and distributed 5,000 leaflets around his neighbourhood advertising his handyman skills. He also placed adverts in four local papers, all at his own cost. But when he reported to his local jobcentre he was told his £65.45-a-week benefits would be stopped because he had not been ‘actively looking for work’.

Staff told the father of two that trying to generate customers for his own handyman business did not count as searching for a job. If he had told them untruthfully that he had only searched the internet, checked local papers and made phone calls to look for work, the money would have continued to be paid into his account.

Mr Pay, 38, from Gillingham, Kent, said: ‘I told staff at the job centre I’d been spending six hours a day distributing the flyers and they wanted to know if I had done anything else. I thought they were having a laugh. It didn’t seem to count for anything at all in their eyes. I’m just trying to do the right thing. I have a family to look after.

‘The building industry isn’t good at the moment so it seemed the logical step to try to find my own work.’

Mr Pay’s case has now been passed to a senior official who will decide whether his claim for Jobseeker’s Allowance can be reactivated.

He worked at his last firm for two-and-a-half years on a salary of £22,000 but was laid off in July when the company lost an NHS contract due to public spending cuts.
Since then he has been rejected for a job as a Tesco delivery driver and as a maintenance man at a private mental hospital.

When he was told he needed a qualification to apply for sub-contracting work he signed up to the exam and passed on Tuesday. His wife, Louise, 37, a psychiatric nurse, is currently receiving £120-a-week maternity pay while she cares for their eight-month-old son Ben.

The couple also have a daughter, Scarlett, three, and are using their savings to cover the mortgage on their three-bedroom home.

Mr Pay spent £90 on printing 5,000 leaflets advertising his handyman skills, and another £220 for five weeks of advertisements in four local papers. He and his wife then spent 30 hours in the past week distributing the flyers throughout Gillingham.

When Mr Pay visited the job centre in Basildon, Essex, on Thursday he was given the bombshell news that he could no longer claim Jobseeker’s Allowance.

Claimants are told to keep a diary to ‘prove’ they have been looking for work which must be presented for their fortnightly visits.

Mr Pay’s plight emerged after official figures revealed 1.5 million Britons had never done a day’s work in their lives, with whole communities dependent on welfare.

He said: ‘It’s ridiculous. I’m going a step further than just looking for a job by trying to establish my own company and make my own work.’ His wife said: ‘Adam was applying for everything he could find. He came home from the job centre very upset. We are both exhausted. We thought they would be impressed that we had taken the initiative.

‘I agree with having a system to support those who can’t work through no fault of their own or when they’re hit by hard times. It’s a great thing about this country. ‘But it makes me angry as a taxpayer to be supporting a tickbox mentality with a system that can be scammed. The whole set-up is ludicrous. It seems as if they are telling us not to go out and look for a job. ‘We would have been better off doing nothing and just putting on the form that we had checked the internet and the papers every day.

‘We are staying hopeful that there is the need for a handyman in the local area and that something will come of our hard work.’

SOURCE



Britain's insane welfare state at work

What a depressing snapshot of Broken Britain Keith Macdonald gave us this week. The jobless 25-year-old has fathered 15 children by 14 different women (though he denies some of them are his). His illegitimate brood will cost the taxpayer £ 1.5million in welfare support.

As for Macdonald himself, he has no involvement in their upbringing whatsoever, save to contribute £5 per child per week out of his own benefits — less than the price of a packet of cigarettes.

Shocking? Yes. Surprising? Not really. As despicable as Macdonald is, the whole sordid tale begs the question: what kind of girl has unprotected sex with a virtual stranger with a violent past and a string of abandoned children to his name?

One answer is: the kind who wants a fast track to a council home and state benefits that are greater than she could earn in a lowly-paid job.

But, for me, the real blame for this travesty should be laid at the door of Britain’s well-intentioned but hopelessly naive ruling class, who condone a welfare system that unquestioningly and unapologetically indulges the feckless, calculating and work-shy.

These ‘people who know best’ have created a massively flawed welfare system that supports parasites like Macdonald and his low-rent conquests.

Of course, it’s only right and proper that the State should assist families who — through no fault of their own — have fallen on hard times. But benefit entitlement is now institutionalised among some sections of Britain’s underclass society. The generous handouts lavished on girls like Macdonald’s harem enable them to behave without censure or penalty.

If you need further evidence of the culture that’s causing this social decay, then just look at the health watchdog NICE’s recommendation this week that pregnant teenagers should have their antenatal classes at school — because waddling along to their local GP is far too embarrassing, apparently. Well, so it should be! Perhaps if society showed a modicum of disapproval of teen pregnancy, Britain would not be the single-mum capital of Europe.

Until we have the courage to say that NICE — which denies money for some cancer drugs — should not be squandering our money in this way, and until the Government finds the backbone to stop these girls using their womb as a fast track to a council home, nothing will change.

The Coalition has begun the bonfire of the quangos; surely it’s now time for a bonfire of the benefits, before we lose another tragic generation to worklessness, fatherlessness and hopelessness.

SOURCE



Who should libertarians hope for as the next leader of the British Labour party

Excerpt from Sean Gabb:

This leaves us with the two Miliband brothers. And these are certainly worth considering. They have the great advantage for us of being Jewish. Now, while there are Jewish organisations that get money and support by insisting that England is two steps from our own Kristallnacht, I doubt if many English people have even noticed the shape of the Miliband noses. Of those who have noticed, I doubt if more than a few thousand think ill of it. Native anti-semitism is so rare that it has to be hunted out, where not actually fabricated. And do bear in mind that the British National Party, which is our largest white nationalist organisation, welcomes Jewish members and is vaguely pro-Israel in its foreign policy. However, the non-white population is solidly anti-semitic. Moslems, black Christians, whatever – they largely hate Jews with a ferocity not known in England since the middle ages.

It may be disagreeable that we must share a country with such people. But it would be rather funny to see Labour hoist by its own petard. After 1997, Labour Governments knowingly encouraged the immigration of between seven and ten million non-whites into this country. They did so because it accelerated the upward redistribution of wealth to which modern ruling classes are all committed. They did so because it helped break up the solidarity of the ruled that is another ruling class project. They also did so because they believed that the new arrivals, once they had been waved through the citizenship formalities, would mostly vote Labour. And they will – so long as an English or a Scotch man or a black woman is in charge. They will not vote, I think, for a Labour Party led by a Jew. And this is regardless of how seldom either Miliband goes into a synagogue, and regardless of how little public enthusiasm either has shown for Israel.

This will be still more the case if the Liberals get the electoral reform that the Conservatives may not be able to deny them. So far, the two main parties have been held together by the iron logic of the first past the post system. I, for example, voted Conservative in this year’s election not because I thought David Cameron would be a good Prime Minister – but because the Conservatives were the only force able to get Labour out of office. I normally vote for the UK Independence Party. I would, in other than general elections, and if a candidate were to stand where I live, vote for the Libertarian Party. But I voted Conservative in the general election because not to vote Conservative would have risked another Labour Government.

It is the same with non-white electors. They might swallow their prejudices and vote for a Labour Party led by a Jew if the alternative was to let in a Conservative Government. But the alternative vote system will allow them to give their first preferences to Islamic and black nationalist parties. Their second preferences might be enough for Labour. But the loss of first preferences might be enough to keep Labour from ever winning a majority of the English seats. And the accompanying redistribution of seats would make Scotch votes far less important than they have been.

And so, my prayers are with the Milibands. I should now say, though, which of the two brothers I prefer. My preference is for David......

David Miliband, however, is irremediably tainted with all the horrors of the Blair and Brown regime. He supported those wars. He supported every police state law that was brought forward. And he has all the commitment in his speaking manner of a Kremlin teleprinter. He looks thick. If we leave aside his ability to crawl nearly to the top of the Labour dung heap, he probably is thick. But, where his brother does not, he also manages to look like a supercilious fraud. I do hope he wins. Indeed, I am so convinced he would be the right man for the job, that I did briefly think of handing over a £1 joining fee to the Labour Party in order to vote for him. With David Miliband in charge, we might hope for a repeat at the next election of Labour’s 1983 performance.

Now, here I must say, as clearly as I can, that, I do not want a melt-down of Labour support because it might give a clear run to the Conservatives. The reason I want the Labour Party to vanish up its own bottom is because this enables our own attack on the Conservative Party.

The new order that I want – and that I largely believe is wanted across our Movement – is one in which most state agencies will have been shut down, and in which the legal and administrative privileges that maintain big business, the credentialed professions, the centralised media, and all other sinister interests, in existence will have been revoked. This does involve a revolution of one kind or another – a revolution, or a counter-revolution, or just a reaction: call it what you will. But, if the people ever take to the streets to demand change, this will have been preceded by a delegitimisation of the present order of things – just as the ancient régime in France withered after the 1770s, and the traditional autocracy in Russia withered after the 1880s. Long before a visible blow can have been landed against it, this present order of things will have been made incapable of defending itself. Of course, it must - as will every order founded on a denial of human nature - perish from within. But this inevitable fall will have been hastened by our own relentless critique.

Much HERE



Why are so many British Liberals against school choice?

One of the many ‘storms in a teacup’ at the Liberal Democrat conference has been about school choice. Lib Dem members have successfully passed a motion against Michael Gove’s free schools and several lively fringe debates have been had on the subject. The question is why would any party that purports to be liberal reject the idea of giving parents and schools more freedom?

While we may speculate as to why this is, we should note the existing schools system is both unfair and needlessly bureaucratic. Currently, parents who are not wealthy enough to send their children to private schools, have no choice. The central planners at the LGA’s ‘match’ supply and demand for school places, somehow entrusting in Soviet style economic models which have been laughed out of existence elsewhere. House prices reflect the local schools quality, leading to ‘post code lotteries’ and making a mockery of any claims that the system is comprehensive (not that it should be).

Peter Downes, the Lib Dem councillor who tabled the motion seems to be quite happy with this. He says, “"Academies and free schools are likely to be divisive, costly and unfair. They're in the statute book, on the shelf, and that's where they should stay."

Downes’ evidently relies on the state to magically provide better schools, arguing that the most dangerous element of free schools is "the idea that the principles of the marketplace can be applied to state-funded education". Downes is clearly rejecting the self-evident way forward in providing greater choice, a concept that was first laid down by Andrew Adonis and is now picked up by Gove and the Coalition.

Quite how schools are meant to improve without being subject to the market forces is between Downes and his comrades against the Coalition. No doubt they purport the answer lies in ‘great resources’ (read: more money) for schools.

Without some element of competition or rights to exit from a market (for parents to take their children elsewhere), Britain’s schools will remain in the sclerotic socialist system we have today. Successive ministers in both Labour and Conservative governments have clearly seen that this cannot continue, and have sought the obvious alternative in markets and freedom of choice. The only question is, when will the Lib Dem’s wake up and smell the coffee?

SOURCE



It's The End Of Britain's Green World As We Know It

More than 30 ‘green’ quangos are facing the axe and the budget for communities will be slashed by a third after George Osborne signed off massive cuts to two departments.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman and Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles yesterday agreed with the Treasury on how to slash spending in their departments.

The two ministers, dubbed the ‘King and Queen of quango cuts’ in Whitehall, impressed the Chancellor with their willingness to axe expensive bodies.

Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles and Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman have been dubbed the ‘King and Queen of quango cuts'

David Cameron has now agreed that they can join Mr Osborne’s ‘Star Chamber’, where senior ministers can pass judgment on the cuts plans of their colleagues...

Mrs Spelman has identified 30 quangos for the axe, including the Sustainable Development Commission and the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

More HERE





24 September, 2010

More Emergency rooms and maternity wards being shut over winter as staff shortages take effect

This is going to be very hard on women giving birth. Expect more tales of women giving birth in cars etc.

Hospitals across Britain are being forced to shut their emergency departments and maternity units because of staff shortages.

It emerged yesterday that Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS trust, in South London, was closing its A&E unit for the winter over fears there were not enough doctors to ensure patient safety.

And at least two more hospitals – the University Hospital of Hartlepool and Rochdale Infirmary – are also shutting their emergency departments, with a further six closing vital maternity wards.

Some trusts are effectively operating a '9 to 5' service, refusing to admit patients to A&E or other crucial departments at night. Campaigners say the closures will cost lives and nearby hospitals will be overwhelmed, leading to doctors making mistakes and missing serious illnesses.

Managers at Queen Mary's Sidcup yesterday announced that its A&E and maternity departments would close for the winter because there were not enough doctors or midwives to ensure patients' lives would not be put at risk.

It has since emerged that the University Hospital of Hartlepool will shut its A&E department permanent ly in November, while Rochdale Infirmary's emergency department is open only from 8am to 6pm, because there are not enough staff.

Guys and St Thomas' Hospital in London will admit patients into its minor injuries unit – which treats broken bones and burns – only between 8am and 3.15pm.

Llandudno Hospital in North Wales has a similar policy for its minor injuries unit, taking in patients between only 8am and 10pm.

In the past 12 months, at least six maternity units have shut because of a shortage of midwives, including Paulton in Wiltshire, Wycombe Hospital in Buckinghamshire, Solihull Hospital in Birmingham, St Mary's in Melton Mowbray, Wakefield Hospital in West Yorkshire and Bridlington Hospital in North Humberside.

Managers at Queen Mary's Sidcup insisted the closures were only 'temporary', but there are growing fears that they will be permanent to save money.

John Lister, of pressure group London Health Emergency, said: 'This is just a sample of what is going to happen across the country. Not just in London. There is no way the hospital is going to reopen these wards. This is in no way a temporary closure. This is a step to permanent closure.

'There are 40-50,000 A&E cases a year at Queen Mary's. None of the other hospitals nearby have been expanded to cope.'

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: 'A picture is emerging of steadily eroding staffing levels and there can come a point where you simply don't have enough staff to run a ward safely.'

Referring to Queen Mary's, he added: 'The RCN will be seeking urgent talks with South London Healthcare NHS Trust to uncover what these departmental closures mean for both patients and staff.

'Trusts should have at the forefront of their thinking their responsibility to ensure that there are sufficient staff to provide safe patient care.'

Jim Hemming Clark, who stood as an independent candidate in the general election and is campaigning to save Queen Mary's A&E unit, said: 'It will mean patients will have further to travel, and noone has given any assurances the other hospitals will be able to cope.'

SOURCE



Ante-natal classes for teen mothers in British schools?

Schools should run ante-natal classes for pregnant pupils, Government advisers said yesterday. The courses would reach out to gymslip mums too embarrassed to see their GP or local clinics, they claimed.

Pupils would be able to skip lessons for the sessions at their schools and sixth-form colleges. Critics lambasted the proposal, saying it would normalise teenage pregnancy and make it more common than ever. Britain already has the highest rates in Western Europe, with more than 41,000 babies born to women under the age of 18 every year. That figure is twice as high as in Germany, three times the level of France and six times that of the Netherlands.

But the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence is advising that schools in areas where teenage pregnancy is rife should hold classes to help young girls deal with labour and motherhood.

Nice cites concerns that pregnant girls are deterred from going to see their GP by the fear of being sneered at by the receptionist or patients in the waiting room.

Teenagers are said to be reluctant to attend locally-run ante-natal classes - held in community centres, clinics or hospitals - because they feel they are being judged by the midwives.

Experts at NICE say that schools in the U.S. have held antenatal classes for years and they have been highly successful in teaching young girls about the ordeal of labour and motherhood.

Rhona Hughes, who chaired the panel behind the guidelines, said: 'We did find examples in the literature of good practice where clinics were held in schools and young women were more likely to access care. 'Teenagers can feel embarrassed going to clinics where there are older women.' She added that the panel had interviewed many young girls who said they had bad experiences going to their GP or antenatal classes and felt they were being judged by the receptionist or midwife.

Although no British schools run antenatal classes, they have been held in classrooms in the U.S. since the early 1990s. Girls are told about labour, given advice on their diet and taught how to breast feed.

Dr Gillian Leng, deputy chief executive of NICE said it would not be appropriate for all schools to run the sessions, only those in authorities with high rates of teenage pregnancy. Areas that may be targeted by the scheme include Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark, in south London, and Birmingham, Nottingham, Blackpool and Hartlepool.

But Anastasia de Waal, deputy director of the think-tank Civitas, said: 'There simply isn't time for antenatal classes to be held in secondary school. 'It is extremely important that teenage mums have all the opportunity they can and that nothing encroaches on their learning. 'Schools are simply not equipped to provide these services and there isn't room for them.

'We need to address the fact that they feel embarrassed to go to their GP or local antenatal classes - not start providing them at school. There is also the argument that providing antenatal classes at school normalises teenage pregnancy.'

Norman Wells, director of the Family Education Trust, said: 'Schools exist to assist and support parents in the education of their children, not to be the panacea for every social ill. 'The more schools are called on to shoulder the burden of problems created by a permissive society, the more they will lose their focus on imparting knowledge and teaching children to think in a rational and logical way.'

The Reverend Paul Dawson, of Reform, a conservative evangelical movement, said: 'If NICE are going to issue these guidelines they need to ensure that there is enough scope for teachers to educate pupils on other aspects of relationships. 'These include abstinence. Teachers should feel free to be able to teach pupils that at the other end of the scale many people do not have sex before marriage and that such a lifestyle can be very healthy.'

SOURCE



Three-year-olds being labelled bigots by British teachers as 250,000 children accused of racism

Teachers are being forced to report children as young as three to the authorities for using alleged ‘racist’ language, it was claimed last night. Munira Mirza, a senior advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson, said schools were being made to spy on nursery age youngsters by the Race Relations Act 2000.

More than a quarter of a million children have been accused of racism since it became law, she said. Writing in Prospect magazine, she said: ‘The more we seek to measure racism, the more it seems to grow.

‘Teachers are now required to report incidents of racist abuse among children as young as three to local authorities, resulting in a massive increase of cases and reinforcing the perception that we need an army of experts to manage race relations from cradle to grave. ‘Does this heightened awareness of racism help to stamp it out? Quite the opposite. It creates a climate of suspicion and anxiety.’

The Act compelled 43,000 public authorities, including schools and churches, ‘to promote good relations between persons of different racial groups’. Details of the incidents are logged on databases.

Teachers are allowed to report racism even if the alleged ‘victim’ was not offended or if the child does not understand what they were saying. Freedom of Information replies obtained by civil liberties group the Manifesto Club show that between 2002 and 2009, 280,000 incidents have been reported.

SOURCE



Six arrested in Britain for 'burning Korans' on YouTube

This arrest is a mockery of the law. Muslims are not a race so how can this be racial hatred? People of all races are Muslims. It's a police State when police can make up the law as they go along. I am thinking of burning a few Korans myself and looking forward to my day in court

BRITISH police have arrested six people on suspicion of inciting racial hatred over a YouTube video apparently showing them setting fire to copies of the Koran. Police in northeastern England said that they had detained two men on September 15 and four more on Wednesday, adding that all of them had been bailed pending further inquiries.

"The arrests followed the burning of what are believed to have been two Korans in Gateshead on September 11," a spokesman for Northumbria Police said. "The incident was recorded and a video placed on the internet."

The YouTube video shows a group of masked men shouting "September 11, International Burn a Koran Day" and "This is for the boys in Afghanistan" before pouring petrol on what they claim are two copies of Islam's holy book. They then cheer and chant slogans as the books burst into flames, before kicking them.

The police force and the local authority issued a joint statement saying that the "kind of behaviour displayed in this video is not at all representative of our community as a whole. "Our community is one of mutual respect and we continue to work together with community leaders, residents and people of all faiths and beliefs to maintain good community relations."

SOURCE



Cutbacks in Britain!

British Conservatives set an example for America

One hundred and seventy-seven taxpayer-funded bodies are to be abolished under Coalition plans seen by The Daily Telegraph.

A further 94 are still under threat of being scrapped, four will be privatised and 129 will be merged, according to a Cabinet Office list compiled this week, while 350 other bodies have won a reprieve.

The list discloses for the first time the extent of David Cameron’s plans for the “bonfire of the quangos”, designed to save the taxpayer billions of pounds. Thousands of jobs will go as part of the reforms.

The biggest cuts concern the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs with more than 50 bodies to be abolished, and the Department of Health, where about 30 bodies will be cut or have their functions transferred back to the department. These include the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, the Health Protection Agency and the Commission for Rural Communities.

As already announced, the Audit Commission and UK Film Council will be scrapped along with eight regional development agencies, the list shows. The Commission for Integrated Transport, the School Food Trust and the Sustainable Development Commission are to be abolished.

The BBC World Service, the British Council and the Environment Agency are among the 94 publicly funded bodies whose fate has yet to be decided.

More HERE



What The Guardian wouldn't print

In his usual abusive and ad hominem style, Georgie Moonbat has an article in the Guardian under the heading: "Are the climate change deniers with no evidence just naturally gullible?". Piers Corbyn put up a reply in their comments section which the paper deleted. The comment is below:

George, YOUR "poser" must be applied to yourself!
You ask: "Are people who entertain a range of strong beliefs for which there is no evidence naturally gullible?".

Well you are a person with a strong belief in man-made(CO2) Global Warming / Climate Change, and there is no evidence for it. So are you naturally gullible?

If you have observational data evidence for the theory - using available data for the last hundreds, thousands and millions of years - let's have it. We don't want your usual opinion-polls, bluster, innuendo and opinion of peoples' attitudes, vibes and mental states we want EVIDENCE-BASED SCIENCE.

There are three key points which must be be understood:

1. The theory of Man-made Global Warming & Climate Change is failed science based on fraudulent data. IT JUST DOESN'T ADD UP!

All the dire predictions of the UN (IPCC) since 2000 have failed. CO2 does not cause extreme weather. The world is cooling not warming. There is no evidence in 600, 600,000 or 600million years of data that changes in CO2 levels in the real atmosphere drive world temperatures or change climate; indeed it is temperatures which generally drive CO2 levels. - See http://bit.ly/9UKlBD . Extra CO2 has ZERO effect, and any concession to the notion there is somehow some 'weak' effect waiting to happen falls into the trap the Climate hype industry machine has set for the ill-informed and the usual Appeasement brigades who surface in all political conflicts.

2. The driver of all important weather extremes is solar activity.

In the end it is extreme weather that matters rather than averages and this is controlled by Jet stream shifts and extra activity of weather fronts, and These are driven by changes in solar activity and largely predictable – See ongoing discussion in Comments as link above, http://bit.ly/bpZDlp - espec comment Aug 8th concerning predicted changes in the jet stream + records of the solar activity that caused them.

3. MORE CO2 is GOOD not bad.

CO2 is plant food and more CO2 increases the productivity of agriculture. Carbon fixing policies are madness which if carried out in the name of ‘Clean coal’
[NB Smoke from coal is easily removed and should be, but that is another issue]
would double the cost of electricity and double the amount of coal used to produce power because carbon fixing (‘sequestration’) is very energy intensive.

Received via email



Polar bear mania: British TV station thinks a cow is a polar bear!

Remember the MSM boast about all that "fact checking" they do?



When reports came in that a polar bear had washed up on a Cornish beach, television presenter Naomi Lloyd was first with the news. The presenter of ITV's West Country breakfast bulletin informed astonished viewers that an animal more commonly spotted near the North Pole had turned up in the seaside town of Bude. Video footage showed a large, white beast lying on the shore.

"A walker in Cornwall has caught an extraordinary sight on camera. A polar bear has washed up on a beach near Bude," an excited Miss Lloyd said. "The bear comes from the Arctic Circle and an investigation is under way as to how it could have ended up there."

Alas for Miss Lloyd, the tale of the Cornish polar bear turned out to be several thousand miles wide of the mark. Closer inspection revealed that the polar bear was, in fact, a cow. The farm animal had been bleached white by sea water.

Red-faced bosses at ITV dropped the item from later bulletins, but insisted that it was an easy mistake. "The animal caused quite a stir in Bude. Several people has seen the animal from a cliff top and thought it was a polar bear," a spokesman said. "Its size and colour and its lying position on the beach did make it look like a polar bear and we had several calls. "But on closer inspection we discovered it was a cow. The tide was very strong and it did bring several dead animals in along that stretch of coast."

The spokesman conceded that the mistake was "a bit embarrassing".

ITV West Country has an available audience of up to two million viewers and the bulletin was broadcast at 7.55am.

Students of geography would have realised the unlikeliness of a polar bear appearing in the warm seas off Cornwall. The animals live on the Arctic sea ice and Greenland is the closest they get to Britain.

SOURCE



British government faces high court battle over cap on immigration

A high court battle is to be launched tomorrow that threatens to deliver a fresh body-blow to the government's already troubled plans to introduce a cap on immigration.

A judicial review claim on behalf of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants and a number of small businesses asks judges to declare the government's temporary cap on migrants – imposed on 28 June – unlawful because ministers sidestepped proper parliamentary approval.

The cap came in to force to prevent a "surge in applications" from skilled migrants from outside Europe. It was brought in as an interim measure while the cabinet thrashes out an agreement over how flexible the permanent cap should be when it is introduced next year.

The Liberal Democrat business secretary, Vince Cable, said this week that he was optimistic of winning the battle with his Conservative cabinet colleagues after he publicly complained that the temporary cap had done "a lot of damage to British industry". The cap is designed to scale back annual net migration to Britain from the "hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands".

This summer the court of appeal ruled that the home secretary acted unlawfully when changes were made to the points-based immigration system without proper parliamentary approval. Immigration lawyers believe this means ministers are in deep legal water over the temporary cap.

Home Office ministers announced their intention to introduce the temporary cap to parliament, but did not detail how it would operate or the level of the limit on skilled and highly skilled migrants until it came into force. Details were then posted on the Home Office website but not presented to parliament.

The Home Office is battling to keep the politically sensitive case out of the court. But the immigration lawyers involved expect it to be heard by the judges within the next few weeks.

The immigration minister, Damian Green, said: "We will rigorously defend this challenge and are confident of success. The government has been clear, we will introduce our permanent annual limit on economic migrants from outside the EU from April 2011.

"While we decide how the annual limit should operate it is imperative that we have interim measures in place to avoid a rush of applications from migrants before the new rules take effect.

"We are fully committed to reduce the level of net migration back down to the levels of the 1990s: tens of thousands each year, not hundreds of thousands. Introducing a limit on migrants from outside Europe coming here to work is just one of the ways we intend to achieve this."

Source



Hands off our testicles

“Two men have been found guilty of ‘providing sperm without a licence.’ But is there a man in Britain who hasn’t done that? … Any talk of ‘sperm’ and ‘licences’ in the same breath should set alarm bells ringing.”

How can it be a crime to ‘provide sperm without a licence or third-party agreement’? That is what two British men have been found guilty of, after it was discovered that they were acting as ‘sperm brokers’, introducing would-be donors of the white stuff to around 800 women who, for various reasons, could not conceive. Yet every man in Britain who has sex with a woman ‘provides sperm without a licence’ (unless he’s wearing a condom); what’s so different when there’s a middle man involved, a broker, who passes the sperm from the man who produces it to the woman who wants it? Any talk of ‘sperm’ and ‘licences’ in the same breath should set alarm bells ringing.

Nigel Woodforth and Ricky Gage, the two businessmen (or ‘fertility conmen’ as they have been branded by the tabloids), made around £250,000 from their ad hoc sperm-donation scheme. The press has gone all out to make the scheme sound as seedy as possible – it was ‘run from a basement’ for the benefit of ‘desperate women’; the two men first got the idea ‘over a drink in the Slug and Lettuce pub in Reading’ – yet presumably it involved men consensually donating sperm and women consenually paying for it and later injecting it. If Gage and Woodforth had been offering cut-price amputations or under-the-radar gall-stone operations, I could understand the outrage. But neither the production nor the ingestion of sperm is a serious medical procedure; men and women do it all the time in the traditional fashion, in beds, on sofas, in alleyways, far from the prying eyes of the would-be fertility police.

And yet at Southwark Crown Court in London last week, Gage and Woodforth were found guilty of providing sperm without a licence. They will receive their sentences this week. The judge has told them to expect to be banged up.

This bizarre case shines a light on the increasingly stiff (no pun intended) regulation of people’s fertility. For many years, only fertility treatments involving frozen sperm required a licence. That’s fair enough: the long-term storing, freezing and unfreezing of sperm requires expertise, and the organisations that do it should adhere to certain agreed standards. But the provision of fresh sperm – that is, unfrozen sperm, the kind that men carry around with them at all times – was traditionally unregulated. Until 2007, that is. Then, the Human Tissue (Quality and Safety for Human Application) Regulations were introduced, and they included the decree that any provider wanting to ‘procure, test, process or distribute’ fresh sperm also had to hold a licence from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA). That is why Gage and Woodforth - who organised the provision of fresh sperm - could be found guilty of a crime.

The legal regulation and potential criminalisation of the ‘procurement’ and ‘distribution’ of fresh sperm take us into dangerous territory. This makes something that men and women do all the time into a potential crime. Women ‘procure’ fresh sperm when they sleep with a man with the intention of getting pregnant; is there really a moral difference if they procure that man’s fresh sperm without sleeping with him? Men ‘distribute’ sperm day in, day out – whether into hankies, condoms or into women whom they love, want to make pregnant, or whatever. How can the distribution of fresh sperm be seriously policed? What is the significant difference if the man ‘distributes’ his sperm into a cup first rather than directly to the woman? The tighter regulation of what men and women do with sperm – which is different to blood, for example, in that it can be produced and distributed without risk of injury – is to invite the policing of what for thousands of years was a simple everyday relation between people.

The discussion of the alleged dangers of Woodforth and Gage’s fresh sperm captures what is behind much of the fury over their antics: official fearfulness about the sex act itself. Fertility experts are disgusted that these two men were providing untested sperm. This sperm is not ‘quarantined’ or tested for ‘bacterial and viral infection’, said one scary-sounding report. ‘These fresh sperm delivery services just fill me with horror. There is no way on earth that they can guarantee that [the sperm] is infection-free’, one expert told the Daily Telegraph.

This looks like a proxy debate that is really about the alleged dangers of sex in general – ‘unsafe sex’, that is – where it is also the case that men and women pass fluids that have not been quarantined or tested for infections. Across the country, on a daily basis, unregulated, unpoliced ‘sperm delivery services’ take place – that is, men and women have sex – and the contemporary view of such interactions as potentially dangerous and diseased has definitely informed the discussion of Woodforth and Gage’s horror-inducing fresh-sperm business. Would Those Who Know Better also like us to require a licence before we are allowed to share sperm in the traditional way? Perhaps we shouldn’t give them ideas – their answer to that question would almost certainly be ‘yes’.

What is happening here is that experts are taking a rather Catholic view of sperm. They are treating fresh sperm almost as something sacred, something which cannot possibly be passed from one party to another without the okay of the overlords of the fertility regulation industry. Ironically, it is likely to have been the overregulation and secular sanctification of fresh sperm that gave rise to a business like Gage and Woodforth’s in the first place. In recent years, new rules have been introduced stipulating that any child produced through sperm donation has a right to know who the donor was – and not surprisingly, this bizarre idea caused something of a crisis in the sperm-donation world, as men became less keen to donate their sperm if they thought that 18 years later the product of their masturbation might knock on their front door and say ‘Hello dad’. The tightening of fertility rules, the treatment of sperm donation as a fatherly act – all of this no doubt contributed to the creation of a space for an enterprise like Gage and Woodforth’s.

People’s fertility is already way too regulated. The HFEA may be one of the bodies set to be hurled on to the Lib-Cons’ ‘bonfire of the quangos’, but first its immense powers of fertility-policing will be distributed to other, already exisiting bodies. We need less regulation of our fertile interactions, not more – and a recognition from the powers-that-be that they have no business poking their Victorian snouts into what they call ‘sperm delivery services’, and the rest of us call relationships.

SOURCE





23 September, 2010

Staff crisis shuts emergency room at NHS hospital serving more than a million people

The people's money has been spent on an army of bureaucrats so now there is not enough money to hire the needed medical staff

One of Britain's largest hospitals has been forced to shut its emergency department and maternity unit for the winter over fears that lives will be put at risk due to staff shortages. Queen Mary's Sidcup NHS Trust, which serves more than a million people in South London, has been ordered to make the closures to protect patient safety.

Managers admitted that a drastic shortage of A&E doctors meant the unit would not be able to cope with the expected surge in admissions over the winter months. They also said were not enough midwives working in the maternity unit to ensure babies could be delivered safely.

But leading doctors warned this closure is only the 'tip of the iceberg' and dozens of other overstretched hospitals may be forced to shut their doors over the coming months.

Managers at Queen Mary's said half of the posts for 'middle grade' doctors – the level between junior doctors and consultants – in its A&E unit were vacant. As a result, there were concerns it would not be able to cope with the surge in patients suffering from flu, chest infections and norovirus expected over the winter.

The trust's maternity unit also has a total of 42 vacant posts for midwives, because many recently left their jobs fearing they would be made redundant. As a result, the Department of Health ordered the hospital to shut both its A&E and maternity unit for the winter months.

But doctors warned that many other trusts will be forced to follow suit over the coming weeks. In particular, there are concerns that many casualty departments are operating with fewer than half the number of doctors they need to cope with increasing demand. The number of A&E admissions in winter soars by as much as 12 per cent.

John Heyworth, president of the College of Emergency Medicine, which represents doctors working in casualty departments said: 'This is only the tip of the iceberg. There is a real crisis in many hospitals across the country. On average, A&E units are staffed by just four doctors and they admit 75,000 patients in a year. They are far too overstretched. 'Not enough doctors are being trained and in addition the Home Office has imposed strict visa requirements which mean we cannot recruit as many from overseas.

'We desperately need more doctorsin A&E to ensure departments are run safely. 'Many trusts are going to have to make important decisions over the coming weeks to ensure the safety of their patients.'

Chris Streather, chief executive of the South London Healthcare Trust, which manages Queen Mary's Sidcup, said: 'I asked my medical director and the director of nursing to look at A&E and maternity very carefully to see if they are safe now and whether they can be kept safe for the whole of the winter period.' He added: 'The reason why we can't guarantee safety over the winter is the shortage of staff.'

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'Patient safety and high quality care must remain the priority for the NHS. 'The A&E and obstetric services at Queen Mary's should temporarily close while there are concerns that they don't meet the high standards that patients deserve.

'The secretary of state has pledged that, in future, all service changes must be led from the bottom-up by clinicians, patients and local authorities with an improved focus on quality.'

SOURCE



Royal Airforce hero, 86, with three forms of cancer 'refused NHS nursing care because he's not ill enough'

At 18 he joined the RAF to defend his country in the Second World War. Shot down in 1944, the rear gunner had to parachute out of his Lancaster bomber and endured a year as a prisoner of war in Germany.

Today, former RAF sergeant Bernard Warren has just weeks to live, suffering from cancer of the stomach, liver and lungs and dementia. But despite the severity of the 86-year-old's condition, the NHS has refused to meet the full cost of his care, saying he does not 'tick enough boxes'.

Yesterday, his son Simon, 37, said: 'My dad's dying. He fought for his country and was a prisoner of war and never asked for a penny. 'Where is the justice, where is the reward? Especially as this country celebrates the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.'

Mr Warren, who worked as a brewery area manager after the war, started showing signs of dementia a number of years ago, although he was officially diagnosed only three years ago. He became increasingly confused and agitated and would often forget conversations, so Tricia, his wife of 46 years, took charge of his care.

After his weight began to plummet last month, she took him for a check-up and he was diagnosed with cancer and given just eight weeks to live.

However, Mrs Warren, who had nursed her husband for six years, began struggling to provide the care he needed, so she took the difficult decision to move him from their home in Henleaze, Bristol, into a nursing home where he could receive professional help.

A social worker advised her that they would be eligible for financial assistance and contacted NHS Bristol who assessed Mr Warren under the Continuing Healthcare scheme. However, although the NHS trust told her he was too ill to go into a council-run care home, they refused him care under that scheme.

Incredibly, officials told his wife that he did not meet the criteria for funding as he could walk unaided, manage his own medicine and wash himself – tasks that she had doing for him for years. As a result, the family must pay two-thirds of the £3,500- a-month care fees at the Westbury Nursing Home in Bristol, through Mr Warren's pensions and their savings. NHS Bristol funds less than a third of the cost of his carehome place through another scheme.

Mrs Warren, 69, said: 'It's frankly insulting to say to somebody who has just weeks to live, who is on their deathbed, that they do not tick all the boxes on a silly form. 'It is too late for us, but this can't be allowed to happen to other people.'

She explained how she was told NHS Bristol had refused to contribute further towards her husband's care. 'It was a very emotional time for me,' she said. 'I was told my husband, who I have dearly loved for all my entire adult life, was dying. 'A social worker told me we would not need to worry about paying for fees due to the nature of his condition.

'But then an NHS worker came to me and said it was a complex process of assessment and unfortunately he didn't tick enough boxes. Those were the exact words used.'

Julie Hendry, of NHS Bristol, said: 'Mr Warren receives NHS-funded contribution for nursing care within a care home. 'We are very sorry to hear about the concerns of this couple. There are clear national guidelines to assess levels of need against specific criteria. 'Patients have the right to appeal or to apply for reassessment at any time if their needs change.'

She said a decision was taken to reassess Mr Warren on Tuesday, when his story first came to light, and that his family could also apply to be assessed for other types of funding, including nursing contribution or social care. The reassessment could takeup to 28 days. [By which time he will be dead]

SOURCE



Black children in Britain don't fail due to racism, says black academic

Black children fail at school because they do not concentrate, not because they are the victims of ‘institutional racism’, a leading black academic claims today. Tony Sewell, the son of Caribbean migrants, attacks the view that black pupils are held back by teachers who see them as ‘miniature gangster rappers’.

The former teacher, who runs an educational charity for black children, instead blames poor parenting and the youngsters’ own lax attitude.

In a blistering article for the Left-of- centre magazine Prospect, Dr Sewell says that while it was once true that black pupils were held back by racism, ‘times have changed’. He writes: ‘What we now see in schools is children undermined by poor parenting, peer-group pressure and an inability to be responsible for their own behaviour.

‘They are not subjects of institutional racism. ‘They have failed their GCSEs because they did not do the homework, did not pay attention and were disrespectful to their teachers. ‘Instead of challenging our children, we have given them the discourse of the victim – a sense that the world is against them and they cannot succeed.’

The view that black children are being held back by racism was reinforced by the last Labour government. Labour leadership hopeful Diane Abbott has said that ‘black boys do not have to be too long out of disposable nappies for some teachers to see them as a miniature gangster rappers’.

Mr Sewell – director of the Generating Genius charity and a consultant at Reading University – says that Miss Abbott and researchers imply that white teachers have low expectations of black boys and this is partly why they underachieve.

He admits evidence proves that ‘African-Caribbean boys are still at the bottom of the league table for GCSEs’. They start school at roughly same level as other pupils, but then fall further and further behind their peers.

However, he also writes: ‘I believe black underachievement is due to the low expectations of school leaders, who do not want to be seen as racist and who position black boys as victims.’

In 2008, the Department for Education reported that only 27 per cent of black boys achieve five or more A*-C GCSE grades. African-Caribbean boys are also the group most likely to be excluded from school

SOURCE



Malthus not a good guide for population policy

Jessica Brown talks about a Greenie idol in the context of a debate in Australia about cutting back immigration

Thomas Malthus, the eighteenth century British thinker who predicted that over-population would lead to global famine, has lately had something of a resurgence. With everyone from Bob Brown to Bob Carr in wild agreement that Australia’s population growth must be cut, Malthusian prophecies of doom are back in fashion.

But a new book by Fred Pearce, Peoplequake: Mass Migration, Ageing Nations and the Coming Population Crash, highlights just what a nasty character Malthus actually was.

Malthus’ issue wasn’t really with the growth in England’s population but the growth in the number of poor people. His solution was to stop them from marrying and, therefore, procreating. He was virulent in his opposition to charity on the grounds that giving food to the poor would just prolong their inevitable deaths.

Malthus was immortalised as the detestable ‘Scrooge’ in Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

But his legacy did not only live on in literature. His teachings informed officials in charge of coming up with a solution to the Irish potato famine of 1845 to 1849. Spurred on in part by hatred of the Irish and in part by Malthusian logic, one English Treasury official argued that the famine was a good ‘mechanism for reducing surplus population’ and ‘a direct strike of an all-wise and all-merciful Providence.’ In what became a self-fulfilling prophecy, an estimated one million people died.

While this example is perhaps extreme in the context of Australia’s current population debate, it nevertheless highlights why liberals should be wary of the new Malthusianism.

At its heart, the theory is profoundly illiberal. Malthusian thinking has spawned countless policies across the globe – forced sterilisations in India are the best known example – that have tossed aside the rights of the individual in order to achieve some perceived greater good.

It’s also fundamentally pessimistic. It assumes that catastrophic consequences of population growth are inevitable, so we shouldn’t bother looking for solutions.

Malthus was an eighteenth century country pastor who didn’t get out much. In a sense, it’s not surprising that he took such a dim view of the world.

But this is 2010, and we live in an open, successful and entrepreneurial country. Surely, in our population debate, we can do better.

The above is a press release from the Centre for Independent Studies, dated 17 September. Enquiries to cis@cis.org.au. Snail mail: PO Box 92, St Leonards, NSW, Australia 1590.



The "good old days" for kids have gone forever in Britain

It's now illegal to play in the street near their homes -- something kids did for generations

Police were accused today of being 'heavy handed' after three officers were dispatched to issue a ticking off to two boys - for playing football in the street.

Henry Worthington, 12, and his brother Alex, 11, were told their kick-abouts in a cul-de-sac outside their home after school were illegal and could result in them getting anti-social behaviour orders. Their father Anthony, 43, of Timperley, Greater Manchester, was also sent a letter from officials at Trafford Council warning him his two sons could be in breach of the 1980 Highways Act which outlaws ball games.

The incident comes after Greater Manchester Police revealed it was preparing to cut more than 3,000 jobs due to the government's anticipated 25 per cent cut in spending.

Today, Mr Worthington, an engineer, said: 'Sending three officers over simply to give a warning about kids playing football in the street is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

'My boys are not hooligans. They are good lads who cause no trouble and I prefer them to play outside the house so I know they are safe. They haven't interfered with a car or any pedestrians so I don't see what the problem is.

'They play for a local football club on the weekend and they just want to practise their skills outside their house with their friends. It's not as if they're out all hours 24/7, it's just half an hour after school.

'I'm absolutely appalled that the police are not out there catching real criminals. I feel like my family is being persecuted. 'When I was a lad the police were not out persecuting children for playing football. Now you get three policemen coming to my door to tell us off for it.

'It's a joke-and a total waste of police resources given that they are facing massive cuts. 'At this rate the England soccer squad will never get better if the future team can't practise playing football anywhere.'

Mr Worthington added: 'It's a quiet street, and we live on the corner of a close. They've been playing out since the year dot, and since they've got a bit older they've started playing football.

'About three months ago, the boys got stopped by officers driving a patrol car up the street and they told them not to play football in the street. A few weeks later they came round to my house.

'The first time there was only one uniformed officer, in his patrol car. He was polite and just said it's against the law to play football in the street and that they were monitoring the situation.

'I thought fair enough, I'm not going to argue with a police officer, but I did say I couldn't see why it was a problem when it is a quiet street.

'Apparently it is illegal under the Highways Act 1980. I told the boys not to play, but the other kids on the road are still playing, and from the next road so it's the same situation for them. 'Then three officers turned up. One stayed in the patrol car and the other two came to my door. I couldn't believe it. They have always been very polite, and I told them that I had asked the boys not to play in the street.

'Two weeks ago I had a letter from the council regarding street football outlining what anti-social behaviour is and referring to an on-going problem regarding street football.

'It also talked about section 161 of the Highways Act 1980. But I don't see how it is anti-social behaviour. I feel the police and the council have been very heavy handed, and that they are not using their common sense at all.

'It is not like my lads are out 24/7 and it's not like they've kicked a ball at a pedestrian or at a car. There are areas where we could take them to play but you can't take them all the time when it's only going to be for half an hour.'

Inspector Simon Wright from Greater Manchester Police said: 'Playing football in the road obviously has clear dangers and the man in this case was simply reminded of this by officers looking out for his children's safety.

'It is actually a criminal offence and is often perceived as a nuisance to local residents, especially as there are plenty of parks for the children to go and play in a safe environment.

'I am not aware of a complaint being made to police but would be more than happy to discuss any concerns the father has with him.' He added: 'I think the police action amounted to common sense. You should not let your kids play on the road - it is not a playground.'

Jonathan Coupe of Trafford Council said: 'Anti-social behaviour is defined as any behaviour that causes alarm or distress to another person. 'In this particular case a letter has been sent to the parents to explain that a complaint has been received about their child's behaviour with a request to address the issues outlined in the complaint.

'This is in no way a formal warning or prosecution. Through action such as this, issues can be resolved in an appropriate manner through the parents themselves without having to involve the authorities.'

SOURCE



We have let yobs rule streets, says top British cop

Police have staged a 30-year ‘retreat from the streets’, allowing the ‘disease’ of anti-social behaviour to blight Britain, a devastating report reveals today. Millions of acts of drunken loutishness and vandalism are going unreported as they have become ‘normalised’, it claims.

Chief Inspector of Constabulary Sir Denis O’Connor said the basic task of keeping the peace had been relegated to a ‘second-order consideration’ for officers who were obsessed with meeting targets for actual crimes. This had led to officers being pulled off the beat, handing control to yobs and allowing anti-social behaviour to ‘gather momentum’, he said.

Sir Denis pointed to the rise of ‘happy slapping’ attacks – where yobs hit strangers, often filming it on a mobile phone – as evidence that random street violence had become commonplace and acceptable.

The ‘Stop the Rot’ report published by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary showed that last year, 3.5million incidents of anti-social behaviour were reported. But this represents only one in four of the estimated real total, meaning an astonishing 14million acts of antisocial behaviour were carried out – one every two seconds.

The landmark report warned that police forces are routinely ignoring thousands of repeat victims of harassment and thuggery. Forces often mark such calls as ‘low priority’ because they do not qualify as crimes. As a result, no action is taken.

Worryingly, less than a third of forces use systems to identify both repeat victims whose lives have been made a misery by a string of incidents, and those such as the disabled who are particularly vulnerable.

Sir Denis said a ‘strategic error’ was made in the 1970s that downgraded the importance of street patrols. From the late 1990s, the relentless focus on crime statistics led to forces neglecting their core duty to keep the peace, he added. ‘The truth is that despite its high public profile in recent years, anti-social behaviour does not have the same status as “crime” for the police,’ he said.

‘The police record of accomplishment and failure has been expressed, increasingly strongly, in terms of crime statistics.

‘Meanwhile, the “non-qualifying” antisocial behaviour issue, and its variants, that signal lack of control on our streets, have grown and evolved in intensity and harm. ‘Anti-social behaviour matters a lot to people but it doesn’t count in the formal system in the same way crime does. ‘That retreat from the streets has, in some senses, undermined [the police’s] connection with the public, and allowed some of these things to gather momentum.’

The report contains a series of victims’ accounts which Sir Denis described as ‘harrowing’. One unnamed man endured 400 incidents including stones being thrown at his wife. Despite making 200 reports to the police and the council, he said ‘no action’ had been taken.

The report revealed a growing gap between what the public wanted, namely ‘boots on the ground’, and what the police were delivering.

Sir Denis added: ‘The public do not distinguish between anti-social behaviour and crime. 'For them it’s really a sliding scale of grief.’ Despite the scale of the problem, some officers don’t think dealing with it is ‘real policing’, Sir Denis said.

He called for early intervention to ‘nip in the bud’ problems so they did not spiral out of control, and an end to underestimating anti-social behaviour. He added: ‘Make no mistake. It requires feet on the street.’

Sir Denis repeated his fears that as in earlier recessions, front-line officers would be the first to go as spending cuts bit.

A HMIC report in July found that just 11 per cent of officers are visible and available to the public at any one time, and more were available on Monday morning than when they might most be needed, on Saturday nights when there is more drunken aggression.

A study commissioned by HMIC for the Stop the Rot report found nearly one in three victims surveyed were unaware of any police action taken in response to their complaint. One in three victims also reported reprisals from their tormentors after complaining to the police, according to the Ipsos Mori poll.

Among the most damning conclusions were those reserved for Community Safety Partnerships, introduced by Labour, which were supposed to ensure co-operation between councils, police and other Government agencies. The report said that academics at Cardiff University found that significant numbers of partnerships were ‘problematic’, despite tens of millions spent on them. They ‘lacked focus’ in helping victims, were swamped in red tape and a ‘meetings culture’, and showed little evidence of value for money.

Home Secretary Theresa May said the report showed that ‘ antisocial behaviour ruins lives and scars communities’. She said: ‘This report, yet again, shows that for too long this problem has been sidelined and victims, especially those who are vulnerable, have been let down.’

Labour introduced a multitude of policies aimed at combating antisocial behaviour, including Asbos. But last year then Home Secretary Alan Johnson admitted Labour had ‘coasted’ on the issue.

More action was promised following the inquests into the deaths of Fiona Pilkington and her disabled 18-year-old daughter Francecca, who were tormented by a gang of youths despite making 33 desperate 999 calls over seven years.

Miss Pilkington was accused of ‘over-reacting’ and, unable to bear the torment any more, she killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in Barwell, Leicestershire, in October 2007.

Blair Gibbs, head of crime and justice-at the Policy Exchange thinktank, said: ‘Tolerating anti-social behaviour lets down victims of crime and breeds more serious criminality.’

Assistant Chief Constable Simon Edens from the Association of Chief Police Officers said: ‘Tackling antisocial behaviour must be achieved alongside keeping people safe through less visible parts of policing such as tackling serious organised crime or terrorism.’

SOURCE



I have put up a fair bit lately on my Paralipomena blog -- including one of the great scenes from British TV comedy. But you may have to "get" British humour to see how utterly mad it is





22 September, 2010

Family of British meningitis victim take legal action

The careless attitudes of both British and Australian public hospitals toward the possibility of meningococcal infection never ceases to astound me. How can such a serious disorder be so lightly regarded? One would think that there would be a protocol to rule it out before any other possibilities were considered -- with the benefit of the doubt going to immediate antibiotic treatment

If a child in my care developed the symptoms, I would certainly not take the child to a public hospital -- JR

The family of a child who suffered serious brain damage after medics failed to diagnose her meningitis are taking legal action against the hospital trust, their solicitors said.



Ellie Sutton from Whitham, Essex, was referred to the paediatric unit at Colchester Hospital after her GP suspected she was suffering from meningitis in February 2006, when she was eight-months-old. But she was discharged less than an hour later after being seen by a medical student despite the fact that an initial assessment recorded her temperature as 39.9C - higher than the hospital's own guidelines, which recommended any child with a temperature of more than 38C should be kept in and monitored hourly.

Her mother, Sarah Gill, took her back to the hospital later that evening and the doctor recommended her condition was investigated further, but a medical review was not conducted until the ward rounds some 11 hours later.

As a result of the delays Ellie, now aged five, has been left with severe brain damage and will now need care and assistance for the rest of her life, a spokeswoman for medical law specialists Irwin Mitchell said.

Ms Gill, 28, said: "Ever since the illness Ellie has had some mobility problems due to weakness and sensory impairment in her right side, and she also now suffers from severe learning difficulties, limited speech and behavioural problems. "What is most upsetting is that Ellie's injuries could easily have been avoided, if only the hospital had followed its own guidelines and given Ellie a better standard of care. "We put our trust in these professionals and they failed with disastrous consequences."

Medical law specialists at Irwin Mitchell are now negotiating a care package on behalf of the family, after the Colchester Hospital University NHS Foundation Trust admitted that without the delays in treatment Ellie may have made a full recovery.

Tom Mather, a partner in the medical law team, said: "The hospital missed several opportunities to recognise that Ellie was severely ill, despite Ms Gill's concern over her daughter's condition. "It is particularly difficult to accept that the hospital did not follow its own guidelines, and that there was an 11-hour delay even when it had been acknowledged that Ellie may have been suffering from a serious illness.

"As a result of these errors, Ellie will have very significant long term care needs and it is likely that she will never be able to look after herself, and we are working to ensure Ellie is provided with the very best rehabilitation and care available. "It is vital the hospital learns lessons from these serious mistakes to make sure this situation can never happen again." Optimistic!]

SOURCE



Useless degrees: One in three British call centre workers is a graduate

A third of call centre workers are graduates, say researchers. A survey of UK-based call centres showed that 35 per cent of their agents are now educated to degree level - up from 25 per cent last year.

Two in five call centre bosses reported seeing a surge in applications from graduates, particularly over the past 12 months.

The survey, by Hays Contact Centres in conjunction with the Top 50 Call Centres for Customer Service initiative, found that many graduates intend to develop a long-term career in the industry.

The soaring numbers of graduates seeking work in call centres shows the impact of the recession on the graduate jobs market. Many firms are squeezing graduate training programmes while universities are turning out unprecedented numbers.

The Association of Graduate Recruiters, representing leading employers, suggests that nearly 70 graduates are chasing every vacancy.

Call centre starting salaries are usually £12,000 to £18,000. Some graduates can expect to move up to senior marketing or sales roles but others see it as a stop-gap.

Figures issued earlier this year by the Higher Education Statistics Agency showed that nearly 20,000 of last year's graduates - 10 per cent - were unemployed six months after leaving university - up from 8 per cent in 2008.

SOURCE



Two British men arrested just for for watching 9/11 Koran burning video

We read:

"In a disturbing development, Northumbria Police in Gateshead last week arrested two men after they watched and shared a video on Facebook of a man burning the Koran in the US during the recent 9/11 commemoration at Ground Zero in New York.

The men were drinking in the Bugle pub, Leam Lane, Gateshead, when they were arrested after watching and sharing the videos.

Around 30 people staged a protest outside Gateshead police station on Wednesday evening, the 15th of September, following the arrests.

The group stood outside the doors to the police station with an England flag for about three hours watched by a contingent of uniformed officers.The protesters had gathered at around 8pm after the two men were arrested earlier in the day on 'suspicion of inciting racial hatred'.

The protest continued until around 11pm when the two arrested men were bailed pending further enquiries.

Youtube have now removed all footage of Derek Fenton burning the Koran. Of course, if he had burnt the Stars and Stripes (or any other flag or religious book) the video would still be available. Double standards by Youtube, perhaps?

Source

Britain's Minister for Climate Change is dangerous delusional green Taliban, says successful British weather forecaster Piers Corbyn

“Chris Huhne – leader of the Coalition’s green Taliban, speaking as Energy & Climate Change Secretary 21 Sept, at the LibDem conference put forward a litany of deadly dangerous delusional diktats from the new Green Religion, and he must be stopped”, said Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist of long range weather and climate forecasters, WeatherAction.com

“Huhne listed recent weather extremes which in fact were caused by predicted solar driven changes in the jet-stream and frontal activity, but pretended they were CO2 driven; and quoted ‘warmest ever’ world temperature claims which rely on false data and he of course ignored supercold events in the Southern hemisphere this year. See here and here and Red bold items in Comments in here

“His policies benefit profiteering speculators and oil cartels, are anti-industry, anti-world development, anti-job and cause hunger, suffering and death – through:

- billionaire profiteering at the expense of the public though carbon trading;

- increasing world energy and oil prices which increase asset values & profits of Oil companies;

- increasing food prices from the burning of food (biofuels);

- the holding back of third world development (Africa needs cheap coal-fired electricity not windfarms which treble the price of electricity);

- deaths on UK & European roads when road salt ran out in the last two winters due to the MetOffice warmist mild-winter forecasts;

- politicians refusing to use solar-based forecasts – which would upset the CO2 lobby - which can warn of extreme deadly weather events around the world and save lives.

“His mad scheme of building more wind-farms if carried out would ensure the lights would have gone out over Europe last winter and would do in many winters to come. See slide 31 in presentation via WAnews27 - one of Red bold items in Comments section of here

“There are three key points which must be brought to politicians:

1. The theory of Man-made Global Warming & Climate Change is failed science based on fraudulent data. IT JUST DOESN'T ADD UP!

All the dire predictions of the UN (IPCC) since 2000 have failed. CO2 does not cause extreme weather. The world is cooling not warming. There is no evidence in 600, 600,000 or 600million years of data that changes in CO2 levels in the real atmosphere drive world temperatures or change climate; indeed it is temperatures which generally drive CO2 levels. - See here. Extra CO2 has ZERO effect, and any concession to the notion there is somehow some 'weak' effect waiting to happen falls into the trap the Climate hype industry machine has set for the ill-informed and the usual Appeasement brigades who surface in all political conflicts.

2. The driver of all important weather extremes is solar activity.

In the end it is extreme weather that matters rather than averages and this is controlled by Jet stream shifts and extra activity of weather fronts, and These are driven by changes in solar activity and largely predictable – See ongoing discussion in Comments as linked above, here - especially the comment of Aug 8th concerning predicted changes in the jet stream + records of the solar activity that caused them.

3. MORE CO2 is GOOD not bad.

CO2 is plant food and more CO2 increases the productivity of agriculture. Carbon fixing policies are madness which if carried out in the name of ‘Clean coal’ [NB Smoke from coal is easily removed and should be, but that is another issue] would double the cost of electricity and double the amount of coal used to produce power because carbon fixing (‘sequestration’) is very energy intensive.”

SOURCE



Everyone is special in the therapy culture

A new report blames teachers for overdiagnosing kids with special needs. But the whole of society is playing this game

There are currently 8.5 million schoolchildren in England. There’s nothing particularly startling about that. What is incredible though is this: 1.7 million of them – that is, nearly a quarter – have been diagnosed as suffering from a special educational need (SEN).

Though there are varying gradations of SEN, from the severely disabled to the merely hyperactive, that is still a remarkable number of children with needs considered special. Indeed, given that so many are now requiring extra support, special needs are ceasing to appear quite so special.

What’s more, the number of kids with learning disabilities is rising. In 2003, there were 1,169,780 diagnoses of the less severe level 1 and level 2 SEN. This year, the figure had risen to 1,470,900. Those with more severe impediments are also increasing, with a three per cent rise in level 3 SEN diagnoses in the same period.

Now, if it seems improbable that English children are increasingly afflicted with learning diabilities, especially given the concomitant year-on-year improvement in GCSE and A-Level grades, then last week’s report from Ofsted calling for schools ‘to stop identifying pupils as having SEN’ and concentrate on teaching might seem welcome. As Ofsted’s chief inspector Christine Gilbert said: ‘We felt that schools and teachers were well intentioned but they were over-diagnosing the problems - teachers in the classroom weren’t confident they could deal with the problem. We feel teachers and schools need to have more confidence about looking at what are the barriers to learning.’

This is surely a positive recognition on the part of officialdom that too many surmountable problems are being passed off as special needs - right? After all, as the Ofsted report points out, to diagnose a pupil lacking the motivation to revise before his GCSEs as suffering from an SEN sounds more like an abdication of pedagogic responsibility than pastoral concern. But there are problems with Ofsted’s report, and they lie in its diagnosis of what is behind the problem of ever-expanding special needs, its examination of why this is happening.

For Ofsted, or at least those interpreting Ofsted’s report, it seems that it is all the schools’ fault. They are seduced by the extra funding that comes with SEN diagnoses and their teachers are glad of the extra help that the funding provides. Not only that, expanding SEN diagnoses tap into a ‘culture of excuses’. That is, according to the Ofsted report, some schools are passing off their poor academic performance as a consequence of having a high number of special needs pupils. No wonder Christine Blower of the National Union of Teachers considered the report ‘insulting’.

Can everything really be laid at the feet of cynical and opportunist schools? Aside from the fact that there is no actual money to be made from getting a kid with poor concentration diagnosed with a SEN, the phenomenon of medicalising, of pathologising, many everyday behaviours is hardly limited to schools. And it is this broader therapeutic culture, where many social and individual problems are increasingly turned into diagnostic categories, that lies at the root of the rapid expansion of SEN in schools. Schools may be playing a game, but the terms of that game have been politically and socially determined. Given the attempt to pin the blame solely on schools, it is little wonder that the Lib-Con coalition’s solution of ‘overhaul[ling] the system’ and ‘improv[ing] diagnosis and assessment’ is so underwhelming.

That the root of the problem lies not within schools but within the society in which they acquire their meaning and purpose becomes clear with the example of that increasingly common SEN diagnosis: dyslexia. Back in 2007, as reported by James Panton on spiked, Durham University education professor Julian Elliott made the news by saying that there was little scientific evidence for dyslexia. This was not to suggest that certain people are pretending to have difficulty reading and writing. Rather, he was arguing that the criteria for diagnosis was so variable, so broad – from mentally inverting letters to untidy writing – that it was, well, meaningless. Hence the diagnosis could proliferate so rapidly.

So, if dyslexia is not a medical phenomenon, then what accounts for the fact that it is being more commonly diagnosed? Elliott’s explanation is key: ‘[The condition] persists as a construct largely because it serves an emotional, not a scientific, function.’ That is, in a society in which we, as its increasingly isolated, individuated members, pale before big social or, in this case, educational problems and challenges, it becomes easier to turn them into facts of life, of nature. It is emotionally reassuring that there is nothing that can be done about the challenges we face.

No doubt the emotional benefits of this trick of the light are great. If your child is struggling at school, it’s a relief to know that it is not because he is lazy or thick. And if you yourself have trouble with your spelling, it is a weight lifted to know that it is not your fault. So while the Department of Education might not be able to solve any large-scale educational problems, it can certainly make people feel better about these problems.

But the problems with hyperactive diagnoses of this type are twofold. First, they devalue the existence of genuinely inhibiting conditions. So, for children suffering from a severe mental disability, for children struggling to overcome a genuine impediment to learning, their travails are rendered equivalent to those of a child who makes a lot of noise while running around, or as they’re otherwise known these days: an ADHD sufferer.

Secondly, the expansion of SEN diagnoses does a disservice to those children tagged with a mild condition. It doesn’t encourage children to strive, to improve their reading, to develop their mental arithmetic skills; instead it reconciles them to their troubles. It explains failure, even makes children feel good about these failures.

In the context of expanding SEN diagnoses, poor spelling or a lack of concentration cease to be problems to be overcome; they are just the way things are. The prospect of low achievement ceases to be a spur to doing better - it becomes an SEN-diagnosed child’s destiny.

SOURCE





21 September, 2010

Would YOU put your life in the hands of a junior doctor?

The evil impact of bureaucracy on British medical care

Every day thousands of newly qualified junior doctors make decisions which could mean the difference between life or death and they're often as terrified as the patient. And now EU rules cutting their working hours mean they're losing out on valuable experience and knowledge gained from working alongside senior colleagues.

They're also often left in sole charge of whole departments at night. Many have become disillusioned and are quitting the NHS before completing their two-year training. But what does all this mean when it comes to patient care?

We asked a junior doctor to share her diary with us. For obvious reasons, she's done so anonymously, although the Mail knows her identity. Her account makes for alarming reading....

MY FIRST DAY AS A NEW DOCTOR

After a brief health and safety meeting where we're told what different-coloured fire extinguishers do (will I ever remember?), I'm assigned a ward with 30 patients and four nurses. I'm in charge for the afternoon. I'm 25, I still can't cook properly, but I'm responsible for 30 lives. It's pretty terrifying.

My bleep goes off 20 seconds after I start. I ring the ward where the nurses are frantically searching for a doctor. A surge of adrenaline rushes through me. The harassed voice on the other end of the phone says: 'We've got a patient here with a brain tumour and we think she's septic (suffering from a life-threatening infection). Which antibiotics should she be on?'

I think an unspeakable word. Not only has this patient got one of the most serious conditions you can get, it's at a life-threatening stage. And I certainly haven't got a clue what medication she's due.

Should you not ask someone more senior, I croak? There is no one else. I make my way to the ward and introduce myself to the patient. As I discover will often happen, the minute I get there, someone says: 'It's OK, the doctor's here now', as if I will offer some miracle cure.

I can't tell them I haven't the faintest idea what to do. The patient is already on a complex array of medication, and if I start prescribing more I could make the situation worse.

So I decide to not give her anything. She doesn't look too ill at this stage and should make it through until someone more senior comes around. I later discover, to my huge relief, that the more senior doctor didn't prescribe any antibiotics either.

But I'm angry at myself for not knowing what to do. What if that lady had gone rapidly downhill and died? I shudder to think what would have happened if this had been a night shift when it's likely there would just be me and another junior doctor on duty.

I've already heard that night shifts are horrific. Before my time, junior doctors worked more day shifts and were often on call at night - in nearby hospital accommodation - if their patients got sick.

But because of new EU rules which state no one is allowed to work more than 48 hours a week, everyone works shifts – either day or night. As a result the one or two junior doctors working at night in a specialism can end up having to look after between 100 and 400 patients on their own, with no back-up.

And because we have to work either day or night, the number of day shifts we'll work has fallen. That means we won't work as often with senior staff such as consultants and registrars - the people who train us. So when we're alone at night and having to make decisions about patient care, I won't have as much knowledge. I'm terrified I'm going to make a mistake.

TRUST ME, DON'T FALL ILL AT NIGHT

One month into the job and my fingers are trembling as I dial the consultant's phone number. It's 3am. 'I've got a STEMI (ST segment elevation myocardial infarction), can you come in please?'

There is a grunt and then the phone goes dead. I have just got a consultant out of bed in the middle of the night to save the life of a heart attack patient. Fair enough, you might think, as that's his job. But there are different types of heart attacks and it's vital as a doctor to be able to distinguish between them.

With a STEMI, if you can locate the blockage in the artery that's causing the heart attack quickly and open it up with a stent (an artificial tube used to keep the arteries open), there's less chance the patient will die or suffer serious consequences.

Missing one is considered one of the worst things a doctor can do. The stent technique can only be performed by a consultant cardiologist in a specialised lab.

At night this means opening up the lab and calling staff in from home. Therefore it's pretty bad if you call a STEMI and turn out to be wrong. My friend was in charge one night when all the cardiac nurses said the scans definitely indicated a STEMI.

When the exhausted consultant turned up and discovered it wasn't, they were nowhere to be seen. The consultant was not happy. I was lucky that my first STEMI was very clear cut.

But it raises another issue: nights and weekends aren't good times to be admitted to hospital as there's just a skeleton staff. Of course they will do their utmost to keep you alive, and perform emergency surgery if you need it, but if you're not at death's door then they'll wait for their daytime colleagues.

And at night it's just a junior doctor - usually someone a year more advanced than me - who will decide if a patient is admitted or not. I'm not sure many people realise that the decisions are made by someone who hasn't even been working for two years - there are also no consultants in the hospital at night unless they are called in, which is rare.

Often the decisions aren't clear-cut, but there are few, if any, people around to seek advice from. It's not the kind of scenario I'd want a member of my family to be in.

I ACTUALLY SAVED SOMEONE'S LIFE

My first dramatic, life-or-death day. A gentleman in his 60s was admitted today vomiting litres of blood. I was first on the scene and it was pretty daunting. There was blood everywhere, his blood pressure was dangerously low and he was drifting in and out of consciousness.

He could have died at any moment so I knew I had to act fast. I quickly gave him fluids, arranged blood tests and organised an emergency procedure to examine the inside of his throat.

His wife and daughters - who were my age - were hysterical and kept asking me over and over if he was going to die. I was frantically trying to stabilise him and didn't want to tell them yet that it wasn't looking good.

With every second that went by I kept willing the gentleman to hold on and make it - it would have been so awful for him to die like this, covered in blood and in front of his family.

To my utter relief, the consultant arrived soon afterwards and began investigating the cause of the bleeding. The patient's needs were now way out of my league, so I had plenty of time to sit with his wife and daughters and explain what was happening.

They were so grateful. A senior colleague once told me having the time to talk to the family is one of the best things about being a junior doctor, and I agree. Better still, I was later told my actions probably saved the gentleman's life. He survived emergency surgery and went home with his wife and daughters a fortnight later. I got my first hug on the job.

ON OCCASION, I'M THE ONLY 'EXPERT' HERE

I'm now in my second year as a junior doctor which means I'm in charge at night and work is more stressful than ever as I now decide who is admitted to the hospital or not.

This means on top of dealing with seriously ill patients on my wards, I have to assess which A&E patients need to be admitted. Night shifts produce the almost comical phone calls from GPs and out-of-hours doctors who want advice.

When the person is a GP who qualified in 1968 and who therefore has 40 years' more experience than me, it does seem rather ridiculous.

Sometimes they ask for the ear nose and throat department, for example. I tell them that at 2am on a Sunday morning, I am the ENT department. They sound disappointed, but still send the patient in anyway, even though it's me who'll end up seeing them.

SHABBY CARE? BLAME THE EU

A patient was due for major surgery this morning, and last night needed a vital injection to stop his blood from clotting. It had to be given at a certain time to make sure it worked.

Had I qualified even just a few years back, I would have been working all last night and could have kept an eye on him or done it myself. But according to the new EU working rules, I have to go two and a half hours before his injection is due, so I asked one of the nurses to give to him.

Even though it wasn't the end of her shift, she said no, because she was going home soon. So I begged her to ask the next nurse on to do it, to which she responded: 'Yeah, yeah.'

I arrive this morning to discover the jab hasn't been done. I'm furious. I catch the nurse trying to give the patient the jab now - I can't believe what I'm seeing; if he has it just hours before the op, he'll bleed to death on the table, so I grab the needle.

Because of her, the patient's operation has to be delayed. But the consultant screams at me. There is no point answering back. I see the nurse again, but I avoid her. It's frustrating because there are so many good nurses and healthcare assistants who do their job properly and actually take junior doctors under their wing. I'm also furious that I wasn't allowed to stay late myself, and give my patient the injection. Blame the EU.

SOMETIMES RELATIVES ARE ENEMY NO 1

Tonight I get called to A&E to assess an elderly lady who fell at home. She's on her own because her family live miles away. She's terrified because it's Saturday night and there's a drunk guy on one side of her cubicle and someone having an asthma attack on the other.

Despite this, she's one of the sweetest ladies I have ever met - constantly apologising for causing more work for us. Unfortunately, her slip on the bathroom floor has fractured her hip.

When I tell her this, she begins to cry. It's awful - she's someone's granny and it seems so wrong that she's here alone. When she calms down, she explains one of her neighbours broke her hip last year. That woman never walked properly again and her family put her into a home. The problem is this lady's son thinks she should give up her flat, too.

She fears her accident will give him the perfect excuse - and she's right. Many patients this lady's age never fully recover from a fall. Even after months of rehabilitation, they are likely to have lost some mobility, which can make the difference between coping at home or not.

She's determined this won't happen to her. I admit her and wish her luck - and I really mean it. A few months later I was on the orthopaedics ward - where this lady had gradually been recovering - and heard a commotion.

The lady in question was arguing with her son, who had come to visit. She was so cross with him for trying to put her in a home, she hauled herself out of her chair and proceeded to climb up two flights of stairs, while her son watched open-mouthed.

I looked over and thought: 'Good for you!' The fact the lady had recovered so well was first due to the amazing work of the physio- therapists. But I think her fighting spirit and determination also helped.

DON'T BLAME JUNIOR DOCTORS FOR QUITTING

After nearly two years I'm slowly getting less worried about every decision I make - I guess that's experience. I could even say I am starting to enjoy my work.

However, many of my friends are so unhappy they're either going to work abroad or quitting medicine altogether. Those who are particularly frustrated are the surgical trainees. They hate the 48-hour week restriction, as it's now taking them three years rather than two to become a registrar (the level before a consultant) and they fear the quality of training is falling, too.

More than a few are considering moving to Australia, New Zealand or South Africa, where there aren't strict regulations on working hours, meaning they can progress faster - and some already have.

But, for now, I'm going to stick it out; stress and all. I've managed to get through what can only be the worst two years of my career, I've gained experience, so things can only get better...

SOURCE



Sad and angry, the millions of British women who dream of more babies: Thwarted by cash worries

Another consequence of blundering Left-inspired economic policies

Millions of women are being left ‘sad, devastated or angry’ after failing to have the number of children they dreamed of, a survey has found. Only one in 25 imagined having just one child when they grew up, but for nearly a third this becomes reality.

More than a quarter would like one more child than they have at present and a further one in ten would like two or more – but just 23 per cent believe this will happen.

The main reason for the ‘baby gap’ is financial constraints, with 45 per cent blaming household budgets. Just over a third of women reluctantly hold back on repeating pregnancy because they fear they would not be able to give enough attention to their existing children, either because their families already take up too much of their time or because of work pressures. More than a quarter say their plans for more children have been thwarted because of a reluctant partner.

One in five women revealed they were ‘sad’ at the size of their family, while one in eight were ‘jealous’ of others with more children. Three per cent described themselves as ‘angry’ and two per cent as ‘devastated’.

If the proportion of women interviewed who wanted to have more children was applied nationally, it would mean an extra 3.6million babies – swelling the current population of 61million by around 6 per cent. Instead, families have been shrinking in the UK, with the average number of children in each household standing at 1.3. In recent decades the figure was typically around 2.4.

Marital therapist and author Andrew G Marshall, who arranged the online survey of 2,304 woman with the BabyCentre website, warned this ‘fertility crisis’ had divided women into two camps – those with children and those without – and diverted attention from mothers who ‘ache for children they never had’.

The problem is so great in some cases that it can lead to the collapse of relationships. Almost one in 30 women admitted they were so determined to expand their family they would stop using contraception without telling their partner. ‘I discovered, almost by chance, how couples can be haunted – even broken – by the children they never had,’ said Mr Marshall.

‘While counselling a couple with one daughter I asked, on a moment’s intuition, if they’d have liked a larger family. Suddenly, all the repressed pain came tumbling out – tears, recrimination, anger.

‘Though it wasn’t an issue they’d raised themselves, talking about it proved a turning point for their counselling, so I started asking all my couples about family size. For most it was a source of contention, for many an open wound.’

He added there were two points at which disputes between couples about their number of children was most likely to lead to a split. ‘The first is when the desire for another baby peaks – generally 18 months to three years after the birth of the previous child – when the age difference would not be too big,’ he said.

‘The second point is reaching 40 and starting to reassess the first half of your life. I often counsel people who thought they’d come to terms with fewer children but are hit with a searing regret – just when it’s too late.’

The survey, published in Psychologies magazine, found just under a fifth of mothers have three children yet 32 per cent want to have a third child.

Only 6 per cent have four children but 16 per cent want this size of family. Most people, 54 per cent, said they were resigned to waiting for grandchildren to fill the gap in their lives. Just over a third said the their partners would change their minds.

Louise Chunn, editor of Psychologies, said: ‘The focus today has reverted to being a really good old-school mother but the reality is that having that kind of family is very expensive and time-consuming compared to when people grew up in those kinds of families. ‘Financial restraints during the recession and pressures of work for modern mothers mean the situation is not likely to improve in the near future.’

SOURCE



Britain goes halal... but no-one tells the public

A Mail on Sunday investigation – which will alarm anyone concerned about animal cruelty – has revealed that schools, hospitals, pubs and famous sporting venues such as Ascot and Twickenham are controversially serving up meat slaughtered in accordance with strict Islamic law to unwitting members of the public.

All the beef, chicken and lamb sold to fans at Wembley has secretly been prepared in accordance with sharia law, while Cheltenham College, which boasts of its ‘strong Christian ethos’, is one of several top public schools which also serves halal chicken to pupils without informing them.

Even Britain’s biggest hotel and restaurant group Whitbread, which owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, among many others, has admitted that more than three-quarters of its poultry is halal.

Animal welfare campaigners have long called for a ban on the traditional Islamic way of preparing meat – which involves killing animals by drawing a knife across their throats, without stunning them first – saying it is cruel and causes unnecessary pain.

Sharia law expressly forbids knocking the animal out with a bolt gun, as is usual in British slaughter­houses. Instead, it must be sentient when its throat is cut, and the blood allowed to drip from the carcass while a religious phrase in praise of Allah is recited.

The extent of halal meat consumption, even in areas of Britain with a very small Muslim population, was revealed as the Pope, on his first visit to Britain, expressed fears that the country was not doing enough to preserve traditional Christian values and customs.

In a strongly worded speech to Parliament, he said: ‘There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.’

But it is animal rights groups which have been most vociferous in their opposition to halal slaughter. Campaign organisation Viva!, whose supporters include Heather Mills and Joanna Lumley, said in a statement: ‘Other practices which may be undertaken for religious reasons, such as polygamy or the stoning of adulterers, are not permitted in the UK.

‘Religious freedom does not override other moral considerations and the suffering caused by this form of slaughter is so severe that it cannot be allowed to prevent action to be taken. Consumers can do their bit by boycotting places that persist in selling meat from unstunned animals.’

An RSPCA spokesman added: ‘The public have a right to know how their meat is produced. Many people are extremely concerned about animal welfare. What The Mail on Sunday has discovered shows that people are not being kept informed. The key to a more humane death for these animals is that they are stunned before slaughter.’

A spokesman for Twickenham, which sells only halal chicken despite not advertising the fact, insisted that the lack of transparency ‘had never been an issue’ and said: ‘Our consideration is more for those who want halal, to ensure they get it.’

Other institutions secretly serving up meat that is halal – or ‘permissible’ – include Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust and one of London’s ­biggest NHS Trusts, Guy’s and St ­Thomas’. A spokesman for the London hospitals admitted: ‘The only way ­people using the canteen would know they were ­eating halal chicken would be if they asked a member of staff directly.’

Whitbread, which also owns Table Table restaurants, Costa Coffee shops and Premier Inn hotels, admitted last night that 80 per cent of the chicken it served comes from halal poultry ­suppliers, including some in Muslim-dominated Turkey. A Whitbread spokesman said: ‘We don’t specify halal as a requirement in our procurement. We base our ­decision on quality and price. ‘It just turns out that we source that amount of chicken from suppliers that happen to be halal.

‘It is not mentioned on any of our menus because we don’t think there is customer demand for that information. But if people started asking, then we would definitely provide it.’

Rival operator Mitchells & Butlers, which owns the Harvester, Browns and Toby Carvery restaurant chains as well as pub chains All Bar One and O’Neill’s, was even more opaque about the source of its meats. A spokesman said it had a ‘broad range of suppliers’ but declined to say how many were halal-certified.

Ascot racecourse said it was easier to store and cook only one type of meat. ‘All our chicken is halal. This is not advertised as the menus are kept as simple as possible,’ said a spokesman.

A Football Association spokesman confirmed: ‘All the beef, chicken and lamb sold at Wembley Stadium is halal which means a large proportion of the meat on offer to our customers falls into this category.’ Pork, which is ­forbidden to Muslims, is also served at the stadium.

Britain’s Muslim community is exempt from regulations that require animals to be stunned before death, as is kosher meat prepared for the Jewish market.

Conservative MP Andrew Rosindell, secretary of the Associate Parliamentary Group for Animal Welfare, said: ‘I don’t object to people of different religious groups being catered for but it’s not something that should be imposed on everybody else.

'The vast majority of people in this country would not want meat of this origin. The outlets have a duty to let their customers know because some will object very strongly, not least because of the animal welfare implications of halal.’

Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, said: ‘We suspected that meat killed by the halal and kosher methods was being used for general consumption but we never imagined it was so widespread. It is disgraceful that ­people aren’t being told if the food they are being served is from meat that has not been stunned prior to slaughter.’

More HERE



British Pro-life campaigners say their freedom of speech has been denied after being arrested

We read:

"Two ‘pro-life’ activists claim their freedom of speech has been suppressed after they were arrested for holding a banner depicting an aborted foetus. The campaigners, Andy Stephenson, 35, and Kathryn Sloane, 19, say they were simply peacefully protesting outside an abortion clinic when police stepped in.

Staff in the clinic had called for help claiming patients arriving for appointments were traumatised and upset by the pair’s 7ft by 5ft banner, which showed an embryo aborted at eight weeks.

When officers ask Mr Stephenson and Miss Sloane to take down their banner, they did so - but immediately replaced it with a near-identical banner of a ten-week-old foetus.

At that point the duo were arrested and taken to a police station until the early hours of the morning. In a month’s time they will be told if they face prosecution for causing ‘harassment, alarm or distress’.

Mr Stephenson, who lives in Worthing, West Sussex, with his wife, daughter and baby son Quinn, went on: ‘We’re seeing success already in what we do, with people changing their minds about abortion.

Director of the Christian Legal Centre Andrea Williams, who is supporting the campaigning duo, said: ‘This is a test case for their democratic right to reveal what abortion really is like.

‘In the 21st century it is not appropriate to silence and to censor those who speak out against abortion, even if the manner in which they do so is not how many would choose.’

Source

The original moonbat admits he was wrong -- grudgingly

He once claimed that Veganism was the only ethical behaviour -- but is now promoting meat! Do I hear the rustle of currency somewhere in the background?

George Monbiot, the original Moonbat Liberal, confessed in a column in the Guardian that going vegan will not save the planet from global cooling, global warming or whatever they are calling it today.

From George Monbiot: “In the Guardian in 2002 I discussed the sharp rise in the number of the world’s livestock, and the connection between their consumption of grain and human malnutrition. After reviewing the figures, I concluded that veganism ‘is the only ethical response to what is arguably the world’s most urgent social justice issue.’

I still believe that the diversion of ever wider tracts of arable land from feeding people to feeding livestock is iniquitous and grotesque. So does the book I’m about to discuss. I no longer believe that the only ethical response is to stop eating meat.”

Then he went on to plug a book about meat.

There is another religion that recently reversed itself on meat. The Catholic church in the 1960s decided eating meat on non-Lenten Fridays was OK.

Then there is this bit from George Monbiot: “Feeding meat and bone meal to cows was insane. Feeding it to pigs, whose natural diet incorporates a fair bit of meat, makes sense, as long as it is rendered properly. The same goes for swill. Giving sterilized scraps to pigs solves two problems at once: waste disposal and the diversion of grain.

Instead we now dump or incinerate millions of tonnes of possible pig food and replace it with soya whose production trashes the Amazon. Waste food in the UK, Fairlie calculates, could make 800,000 tonnes of pork, or one sixth of our total meat consumption.”

You control what people eat, you control people. This has been done with every religion. Monbiot’s pagan Gaia religion is only the latest.

Apparently going Vegan was a deal breaker for many and so like Saint Paul kicking circumcision to the curb goes Monbiot’s vegetarianism.

SOURCE



Broccoli could provide potent pill to treat six million osteoarthritis sufferers

This is total speculation so far -- another example of trying to show that anything unpleasant is good for you and anything popular is bad for you. It's so predictable

Broccoli has been hailed by scientists as a 'super food' for joints which could cure millions of arthritis sufferers. The green vegetable is rich in the compound sulforaphane and initial research has suggested this may play a key role in protecting bones and joints and stop them from wasting away.

Scientists at the University of East Anglia have found the chemical blocks the enzymes that cause joint destruction in osteoarthritis, which is the most common form of arthritis. The team are now launching a new project that they hope will lead to a new broccoli-based treatment for Britain's six million arthritis sufferers.

Professor Ian Clark said: 'We all know broccoli is good for you but this is the first time it has been linked to a osteoarthritis. 'We know there is a chemical, sulforaphane, in broccoli that can slow down cartilage destruction and we want to see if this can actually get into the joints and stop the progress of the condition.

'The UK has an aging population and developing new strategies for combating age-related diseases such as osteoarthritis is vital - to improve the quality of life for sufferers but also to reduce the economic burden on society.'

Around 30 patients will be fed the cruciferous vegetable ahead of joint replacement operations. They will then be examined after their surgery to see if sulforaphane has successfully entered their joints. If the test is found to be effective then more patients will be recruited for a larger clinical trial.

Professor Clark said: 'The results could mean we prevent many, many more needing to go for surgery because progress of the disease will either be slowed down or completely halted. It really is a breakthrough project.' Currently, people suffering from arthritis can only choose between short-term pain relief or joint replacement operations.

Arthritis Research UK and the Diet and Health Research Industry Club (DRINC), is funding the £650,000 project.

Osteoarthritis is the leading cause of disability in the UK where it affects around six million people. It is a degenerative joint disease which gradually destroys the cartilage in the joints, particularly in the hands, feet, spine, hips and knees of older people.

Broccoli has previously been linked with reducing the risk of cancer and is regarded as a 'super food'. However, there has not yet been a major study of its effects on joint health.

SOURCE





20 September, 2010

Doctor 'forced out' over legitimate warnings sues for £100,000

Vicious NHS bureaucrats still in power

A doctor who raised the alarm about the clinic that sent Baby P home to die is to sue Great Ormond Street Hospital. Dr Kim Holt claims the hospital forced her out of her job for blowing the whistle.

In April 2006, she wrote to managers of St Ann’s Hospital in Haringey, North London, which used doctors provided by Great Ormond Street, to warn staff shortages and the clinic’s ‘chaotic’ appointment system would lead to tragedy. As a result, the 51-year-old consultant paediatrician claims she was forced out of her job and has been unable to return despite not being guilty of any wrongdoing.

A year later, Baby Peter Connelly went to the clinic, and, because of a shortage of experienced consultants, was seen by a locum, who failed to spot the 17-month old had a broken back. Two days after that, he was found dead in his cot with broken ribs, cuts to his head, a missing finger tip, broken teeth, and scores of bruises.

After Peter’s death, Dr Holt, who has 25 years of medical experience, was offered £120,000 by Great Ormond Street if she signed confidentiality agreements to stay quiet about the matter. She refused.

Despite her complaints, made in a letter signed by three other doctors, the workload at the clinic only increased as further consultant posts were cut.

She was signed off with stress in February 2007, and was on sick leave when Baby P was seen. Her solicitors last night told The Times that she had filed a personal injury claim in the High Court. She is understood to be seeking up to £100,000.

Dr Holt has been on ‘authorised leave’ for the last four years on full pay, of between £75,000 and £100,000. In a statement seen by The Times, her solicitors say that ‘despite being fit for work since the autumn of 2007, Dr Holt has still not been supported back into her post’.

Last year, a damning report by NHS London largely vindicated her criticisms of the clinic run by Haringey Primary Care Trust. The report described Dr Holt as highly intelligent and committed. It added: ‘Dr Holt also perceived hostility from management following a formal complaint that she raised against them in 2006 and other concerns that she subsequently raised with her employer.’

When the report came out last year she said: ‘The children had no one else to speak up for them and we felt passionately that we were letting them down. ‘The response of management was hostile and bullying.’

Baby P’s mother, her partner and a lodger were jailed for causing or allowing the abuse of the child to happen.

Matt Shaw, of the pressure group Remedy UK said: ‘A whistle-blowing policy has to be transparent and open, and it seems completely counter-productive when trusts simply offer people money to keep quiet and then go and work somewhere else.’

Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Trust confirmed that it had received a solicitor’s letter. A spokesman said the trust ‘has been trying to facilitate that workplace mediation between Dr Holt and colleagues in Haringey’.

The Department of Health said ‘whistle-blowers must be encouraged and protected when they speak out’. Two other consultants who signed the letter, Dr Haitham el Basheer and Dr Sethu Wariyar, resigned.

SOURCE



Britain's energy policy is in crisis

The Government's policy on renewable energy is wasteful and counter-productive, says Christopher Booker.

Forget the latest proposal by Caroline Spelman, our Environment Secretary, that all hospitals should in future be built on hills, to stop them being submerged beneath the rising seas brought by global warming (even that serial panic-monger Al Gore predicts that sea levels will rise by only 20 feet). A more serious problem is the chaos inflicted on our energy policy by our willing compliance with an EU obligation to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 34 per cent within 10 years.

Behind the fog of official spin, it becomes ever more obvious that the schemes devised to meet the EU target of generating nearly a third of our energy from renewable sources by 2020 - six times more than at present - are a massive self-delusion. Even though they will cost us hundreds of billions of pounds, paid largely through soaring electricity bills, the energy they produce will be derisory - certainly nowhere near enough to plug the looming 40 per cent shortfall in our supplies, as many of our older power stations are forced to close.

Take the Government's proposed Renewable Heat Incentive, the costs of which could, by 2030, outweigh its benefits by as much as £13 billion. The hope is that by 2020, Britain will have installed two million "heat pumps" to extract warmth from the air and soil. But a taxpayer-funded study by the Energy Saving Trust found that, of 83 air-sourced systems already installed at up to £20,000 each, only one was efficient enough to qualify as "renewable energy". This was so embarrassing that many of the higher figures have been given as estimates to provide a more reassuring picture.

Equally questionable is our enthusiasm for solar panels. Ignoring the costly disaster of similar schemes in Spain and Germany, we have now copied them by offering absurdly inflated subsidies ("feed-in tariffs") that force us all to pay their owners between three and eight times the going rate for the tiny amount of power they produce. Last year, solar's contribution to the grid averaged 2.3 megawatts - so minuscule that it was barely a 1,000th of the output of one large coal-fired power station.

Then there is the generation of power and heat from burning biomass, such as wood and straw. Drax, the giant 3.9-gigawatt coal-fired power station in Yorkshire, has the largest facility in the world for co-firing one of its six boilers with biomass. But so rigged against biomass is the subsidy structure that Drax cannot afford to use much of it, because its cost is a third higher than that of coal, under a system not due to be reviewed until 2013. Drax's plan to spend £2 billion on three dedicated biomass plants, generating more than 800 megawatts, has now been stalled for the same reason.

Next, there is the farce of those electric cars, which make no economic or environmental sense. Only a few thousand have been sold and, even with a £5,000 public subsidy, the forthcoming Nissan Leaf will cost £23,000 and be able to travel only 100 miles before its battery needs an eight-hour recharge, with electricity derived from fossil fuels, reducing any supposed saving on CO2.

At least the Government has dropped the idea of spending £30 billion on the Severn tidal barrage, which would produce little more electricity than a CO2-free nuclear power station, at 10 times the cost. But it has ruled that permission will be given to build four of the new coal-fired power stations we desperately need only if we pay £14 billion to fit them with "carbon capture and storage", piping off their CO2 to bury it in holes under the North Sea. This would double the cost of their electricity - and recent studies show it to be no more than a fantasy anyway, because the required injection rates would soon shatter the rock structure.

The Government's flagship "renewables" policy is to spend £100 billion on 10,000 onshore and offshore wind turbines, adding to the 3,000 we already have (which are so inefficient that their combined output last year was equivalent to one modest coal-fired plant). Apart from the colossal cost (suppliers must buy electricity from wind at double or treble the price of conventional power, passed on through our energy bills), there is no way that more than a fraction of the 6,000 offshore turbines the Government dreams of could be built by 2020, since this would require erecting two such huge structures every day for 10 years, when installing just one can take weeks. Even so, the more turbines we have, the more we will need new gas-fired power plants to provide back-up for when the wind drops - emitting as much CO2 as the turbines nominally save.

If all this sounds like pure lunacy, we must recall that two years ago, our MPs voted all but unanimously for the Climate Change Act. This commits Britain, uniquely in the world, to cutting its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, at a cost of up to £18 billion a year, or £734 billion in total. This is what our politicians have made the law of the land, although in practice it could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economy.

Now, no doubt, we have to add in the cost of building all our hospitals on hilltops, to prevent them vanishing under those Noah-like inundations that our Environment Secretary is fixated on. But, of course, none of this will have any impact on reducing overall CO2 emissions. We contribute less than 2 per cent to the global total, while China's emissions alone increase by more than that every year.

SOURCE



War on excess packaging in Britain

I have some sympathy with the Greenies over this. I find that I need tools to get into a lot of the packaging around things that I buy

A landmark prosecution will heap pressure on Britain's supermarkets to end hugely wasteful food packaging. Sainsbury's is being taken to court for using excessive wrapping in a move that could open the door to a wave of similar charges being brought.

The store is the first supermarket to face official action over wasteful packaging. Grocery giants have dodged charges for years in an area of law riddled with loopholes.

But trading standards officers have acted decisively over Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Slow Matured Ultimate Beef. It not only comes in a plastic shrink-wrap, but is placed inside a plastic tray, topped with a transparent plastic lid and surrounded with a cardboard sleeve. The meat is a typical example of supermarkets' excess packaging and the resulting waste that campaigners say is turning the country into the `dustbin of Europe'.



Around 5 per cent of the average shopping basket is packaging and the UK produces 9.3million tons of waste packaging a year - the equivalent weight of 245 jumbo jets every week.

Sainsbury's last night said it was `surprised' by the legal action and is in the process of changing to slimmer packaging.

But it will be hard to appease campaigners who point out that more rubbish goes to landfill in Britain than in any other European country. With items such as shrink-wrapped coconuts and single bananas sold in plastic trays, shoppers are routinely charged extra for buying fruit and vegetables that are wrapped in plastic rather than sold loose.

Prepared meat cuts often come in plastic trays, while biscuit and cake manufacturers swathe their products in many layers of trays, sleeves and boxes.

The law on excess packaging was introduced in 1999 and appears to offer a simple route to outlawing waste. It says packaging should be limited to `the minimum adequate amount' to ensure safety and hygiene.

However, just four companies have been prosecuted, while the maximum fine is just £5,000. Councils argue that small print get-out clauses make it so difficult to prosecute that none has even tried to take a store or manufacturer to court since 2006. They have called for the law to be tightened up and backed by an increase in the maximum fine to £50,000.

The case against Sainsbury's was launched by Lincolnshire Trading Standards following a complaint from a resident earlier this year. Its head of trading standards, Peter Heafield, said he had `a duty to enforce regulations'.

The store expressed surprise at the legal threat. The company said it has been working on reducing packaging on products across the store. This includes a new way to wrap and present its Taste the Difference beef which, it claims, reduces the total amount of packaging by 53 per cent.

A spokesman said the store was hopeful the council would drop the case in the light of the changes. `We are surprised at the comments made by Lincolnshire County Council, which do not reflect the very positive outcome of our meeting with Lincolnshire's
packaging team,' he said. Some of the old packaging was still in stores yesterday, but the firm said this should be replaced by the slimmed down version over the next few days.

Margaret Eaton, of the Local Government Association, said: `Britain is the dustbin of Europe. Families are fed up with having to carry so much packaging home from the supermarket. Stores need to up their game so it's easier for people to do their bit to help the environment.'

Friends of the Earth welcomed the prosecution, saying: `There is far too much packaging on our food and I hope this prosecution will encourage other supermarkets to get their houses in order.

But the British Retail Consortium said stores are making great efforts to reduce packaging and waste because excess wrapping is a `pointless cost'. Sainsbury's added that packaging is essential to keep food fresh and therefore prevent food waste.

SOURCE



Bonfire of elf 'n' safety: British Prime Minister plans to tear up regulations which 'have become a music hall joke'

David Cameron is to unveil sweeping changes to ‘mad’ health and safety rules which are putting a massive burden on British business and public services. The Prime Minister will launch a bonfire of rules and will declare war on the mushrooming compensation culture at his party’s conference next month.

A whole slew of regulations on police, teachers and ambulance workers will be lifted so they no longer face the threat of being sued for making common sense decisions. Mr Cameron will tear up Labour rules which have been blamed for creating a culture where someone must be to blame for every mishap.

Teachers will no longer have to fill in reams of ‘risk assessment’ forms before taking youngsters on school trips, and killjoy council officials will find it much harder to ban firework displays and street parties.

Ambulance-chasing law firms will also be targeted. Personal injury lawyers will face restrictions on advertising and the fees they can charge.

And Mr Cameron wants to slash red tape which means even ‘low risk’ work places like offices are subject to the same tough rules as factories. A government source said: ‘The PM thinks the current health and safety rules are mad. The system needs drastic reform. ‘What we are determined to see is a great extension of personal freedom, at the same time as a rolling back both of the state and the power of the courts.’

The changes are contained in a report by Margaret Thatcher’s former trade secretary Lord Young, whose 40 recommendations will be published at the Tory conference. He is expected to conclude that a barrage of legal cases have made health and safety laws ‘a music hall joke’.

Earlier this year, Mr Cameron told the Daily Mail that the health and safety obsession had ‘encroached into various different parts of national life, whether it’s stopping Bonfire Night or stopping an ambulance getting to an emergency. We need to deal with it all in a comprehensive way. ‘We all want our children to have great experiences outside the classroom, whether it’s visiting museums or farms or geography field trips or residential courses.

'We want all the things we had in our own childhood to be available today. There is a worry that it’s becoming too difficult to do because there are too many forms to fill in, too many risks to assess.’ He added: ‘We do have a good record of health and safety at work in this country, and we have a low level of industrial accidents and that’s important. ‘You can deal with this problem without jeopardising that at all.

'The neurosis comes from excessive litigation fears, unclear law, mission creep, Europe, town halls. It’s all of those things and we have to deal with each one. That’s what we will do.’

The changes aim to exempt the emergency services from lawsuits or prosecution for breaching health and safety laws when they are taking necessary action or risking their own safety to help others or stop crime. The rules will include part-time police officers.

And it says claims should no longer be considered by courts after ‘Good Samaritan’ situations which have seen people sued for trying to give first aid. It will mean people will no longer be able to be sued for causing a personal injury through no fault of their own, when they had been trying to do the right thing, or had been trying to stop someone else injuring themselves.

There is likely also to be crackdown on lawyers’ ‘no win, no fee’ arrangements, which encourage lawyers to take on speculative lawsuits because they can demand huge costs from defendants like the NHS if they win. Personal injury law firms will be limited in what they can say and what sort of advertising they can engage in.

Other changes would see success fees charged by lawyers in ‘no win, no fee’ agreements no longer recoverable from defendants – instead they would take their cut from the victim’s pay out.

Judges would also be given the power to cap the costs individual claimants can recover in personal injury cases.

Lord Young would also like to see a reduction in the huge number of risk assessment forms that teachers have to fill in before going on trips. There will instead be a simple consent form for parents to sign.

SOURCE



Will all we have turn to dust and ashes, just like my Soviet roubles?

Britain cannot go on as it is. Either our dominant elite will recognise that their ideas are wrong, and must be changed. Or a series of avalanches will sweep away our comfortable lives. I think I know which is more likely. Catastrophes do happen, and people survive them after a fashion, though their lives are never really the same afterwards.

The post-1968 ruling class are so convinced of their own rightness that I can no longer believe that anything will persuade them they might be even a little bit wrong.

And once again I am reminded of the complacent fools’ paradise that was the Soviet Union in its last years. Somewhere I still have the bank book I acquired in communist Moscow, after a lengthy interro­gation about my class background. In it are recorded the few hundred roubles I deposited there and will never see again. But Russians often had many thousands stored away. All of it was dust and ashes when reality finally burst through the broken Iron Curtain. Great mountain ranges of savings were abolished in an evening, as the currency was ‘revalued’ out of existence.

Supposedly generous health schemes collapsed – though in truth they had long been short of drugs, especially painkillers and antibiotics, and the filthiness of the hospitals had been a grave danger to recovery. Jobs that had been meant to last for life were abolished, and the places where those jobs were done vanished. Pensions went unpaid or became valueless.

The money, the jobs, the Welfare State were all based on an illusion. When the illusion became unsustainable, they crumbled.

Well, how can we afford to carry 1.5 million people who have never worked? How can we afford to house jobless migrant families in Notting Hill grandeur? How can we sustain the enormous NHS which we gorged with cash in good times, while quietly loading it with enormous long-term debts to finance a building splurge?

None of this is real. Our economy continues to function out of habit and faith rather than because we are paying our way in the world.

Our state education system is a gigantic international joke, so bad that the remaining employers here would mostly much rather hire Poles with hardly a word of English than the products of our anarchic classrooms, where multitudes have ‘special needs’ and failure is the only thing that is rewarded.

The people who said that manufacturing doesn’t matter now admit they were wrong, but that does not bring back the lost factories. The North Sea money that carried us over much of the worst is nearly all spent.

We have acquired a Government whose main reason for existence is to protect the status quo, which hates to think and which loves to pose – but to which there is no sensible opposition.

Only a contrite confession of failure, combined with a readiness to reconsider every policy from welfare to crime to schools to immi­gration, could possibly avert the great smash which seems increasingly likely to me. We had our first warning in the failure of the banks. What will follow, if we pay no attention, will I think be worse.

The sly, dishonest propagandists who claim that the ‘War on Drugs’ has failed really do need to explain what war this is, exactly, and when it was ever fought. Look at the pathetic case of George Michael, who – drugged out of his mind with supposedly harmless, supposedly soft cannabis – drove his powerful spoilt brat’s car into a shop.

It occurs to me that he could just as easily have hurled his machine at a family with young children, or have caused a gory pile-up on a motorway. Those unmoved by this possibility might look at the man himself, a pitiable husk whose long-term admirers must be increasingly embarrassed by him.

And is it not reasonable to suggest that much of this folly, crime and degradation results from his repeated use of drugs which are supposedly illegal? Yet what has happened to Mr Michael when he has been caught breaking that law, as he has been over and over again?

Meaningless ‘cautions’, that is what – though his case has not been so spectacular as that of the ‘singer’ Pete Doherty, who has been in court for drugs offences so many times that the Criminal Records computer overheats when his name is fed into it.

If these famous people were properly punished, and if the police did not constantly seek excuses to fail to do their jobs, then we might actually have that war. And we would have much less drug use.

Laws that are enforced are effective. Look how quickly the market traders of Britain surrendered to kilograms after the prosecution of Steve Thoburn. When did you last see anyone smoking on an aeroplane, where such an act can have you led off the flight in handcuffs?

Meanwhile, those which are not enforced are worthless – like the non-existent ban on using a hand-held mobile phone while driving, which the police cannot be bothered to put into effect.

Let us please have a real war on drugs, especially on the brain-wrecking poison cannabis, the dangers of which have been concealed by decades of falsehood. There will of course be casualties. But, as the wretched George Michael has shown, there are plenty of casualties now, when no war is taking place.

Christians cannot be right about anything these days. If Stephen Fry had remarked that returning to Britain via Heathrow was like arriving in the Third World – which it so often is – then his worshippers and sycophants would have said what a clever and original thought it was.

And BBC Radio 4, or Radio Fry as it should be renamed as he is on it so much, would have hired him to make a series of programmes about the awfulness of airports, to be delivered in that insufferable, giggly golden syrup voice of his.

But when a Cardinal says the same thing, he is denounced by all Left-thinking people for racism, even though there is not the slightest evidence that any such thought had crossed his mind.

It is the slovenly shabbiness, and the general feeling of arriving somewhere worse than the place that you have come from, which is the problem with Heathrow and many other places in this country too.

Once the police forces of this country could have relied on fierce public support against cuts in their funds and manpower. Now I think they will get very little.

For years I have said they should sell the helicopters and fast cars and get back on foot. I said they should reopen police stations and man them. I said they should remember that the middle classes are their friends. And almost all I heard in return was moaning that I was anti-police and unfair to a fine body of men. Piffle.

The police forces of this country have broken their covenant with law-abiding people and now they lack friends when they need them most. If they had listened to me instead of being so sensitive, this would not have happened. Flattery is not the same as friendship, and criticism is not necessarily hostile.

SOURCE



British council treats HETEROsexuality as abnormal

Town Hall bosses are asking staff to take part in a 'heterosexuality quiz' so they can gain a greater understanding of what it is like to be gay. The quiz, devised by managers at Buckinghamshire County Council, is part of an equality and diversity course called 'Respecting Sexuality'.

Questions, which are described as a 'twist' on those routinely asked of homosexuals, include 'What do you think caused your heterosexuality?', 'Is it possible your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?', and 'If you've never slept with a person of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn't prefer it?'

The course, which encourages staff to 'have a better understanding' of the challenges faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender colleagues, includes a film which follows the experience of four fictitious employees.

The film is said to 'build in intensity' and can provoke a variety of reactions. Trainers' notes state: 'Initial reactions to the stories vary widely, with heterosexual (straight) people often dismissing the stories as exaggerated or rare and homosexual (gay people) immediately recognising the issues and emotions explored here as honest and relevant.'

The Buckinghamshire council course is just one of a series of publicly funded equality and diversity sessions uncovered in a series of Freedom of Information requests by The Mail on Sunday.

Cardiff, Slough and Cheshire West and Cheshire councils have also incorporated quizzes in their sessions. In Slough, employees ask colleagues questions from a specially prepared grid such as 'Can you sing a few lines from a Supremes song?' and 'Do you read The Guardian?'

Staff at Cardiff City Council are challenged to name the inventor of the 'great British classic car the Mini', and to identify the symbol used to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers Alliance, said: 'With huge pressure on the public finances, and council tax nearly doubled over the last decade, it is vital that councils show they can start cutting back on waste to keep down taxes and avoid unnecessary pressure on services.

'To see councils wasting money on such a ludicrous, politically-correct exercise in that environment is disgusting. 'Ensuring that councils don't discriminate doesn't require such insane attempts at a superficial understanding of different communities.'

A spokesman for Buckinghamshire County Council said its quiz was devised to help staff in its adoption service. He was unable to say how many had taken part or at what cost.

'The questions from the quiz are not used as a quiz directed at individuals, but some of the questions are used as a tool during the course to provoke the attendees' thought process and to enable the attendees to put themselves in someone else's shoes,' he added.

SOURCE



Can drinking gallons of water really banish your wrinkles?

It is important to put this myth to rest as drinking a lot of water can lead to hyponatremia and death.

For years it has been one of the most basic rules of beauty: if you want a clear, youthful complexion, you must drink at least eight glasses of water every day.

Facialists, make-up artists, alternative health practitioners, nutritionists — and yes, we beauty journalists — have all agreed that a good dose of H2O will ‘flush out’ our systems, banish spots, plump out wrinkles and moisturise our skin from the inside out. It really is the elixir of great-looking skin.

Various dermatologists have suggested in recent years that this theory simply doesn’t wash, insisting the only thing maintaining moisture levels in our skin is the outer layer of skin.

But most beauty devotees remain convinced; just look at all those female celebrities permanently clutching a bottle of the stuff.

Recent research seemed to suggest the water lovers are right — and that certain types of water are even better for you than others.

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, female participants were told to drink one and a half litres of water a day for eight weeks without changing any other elements of their lifestyle.

Some drank ordinary tap water. Others drank Willow Water, a natural mineral water sourced in the Lake District. It contains salicin, a derivative of willow bark which, when metabolised, turns into salicylic acid, an ingredient that is found in a number of skin products and is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and acts in the same way as aspirin.

Each woman had her picture taken before and after the trial using the latest, state-of-the-art Visia complexion analysis system, which examines the extent and depth of wrinkles, the texture of skin and the amount of sun damage, to allow detailed comparison.

At the end of the trial, the results were astonishing. Those who drank ordinary tap water saw a 19 per cent reduction in their wrinkles. Those who drank Willow Water (and no, until this point I hadn’t heard of it, either) saw a dramatic 24 per cent reduction.

It all sounds very persuasive, but is it really true? As a beauty journalist, I’ve tried everything from lasers to ludicrously expensive face creams and Botox in order to banish my wrinkles. But could simply upping my water intake have saved me a fortune? There’s only one way to find out: put it to the test.

I have my face analysed by Visia, just like the guinea pigs in the new research, and embark on the Willow Water diet — 126 bottles of water, three a day for six weeks — and wonder if it will work its magic on me.

One of my main concerns about drinking so much is that I simply won’t have the time and will be spending all day in the ladies’. But, surprisingly, knocking back one and half litres a day isn’t that difficult. I manage to fit in three green bottles between meals and I even take them on holiday with me — 48 of them wedged into the car as we drive 2,000 miles around France.

Oddly, I find that I’m visiting the loo less frequently, but much more pleasingly I find that I feel calmer and sleep more deeply, too.

I don’t change my normal skincare regime: high strength vitamin C serum (SkinCeuticals’ Phloretin for the first month and Cellex- C’s High Potency Serum for the second) followed by SPF-50 broad-spectrum sunscreen.

My diet is much the same as always, apart from during the holiday when, of course, I eat far more bread, pastries and ice cream, and drink much more wine than usual. On the positive side, I also eat even more salad and fruit — bursting with water — than usual.

According to Dr Howard Murad, a U.S. dermatologist and ‘inclusive health’ expert, this is a particularly good way for us to up our water intake and is vital for controlling the ageing process.

Murad has long been of the opinion that rather than glugging water from a glass, you should increase your fluid intake through your food as much as you can since the body assimilates it far better.

‘The water we consume when we eat fresh fruit and vegetables isn’t just any water,’ he says. ‘It’s water that is encapsulated within the structure of food to provide us with a slow and steady infusion as we digest. ‘It’s also water that is locked into foods that are rich in antioxidants and other key nutrients, which protect and promote cellular integrity. ‘This is exactly the kind of water that we should be consuming.’

Given all the fruit and salad I’ve consumed in France, this news put me in a confident mood when I return to the Visia clinic. Peering at my reflection in the mirror that morning, however, the truth is I can’t see any visible difference at all. Indeed, the initial reading of the second image shows — to my horror — that my wrinkles are fractionally more extensive than before!

This would not surprise dermatologist Dr Nick Lowe, of the Cranley Clinic, West London. ‘Drinking water bears little relation to moisture levels in the skin,’ he says. ‘The thing that maintains the skin’s moisture levels is the skin barrier, which is the outermost layer. ‘If that is intact, it will trap moisture to stop it being lost from the skin. The way to moisturise is not from the inside, but from the outside. ‘You would have to be dehydrated almost to the point of death before it would show in the skin. ‘If you have a normal skin barrier, it will maintain as much moisture in the skin as it can, regardless of what is going on in the body.

The theory that drinking lots of water helps to improve acne has never been proven.’

When the before and after images of my face are carefully examined by leading cosmetic aesthetician Dr Rita Rakus (who has nothing to do with Willow Water or the trial), she reckons that there is slight lessening of the (many) wrinkles on my eyelids, but I’m certainly not convinced.

Peering closely at the images on the maximum magnification, I can just about see what she means, but the difference is so small it could just be that I’d had a good night’s sleep. I’d drunk 126 bottles of water in a bid to boost my skin and it hadn’t made a drop of difference.

SOURCE



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





19 September, 2010

'Growing pains' girl, 11, dies from tumour after waking up paralysed

A scan would have saved her but the NHS is very miserly with scans

A girl of 11 has died from an undiagnosed tumour after waking up paralysed the day after starting secondary school. Courtney Runciman’s family said she had seemed fit and healthy and showed no signs of the disease, which had spread all the way up her spine.

She had been to the doctor in the summer holidays with neck and back aches but they were dismissed as growing pains.

Her mother Shelly, 35, from Hove, East Sussex, said: ‘We can’t believe it could happen so quickly. ‘She went to school on her first day and was absolutely fine. ‘After school she went to her friend’s house but then started to have neck pains and by the morning she was paralysed.’

A scan revealed a tumour from the bottom of her spine to two inches from her neck. Courtney was taken to London’s King’s College Hospital but her condition deteriorated after emergency surgery.

Mrs Runciman said: 'At the hospital she was 90 per cent paralysed and she couldn't understand why her legs weren't working. 'I tried to explain to her that she had a bug in her back and that her legs had gone to sleep.'

Her family made the agonising decision to switch off her life-support machine but Courtney survived for another 19 hours before dying on Wednesday.

Her grandmother, Brenda Van-der-Stein, said: ‘She seemed like a healthy 11-year-old girl. She really enjoyed her first day but it was her first and last.’

Janet Felkin, headteacher of Blatchington Mill School where Courtney was a pupil for just one day, said: 'Courtney had a good first day. She met her tutor group and was involved in activities all day. 'When we heard the news we were absolutely shocked. We had counsellors on hand for the youngsters who were deeply shocked and affected.

Carol Grey, headteacher of West Blatchington Primary School, where Courtney had been a pupil since Year 5, said: 'Our school community has been greatly saddened by the tragic death of Courtney. 'It is clear from the reaction of staff, pupils and parents that Courtney was a very special young girl. 'We have cherished memories of her kindness, sweet nature and generosity of spirit. 'Our thoughts are with Courtney's family at this difficult time. Her loss will be greatly felt by those whose lives she has touched.'

SOURCE



More than 70 British children may have died needlessly after heart surgery in NHS hospitals

Dozens of babies and children may have died needlessly following operations in paediatric heart units, an investigation has found. Researchers have identified 76 "excess" deaths which occurred at four centres for paediatric heart surgery in England. Patients' groups described the findings as "deeply alarming" and called for an investigation.

A report into death rates at all 11 of England's paediatric heart surgery units reveals that Guy's and St Thomas' Trust in London had 24 excess deaths over an eight year period to 2008. Leeds General Infirmary had 20 excess deaths over the same period, Glenfield Hospital in Leicester had 23 and the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford had nine.

Leeds General Infirmary last night admitted to problems performing one type of open heart surgery on children. The death rate for the procedure was more than five times that of other units.

The report was submitted to an inquiry into children's heart surgery at the the John Radcliffe where surgery remains suspended following an inquiry into a spate of recent baby deaths. However, the findings about the other ten hospitals were kept secret until The Sunday Telegraph obtained them through Freedom of Information disclosures.

All the units are currently under review. In November, an NHS committee will name several surgical units earmarked for closures, while others will be expanded.

The study was carried out by Professor David Spiegelhalter, from the University of Cambridge, who led the statistics team at the Bristol Inquiry into dozens of needless baby deaths in the 1980s and 90s when the children's cardiac unit at the city's Royal Infirmary was dubbed "the killing fields".

His research found that death rates were highest in Leicester, with 65 per cent more deaths than expected, followed by the Radcliffe, with 50 per cent "excess" deaths, and Leeds, with a rate of 43 per cent and Guy's with a rate of 29 per cent. Currently units only publish mortality rates for specific procedures.

Professor Spiegelhalter's research is the first to both establish how many deaths were above the norm for each procedure, and to pool the figures to show the number of excess deaths and death rates at each unit.

Prof Spiegelhalter said: "I think it is very unfortunate that parents aren't given access to these figures, it is fairly basic information. If I was a parent in that situation, I'd want it." He urged hospitals to probe the findings thoroughly. The professor said: "These are alerts, they raise questions. The trusts need to undertake further investigation to establish the reasons why."

Katherine Murphy, from the Patients' Association, described the findings as "deeply alarming" and urged the Government to investigate the issues exposed.

Cecilia Yardley, from The Children's Heart Federation, an umbrella body of 22 specialist heart organisations, urged units "not to close ranks" in the wake of the findings. She said: "We appreciate that rating the performance of surgical teams is complex, given that the children whom these statistics represent are often gravely ill. "But the figures raise questions about what accounts for the range of outcomes," she said.

Professor Spiegelhalter's study also provided figures for the seven other paediatric surgery units in England.

Birmingham Children's Hospital - which treated more cases than Guy's Hospital over the same period - had 32 fewer deaths than would have been expected; Great Ormond Street had 20 fewer; and Alder Hey and Bristol Children's Hospital each had eight fewer. The Freeman Hospital in Newcastle, Southampton General Hospital and Brompton hospital all had results in line with expectations.

Dr Peter Belfield, the medical director of Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust said the figures for its unit reflected problems performing one type of open heart surgery, called repair of Tetralogy of Fallot, which is the most common congenital heart problem. Following efforts to "concentrate expertise" at the hospital, results from 2007 onwards were in line with other centres, he said.

Separate data discloses 13 deaths - six babies and seven children - between 2000 and 2008 at the unit following the procedure, a death rate of around 10 per cent, for an operation which had an average mortality rate of 2 per cent across the rest of the country. Outcomes for other operations were in line with the rest of the country throughout the period.

A spokesman for Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust said its unit operated on particularly sick and young babies because the hospital operates a large programme to detect congenital heart defects before birth. In addition, 17 per cent of cases were referred by other centres, because cases were particularly ill or complex.

Dr Kevin Harris, medical director of University Hospitals of Leicester Trust, said its unit ran the largest type of cardiac life support unit in the country, meaning the hospital took some extraordinarily ill children, who were more likely to die. He said the results from 2006 onwards, where the trust's mortality rates were closer to average, were "a real testament" to the cardiac team.

Paediatric cardiac surgery remains suspended at John Radcliffe Hospital, following the inquiry earlier this year into four deaths in 10 weeks, including Nathalie Lo, who died 23 days after her birth last November, following a heart operation.

In July, an NHS inquiry said there was no evidence of surgical failings in the particular cases, but criticised the way the small unit was run, and said surgery should not be allowed to continue unless major changes were made to the unit.

The NHS team responsible for specialist services said Dr Spiegelhalter's figures showed improvement in the last two years of the period examined, from 2006 to 2008, and did not suggest "any immediate safety concerns".

Dr Martin Ashton-Key, medical advisor for the NHS National Specialised Commissioning Team, said the data had "limited application" as a way to compare centres, because of the lack of risk adjustment, and the low volumes of procedures which could be directly compared.

Prof Bruce Keogh, NHS Medical Director said the data covering the period up till 2008 did "not reflect the current standard of practice which is now as good as anywhere in the world."

SOURCE



An inspiring and famous poem you are unlikely to have encountered at school

Why? Because it is patriotic, though in an understated British way. It is about the attitudes that built the British empire. It points out the transferability of attitudes learnt in elite private school sport (in this case cricket) to the wider world. The allusion to a Gatling (an early machine gun) probably places it in the days of the Boer war. In one word, it is about doggedness or "sticking to it" in the face of difficulty: Never give up. I hope some readers like the poem as much as I do. It is at least a glimpse into another world

Vitai Lampada

("They Pass On The Torch of Life")

There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night --
Ten to make and the match to win --
A bumping pitch and a blinding light,
An hour to play and the last man in.
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat,
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame,
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

The sand of the desert is sodden red, --
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; --
The Gatling's jammed and the Colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed his banks,
And England's far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks:
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

This is the word that year by year,
While in her place the School is set,
Every one of her sons must hear,
And none that hears it dare forget.
This they all with a joyful mind
Bear through life like a torch in flame,
And falling fling to the host behind --
'Play up! play up! and play the game!'

By Sir Henry Newbolt (1862-1938)



The Airbrushing of Middle East History

In the Guardian, Giles Tremlett writes about Europe’s first Christian theme park in Mallorca. He writes:

Exact details are scant, but the Buenos Aires park offers its re-enactments of the creation of mankind, the birth of Christ, the resurrection and the last supper eight times a day. With a cast of extras in the costumes of Romans and early Palestinians, the park advertises itself as ‘a place where everyone can learn about the origins of spirituality..

‘Early Palestinians’, eh? And just who were these ‘early Palestinians’? Well, they were what we would otherwise call... Jews. Jesus was a Jew. The ‘last supper’ was the Jewish Passover seder. The land of the New Testament was called Judea and Samaria. The people who lived there and were persecuted by the Romans were not called Palestinians. They were Jews.

Yet Jews do not figure at all in Tremlett’s story (whether they figure as such in Mallorca’s theme park itself is not clear). This is not some idle mistake. This is the wholesale adoption of the fictional Arab narrative which airbrushes the Jews out of their own story and claims, falsely, that Jesus was a Palestinian.

Much of this rewriting of history comes from Arab Christians based at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem under the aegis of Father Naim Ateek (who is such a personal favourite with so many in the Church of England), and which is a crucial source of systematic, theologically-based lies and libels about Israel. Ateek has revived the ancient Christian doctrine of supersessionism, or replacement theology – the doctrine which said the Jews had forfeited all God’s promises to them which had been inherited instead by the Christians, and which fuelled centuries of Christian anti-Jewish pogroms -- and fused it with ‘Palestinianism’ to create the mendacious impression that the Palestinian Arabs were the original inhabitants of the land of Israel and that Jesus was a ‘Palestinian’.

Ateek has sought to plant the impression that the Jews are crucifying the ‘Palestinians’ just as they helped crucify Jesus. In December 2000, he wrote that Palestinian Christmas celebrations were ‘marred by the destructive powers of the modern-day ‘Herods’ in the Israeli government.’ In his 2001 Easter message, he wrote: ‘The Israeli government crucifixion system is operating daily. Palestine has become the place of the skull.’ And, in a sermon in February 2001, he likened the Israeli occupation to the boulder sealing Christ’s tomb. With these three images, Ateek has figuratively blamed Israel for trying to kill the infant Jesus, crucifying him and blocking the resurrection of Christ. And in 2005 Sabeel issued a liturgy titled ‘The Contemporary Stations of the Cross’ that equates Israel’s founding with Jesus’ death sentence and the construction of a security barrier with his crucifixion.

It is a narrative which gives the lie to the naive belief that the Middle East impasse is a fight over land boundaries. It is instead an attempt to excise from the region not just the Jewish state of Israel, not just every single Jew from a future state of Palestine, but the historical evidence that this land – including Judea and Samaria – was the Jewish national home centuries before Arabs invaded and conquered it, and many more centuries before Arabs started to style themselves as Palestinian. It is an attack on Jewish historical national identity in order to justify the attempt to destroy the Jewish nation state.

That is why the Arabs have destroyed so much archeological evidence of the ancient kingdom of Judea gathered from excavations on the Temple Mount. That’s why the Jews are being airbrushed out of the history of the region, the origins of Jesus and of their own story.

Isn’t it wonderful to have quality newspapers written by educated writers?

SOURCE



British Airways caterer dishes up plans to make most of its meals halal

Cringing nonsense -- but it could be worth it if it leads to some good Balti curries

The world’s largest independent airline caterer has announced plans to make the majority of its meals halal. GateGourmet, which provides meals for all long-haul British Airways flights from Heathrow, wants to standardise production to drive down costs and boost profits.

The caterer has been tempted into the switch by lucrative business available from Middle Eastern and Asian airlines. Most carriers currently offer a halal option, but these meals need to be prepared, stored and transported separately in order to comply with Muslim dietary rules – making them more expensive.

Removing halal meals from the menu is not an option for a company serving airlines across the globe, but managers at the Swiss-based catering giant believe it makes financial sense to ensure most meals meet with the strict Islamic rules.

‘My aim is to make our large hub operations halal compliant,’ said Guy Dubois, GateGroup. Mr Dubois said the plans were not driven by social or religious considerations, but simply by cost. He said: ‘If I produce everything according to halal standards, I will reduce complexity and increase cost effectiveness.’

The catering firm is about to open a dedicated halal kitchen at Heathrow – where meals are prepared for 14 airlines including BA. The specialist kitchen will be smaller than the main kitchen that already exists at the airport, but could be the first stage in a gradual switch.

The move follows the sharp growth of carriers such as Emirates, of Dubai, and Etihad, of Abu Dhabi, which require all meals to be halal. But GateGourmet caters for numerous airlines from non-Muslim countries, which would also be affected by the changes. The company prepares more than 200million meals a year from its 100 flight kitchens in more than 25 countries.

Compelling customers to eat food prepared in accordance with the Muslim faith could be controversial in some countries, including the UK.

Yesterday British Airways played down the significance of the catering firm’s proposals. A spokesman said: ‘British Airways has no plans to change its current menus or halal meal process.’

Peter van Niekerk, head of GateGroup in the UK, said: ‘We are at the moment competing for some more halal business and when we make that, the scale tips.’ He said the company would consult with customers such as BA and Cathay Pacific to ‘manage perceptions and manage such a transition’.

SOURCE



How can a nation ring fence foreign aid but slash defence? How the British taxpayer's money is misspent... and even makes poverty worse

As an idea, it is beyond reproach. An end to child labour, education for all and free school books for every Indian primary school pupil. It is called Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan — Education For All — and the logo for the project is a jaunty cartoon of two tiny Indian children sitting astride a giant pencil, happily learning to read.

The reality, however, leaves a lot to be desired. This Indian development programme has been tragically pillaged by officials, who have robbed impoverished children of their hopes. Auditors have discovered that around £70 million of aid money has gone missing from the gigantic scheme, which was designed to fund schools for India’s 350 million children.

A report by India’s Auditor General, seen by the Daily Mail, reveals widespread ‘diversions and mis-utilisations’, showing that almost £14 million has been spent on items that have nothing to do with schools. Instead, corrupt officials bought cars and other luxuries. In one instance, aid money was used to buy four luxury beds, at a cost of £17,754.

In the state of Andhra Pradesh, money was wasted on 7,531 colour televisions — despite the fact that many of the classrooms have no electricity. Computers were bought and now lie idle in stockrooms.

Tens of thousands of pounds were allocated to 2,369 schools in the district of Jharkhand that do not even exist, and £150,000 was paid into a mystery bank account with no reason given.

In Muzaffarpur, Bihar state, it was found that only £400,000 out of an allocated £1.1 million had gone to schools. One woman involved in the widespread fraud has been accused of siphoning off up to £6 million from the funds, reportedly even using £44,000 of it to make a movie directed by her son.

Money was also used by officials to finance religious festivities. Auditors checking individual state accounts found sums of up to £4.8 million missing from the books — although an investigation into the precise figures involved is ongoing.

And who is paying for the Education For All project? You are, of course — and it is your money that has gone missing.

Surprised? Don’t be — this extraordinarily ill-advised million-pound expenditure is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Britain’s multi-billion-pound overseas aid bill.
Indeed, our country’s vast aid budget has just been ring-fenced by the Conservative Government, despite the swingeing cuts facing ordinary Britons.

This week, the Mail revealed the same spend thrift attitude extended to overseas aid officials, who are living the high life at taxpayers’ expense. Devastating documents showed that executives at the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) stayed at luxury hotels and dined in London’s finest restaurants.

Taypayers paid more than £700 for the bosses of the CDC fund to dine at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and one official claimed £336.54 for a taxi from Brussels to Paris.

So just how much is Britain spending on foreign aid, where is it spent and why? And can the country really afford to lavish such largesse around the world as it confronts its own huge national debt?

This year, Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has spent a staggering £9.1 billion on aid, funding 90 different countries.

Some money goes to nations which are desperately in need of help, such as impoverished African states on the brink of famine. Here, the concern is often not just whether the money is needed, but whether it is getting to those in need. Every year, millions of pounds of British taxpayers’ money leaks into the pockets of corrupt officials and warlords.

In other cases, however, Britain is paying huge amounts in aid to projects of questionable worth. In South America, for example, DFID indirectly funds an organisation which represents sex workers called RedTraSex. It refers to itself as ‘a movement in high heels’.

Then there is China. Last year, Britain paid £32 million to the Communist superpower, which is now officially classified by the World Bank as a middle-income country.
Britain has given Beijing on average £34.5 million a year since 2004 to fund schools, fight Aids and provide fresh water.

Ironically, as we face hard times in Britain, China is forecast to become the biggest economic power in the world within five years. Indeed, the latest figures from the World Bank show China’s GDP was £2.8 trillion in 2008 — eclipsed only by the U.S. and Japan. So why on earth are we giving them aid?

Even the Left-wing Baroness Symons, Tony Blair’s former Middle East envoy and an ex-Foreign Office minister, has questioned the Government’s priorities on aid to China. She acknowledged parts of China had ‘real poverty and deprivation’, but added: ‘I would not have thought by any standards that China can resile (step back) from the responsibility of dealing with its own poverty, given its enormous, and growing, wealth.’

She added: ‘The primary responsibility for dealing with that poverty should be with the government, which is now presiding over a huge and growing economy, an enormous sovereign wealth fund and which is such a strong competitor to our own companies when they are doing business abroad.’

The Tories now plan to bring the Chinese programme to an end in 2011 — but by then many more millions of pounds will have been spent on the Chinese economy.

And then there’s India, the single largest recipient of UK overseas aid — between 2003 and 2008, it benefited from £1 billion in aid. And two years ago, Gordon Brown agreed to give the former colony another £825 million by 2011.

In the past ten years, British development aid to the country has almost trebled — despite the fact the Indian economy is ranked 11th in the world and is predicted to overtake the British economy as the world’s fifth largest by 2015.

Canit be right that British taxpayers give such vast sums to a nation that can afford nuclear weapons, a space programme and has a defence budget of £25 billion?
Of course, India has hundreds of millions of poor people. But it is now so well-off that it has started an overseas aid programme of its own.

Indeed, MPs on the International Development Select Committee recently said India ‘seems to have become tired of being cast in the role of aid recipient’.

And on a visit to India in July, even our own Prime Minister suggested Britain should bend its knee to the former colony. He said: ‘I have come to your country in a spirit of humility. I know that Britain cannot rely on sentiment and shared history for a place in India’s future. Your country has the whole world beating a path to its door.’ The Indian government now refuses to allow DFID to work directly with most local charities, insisting that payments be processed through official channels.

This, said the MPs, caused ‘ difficulties in tracking money trails, and problems in determining outcomes’. One might ask why Britain gives such huge amounts in the face of such an attitude. The majority of DFID’s spending — although at 56 per cent, perhaps less than you might expect — does go to what are known as the ‘least developed countries’, mostly in Africa.

Here, the problem is often what happens when the aid reaches these desperate countries. Earlier this year, for example, the House of Commons Public Affairs Committee (PAC) looked at the case of Malawi, in southeast Africa.

Britain has spent £312 million helping the country since 2003, despite evidence of widespread corruption.Indeed, a commission has recommended 118 cases for prosecution for aid fraud in the past year alone. MPs also expressed concern that around £23 million had been wasted buying surplus fertiliser at peak prices. The chairman of the PAC cited it as a case of ‘gross mismanagement’.

There were questions over whether the matter was down to corruption or sheer ineptitude. Either way, the money has gone.

More HERE



Qualifications chief attacks 'diseased' British exams system

The article below blames the British system of competing exam providers for a race to the bottom but ignores the pressure from the former Labor government to maximize pass rates at all costs. If government had stressed quality rather than quantity, the boards would have competed in that arena

Schoolchildren are being short-changed by a “corrupt” examinations system, according to a former Government advisor. The creation of multiple exam boards is fuelling unhealthy competition between providers as they effectively make their tests easier to win business from schools, it was claimed.

Mick Waters, a former official at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, suggested that it was in examiners' interests to help pupils pass to make a profit. The claims are made in a new book – Reinventing Schools, Reforming Teaching – which charts how the education system has been undermined by political and commercial pressures.

Mr Waters, who quit as the QCA’s director of curriculum last year, told researchers: “The system is diseased, almost corrupt. We've got a set of exam bodies who are in a market place.... I've seen people from awarding bodies talk to head teachers implying that their examinations are easier. “Not only that, they provide the text book to help you through it.”

Currently, Britain has multiple examination boards that sell course syllabuses and exam papers to individual schools. Head teachers can choose which syllabuses to follow in qualifications such as A-levels and GCSEs. In many cases, examiners write text books linked to the test syllabus and provide pointers to help teachers maximise pupils’ results.

Although they are vetted by Ofqual, the exams regulator, critics claim that unhealthy competition between boards distorts the education system, with schools opting for tests that produce the highest grades. In the book, Mr Waters accused chief examiners of “insider trading”.

John Bangs, visiting professor at London University’s Institute of Education, and one of the book’s authors, said examiners wrote the “textbooks, as well as the questions, and Ofqual does not have the nerve to regulate them”. “It's a great problem,” he said. “This is a major finding.” He called for the creation of a single examination board. [He would]

Prof Maurice Galton, from Cambridge University, who co-authored the book, said: “If I'm at a board and I've got less people getting As than another board, I'm going to bump my As up because otherwise the schools will look at it and think 'I'll use this board, it's easier to get any A'.”

SOURCE





18 September, 2010

NHS doctors 'don't know how to hold a baby'


(What a gorgeous baby in the pic above)

Doctors' knowledge of paediatrics is so poor that some GPs do not even know how to hold a baby, the head of a report into children's services has claimed.

All GPs and nurses should be given additional paediatric training under proposals by Prof Sir Ian Kennedy, the former chair of the Healthcare Commission, who led the report. Health care budgets should include a ring-fenced amount set aside for care for young people, he said, as he claimed that the requirements of adults are routinely prioritised over the needs of children.

The report was commissioned in the wake of a number of high-profile cases highlighting the failings of children's services, including the death of Peter Connelly – known at the time as "Baby P" – in Haringey in 2007.

Sir Ian said GPs should be given training on the comprehensive care of children and young people "as a matter of urgency", and that one doctor had told him that "some GPs do not even know how to hold a baby". He added: "There needs to be an identification of the money that should be allocated to children from the total pot. Currently children do not get a look-in because the needs of adults simply trump the needs of children."

In a recent study by UNICEF, the UK ranked bottom out of 25 industrialised countries for the wellbeing of children.

SOURCE



British Prime Minister backs French leader over expulsions of Gypsies

A new Entente Cordiale?

David Cameron rounded on the European Commission last night over its extraordinary criticism of France’s expulsion of thousands of Roma gypsies – as President Sarkozy said the controversial policy would continue.

The Prime Minister revealed he had tackled the Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso over the issue after the Commission likened the actions of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to those of the Nazis.

He said it was vital that commissioners ‘choose their language carefully’ when interfering in the domestic affairs of member states. But he also warned France that it must not target illegal Roma immigrants on the basis of their ethnic origin.

President Sarkozy, who was involved in an exchange with the Romanian President Traian Basescu at the Commission today, revealed he had had a blazing row with Mr Barroso during lunch at yesterday’s EU summit, which was overshadowed by the Roma issue. He described the EU’s criticism of France as ‘disgusting and shameful’ – as the unprecedented row between the Commission and the founding member state intensified.

The row erupted after EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding branded the French policy a ‘disgrace’ and called for legal action. She said she was ‘appalled’ by the expulsion of thousands of Roma, adding: ‘This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War.’ She later said she regretted interpretations of her statement.

President Sarkozy was unrepentant yesterday and vowed to continue dismantling illegal immigrant camps. He said 199 camps, containing 5,400 people, had been dismantled. He launched a ferocious attack on Commissioner Reding, describing her comments as ‘outrageous’ – and warning that they were ‘unacceptable’ to both himself and other EU leaders. He said: ‘The disgusting and shameful words that were used – the Second World War, the evocation of the Jews - was something that shocked us deeply. 'I am the French president and I cannot allow my country to be insulted.’

President Sarkozy says the expulsions are a matter of security and that the European Commission should come up with Europe-wide solutions rather than criticising France. He said there had been no expulsions based on ethnicity.

Downing Street sources said Mr Cameron and President Sarkozy had discussed the issue before the formal start of yesterday’s summit. He also thanked the French president for laying on a helicopter which enabled him to reach his dying father Ian in the south of France last week.

Mr Cameron told reporters he had raised the issue of the Commission’s criticism of France during yesterday’s lunch. He said: ‘Members of the Commission have to choose their language carefully. Of course the Commission has a role in enforcing and identifying community law. 'But I think it’s important that we respect people and speak in a respectful way and I note that the Commissioner in question has actually given an apology for the words that she used.’

But he also said it was important did not target the Roma unfairly, adding: ‘It’s important that countries are able to take action if there is a problem of people acting illegally or being illegally in your country and that you are able to remove them. 'But it’s important that no-one should ever do that on the basis of someone’s ethnic group.’

Sarkozy has also received backing today from the Italian president Silvio Berlusconi. Mr Berlusconi told Le Figaro newspaper that it 'would have been better if Madame Reding had dealt with the subject in private with French leaders before expressing herself publicly as she did'. He continued: 'The problem of the Roma is not specifically French. It concerns every country in Europe. 'It is therefore necessary to put this subject on the agenda at the European Council so we can all discuss it together in order to find a common position,' he said.

SOURCE



Straight talking from the Holy Father



The Pope issued a clarion call to defend Christianity last night, saying Christmas was at risk of being struck from the calendar. In a strongly worded speech delivered in Parliament, Benedict XVI bluntly told politicians not to ‘silence’ religion and discourage public celebration of its most important festivals.

And in a thinly veiled attack on controversial equality legislation, he said laws which forced Christians to act against their consciences were wrong.

‘There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere,’ he told senior politicians and public figures. ‘There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.’

Benedict, who is now half way through his UK trip, insisted Christianity should not be forced to the sidelines and festivals including Christmas and Easter altered to avoid offence.

In his speech, the Pope said he was voicing his concern at the growing marginalisation of religion - particularly of Christianity - even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance.

'There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or least relegated to the purely private sphere,' he said.

'There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none.

'And there are those who argue - paradoxically, with the intention of eliminating discrimination - that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience.

'These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.'

The Pope said a moral failure was to blame for the global financial crisis. He said: 'There is widespread agreement that the lack of a solid ethical foundation for economic activity has contributed to the grave difficulties now being experienced by millions of people throughout the world.'

And he said that, just as governments had come to the rescue of the banks, judged 'too big to fail', they must now act to help the world's poorest people. He said: 'Here is an enterprise, worthy of the world's attention, that is truly "too big to fail".'

He then urged those present to use their 'respective sphere of influence' to ensure religion was involved in discourse 'in every sphere of national life'.

After the speech, the Pope went to Westminster Abbey to participate in a joint service with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.

Dr Williams welcomed the Pope and spoke of the historic visit as 'a special time of grace and of growth in our shared calling'. He said: 'It is a particular pleasure that on this historic occasion we are able to come together as bishops of the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in this country to greet you, Your Holiness, during a visit which we all hope will be of significance both to the Church of Christ and to British society.

'May this historic visit be for all of us a special time of grace and of growth in our shared calling, as you, Your Holiness, bring us the word of the Gospel afresh.'

Dr Williams said Christian leaders must be ready to fight back against the critics of religion. He said their duty 'involves a readiness to respond to the various trends in our cultural environment that seek to present Christian faith as both an obstacle to human freedom and a scandal to human intellect'.

Dr Williams continued: 'Our presence together as British bishops here today is a sign of the way in which, in this country, we see our task as one and indivisible.

The Pope said society was moving away from its Christian heritage. He said: 'On the one hand, the surrounding culture is growing ever more distant from its Christian roots, despite a deep and widespread hunger for spiritual nourishment.

More HERE



Straight talking British judge

Highlights the Gypsy problem

A judge has launched an astonishing attack on criminal Eastern European gangs who come to Britain to target elderly and vulnerable people. District judge Bruce Morgan said he was 'deeply concerned' about the impact of criminals who arrive in the country to steal from innocent people.

His comments came as he sentenced teenager Ceca Dadic, who is believed to be a Roma gypsy from Bosnia, to six months for her 'despicable' role in trying to steal a 78-year-old woman's purse. The 19-year-old mother-of-two admitted attempted theft as she appeared at Worcester Magistrates' Court on Wednesday. She distracted her elderly victim by asking her advice on a cream cake while her underage accomplice tried to unzip the woman's purse.

Mr Morgan said Dadic was part of a criminal gang and added that he had dealt with six similar cases in the previous five days.

Dadic wept as the judge told her – through an interpreter – that he hoped her six-month sentence in youth custody would act as a deterrent to others. He added that she and an accomplice, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had acted in a 'despicable' way.

He said: 'There is no doubt in my mind that you are part of a criminal gang who come to this country from Eastern Europe for the purpose of committing crime. 'I'm deeply concerned about the number of young people like you who I deal with who come from Eastern Europe, find addresses in Birmingham and then go to the neighbouring counties to commit crime.'

The court heard that Dadic had been convicted four times in the past year of theft or attempted theft.

The court heard that Dadic, from Birmingham, was in a Somerfield supermarket in Worcester on August 12 when she asked the elderly shopper whether a particular cake contained strawberry jam. Liam Finch, prosecuting, said: 'She asked her: "would my grandmother like it?"' Security guards then saw Dadic's accomplice try to unzip the woman's purse and called police.

Mr Morgan said: 'You say you are sorry – I don't accept that at all. 'I accept you may be a small part of a large organisation but you are an essential part of it. 'To pick on and try to distract elderly ladies for the sole purpose of financial gain is quite frankly despicable'.

SOURCE



The shifty Lord Oxburgh consulted the fox on how to guard the henhouse

Warmism just lives and breathes crookedness. Crookedness is essential to its continued existence

Steve McIntyre:

The Oxburgh Report stated: "The eleven representative publications that the Panel considered in detail are listed in Appendix B. The papers cover a period of more than twenty years and were selected on the advice of the Royal Society."

This statement has been questioned ever since the publication of the Oxburgh Report. That the Royal Society did not select the papers has been clear for some time.

In Oxburgh’s testimony to the Parliamentary Committee, Oxburgh stated:

Q – Right. Can you tell us how did you choose the 11 publications?

Ox- We didn’t choose the 11 publications. They were basically what… We needed something that would be provide a pretty good introduction to work of the unit as it had evolved over the years. The publications were suggested to us came via the university and by the royal society, I believe. We feel ..let me just emphasize..they were just a start… because all of us were novices in this area, we all felt that they were a very good introduction – we moved on. We looked at other publications… we asked for raw materials, things of that kind. The press made quite a meal out of the choice of publications. For anyone on the panel, this all seems over the top. It didn’t have that significance.

Q – there are two things that arise out of that. It was a small unit. Are you saying that Jones, the subject of the investigation, chose the papers that were to be investigated… and that it wasn’t the panel or royal Society?

Ox – No suggestion Jones chose them,

Q – Where did they come from?

Ox- I believe they came … I suspect that that the […] involved was Professor Liss who was acting head of the unit who’d been brought in from outside the unit…he’s been an chemical oceanographer who is broadly interested in area. he in consultation with people with royal society and maybe others outside the unit who had some familiarity.

Q -So the list did not come from the unit – you’re absolutely categorical ?

Ox – Well I cant

Q – So the list did not come from CRU?

Ox – I can’t prove a negative. There’s absolutely no indication that it did.

Q – Your publicity said that it came from Royal Society. The Panel given list before Royal Society asked.

Ox – I… Not as far as I know. You Might be right but I don’t believe so. No certainly I don’t think that can be true.

In a recent post, I observed that the list of eleven publications was sent out as early as March 4 – well before a perfunctory email from Trevor Davies to Martin Rees and Brian Hoskins of the Royal Society on March 12 saying that Oxburgh wanted to be able to say that the list had been chosen “in consultation with the Royal Society”, even though the list had already been sent out.

I recently noticed that Lisa Williams of the UEA Registrar’s Office was shown as the author of the list version sent to panelists – thereby offering a lead towards solving the authorship of the list, which was accompanied by the statement:

"These key publications have been selected because of their pertinence to the specific criticisms which have been levelled against CRU’s research findings as a result of the theft of emails."

Today – after almost six months – the riddle of who prepared the list is resolved. Lisa Williams wrote:

Dear Mr McIntyre

In response to your recent enquiry I can provide the following information.

I understand that the list of 11 papers for the Oxburgh review was collated by Prof Trevor Davies, in consultation with others. He was also the author of the statement at the bottom of the list.

Yours sincerely, Lisa Williams

So the list was not selected by the Royal Society after all, but by Trevor Davies, the pro-VC of the University and former director of CRU. In consultation with “others”. Dare one hypothesize that these mysterious “others” will turn out to be Jones and Briffa after all?

SOURCE



British teenagers to pass a high school exam in sex

This is all part of a trend which has seen a record rate of pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases among British teenagers. So-called "education" has just encouraged sexual experimentation among increasingly younger age-groups.

Teenagers will learn how to use a condom and obtain the morning after pill as part of the first GCSE-style qualification in sex. Pupils will be able to gain the equivalent of a D grade under the new course which has been devised to raise awareness of issues surrounding relationships, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases. The Government-funded qualification is being offered in nine schools and colleges for the first time this term with plans to expand it across the country.

Last night, the move sparked outrage among families’ groups who claimed it legitimised sexual promiscuity and failed to make any reference to marriage.

But Suzanne Cant, research manager at the qualifications provider NCFE, which is running the course, said: “Sexual health education should play a part in the curriculum for all young people. “The latest figures show teenage pregnancy rates are falling, but not falling at a fast enough rate to meet Government targets.

Meanwhile, annual diagnoses for sexually-transmitted diseases are already in the hundreds of thousands – and increasing all the time.

“Part of the way to tackle these issues is through education and [the] qualification offers a formal way to assess and certificate learners to help ensure the right messages are being delivered and understood.”

NCFE - which used to stand for Northern Council for Further Education - formally launched the Level 1 award in sexual health awareness this week following official accreditation by Ofqual, the exams regulator. Level 1 examinations are equivalent to low-level GCSEs graded D to G.

The course, which is aimed towards students who are not yet ready to take full GCSEs, and takes just nine hours to teach,asks pupils to give the names of male and female sexual organs, describe two examples of “risky sexual behaviour” and outline two methods of contraception “that would be suitable for a young person”.

Students, who will be encouraged to take the course between the age of 14 and 16, are taught about the age at which someone can access sexual health services “without parental consent”.

Another question asks pupils to outline “two things it’s important to remember when using a condom” and list two places where emergency contraception, such as the morning after pill, may be obtained.

A further section focuses on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. Pupils are asked how HIV can be transmitted and to outline one possible consequence of not having Chlamydia treated.

Norman Wells, from the Family Education Trust, said: “In spite of its name, this new qualification is more about promoting sexual experimentation and the use of contraception by children than it is about promoting sexual health.

“The only sure way of avoiding sexually transmitted infections is to keep sexual intimacy within a faithful lifelong relationship, yet this course makes no mention of marriage or of commitment and faithfulness. “Instead, the focus is on telling pupils how to use contraceptives and how they can access them behind their parents’ backs. Schools exist to assist and support parents in the education of their children, not to undermine them in this way.”

A spokesman for the Department for Education said: “There are hundreds of qualifications that are accredited by Ofqual for a plethora of different ages, abilities and settings. We rightly trust heads to choose what is best for their pupils."

Most students already receive sex education at secondary school, although Labour dropped plans to make lessons compulsory in primaries earlier this year as part of the Parliamentary “wash-up” before the General Election.

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A spectre is haunting Britain: "The corpse of Brownism still haunts the political debate. The 50p tax rate will stay, not because of any tangible benefit it brings, but because of ‘fairness’. Taxes will have to rise to plug the deficit, not cut to ensure growth and greater tax takes in time. Free school milk is to remain despite having no discernable health benefits because of the long shadow that Thatcher has cast over the Conservative party.”





17 September, 2010

NHS gastric bypass goes wrong

Gastric bypass father who lost 12 stone sues NHS after eating becomes agony

At 24 stone, Tim Daily was so overweight he was battling mini-strokes, diabetes and a heart condition. The 47-year-old’s obesity problem was serious enough that he was offered a gastric bypass operation on the NHS.

But although the surgery helped him lose half his body weight over the next four months, he says the results have left him in a ‘living hell’. He experiences agonising pain whenever he swallows solid food, has been treated in hospital for malnutrition and is now fed through a tube linked directly to his stomach.

Mr Daily, a financial adviser, said: ‘I would rather be 24 stone again than live like this. ‘It is a living hell. I’m not the happy-chappy guy I used to be. I feel down all the time. I’m ill and desperate.

‘I crave food every day. ‘On a good day I can eat a biscuit washed down with plenty of morphine. Otherwise I don’t eat. ‘I was always a very social person. Going out for meals was a huge part of my life. I can’t even pop out for a meal – it’s ruined my life.’ If I do eat a meal I’m having to down loads of morphine then my wife has to cart me off because I’ve passed out. ‘Christmas dinner, Easter, family occasions – they are all ruined for me.

‘I was promised when I had the operation I would still be able to eat afterwards. ‘How would you like it if you could never eat food again?’ He is suing the NHS for a six-figure sum, claiming that he was not warned about possible complications from the £12,000 surgery.

He says he has been left with the choice of never eating solids again or a one in four chance of death if he has experimental corrective surgery. ‘I could die if I have the corrective operation. I’m only 47 and I can’t put myself at risk because I have a wife, two daughters and two grandchildren,’ he added. Mr Daily, who is 5ft 11in, had the gastric bypass operation in October 2008 when his body mass index stood at nearly 47 – morbidly obese. Anything above 30 is considered obese.

The operation realigned his digestive tract and reduced the size of his stomach with staples to prevent him eating too much or too often.

But last July, a tube was fitted into his stomach after his weight halved and he was diagnosed with malnutrition because he was not eating enough. Now nutrients are pumped straight into his stomach from a backpack worn during the day and a machine beside his bed at night.

He weighs 11st 7lb and has a BMI of 22.5 but is still losing weight and is too tired to work. Before the operation he worked a 45-hour week, earning £100,000 a year. Now he averages less than three hours’ work a day and his wife Jenny, 46, is his full-time carer. Doctors believe that the pain he suffers from eating solid food is a result of nerve damage caused by complications following the operation.

On the rare occasions he does have solid food he needs to take oral morphine. In a typical month Mr Daily, of Newport Pagnell, in Buckinghamshire, drinks nearly a gallon of the painkiller.

He has instructed solicitors Kester Cunningham John to sue for loss of quality of life, loss of earnings and the pain he is suffering. A spokesman said: ‘We are currently assessing the case and waiting for further medical evidence from the hospital trust.’

Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which runs Charing Cross Hospital in West London, yesterday said it had not received any legal paperwork but insisted possible side-effects were explained to Mr Daily. ‘With every gastric bypass operation there is a five per cent risk of health complications. ‘Before undergoing any form of surgery we explain the risks and potential complications to every patient, and ask for their consent.’

Weight-loss surgery on the NHS has increased ten-fold since 2000. In the 12 months to June last year, 4,619 people had operations.

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Nurse refused dying man glass of water then took his mobile phone when he tried to call for help


The bitch NHS nurse above. How would you like to fall into HER hands?

A nurse seized a dying man’s mobile phone after he called a hospital switchboard for help when she ignored his plea for a glass of water. Staff nurse Caroline Lowe took the phone and asked Derek Sauter, 60, ‘what lies have you been telling?’, a tribunal heard yesterday.

The 53-year-old was facing being struck off the nursing register over Mr Sauter’s ordeal in his final hours suffering from a terminal lung disease at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, Kent.

Mr Sauter, a retired administrator with NHS watchdog the Healthcare Commission, died the day after the nurse refused him water.

His widow, Susan, told the Nursing and Midwifery Council how her husband made the call from his bed as he gasped for air. She said: ‘At 21.00 I called and heard him asking for water and being told he would have to wait for the [nursing] handover. It showed an uncaring attitude. ‘At 23.04 he called me. He said he was being ignored. At 23.39 he called again and said he himself had called the doctor.

‘I overheard someone say: ‘What lies have you been telling?’ and the line went dead. I called and got no answer on the mobile or the ward. I felt it had been confiscated.’

Mr Sauter had been admitted with a chest infection on June 27, 2008. Mrs Sauter was given assurances ‘that my husband should be home in two or three days after having received a course of antibiotics’, the NMC’s conduct and competence committee heard.

Lowe, in charge on the night shift, failed to notify Mrs Sauter when he deteriorated and only called her after he had died from pneumonia, shortly after 7am, she said. ‘At 06.36 he sounded breathless and distressed. I told him to immediately buzz the nurses and I would make my way there. ‘I missed a call at 07.29 from the hospital. One of the nurses said he had taken a turn for the worst.’

Once at hospital Mrs Sauter learned her husband of 41 years had died. Lowe showed ‘no sympathy at all’ and said her husband’s distressed call to the doctor ‘could be seen as harassment’, Mrs Sauter said. ‘I was very upset and hurt by this – I had just been told my husband had died unexpectedly.’

Earlier the panel heard how Mr Sauter had apologised to the nursing staff, as he lay dying, about his unruly behaviour the night before.

It was also told how he was taken off monitoring equipment and moved to a side room because he was ‘disturbing other patients’. Lowe failed to carry out basic checks or call a doctor after being alerted his oxygen levels had plummeted.

Adrianna McDonnell, for the NMC, said: ‘This was a gentle, kind and caring man who found it necessary in the last hours of his life to say sorry, something we have heard Miss Lowe was never able to do.’

Yesterday the panel ruled that Lowe, of Theydon Bois, Essex, ‘failed to respect the dignity’ of Mr Sauter, left him to die alone and responded inappropriately to his distress. But her actions did not contribute to his death, it added. It will decide today whether to strike her off.

Lowe, who did not appear, stated in a letter she had resigned and did not intend to return to nursing.

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Apple correctness in British prisons

The guy is nuts

Prisoners must be served perfectly-sized and shaped apples to prevent 'fruit riots' in Britain's jails, prisons minister Crispin Blunt has warned.

'It is worth remembering that discontent about the quality of food, changes to menus and failure to deliver what was previously promised have been known to be the catalyst for serious disturbances,' he said. 'An undersize apple handed out at the servery will create issues of order and control, so we use suppliers that are sensitive to that need and that use their sourcing ability to maintain consistency from their supply base.'

The Tory minister's bizarre warning in a Commons debate on prisons prompted ridicule from Labour and will trigger speculation about his future.

It will also anger farmers who have argued for years that undersized or misshapen fruit and vegetables are just as tasty and nutritious as those that are perfectly formed.

For generations-Britons enjoyed all shapes of fruit and vegetables. But they disappeared from the shelves once EU bureaucrats brought in minimum standards. Restrictions covering most fruit and vegetables have now been scrapped.

Labour MP Michael Dugher said: 'The government is preparing cuts to vital local services and jobs. You would think the minister would have more important things to worry about than the size of fruit for lags.'

Mr Blunt caused a storm in July when he revoked an order banning prisoners from having parties in jail. Last month he said he had left his wife of 20 years to 'come to terms with his homosexuality'.

Last night a senior Tory source said: 'Mr Blunt's career seems to be going pear-shaped.'

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: 'The minister was not suggesting oddly-shaped fruit causes riots in prisons. He was simply making the point incidents of disorder can sometimes be triggered by arguments about the quality and quantity of food provided. '

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Riddled with the bone idle: Fire chief's devastating verdict on British public sector

The public services are riddled with ‘bone idle people’ who have damaged the productivity of the state sector, a leading fire chief has claimed. In a withering attack on the malaise gripping the public sector, Tony McGuirk has warned that unless bosses are prepared to sack lazy workers, they will never make the kind of savings necessary to put the economy back on course.

Mr McGuirk, chief fire officer of Merseyside, sparked outrage at the TUC conference yesterday by saying that he has been able to slash staff numbers by 40 per cent and actually provide a better service. He advised other public sector bosses to show ‘muscle, sack some people’. ‘We’ve got some bone idle people in the public sector. There, I said it – bone idle people.’

Mr McGuirk said he had slashed the number of firefighters from 1,550 to 850 during the past decade. ‘There is no need to close a fire station, we haven’t touched a single fire station. ‘Frontline is fire engines and fire stations, not firefighters. We provide a far better service with those 850 – more with less.’

He claimed that lazy workers had led to an ‘epidemic of sickness leave’ which had damaged productivity. ‘Here’s one of the things we did, get a grip on sickness. It is deficit reduction plans need not hurt public services epidemic in the public sector.’

Mr McGuirk spoke out at a seminar organised by the centre-right think tank Reform – a transcript of which was circulated at the TUC yesterday.

His claim that it is possible to maintain frontline services with fewer staff will boost the Government’s case that its Mr McGuirk said bosses should ‘manage performance, reward good performance, develop people with poor performance or ultimately sack them. ‘If they are not doing their job you have got to get rid of some people.’

The fire chief said that his cuts had led to personal abuse. ‘There were 2,000 people walking through Liverpool wearing shirts saying on the back “I hate McGuirk”,’ he said.

The Fire Brigades Union last night condemned his view. General Secretary Matt Wrack said: ‘It’s very easy for people who do not risk their lives fighting fires to sneer at people who do. ‘Mr McGuirk is among the highest paid fire chiefs in the country, getting more than £200,000 a year. He is massively overpaid. ‘For that money we could get six fully trained firefighters, which would be a much better use of scarce resources.’

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Oh god, not another Greenpeace guilt-trip

Green advertising campaigns are aimed at scaring adults witless and turning kids into Mao-style mum-policing spies

‘Got oil? Is your pension invested in risky drilling?’ asks a newspaper advert currently running in Britain. The ad, featuring a smart-but-casual man with thick black tar on his hands, is promoting Go Beyond Oil, a Greenpeace campaign inspired by the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. What the advert illustrates is the way environmental campaigning will happily alight on any passing fear in order to make us change our wicked ways.

The Go Beyond Oil website tells us: ‘Shell and BP are two of the key companies that our pension providers typically invest in heavily. In the past this has meant big returns for our pension funds. Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, £1 in every £7 paid in dividends to UK pension funds by FTSE 100 companies came from BP. With about 18million people across the UK holding shares in the company or paying into pension funds that have BP shares and many more with links to other oil companies, we’ve all got a lot invested in keeping the oil industry going. But this also carries a big risk for our future.’

It continues: ‘Since the oil spill, BP has been forced to cancel dividend payments to shareholders, which will affect pension investments.’ So even if you don’t care about the planet, the oil-lacquered birds or the Louisiana fishing industry, you should pull your money out of oil anyway because things will only get worse and you’ll lose loads of money.

Clearly, we Brits are getting a bit bored of being told about all the droughts, floods, hurricanes and so on that global warming will apparently cause. So getting us to fret about an impecunious old age will just have to do instead. As investment advice, withdrawing your money from BP and Shell - the UK’s golden geese, it would seem - is pretty dumb. In a world where demand for oil is only likely to increase in the short-to-medium term, as all those Chinese, Indians and Brazilians get richer and start buying cars, putting your savings into oil shares seems like a fairly smart move. Deepwater Horizon is likely to be a four million-barrel blip.

Yet the wider justifications for this pension-shrinking policy seem even dumber. Since renewable energy sources are simply not ready to take up the job currently done very successfully by oil, the campaign should surely be renamed from ‘Go Beyond Oil’ to ‘Do Without Energy’.

If the idea of self-impoverishment doesn’t appeal, greens have in recent years simply recycled an even more cynical argument: wot about the kids, man? Like anti-tobacco campaigners, environmentalists have taken to foisting the faces of children upon us and assuring us that, even if we don’t care about our own futures, we’re leaving a ticking timebomb of tragedy for our offspring (assuming that we’ve been so utterly selfish as to procreate in the first place).

This video from three years ago - again, a Greenpeace production - manages to sum up this line of argument in less than two minutes, and all with an underlying edge that brings to mind the antics of the Red Guards in Mao’s Cultural Revolution. A young man wearing a hoodie - clearly chosen for having the most punchable face and grating vocal delivery at his stage school - hectors ‘adults’ about what they’ve done to the planet.

‘If drastic measures aren’t taken soon’, our hooded young ghoul assures us, ‘by the time I grow up there won’t be any fish left in the sea. Rainforests and clean air will be a thing of the past. The polar ice caps will be gone. Oceans will rise. Entire countries will disappear. Life will change in ways you can’t even imagine. There’ll be famine, worldwide epidemics, life expectancy will be lower. We’re not just talking about the future; we’re talking about my future.’

Admittedly, a reasonable-minded viewer may very well wish such a bleak future on this insufferable brat. But a reality check is required on this litany of eco-horror. While there has been an apparent trend for the relatively thin Arctic ice cap to shrink over the past few years, the vastly bigger Antarctic ice cap - which holds more than half the world’s fresh water - is, if anything, growing. Clean air may be at a premium in the cities of some developing countries, but London’s air is cleaner than it has been for hundreds of years, suggesting you can have wealthier people and healthier air. Oceans might rise, but insignificantly. Countries might disappear - but only tiny island states whose fate may well be more to do with geology and changing sea currents than the planet’s temperatures. And as for life expectancy… well, if it really were in decline, there would be no need to fret about those pensions, would there?

In fact, the teenage eco-terror can expect - if current trends continue - to live in a much richer world, with lots of new technology to help deal with any problems from changing climatic conditions. He’s more likely to get fat than suffer famine, while being a grumpy member of the wealthiest, most comfortable generation in human history. As a stereotypical old Yorkshireman might say, kids these days don’t know they’re born. And greens wish those kids never had been.

The really creepy thing is that it’s not some angry adolescent that wrote the words for this video, but a multinational environmentalist campaign (in tandem with its marketing advisers, no doubt). These are the self-hating words of the generation that is being attacked in the video. And Greenpeace is by no means alone in using this tactic. The cover of a 2007 book, You Can Save the Planet, tells kids: ‘WARNING: Your parent’s generation has messed up the planet, now it’s up to YOU to save it.’ James Russell, author of How to Turn Your Parents Green - who doesn’t exactly look like a teenager to me - suggests children should ‘nag, pester, bug, torment and punish the people who are merrily wrecking [their] world’.

What a fantastic effort all round to create intergenerational conflict! On the one hand, greens guilt-trip adults about the hot and humid climatic nightmare they are going to inflict on their children, and on the other hand these middle-aged eco-warriors propagandise to those same children about what a bunch of selfish, short-sighted scumbags their parents are. Now there is a pint-sized eco-spy in every home, lecturing adults on the need to recycle and turn down the heating, and a library full of green tracts in every school.

This fomenting of division between parents and children is bad enough, but it is also a desperate waste of the idealism of youth. Young people may see the world in black-and-white rather than shades of grey, but that energy and desire just to go out and bulldoze through the conservatism of mum and dad can be an extremely useful way of stirring society up and encouraging change. But green politics takes that idealism and cynically exploits it for the most misanthropic ends. Whether it’s pensions, polar bears or children in peril, green campaigners demand that we should have a conscience about what we’re doing to the planet – but they don’t seem to have much in the way of a conscience when it comes to scaring adults or manipulating children.

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British School breaks with tradition and orders pupils to address teachers by their first names

Not a good way to foster respect!

A school has told its pupils to break with tradition and address their teachers by their first name. Children have been told they should now informally address teachers as part of a term-long trial.

The pupils at Boughton-under-Blean and Dunkirk Primary school in Faversham, Kent have been ordered to abandon using teachers’ surnames with the title of either ‘Mr’, ‘Ms’ or ‘Mrs’ in front of it. Now school bosses say they hope the trial will “enhance the relationship” between the kids and their mentors.

Headteacher Hugh Greenwood, who came up with the idea, said: 'We hope the pupils really take to the concept. 'We think it makes learning a more personal experience and allows teachers to come down to the pupils level. 'Obviously we are just trying it out and if it doesn’t work we will refer back to the traditional custom.'

Now parents at the school, which has over 150 children aged five to 11, have welcomed the trial. Sally Palmer, 35, who has a seven-year-old son at the school, said: 'It’s very strange for the kids to call their teachers by their first names. 'The kids seem to love the idea.'

Another mother of a six-year-old boy at the school said: 'It think it’s a fantastic idea. 'The informality has really helped kids to relax in the classroom and focus on learning. 'My son has been coming home speaking about his teacher called Tom. 'He found it quite imposing calling her teacher Mr or Mrs so this is much better.'

SOURCE





16 September, 2010

NHS pays for one-to-one surfing therapy for mental health patients

While cancer patients are denied drugs and other treatments. And where is the evidence of permanent benefit to mental patients of this "therapy"?

Patients suffering from depression are being given free surfing lessons paid for by the NHS. The pilot project is offering one-to-one tutorials by professional surfers to young people who have been diagnosed with mental health issues. Health chiefs hope [This is quackery] the ‘therapy’ will help them build confidence while learning a new skill.

The patients aged between 12 and 25 were referred to the scheme by mental health charities and it is being paid for by the Cornwall Primary Care Trust.

They decided to spend £5,000 on the project after watching a similar surfing session run by the same company in Polzeath for soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But critics say the activity is a waste of the NHS’s money and it would be better spent on medicine and staff during the economic downturn. It comes as health trusts have been ordered to tighten their belts to make the NHS more efficient.

Conservative MP Philip Davies said: ‘This PCT seems to have far too much money if it can afford to provide jollies like this. ‘It’s ridiculous that at a time when some drugs are being restricted from patients because of the cost that this can go on. They are not accountable and do not need permission to hold these activities and just do it. That seems wrong.’

TaxPayer’s Alliance spokesman Fiona McEvoy said: ‘This is a highly questionable use of NHS funds at a time when doctors are having to deny cancer patients drugs. ‘It’s important that the NHS uses its funds for medicine and equipment rather than watersports.’

Depression and anxiety cost the national economy £17billion a year. Forty per cent of those claiming disability allowance do so as a result of mental illness. Joe McEvoy, who commissioned the service for the PCT, said: ‘I think it will offer excellent value.

‘It’s a long-established body of evidence which shows that when you organise therapeutic activities around particular tasks, people benefit not just from social interaction but also build confidence. “That’s been one of the tenets of occupational therapy which has been an established therapeutic discipline in all sections of health care for many decades.’

‘The coast is one of our greatest assets and it makes sense to use it to improve the health and well-being of our patients. ‘There are many positive health benefits that flow from physical activity and people who are suffering from poor mental health can also gain from improved self-esteem and doing things which are enjoyable.’

A spokesman for Era Adventuresm which is providing the lessons, said: ‘This is a really exciting opportunity and a great way of using surfing in the community.’

SOURCE



A NHS coverup in full swing

'Inexcusable' failures left rogue technician free to go from hospital to hospital sexually assaulting women under anaesthetic

A judge condemned health chiefs yesterday for failing to stop a hospital technician who sexually assaulted a string of women across the country. David Foster, 56, carried out one sex attack while the patient was undergoing an operation and others were done immediately after surgery while the women were highly vulnerable and groggy from the general anaesthetic.

Bosses at two hospitals failed to inform police about the serious allegations despite complaints being made by the victims.

Foster, an operating department practitioner, was able to get work as a locum at a third hospital while on police bail for an earlier assault. He worked just one day there and carried out another brazen attack which left the women traumatised, Hull Crown Court was told.

Today Foster, of Basingstoke, Hampshire, was jailed for five years after admitting six charges of sexually assaulting patients. The offences spanned two years and were carried out on four women at three hospitals.

But detectives fear the married pervert may have commited further offences during his career. He is known to have worked in hospitals in Wales, Kent, Nottingham and Newcastle upon Tyne.

Passing sentence, Judge Simon Jack told him: ’What you did strikes at the very heart of the relationship patients have with staff in hospital. It is the stuff of nightmares. ‘Patients going into hospital for surgical procedures have to place themselves in the hands of medical staff. They have no option but to trust and submit their bodies to them.’

The judge said the failure by hospital authorities to immediately report allegations to police was ‘inexplicable and inexcusable.’

The offences began in July 2008 when Foster was working at Pinewood Hospital in Hitchin, Hertforshire. He had got the temporary job as a theatre assistant through an employment agency.

The victim was having a minor operation on her face, with the surgeon and assistant present in the room, when the assault took place, the court heard. He told the woman to keep her eyes closed, took her arm and placed it on his private parts. The woman reported the incident and a matron quizzed Foster about the allegation.

Foster denied doing anything wrong and said she must have imagined it. He was only reprimanded and told he would be monitored. The judge said this was ‘an error of judgement,’ commenting: ’They should have at least reported it to the police.’

Despite the warning Foster carried out another sex assault just four days later.

A 38-year-old woman had a lump removed from her breast and was taken into the recovery room after surgery. When two other people left the room Foster struck again. The woman, who said she felt ‘vulnerable and scared’, reported the assault. Again Foster was questioned by the matron and denied anything happened, but this time he was sacked.

Instead of informing the police the hospital authorities did nothing. Foster registered with another agency and got a similar job at the Queen Alexandra Hospital in Portsmouth.

His next sex assault took place in October last year. A 25-year-old woman underwent hip surgery under general anaesthetic and was in a screened cubicle in the recovery room when Foster assaulted her.

Prosecutor Jharna Jobes said: ’She started to scream for help. She started to pull the drip out of her arm and was trying to leave. She wanted to call the police immediately on her mobile telephone. Hospital staff prevented her. The manager was called.’

The woman called her brother after she got back to the ward and he then contacted police. The judge criticised the hospital for leaving it to the patient to alert police. The judge said: ’I find the lack of action taken by the hospital difficult to understand.’

The woman said in a victim impact statement: ’Prior to this I was a strong person, but have lost my self confidence. It annoys me that he did what he did to me. I am scared of being vulnerable again.’

Foster was arrested and released on police bail. Despite being under investigation he found work on 11 January this year at Bridlington Hospital in East Yorkshire.

This time a 30-year-old woman came round from a minor operation to realise Foster was talking to her and using his hands and mouth to sexually assault her. She said:’I could not scream or move. It was one of the two most traumatising moments of my life. The other was the death of my father. I feel dirty, used and abused.’

Outside court Detective Constable Dean Smith of Humberside Police said he was concerned Foster had continued to work despite the ‘professional bodies knowing of the allegations.’

He urged any other victims not known to police to come forward. DC Smith added: ’These were horrendous offences against vulnerable women. It was a massive breach of trust. It beggars belief that while his victims found themselves drugged or unconscious he chose to treat them in this way. In 30 years as a police officer I have never come across a case like this before.’

A spokeswoman for the Health Professional Council said Foster was registered with them and he was suspended after the final offence in January. She refused to comment further.

SOURCE



British taxpayers fund council 'adventures in Sindia and Lesbianandgayland' as part of sessions on equality and diversity

Council bosses are being asked to imagine they are English economic migrants in the fictitious region of Sindia, or go on an `adventure in Lesbian-andgayland' as part of publicly-funded training sessions on equality and diversity. More than 30 managers from Brighton and Hove City Council have been on the two-day `Leading on Diversity' course in the past year - at a cost of several thousand pounds.

In the session entitled Adventures in Sindia, the English Exodus, staff are asked to imagine that it is 2030 and the `world is a very different place'. In this scenario, much of the South-East of England and East Anglia is under water.

Millions of English families desperate for work have been forced to uproot to Sindia, an economic federation which is made up of China and India. All the participants are asked to imagine that they are a seven-year-old child called Sarah Hardy, whose family has just moved to Delhi.

They are also warned that the English are largely despised in India because they have a reputation for `illegality, criminality, cultural conservatism and an inability to learn the host language'.

The course material states: `Your seventh birthday was a miserable occasion. Your parents invited all the children in your class to a party. All but one failed to turn up and none sent an RSVP. `The only child who came was a Jewish girl from Hungary. Somehow you felt that she understood what you were going through, even though you never talked about it.'

The course attendees are told that while in Sindia they can expect to hear comments such as: `Why do you insist on eating that bland food? What you need is a good masala', `Do your parents really force you to drink alcohol at the age of ten?', and `What do you call an English virgin? A contradiction in terms'.

In the other session, staff are asked to imagine that `while asleep one night they have slipped through a wormhole in space' and woken up in a parallel world where it is
normal to be lesbian or gay.

They are told that they are now in a country where `heterosexual teachers are very reluctant to come out', `the ideal family consists of a lesbian or gay male couple', and `that conceiving a child by heterosexual intercourse is viewed with distaste'.

They are then asked to consider how they would respond if people asked them: `What do you actually do in bed?', `Don't you think heterosexuality may be a phase you are going through?', and `Is it possible that what you need is a good gay lover?'

The course for staff at Brighton and Hove Council was organised and run by Aziz Associates, a training consultancy founded in 1996. The company is run by Razia Aziz, 45, a politics graduate, and clients include health trusts, local councils and Government departments. Its website describes Ms Aziz as a `coach, facilitator, and performance and workshop artist' with a `holistic style that embraces the intellect, body and heart'.

A Mail on Sunday investigation also found that other councils which ran equality and diversity projects last year included Preston, which spent œ1,500 sending staff on three Journeys of Faith sessions, Kensington and Chelsea, and Test Valley Borough Council in Hampshire, which spent œ2,800.

Meanwhile, Hertfordshire County Council has produced a Making Our Mark On Equality And Diversity guide that says references to `girls in the office' is inappropriate because it implies `dependence and immaturity'. The same council also has problems with `lady' which has `over-tones of decorum and conformity' and even woman `which has overtones of sexuality'.

Officials at East Devon District Council have banned `little old lady, pensioner, youth and youngster' and guidance to staff states: `White European people are also subjected to prejudice and stereotyping - Swedish ("porn and nudity"), Germans ("Hitlers who want to rule the world"), Irish ("thick"), Scottish ("mean, tight with money").'

A spokesman for Brighton & Hove City Council said: `At a cost that is low by any comparison, our training role-plays are proven to do what they are supposed to do, which is to reduce inappropriate discrimination based on race, faith, disability,
gender, sexuality or age.'

SOURCE



Arrogant British bureaucrat

But I repeat myself

Britain's chief tax collector was accused of astonishing arrogance last night after appearing to complain about having to ‘serve’ every taxpayer. As she was quizzed by MPs about the tax fiasco affecting millions of people, HM Revenue & Customs chief executive Dame Lesley Strathie insisted ‘no mistakes’ had been made by her staff.

And she suggested it was unfair to compare the shambolic performance of HMRC with top businesses because they have the privilege of choosing which customers they want.

Tax chiefs hauled to give evidence to the Treasury Select Committee admitted that a staggering 24 million people could have had their tax bills miscalculated over recent years. Six million will get letters before Christmas either demanding an average of £1,400 or offering a refund by cheque after a new computer system identified errors in their PAYE accounts.

But MPs heard there is a backlog of a further 17.9million ‘unresolved’ tax cases dating back to 2005, which HMRC is hoping to process by 2012. Many of those could now face demands for underpaid tax.

Ministers have ordered HMRC to make another climbdown to try to appease public anger. Yesterday they agreed that those facing tax demands of £2,000 or more as a result of errors will not be charged interest on the money they owe. Mr Hartnett said: 'Only those who will not engage with us will be charged interest'

The Revenue has already agreed to waive bills of £300 or less, meaning 900,000 taxpayers will be spared paying any money back – at a cost of £160million to the Exchequer.

Dame Lesley Strathie is a career civil servant who has worked in the public sector for almost 40 years. She joined the civil service in 1971, and worked as a clerical assistant. In her role as HM Revenue & Customs chief executive she receives an annual salary of up to £175,000 – £30,000 a year more than Prime Minister David Cameron.

Dame Lesley, who was born in 1955, was appointed permanent secretary and chief executive of HMRC in November 2008. One of her predecessors quit in 2007 with a pay-off worth £2.3 million when HMRC managed to lose discs containing the personal details of 25 million people. Since Dame Lesley’s appointment, she has struggled to tackle a number of problems.

The Commons Treasury committee criticised the performance of the organisation earlier this year and revealed that morale among its staff was low.

Despite questions over the success of her management, in June she was named a dame in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.

Defending her performance amid a barrage of hostile questioning from MPs from all parties, Dame Lesley pointed out that if she were head of a large business she would be able to pick and choose her customers. ‘In any commercial business, you will have a customer strategy. You will decide which customers you want to acquire and which customers you want to divest yourself of,’ she said. 'We serve everybody. We don’t have a choice about who we serve.’

She also insisted the fiasco was not all bad news, since while 1.4million people will have to pay an extra £1,400 in tax, 4.5million people will get refunds of £400 on average.

Labour MP George Mudie, a member of the Treasury committee, accused Dame Lesley of ‘arrogance’. ‘I thought her remark about businesses being able to pick and choose their customers told you everything you need to know about HMRC. ‘They seem to regret the fact that as public servants they have to serve all the public.

'[She] appeared to suggest she would cheerfully drop people and not bother with them if they act in a way that gives the Inland Revenue the slightest trouble. ‘The question we should be asking is whether she and her colleagues would still b e in their positions if they ... were running a company like Marks & Spencer. ‘What on earth do senior civil servants have to do to get sacked?’

SOURCE



Former British Civil Service Chief Calls For Climate Shakeup

The former head of the civil service has called for a new approach from scientists and policy makers to restore waning trust in climate scientists. Speaking to The Register, Lord Andrew Turnbull, former cabinet secretary and head of the Home Civil Service between 2002 and 2005, says the University of East Anglia's internal enquiries into the Climategate affair were hasty and superficial, and called for Parliament to sponsor two wide-ranging investigations.

One study should examine the "ethos and governance" of climate science. The other should conduct "a fundamental review of the science itself". He thinks policy makers are getting skewed and self-centered advice.

Was he speaking out because of the damage to Britain's academic reputation, or the implications for policy? Both, he told us. "The so-called guardians have bought into a particular narrative. I'm not a skeptic, I can compare what my childhood was like, and I can see climate change going on," said Turnbull. Nor does he contest the radiative properties of CO2. But the hypothesis depends on positive feedbacks that are far from certain, and these haven't been explained to the public, with confidence wrongly assumed.

"We get fed a Janet and John version - a simplified story, and the world's politicians use this to persuade the world's electorates to take action, and action soon."

Now we're in the internet age, he thinks is untenable. "This is backfiring because people are intelligent enough, and well-armed enough with information.

"The deference is no longer there. We don't live in that kind of world any more. People in the blogosphere don't have to accept these and other statements from the authorities, and they will challenge them. We have seen that they can challenge them quite effectively."

Trouble in Watermouth (Watermouth is a quiet and peaceful holiday resort --JR)

Did he think the inadequacy of the Climategate enquiries would leave lasting damage to the British reputation?

"I see some damage to British academia, and lasting damage to the [University of East Anglia] Climatic Research Unit which is possibly terminal, really. I don't see how it can now recover.

"The Russell Report talks about the 'rough and tumble' of academic argument. But all this is publicly funded research programs. They're not arguing about whether Dickens is better than Jane Austen - their work goes to the basis of public policy."

Wouldn't academics resent the intrusion, and defend the principle of academic freedom?

"Does academic freedom include the freedom to stop other people being published at all?" he asks.

"There's an observation in Muir Russell's report that's very good, you can't fault it, and I'll quote it. The report points out that 'It is important to recognise that science progresses by substantive challenges based on rigorously logical, published arguments that present a different view of reality from that which they challenge'. This is absolutely correct.

"But then you get the CRU scientists saying the opposite. They were engaging in groupthink. And having set out the principles the enquiries haven't used them to make judgement about what they found."

Parliament probably doesn't have the resources to conduct the two studies by itself, Turnbull says, and staffing them with people who haven't bought into the 'Janet and John' version might be tricky - but not impossible.

"There are some people in the Royal Society who think it's gone too hard over onto the simplified consensus. There are climate changers who believe in the most sophisticated version and who are prepared to be more admitting of doubt - but they all fear they get branded as 'deniers'

What do civil servants really think?

What about the civil service itself, we wondered. How deeply wedded is it to an increasingly unpopular position?

"It's almost totally embedded. Ministers don't get a range of views presented to them.

"The public is under pressure. If you take a family or small business, they're facing ten rather austere years. But they're also being asked to incur major costs and make significant changes to your lifestyle. So people ask 'do I really have to?'

"So three things happen. They begin to worry about the science. They see that the scientific consensus isn't as solid as they were led to believe. And they don't see other countries doing the same things - the prospects for another Kyoto are worse than ever.

"So if we decarbonise by 2050 there's a risk we'll suffer double jeopardy. We'll incur a cost to moving to higher-priced energy and others won't follow."

Turnbull adds that decarbonisation policies are now hugely unpopular with electorates, and led to the collapse of the Rudd government in Australia.

What's going to give, then? Not a lot, he thinks. "Initially I would predict there won't be very much change in attitudes. The scepticism isn't there. Ministers and civil servants still believe what the scientists tell them.

"We'll still pay lip service to all these obligations but the urgency will fade. It will be like the [Minimum Development Goals] commitment to devote 0.7 per cent of GDP to overseas aid - it will rest there. We will just fall further behind the schedule. Then, eventually, there'll be the dawning that we're doing this when nobody else is."

Turnbull makes his call for new enquiries in the foreword to analysis of the Climategate enquires published today. The review of the two internal University enquires - Sir Muir Russell's Climate Change Emails Review and Lord Oxburgh's Scientific Assessment Panel was conducted for the Global Warming Policy Foundation think-tank by Andrew Montford, author of The Hockey-Stick Illusion. More from the Foundation website later today. ®

SOURCE



A Tory government that panders to the Left

Britain has RINO types too

Middle-class families could go to the back of the queue under explosive plans to tear up the schools admissions code.

Education Secretary Michael Gove is proposing to allow academies and a new generation of 'free schools' to select pupils on the basis of their family finances, with the poorest being given priority.

They would be allowed to discriminate in favour of pupils who qualify for free school meals - those whose household income, including benefits, is below £16,000 per year.

It is hoped that this would bring a halt to 'selection by mortgage' in areas where admissions are determined chiefly by the distance between home and school, meaning parents who can afford to buy a home nearby gain an advantage.

But it is likely to trigger a backlash from Right-wing conservative MPs and the party's traditional middle-class supporters, who are already angry that the coalition Government has ruled out any return to selection by ability.

Academies already take a higher proportion of children on free school meals than the national average, partly because under the previous Labour government they were set up in areas of social disadvantage.

However, charities including Barnardo's argue that fewer pupils from poor homes get into England's best schools because their parents are often less able to navigate the admission system.

Mr Gove's proposal will be seen as an attempt to appease Liberal Democrat members of the coalition, who have pushed existing plans to boost funding for underprivileged children. The Education Secretary believes the change, which will require legislation, will provide a vital boost for social mobility.

Sources close to Mr Gove stressed that any change would not be 'prescriptive', and schools would simply be permitted to admit children entitled to free school meals in preference to others if they wished to do so.

Mr Gove envisages the introduction of new 'free schools', run by charities, business, or even groups of parents, which specialise in admitting disadvantaged children and get more taxpayers' cash for doing so.

A source close to the Education Secretary said: 'This could actually help middle-class families, because at the moment there are parts of the country where the schools are totally useless and children who are struggling are causing discipline issues and other problems.

'The central aim of the Government's education policy is making opportunity more equal. We have one of the most segregated and stratified education systems in the world and social mobility went backwards under Labour. 'We want to emulate the success of charter schools in America which explicitly target their attention on poorer children.'

But Margaret Morrissey, founder of the parents' lobby group Parents Outloud, warned that the rule change smacked of social engineering and would be seen as 'unacceptable' by many. She said it was becoming ever more difficult for children to get into their preferred schools, even if they had siblings already there.

'Parents who work hard and do everything they should do will get shunted to the bottom of the list,' she said. 'If the Government thinks this is the fair and decent thing to do, it isn't. This assumes every family on free school meals needs help and support, which is patronising. Not many people can pay tens of thousands of pounds to buy houses in catchment areas, and fewer and fewer people are in a position to do so.'

Some grammar schools have already indicated they wish to see the admissions code relaxed to allow them to take into account the social background of applicants. But Robert Mccartney, chairman of the National Grammar Schools Association, warned such a move would lead to more discrimination.

He called on the coalition to allow more schools to select pupils by ability as the fairest admissions method, saying: 'I fervently believe that a working-class child in Britain in 2010 should have exactly the same opportunity I had in 1948 to go to grammar school. Everyone accepts selection was the greatest engine of social mobility.

'The conservatives are rowing back on education. They are playing the socio-economic card which is disguising the real defects in our system. 'This policy would be discrimination of a kind. Children from whatever background with a good result on a selective test would be discriminated against.'

But Dr Lee Elliot Major, director of research at the Sutton Trust, an education charity set up to promote social mobility, said: 'We think this is a good idea. It's good for social mobility if you can have balanced intakes. 'All of our studies show the top-performing schools are unrepresentative of their local communities.'

SOURCE



Must not insult the sacred Obama

Leftists all over the world used the most gross insults about George Bush and that was OK. But Obama is "different", somehow -- a sacred person apparently

"A British teenager who sent an e-mail to the White House calling President Obama a "pr*ck" was banned from the U.S. for life, The Sun reported Monday.

The FBI asked local cops to tell college student Luke Angel, 17, that his drunken insult was "unacceptable."

Angel claims he fired off a single e-mail criticizing the U.S. government after seeing a television program about the 9/11 attacks. He said, "I don't remember exactly what I wrote as I was drunk. But I think I called Barack Obama a pr*ck. It was silly -- the sort of thing you do when you're a teenager and have had a few."

Angel, of Bedford, in central England, said it was "a bit extreme" for the FBI to act. "The police came and took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever. I don't really care but my parents aren't very happy," he said.

Source

15 September, 2010

Two people who died after knee operations by same NHS surgeon on same day 'did not receive anti-clotting drugs'

A hospital has been criticised after two patients died from deep vein thrombosis following similar routine operations by the same surgeon on the same day. Neither had been given standard treatments to prevent post-operative DVT and died at home as they recuperated from their knee procedures.

A coroner has been told that Graham Crimlisk, 62, and Jennifer Fisher, 64, were fit and active, and should not have been allowed to die. 'Fit and healthy': Jennifer Fisher and Graham Crimlisk died from deep vein thrombosis following operations by the same surgeon on the same day

Michael Oakley, who held separate inquests, said the failure to give the patients a preventative drug or surgical stockings to guard against DVT could amount to 'negligence'.

Mrs Fisher, a school cook, died 11 days after having a torn cartilage repaired by orthopaedic surgeon Nicholas Evans at Bridlington Hospital, East Yorkshire, on January 12.

Mr Evans told the June inquest that Mrs Fisher, from Scarborough, should have been given compression stockings, but this was 'typically a nursing duty'.

Recording a narrative verdict, Mr Oakley said: 'The hospital has totally failed this lady.'

On the same day, Mr Evans carried out a similar knee procedure on Mr Crimlisk from Filey. He died nine days later. During Mr Crimlisk's inquest at Scarborough County Court on Monday, it was also revealed his death came the morning after being refused an urgent scan.

Mr Crimlisk had developed breathing difficulties and pain following the operation, and blood tests showed he was at risk of a clot. But when his GP contacted a physician at Scarborough Hospital to require an urgent scan he was told it was too late in the day and Mr Crimlisk would have to wait until 9.30am the following morning.

Mr Crimlisk was described by his wife Penny as being 'fit and healthy' and a keen golfer. He died shortly after getting up on Thursday January 21, before making it to his hospital appointment.

Mr Oakley questioned the physician Dr Christos Dimopoulos about the availability of scan appointments. He also questioned the practice of surgeon Mr Evans, asking him why Mr Crimlisk was not given chemical prophylaxis prior to surgery or TED compression stockings.

Referring to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines Mr Evans said: 'It was not part of the guidelines we were using at the time. 'Chemical prophylaxis is not used for that type of surgery. There are new guidelines being implemented now. 'My practice has changed. I will personally put stockings on all my patients.'

The inquest also heard from Dr Dimopoulos whose evidence differed from that of Mr Crimlisk's GP Dr Raoul Wynand. Dr Wynand said he rang at 4pm and asked for a scan but was told his patient would have to wait until 9.30am. He said he was absolutely 100 per cent sure he was not given further advice.

Dr Dimopoulos said there were no slots available for the scan but he had advised Dr Wynand to give Mr Crimlisk Heparin used to thin the blood.

On recording a verdict of misadventure Mr Oakley said: 'At the end of the day Mr Crimlisk may not have survived in any event even if he had been admitted for the scan. 'What he certainly would have had is the benefit of some chemical prophylaxis being administered and that may have saved his life.

'I go back to the development of the thing in the first place. He may not of developed it at all if he had been given TED stockings and if chemical prophylaxis had been administered.'

A spokesman for Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS trust said: 'Our approach to this type of operation has changed and all staff are following new guidance from the National Institute for Clinical Excellence.'

SOURCE



British banks' contempt for customers revealed as investigation finds thousands of complaints ignored

This corresponds with my experience of British banks more than a quarter of a century ago. Obviously nothing has changed.

Their arrogance is unparalleled. Combine an oligopoly with a deep British resentment of serving others and that is what you get.

That resentment is why most hotels and retailers in Britain are now in the hands of Indians. They provide service at a level which most Brits would regard as "beneath" them. The Brits would rather live on welfare and many do.

It was a grave mistake to bail out these arrogant institutions during the financial crisis. The Labor government should have allowed them to go broke and then sold them off to Indians for what little they were worth.

The British government should sell them off right now as a way of recovering the funds poured into them -- JR

Tens of thousands of legitimate complaints are being fobbed off and ignored by our High Street banks. Damning figures released yesterday by independent disputes arbitrator the Financial Ombudsman service lay bare the contempt shown by some of our biggest banks to customers who dare to complain.

The figures, which cover the six months to June 2010, show in some instances, more than nine in ten cases previously rejected by the banks are being decided in the customers’ favour.

They also come two years after taxpayers spent more than £65 billion propping up Royal Bank of Scotland/NatWest and Lloyds Banking Group.

‘Highlights’ of the FOs report include:

* A shocking 23 pc surge in complaints about insurance products, including payment protection insurance;

* A staggering 95 pc of Barclays insurance complaints upheld;

* State-backed Lloyds Banking Group received 22,420 complaints — more than a quarter of the total complaints received across more than 100,000 businesses;

* Five companies — including state-backed Lloyds TsB — received more than 3,000 complaints.

Consumer groups say the high proportion of complaints being upheld by the Ombudsman is further evidence the banks are failing to investigate grievances properly. Mark Gander from Consumer Action Group says: ‘This is proof of the disgusting way banks are dealing with disgruntled customers. ‘The whole complaints handling process is designed to exhaust customers so they give up. Incredibly, they are allowed to get away with it.’

For customers, the Ombudsman is the last resort. It can investigate complaints that have been rejected by the firm or that are not resolved within eight weeks.

Kay Blair, vice-chairman of the Financial services Consumer Panel, says: ‘It is appalling that so many High street banks continue to reject valid complaints so customers have to go to the Ombudsman for a fair assessment.

The number of overall complaints increased slightly (84,212, from 82,136) compared with the last six months of 2009. Overall, almost half (44 pc) were upheld in the customer’s favour.

There was a huge 23 pc increase in complaints about insurance policies. This was mainly driven by an increase in complaints from customers mis- sold payment protection insurance (PPI) alongside loans and credit cards. An estimated two million customers hold PPI policies they are unable to claim on.

The percentage of insurance complaints upheld against the big banks was high across the board, with more than nine in ten upheld against Barclays (95 pc) and Black Horse — part of the Lloyds Group (96 pc). More than eight in ten customers won their complaints against Lloyds TsB (86 pc) and Clydesdale Bank (89 pc).

Last year the Ombudsman accused banks of appearing to deliberately fob off complaints in the hope they go away, or using it as a cheap disputes-resolution service.

Mike O’Connor, chief executive of Consumer Focus, says the situation doesn’t seem to be improving. He says: ‘Consumers want companies to take complaints seriously and put problems right first time. These results suggest that too many companies are not taking complaints seriously and are content to leave customers to pursue problems with the Ombudsman instead.’

Overall, Lloyds- owned Black Horse was the worst culprit — nine in ten of all new complaints against the firm were upheld in the customer’s favour. It sells PPI alongside personal loans and car finance. James Daley from Which? Money says: ‘This adds insult to injury to the millions of taxpayers who have bailed out the banks.’

Barclays was one of the main offenders overall , with the Ombudsman upholding six in ten general complaints. Last year hundreds of readers who were persuaded by Barclays salesmen to invest their life savings in risky funds contacted Money Mail after their complaints were thrown out by the bank. Many of these complaints were later backed by the Ombudsman.

A British Bankers’ Association spokesman says: ‘The UK banking industry manages more than 140 million bank accounts, and the biggest conduct many billions of transactions each year, so it is important to keep these figures in context. The Ombudsman upholds only seven complaints per 100,000 products provided by banks.’

SOURCE



Good riddance to bad rubbish

An enemy of free speech to retire

The controversial judge who pioneered privacy law in Britain is to step down from his post in charge of media cases. Mr Justice Eady, 67, whose landmark rulings have protected the rich and famous from publicity about their sexual adventures, will quit his role at the end of the month.

He will be replaced by another senior judge who is regarded as less sympathetic to the wish of sports stars and celebrities to keep their infidelities private. The new judge in charge of libel and privacy cases is Mr Justice Tugendhat, who earlier this year allowed newspapers to report allegations about the sex life of England footballer John Terry. He said sports stars were interested in sponsorship contracts as well as privacy, and that it is important to protect the freedom to criticise behaviour on moral grounds.

During Sir David Eady's reign as judge in charge, an English privacy law has grown up in the courts. Developed from judges' interpretations of human rights rules, it has made it unlawful to speak or write the truth about matters covered by privacy decisions.

His most famous case involved a report in the News of the World about motor racing boss Max Mosley and his sado-masochistic orgy with five prostitutes. Mr Justice Eady ruled against the paper and fined it for breaching Mr Mosley's privacy.

Sir David can continue hearing cases until he reaches 70, the retirement age for High Court judges.

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Damning New Investigation Into Climategate Inquiries

The Global Warming Policy Foundation today publishes a detailed assessment of the Climategate inquiries set up by the University of East Anglia and others which finds that they avoided key questions and failed to probe some of the most serious allegations.

The report The Climategate Inquiries, written by Andrew Montford and with a foreword by Lord (Andrew) Turnbull, finds that the inquiries into the conduct and integrity of scientists at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia were rushed and seriously inadequate.

In particular, the report finds that:

#none of the Climategate panels mounted an inquiry that was comprehensive within their area of remit

#insufficient consideration in the choice of panel members led to a failure to ensure balance and independence

#none managed to be objective and comprehensive

#none made any serious attempt to consider the views and submissions of well-informed critics

#terms of reference were either vague or non-existent

#none of them performed their work in a way that is likely to restore confidence in the work of CRU.

Andrew Montford, the author of the GWPF report, said:

"The lack of impartiality manifested itself in the different ways the panels treated CRU scientists and their critics. While CRU justifications and explanations were willingly accepted without any serious probing, critics were denied adequate opportunity to respond and to counter demonstrably inaccurate claims."

"All in all, the evidence of the failings of the three UK inquiries is overwhelming. Public confidence in the reliability of climate science will not be restored until a thorough, independent and impartial investigation takes place," Andrew Montford warned.

Lord Turnbull, who wrote the foreword to the GWPF report, said:

"The report by Andrew Montford clearly demonstrates that all three inquiries have serious flaws. The result has been that the three investigations have failed to achieve their objective, ie early and conclusive closure and restoration of confidence."

"The new House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology, which has rightly reopened the issue, would do well to study Andrew Montford's report and take evidence from him. It needs to satisfy itself as to whether the criticisms made are valid and whether the exoneration claimed is justified."

"Only if the integrity of the science is re-established and the strengths and weaknesses of the main propositions are acknowledged will there be the basis of trust with the public which policymakers need," Lord Turnbull said.

Lord Turnbull also called on the Government to look at the serious criticisms of the IPCC made in the recent InterAcademy Council Report. He said: "The Government should demand that the fundamental reforms recommended by the IAC in the practice, governance and leadership of the IPCC are implemented immediately for its Fifth Assessment."

SOURCE



Climategate whitewashers squirm like maggots on Bishop Hill's pin

Just back from the House of Lords for the launch of the Global Warming Policy Foundation’s report on the failings of the three Climategate inquiries.

The official inquiries, as we know, found nothing untoward in any of the Climategate emails – nor in the behaviour of the scientists responsible for them. But the GWPF’s report, by Andrew “Bishop Hill” Montford, begs to differ. At the conference, one journalist asked Montford to try to summarise the juiciest of his allegations. Montford found this difficult: so many and varied are the failings of the three whitewash inquiries, he simply couldn’t decide which ones to choose.

Here, for example, are just a few criticisms of the Oxburgh whitewash.

* The panel appears to have been deliberately selected to have a majority who would not address the review objectively and to exclude sceptical views entirely.

* UEA appointed Oxburgh as chairman of the panel in the full knowledge that he had conflicts of interest.

* UEA restricted the scope of the Oxburgh inquiry to published papers only, avoiding the serious allegations related to the IPCC activities of CRU staff.

* The scope was further restricted to the conduct of the scientists. UEA had led the Science and Technology Committee members to believe that the quality of CRU’s scientific work would be re-assessed. The committee’s chairman, Phil Willis, felt that the UEA had misled them.

* Lord Oxburgh’s report misled the public by stating that the papers were chosen ‘on the advice of the Royal Society.’

* Lord Rees said that he had consulted with experts about the papers. In fact he had only discussed them with Sir Brian Hoskins, who had said he did not know CRU’s works.

While we’re on Lord Oxburgh, it’s worth reminding ourselves just how entirely unsuited to chairing a supposedly neutral inquiry on AGW this man is. Here’s an interview he gave to Guardian in 2005 in which he reveals why corporate Quislings like himself have so strong an interest in pushing the AGW agenda:

Oxburgh advocates that government uses the controls at its disposal: “Regulate biofuels. Or subsidise. Or tax” – any incentive really, but “what we don’t want to see is in two years’ time the government simply becoming bored with climate change after we’ve invested a lot of our shareholders’ money.”

Perhaps the most shocking new revelation in Andrew Montford’s report is that Sir Muir Russell appears to have been given evidence at the beginning of his inquiry that [paleoclimatologist] Keith Briffa had “taken steps that might be construed as an attempt to block Freedom of Information requests.”

Despite this, the Muir Russell report claimed “we have seen no evidence of any attempt to delete information in respect of a request already made.” Hmm. Curiouser and curiouser.

SOURCE



Indians and Chinese do best in the British school system

Pupils from ethnic minorities match or outshine white British children in exams at age 16 despite lagging behind at five, a study shows today. School league tables may encourage teachers to pay greater attention to pupils from black and Asian backgrounds, the research found.

It also suggested that peer pressure may influence how well different groups work at their studies.

The researchers, from University College London, said the achievement of ethnic minority pupils was an ‘amazing success story’. Many struggle with English when they start school but they catch up with their white British counterparts or even overtake them as their language skills improve.

The study also found that league tables give teachers an incentive to focus on pupils on the borderline between D and C grades at GCSE, because the system rewards schools for ensuring pupils achieve at least five passes at grade C or above.

Black and Asian pupils are more likely than white British pupils to form part of this borderline group, and may therefore benefit from greater attention. For the study, published today in the Economic Journal, researchers analysed exam results for nearly 500,000 pupils.

They found that, at the ages of three and five, white British children outperformed their ethnic minority counterparts in tests of vocabulary and making patterns. At seven, in English and maths tests, all ethnic minority groups with the exception of Chinese pupils were behind white British youngsters.

But by the end of compulsory schooling, when youngsters take GCSEs, Bangladeshi, Pakistani and black pupils from outside the Caribbean had caught up with their white British classmates, while Indian and Chinese pupils had overtaken them.

Only black Caribbean pupils remained slightly behind white British youngsters. The study found that improvements in language skills as ethnic minority pupils move through school was the biggest reason for closing the gap.

Among Indians, the share of native English speakers was just one in five, the study said.

But it also suggested that ethnic minority parents choose better secondary than primary schools, perhaps because they become more adept at negotiating the school admissions system.

Professor Christian Dustmann, one of the study’s authors and director of the Centre for Research and Analysis on Migration, called for further research into the effects of pupil peer groups on attainment. ‘We don’t really understand the dynamics of peer groups within a school, and how within a school individuals sort into different groups,’ he said.

SOURCE



I knew my girl wasn't dyslexic - So I took her out of class and brought her up to speed myself, says British mother

A disrupted classroom environment was the problem

Lesha Chaplin-park, 36, a PR consultant from Stafford, refused to accept her daughter Georgia, now ten, was dyslexic when her school blamed the fact she had fallen behind on the condition. Lesha home-schooled Georgia instead, and after one year she was back at school and top of the class. Lesha says:

Teachers were all too quick to stick a label on my daughter and put her in a box. Was it for extra funding, or just so they didn't have to address the problem directly? all I know is that when I was told Georgia was dyslexic, I knew she wasn't - and I've been proved right.

Georgia was eight when her school decided she had dyslexia. she had never been great with her spelling, but her problems stemmed from the fact that she was in a class with a couple of naughty boys who demanded all the teacher's attention, and, being a quiet kid, she simply got left behind.

Her confidence took a knock and she got to the point where she'd rather not bother at all than get things wrong.

Towards the end of Year 2, the class teacher took me to one side and said Georgia wasn't quite up to speed and they would keep an eye on her. They assured me that if there was a problem they would pick it up the following year, and started talking about all the extra help available for her dyslexia. But as far as I was concerned, she didn't have dyslexia.

Then they sent home a glowing report at the end of Year 3, in which no problems were mentioned at all. I started to lose faith in the school and the mixed messages they were sending out.

As far as I was concerned, she didn't have dyslexia...I started to lose faith in the school and the mixed messages they were sending out. When I was at school, I remember children with learning difficulties being disruptive in class and doing anything they could to be thrown out of the classroom rather than have to read in front of other pupils and be shown up.

It seemed as if teachers were so anxious not to let that happen these days that they would stick labels on children - they were dyslexic, autistic or had aDhD - it felt like political correctness gone mad.

When they approached my ex-husband separately and spelled out Georgia's supposed problems again, that sealed for me. I decided I had three options: I could send Georgia back after the holidays and hope for the best, try to find her new school, or take her out of class for year and bring her up to speed myself. I went for the latter option and decided to go with the home tutoring.

It wasn't an easy decision, but I was four months pregnant with my son Luca, who's now 20 months old, and I work freelance from home, so I was in position at least to try.

I was assessed by my local home education division within the council and was surprised to discover I had to spend only 45 minutes a day teaching Georgia to give her the same level of attention as a full day in a class of 35 pupils.

I made sure she was up and ready for 9am every day, and I did everything could to make her education come alive.

For example, when we studied the Great Fire of London, I took her to Pudding Lane, where it had started, and then she had to write it up afterwards.

When she made a lot of spelling mistakes, I would put her work in the bin, send her away with a dictionary and tell her to bring it back to me only when it was her absolute best. I had time to do that rather than a teacher who would just tell her to do better next time. With my one-to-one tuition, I could drive it home that she had to do her best to succeed.

It worked, and Georgia regained her confidence. she's started at middle school now, having being out of the classroom for whole year. She's in all the top sets and it was realised she isn't dyslexic at all. I'm thrilled I had the opportunity to home-school my daughter, but I think schools have to look differently at children who are struggling and not be so quick to stick them in a box.

SOURCE



Privatizing the British postal service: "Two years ago Ofcom deputy head Richard Hooper reported on the Royal Mail. It was an inefficient, outdated fish in a declining pool of letters business, he concluded, and it needed an injection of private cash and partnership with a private carrier to give it the cash and expertise to survive before EU rules open the whole market up to competition. Now, another report and a change of government later, it looks as if this might actually happen.”



British homeowner who fired shotgun to warn off trespassing trailer children will not face charges: "A carer who was arrested for firing a warning shot with his shotgun to scare off trespassing travellers' children has been told he will not face charges. Christopher Bayfield, 40, is understood to have reacted after a series of petty thefts at the home he shares with his parents following the arrival of travellers in a neighbouring field for a Christian festival. He is said to have shouted at the children and fired his shotgun vertically into the air after hearing noises in a copse outside the £1million five-bedroom house in Swavesey, Cambridgeshire. Mr Bayfield, who looks after his seriously ill father, retired businessman Leslie, 85, was later arrested by armed officers on suspicion of firearm offences and questioned at a police station."





14 September, 2010

Scottish councils have 'no idea' how to afford free care

Scotland’s council leaders have admitted they have no idea how they can afford to continue providing free personal care for the elderly in the face of deep spending cuts.

The Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla) warned families will have to take more responsibility for caring after elderly relatives because the “nanny state” will be forced to take a step back.

Alex Salmond, the First Minister, has vowed to protect the flagship policy from spending cuts but even Lord Sutherland, its architect, has said it should be included in a public spending review.

New research prepared for Holyrood’s finance committee projects the cost of free personal care will soar by more than 200 per cent over the next 20 years thanks to Scotland’s ageing population.

The policy currently costs the taxpayer more than £358 million per year, more than three times its original budget, but Cosla warned further increases are unsustainable.

Douglas Yates, the organisation’s health and wellbeing spokesman, admitted he did not have “a clue” how these costs will be met, which cuts projected at £1.7 billion in the next year alone.

“There will need to be more discussion among families about the provision of the older members of the family as time move on,” the SNP deputy leader of East Renfrewshire Council said.

“In some respects you might think it’s turning black the clock a little bit, a few generations, to what used to happen when people took more recognition of the family members who were elderly.

“We’ve become a nanny state. We’ve got to get away from the idea that local government or the government can do everything for everyone. Quite patently it can’t so we need to take more responsibility for ourselves.”

He said free care can only be afforded by imposing higher user charges, increasing taxes or a combination of both.

The policy, implemented in 2002 by the former Labour-led administration, currently sees councils provide care home residents with up to £227 per week for nursing and personal care.

An independent budget review (IBR) commissioned by John Swinney, the SNP Finance Minister, concluded that providing free care to those who can afford to pay for it is “hard to justify”.

It found that the policy is “unlikely to be affordable” in the longer term, with the number of over-75s expected to increase from 393,000 to 724,000 by 2033, and recommended the introduction of some form of means testing.

Anne-Marie Jeannet, of Holyrood’s independent research centre, warned if the cost of free care continues to rise at current levels, spending on the policy could increase by more than 200 per cent by 2033 in real terms.

A spokesman for Mr Swinney confirmed the SNP administration is “committed to retaining existing eligibility for free personal care”.

Meanwhile, doctors have urged the Scottish NHS to stop wasting £1.5 million of taxpayers’ money annually on homoeopathic treatments, around 10 times the level per head south of the Border.

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, the British Medical Association’s director of science and ethics, said funding for a facility at Glasgow’s Gartnavel Hospital should cease unless evidence is presented of the treatments’ benefits.

SOURCE



Big backdown in British climate policy

Britain can no longer stop global warming and must instead focus on adapting to the ‘inevitable’ impacts of climate change such as floods, droughts and rising sea levels, Government ministers will warn this week.

For the past few years Government policy has concentrated on trying to make people turn off lights and grow their own vegetables in an effort to bring down carbon emissions.

But as global greenhouse gases continue to increase, with the growth of developing countries like China and India, and the public purse tightens, the focus will increasingly be on adapting to climate change.

The Government will set out plans to protect power stations from flooding and ensure hospitals can cope with water shortages during dry summers.

Since the beginning of the industrial era, the temperature has already risen by 0.8C, according to the Met Office. [A whole fraction of one degree in a couple of hunded years! How Awful!]

Temperatures are expected to rise further because of greenhouse gases that are already “locked in” but will take decades to warm the atmosphere.

In her first speech on climate change since taking office Caroline Spelman, the Environment Secretary, will speak about the need for Britain to adapt to rising temperatures. “It is vital that we carry on working to drastically cut our greenhouse gas emissions to stop the problem getting any worse,” she will say. “But we are already stuck with some unavoidable climate change. Because of this, we need to prepare for the best and worst cases which a changing climate will entail for our country.”

However environmental groups are nervous about the change in direction. They fear that the move away from tackling climate change is motivated by spending cuts rather than saving the planet. They also point out that no new money is being offered to help companies or the public sector adapt to climate change, preferring to leave it to ‘the Big Society’ and forward thinking businesses to come up with the cash.

Lord Peter Melchett, policy director of the Soil Association, said it was dangerous to rely on adaptation rather than trying to mitigate the effects of climate change. “If Caroline Spelman makes her first speech about adaptation and nothing about mitigation it spells out significant danger for all of us,” he said.

Mrs Spelman will be speaking in response to a hard-hitting report from the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), due out on Thursday. The committee, set up to advise the Government on tackling climate change, is expected to recommend specific actions to protect against global warming. For example flood defences in coastal areas at risk of rising sea levels. Emergency plans are recommended for coping with heatwaves in the summer that could kill thousands of elderly people and more floods throughout the year.

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) is also producing a report on the risk of climate change, which will also call for more efforts to prepare for the impact of rising remperatures.

The powerful group of businesses leaders will call for a new public information bank, easily accessible online, that explains the risks in the local area to companies and individuals. People will be able to type in a postcode and be told the likelihood of floods and droughts over the next few decades. The CBI said the current information available needs to be simplified so that businesses and home owners can protect themselves in future.

In a speech to the CBI, Lord Henley, the climate change minister, will warn that business, public bodies and each individual will have to adapt to climate change. “One way or another, climate change is going to affect every organisation and every individual in this country. If we are to thrive as a society, every organisation and every individual must adapt,” he will say.

SOURCE



Official bigotry in British courts: Men now second-class citizens

Official guidance issued by feminist judges

Judges have been told to treat female criminals more leniently than men when deciding sentences. New guidelines declare that women suffer disadvantages and courts should `bear these matters in mind'.

The rules say women criminals often have poor mental health or are poorly educated, have not committed violence and have children to look after. "Women's experiences as victims, witnesses and offenders are in many respects different to those of men,' according to the Equal Treatment Bench Book. `These differences highlight the importance of the need for sentencers to bear these matters in mind when sentencing.'

The controversial advice comes from the Judicial Studies Board, which is responsible for training the judiciary. In the past, the board has caused upset by suggesting Rastafarians have religious beliefs which allow them to use cannabis. It has also tried to ban words such as immigrant, asylum-seeker and even West Indian from the courts on the grounds they are offensive.

The latest guidelines have also caused anger, this time among campaigners for male victims of domestic violence.

The Bench Book tells judges that the problem `consists mainly of violence by men against women'. It adds `the reality is that some of the most physically violent incidents are committed by men on female partners'. The document also suggests that aggression against men by women is rare, saying that `men and partners in same-sex relationships might also be victims of domestic violence'.

However, campaigners for male victims of domestic violence claimed that men are being treated as second-class citizens by the new guidelines. They also point to analysis of official figures by the Parity campaign group which last week concluded that four out of ten victims of domestic violence were men.

Mark Brooks, of the ManKind campaign group, said: `For a document that claims to be about gender equality, it clearly leaves the impression that male victims are seen as being second class when, of course, all should be seen the same. `It is unacceptable that men, often suffering in silence at home, are being shown to be second-class victims by those running the legal system.'

He added: `To say grudgingly that men might also be victims is sweeping their problems under the carpet, when the Government's own figures show hundreds of thousands of men every year are suffering.' The study from Parity based its assessment on Home Office statistics and the British Crime Survey, the measure of crime most trusted by Whitehall. The campaign group said that the average proportion of domestic violence victims who are men has been 40 per cent.

Updated guidance on how to sentence female criminals was distributed in April in a new section on `gender equality'. It told judges: `Women remain disadvantaged in many public and private areas of their life; they are under-represented in the judiciary, Parliament and senior positions across a range of jobs; and there is still a substantial pay gap between men and women.'

On women accused of crime, the guidance quoted Judge Baroness Hale, the only woman among the 11 at the Supreme Court, who describes herself as a `soft-line feminist'. She said: `It is now well recognised that a misplaced conception of equality has resulted in some very unequal treatment for women and girls.'

The rules were prepared by a team headed by High Court judge Dame Laura Cox. She wrote: `It is hardly revolutionary that judges should know of the matters central to the lives of those who attend courts and to aim to provide judges with that knowledge.'

SOURCE



More petty bureaucratic tyranny in Britain

Council threatens father for not walking his daughter, 7, to school bus stop... 20 yards from family home

A father could face legal action after he was reprimanded for allowing his seven-year-old daughter to walk alone to a school bus stop - just 20 yards from their home. Mark McCullough received a letter from Lincolnshire County Council threatening to report the situation as a 'child protection issue' unless his daughter Isabelle was accompanied the short distance to and from the bus stop.

The 32-year-old makes sure either he or his partner, Natasha Fegan, 33, is at home to see Isabelle off in the morning, and meet her when she returns home from school. But the couple, of Glentham, Lincolnshire, have now been told there must be a 'change in arrangements' or they will face action. Mr McCullough, who has four other children, has also been criticised for sending Isabelle to Normanby by Spital Primary School without a jumper.

He said today: 'This is more than upsetting. It has made me angry. 'I am happy for Isabelle to walk from home to the end of the road and, if necessary, cross a country lane and walk home. 'I'm not going to wrap my children up in cotton wool. 'When I was a child I would go anywhere during the school holidays. I would be out at eight in the morning and not back until teatime.

'Admittedly I would not let the kids do that now because times are different. But for a seven-year-old not to be able to walk 20 metres to the top of the courtyard and cross a quiet country road is an absolute joke. 'I'm going to carry on as normal even if it means going to court.'

Mr McCullough, a refuse collector, received the letter from the council on Friday. It claimed the bus driver felt 'obliged' to help Isabelle safely cross the road at the end of the day. It added: 'Should there be no change in the arrangements for Isabelle's delivery to and collection from the bus stop, I will have no option but to consider reporting this as a child protection issue.'

Denise Carr, Lincolnshire County Council's head of transport services, said: 'As a responsible authority we have expressed our concern that a seven-year-old is standing on a busy road alone each morning and then crossing the road unaccompanied. 'As the child was also left standing by the roadside on a cold morning without warm clothing we have raised our concern with the parents.' [A threat is "raising concern"?]

SOURCE



Up to 750,000 'special needs' pupils in Britain are just badly taught

Schools have wrongly labelled as many as 750,000 children as having special needs to cover up poor teaching, a damning report warns today. They are diagnosing conditions such as 'behavioural , emotional and social problems' to massage unfavourable league table ratings, according to inspectors.

They found that 1.7million pupils in England were classed as having special educational needs in January, just over one in five. But, declares Ofsted, almost half of these have simply been poorly taught. In some schools, a 'culture of excuses' means that pupils making slow progress are automatically classed as having special needs.

In other cases, pupils have ended up with learning or behavioural problems after being failed by poor literacy and numeracy teaching early in their school career.

Inspectors also visited a school where pupils were categorised as having special needs simply because their fathers were away fighting in Afghanistan.

Inspectors found that some local authorities appear to offer incentives to give such labels to children as some types of educational need bring in extra funds.

Exam results are also adjusted to take account of the number of pupils with special needs. This can have a 'positive influence' on their league table rankings, Ofsted found.

Schools are, meanwhile, under pressure from 'articulate middle-class parents' who lobby for such diagnoses to ensure extra support for their children, such as personal tuition and extra time in exams.

'The term "special educational needs" is used too widely,' said the report. 'Around half the schools and early years provision visited used low attainment and relatively slow progress as their principal indicators. 'Inspectors saw schools that identified pupils as having special needs when, in fact, their needs were no different from most other pupils. 'They were under-achieving but this was sometimes simply because teaching was not good enough and expectations of pupil were too low.

'A conclusion that may be drawn is that some pupils are being wrongly identified as having special needs and that relatively expensive additional provision is being used to make up for poor teaching and pastoral support.'
Christine Gilbert

Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector of schools, said: 'Schools are identifying children and young people as having special needs when they need essentially better teaching and better pastoral support.' In contrast, parents of children with the greatest needs or disabilities must endure the troublesome 'statementing' process. Statements are legal documents outlining the support to which children are entitled. But Ofsted found that, even when parents succeed in obtaining one, there was no guarantee of appropriate or good provision.

Those with the severest needs - 2.7 per cent of all primary and secondary pupils - have written statements. This is down slightly from 3 per cent in 2003. But the proportion of all pupils classed as having special needs without statements rose from 14 per cent in 2003 to 18.2 per cent this year.

As many as half of these, or approximately 750,000, 'would not be identified as having special educational needs if schools focused on improving teaching and learning for all, with individual goals for improvement,' Ofsted suggested.

Pupils from poor backgrounds or who regularly play truant or who were disruptive were more likely to be given the label. In one case, 14 and 15-year-olds who were 'demotivated' about taking their GCSEs were put on the special needs register so the school could justify bringing in 'mentors' to help them.

Janet Thompson, an Ofsted inspector and the report's author, said: 'Too much is being identified as being additional and different, rather than "this is the group of youngsters we are providing education for and this is the wide range of needs that we can meet".

'We did find examples of young people identified as having behavioural, emotional and social difficulties who, if you unpicked the reasons for that, were actually around inability to read and write.'

SOURCE



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





13 September, 2010

Boy who swallowed cockroach poison 'turned away from NHS hospital because it was due to close for the night'

Public service medicine

A hospital refused to treat a toddler who swallowed cockroach poison - because he arrived minutes before it was due to close for the night.

Three-year-old Todd Thomas was rushed to hospital after he managed to get hold of a container of cockroach killer in his grandmother's garden - and sprayed it into his mouth. His parents, Lorna, 27, and Michael, 29, made their little boy rinse his mouth out before rushing him to Chepstow Hospital for medical treatment.

But the couple were stunned when they arrived at the hospital at 5.55pm - and were told that all the staff had gone home, as the unit was due to close at 6pm.

The couple were then forced to drive to Royal Gwent Hospital - more than an hour's drive away from their home in Chepstow, South Wales.

By the time they arrived, Todd already painful blisters in his mouth - and was constantly being sick. Medics at the hospital then treated the toddler, who fortunately did not suffer any serious side effects.

Todd's father Michael said: 'I was absolutely furious when the staff at the hospital told me they weren't prepared to help me. 'We told them he had sprayed poison in his mouth, but they just said everyone had already gone home - even though there was still five minutes before they were due to close.

'There was no offer of help at all. If someone had seen him straight away, he might not have suffered all those terrible blisters. 'The centre is open from 9am til 6pm - what happens if you need treatment outside those times? 'There's no point in having the unit if it's only open during office hours.

'Thankfully, Todd is fine now. He had a poorly tummy for a few days and blisters in his mouth - but he's back to his usual happy self.'

A spokesman for the Aneurin Bevan Health Board confirmed minor injury units are open 9am until 6pm on weekdays and on Saturday mornings between 9am and 1pm. He said: 'These opening times were agreed earlier this year as there was a wide variation of attendances during the day and very low attendances during the night time.'

The spokesman was unable to confirm whether the Thomas family were turned away.

SOURCE



Now apple trees are "dangerous" in Britain

When an apple fell from a tree in the 17th century, it led Isaac Newton to the concept of gravity. Fast forward 350 years, however, and falling fruit seems to be a far more weighty problem for officials at one housing association, who ruled that it posed a health and safety risk.

After the association complained that crab apples on a quiet residential street were a ‘possible trip hazard’, council workers chopped down all six apple trees, to the fury of locals.

One resident, pensioner Jose Williams, told how no warning was given of the work, and claims her formerly picturesque view of the trees from her flat has now been ruined. The retired shop worker, 80, said that several of her neighbours in the street in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, were also shocked by the decision, adding: ‘Those trees made the street look beautiful. They were there for 35 years – if they were dangerous then why did they leave them there all that time?

Mrs Williams, who lost husband Ben 13 years ago, added: ‘They were only tiny apples and when they did fall I used to go outside and sweep them up. 'It’s just so ridiculous. Even if they do plant something else there instead, most of the residents are elderly so we are not going to be around to see it.’

Mike Randall, housing services manager for Yorkshire Coast Homes, the charitable organisation which owns the properties, said he was looking to plant new greenery in the street to replace the apple trees.

He said: ‘The warden had complaints about the trees. They had grown to the extent that they were catching on windows and were blocking the light. There is also the issue of fruit falling to the ground and being a possible trip hazard.’

SOURCE



Pope launches defence of religious freedom in Britain

Pope Benedict XVI will this week urge the Government to protect religious freedoms to allow Christians to follow their beliefs. In a speech to political and religious leaders in Westminster Hall, the Pontiff will deliver a thinly veiled attack on the perceived liberal direction of the country.

He will praise Britain's role in establishing religious liberty, but warn that it will suffer if it allows a secular agenda to destroy its Christian heritage.

Senior Roman Catholic sources said his message would be seen as a criticism of the introduction of equality laws that have impinged on the freedom of religious groups, although he will not directly refer to government policy.

A number of Christians have lost their jobs or faced disciplinary action for practising their faith at work by wearing a crucifix or sharing their views on biblical teaching.

The Pope will also use the visit to try to heal the rift with the Church of England following his offer last year to disaffected Anglicans to defect to Rome.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, says Pope Benedict XVI will stress that religious belief should not be seen as divisive, but as "a source of energy and inspiration".

Archbishop Nichols added: "When we forget, minimise or even reject this inheritance, then we risk losing our profound identity and creating a vacuum of values at the heart of our society." He described the visit as "an event of great cultural and historic resonance".

The Pope will travel to Edinburgh to meet the Queen on Thursday before going to London for his speech in Westminster Hall on Friday. It is being viewed as one of the major speeches of his Pontificate and it is understood that Pope Benedict plans to use the address to defend the place of religion in society. He will refer to Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor whom Henry VIII had executed, as an example of the tension between following one's conscience and one's obligations to the state.

While the Pope will acknowledge Britain's record of tolerance, he will highlight the dangers of pursuing equality at the expense of religious freedom. The German Pontiff made an unprecedented attack on the Labour government's introduction of equality legislation earlier this year, describing it as "unjust" and claiming it "violates natural law" because it stopped worshippers remaining true to their beliefs.

He is not expected to address this directly, but will make it clear that Christians and people of other faiths should not lose their freedoms at the expense of a secular state's emphasis on equality. This carries particular significance in Britain following the Catholic Church's clash with the previous government over the introduction of homosexual equality laws, which led to the closure of the church's adoption agencies.

Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, claimed earlier this year that Christians in Britain were being persecuted and "treated with disrespect". He and six other prominent bishops described the "discrimination" against churchgoers as "unacceptable in a civilised society".

Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican's spokesman, said the Pope's speech would be offered as "a positive contribution" to the debate over British society. "It will be presented as an attempt to show that the Church engages with the world around it and will not be delivered in a polemic way," Fr Lombardi said.

He added that the Pope would address ecumenical relations with Anglicans, concentrating on the issues that unite the two Churches rather than focusing on the Ordinariate, the structure introduced to allow Anglicans to join the Catholic Church.

Other issues which the Pontiff is expected to address include the environment and international development, but it is understood he will not directly refer to the sex abuse crisis, which has engulfed the Church over the last year.

However, Pope Benedict will meet privately with victims of clerical abuse amid calls for him to apologise and threats from some groups they will attempt a citizen's arrest of the Pope over his alleged cover-up of abuse. Yesterday, victims of abuse by Catholic priests appealed to the Pope for "action not words" to tackle paedophiles in the Church. At a meeting in London, they called on the Pontiff to set up a worldwide database, naming known "predators" and remove them from the priesthood. They called for a statutory inquiry into abuse, proper pastoral care and funding to support victims of paedophiles in the Church.

Dr Margaret Kennedy, the founder of Minister And Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors, said the head of the Roman Catholic Church would travel with the "accolade and dignity" given to a head of state. "Sadly we are not afforded the same respect or dignity or status," she told a press conference before the meeting. "Many survivors have to almost live in fear, shame and guilt because . they are made to feel like pariahs, disloyal, aggressive, money-grabbing, and accused of making false allegations."

Survivors had written about their experiences of abuse in a book she would attempt to present to the Pope during his visit. "We don't want words any more from the Vatican, we want action ... concrete decisions about how they will repair the lives of survivors of clergy abuse."

A ComRes poll of 500 Catholics, published yesterday, found 52 per cent said the scale of abuse and the way it was handled had "shaken their faith" in the Church leadership.

Peter Tatchell, the homosexual rights campaigner, will claim in a Channel 4 documentary broadcast on Monday that the Pope's moral authority has been called into question by his handling of the scandal.

Pope Benedict will be greeted by the Duke of Edinburgh when he arrives in Britain this week for the first papal visit since Pope John Paul II came here in 1982.

The visit will cost more than œ20 million, with taxpayers shouldering at least œ12 million of the total, but the Catholic Church hopes that huge crowds will attend events in London, Glasgow and Birmingham.

SOURCE



British schools must be braver with the children

Spending a childhood wrapped in cotton wool is no preparation for adult life, argues Toby Young

When I think of some of the things I got up to as child, I shudder with horror. At the age of 12, for instance, I decided it would be fun to take a sailing boat out into the Atlantic. It was fun, too, until the boat capsized. Then there was the time, aged 14, that I "borrowed" the 400cc motorcycle belonging to my sister's boyfriend. As the needle of the speedometer passed 100 mph, I remember thinking that I should probably be wearing a helmet.

When Michael Gove called for a return to a "Dangerous Book for Boys" culture in England's schools I don't suppose he had joy-riding in mind. But these sorts of adventures undoubtedly proved valuable experiences on the road to maturity. According to the Education Secretary, risk-averse teachers and litigious parents have led to children being brought up in an over-protective environment. "We need to change our bubble-wrapped culture," he said yesterday.

So is the Health and Safety Executive going to be added to the flames in the bonfire of the quangocrats? Unfortunately not. But Lord Young of Graffham has been asked to review health and safety legislation to see if it can be made less restrictive. One suggestion is that claimants in compensation cases would need to prove reckless endangerment instead of just negligence in order to receive a payout.

At the moment, the amount of red tape teachers have to wade through in preparation for a school trip of any kind is ludicrous. A ghastly official document entitled "Standards for LEAs in Overseeing Educational Visits" includes 93 rules and regulations covering everything from "non-licensable adventure activities" to "having a plan B pre-assessed in case Plan A has become too hazardous".

Then there's the fact that "educational-visits co-ordinators" are obliged not to discriminate against disabled pupils when arranging trips. The Disability Rights Commission has produced no fewer than two codes of practice relating to this. (Are two enough? Why not 20? Can't be too careful about this sort of thing.)

In light of this, perhaps it's not surprising that the last official "school trip" my seven-year-old daughter went on was to the local branch of Pizza Express. I'm not making that up. Happily, no one choked to death on a slice of quattro formaggi.

One of the most powerful arguments against this degree of caution is that it leaves children unable to assess risk and that, in turn, leads to reckless behaviour. According to Dr Amanda Gummer, a psychologist who advises the British Toy & Hobby Association, a completely safe childhood is actually more dangerous than one containing its fair share of bumps and scrapes.

"Children who have all elements of danger removed from their lives grow up to think they are invincible," she says. "This doesn't just affect the accidents they might have when riding a bike or exploring a river, but it has a knock-on effect in terms of drug culture and gang violence." I'm not entirely convinced by this. It amounts to saying that the reason children shouldn't be cocooned in cotton wool is because it's less risky than exposing them to danger.

Surely, the best way of tackling the culture of health and safety in schools is not to appeal to parents' risk aversion but to challenge it. I want my children to grow up to be confident, happy adults, not cautious little wet noodles who daren't say boo to a goose. That means venturing a little further afield on school trips than the nearest fast-food restaurant.

I'm hardly alone in this. A survey of over 2,000 parents of primary school children commissioned by Play England found that three-quarters of them thought schools were too concerned with health and safety. We need to dismantle the whole edifice of mollycoddling rules and regulations so our children are free to play proper, old-fashioned games even if they involve risk of injury. How can we expect them to stick up for what they believe in as adults if they're not allowed to play British Bulldog in the playground?

Of course, Michael Gove won't find this easy, not least because Britain is no longer a sovereign state. Many of the "elf and safety" rules are enforced by the European Union rather than the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. For instance, article two of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights states: "No person shall be denied the right to an education." That may make it possible for the parent of a wheelchair-bound child to sue a school that organises an activity he or she can't participate in, depending on how broadly the word "education" is interpreted.

Nevertheless, we need to do as much as we can. As things stand, the absurd over-protectiveness of our schools is in danger of creating a nation of milksops.

SOURCE



The WCRF is at it again: An extra inch on the waist is a cancer risk!

When they "review" research, they ignore all the bits that don't suit them -- like the fact that fat women get LESS breast cancer. The WCRF make their money out of scary pronouncements: For "more research"

Every extra inch on your waistline raises the odds of bowel cancer even if the rest of your body is trim, doctors have warned. The dangers of a pot belly or 'muffin top' were highlighted by a large-scale review of studies into Britain's second biggest cancer killer. Crucially for the millions battling to contain middle-age spread, it found that you don't need to be overweight for a generous waistline to cause problems.

Professor Martin Wiseman, medical and scientific adviser for the World Cancer Research Fund, which funded the review, said: 'This latest study adds to the already strong evidence that carrying excess body fat increases your risk of cancer. 'In fact, scientists now say that, after not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight is the most important thing you can do for cancer prevention.

'We estimate that more than 2,700 cases of bowel cancer a year in the UK could be prevented through people maintaining a healthy weight. 'But this study has also strengthened the evidence that where we carry the fat is important.'

A healthy waist measurement is defined as less than 31.5in (80cm) for women, less than 37in (94cm) for white and black men and less than 35in (89cm) for Asian men. The differences are down to variations in the average height of ethnic groups, and therefore variations in body mass index measurements.

For every extra inch on the waist above these levels, the risk of bowel cancer goes up 3 per cent, the Imperial College London review of seven pieces of research found.

Dr Teresa Norat, who led the review, told a cancer conference: 'This indicates that people should pay attention to abdominal fatness even if they are in the normal range of weight, and it confirms that being overweight increases the risk of this type of cancer. More research is needed to understand how abdominal fatness can be prevented in both normal and overweight individuals.'

It is unclear why abdominal fat is especially dangerous but some scientists believe it may be because it disrupts the balance of hormones that help fuel bowel cancer.

More than 38,000 cases of bowel cancer are diagnosed a year in the UK, and it claims more than 16,000 lives. Only lung cancer kills more.

The World Cancer Research Fund has repeatedly warned that eating processed meats – including bacon, ham, pastrami, salami and hot dogs – significantly raises the chances of bowel cancer. [Which is complete rubbish and another example of their highly selective vision]

SOURCE



Those pesky genes again: The gene that causes short-sight found

All those carrots you ate probably didn't help

A gene that causes shortsightedness has been pinpointed by British scientists, paving the way for eye drops that could make glasses history. Within just ten years, a drug that prevents short-sightedness or stops it in its tracks could be in widespread use. lions would be spared the inconvenience and expense of contact lenses, spectacles and laser surgery.

Given in childhood, the eye drops could also spare school pupils anxieties about having to wear glasses.

Short- sightedness, or trouble in focussing on distant objects, affects more than one in three Britons and is becoming more common as we spend more time indoors and in front of computer screens.

Caused by overgrowth of the eyeball, it usually starts developing in childhood. In some cases vision can rapidly deteriorate. There is no way of halting its progress and, in severe cases, it leads to blindness.

The latest research, by an international team led by experts at King's College London and published in the prestigious journal Nature Genetics, offers hope to millions.

To find the gene, the first to be linked to short-sightedness, or myopia, the researchers compared the DNA of more than 4,000 British twins. Twins are often used in such studies because it is easier distinguish the different effects of nature and nurture. They then confirmed their results by studying the genetics of another 13,000 British, Dutch and Australian individuals.

Some 45 per cent of Britons have the rogue gene and those who have two copies of it are almost twice as likely to be short-sighted as those who are free of it.

KCL researcher Dr Pirro Hysi, the study's lead author, said: 'We have known for many years that the most important risk factor for being short-sighted is having parents who are shortsighted and for the first time we are identifying genes that may be involved in passing on this susceptibility.'

The gene, known as RASGRF1, is thought to play a key role in the development of the eye and the passing of visual signals to the brain for processing. When it is faulty, the eyeball may overgrow, making distant objects seem fuzzy or blurred.

Dr Chris Hammond, also of KCL, said: 'Myopia, or shortsightedness, is the most common eye problem, affecting over a third of adults in the UK. 'People who are extremely short-sighted carry significant risks of future vision loss. The retina can peel away from the back of the eye like wallpaper off a wall.

'While we believe that environmental risk factors such as a lot of close work and lack of outdoor activity are implicated, we have not previously understood how people become short-sighted. 'We hope that by understanding the mechanisms we can stop children from becoming shortsighted and stop short-sighted children from becoming more short-sighted.'

A second study, by Dutch researchers, identified a second short- sightedness gene. Ultimately, there could be dozens behind the condition.

Drugs that counter their effect and stop the eyeball from overgrowing could be available in just a decade, said Dr Hammond. Other options include gene therapy - injecting 'healthy' genes into the eye.

But Dr Hammond said: 'Gene therapy is a major intervention. I think we are going to be looking at developing some kind of eye drop or tablet that interferes with the biological pathway that leads to short-sightedness.' Although the eye drops would not help adults who are already short-sighted, they could be of huge benefit to their children.

However, today's youngsters can take some simple steps to try to discourage shortsightedness. Terri Young, of Duke University in North Carolina in the U.S., said: 'People need to go outside and look at the horizon. 'Today's near work forces our eyes to be constantly in tension to focus on reading papers and watching monitors.'

Professor Pete Coffey, director of the London Project to Cure Blindness, cautioned that any drug would have to be shown to be extremely safe before it was given to children.

SOURCE





12 September, 2010

First diagnosis often wrong, doctor warns

Doctors do not have enough time to properly diagnose patients and some are harmed or even die because their real problems are not spotted early enough, a doctor has warned. Doctors make a 'working diagnosis' when first faced with a patient and treat them accordingly, a doctor has said in the British Medical Journal online.

But sometimes that original diagnosis is proved wrong, only when the patient does not respond to treatment or deteriorates, Gordon Caldwell, a consultant physician at Worthing Hospital, West Sussex said. "The consequences can be significant. A patient treated according to a working diagnosis of pulmonary embolism (clot on the lung) who actually has pneumonia may die of untreated pneumonia.

"The time taken to reach the correct diagnosis may be crucial for the patient’s chance of survival. Over my career I have seen many errors in the working diagnosis causing harm to patients and even death," he wrote.

These errors in the working diagnosis are made when medical notes are not available or are disorganised, test results cannot be seen or doctors are under pressure to finish seeing patient and discharge them home to free up beds.

Dr Caldwell said: "Through fear of litigation and losing face and simply because of the difficulty of explaining the complexity of what we do every day, we have failed to let our patients and society know about this very important problem.

"We must design our working spaces and information systems to maximise doctors’ ability to see, understand, and deliberate on the information needed for more precise diagnosis. "We must allow clinicians enough time to be careful in diagnosis, treatment planning, and treatment review. We must urgently consider how to provide rooms, time, and information for doctors to do the most difficult part of their job and the part most prone to error: the clinical thinking in making the working diagnosis and treatment plan."

SOURCE



Cancer patients from wealthy areas of Britain have a much better chance of surviving

That pesky social class factor again -- a factor behind a whole host of epidemiological correlations

Cancer patients in the wealthiest parts of the country are far more likely to survive than those in poorer areas, figures show. Those from impoverished households face a much bleaker prognosis with less chance of still being alive a year after diagnosis.

On average, a person diagnosed with any type of cancer in England has a 65 per cent chance of surviving at least 12 months, compared with 62 per cent a decade ago.

But the figures from the Office of National Statistics show a distinct gap between the rich and the poor with those living in wealthy regions enjoying survival rates almost 25 per cent higher.

The report worked out the average one-year survival rate for all types of cancer for every primary care trust (PCT) in England using figures from 2006, the most recent available. It found that those living in Hammersmith and Fulham in West London had the highest survival rate of 70.3 per cent, closely followed by Westminster, and Kensington and Chelsea. Bournemouth and Poole, Bromley, Worcester and North Somerset also recorded survival rates close to 70 per cent.

By contrast Newham, one of the poorest PCTs in East London, had the lowest one-year survival rate of just 56.3 per cent, with similarly low figures in Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets, and Barking & Dagenham. Rates of around 60 per cent were recorded in East Lancashire Teaching PCT, which encompasses Burnley, and Leicester City PCT.

Cancer experts say the poor are missing out on early screenings and treatments because they are 'intimidated' by the NHS. Professor Karol Sikora of Imperial College, London, said: 'Rich and middle-class people use the NHS far better. By contrast, the poor feel intimidated. 'They are made to feel unwelcome at surgeries and hospitals [How British!] and this means they are less likely to push for treatment or early screenings.

'If a middle-class person gets told they have to wait six months for a screening they will kick up a fuss and be seen. 'They also are more aware of what the Health Service offers.

'Women are more likely to go along for their mammograms and men to their prostate screenings so their cancers will picked up earlier and more easily treated. 'The NHS is meant to be free - but rich people know how to use its services better.'

Catherine Thomson, of Cancer Research UK, said: 'These figures are encouraging and reinforce previous ones showing that in general cancer survival rates have significantly improved over the past 40 years. 'But this study also flags up certain areas, particularly those in the North of England and those which are generally deprived, that are consistently falling short of the national average.

'Late diagnosis of cancer could help explain some of this northsouth divide and why the poorer areas tend to do worse. 'This could help highlight where efforts to promote early diagnosis could be best targeted to help save lives.'

Source



British Food Standards Agency spent £7m on 'nannying' campaigns

The Food Standards Agency has spent nearly £7 million on posters, adverts and leaflets to educate consumers about improving their diets over the last year. MPs and campaigners said the figure was proof that the Agency had wasted taxpayers' money and was "nannying" citizens.

It spent £3.47 million on its salt awareness campaign, including devising a quiz to educate consumers. One question was: "Too much salt is bad for your heart. a. True b. False".

It also spent £554,000 on its Christmas Food Hygiene Campaign, designed to stop families undercooking their turkeys.

The figures were published in a written answer supplied by Anne Milton, the health minister, in response to Andrew Stephenson, the Conservative MP.

Mr Stephenson said: "Whilst I am not opposed to all public awareness campaigns, I thought the salt campaign typified the nannying behaviour of several government bodies. "I was appalled to learn that the Salt Awareness Campaign cost £3.5 milion and that the Food Standards Agency spent a further £3 million on other advertising and PR. I can see little justification for this expenditure, particularly as it took place whilst the country was still in recession."

The FSA, whose budget last year was £152 million, has come under fire for its handling of meat from cloned cows entering the food chain. It was also widely ridiculed for publishing an online guide advising football fans to cut down on drinking beer and eating crisps during this summer's football World Cup.

As well as suggesting fans watching the game in a pub drank fizzy water with a slice of lemon, it also advised: "You could walk to the pub instead of taking the bus, or use half-time for a brisk walk and some fresh air."

Tim Cox, at Liberal Voice, a Liberal Democrat group that campaigns for lower taxes, said: "The news that the Food Standards Agency has spent £6.7 million of taxpayers’ money on public awareness campaigns over the last year is scandalous.

"The British public do not need bureaucrats in Whitehall to tell them when to have dinner, or to advise them on what to eat during the World Cup. This is patronising, self-serving nonsense. The Coalition should cut all similar activities immediately.”

The campaigning arm of the FSA will be transferred to the Department of Health, under plans to slim down the Agency's role.

Ms Milton said that the FSA's campaigns had been effective, pointing out that the results of the most recent urinary analysis survey, which took place in 2008, showed a significant fall in the average population daily salt intake from 9.5g in 2001 to 8.6g.

Many more people were checking the labels on food to see how much salt and saturated fat they contained.

Source



How Britain attracts more migrants than France AND Germany put together

Britain is surging ahead of France and Germany as a magnet for immigrants, figures showed yesterday. Tough controls mean that the two countries that once drew in hundreds of thousands of migrants a year have now achieved a virtual balance between immigration and emigration.

Yet the new count shows that in 2008 Britain opened its doors to almost ten times the number accepted by France and Germany together.

The latest figures from Eurostat, the European Union’s statistical arm, drew calls from campaigners for the Government to follow the example of Berlin and Paris and bring in measures to limit the impact of immigration on Britain.

Ministers promised earlier this week to ‘bear down’ on every aspect of immigration into Britain from outside the EU after the latest British figures showed a big leap in net migration – the number of people coming to live in the country minus the number leaving to live abroad.

Eurostat figures say that in 2008 the United Kingdom grew because of net migration by 226,400.

Germany, which no longer accepts unskilled migrants and which declined to accept Eastern European workers when Poland and other countries joined the EU, had negative net migration.
That meant that 53,600 more people left the country to live abroad than arrived.
France, which experienced a brief immigration boom in 2007, cut back net immigration to 77,000.

The curbs now in place in France have led to increasing political unrest over hardline policies such as the expulsion of thousands of Roma and the removal of French citizenship from immigrants found guilty of attacking police officers.

Net migration numbers in Britain are the third highest in Europe, behind Italy and Spain, which have seen high levels of arrivals from Africa and from Latin America, and where signs of popular unrest over the impact on jobs and public services have been growing.

Critics of the Rome and Madrid governments have said they have encouraged higher immigration by offering amnesties to illegal immigrants.

How we lost control of immigration

In 2008, the EU figures say, net migration in Italy was 437,900 and in Spain 413,800.

Eurostat uses different methodology to Britain’s Office for National Statistics. The ONS has calculated net immigration at 163,000 in 2008. Last year, it rose sharply to 196,000.

The effects of immigration in Britain are becoming increasingly politically sensitive, largely because of worries that population growth will cause strain on housing, transport, water and energy resources.

One minister in the last Labour administration promised the population would never hit 70million, but Whitehall statisticians say that level will be reached in 2029.

An analysis by the House of Commons library has also shown that England has now become the most crowded country in Europe, except for tiny Malta.

Sir Andrew Green, of the Migrationwatch think-tank, said: ‘France and Germany have brought immigration down very substantially, probably helped by the recession. ‘These figures demonstrate that the Government can bring the level of net migration right down, provided ministers are determined to do it.’

According to Eurostat’s calculations, in 2007 net migration into Germany was 45,200 while France blipped suddenly upwards, from 90,100 in 2006 to 302,500. In 1998, when the immigration boom into Britain was just beginning, net migration for this country was 97,400. This is the level to which the Coalition is pledged to return.

SOURCE



The BBC completely fails to understand the Tea Party movement

With the smug incomprehension in which it takes so much pride (can’t understand – won’t understand!), the BBC sets about the American Tea Party Movement as if it were a cross between the Klu Klux Klan and the German neo-fascist brigade. Not once in all the demonic depictions I have seen and heard (last week’s Newsnight package was particularly outrageous) have I heard a mention of what the TPM is actually about: taxation. (Note to BBC editors: the movement is named after the Boston Tea Party because it is protesting about the imposition of higher federal taxes and over-weening controls on citizens who believe their voices have been ignored.)

The British generally and the BBC in particular have a real problem understanding the obsessive suspicion in which the power of central government is held in the US. This is not some funny redneck eccentricity: it is fundamental to the Constitution which gives individual states much greater sovereignty than the countries of the European Union enjoy. The states have independent judicial systems (some states have capital punishment, others do not) and separate taxation systems (some have sales taxes, others do not). Only a Supreme Court ruling can over-turn state law by, for example, declaring something (such as abortion) to be a legal right which a state legislature may not deny.

Traditionally there is only one nationally imposed tax - federal income tax – which is designed to pay for those functions that must be carried out by national government. Resistance to the Obama healthcare reforms is as passionate as it is precisely because it imposes a federal requirement to purchase health insurance which seems to contravene the basic economic freedom guaranteed by the Constitution. The BBC obviously finds it impossible to believe that ordinary people could actually take issues like this seriously. (They can only be racists or hillibilly know-nothings.) The Corporation really ought to encourage its correspondents to get out more and talk to some of the articulate Americans who don’t spend their lives in liberal salons.

SOURCE



History under threat: British pupils receive just 38 hours of lessons at secondary school

History is 'disappearing' from state secondary schools because head teachers no longer value the subject, a survey has found. Teenagers are receiving as few as 38 history lessons during their entire secondary education as schools downgrade the subject in favour of trendy 'themed' teaching.

Hundreds of schools no longer teach history as a stand alone subject to 11 and 12-year-olds, instead offering 'integrated' topic-based humanities or social science courses, according to research by the Historical Association.

The trend emerged ahead of an expected blueprint from Education Secretary Michael Gove for boosting traditional subjects such as history. He will launch a review of the curriculum later this year with a view to ensuring children leave school with core knowledge, including British and world history.

And he will also flesh out plans for a new English Baccalaureate, which will be awarded to pupils who gain five good GCSEs in English, maths, one science, one humanities subject and one language.

But the Historical Association study, based on returns from 600 teachers, found that heads increasingly fail to see history as worthwhile. One history teacher at a comprehensive said: 'We are disappearing. Integrated humanities is the way our senior management team wants to go, and they see us as awkward, backward obstacles if we suggest subjects like history are valuable in their own right.'

Another warned: 'The history department is feeling that we shall disappear into a mix of 'thinking skills' and 'vocational pathways' which do not seem to recognise the contribution that history can make to developing young learners.'

Growing numbers of secondaries are compressing three years' of history study into just two years, usually during pupils' second year. The practice was uncovered in 10 per cent of secondaries in 2010 - up from five per cent last year.

Since growing numbers of schools are offering generic humanities or social science courses for the first of these two years, some teenagers are receiving just 38 hours of distinct history lessons a year, taught by a specialist. Some 31 per cent of schools - and 55 per cent of flagship academies - merged history with other subjects to form generic humanities courses in 2010. A year earlier, the figure was 28 per cent.

In some schools, children are banned from taking history GCSEs in case they fail and damage the school's league table position.

Dr Richard Harris, the chair of the Historical Association's secondary education committee who led the study, told the Times Educational Supplement: 'The Government must make a decision about what children are entitled to do - we think this should be at least three years of history teaching by a specialist.'

SOURCE





11 September, 2010

NHS won't pay for treatment that could keep breast cancer victim alive



A woman dying of breast cancer has been denied the only treatment which could prolong her life because the NHS deems it too expensive. Suzanne Lloyd, 43, has been refused a vital course of radiotherapy currently banned by NICE, the rationing body, even though it could extend her life by several years.

In a further devastating blow, she has been told that the Government's emergency cancer fund will probably not meet the cost as the treatment is not a drug - it is a form of therapy. The Coalition has pledged to set aside £50million for any drug recommended by a doctor or cancer specialist, even if it has been rejected by NICE, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence.

Former PR consultant Mrs Lloyd, from Deal, Kent, is suffering from advanced breast cancer which has spread to her liver. Her last hope is Selective Internal Radiation Therapy (SIRT), in which tiny radioactive beads are injected into the artery which supplies the cancer. Doctors say that on its own the treatment, which costs £23,000 for a single dose, could give her at least an extra 14 months of life.

But it could be extended even further - possibly by two more years - because once the tumour has shrunk to a certain size, other treatments could be used successfully.

Despite doctors' recommendations, her local primary care trust, Eastern and Coastal Kent, has refused to fund it. She said: 'The PCT has said I can't appeal against the decision so I just don't know what to do.'

Mrs Lloyd's case highlights the postcode lottery for cancer treatment across Britain. NICE does not approve SIRT for advanced forms of breast cancer, even though it is paid for by 40 health trusts in Britain.

Mrs Lloyd, who lives with husband Peter, 49, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001. She has stayed alive through chemotherapy combined with other treatments such as Avastin, which she funded herself. But gradually the effectiveness of these treatments on her tumours has declined.

Cancer specialists at the world-renowned Hammersmith Hospital, in West London, where she receives her treatment, say that SIRT could significantly reduce the size of the tumours. Professor Karol Sikora, one of the UK's leading cancer experts, said: 'I can see no other option but to recommend SIRT for Suzanne. It is very effective and she is an ideal candidate.'

But NHS Eastern and Coastal Kent medical director Dr Robert Stewart said: 'The evidence of clinical effectiveness for SIRT for liver metastases following breast cancer is insufficient and the Kent and Medway Cancer Network does not support it for patients with this condition.'

Mrs Lloyd has also received a letter from Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, via her MP Charlie Elphicke, warning that radiotherapy may not be included in the cancer fund. Although she hopes the Government may change its mind when it reviews the fund in April, she believes it may be too late.

SOURCE



Desperate mother releases video of daughter, 4, having a fit to force NHS into action



A mother has released distressing video footage of her four-year-old daughter suffering an epileptic fit in a bid to force the NHS into provide life-saving equipment for use at home.

Lisa Nicholls, 26, wants the moving film of daughter Savannah mid-seizure to show how badly children can be affected by epilepsy and call for more home support.

The harrowing footage shows Savannah looking wide-eyed and frightened as she falls into a catatonic stupor before her limbs begin to twitch uncontrollably. Terrified Savannah moans as the seizure grips her little body and she stares into space as her loving mother strokes and comforts her using soothing, reassuring words.

The debilitating paralysis soon passes and Savannah recovers and hugs her long-suffering mother, but Lisa fears the worst at every seizure.

Lisa put the footage on the internet after being told there was no funding on the NHS to provide Savannah with a breathing monitor which could save her life during a night seizure. She hopes the video will force the Government to set aside more money to provide life-saving equipment so exhausted families are supported without feeling they have to fight for the right.

Lisa, a full-time mum from Penzance, Cornwall, said: 'Six months ago they started filming Savannah's seizures to analyse them and help with her treatment. 'I swore I would never show anyone - she's my precious girl. But I want people to do something. 'She's twitching, she's unresponsive, she's got no oxygen, her limbs are turned in and she can't breathe.

'It's hard to watch, but this is real life. This is how my child lives, and so many others. Hopefully it will encourage people to take notice and recognise there needs to be more funding.'

Savannah, who was born on Christmas Day 2005 and diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia three months later, has suffered almost 100 seizures in the past year. She only survived after Lisa campaigned vigorously for a bone marrow donor. Savannah was given a transplant and chemotherapy treatment, but went into a coma during treatment and suffered brain damage leaving her unable to speak and having fits. She needs emergency medicine for each seizure as they will not stop on their own and has previously been put into an induced coma at one point to stop the fitting.

Lisa claims she has had to fight for equipment to measure her daughter's oxygen levels, then for oxygen itself and now for a monitor to alert her when Savannah stops breathing at night.

She said: 'I feel it is important to show people how severe epilepsy is. Savannah is at one of the highest risks of death from epileptic seizures. 'It does kill. It is shocking. Savannah stops breathing when she has her seizures and she has them a lot at night. 'If we had a breathing monitor it might alert us and save her life. I have got a video monitor that I use but I sit up all night watching it and don't get any sleep.

'When I asked for a breathing monitor I was told by our epilepsy nurse that there aren't enough costs on the NHS for epilepsy to provide such equipment. They are underfunded for epilepsy.

'I don't think parents should have to fight. I think these things should be available for children with epilepsy. 'I don't want sympathy or attention, I just want people to act on this.'

Lisa keeps a diary of her daughter's seizures - 15 of which have seen Savannah back in hospital since last August - and has begun filming some of the fits.

After the success of her campaign for bone marrow donors she is now determined to help others with epilepsy through her daughter's video, 'Behind Savannah's Eyes'.

Three people die from epilepsy every day in the UK and the charity Epilepsy Bereaved believes at least one of those deaths could be prevented.

Lisa wants the families of children with epilepsy to be made more aware of the risk of Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP). She also wants any preventative measures, such as breathing monitors and oxygen, to be adequately funded and readily available.

Spokeswoman for British charity Epilepsy Action Louise Whalley said: 'Health services for people with epilepsy fall far short of minimum requirements set out by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence.

'Epilepsy Action's 2009 report "Epilepsy in England: Time for Change" revealed a catalogue of failings in epilepsy care and services across the country. 'This includes unsatisfactory waiting times and a lack of epilepsy specialists. It is vital that these basics are mastered to ensure people with epilepsy have access to the necessary care and treatment.'

A spokesman for Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust said breathing monitors for children were available on the NHS but they had to be prescribed by a clinician. He said: 'If her clinician recommends and prescribes that piece of equipment we will pay for it but they would have to prescribe it.' [Backdown?]

SOURCE



Coroner hits out at doctors' hours after patient dies

An elderly man died in hospital after waiting five hours to see a doctor. After being told how Roland Holbrow died without seeing a doctor, a coroner yesterday criticised European rules that restricting junior medics' working hours.

The European directive, which limits the working week to 48 hours, was implemented for junior doctors in August last year. Earlier this week it emerged that one in four junior doctors are dropping out of their training courses. Many become disillusioned that the restriction on their hours means they receive less one to one time with senior consultants.

Former miner and lumberjack Mr Holbrow, 87, died at Musgrove Park Hospital, in Taunton, Somerset, on August 14. He was admitted to the hospital's Eliot Ward at about 7.15pm that day from Chard Hospital after concerns were raised about his breathing. The Taunton inquest heard how ten patients, including Mr Holbrow, were waiting to be seen by the two doctors on duty.

One was called down to the accident and emergency department before Mr Holbrow could be seen. The junior doctor on duty did not see Mr Holbrow until after midnight, by which time he had died. During this time Mr Holbrow, from Chard, was constantly monitored by nurses. One of them was so concerned about his breathing that she repeatedly called for a doctor.

Mr Holbrow had MRSA and C.difficile and was kept in a separate-room on the ward so he could not pass any infection to other patients. A pathologist said he had died from pneumonia. The coroner recorded a narrative verdict on Mr Holbrow.

Dr Stuart Walker, a consultant radiologist at the hospital and clinical director of A&E, told the inquest that Mr Holbrow's treatment had been 'unacceptable' and 'very poor'. Dr Walker said a review into Mr Holbrow's death would bring about changes to the way patients were seen. This included altering the 'traffic light system' - which grades a patient's risk - so increased checks can update their condition.

Dr Walker said: 'The European directive undoubtedly has an effect on medical training and practise in the UK. 'The result is that we are having to prioritise junior doctors' training more into the management of the emergency treatment at the expense of their specialist training.'

After the inquest, Mr Holbrow's son, Adrian, 48, said: 'The system let him down and as far as the doctors are concerned he should not have waited five-and-a-half hours.'

SOURCE



Members of British parliament mull 'climate enquiries' that failed to enquire

Might the University of East Anglia now rue its handling of the Climategate affair? An MP tells us that the University has ignored instructions given to it by the House of Commons Science Committee earlier this year, and MPs were given misleading impressions.

"Everybody on the Committee last time asked that there be no gaps between our report, and the Muir Russell report and the Oxburgh Report - but there are huge gaps. The Muir Russell people and the Oxburgh people didn't talk to each other, so there were bound to be gaps," says Committee veteran Graham Stringer MP. "We are left with the science left unlooked at."

The allegations of misconduct and intellectual corruption raised by the release of the emails, data and source code last November are amongst the most serious British academia has ever heard. UEA responded with two internal enquiries, but MPs won't let it lie. Members on the Commons Science Select Committee have summoned the two chairmen of the UEA enquiries back for further interrogation. At the first of these yesterday, the chairman of the Science Assessment Panel, Lord Ron Oxburgh, puzzled Committee MPs with his answers.

How the Panel was formed

When the University announced the composition and role of the Science Assessment Panel, it billed it as an "independent internal reappraisal of the science". In March the University's Vice Chancellor Lord Acton confirmed the impression, telling the select committee that Oxburgh's enquiry would "reassess the science and make sure there is nothing wrong".

That was misleading, Oxburgh told MPs yesterday. "I think that was inaccurate ... You have to bear in mind the Vice Chancellor had been in the post for a month or so. It came as rather a deluge."

Oxburgh pleaded time pressure. "They wanted something within a month. There was no way our panel could in that time validate the science. If you wanted the science validated, you'd appoint another panel. "We were meeting a deadline to help the University with a particular problem. Given our particular remit I don't think we needed any more time."

Oxburgh was proud that he'd used a non-confrontational approach. The CRU academics were interviewed just once, collectively, in private, and he'd rejected calls for televised proceedings. As Oxburgh described it, the enquiry sounded more like a health spa program for stressed executives.

"People wanted to bring television cameras in. Given the nature of the individuals concerned, we felt that we would get much more out of them, and get them to unwind and relax, and if indeed if they had chinks in their armour, to expose them, that if we did this in a much more relaxed way.

"Certainly one of the key people there is someone who is pretty highly-strung - and I think we were able to get him to relax and explain things." MPs were stone-faced at this. Oxburgh developed a nasty cough. So what had been the purpose of his enquiry?

Oxburgh at work

"I would chair a brief study, really, into the honesty of the people - not all the aspects of the science, we were not expected to go into the email saga. But they wanted evidence if people had been behaving dishonestly."

MPs wondered how he could measure honesty. "I think that we or the University would have been content had we said the researchers there were incompetent-but-honest, or misled-but-honest. We were looking for deliberate manipulation of data that led in a different direction to meet some pre-determined aspect of an agenda. We found none."

This failed to impress Committee member Stringer, the MP told us today. "One of the biggest attacks on Jones was by Professor [Doug] Keenan, it directly accused him of fraud. One would expect Jones' use of Chinese data to come up. They had been very selective with what they'd put in and left out of their graphs, even if they hadn't fiddled the figures," said Stringer.

Stringer says the practices exposed at CRU undermine the scientific value of paleoclimatology, in which CRU is a world leader. "When I asked Oxburgh if [Keith] Briffa [CRU academic] could reproduce his own results, he said in lots of cases he couldn't. "That just isn't science. It's literature. If somebody can't reproduce their own results, and nobody else can, then what is that work doing in the scientific journals?"

The depth and rigour of Oxburgh's panel also raised eyebrows. Oxburgh said the intensive interrogation (described above) had taken several days, but FOIA requests show his team of seven spent just two days on the job, clocking up "45 man hours" including lunches and coffee breaks. The final report amounted to five pages of assessment.

Although the Science Assessment Panel didn't publish notes, MPs have seen a highly critical assessment of CRU's work by Cambridge physics Professor Michael Kelly. [PDF, 540kb], who has acted as a scientific advisor to government. Kelly quoted Ernest Rutherford, who once said that "if your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment". Complex simulations that can't be exhaustively tested against 'real' data have limited value.

"I take real exception to having simulation runs described as experiments (without at least the qualification of 'computer' experiments). It does a disservice to centuries of real experimentation and allows simulations output to be considered as a real data. This last is a very serious matter, as it can lead to the idea that real 'real data' might be wrong simply because it disagrees with the models." ....

Where next?

The issue of publication and peer review is a troubling one. MPs didn't raise it yesterday, but may well follow-up with Muir Russell who is scheduled to appear before the Select Committee next month.

The emails show the academics rubber-stamping each other's work, pressuring publications to suppress critical academics, and in promising to subvert academic conventions to exclude papers from the IPCC. "I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!" wrote Jones in 2004. Another practice cited by critics is "check-kiting", where a climate paper cites a work that is never published.

Muir Russell will appear before the select committee next month, and Anglia's Vice Chancellor Acton has agreed to make a further appearance.

The composition of the Science Select Committee can hardly be described as skeptical. Its concern rather seems to be that of the reputation of British academia. A university - ultimately funded largely by the public - has had serious allegations levelled against it, while its own enquiries have failed accept that structural reform of scientific may be needed.

SOURCE



Fighting against slavery? Pull the other one

Anti-traffickers promiscuously use the s-word in order to present themselves as heroic rescuers of fallen women

Following a series of Channel 4 TV programmes that charted the shocking stories of abuse and exploitation of so-called ‘modern-day slaves’ – women and children from abroad coerced to work in Britain as domestic servants and prostitutes – it is important to make one thing clear: slavery was abolished 200 years ago and it has not returned.

Thankfully, for all Channel 4’s promiscuous use of the s-word, today there are no open markets where men, women and children of a certain colour are bought and sold like cattle, shipped across the world in horrific conditions, and forced to labour against their will with no remuneration. Of course, Channel 4 didn’t literally claim that these eighteenth-century practices still occur; instead it suggested that thousands of foreign women and children are made to work in slave-like conditions, behind closed doors. Nevertheless, the moral imperative to free these people from their metaphorical chains is as strong as the one that eventually abolished the transatlantic slave trade, the programmes implied.

Does it really matter if well-intentioned individuals and TV producers are taking liberty with labels? Isn’t objection to the use of the word slavery simply academic nitpicking, when the main aim should be to help exploited people by any means necessary?

Actually, a critical look at the Channel 4 programmes makes clear that all this ‘slavery’ talk and ‘anti-slavery’ campaigning is only helping to put migrants and would-be migrants into a submissive relationship with police, charities and feminist activists who fancy themselves as modern-day abolitionists. These self-styled rescuers may get a moral boost from their campaigning against ‘modern-day slavery’, but there aren’t many clear benefits for the victims they purport to be rescuing. In fact, often these fantasy, feministic rescue operations result in the deportation of migrants who have invested a great deal of time and money in coming over here to work.

The Channel 4 programmes were: Britain’s Secret Slaves, an investigative documentary about domestic workers; I am Slave, a drama based on the real story of a Sudanese girl kidnapped, sold to an Arabic family, and then brought to Britain as their domestic servant; and The Hunt for Britain’s Sex Traffickers, in which a film crew followed police carrying out a nationwide investigation into enforced prostitution in Britain.

In all programmes, three distinct roles were assigned to those involved. First, there were the Dodgy Foreigners – Middle Eastern diplomats who abused their Asian domestic servants; African rebels raiding villages and kidnapping children to sell to wealthy Arabs; Asian pimps. Second, there were the Foreign Victims – impoverished women and children, adrift in the world and with no power to exercise personal agency. And third, there were the rescuers – white and British police, charities, feminists and filmmakers.

These films did show that history is repeating itself – but what is really making a comeback is not slavery, but the ‘white slavery’ panic of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Only where that panic focused on the potential for Western women to be forced into prostitution abroad by evil Chinese, Indian or African men, today’s trafficking panic focuses on the potential for Third World women to be forced into prostitution by evil Chinese, Indian or African men. It was during the white-slavery scare that the term ‘trafficking’ first emerged. The way in which this alleged ‘trafficking’ was reported back in the nineteenth century, and the moral impulses of those who tried to fight it, are eerily similar to today’s anti-trafficking initiatives.

In a 1999 paper, Jo Doezema, a British academic, outlined how fears and anxieties around mass migration, sexuality and the role of women have infused both the old white-slavery panic and the new trafficking panic. At the turn of the century, the white-slavery scare was triggered by a rise of Western women, at a time of increased mobility, venturing abroad to find work, including as prostitutes. And the modern trafficking panic also emerged at a time of borders opening up and people from poorer parts of the world gaining more opportunities to travel.

During the white-slavery scare, there was a growing concern that foreign men – especially Africans, Jews and the Chinese – might kidnap Western women and force them to work as prostitutes. As with today’s traffickers, they were said to have used force, deceit and drugs to lure women across borders. Then, as now, there was a disproportional focus on women and children – and little appreciation of the fact that women, even if in circumstances of duress, are capable of taking active decisions to leave home.

Back then – just like today – conferences were organised, international agreements were signed and new laws were passed, including restrictions on women’s travel. Media reports, novels and plays were written, and state authorities, early feminists, religious associations and puritanical organisations collaborated to put an end to the trafficking of women by foreign sex pests and money-hungry thugs. The victims of ‘white slavery’ were presented as innocent, pure and virginal girls who were subjected to extreme violence, humiliation and disease. The perpetrators were depicted as mafia-like, often working in collusion with corrupt governments – much like those Asian mafia men and Arab diplomats featured in Channel 4’s documentaries.

As Doezema points out, various studies have shown that the white-slavery scare had little basis in reality, and was instead driven by fears that foreigners would violate respectable Western women and corrupt Western society. And while protective measures were introduced under the guise of ‘helping women’, the underlying moral concern, Doezema argues, was with controlling women.

Today, too, undocumented migrants are widely regarded as being pawns in the debased games of trafficking rings. Yet while kidnapping, coercion and maltreatment certainly occur, the fates of undocumented migrants to the West are really in the hands of what Laura María Agustín has termed ‘the rescue industry’.

In her book Sex at the Margins, Agustín (interviewed on spiked here) describes how ‘rescuers’, even when well-intentioned, end up denying the agency of large numbers of working-class migrants. They treat them as ‘passive subjects rather than as normal people looking for conventional opportunities, conditions and pleasures’. Agustín argues that ‘the victim identity imposed on so many in the name of helping them makes helpers themselves disturbingly important figures.’

Just consider the British police officers featured in The Hunt for Britain’s Sex Traffickers who helped carry out Pentameter Two. That operation was heralded as ‘the largest-ever police crackdown on human trafficking’, and it led to the conviction of precisely zero people for forcing women into prostitution. As one journalist has pointed out, the key witness relied on by the police officers – and by Channel 4’s documentary makers – was not actually rescued by the police, but by one of her punters and his ex-wife. Yet viewers were made to believe that there is a clear link between the hundreds of raids carried out as part of Pentameter Two and the rescue of this witness (who was genuinely forced into prostitution in demeaning circumstances).

On Channel 4, the police were allowed to present themselves as knights in shining armour. There was no mention of the fact that two thirds of the 255 women ‘rescued’ by police during the Pentameter raids in 2006 and 2008 quickly dropped off the radar, declining to be helped by the authorities. This led one researcher to conclude that many of these women were simply in Britain to earn money – just like other migrant workers – and just wanted to get on with it rather than be ‘rescued’. The fact is that migrants from poor parts of the world can earn a lot more money in the sex industry than in other lines of work and they would not regard being arrested in a police raid as a form of ‘rescue’. Sixteen women – alleged victims of trafficking – were deported following the Pentameter raids. How helpful.

Illegal migration involves great risks for migrants. They are vulnerable to exploitation, with some held in flats against their will or forced to work long hours for very little pay. Yet the government and anti-trafficking campaigners only end up strengthening borders, by raising suspicions about every man, woman or child moving here from ‘over there’. It is not in migrants’ interest to be described as slaves. This only gives a moral boost to their self-appointed rescuers, who are involved in what Agustín has labelled ‘a colonialist operation’.

Overblown anti-slavery campaigns are really about rescuing the flagging reputation of the British police, government officials and others. Most migrants probably experience these campaigns as patronising and restrictive.

SOURCE





10 September, 2010

What is the EU doing to Britain's doctors?

A rigid EU directive restricting the hours junior doctors can work has led to a crude rota system that bewilders patients and damages medical training, says Max Pemberton

A patient lies in bed, groaning. He is pale and clammy. A nurse frantically draws the curtains around the bed and takes his blood pressure. It's dangerously low. Another nurse scrabbles to find the pager number for the on-call doctor covering the ward. The patient calls out and then vomits on to the floor.

"What was I supposed to do, pick up my bag and coat, walk out and let him die?" says my friend Ruby, who had been standing on the ward at the time. She takes a sip of tea as she sits in my flat and tells me the story. The doctor covering the ward was in the A&E department and wasn't answering his pager. With each minute, the patient deteriorated. "One of the nurses came up to me and asked me to take a look at him because of his blood pressure," Ruby continues. "How could I say no?"

Usually, any doctor present on a ward would be expected to help in such a situation, but not any more. According to the way that rules governing junior doctors' hours are being implemented, Ruby had finished work and should not have helped. To do otherwise breaches the European Working Time Directive (EWTD), and this has serious implications for the hospital.

The EWTD was fully implemented in the NHS last year. It was intended to prevent long-distance lorry drivers from falling asleep at the wheel, but it has been applied to doctors with the intention of improving safety and patient care. It ensures that all junior doctors – classified as any doctor in training below the grade of consultant – do not work more than 48 hours a week over a 26-week period. It stipulates that they may not work continuously for more than 13 hours and that they have a break every six hours.

On the face of it, this seems highly sensible. No one wants to go back to the dark old days of medicine when juniors routinely worked 90 hours a week. It was bad for doctors and, most importantly, bad for patients. But the new system has had unintended consequences. The rigidity of these rules means doctors are expected to down tools the minute they have worked their allotted time and walk out, regardless of what is going on around them.

The New Deal – an agreement between the Department of Health and the British Medical Association – means that punitive measures will be taken against trusts unless they comply with the EWTD. It requires total, absolute compliance, and if one doctor works just half an hour over the stipulated time, the entire rota is deemed to have "breached", with severe financial penalties attached.

This means that doctors like Ruby, who find themselves confronted with a sick patient as they are about to walk out of the door, are placed in an impossible situation. If they stay and help, they risk the wrath of the management and uncertainty about whether they are still covered by hospital indemnity; if they keep walking, they breach the duty of care they have to patients.

Thankfully, Ruby put down her bag, rolled up her sleeves and went to see the patient. He was having a heart attack and her prompt input probably saved his life.

I've known Ruby since medical school. We've worked together and I know that she would never walk away from a patient who needed her help, even if it might land her in trouble. She, like countless doctors up and down the country, joined the profession because she wanted to use her knowledge and skills to help people. It's unbelievable that this dedication is now being jeopardised because of a piece of legislation that was supposed to improve care.

The reality is that no doctor is going to walk away from a patient in need, and the trusts know this. There is an implicit pressure placed on junior staff by senior doctors and management to lie on the forms monitoring the hours being worked. We all know that if we tell the truth, the trust will be fined, its debts will increase, redundancies will follow or services will be reduced, and this will only make the situation worse and further affect patient care. But this pressure also creates a growing resentment among hospital doctors that they are not being paid for the work they are actually doing.

Even more worrying is that the way in which medical care is delivered has changed. In order to comply with the rigid legislation, new rotas for the junior medical workforce have been drawn up by hospitals. The emphasis has been on ensuring that services are covered by a skeleton staff while still complying with the rules governing hours worked, with no room for ensuring continuity of care for the patient. This has resulted in a cataclysmic change whereby there has been a decoupling of the junior workforce from the seniors.

Prior to the EWTD, junior doctors were attached to a team, typically composed of a newly qualified doctor, a senior house officer, a registrar and a consultant. This "firm", as they were called, was a tried and tested way of delivering patient care. The most junior members of the team learnt from the registrar, who in turn learnt from the consultant. It was a well-oiled machine with an inbuilt support structure for the junior members. The roles and responsibilities were clear and there was a strong sense of belonging, which ensured that juniors would follow their patient from the moment they were admitted, or seen in clinic, to the point of discharge.

But the introduction of the EWTD led to rotas becoming increasingly elaborate and abstruse. This has meant that juniors are now routinely not attached to a particular consultant or team – rather, they float between teams, providing cover. Both the patient and the doctor become casualties in this. Junior staff are expected simply to do jobs handed over to them, with no understanding of why or how their actions affect the wellbeing of the patient. There is no appreciation of cause and effect and no true ownership of the work done.

Doctors have become fleeting, transient figures in the overall care of a patient, who often sees no doctor more than once. This results in a diminished experience of health care, leaving patients confused, isolated and scared at the lack of continuity. They have to explain the same problem to each doctor they see, investigations are not followed up, things slip through the net. It's not safe.

Doctors don't want to work like this. We feel like automatons, clocking on and clocking off; any sense of vocation or meaning in our work is destroyed and the opportunity to learn from our seniors by following them and developing a relationship with them and their patients is removed.

The result of all this is that doctors are increasingly taking opportunities to work abroad, particularly in Australasia. As we lose doctors in this exodus, gaps in the rota only become worse and the junior staff are spread thinner. The Royal College of Surgeons reports that nearly two thirds of surgeons have witnessed a drop in the quality of patient care and safety since the directive was brought in last year, and that as many as three or four surgeons will now be responsible for a patient in a single day.

We became doctors because of the patients, and patients come into hospital because of the doctors. Yet this basic relationship has been shattered because of the implementation of one piece of legislation. Patients feel abandoned and alone on the wards, and doctors feel under-trained and disillusioned.

We don't want to work ungodly hours and fall asleep while writing up a patient's notes. But we want the opportunity to serve our patients to the best of our abilities, to learn from our seniors and to become the best doctors we can. Is that really too much to ask?

SOURCE



What have we come to when middle-class girls see whoring as a career choice?

Bel Mooney bemoans modern Britain where "There is no such thing as right and wrong". While Left-dominated schools preach that, the sort of thing she deplores below will be encouraged. Unlike the USA, few people are churchgoers in Britain so they hear very little that counters the nihilistic gospel of Leftism. In fact they are much more likely to hear Christianity mocked by the BBC and other Left-dominated media



When it comes to human failings, I always try to be understanding. In fact, readers of my Saturday advice column in the Mail will know that it’s my stock-in-trade. But there are times, I’m afraid, when sympathy fails me and I am left nursing a deep anger which needs putting into words.

Sometimes, even those words fail me. How else to respond to this week’s story of well-educated girls — brought up in decent homes with every privilege — choosing to sell their bodies for a fast buck, not caring how many footballers use them in one week?

Frankly, I am dumbstruck at their stupidity, their vulgarity and their degradation of what it means to be a woman today, in a world where sexual equality was won through great courage and at great cost by the generations who came before them.

I think of all those who fought hard for women’s equality, and I can hear them turning in their graves at the sleazy stories of Jennifer Thompson and Helen Wood — the two young women who earned £1,200 each for threesomes with Wayne Rooney.

Of course, in one sense we read of Rooney’s tawdry transactions with these young women and feel little surprise. The man is a rough, over-paid, self-indulgent fool who doesn’t deserve a loyal wife and the gift of an innocent child.

The only shock is that he wanted to pay for sex, since so many foolish girls seem willing to offer it to footballers for free. (Even ones who are as ugly on the outside as they are inside.) but what of the girls themselves? To read the detail of their stories is to realise, with utter disbelief, that no amount of education can prevent a greedy and deluded young woman from choosing prostitution.

Having intelligent, well-heeled parents, a stable home, moral guidance, a private education, and all the opportunities that modern life can offer a girl with brains, is no guarantee against them wanting to sell their bodies, it seems. What sort of world do we live in when middle-class girls see whoring as a viable career choice?

The beaten and abused women (often children) who are trafficked for sex all over the world have no choice about what happens to them. The abject females who stand on street corners in the red-light areas of our major cities, peddling sex (and risking their lives) to feed savage drug habits, do, at least, have some sort of ‘excuse’.

In the UK alone, 75 per cent of prostitutes started when still under-age, nearly three-quarters of all British prostitutes were at some point in care, and nearly half have suffered sexual abuse — with far more than that having suffered physical abuse within their families.

Yet the ‘happy hooker’ myth (think Pretty Woman and Belle de Jour) continues to persist, and it seems that an increasing number of middle-class teenage girls find it exciting, rather than shocking or dangerous. They fantasise about the glitzy world of overpaid sportsmen who will, as Rooney did, fork out £200 for a pack of cigarettes — and six times that for a fumble — and they want a piece of it.

Now, let’s face it; there have always been ‘groupies’ — dim girls willing to sleep with famous men for the thrill of it. But what of those from stable, respectable homes who actively rebel against their upbringing and enter the oldest profession? These girls will sleep with any stranger for cash, whether a famous footballer or a sleazy businessman on an overnight work trip. They are something different; something very, very troubling.

To be honest, I’ve grown tired of feminists who defend so-called ‘sex workers’ on the grounds that what they do is somehow ‘empowering’. It is not.

When intelligent women make a free choice to shame themselves, and boast about bedding half a football team, they betray everything that women of my generation hold dear. Their behaviour pollutes the lives of younger girls they will never meet — by setting a terrible example.

Twenty-one-year-old Jennifer Thompson (or ‘Juicy Jeni’ as she chooses to style herself) was once a churchgoing teenager who went to a private school. Her father was an oil executive, her mother a PA.

Jennifer’s fellow prostitute (and alleged enthusiastic participant in lesbian scenarios) is 23-year-old Helen Wood — also from a middle-class home. Her mother is a primary school teacher, for heaven’s sake, and her father a university lecturer. I have no doubt the parents of both girls are asking themselves: ‘What went wrong?’

Of course, no outsider can answer that. But we can look at the world those girls have grown up in, and perhaps find some clues.

As a children’s author, I have found myself in many schools over the past 25 years and noticed one significant change — nowadays, girls of ten and over seem to have grown up far too quickly.

So many aspects of popular culture — from fashion, to pop lyrics and videos, to advertising, through to TV programmes like Big Brother and The X Factor — peddle a combined message of sleaze and greed.

This corrupting influence is very hard to avoid. Once, a little girl might have wanted to be a teacher or a doctor (and of course, many still do), but now, sadly, she is likely to say she wants to be a model, a pop star or a WAG.

The most frequent answer I get, when I ask little girls what their ambitions are, is: ‘I want to be famous.’

The disturbing truth is that many teenage girls will read the lurid stories about £1,200-a-night sex and think it sounds a very easy way of making a living. Better than studying; more interesting than a nine-to-five job; even ‘glamorous’. They do not realise that the line between wannabe WAG and girl-on-the-game is very fine indeed.

Just as bad — many teenage boys will think that what they learn from internet porn is clearly right and all girls are cheap slappers, up for anything if the price is right. Little by little, the gutter has become the cultural main street — and morality be damned.

How can women have changed so much in the space of less than a century? On the one hand, you have the noble history of active suffragettes and other brave women who took on the establishment and were punished most severely for merely demanding the right to vote. You have the women who played a vital role at home and as nurses at the Front in the two World Wars. You have the women who challenged institutionalised sexism in the workplace — and bequeathed us a world where equality is no longer an aspiration but a reality. We owe them all so much.

By sickeningly depressing contrast, just a few decades later, we have Juicy Jeni and Helen Wood, who have taken that precious inheritance and wiped their hookers’ stilettos all over it.

They are not the only ones, of course. Less than a year ago I wrote about the famous call girl known as Belle de Jour who was revealed to be Dr Brooke Magnanti, a high-powered scientist casually unabashed about her secret life as a hooker. She boasted of being ‘unbelievably fortunate’ because she enjoyed her horizontal job and had never had a bad experience with a client.

Everything she said proved that you can be blessed with a brain and a privileged life — and still be very, very stupid.

I wonder if ‘Juicy Jeni’ and Helen Wood read Belle de Jour’s lurid, self-serving ramblings as once they might have read fairytales. Or watched the sanitised TV series starring Billie Piper?

They are deluded indeed to believe that there is anything glamorous about this life of vice, well-paid though it is — for a while. The day will come, all too quickly, when they are raddled, used up and unwanted — and wondering what happened to the happy-ever-after they dreamed of, back when they were little girls.

And — you know what? It will be nobody’s fault but their own. They think they are selling their bodies. They end up selling their souls.

SOURCE



British school outsources teaching to India

A school has become the first in the country to contract out its teaching to India. Ashmount Primary in north London is using call centre-style staff more than 4,000 miles away to lead mathematics lessons for 11-year-olds. The service – which costs £12 an hour for each pupil – is being used as a cheaper alternative to employing one-to-one tutors for children falling behind in the subject. A private tutor in the capital normally costs around £40 an hour, it was claimed.

Academics said the move could be expanded to other schools nationally but warned that it risked undermining teaching standards.

The service – run by the firm BrightSpark Education – involves each pupil logging on to a special website and talking to a tutor via a headset. Children complete work on their computer that can be checked remotely by the Indian teacher.

The Islington primary school is currently using the technology with half of its final year pupils, with plans to offer it to nine and 10-year-olds. The school had been approached by the company to pilot the system.

Rebecca Stacey, assistant head teacher, told the Times Educational Supplement that the service had made a significant difference to her pupils’ grasp of maths. “We intend to roll it out so the whole of Year 6 is using it and perhaps down to Years 4 and 5,” she said. “We try to keep every pupil with the same tutor. The kids really enjoy it. It is a different way of approaching the subject with children who might find it harder to engage with maths.”

The school told the TES that it was far cheaper than paying £40 an hour to hire private tutors to teach maths to pupils falling behind in the subject.

Dylan Wiliam, director of London University’s Institute of Education, said such a system could work for more schools, but warned of potential dangers. “It will depend on how good their English is,” he said. “They will also need to understand the cultural conventions of this country. For example, long division is laid out differently in different countries. “Having said that, I am sure that this will become commonplace in time. If brain surgery can now be done remotely, why not maths teaching?”

He added: “As with many things in education, it¹s not a silly idea, but as we have discovered in recent years, a lot of things that appeared to be good ideas at the time turn out to be useless, or worse.”

The system was devised by a British-based entrepreneur, Tom Hooper, who employs 100 Indian-based tutors full time. All are maths graduates with teaching experience who are required to undergo security checks.

“I was a tutor myself to make a bit of extra money when I was at university and after I graduated,” he said. “But paying for additional tuition can be very expensive, in London you can be spending up to £40 an hour.” He added: “So it just seemed to make sense when I thought of providing live learning online, which could be flexible and engaging.”

All of the tutors are trained in the English mathematics curriculum.

SOURCE



Fewer British students 'will take residential degrees'

Traditional university courses could become the preserve of an elite as growing numbers of students take on-line degrees, according to a report. Three-year residential degrees are likely to be limited to undergraduates at top research universities because of public spending restrictions, it was claimed.

The study by Universities UK, which represents vice-chancellors, suggests the emergence of a two-tier higher education system in the future as universities struggle to accommodate large numbers of new students.

The conclusions – published to coincide with the group’s annual conference on Wednesday – come weeks after record numbers of students were rejected from university. As many as 180,000 applicants failed to get on to degree courses this summer following a huge rise in applications combined with an effective freeze on new places.

This week, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development warned that the UK had slipped from third to 15th in a global league table for the number of graduates being produced in each country.

Prof Geoffrey Crossick, vice-chancellor of the University of London, said the current system of delivering higher education was “no longer financially sustainable”. In a UUK report, he said the number of flexible courses – including part-time study, on-the-job training and internet-based qualifications – would “explode” in the future.

This would lead to a drop in the proportion of students taking full-time degrees and living in traditional student accommodation, he said, an experience that was likely to be limited to those at top universities.

“Fundamental rethinking will be needed in a world where the proportion of those who experience higher education in the traditional fashion will decline, where the range of alternatives will explode, and where the variety of providers will grow with it,” said his report. “There will remain a core of comprehensive, primarily residential and (most of them) research-based universities, but for the rest new markets and new business models will make them seem increasingly different.” It added: "Higher education as a life-course stage will narrow to just one part of the population who experience it."

David Willetts, the Universities Minister, has already called for more students to consider apprenticeships as an alternative to university.

And the Open University, which runs courses on-line, has seen applications for degrees soar by around a third this year.

Prof Crossick said ministers would have to allow more private universities to receive state-funded students to accommodate the growing numbers of young people seeking to complete alternative degree courses.

SOURCE





9 September, 2010

British mother given weeks to live after NHS doctors miss cancer

Not one of TEN public servant doctors could be bothered to look into her symptoms. Now a relatively young woman has no chance of survival

A mother-of-three has been given weeks to live after ten hospital doctors and her own GP allegedly missed tell-tale signs of cancer. Angela Skeffington claimed medics continually misdiagnosed her stomach cancer as period pains, depression and even indigestion. She also claims one A&E doctor told her to just 'eat more bananas' during her continued cries for help, which went on for five months.

The 43-year-old has now been told her cancer is so advanced that doctors cannot operate.

The terminally-ill grandmother of five said she was treated like a 'nuisance' after making cries for help with medics at Heartlands Hospital, Birmingham, and her own GP since April. She said was suffering with severe stabbing pains to the stomach, blood in her vomit and stools, plus a loss of appetite.

Mrs Skeffington claimed she was not given a specialist CT scan until a week ago, when the killer disease was finally discovered. Her stomach cancer has now spread to her liver and lymph nodes, and she has been told there was little hope of recovery.

Medical records show she was seen by ten doctors during 12 visits to Heartlands Hospital A&E, but suffered repeated misdiagnoses including anorexia, depression and indigestion.

Doctors prescribed her paracetamol, but never admitted her back in for more tests until last week - by which time the lethal illness could not be stopped.

Mrs Skeffington, a former warehouse worker from Yardley, Birmingham, said: "I was made to feel like a nuisance by all the doctors because I kept going back telling them I was still in pain. "I knew something was terribly wrong and needed help. After a while, my GP told me there was nothing wrong with me and said the staff in A&E were very busy people and I shouldn't keep going there. "A doctor at A&E advised me to eat more bananas. Now I find out my body is riddled with tumours and the cancer is terminal. "I feel like they never gave me any chance to survive."

Mrs Skeffington, who lives with partner John and has five grandchildren all under the age of six, has lost seven stone because of the debilitating illness.

Cancer specialists at Heartlands told her the disease was so advanced that they could not operate to remove it.

She added: "They wouldn't listen to me and I was treated worse than an animal. It makes me so angry that I won't see my grandchildren grow up. That breaks my heart and is the worst thing in all of this. "My daughter is pregnant and due to give birth in January. It upsets me that I will probably never get to see that grandchild and they won't know who I am. "I had all the classic symptoms of cancer but no-one did any thing about it and now it is too late."

Mrs Skeffington criticised her GP, who works for NHS Birmingham East and North Primary Care Trust (PCT), for not taking her complaints seriously. A referral that he booked in June after months of requests has not resulted in an appointment as yet.

Dr Doug Wulff, medical director at NHS Birmingham East and North, speaking on behalf of the GP and the PCT, said: "Due to patient confidentiality, we are unable to comment on individual cases. "However, NHS Birmingham East and North is not aware of having received any complaint from the patient concerned. "We would encourage the patient to contact us should they wish to take the matter further and we will undertake a full investigation."

A spokeswoman for Heart of England Foundation Trust, which runs Heartlands Hospital, said: "We are very sorry to learn of Mrs Skeffington's concerns and, based on the information we have already been given, we are looking into the issues raised and welcome the opportunity to meet with her to address the matters further.

"The safety and care of all our patients is a priority for our doctors and nurses and if there is a case where we have not delivered the best care possible, we will always investigate into why and how we can do things better." [They're good at bullsh*t. If only they were good at diagnosis too!]

SOURCE



I disagree with many of his teachings. But it's those who oppose Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Britain who are the real bigots

By Stephen Glover

When Pope Benedict XVI touches down in Edinburgh next Thursday at the start of a four-day state visit to Britain, he may be forgiven for thinking he is not particularly welcome. The Devil himself could hardly have got a worse press.

For the first time in my memory, there has been constant coverage in parts of the media, especially the BBC, about the costs to the taxpayer of such a visit, put at some £10 million. At a time of belt-tightening this expenditure is considered by some to be scandalous.

Yet I can’t recall many people querying the costs of previous state visits to Britain. President Jacob Zuma of South Africa is a misogynist polygamist, whose corrupt government is now bearing down on a free Press. Very few complained that the red carpet was being rolled out for him, and the fine wines uncorked, when he came here in March.

Worse still, Pope Benedict is being treated in some quarters as though he were a war criminal.

In a newspaper article yesterday, the well-known Leftist barrister Geoffrey Robertson suggested that instead of offering him a state visit we should be preparing a legal case against him because he has not dealt with sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church as robustly as he should have.

In an even more extreme — if not lunatic — vein, the militant atheist and Christian-hater Richard Dawkins suggested a few months ago that he might orchestrate a ‘citizen’s arrest’ of Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain for ‘crimes against humanity’.

Mr Dawkins was only 37, and perhaps too young to contemplate a citizen’s arrest, when the blood-soaked tyrant President Nicolae Ceausescu made a state visit to Britain in 1978, staying at Buckingham Palace with the Queen. But I can’t remember anyone else advocating locking up Mr Ceausescu.

Many of the things being said and written about Pope Benedict XVI are not merely discourteous to an 83-year-old man who is leader of more than a billion Catholics in the world, not to mention six million in this country. They are also nasty, and reveal disturbing traits of intolerance among this country’s supposedly liberal intelligentsia.

Let me declare that I am not a Roman Catholic. If I am wholly honest, I suppose that, like many Englishmen brought up on tales of the Spanish Armada and the Roman Catholic Queen ‘Bloody Mary’, I retain a few traces of anti-Catholicism that are largely irrational. More rationally, as an Anglican whose father was a clergyman in the Church of England, I resent the Roman Catholic view, promulgated as recently as 1896, that Anglican orders are invalid.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is by this definition little better than a witch doctor. As for the doctrine of ‘Papal Infallibility’, first proclaimed in 1870, that seems barmy.

Nor do I agree with some of the moral teachings of this Pope, or his charismatic predecessor, Pope John Paul II, on matters such as birth control or women priests or homosexuality, which Pope Benedict once described as a tendency towards an ‘intrinsic moral evil’, though he has on other occasions demonstrated some understanding for gays.

Despite these reservations, which will be shared in varying degrees by lots of people, including many Roman Catholics, I nonetheless acknowledge that Pope Benedict expounds what he believes is Christian doctrine in a courageous way.

Unlike many bishops in the Anglican Church, he does not bend to fashionable secular trends, and holds fast to beliefs which are those of the traditional Church. Isn’t that admirable?

And before he is dismissed as a fuddy-duddy ultra conservative, we should remember that he criticised the Anglo-American imbroglio in Iraq, and recently spoke out against the sudden forced expulsion of Roma gipsies by the French Government. Whatever else, Pope Benedict is a humane man.

As for the countless heinous cases of child abuse involving Catholic priests, it can certainly be argued that, like his predecessor, Pope Benedict was slow to grasp the severity and extent of the problem. But despite ingenious attempts to implicate him in some way, there is no evidence at all that he condoned what took place. I believe in the sincerity of his expressions of regret.

Here, surely, is a good, clever and holy man with whom we can disagree on some, or even many, issues. But he is not a monster and child abuser to be vilified as though he has deliberately committed acts of evil.

In his newspaper article Geoffrey Robertson imagined the Pope ‘engaging in hate-preaching against homosexuals or allowing the Catholic Church to operate a worldwide sanctuary for child abusers’. Who is the extremist here?

I have been trying to puzzle out the sheer bloody mindedness and unreasonableness of some of the Pope’s critics. In part it must arise from ancient feelings of fear and hatred about the Vatican and the Papacy which run very deep in this country for well-known historical reasons, and which I have owned up to sharing, albeit in a tiny degree.

But there is something else at work, even more intolerant. It is the voice of secular humanism. I accept, of course, that lots of secular humanists are tolerant and reasonable people. But there is a hard-core which embraces and promotes atheism with the blind fervour of religious zealots. Richard Dawkins is my prime exhibit, but there are many others.

Such people can just about put up with wishy-washy Anglican clerics who substitute fashionable secular platitudes for traditional beliefs, and often display a very faint faith in God.

What these zealots find detestable in Pope Benedict is not only his utter refusal to buy into their secular liberal beliefs, but also his power and effectiveness in sustaining an alternative, God-based moral system.

Parts of the BBC — the Today Programme on Radio 4, for example — offer the secularist zealots an ever-increasing platform from which to undermine Christian belief. Mr Dawkins is a great favourite. So is a philosopher called Anthony Grayling, who campaigns against Christianity. He was at it again on the Today Programme yesterday morning.

It is difficult to disagree with Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, who recently accused the BBC of ‘a consistent anti-Christian bias’.

The Cardinal noted that the BBC — whose director-general Mark Thompson is, strangely, a Catholic — is broadcasting a programme on the eve of the Pope’s arrival called Trials Of A Pope. He suggested, rightly I am sure, that this will be a ‘hatchet job’.

Notwithstanding all the hatchet jobs that have been executed and others that are planned, Pope Benedict’s visit will probably make a deep impression on many people, including non-Christians.

We may not agree with everything he says, or even with his most fundamental beliefs. But his visit should be welcome because he is something rare in the modern world. A decent man of principle.

SOURCE



Racist attack on white boy by Muslim gang at British school

Every playground tiff should be investigated for elements of racism, a report has recommended. The warning follows a hammer attack by an Asian [Pakistani] gang on a 15-year-old white boy on his school’s tennis courts which left the victim with brain damage. Henry Webster’s skull was fractured when he was punched, kicked and hit with a claw hammer by a group calling themselves the Asian Invaders. They left him for dead.

A serious case review of events surrounding the attack found that his school had failed to tackle escalating racial tensions between Asian and white teenagers – even after a riot on the playing fields. It warned that schools should record the ethnicity of bullies and victims and act if a pattern of racism arises, including liaising more closely with police.

According to the review, Ridgeway School in Wroughton, Wiltshire, did not prepare for the arrival of a ‘significant number’ of British Asian students in September 2005 – less than two months after the 7/7 Tube and bus bombings in London. Some problems between white and British Asian pupils were not recognised as racist by the school, near Swindon.

Henry had agreed to fight ‘one on one’ with an Asian boy to end the harassment he thought he and his friends were experiencing. But he was ambushed by a group of youths and young men in January 2007.

The attack led to the 2008 conviction of seven young men for wounding Henry with intent to cause him grievous bodily harm.Six more were convicted of conspiracy.

Henry, now 18, still suffers short-term memory loss. He had accused the school of failing to discipline Asian pupils who abused or intimidated their white classmates.

Last year, his family launched a High Court challenge claiming the school had been negligent, failed to maintain proper discipline or deal with racial tension. The school denied liability. But in February, Mr Justice Nicol rejected their claims and said the school did not breach its duty to take reasonable care to keep Henry reasonably safe while on its premises.

Following his ruling, the Swindon Local Safeguarding Children Board commissioned a serious case review. It found that not only should playground bullying be monitored for racism, but schools should also appoint ‘different race’ mentors for new pupils to help them settle in.

And teachers should consult parents about whether their approaches to religious and cultural requirements are ‘continuously appropriate’.

But Henry’s mother, Liz, 47, said the review confirmed her belief that his school was responsible for the assault. She criticised the report as a ‘whitewash’. ‘Whilst Henry has been the primary victim, we are – and always have been – of the firm belief that this school also let down the young Asian pupils who were eventually prosecuted. They have been criminalised and demonised.

‘Had their integration been properly handled we are certain this attack would not have happened. All anybody needed to do was simple community work – to get the Asian kids playing football with the white kids, or any kind of integration. Let’s hope every teacher in this country examines why this happened.’

The school said: ‘We have noted the recommendations and we always look to improve our practice and will continue to ensure our community which remained incredibly strong after the incident, continues to do so.’

Guidance recommends schools report all bullying. Schools nationwide will not be forced to adopt the 32 recommendations from the Swindon LSCB.

SOURCE



Selective classes based on ability are best for dim kids too

Says Harry Mount. I am not sure what he thinks the end result for the dim ones should be however. Should they spend more years at school or be satisfied to finish school without any qualifications or skills? -- JR

Normally, I rate Frank Field for his unsentimental attitude to the problems of the welfare state and the education system. This time, though, I fundamentally disagree with him. Field is suggesting that children who fail exams should be kept back, to repeat the school year until they pass them.

I’m all for being tough on children, but this one just won’t work. Some of them are so stupid that they’ll never catch up with their peers; and so they’ll be consigned to a strange, sad future – like something out of a Roald Dahl short story, where they keep on ageing while younger and younger children join them every new school year.

However stupid, or clever, you are, it’s vital to be educated alongside people who are your age. At my school, you could be “accelerated” by a year if you passed an exam in your first term. It was fine, academically speaking – the bright children did better than the dimmer ones, despite being a year younger. But what was the point of throwing us together with children who were a year older – a big difference in your teenage years. The gap in sophistication immediately threw up communication barriers, particularly with girls who were only a year older but seemed like they’d been sent from the adult world to terrify us callow boys.

The answer is the obvious one, the one that state schools still shy away from: a combination of selection on entry and streaming. Dim children may fail their exams but they will be kept among their contemporaries and won’t feel the inadequacy of being left behind. Bright children can flourish, unashamed to work hard, spurring each other on to better intellectual performance.

Throw in good teachers and you have all you need for an excellent education. Surely wise Frank Field can see the sense in this?

SOURCE



High dosage vitamin pill reduces Alzheimer's symptoms

But it may give you cancer. The Oxford group have been focusing on homocysteine for many years (e.g. here) and they do now seem to have some solid results. The results do seem to vary a lot with the patient concerned however.

That vitamins are involved in Alzheimers is, additionally, counter-intuitive. We are better nourished than ever yet Alzheimer's incidence seems to be rising. If vitamins were the issue, we would expect Alzheimer' levels to be falling.

There is obviously much need for replication by groups less committed to the theory concerned. Note the caution in the final paragraph

A simple vitamin pill could prevent millions from suffering the agony of Alzheimer's. The tablet, costing as little as 10p a day and made up of three vitamin B supplements, cut brain shrinkage linked to memory loss by up to 500 per cent.

Oxford University researchers behind the landmark study said it offered the 'first glimmer of hope' in the battle to find a drug that slows or stops the development of Alzheimer's.

It and other forms of dementia blight the lives of more than 800,000 Britons, and the number of cases is expected to double within a generation.

No previous drug trials have been successful and, with around 500 new cases of Alzheimer's diagnosed every day in the UK alone, anything that delays the development of the disease could improve the lives of millions.

The breakthrough centres on a compound called homocysteine which is naturally made in the body and, at high levels, has been linked to memory loss and Alzheimer's. Vitamin B is known to break down homocysteine, so the researchers decided to look at whether giving patients the vitamin would be good for memory.

Working with colleagues in Norway, the Oxford team recruited 270 pensioners suffering from slight memory lapses that can be a precursor to Alzheimer's. Known as mild cognitive impairment, or MCI, it affects one in six aged 70-plus, or 1.5million Britons. Half of those with MCI will develop dementia within five years of diagnosis. Half of those taking part in the trial took a vitamin B tablet a day for two years. The tablets contained extremely high doses of vitamins B6, 9 and 12.

For instance, the amount of B12 was up to 300 times higher than could be obtained by simply eating bananas, meat, wholegrains, beans and other foods rich in the vitamin. The others took a daily dummy pill with no active ingredients.

Brain scans were carried out to check if the pill reduced the shrinkage of the brain that happens naturally as we age and speeds up in memory loss. Vitamin B cut the amount of shrinkage by 30 per cent, on average, the journal PLoS ONE reports.

In those with the highest amounts of homocysteine in their bloodstream at the start of the study, it halved the shrinkage and in one extreme case, it cut it five-fold.

Those with the slowest rate of shrinkage did best in memory tests and in some cases their ability to recall lists was as good at the end of the trial as it was at the start.

Professor David Smith, one of the study leaders, said: 'This is a very striking, dramatic result. It is our hope this simple and safe treatment will delay the development of Alzheimer's in many who suffer from mild memory problems.' Co-researcher Professor Helga Refsum added: 'Here we have a very simple solution: you give some vitamins and you seem to protect the brain.'

The results suggest that a basic cocktail of vitamins can achieve results that have evaded pharmaceutical companies, despite billions of pounds being spent on experimental dementia drugs.

Professor Smith said: 'This was a disease-modifying study. All other disease modifying trials have failed. What we can say is that this is the first one that shows a glimmer of hope and success.'

The professor plans to run a larger trial which will look at whether the vitamin cocktail actually affects the onset of Alzheimer's. If the trial is successful, high dose vitamin B could be widely prescribed to those with mild memory loss in as little as five years. Those who do not want to wait can make their own vitamin cocktail with supplements on sale at health food stores.

But the researchers stress that people should not do this without speaking to their doctor first. High dose vitamins may trigger cancer and are known to fuel existing cancers. They may also react with medicines including arthritis and psoriasis drugs.

Despite this, Professor Smith says he ‘would not hesitate’ to take the cocktail of 20mg of vitamin B6, 0.8mg of vitamin B9, or folate, and 0.5mg of vitamin B12, himself, if he were diagnosed with MCI.

The Alzheimer’s Research Trust, which part-funded the study, said that delaying the onset of Alzheimer’s by five years could halve the number of those who die with the condition. Rebecca Wood, the charity’s chief executive, said: ‘These are very important results.’

The Alzheimer’s Society gave the research a cautious welcome. Professor Clive Ballard said: ‘This could change the lives of thousands of people at risk of dementia. However, previous studies looking at B vitamins have been very disappointing and we wouldn’t want to raise people’s expectations yet.’

SOURCE





8 September, 2010

Diabetic patient died after nurses failed to give insulin injections

A diabetic patient at a scandal-hit hospital died after nurses failed to give her insulin injections, an inquest heard. Gillian Astbury, 66, fell into a coma and died at Stafford Hospital in April 2007. The pensioner, from Hednesford, Staffordshire, had been at the hospital receiving treatment for a minor fall.

But a jury at Stafford Coroner's Court heard that her blood sugar levels were not properly monitored and insulin was not administered in the two days before her death, despite being prescribed by doctors.

The court heard that some of the nursing staff were not informed that Mrs Astbury was diabetic and some said they were too busy to check the patient notes at the foot of her bed.

On April 10, the morning before her death, Mrs Astbury's blood sugar levels were checked and found to be "very high" but no medication was given and her blood sugar was not monitored for the rest of the day, the court heard.

Senior staff nurse Patricia King told the inquest she had not been told that Mrs Astbury was diabetic and had assumed another nurse was taking care of her medication. She told the inquest: "I wasn't aware Mrs Astbury was diabetic therefore I wasn't aware that her blood sugar should have been monitored. "I'm very very sorry, I really do wish I'd had time to look at the handover sheets and been able to have done something sooner."

Mrs King said she "shocked" when she first started working at Stafford Hospital, adding: "It was like going back 20 years coming to this ward." She said staff on the ward had to "muddle through" in poor conditions, with no office or nursing station and a shortage of nurses and support workers.

She added: "Day after day, week after week, month after month, you are going home late because you are trying to do everything you can. "This was an appalling case but equally, the conditions we were working in were appalling too. We did try our best, nobody set out to do anybody any harm. It was poorly done and I can only apologise."

Staff nurse Brenda Laverty said handovers between nursing shifts were not given at the patients' bedsides, making it difficult to remember information about individuals. She said she believed she could have been informed about Mrs Astbury's diabetes but may have forgotten, adding: "I am very sorry I didn't remember from one day to the next. "The handover was given about 20 patients but it's hard to remember everything about each individual person."

Health care support worker Michelle Appleton told the inquest she knew Mrs Astbury was diabetic but did not mention it to the nurses on the ward because she assumed they knew.

A police investigation was launched after Mrs Astbury's death, but the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence to bring charges.

Antony Sumara, chief executive of the hospital, has apologised for Mrs Astbury's care. In a statement released when the inquest was first opened he said: "You can't defend something as basic as not giving a known diabetic their insulin."

Stafford Hospital, run by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, was the subject of a lengthy independent inquiry after a Health care Commission report disclosed deficiencies at "virtually every stage", including inadequately trained staff who were too few in number, junior doctors left alone in charge at night and dirty wards and bathrooms.

Publishing the inquiry findings in February, Chairman Robert Francis QC concluded: "Patients were routinely neglected by a Trust that was preoccupied with cost cutting, targets and processes and which lost sight of its fundamental responsibility to provide safe care."

As many as 1,200 people are thought to have died at Stafford Hospital through neglect between 2005 and 2008.

SOURCE



FOI and universities

Tony Blair's recent expressions of regret over his introduction of the Freedom of Information Act has been much chewed over in the news recently.

If I sense things correctly this is just one symptom of something rather bigger. If I discern things correctly, there are moves afoot to start reining back on the scope of the Act. I can't quite recall what prompted me to do so, but a few weeks back I sent an FoI request to the Justice Ministry, the Whitehall department responsible for the FoI Act. I asked what meetings ministers and officials had had concerning possible changes to the application of the Act in universities. The answer came back that they "didn't hold the information". On its own this would be nothing, although a firmer answer - "no such meetings" would have been more encouraging.

But then there was this a heartfelt piece on the subject of FoI from Professor Edward Acton:

[T]here are dilemmas. If data gathered by researchers is to be disclosable before they have completed work on it, issues of commercial and intellectual property become acute. Take the recent ruling by the Information Commissioner (made under the FOIA's twin, the Environmental Information Regulation) to force Queen's University Belfast to hand over painstakingly assembled Irish Tree Ring data. Are we to find that commercial companies (located anywhere in the world - our FOIA is wonderfully cosmopolitan) may secure the release of the unworked data of every UK university?

As an aside, I think Doug Keenan, the man who forced QUB's hand on this issue, might take issue with some of this. For example, the data is decades old and so can hardly count as "unworked". Also, according to Queens itself, it was stored on an electronic medium that is already virtually obsolete - floppy disks, suggesting that it was not actually being used. Readers of the Hockey Stick Illusion will recognise these issues and will know that the data should have been stored in a secure repository designed for the purpose, such as the International Tree Ring Database.

But to return to the original theme, there has now been another strong hint that the bureaucrats are on the move. Today's You and Yours programme on BBC Radio 4 discussed the question of Freedom of Information and featured someone from the University of Warwick declaring that he felt that universities should be exempt.

His reasoning for this involved a delicious misleading of the interviewer, Julian Worricker. He informed Worricker that Warwick receives 77% of its income "competively" and 23% direct from the state. This suggestion then led neatly into an insinuation that Warwick is 23% state funded (all those grants are competitive, right?), and since 23% is much less than some charities get from the state, universities should be exempt. Here, for those who are interested, is the relevant extract from the Warwick accounts:



Anyway, take a listen. The universities section starts at about 20 mins. Heather Brooke is featured later on, together with some minor discussion of climate.

SOURCE (See the original for links)



A licence to interfere in our everyday lives

The Liberal-Conservative coalition government’s proposed licensing reforms were whisked out for a brief consultation in August, which comes to a close this Wednesday (8 September). The anodyne title of the consultation (‘Rebalancing the Licensing Act’) and the rhetoric of ‘empowering communities’ are little more than pretty wrapping: the content is sinister stuff.

Far from empowering communities, the proposed changes would increase the power of local councils, the police and other authorities, who will be removed from necessary checks and balances. Far from rolling back New Labour’s hyper-regulatory regime, the proposed changes would roll it out much further and faster.

After the Licensing Act 2003, New Labour created a network of Licensing Committees, based in each local authority, to issue licenses to sell alcohol to pubs and other premises. This replaced the previous system of licenses issued by local magistrates. In theory, replacing magistrates with local councillors could have been a good thing - except that the Licensing Act set out four ‘licensing objectives’, which meant that the committee started to play a much more interfering role in licensed premises.

The objectives were wide-ranging: 1) the prevention of crime and disorder; 2) improving public safety; 3) the prevention of public nuisance; and 4) the protection of children from harm. In pursuing these aims, Licensing Committees have imposed petty conditions on pubs and bars that have little to do with genuine public order or legality issues. At the Manifesto Club, we have had cases reported to us of pubs asked to install CCTV cameras or CRB-check their staff, put up ‘responsible drinking’ notices, search customers, or install a ‘Think 30’ ID check policy. These same Licensing Committees were responsible for issuing licenses for what the Licensing Act termed ‘regulated entertainment’, covering everything from live music to the mere possession of a piano, not only in licensed premises but in village halls and old people’s homes.

If this current government is committed to civil liberties, as it claims, then the powers of Licensing Committees should be reduced and not massively increased, as this consultation document proposes.

In our view, the problems with the government’s proposals are as follows.

Overturning principles of due process

The Lib-Con consultation document proposed allowing licensing authorities to bring cases for licence removal before themselves. It also suggests reducing the burden of proof required for a licensing authority to remove a pub’s or bar’s licence - and that licensing authorities hear their own appeals, rather than the appeal being heard in a magistrate’s court as it is at present. Finally, it suggests enacting licensing authorities’ decisions as soon as they are made, rather than pending an appeal.

These proposals go against the basic elements of justice: that a person is innocent until proven guilty; that a state authority must have a very good reason before stopping people from doing things; that an appeal is heard by a different authority from the authority that made the original decision. These proposals essentially give licensing authorities unchecked powers to close down, or impose their conditions on, licensed premises, without being subject to due process.

Accepting the police’s word as truth

The consultation document proposes that licensing authorities accept all representations from the police – for example, to close down a bar – unless there is strong evidence to the contrary. This is a big shift from the current situation, where evidence from the police is generally treated with the same weight as evidence from other bodies.

This is a worrying development. The police have a very particular set of interests, which do not marry with those of civic interest groups. The police, if given the choice, would doubtless not have any bars or nightlife at all, since this would mean less crime and rowdiness and a quieter life for them. In Barking and Dagenham, two police officers put in 22 applications for licence review in the course of a single year; there were even local supermarkets on their list. Should their opinion always prevail? No. The police’s views on these matters must always be tested and weighed in courts or by other independent bodies, not only for their truth but also for their reasonableness when countered against other social interests, such as members of the public wanting to be able to buy beer at their supermarket.

Empowering the health police

The consultation document suggests allowing health authorities to bring licence review cases. It also suggests designating ‘health harm’ as the fifth ‘licensing objective’.

Most local health authorities would no doubt be too busy treating patients to get involved in licensing proceedings. But there is an element of the medical establishment which, like the police, has a particular set of interests that are not necessarily the same as the general public’s. Statements from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) and other health bodies show a growing penchant for interfering in people’s liberties for the alleged sake of our health – for example, NICE’s recent call for a minimum alcohol price and for a complete ban on alcohol advertising.

From a pure health perspective, it might be better not to drink at all and to be in bed early every night. However, we do not organise our lives solely around our physical wellbeing, which is why it is better that doctors do not get too involved in politics. Giving health authorities more political powers would encourage the authoritarian strand of the medical establishment. As a licensing objective, it would also give Licensing Committees even more powers to interfere in city nightlife.....

The consultation document proposes increasing the regulation of what are known as ‘temporary events’, with the proposal that holders of temporary events must give longer periods of notice. It also proposes that the police have more time in which to object to applications, and that the number of applications that can be made by one person or in one area are limited.

There is already too much bureaucracy covering applications for ‘temporary events’ – a category that includes carnivals, village fetes, public concerts, beer festivals, and so on. Temporary events are essential and spontaneous parts of community life; it should not be too onerous for members of the public to organise these events, even if they lack expertise in licensing regulation or other forms of local council bureaucracy. The proposal to increase the regulation of temporary events, requiring more procedures, greater notice and more potential for objection from the authorities, would greatly increase the administrative burden and make it harder for local events to go ahead...

More here



Cambridge tops international league table



Cambridge has been named the best university in the world in an international league table. The ancient institution has become the first British university to top the QS World University Rankings which measure research quality, graduate employment and teaching standards.

It was named above Harvard as the American institution was removed from the number one spot for the first time since the league table was published in 2004.

According to figures, four British universities, including University College London, Oxford and Imperial College London, appear in the top 10 and 19 are in the top 100. Only the United States had more top-ranked universities than Britain.

John O’ Leary, executive member of the table’s advisory board, said: “UK universities have had an exceptionally good year. Not only does Cambridge top the ranking for the first time, but there are more UK institutions than ever before in the top 100 and 200.”

For the second year running, UCL was named above Oxford in the league table.

The rankings are created following a survey of 13,000 academics and 5,000 employers. They are also based on the number of international students at each university, faculty sizes and the number of research citations.

A separate university league table – created by Times Higher Education magazine – is released later this month

SOURCE



Been on a diet recently? Research shows four in ten women actually gain weight

Four out of ten women who diet end up heavier than when they started watching their waistline, a study revealed today. The average female dieter actually gained 5.2lbs with a 'foot off the gas' approach once a target has been reached and a lack of willpower to blame.

Partners who cook or buy unhealthy food were also targeted as was filling up in the office with cakes and biscuits.

The research also showed that a large percentage of women start noticing the pounds creeping back on just 21 days after reaching their ideal weight.

Yesterday, Dr Ian Campbell of the Jenny Craig weight management programme said: 'In the UK 61.4 per cent of adults are overweight or obese. 'Successful weight management requires a long-term commitment in order to lose weight successfully and for good. 'Too many women simply flirt with the notion of dieting via unhealthy yo-yo dieting or quick fix solutions - rather than entering into a proper long-term relationship with healthy eating.

'Successful weight management requires a holistic and committed approach focusing on food, body and mind. 'We can often be too focused on the high impact diets that deliver flash-in-the-pan results and then let us down, rather than thinking about how to keep the weight off in the weeks, months and years down-the-line.

'Dieting can be a real challenge so setting realistic goals and remaining focused on them is important. 'Otherwise as this research shows, women could end up heavier than when they started.'

The 'Food: Body: Mind' report was commissioned by Jenny Craig who quizzed 2000 women aged between 18 and 65 who diet regularly on their attitudes, beliefs and behaviours around weight loss. Six in ten said they are currently on a diet and one in five women saying they are on a 'continuous diet'.

It found the most common triggers to start dieting was seeing their 'reflection in the mirror', preparing for a summer holiday or unflattering photos posted on social networking sites. Other popular reasons include comments by friends or relatives or remarks from their other half.

However the study showed that one in ten fall off the wagon within one day, while almost a fifth manage to make it to a week or more. The average is ten days.

Many blamed pressure they put on themselves to lose weight too quickly for the weight gain, which leaves them with a bigger appetite than normal. Others blamed colleagues, who tuck into fatty lunches and snacks unaware of the effect it has on the dieter, while mothers who polish off their children's leftovers was another common cause of weight gain.

SOURCE





7 September, 2010

The NHS jobs boom: 66,000 more put on payroll in Labour's pre-poll spree

"Under Labour, the number of managers increased six times as fast as the number of nurses"

Health Service staff numbers swelled to a record high before the general election as Labour went on an end-of-term spending spree, figures revealed yesterday. Staffing levels jumped by 66,000 in just 12 months to 1.626 million, confirming the NHS as one of the biggest employers in the world.

The 4.2 per cent increase in NHS workers between March 2009 and March 2010 pushed the total number employed in the bloated public sector up to 6.09 million, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Gordon Brown sanctioned ever higher levels of spending ahead of May's polling day despite the desperate state of the public finances.

The dramatic increase in the workforce has highlighted the scale of the job facing the Coalition. Chancellor George Osborne plans to slash annual borrowing from a record £155billion last year to £20billion in 2016.

Although overall NHS funding will be protected in the forthcoming spending review, the Department of Health is looking for savings of £15billion to £20billion to plough back into the front line. It said staff numbers have already started to fall as it embarks on plans to reduce management costs by 45 per cent by 2014, saving £850million.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: 'Under Labour, the number of managers increased six times as fast as the number of nurses. While good management is essential, over-management is not.' He pledged that 'every penny saved' in the bureaucracy savings would be reinvested in patient care.

Fiona McEvoy, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, warned that Mr Brown's pre-election largesse would prove a serious long-term financial burden. 'The escalating size of the public sector has been hugely detrimental to economic growth and created a fiscal crisis,' she said. 'The legacy of this excessive recruitment threatens to cost taxpayers a fortune for many years to come.'

Some 600,000 public sector workers are expected to lose their jobs as a result of the Coalition cuts, says the Office for Budget Responsibility, the Treasury watchdog.

With NHS funding safeguarded, it means other departments such as defence and education face cuts of up to 40 per cent. Opponents claim such drastic measures could tip the UK back into recession.

SOURCE



Student visa crackdown as British immigration minister vows to cut number of arrivals by tens of thousands

A massive shake-up of the immigration system will slash tens of thousands from the number of foreign students flocking into Britain. Immigration minister Damian Green will also drastically reduce the number of work permits and marriage visas given to non-EU nationals under plans to cut net migration by at least half.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Mr Green said it had become ‘starkly clear’ he must reduce the numbers being given permission to enter and stay in every category of immigration controls.
Long-standing impact: Immigration minister Damian Green believes that only students who will have a positive impact on the country should be granted student visas

It comes after surprise figures UK showed net migration leapt by a fifth last year, to 196,000.

Mr Green revealed his main target will be student visas. He today publishes research showing that – astonishingly – fewer than half of foreign students are undertaking degree-level courses.

Mr Green said it showed the image people had of foreign students attending the UK’s most prestigious universities – paying large tuition fees which kept many institutions afloat – was wrong.

More than 90,000 of them are in fact in the private sector at smaller colleges, offering the likes of GCSEs or vocational training. These students could now face being barred from the UK, although Mr Green says he is unlikely to impose a ‘cap’ on student numbers. Instead, he will focus on making it harder to be allowed to come here.

Mr Green said the Home Office study also revealed that a fifth of those students granted visas for a temporary stay are still here five years later, meaning they have a long-standing impact on the UK’s rapidly rising population levels.

In the 12 months to June this year, 362,015 foreign students were allowed to come and study in the UK – up 35 per cent on the previous year.

There remain huge concerns that many of them are attending so-called bogus colleges which repeatedly slipped through the net under Labour.

The clampdown on foreign students will build on the cap the Government has already announced on economic migrants.

This has sparked rows within the Coalition – particularly with LibDem Business Secretary Vince Cable, and Tory universities spokesman David Willetts. They are likely to agitate against the student crackdown as well.

But Mr Green effectively sent a message when he suggested he had little choice if David Cameron’s promise to reduce net migration to the ‘tens of thousands’ was to be met.

The Prime Minister has said he would like to go even further by returning the figure to that of the mid-1990s – when it was around 50,000.

Mr Green told the Mail: ‘We’ve announced a limit, that’s been controversial. What is transparently clear from this evidence is that the limit itself isn’t enough to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands.

‘We need to look at all immigration routes into the UK and set new rules that mean that the migrants that we get do represent the brightest and the best, and are the migrants we need.’ Mr Green added: ‘We think of this as a temporary route, but for many people it clearly isn’t.

‘Between 2004 and 2010, the number of students coming here has risen hugely, more than 300,000 student visas along with dependants were issued in the year to June 2010. ‘One can draw one’s own conclusions about what will happen long-term.

‘I want a student visa system which encourages the entry of good students to highly trusted institutions but which scrutinises much more closely or cuts out entirely those who are less beneficial to this country.’

More HERE

What about my human rights, asks woman beaten unconscious by asylum-seeker ex-lover freed by British immigration judge

A dangerous criminal who has no legal right to be in Britain has gone on the run after a judge ruled that to detain him would violate his human rights. Failed asylum seeker Kawa ali Azad, who carries knives and is described by his ex-partner as ‘completely unbalanced,’ was granted his freedom from an immigration centre in March.

Azad, an Iraqi Kurd, who has six convictions for violence, immediately breached the bail terms of the release by failing to appear at a police station to have an electronic tag fitted. He then breached a lifetime restraining order by making threats against his ex-partner. Police have had to move her and their son and give them a new identity because of his repeated harassment.

Azad, 34, has now been on the run for more than five months – and police admit they have no idea where he is. They are so concerned about the risk he poses to his ex-partner Tania Doherty that she has been ordered not to visit family and friends and to carry an ‘abduction pack’ with the details and DNA of her son of four, in case he is snatched.

Miss Doherty, whose new name cannot be disclosed, says she is terrified he will return to kidnap their son or hurt her family – both of which he has threatened. ‘I just cannot believe he was released,’ she says. ‘I am disgusted. ‘He has attacked me in broad daylight and threatened to kill me and members of my family. I really fear for my son.’

Azad has been convicted of a string of violent offences, as well as dangerous driving, since he arrived in Britain.

When Miss Doherty ended their relationship in 2006, he battered, harassed and assaulted her for two years. This culminated in an attack in which he beat her unconscious as she sat on a beach in Eastbourne with their son before attempting to snatch the boy.

Azad was jailed for 12 months after the attack. Following his release from prison the Border Agency tried to deport him and he was flown to Baghdad airport. But Iraqi authorities refused to accept him and he was sent back to Colnbrook immigration removal centre near Heathrow.

He was detained because he no longer had any legal right to stay in the country. When he was at first refused bail from the centre he flew into a rage, damaging a courtroom and having to be restrained by staff.

But in March this year an immigration judge decided to release him against the advice of police and the Home Office – on the grounds that detaining him was violating his human rights.

As soon as he was freed, Azad breached his bail by not turning up to be tagged and began leaving threatening messages on a phone belonging to his ex-partner, thus violating the lifetime restraining order preventing him from contacting her.

Miss Doherty says she is furious that, while Azad enjoys his freedom, she and her son are forced to live in fear. ‘Human rights are a joke as far as I’m concerned,’

Miss Doherty said. ‘Having to give my son a new name was the most upsetting part – it was like I lost a part of him. ‘I have had to move away from all my friends and family so I feel totally isolated – all because of him.’

A spokesman for the UK Border Agency said the Home Office had ‘strongly opposed’ the decision to release Azad. ‘We removed Mr Azad in October 2009, but the Iraqi authorities refused to accept him,’ the spokesman said.

‘Following his return to the UK Mr Azad was released on bail by an immigration judge. He has since absconded and we have shared his details with the police.’

Sussex Police said it had been searching for Kawa ali Azad ‘who we seek to arrest and interview on suspicion he breached a Restraining Order’.

The Immigration and Asylum Tribunal refused to discuss why one of its judges had released Azad.

SOURCE

Catholic church accuses BBC of 'anti-Christian' bias

Britain’s most senior Catholic has accused the BBC of harbouring an institutional bias against “Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular”. Cardinal Keith O’Brien said the BBC’s news coverage is contaminated by “a radically secular and socially liberal mindset”.

The Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh said the corporation’s intolerance of religion is equivalent to its “massive” political bias against the Conservatives in the 1980s.

He also accused the corporation of plotting a “hatchet job” on the Vatican in a documentary about clerical sex abuse on the eve of Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Britain.

Cardinal O’Brien believes that atheists like Professor Richard Dawkins are given a disproportionate amount of airtime while mainstream Christian views are marginalised.

He is also angered by a 15 per cent slump in religious programming over the past 20 years and believes the broadcaster should appoint a religion editor to address the decline.

He said: “This week the BBC’s director general [Mark Thompson] admitted that the corporation had displayed ‘massive bias’ in its political coverage throughout the 1980s, acknowledging the existence of an institutional political bias.”

“Our detailed research into BBC news coverage of Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular, together with a systematic analysis of output by the Catholic church, has revealed a consistent anti-Christian institutional bias.”

He added that insiders at the BBC had privately admitted that there is a cultural intolerance of Christianity at the corporation. “Senior news managers have admitted to the Catholic church that a radically secular and socially liberal mindset pervades their newsrooms. “This sadly taints BBC news and current affairs coverage of religious issues, particularly matters of Christian beliefs.”

Cardinal O’Brien joined calls by the Church of England for the BBC to appoint a religion editor to spearhead the corporation’s coverage of faith issues.

The Rt Revd Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester and the Church of England’s lead spokesman on communications, made the request last month in a submission to the BBC Trust’s ongoing review of BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 7. He wrote: "We see no logical distinction between the genre of arts, science and business (all of which include reflecting and discerning between different opinions and perspectives, and have BBC editors) and that of religion.”

Cardinal O’Brien also voiced fears that the broadcaster will use a forthcoming documentary called Benedict –Trials of a Pope to humiliate the pontiff on the eve of his visit to Britain.

The programme, which charts the clerical child abuse crisis that has dogged the Catholic church, has been made by Mark Dowd, a homosexual former Dominican friar. It will be aired on September 15.

Senior Catholic figures have suggested that the Pope could meet with victims of abuse by Roman Catholic priests when he visits Britain later this month. Cardinal Vincent Nichols told BBC1’ Andrew Marr show yesterday: "The pattern of his last five or six visits has been that he has met victims of abuse. "But the rules are very clear, that is done without any pre-announcement, it is done in private and it is done confidentially, which is quite right and proper so I think we have to wait and see.”

The BBC dismissed Cardinal O’Brien’s criticism of its religious coverage and denied that it had marginalised mainstream religious issues, which it said were placed “at the heart” of its schedule.

A spokeswoman said: “The BBC’s commitment to religious broadcasting is unequivocal. BBC news and current affairs has a dedicated religion correspondent, and works closely with BBC Religion, ensuring topical religious and ethical affairs stories are featured across all BBC networks.”

In response to the Cardinal's attack on the forthcoming documentary by Mr Dowd, she said: "Mark is just one presenter in a range of programming that will include live news and events coverage of the visit itself, and other documentaries across radio and TV."

SOURCE



Yes, we do need government: Just not as much of it as many seem to think

No, I've not read Tony's maunderings and no, I'm not going to. However, there is one interesting little story that's emerged:

The former Prime Minister describes how he supported pension reforms proposed by Adair Turner but these were opposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time. Lord Turner recommended raising the State pension age and restoring some linkage with earnings – both changes now planned by the Coalition Government – but Mr Brown was thought to be against these reforms. Now we know just how much so.

Mr Blair’s book ‘A Journey’ says: “We had been having a huge set-to about Adair Turner’s pension proposals. John Hutton (the pensions secretary) and I both thought them right but Gordon disagreed.

“He was in a venomous mood and I can truthfully say it was the ugliest meeting we had ever had…the temperature which was already below freezing point went Arctic.”

Mr Blair goes on to relate how Mr Brown threatened to call for an inquiry into allegations that wealthy friends of the Prime Minister had gained seats in the House of Lords after making donations to the Labour Party. Mr Blair claims Mr Brown said he would expose what became known as the ‘cash for honours’ scandal unless Lord Turner’s proposals were dropped.

Government is needed because there really are some collective action problems that cannot be solved without the existence of government (sorry anarchists!). But that does not mean that all of the problems of the world are amenable to government action and that we thus require a government so large as to try and solve all such problems.

For, as we can see, those who actually make up government do not in fact attempt to solve those problems. They're far too much like the rest of us fallible human beings, willing to snit and scrabble for short term advantage for themselves while ignoring the large scale and long term problems.

No, I don't say this was unique to Brown: James Buchanan received the Nobel for pointing out that all politicians, all bureaucrats, are susceptible to exactly the same urges. They are, after all, just people and people everywhere react to incentives.

All of which leads us to he conclusion that while we do require government to solve those problems that only government can solve we really don't want them doing anything at all other than what only government can do. For the rest of it we'll make our own mistakes thanks very much.

SOURCE



British exams to be brought in line with world's toughest tests

Wake me up when it happens -- JR

Examinations will be toughened up to meet standards set in other countries such as Singapore, South Korea and China, according to the Coalition. Ofqual, the exams regulator, will be ordered to gather test papers from some of the world’s most respected education systems and benchmark domestic qualifications against them.

It is likely to lead to a dramatic rise in the standards teenagers will be expected to meet to gain good grades in A-levels and GCSEs.

The announcement comes amid fears that exams are becoming too easy and failing to keep pace with those in other countries. This summer almost three-in-10 A-levels were graded at least an A and the number of Cs awarded at GCSE increased for the 22nd year in a row.

Speaking on Monday, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said action would be taken to “restore confidence” to the examinations system. This includes an overhaul of Ofqual, the watchdog established by Labour to vet standards in school and college tests. It comes just weeks after the regulator admitted that this year’s GCSE science papers were too easy.

Mr Gove said: “Last month the exams regulator Ofqual acknowledged that the GCSE science exams were not set at a high enough standard. I’ve been saying this for years. “But the previous Government chose to ignore my warnings and they defended a status quo that was in their interest but was actively damaging the education of hundreds of thousands of children a year."

He said the creation of a “more assertive” qualifications regulator, with the power to order exam boards to toughen up their tests, was “critical to restoring confidence in our exams system”. “We will legislate to strengthen Ofqual and give a new regulator the powers they need to enforce rigorous standard," he said.

“We will ask Ofqual to report on how our exams compare with those in other countries so we can measure the questions our 11, 16 and 18 year olds sit against those sat by their contemporaries in India, China, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

“Our young people will increasingly be competing for jobs and university places on a global level and we can’t afford to have our young people sitting exams which aren’t competitive with the world’s best.”

The move forms part of a sweeping overhaul of the exams system. As revealed yesterday, the Coalition will also introduce a school leaving certificate to tackle a decline in the number of pupils studying subjects such as languages and science in secondary schools.

An English Baccalaureate will be awarded to pupils who gain five A* to C grade GCSEs in English, maths, a science, a foreign language and one humanities subject. At the same time, panels of academics, exam boards and learned societies will be asked to script A-level syllabuses and test papers to restore rigour to the education system.

SOURCE



Why Army-style fitness workouts are all pain and NO gain

This sounds right to me. But but I have done no exercise for over 50 years so I suppose it would -- JR

Taking a stroll on a grassy common these days, you'd be forgiven for thinking that National Service still existed. Increasingly, green spaces across the country are taken up with puffed-out people in bibs performing gruelling exercises. Their faces getting pinker by the minute, they run and jump about under the eyes of a watchful leader.

But this is no Army training camp, nor is it a team-building exercise for a large investment bank. Rather, it is a group of people participating in a military fitness class - and they're supposed to be having fun.

Over recent years, this no-frills bootcamp-style training has been adopted by fitness professionals and organisations everywhere. Every day more people flock to join the sweaty throng, perhaps as a result of our increasing awareness of obesity, or because classes like these cost approximately a quarter of the average personal training session (about £10 a class in comparison to more than £40 for an hour's one-on-one training).

By far the best known of such outdoor fitness providers is British Military Fitness (BMF), running classes nationwide, with 100 a week in London alone. But should you be signing up?

Dr Ralph Rogers, consultant in sports medicine at the London Orthopaedic Clinic, worries that these kinds of bootcamps result in injury, not weight loss and fitness. He says: 'Exercise needs to be done gradually, with proper supervision, otherwise there is a risk of injury. I would never recommend an overweight patient to do one of these military bootcamps. When you overload the body, the result is injury - anything from shin splints to back problems - and, in this kind of environment, people make things worse by trying to soldier on.

'Neither the psychological aspect of why someone is overweight or the nutritional aspect is addressed by a bootcamp. Even fit people can hurt themselves by being over zealous.'

Osteopath Paul Raw agrees: 'I've seen a lot of ex-soldiers with bad backs because the idea of military-style training is to push yourself beyond your limit. This means the likelihood of eventual injury is high. It's a British thing I think, to assume that exercise must equal pain. 'As an osteopath I look to the quality of the exercise. Just being tired from it isn't always productive.'

As a personal trainer, I have worked with clients from all walks of life. Everybody is individual, with different strengths and weaknesses, and making someone do lots of press-ups when they can't even do a single one properly is a recipe for a bad back.

And if the ratio of instructor to participant is about 1:20, clearly the instructor does not have enough eyes to ensure everybody is doing everything right.

Sit-ups are one of the main culprits when it comes to developing back problems through exercise. From what I have witnessed, all those who pay their £48 BMF monthly membership fee (not including the £50 joining fee) are encouraged to do lots of sit-ups.

Yet such exercises are appropriate only for those with no lower back or postural issues - a small percentage of the population - and even then there are preferable exercises less likely to encourage a rounding of the shoulders or put pressure on the spine.

Stretches can be similarly problematic. Placing your hands in the small of the back and squeezing your elbows together is one way of stretching out your chest, but getting your partner to hold your elbows from behind and force them together, as I witnessed recently, is damaging.

The one being stretched will only arch their back to relieve the pain in the shoulder. We start with a natural arch in the back, but if it is increased, the segments in between spinal discs are further squeezed, creating compression. Over time, this can cause problems, the kind which only the orthopaedic industry will profit from.

And then there is the endless jogging, upon which the military bootcamp is founded: 'Running is integral to improving fitness,' says the well-spoken chap in the video voiceovers on the BMF website. But this is only partially true.

Certainly running is good for cardiovascular fitness, but so is swimming. If you are carrying extra weight, fast walking is better than jogging, the impact of which can cause lower back pain and exacerbate existing injuries.

But the majority of BMF leaders don't know if their clients have such problems because they provide no screening at the outset. This is typical of most bootcamps. All you need to do before participating in a class is to register online, fill in a health form and liability waiver.

When we questioned BMF about this, Simon Richman, London area manager, said: 'The health form has a list of injury questions.' In fact, while the form does contain health questions, they are standard ones regarding things like allergies, heart issues, blood pressure and asthma.

'The onus is on the participant to tell us about any injuries themselves,' Richman added. 'But we do check at the beginning of the class whether there are any first-timers and they can ask questions if they need.'

But this courtesy doesn't seem to extend to everyone, as Catherine Cooper, 34, experienced. A former county tennis player, Catherine wanted to regain lost fitness. She was living in South-West London when she tried an enjoyable free introductory session with BMF.

According to Cooper, the instructors asked who was a first-timer. She says: 'They were particularly nice to those people. But I went again after paying my membership fee and they were more arrogant. 'I told them I had a knee injury from skiing, and that it was playing up from all the squats, but they insisted I continue. It was like they were on some kind of power trip.

'I argued with the instructor, but he carried on being aggressive and telling me to continue. Luckily I refused, so my knee did not get worse. It was only at the end of the session that he apologised, but by then it was too late. I knew I would never go back.'

Simon Richman says: 'It is our company ethos that everyone has a military or service background, but on top of this they must have a recognised fitness qualification, which includes being a physical training instructor in the services.' They must then complete a day's training course and shadow other classes before passing an assessment rendering them proficient to teach without supervision. 'We are all about creating a welcoming, motivating environment and not about humiliation,' he says.

So the intention is there, even if it does not convert to reality: surely no self-respecting adult really enjoys performing a wheelbarrow (crawling along the floor on your hands while another holds your legs behind you)?

There are more dignified ways of honing your core strength, which do not risk back injury to such a high degree. If you can't afford personal training, it is worth saving up to get an assessment from a sports therapist.

You'll learn what you should and shouldn't do before joining group exercise. If you were buying a house or a car, you would most likely do any necessary research, so why treat your health and fitness any differently?

SOURCE



Cockroaches could help combat MRSA and E.coli

This sounds very good news but the bureaucracy of getting new drugs through the approval process means that nobody will benefit for at least 10 years

Cockroaches and locusts contain powerful antibiotic molecules in their brains that could be used to develop new treatments against MRSA and E-coli, scientists have discovered. Scientists at Nottingham University found that the insects, which are widely reviled for their dirty image, could actually be more of a health benefit than a health risk.

They have identified up to nine different molecules in the tissues of cockroaches and locusts that are toxic to bacteria and they hope will pave the way for new treatments for multi-drug resistant bacterial infections.

The tissues of the brain and nervous system of the insects were able to kill more than 90% of MRSA and E.coli bacteria, without harming human cells.

Simon Lee, a postgraduate researcher who is presenting his work at the Society for General Microbiology’s autumn meeting in Nottingham, said: “We hope that these molecules could eventually be developed into treatments for E. coli and MRSA infections that are increasingly resistant to current drugs.

“Also, these new antibiotics could potentially provide alternatives to currently available drugs that may be effective but have serious and unwanted side effects,” he said.

SOURCE



Amazing what you can get away with if you are a pop star

We read:

"Controversial singer Morrissey has been accused of 'crude racism' after describing Chinese people as a 'subspecies' because of their treatment of animals.

The star, a well-known vegetarian and animal rights campaigner, said the treatment of Chinese circus animals was 'absolutely horrific'.

He told poet Simon Armitage in an interview in Guardian Weekend magazine: 'Did you see the thing on the news about their treatment of animals and animal welfare? 'Absolutely horrific. You can't help but feel that the Chinese are a subspecies.'

Last year the former Smiths front man, whose old band released an album entitled Meat Is Murder, quit the Coachella festival in California, complaining about the smell of meat cooking.

In a 2006 interview he said he supported 'the efforts of the Animal Rights Militia in England'.

He has long courted controversy and been accused of flirting with far-right views. In 1992 he was criticised after he appeared on stage wrapped in the Union flag. His song National Front Disco, released in the same year, contains the lines: 'You want the day to come sooner/When you've settled the score'.

In 2007 the singer, who now lives in Los Angeles, said immigration had changed the face of England but later denied being racist.

Source

6 September, 2010

Chaotic training system for new doctors in the NHS

An EU ruling that limits the amount of time junior doctors spend on wards during the day has led to almost a quarter dropping out of NHS training after two years. And of those trainee doctors who do continue their training, more than a fifth are now turned down because they lack sufficient skills or experience.

The findings come from first survey into doctors’ training since the chaotic introduction of a European directive which has put a cap on the working hours of junior doctors. Under the Working Time Directive, which was fully implemented in the NHS last August, junior doctors are now limited to a maximum 48-hour working week.

The aim of the ruling was to prevent them working while they were tired but, as a result of the more rigid system, junior doctors are now increasingly relied upon to cover ward shifts at nights and weekends – which means they spend far less time during the day learning from consultants.

According to figures shown to the Medical Programme Board, which oversees doctors’ training in England, 1,380 out of 6,000 trainee doctors completing their ‘foundation’ years in the NHS have either quit or have taken a break rather than applying for the next stage of core training.

Of those who did apply to continue, 22 per cent were not accepted by NHS trusts, the suggestion being that they lack the skills and experience necessary to hold the positions. A further 7 per cent declined the posts they were offered.

The figures are outrageously high, according to campaign groups, who point out that many doctors trained in the UK are now choosing to work abroad in Australia, New Zealand or the United States, where working hours are longer but more flexible. The British Medical Association said that in the last year alone it had advised at least 800 doctors to go to Australia to seek work.

There are currently record numbers of doctors in training in England. With it costing up to £250,000 to train each doctor, it is suggested that more than £340 million of investment could be at stake if the absconding trainees remain abroad.

More than 75 per cent of junior doctors say the quality of training has deteriorated since the introduction of the EU directive, surveys suggest. Around two-thirds also believe that the quality of patient care has also suffered – as a result of gaps in rotas and problems that occur when inexperienced doctors change shifts.

Top UK medical colleges have also criticised the ruling which has cut the working day for junior doctors from 56 hours to 48 a week. Remedy UK, the junior doctors’ pressure group, said the directive had resulted in a generation of graduates receiving ‘minimal and sketchy exposure to ‘real medicine’.

Richard Marks, Remedy’s Head of Policy and a consultant anaesthetist in London, told the Times: ‘Word on the ground is that doctors are taking a gap year — often abroad — and many will have no intention of coming back.’

The Department of Health said the Medical Programme Board was investigating the high drop-out rate but insisted there was ‘no evidence that the [directive] has any bearing’ on the figures.

A spokesman said: ‘We are doing more work with the Royal colleges to get a better picture of the different elements that influence a trainee’s decision not to apply for training posts or why they aren’t successful. Following that we will be able to decide what further support trainee doctors need.’

SOURCE



Why not brushing your teeth can kill you

But only if you have bleeding gums. The assumption seems to be that toothpaste is bacteriocidal or that brushing hardens your gums. I am not sure that either is true. Brushing tends to make my gums bleed, which is why I gave it up long ago. I have had no gum bleeding ever since -- and no decay either. I would think that the findings below were an argument AGAINST brushing. A couple of glasses of gin and water before bedtime is my recipe for oral health.

I have corrected some deplorable spelling below. It must be a sign of modern education that writers and copy editors at a prestigious British newspaper think that "bacteria" is singular

A link between poor oral hygiene and increased risk of heart attack has long been suspected. But until now nobody has been able to figure out exactly why not brushing regularly might bring one on. Now a Bristol University dental scientist has discovered that a common bacterium responsible for tooth decay and gum disease can break out into the bloodstream and help blood clots to form. In turn these can cause heart attacks and strokes, which together cause more than 200,000 deaths in Britain every year.

Most of them time Streptococcus bacteria are confined to the mouth, but when someone has bleeding gums they can get into the blood. There the bacteria use a protein on their surface, called PadA, to force blood platelets to bind together to give themselves a protective shield.

Howard Jenkinson, professor of oral microbiology, said: "What we have done is whittled down to a single protein molecule on the surface of bacteria that can activate platelet formation. "It is the first time that a mechanism from a single bacterium has been shown to activate platelets and make them spread."

Describing the mechanism, he said: "When the platelets clump together they completely encase the bacterium. This provides a protective cover not only from the immune system, but also from antibiotics that might be used to treat infection.

"Unfortunately, as well as helping out the bacteria, platelet clumping can cause small blood clots, growths on the heart valves or inflammation of blood vessels that can block the blood supply to the heart and brain."

The study provides evidence for yet one more reason to brush one's teeth and - ideally - floss. "People need to be aware that as well keeping a check on their diet, blood pressure, cholesterol and fitness levels, they also need to maintain good dental hygiene to minimise their risk of heart problems," said the scientist.

But the research should also speed up the development of drugs which could prevent potentially deadly blood clots from forming in the first place.

Prof Jenkinson described the discovery of the key protein as a "new tool" on which to test drugs which might stop it from clotting blood. He is working with Dr Steve Kerrigan of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland to see how the protein's platelet-causing function can be blocked. "This could eventually lead to new treatments for cardiovascular disease which is the biggest killer in the developed world," said Prof Jenkinson.

He is presenting the research today (MON) at the Society for General Microbiology’s autumn conference.

Source



British bureaucrats oppose crackdown on "Mickey Mouse" degrees

Civil servants who allocate billions of pounds to university teaching are secretly opposing moves which would ban spending on “Mickey Mouse” degree courses.

A far cry from the conventional humanities and sciences, a modern university education can involve studying subjects like pop music, puppetry, or the unorthodox combination of "waste management with dance".

An analysis of courses available through the university clearing system has disclosed that while most traditional courses are now full up, there are empty places in scores of "eccentric" degree courses. Education experts said it was unfortunate that such courses appeared to be proliferating at a time when school-leavers with good grades could not get places in core academic subjects.

The Sunday Telegraph has learned that officials who allocate billions of pounds to university teaching are secretly opposing moves which would allow spending on such courses to be cut back.

Civil servants at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) want to avoid a debate over whether to change laws which currently prohibit ministers from instructing them to award money for "particular courses of study".

When approached by this newspaper with questions about unconventional degree courses, the agency accidentally released copies of internal emails which had been exchanged between its officials as they discussed how to respond to the questions.

An email from Toby West-Taylor, the agency's head of funding, which was intended only for colleagues, said: "The risk in highlighting this to a journalist at a time when a new HE [higher education] Bill could be on the horizon, is that it might prompt a lobby for there to be change to such sound legislation."

The funding agency even referred to the questionable degree subjects in a derogative way, with one of the accidentally-released emails carrying the subject heading "Response to The Sunday Telegraph on Mickey Mouse courses." This newspaper did not use that phrase when posing the questions.

Following the revelations, David Willetts, the universities minister, predicted the end of "odd" courses as students face up to the new economic climate.

The clearing system, by which candidates who failed to get into their chosen university or college try and get places on other undersubscribed courses, began more than a fortnight ago. Yet despite record demand for places at top universities, hundreds of places are still available in less well known higher education institutions, many of them offering unconventional courses.

Northampton University initially had 250 places available through the clearing system, including such courses as Third World Development with Pop Music, Dance with Equine Studies and joint honours in Waste Management and Dance.

The clearing web-site also invites school-leavers to consider a Tournament Golf foundation degree at Duchy College in Camborne, Cornwall. The two-year course offers students the chance to "improve your tournament golf skills", and its admissions requirements indicate: "No handicap is definitive but the guide parameters are +5 to 3."

A spokeswoman for the college said: "The innovative programme gives young talented golfers the opportunity to chase their dreams whilst having the safety net of a UK university qualification to fall back on."

Glyndwr University, in Wrexham, still had 15 places available on its BSc (Hons) in Equestrian Psychology, which "investigates the unique partnership between horse and rider".

Subjects which were on offer through clearing at the start of last week, but which filled up during the week, included a degree course in Australian Studies, a joint honours degree in Criminology and Pop Music Production, and another combining Geology and Popular Culture.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, said: "It seems that many universities are going for the lowest common denominator just to get bums on seats and maximise their funding. "It seems crazy that youngsters are getting good grades in serious subjects at A-level and then being denied places, while these sort of courses are proliferating." He added: "The Secretary of State is the person democratically responsible and should be able to change things if necessary, and the law should be changed to allow him to do that."

Unprecedented demand for university and college degrees this year has left an estimated 150,000 students without a place.

Mr Willetts said: "In tough times I suspect some of these more eccentric courses, which date from the excesses of the dying days of the Labour government, will disappear because students see they are not a route into a well-paid career. "Some of them sound like very odd courses indeed.

"I think the way forward is providing students with better information about the employment outcomes from individual course at individual universities."

Farnborough College of Technology still had places available last week on its two-year foundation degree in Holistic Therapies. But if applicants find that course to be full they could turn to Warwickshire College which is offering Beauty Therapies Management, Hairdressing Management and Spa Management courses.

Writtle College in Chelmsford, Essex, offers a foundation degree in Professional Floristry which covers the "practical and theoretical aspects of floral design". There is still one place available on a three-year degree in Theatre Practice: Puppetry at London's Central School of Speech and Drama.

Jessica Bowles, the course tutor, said: "The major leads in War Horse [the successful West End play] are all from Central's Puppetry course. This leads to very concrete career opportunities."

A spokesman for the HEFCE, which allocates £4.6 billion a year for university teaching and £1.6 billion for research, said: "Universities have the discretion to spend the money according to their own priorities. "We don't stipulate which subjects universities should teach and which they should not teach. That is a matter for them. They have to make their own decisions on their own mission and their own goals."

Although the HEFCE has introduced priority funding for subjects such as sciences and modern languages, the freedom granted to universities meant that less-conventional degrees still receive funding even at a time of budget cutbacks.

When Northampton's Dance with Equine Studies was pointed out to the funding council spokesman, he said: "You are talking about some pretty out-lying courses. "They are regulated through the Quality Assurance Agency and what we can do is try to steer the sector into offering subjects that employers might value more than others.

"We do not count unfilled places in our funding allocations. If institutions cannot fill places in clearing they have the flexibility to provide additional places on other courses provided they keep within the funding agreements with us."

Asked about the use of the "Mickey Mouse" phrase, the HEFCE spokesman said: "Our use of 'Mickey Mouse' is pretty indefensible. I think the use of that phrase was a mistake, but it's a fair cop."

SOURCE



Anti-men tirade

No comment on hesitant women drivers wasting fuel, apparently

Men waste more than $3,000 in fuel costs because they refuse to ask for directions when lost, according to a British study released as motorists across the U.S. prepare to load up their cars for the long Labor Day weekend.

The research, commissioned by British insurance company Sheila's Wheels, revealed that male drivers travel 276 unnecessary miles each year because they stubbornly reject help when lost.

In what might not be shocking news for female passengers, the survey found that more than a quarter of men polled said they would wait at least half an hour before asking for directions when lost. One in 10 male drivers refuses to ask a stranger for help at all, the survey found.

The survey suggested that "lost drive time could cost as much as 2,000 pounds [just over $3,000 at current exchange rates]" in gas in a driver's lifetime.

The survey results also found that three-quarters of women polled had no problem with asking for directions. "Men aren't quite as confident behind the wheel as they make out when it comes to navigation," said Jacky Brown, a Sheila's Wheels representative.

SOURCE



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





5 September, 2010

Couples face new IVF postcode lottery as NHS cuts costs

Childless couples are facing a widening postcode lottery after NHS officials ordered GPs to slash the amount of fertility treatment on offer to cut costs, stark new figures show. Women in some areas are being denied access to the treatment altogether while others are facing new restrictions which appear to flout national guidelines.

One in five local Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) said they had cut the number of IVF procedures they had funded over the past three years, the study by the health magazine, Pulse, found. Some trusts have frozen funding for IVF completely while reduced the number of cycles on offer.

Funding chiefs blamed the economic downturn and the looming spending cuts for the decision but campaigners said many infertile couples were now being denied a “fundamental right”.

Under guidance from the National Institute for Health and Clinical excellence (Nice) GPs are advised to offer women under 40 up three cycles of IVF on the NHS. But several trusts have recently ordered family doctors to cut the number of cycles on offer to two or one.

Nine PCTs – in Luton, Greater Glasgow & Clyde, Waltham Forest, Lambeth, Southwark, Lewisham, Portsmouth, Bolton and West Kent – admitted they had not funded any IVF treatment for two years, acccording to the Pulse study.

NHS Warrington, which recently stopped all funding for IVF until at least 2011 insisted its priority had to be maintaining “high quality local healthcare”.

NHS Brighton and Hove, which now funds only two cycles, said the limit was in line with a region-wide policy across the south east of England.

Some GPs warned that the dilemma was “typical” of the problems they would have to grapple with under government plans to hand them control of their own budgets.

SOURCE



The British government is between a rock and a hard place over immigration

The problem is low-skilled immigrants from central Europe and illegals from everywhere but the government has no control over arrivals of the former (unless it leaves the EU) and a proven inability to do much about the latter. So the only way they can effectively cut immigration is to bar skilled migrants from the rest of the world — which will at least do no good and probably will do harm

There is one very effective step they could take but they are probably too centrist to do it: Deny welfare benefits to immigrants until they have made ten years of National Insurance contributions

The Government has got its policy on immigration caps wrong and should drop it in favour of a points-based system, according to the head of the business group, London First, and leading international companies.

With just days left until submissions to the Government consultation on immigration controls are due, businesses are warning caps on skilled labour could threaten the recovery and drive business abroad.

London First claims that the coalition’s plans to cap non-EU immigration will affect only 55,000 of the 567,000 migrants who came to the UK, based on last year’s figures. Those migrants are what is known as Tier 1 and Tier 2 migrants – highly skilled and skilled workers who are in many cases key employees.

“I do not think the public had these people in mind when they voted for this Government’s plan to cap immigration,” Baroness Valentine, chief executive of London First, said.

The deadline for submissions to the Migration Advisory Committee is Tuesday. London First and its members are calling for the cap on Tier 2 migrants, skilled workers, to be lifted. The group is particularly keen on inter-company immigration – where workers move between different national offices – to be uncapped.

The temporary cap on immigration, introduced earlier this summer, is due to end in April next year when permanent limits could be put in place.

The Government says it plans to reduce net immigration from the current 500,000 per year to “tens of thousands”. But London First questions how this is possible by targeting the 50,000 Tier 1 and 2 migrants that arrive each year.

SOURCE

British children let down by failing schools, says CBI

Thousands of teenagers are still being “let down” by failing schools despite record investment in education under Labour, according to business leaders. In a damning final judgment on the previous government’s education record, employers said a 120 per cent rise in the amount of money spent on schools had “not delivered the returns” needed to drive the British economy.

The Confederation of British Industry warned that serious concerns still surrounded school leavers’ lack of literacy and numeracy skills combined with the relatively low number of teenagers studying vital science and maths subjects to a high standard.

Too many teenagers also entered the workplace lacking basic employability skills, such as the ability to analyse evidence, communicate with colleagues and solve problems, it claimed.

The conclusions were made in a report published to coincide with the start of the first full school year under the new Conservative-led Government.

The CBI, which represents some 240,000 British businesses, praised the Coalition’s reforms, including the expansion of independent academies, but insisted “much more” was needed to improve the education system.

It called for ministers to allow profit-making companies to take over the running of the worst schools to turnaround chronic under-performance.

New rules should also be introduced to teach a broad set of employability skills as well as encouraging the best students to take separate GCSEs in biology, chemistry and physics, it said.

Susan Anderson, CBI director of public services and education, said progress had been made over the last 13 years but “significant challenges remain”. “Too many school leavers leave education without the skills, knowledge and attitude to work [that] employers are looking for,” she said. “And too many of these young people are being let down by persistent underperformance of the education system through attending failing or coasting schools. “The link between a disadvantaged background and poor educational achievement remains too clear.”

The report said Government spending on education had more than doubled to £60 billion a year between 1996 and 2008, delivering better GCSE results and a drop in the number of schools placed in special measures by Ofsted.

This summer, almost a quarter of GCSE entries were graded an A in the 22nd straight year-on-year rise, while A-level results also soared to a record high. But the CBI said that looking “past the headline GCSE and A-level results” revealed a “more complex and concerning picture of the UK’s education system”. It said half of all 16-year-olds failed to gain at least five good GCSEs, including English and maths, last year.

Almost 250 secondary schools failed to hit the basic GCSE targets designed to ensure 30 per cent of pupils gain five A* to C grades in 2009, it said, and the UK has the third highest number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, employment or training in the developed world.

The CBI also said that many children lacked skills such as self-management, customer awareness, problem solving and basic communication, suggesting that schools prioritised the regurgitation of “facts” over the application of knowledge. "The decade of spending on education has not delivered the returns expected or needed,” said the study. “Neither has it delivered significant change in the systems and structures which might drive future improvement."

SOURCE





4 September, 2010

Shake-up of perverse NHS 'incentives' in drive to curb caesareans

Plans to reduce the number of caesarean deliveries and give women greater access to home births are being considered by ministers. They want to remove incentives that see hospitals paid extra for surgical births, with or without complications. The payments mean that one in four babies is delivered by caesarean section - almost double the World Health Organisation's recommended rate.

At around 155,000 babies last year, the figure is three times that of 1980 and one that flies in the face of efforts by the last government to encourage natural births.

Ministers say they do not want to 'demonise' C-sections or discourage doctors from performing them when clinically necessary. But they believe that equalising NHS payments for all kinds of birth, including those at home, could help bring down the number of surgical procedures. Extra costs of caesarean sections for high-risk patients will still be covered.

The Royal College of Midwives has expressed concern over the fact that the proportion of caesarean births is 15 per cent in some parts of the country while hitting 33 per cent in others. Although unplanned caesarean births can be life-saving, planned surgery is recognised as riskier.

Mothers are more likely to develop complications such as blood clots and spend twice as long in hospital as those having a natural delivery.

Infants delivered by C-section are more likely to suffer breathing difficulties and asthma.

The WHO recommends the level of caesareans should be 10-15 per cent, well below the 25 per cent rate now seen in England.

Another reason for more C-sections is the growing numbers of obese women who need surgery for their baby's safety. Other women are said to elect the procedure, seeing themselves as 'too posh to push'. And midwives have also blamed staff shortages and ward closures for the decline in natural births.

The compensation culture may be a factor too. A recent survey indicated that many doctors carry out more caesareans than in the past because of fear of litigation if a natural birth goes wrong.

There has been a slight rise in the number of home births but ministers want to improve payments to health bodies who help women who want one.

In its health White Paper, the Government promised to extend choice for pregnant mothers by creating maternity networks. These are designed to bring together all the maternity services in one area an expectant mother might need. Hospitals, GPs, charities, community groups and maternity consultants will be linked up so that they can share information, expertise and services.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley said: 'We want to improve maternal choice. So we are looking into ways to support mothersto-be, ensuring that they get safe and appropriate care. 'Maternity networks will be central to this because they will ensure mothers get integrated support, from the outset and throughout their pathway. 'A team will support them at every level from support at home to high level obstetric care.'

SOURCE



A hopelessly politicized public broadcaster

Is the 'biased' BBC now try to cosy up to the Con/Lib Coalition? Corporation boss lets slip notes for meeting at No 10

The BBC was caught in a political row last night after its boss Mark Thompson was apparently attempting to cosy up to the Government following complaints over Left-wing bias.

The corporation's director general was photographed arriving at No 10 clutching a memo insisting the BBC is ready to put its coverage of public spending cuts into 'context'. The move will prompt claims that the broadcaster is trying to curry favour with an increasingly hostile Coalition Government to preserve its generous licence fee funding.

Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband said Mr Thompson appeared to be offering to 'showcase' Government proposals for spending cuts in the middle of delicate negotiations over the future of the levy.

The Daily Mail understands Mr Thompson was hauled int o Downing Street for showdown talks with David Cameron's strategy chief Steve Hilton amid increasing Government displeasure over the BBC's coverage of the forthcoming spending review.

The Tories and the Liberal Democrats have become concerned that BBC reports rarely mention the reason for budget reductions - the £15billion deficit left behind by the Labour government.

A Government source said: 'Coverage of spending cuts always seems to take the most negative slant possible and never sets out the context of why they are necessary or of how the mess we have been left to clear up is not of our making.'

As he arrived at No 10 yesterday, Mr Thompson was pictured with a memo from his head of news Helen Boaden clearly on view. It revealed she had met Mr Cameron's press chief Andy Coulson for lunch, at which he had expressed 'concern' about the impartiality of a forthcoming BBC 'season' on the spending review. The memo promised to make viewers aware of the 'whys and wherefores', adding: 'I said that's what we always try to do.'

Miss Boaden went on to defend coverage of cuts over the summer – including claims that the poorest would be hardest hit and the possibility, now ruled out, of free school milk being axed.

She said the BBC had been 'driven by news lines'. The document went on to list plans for various output, including Newsnight, the Today programme and Five Live, and suggest an interview with Chancellor George Osborne.

A BBC source said Mr Thompson had discussed upcoming coverage and which ministers might appear on various shows to explain the cuts. The source insisted the director general was 'not embarrassed' to have unwittingly revealed the content of his meeting.

As part of an apparently concerted charm offensive by the BBC, earlier this week Mr Thompson admitted the corporation had in the past been guilty of 'massive' Left-wing bias but said it was now a 'broader church'.

The BBC governing body is also thought to be preparing to postpone a planned rise in the licence fee by 2 per cent next April, from £145.50 to £148.50, to fend off deeper cuts being imposed by the Government.

Mr Miliband said: 'The BBC must remain a fully independent organisation without bias. It is deeply worrying that when he was summoned to Downing Street, the director general of the BBC had a list of programme ideas which appeared to showcase Tory economic policies of savage, indiscriminate cuts.

'David Cameron must stop his bully boy tactics and threats to withdraw the licence fee now, before they undermine the status of the BBC as a valued and trusted institution.'

Labour MP Michael Dugher said: 'The political independence of the BBC should be absolutely sacrosanct and it is very odd that the director general is going into Downing Street for this kind of meeting. The BBC is within its rights to publicise the cuts to public spending in whatever way it sees fit.'

Last night, a Downing Street source responded: 'For the Labour Party to attempt to suggest that we somehow are trying to bully or control the BBC is a bit rich considering their track record.'

The BBC said it had regular meetings with parties of all sides. A spokesman said: 'The director general has made it repeatedly clear that the impartiality and independence of the BBC is paramount.

'In the meeting today, the director general, in his role as editor-in-chief, discussed the possible participation of a number of members of the Government in the BBC's coverage of the spending review this autumn.'

SOURCE



No room at British schools for many of the 2010 baby boomers

As thousands more are taught in makeshift class rooms

Hundreds of children have no primary school place with term already started as the recent baby boom triggers an admissions crisis. Thousands of other children are having to be taught in makeshift classrooms because of the overspill, which has been further increased by a recession-fuelled exodus from fee-paying private schools.

Councils in many parts of the country, including London and Birmingham, say applications for places are still being received. Yet even some parents who applied in good time have yet to be allocated a school for their child.

Brent, in North West London, for example, has 210 four-year-olds still without a reception class place but only 24 vacancies in schools. The council is preparing to offer places in children's centres if necessary.

Between them, councils including Ealing, Tower Hamlets, Haringey, Merton, Havering, Camden and Hammersmith and Fulham - all in London - as well as Kingston-upon-Thames in Greater London and Birmingham have hundreds of pupils yet to be placed: many of them late applicants.

Meanwhile officials in Newham, South East London, are considering putting four classes in a church hall following a sharp rise in children seeking places this year.

Hundreds of other schools across the country are using temporary prefabricated buildings on their own sites to accommodate additional pupils or are starting to construct permanent new classrooms.

In Hampshire, a school known for its eco-credentials, St Bede's Primary, in Winchester, is seeking to concrete over a pond to accommodate a temporary classroom to cope with soaring pupil numbers. Meanwhile, in Brighton, temporary classrooms are being purchased at a cost of £125,000 each.

In Leicestershire, Lady Jane Grey Primary, in Groby, gained emergency planning consent for a temporary classroom on its site. Head Michael Fitzgerald said: 'The school is facing a very difficult situation - there isn't a spare cupboard in the building.'

Leeds is increasing capacity at 16 primaries from this month while in Bristol, six schools are gaining 22 temporary classrooms. Birmingham is expanding nine schools to create an extra 330 places this month. It will need an additional 3,000 by 2020.

In many areas, schools have agreed to accept 'bulge' classes - an extra reception class which continues through the school. They are meant to be a one-off but some schools have already taken them for two or three years running.

The Coalition has acknowledged the shortage of primary places is now 'critical' and claims the previous Labour government failed to make adequate preparations for the extra pupils despite warnings. More than 1,000 primary schools have closed since 1999 amid accusations some areas have taken a 'short term' view of likely demand.

Education Secretary Michael Gove plans to move cash from frozen secondary school building projects into providing primary places.

But the Mail's survey of local education authorities reveals that many schools need huge sums of money to meet future demand. A spokesman for Kingston warned it would need as much as £70million.

Official figures show the number of babies born in 2006 - and now starting school - was the highest since 1993, with birth rates expected to continue to rise at least until 2018.

Latest projections suggest that primary school pupil numbers will rise by more than 500,000 in just eight years to 4,526,000, reaching their highest level since the 1970s.

The equivalent of more than 2,000 extra primary schools will be needed to cope, at a time of severe public spending cuts.

While classes for children in the first two years of school are limited in law to 30, teaching groups for older primary pupils could balloon as staff are diverted to teach the new influx of pupils.

In the meantime, pupils caught up in the crisis face being taught in overcrowded classes or travelling miles to their nearest school, and being split from siblings.

In Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, mothers had to mount a campaign to win an extra reception class at a popular school after being offered schools up to five miles away.

SOURCE





3 September, 2010

NHS board facing budget cuts to spend £70,000 on tea trolleys

I like a cup of tea as much as anyone but £70,000 on tea trolleys?? The mind boggles. Countless numbers of simple wooden trolleys are used to serve tea in British and Australian offices and I personally have had plenty of perfectly good cups of tea off them. The arrival of the tea lady with her trolley has been greeted with a gladsome heart in countless offices for many years -- JR

An NHS board is to spend tens of thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money on top of the range tea and coffee trolleys for its hospital wards despite claiming it needs to cut hundreds of jobs. NHS Grampian has agreed a contract worth almost £70,000 to "enhance the beverage and breakfast experience for patients".

But the Scottish health board has to cut £100million from its building budget over the next five years because of the squeeze on public spending and is set to cut hundreds of jobs.

Politicians criticised the decision to proceed with the contract but health bosses said the trolleys were essential to keep drinks, breakfast cereal and toast warm and fresh. It has ordered 27 Ultrakarts - which cost about £2,500 each - to be used at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.

Mike Rumbles, Liberal Democrat health spokesman, described the spending as "excessive". He said: "I am sure the health board needs tea and breakfast trolleys - but £75,000 worth? I don't think this spending is necessary at a time of austerity."

Alex Johnstone, North East Conservative MP, said: "Every single piece of expenditure that NHS Grampian makes from now on must be justified by proving how it delivers better healthcare. "I am prepared to concede that this will sometimes require interesting decisions, but I find it hard to believe trolleys of this price can provide a matching level of improvements."

NHS Grampian had hoped to offer 350 workers voluntary redundancy to help make £34million of savings, but the plan has been dropped.

The board launched a severance scheme earlier this year and it attracted more than 600 expressions of interest from doctors, nurses and administration workers. It had planned to save £16million through the voluntary severances and the rest by not replacing a further 227 staff due to leave this year. The board will now go back to the drawing board.

Meanwhile, proposed medical centres at Banchory, Braemar, Cullen, Ellon, Inverurie, Insch, Kintore, Keith and Rothes have been placed on a 'hit list' of schemes that could be scaled down or abandoned to save £100million.

The company selling the Ultrakart, Bridge Valley Beverages, refused to say how much the trolleys cost.

An NHS Grampian spokeswoman said: "These beverage trolleys represent a major service improvement for patients at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. "They are equipped with hot-water boilers which enable staff to safely provide freshly-made beverages to each patient, therefore improving fluid intake.

"Additionally, these trolleys will be used for the daily breakfast service, which will ensure that patients receive appropriate food and beverages to suit their changing clinical need and individual preference. "These trolleys help to ensure that we provide a safe, effective and efficient service to patients at optimum temperatures.

"NHS Grampian is continuing to work towards savings of £34million but we also remain committed to providing the best level of person-centred care to our patients. "The request to purchase these trolleys was subject to rigorous scrutiny before the contract was put out to tender, including a pilot project which encompassed direct feedback from service users and staff."

The health board was criticised earlier this year after figures showed it had spent £42,000 on tea, coffee and biscuits for visitors and meetings.

SOURCE



James Lee is Al Gore is Prince Charles is the Unabomber

Al Gore’s Church of Climatism has claimed a new glorious martyr. His name is James Lee – the Discovery channel attempted eco-suicide-bomber – and if he’d had his way he wouldn’t have been the only one who ended up in the great recycling bin in the sky. That’s because, as far as the late James Lee was concerned, humans like the innocent Discovery channel employees he held hostage are the scum of the earth.

Just read some of the manifesto he posted on the internet and see for yourself:

The humans? The planet does not need humans.

You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world, and YET you encourage the exact opposite instead of discouraging human growth and procreation. Surely you MUST ALREADY KNOW this!

Does this sound like the ravings of a sad, deranged loner on the wilder fringes of eco-fascist lunacy? Not to me it doesn’t. Strip away the block capitals and what you have, word for word, is the core manifesto of the entire global green movement.

Some greens, such as Al Gore, the Prince of Wales, the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt or that nice David Attenborough try to express their philosophy more diplomatically. Others, such as James Lee and his kindred spirit the Unabomber, are more forthright. Ideologically, however, there is not a cigarette paper’s difference between them. All cleave to the same fundamental tenet of the Church of Climatism: that humans are the problem not the solution.

It was for just this same strain of dodgy thinking that I castigated Boris Johnson yesterday. And the fact that people like Boris express their concerns about “overpopulation” jovially doesn’t make their stance any less reprehensible. In fact it probably makes it more so.

At least with the Unabomber or James Lee you know that you’re dealing with a nutcase. But when an apparently reasonable, decent, pukka fellow like Boris or the Hon Sir Jonathon Porritt or the Prince of Wales or that nice David Attenborough off the TV expresses a similar opinion, there’s a strong risk that what is au fond exactly the kind of poisonous, misanthropy the Nazis took to its logical extreme begins to look moderate and sensible and considered.

What’s really depressing is that the philosophy expressed in James Lee’s (and the Unabomber’s) manifesto – which is also, incidentally, the philosophy expressed in Al Gore’s The Earth In Balance – is also the philosophy that is taught every day to our children in their schools: the world is fragile; human beings are a blot on the landscape; through our greed and selfishness we make everything worse; really it would be better if we vanished altogether and let all the lovely pure noble animals take over.

Or, as James Lee put it:

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Not only do our schools teach our children this misanthropic – and deeply ahistoric – rot, but so also do broadcasters like the Discovery Channel. Their sister station, Animal Planet, for example, broadcasts a series called Whale Wars celebrating the real-life adventures of animal rights extremist Paul Watson.

It’s time we woke up to the threat posed by this mass brainwashing of the younger generation. We worry, rightly, about those Muslim children who are being indoctrinated with the extreme Wahaabist version of their faith. Yet we seem astonishingly complacent that every day, in schools of every kind throughout the Western world, our children are being taught by well-meaning teachers to view their world and culture through exactly the same anti-capitalist, anti-human, anti-growth eyes as James Lee and the Unabomber.

The modern environmental movement is not kind, caring or gentle. It is a series of ticking time bombs waiting to blow up in our face.

SOURCE



Yes, BBC was biased: Director General Mark Thompson admits a 'massive' lean to Left

BBC Director General Mark Thompson has admitted the corporation was guilty of a 'massive' Left-wing bias in the past. The TV chief also admitted there had been a 'struggle' to achieve impartiality and that staff were ' mystified' by the early years of Margaret Thatcher's government.

But he claimed there was now 'much less overt tribalism' among the current crop of young journalists, and said in recent times the corporation was a 'broader church'. He claimed there was now an 'honourable tradition of journalists from the right' working for the corporation.

His comments, made in the New Statesman magazine, are one of the clearest admissions of political bias from such a senior member of its staff. The BBC has long been accused of being institutionally biased towards the Left, and an internal report from 2007 said it had to make greater efforts to avoid liberal bias.

That report criticised the BBC for coming late to several important stories including euroscepticism and immigration, which it described as 'off limits in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone'.

Speaking of the time when he joined the BBC, Mr Thompson told the magazine: 'In the BBC I joined 30 years ago [as a production trainee, in 1979] there was, in much of current affairs, in terms of people's personal politics, which were quite vocal, a massive bias to the Left. 'The organisation did struggle then with impartiality. And journalistically, staff were quite mystified by the early years of Thatcher.

'Now it is a completely different generation. 'There is much less overt tribalism among the young journalists who work for the BBC.'

He told the New Statesman: 'The BBC is not a campaigning organisation and can't be, and actually the truth is that sometimes our dispassionate flavour of broadcasting frustrates people who have got very, very strong views, because they want more red meat.'

Mr Thompson also connected his religious faith as a Catholic with working at the corporation. He said people joined the BBC because it is an organisation moved by a sense of values. He added: 'I do think the BBC is very much - sometimes frankly, almost frighteningly so - a values driven organisation.'

'People's sense of what's right and wrong, and their sense of justice, are incredible parts of what motivates people to join. 'I'm part of that. For me, that's connected with my religious faith but the key thing is: you don't have to be Catholic.'

Mr Thompson described relations between the BBC and the recently ousted Labour government in its last few years as 'quite tetchy'. But he said he was optimistic about a good settlement in forthcoming licence fee discussions with the Coalition.

He denied the organisation was one of 'glorious freeloading' but conceded: 'We had our moments in the past'.

The interview came after Mr Thompson gave the prestigious MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh Television Festival last month where he said millionaire stars face the axe or having their salaries slashed.

Yesterday it also emerged the BBC is facing the threat of strikes after thousands of journalists, technicians and other staff voted massively in favour of industrial action in a row over pensions.

Members of the National Union of Journalists and the technicians' union Bectu backed walkouts by more than 9-1 in protest at 'punitive' changes to the staff pension scheme. Unions held back from naming strike dates so that talks can be held over the next two weeks in the hope of resolving the dispute.

SOURCE



Tony Blair speaks highly of GWB in his memoirs

I have always had a similar view of GWB so it is rather pleasing to have it confirmed by someone who came to know him well -- JR

Former U.S. President George W. Bush was a "true idealist" who displayed "genuine integrity and political courage," former British prime minister Tony Blair reveals in his memoirs.

Detailing the close professional and personal relationship which developed between the two leaders in the wake of the 2001 terror attacks in the U.S. and during the build-up to the Iraq war in 2003, Blair writes that Bush was "very smart" while having "immense simplicity in how he saw the world."

"Right or wrong, it led to decisive leadership... he sincerely believed in spreading freedom and democracy," he writes in "A Journey;" which hit book stores in the UK on Wednesday....

Blair said the key to Bush's political success was his "appeal as a normal guy." "You might not agree with him, but if you're a voter, you would never think you would be uncomfortable or feel inadequate if you met him socially; you would think he'd be nice and easy with you," he writes.

Bush had also displayed the most integrity of almost anyone he had met in politics, Blair says. "I was asked recently which of the political leaders I had met had most integrity. I listed George near the top. He had genuine integrity and as much political courage as any leader I ever met," he writes.

SOURCE



Quarter of British primary schools have no male teachers: Fears over vanishing role models as trend worsens

More than a quarter of primary schools do not have a single male teacher, following a long- term decline in their numbers, official figures reveal today. Staff rooms at 4,700 primaries are solely populated by women - 150 more than last year.

And just one man under the age of 25 works in a state-run nursery anywhere in England, the statistics show. The trend has triggered warnings that rising numbers of boys are having little or no contact with an adult male before they reach secondary school.

And with the number of male secondary school teachers also dwindling, some could go through their entire education without being taught by a man. The figures also fuel fears of rising misbehaviour among disaffected teenage boys whose lives lack male authority figures.

Statistics released today by the General Teaching Council show that only 125,361 of 502,562 registered teachers are men - just 25 per cent - with the vast majority working in secondary schools and further education.

Two decades ago, men made up four in ten teachers. In primary schools, in 2009/10, male teachers made up just 12.5 per cent of staff, compared with 13 per cent the previous year. Some 4,700 primaries in England - 28 per cent - have no male teacher or head teacher, up from 27 per cent in 2008/09. Six secondaries have no male teachers.

The decline is thought to be linked to the attractions of other graduate jobs as well as fears over allegations of inappropriate behaviour and society's 'paranoia' concerning paedophiles.

The recession is eventually expected to lead to an increase in the number of men applying to become teachers. But experts warned that men also faced barriers to being accepted on teacher training courses - possibly because most recruiters are women.

Professor John Howson, a recruitment expert and director of Education Data Surveys, warned: 'Colleges are converting fewer male applicants into people on courses than for women.' He added that there are still elements in society which do not 'fully appreciate that men can look after younger children'.

'We probably hit a level of paranoia about four or five years ago - the question is whether we are doing enough to overcome it. 'I'm even more concerned that we are haemorrhaging men in secondary schools. We are losing men at a faster rate at secondary level than primary. 'Where do the boys' male role models come from?' he asked.

The GTC figures also show that only 44 men work in state nurseries, with just one - Jamie Wilson, 23, of Merseyside - in the under-25 age bracket.

SOURCE



Genetic excuse for obesity 'is a myth'?

There's actually nothing new in the research below. That you can work off fat by exercising hard and regularly is no news at all. There is no denial below that some people are genetically predisposed to fat

Obesity researchers have dismissed as a "myth" the excuse that we are "slaves" to our genes. Academics found that people could work off around 40 per cent of the extra weight that "fat genes" laid on them by exercising.

Although some people do have a predisposition to be overweight or even obese, scientists at the Medical Research Council's Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge discovered that having an active lifestyle could go a long way to countering a person's genetic inheritance.

The researchers made their conclusions after analysing the genes of over 20,000 men and women aged 39 to 79, looking for 12 genetic markers known to increase body mass index (BMI) and the risk of obesity.

With this, they calculated a "genetic predisposition score" for each person. They then asked them to fill out questionnaires about their physical activity levels at work and elsewhere.

They concluded: "The findings challenge the popular myth that obesity is unavoidable if it runs in the family and could guide future treatments to combat the obesity crisis."

Dr Ruth Loos from the MRC, who led the study, said: "Our research proves that even those who have the highest risk of obesity from their genes can improve their health by taking some form of daily physical activity."

She added: "People don’t have to run marathons to make a difference either - walking the dog or working in the garden all counts. It goes to show we’re not complete slaves to our genetic make-up and really can make a big difference to our future health by changing our behaviour. "It goes to show we’re not complete slaves to our genetic make-up and really can make a big difference to our future health by changing our behaviour."

The research is published in the journal PLoS Medicine.

SOURCE





2 September, 2010

£130,000 to quit now for NHS bosses facing axe as plans are drawn up to sack up to 20,000 managers

Thousands of NHS managers facing the axe are to be offered payouts of up to £130,000 if they take voluntary redundancy, it has emerged. Some 20,000 could lose their jobs under Health secretary Andrew Lansley's plan to do away with primary care trusts.

Officials are drawing up a national 'resignation scheme' under which trust staff will be able to apply for a lump sum pay-off. Ministers hope the scheme will avoid some compulsory redundancies, which are more expensive. Unions have warned they will oppose the scheme.

According to the Health Service Journal, the NHS deal will allow managers to receive up to a year's pay if they volunteer to leave. This would be £137,500 for the average PCT chief executive, or £97,478 for other highly paid managers. The payment is reportedly only half what is offered under usual redundancy terms, of which the maximum payable sum was equivalent to two years' salary.

NHS East of England chief executive Sir Neil McKay has overseen the deal. In a letter to NHS managers he said: 'I am aware that a number of NHS organisations have agreed mutually agreed resignation schemes to help with management costs reductions.' He added: 'I want to ensure we are as joined up as possible. 'We are therefore working with the NHS trade unions and NHS employers to create a national scheme that would supersede any local arrangements.'

Staff will have a very short period to agree to the scheme before it is withdrawn. They will also be prevented from re-applying for jobs at local hospitals for a period of time, typically one or two years. Mr Lansley has told NHS trusts to cut management costs by 45 per cent over the next few years.

Jon Restell, chief executive of the Managers in Partnership union, said the scheme was 'unlikely to prove attractive to many of our members'. He said: 'It is designed to let those not at risk of redundancy leave if they want to, freeing up jobs for people who might be at risk but want to stay.'

Karen Jennings, head of health at Unison, the public services union, said: 'It is unlikely to create a stampede.'

SOURCE



Evil British social workers again

'I was stolen from my mother': How Winona was handed over for a forced adoption

On a sunny station ­platform in a pretty Cornish town this summer, holidaymakers may have witnessed a touching, but at first glance unremarkable, scene. A mother and teenage son were ­nervously watching a train pull onto the platform, scanning the emerging crowd for the face of a loved one. Had she missed her train? Had they got the right time?

And finally, there she was: a pretty, petite 16-year-old, peering furtively through her fringe. Suddenly the boy broke away with a whoop. ‘It’s her!’

The three immediately became tangled in a hug, babbling, crying, their words tripping over each other. ‘You’ve grown so much!’ ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe you are here!’

A very unusual emotional reunion had just taken place. For Tracey Lucas, a 38-year-old mother from Truro, had just kissed her 16-year-old daughter Winona for the first time in nine years.

What took place on that station platform was a scene that the State had worked very hard for years to ensure didn’t happen. In fact, there is still a question mark over whether Tracey could face prosecution, even prison, for what happened that day.

For nine years previously, Winona and her ­little sister, now 12, were taken from their mother and adopted by another family, given new names and told to forget their natural mother. All contact between them was prevented.

Yet in a story that raises profound questions both about British social services and the power of the internet to challenge their secretive workings, Winona traced her birth mother through the Facebook social networking site and the pair are now determined never again to be parted.

‘For years the girls believed I was a bad mother, a horrible person who didn’t love them, while I was told the girls didn’t want to see me and were ­settled into a new life with new parents they loved. All lies.'

Tracey, Winona and her sister were subjects of a forced adoption, which critics — including family solicitors, MPs and wronged families — say are happening on a scandalously regular basis, on the ­flimsiest of evidence, in order to meet government targets to raise the number of adoptions by 50 per cent.

There have been cases cited of babies taken from women considered too young or not clever enough to look after them. One boy was removed on the grounds that his mother might shout at him in the future.

In Tracey’s case, her children were sent for adoption because they were deemed ‘at risk of emotional abuse’.

No one can really know the truth, and doubtless social services would argue they acted in good faith and in the ­children’s best interests, but Tracey is adamant she never abused, neglected nor abandoned them.

Yet because she was a young single mother, who by her own admission sometimes struggled to cope, she was forced to surrender the most precious things she had. Worse, she says the children believed that she had simply stopped loving them.

‘For years the girls believed I was a bad mother, a horrible person who didn’t love them, while I was told the girls didn’t want to see me and were ­settled into a new life with new parents they loved. All lies,’ says Tracey.

‘The birthday and Christmas cards I wrote were never passed on. The letters Winona wrote to me never reached me. That’s real emotional abuse.’ ‘Yet my son, who’d refused to be adopted, was returned to me after a year, and I went on to have another two ­children with a new partner, neither of whom has come to any harm. How could I have been a danger to my girls?’

Winona is just as angry as her mother about the stolen years: ‘Everyone told me what a terrible person she was, but all my memories of her were good: making Christmas decorations, reading Roald Dahl’s James And The Giant Peach in bed. I never felt anything but love from her.’

Today, that love is palpable. The pair cannot stop sneaking looks at each other as they hold hands on the sofa of their ­modest but cosy home.

More HERE



Moonbat Professor Calls for Forced Sterilization

Sounds like something straight out of the 1920s and 30s

After Germans got carried away applying progressive ideology to the Jewish Question, the movement has backed away from eugenics, limiting its genocidal proclivities to the aggressive promotion of abortion. But to this day, if you scratch a liberal (as progressives now call themselves), you will often find a Nazi. For example, Professor David Marsland wants to save the children by preventing them from existing:

Marsland, Emeritus Scholar of Sociology and Health Sciences at Brunel University, London and Professorial Research Fellow in Sociology at the University of Buckingham, told the BBC that "permanent sterilization" is the solution to child neglect and abuse.

"Children are abused or grossly neglected by a very small minority of inadequate parents." Such parents, he said, are not distinguished by "disadvantage, poverty or exploitation," he said, but by "a number or moral and mental inadequacies" caused by "serious mental defect," "chronic mental illness" and drug addiction and alcoholism.

"Short of lifetime incarceration," he said, the solution is "permanent sterilization."

As for the tiresome topic of basic rights:

He dismissed possible objections based on human rights, saying that "Rights is a grossly overused and fundamentally incoherent concept … Neither philosophers nor political activists can agree on the nature of human rights or on their extent."

To put it more succinctly, "To hell with human rights."

Marsland's views are not exactly novel among the liberal elite.

Brian Clowes, director of research for Human Life International, told LifeSiteNews that in his view Professor Marsland is just one more in a long line of eugenicists who want to solve human problems by erasing the humans who have them. Clowes compared Marsland to Lothrop Stoddard and Margaret Sanger, prominent early 20th century eugenicists who promoted contraception and sterilization for blacks, Catholics, the poor and the mentally ill and disabled whom they classified as "human weeds."

Sanger maintains a prominent role in the liberal pantheon to this day. Shrillary Clinton is the proud recent recipient of the Margaret Sanger Award. Elsewhere in our progressive government, Obama's Science Czar John Holdren has advocated coercive sterilization.

Marland rests his case against the sanctity of human life with an argument beloved by environmentalists, averring that "there are too many people anyway."

As their sneering contempt for life and liberty makes obvious, what they have been doing to our economy is only the beginning of the evil liberals will inflict if they are not dislodged from power.

SOURCE



British teachers’ fear of discipline holds back their pupils

A change in schools' culture is needed if bad behaviour is to be eradicated

Today, we publish the disturbing story of David Roy, a science teacher in a comprehensive in Blackpool who was sacked after he tried to impose a modicum of discipline in his classroom. An industrial tribunal has now ruled that he was unfairly dismissed and he has won compensation from the school that sacked him. But the whole charade should never have happened to begin with.

That it did so is an indictment of the terrible state into which some schools have fallen. The head teacher who believed that it was her duty to sack Mr Roy did so without hearing his version of what had happened. She accepted, with little further investigation, the allegations made by three children, who claimed they had been shouted at, or grabbed, or in some way maltreated. In following such an unfair procedure, she was doing no more than complying with what many within the state system seem to believe is “best practice”: uncritically accepting charges made by pupils and assuming the teacher’s guilt.

The result is, effectively, a charter for bad behaviour. On average, secondary school teachers lose 50 minutes of teaching time each day because of unruly and aggressive pupils, who feel they have a licence to misbehave without the threat of sanctions. This lack of discipline does not just hurt those pupils who want to learn: those who are most damaged by it are the disruptive pupils themselves. As their unacceptable behaviour is not curtailed, they never learn the elementary social skills essential for succeeding in life, never mind anything that could be described as academic knowledge. The chaos caused by this failure to impose discipline has blighted, and continues to blight, the prospects of thousands of children.

Pupils need to be in an environment where the boundary between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour is clear and unambiguous, and where the consequences for crossing the boundary are instant and undesirable. This problem cannot be fixed by legislation, for it is not so much the result of teachers not being legally permitted to discipline pupils – they are – but rather a collective failure of judgment on the part of some elements in the teaching profession.

What is required is not a change in the law but a change in the culture, one that gives teachers the benefit of the doubt and restores their authority within the classroom. This is starting to happen, as some of the new academies demonstrate – but not fast enough. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, is right to have high hopes of his new schools. But he also needs to find a way to erase the deep‑seated hostility to discipline that still holds sway in so much of Britain’s education system.

SOURCE



Hot it was not... Britain has coldest August for 17 years

It should have been the height of summer, but was notable only for its low temperatures. The UK has just endured its coldest August for 17 years, which was marked, say forecasters, by a complete absence of 'hot days'.

The month also saw the lowest single-day August temperature for 23 years, with it falling to 55f (12.8c) in Edgbaston, Birmingham, last Thursday. And several 'notably' cold nights were recorded last week.

An exceptionally cloudy period in the South East of England put something of a dampener on the holiday period as heavy rain fell across large swathes of the country.
weather graphic

The prolonged poor weather has been blamed on a band of low pressure being pushed across the country by the jet stream - the fast-flowing air currents in the upper atmosphere that move weather systems across the northern hemisphere - which was further north during the extended sunny spells of June and July.

It meant that by the end of August there had not been a single day when the mercury rose above 81f ( 27c), forecasters said. England and Wales enjoyed just 148 hours of sunshine last month - 25 per cent less than average - and 5cm more rain than usual.

Weather consultant Philip Eden, of MeteoGroup, said average temperatures for the month had been at their lowest since 1993. But he added that the soaring temperatures enjoyed in previous years had raised people' s expectations. He said: 'This is more a reflection of the warmth of recent Augusts rather than anything exceptional.

'During the last 100 years, 30 Augusts were cooler, 63 were warmer, and seven had the same overall mean temperature.'

SOURCE





1 September, 2010

British government pathologist seriously negligent

The doctor concerned appears to be a Muslim of Indian or Pakistani origin. There seem to be a lot of unsatisfactory doctors from the Indian sub-continent in Britain -- due to Britain's failure to train enough British-born doctors. It appears to have been seen as cheaper to import poorly-trained doctors from elsewhere

Dr Freddy Patel, the pathologist who carried out the first autopsy on Ian Tomlinson who died at last year's G20 protest, acted in a way that amounted to misconduct during two earlier post-mortem examinations, the General Medical Council has ruled. The panel also ruled that Dr Patel had displayed deficient professional performance in a third post-mortem.

The panel had already concluded that Dr Patel was "irresponsible" and failed to meet professional standards during his examinations of the bodies of a five-year-old girl in 2002, a four-week-old baby in 2003 and a woman who died in 2005.

Panel chairman Richard Davies told Dr Patel: "The panel is not satisfied that there is no risk of the relevant conduct being repeated."

Dr Patel, 63, was said by the panel to have behaved irresponsibly, failed to meet standards expected of a Home Office pathologist and acted in a way liable to bring the profession into disrepute when he changed the woman's cause of death in 2005. He carried out a post-mortem examination on January 5, and decided she had died due to a blood clot in the coronary arteries. A month later, following a second post-mortem by another pathologist, he prepared an addendum to his report, changing the cause of death to a brain haemorrhage in line with the new findings.

Dr Patel told an inquest into the woman's death he had changed the primary cause of death "to satisfy the family" but Mr Davies said the pathologist's assumption that the change made no difference from the coroner's viewpoint, as the death was not suspicious, and merely allowed an inquest to proceed was not an adequate explanation.

During today's ruling Mr Davies said Dr Patel's "acts and omissions were very serious" and amounted to misconduct. He said pathologists "must not set aside their professional judgment for any of the parties involved during or after a post-mortem examination for reasons of expediency or anything else".

Dr Patel's failure to note the weights of individual organs examined, as is recommended by Royal College of Pathologists' guidance, also showed deficient professional performance.

Dr Patel was also found to be guilty of misconduct in a post-mortem examination on a four-week-old baby in August 2003. The panel had earlier decided his failure to obtain full skeletal X-rays prior to the examination, as recommended by the Royal College of Pathologists' guidelines, was irresponsible and failed to meet professional standards. The hearing previously heard Dr Patel carried out the post-mortem examination at 7.20am, prior to the radiologist's 9am start time.

Today, Mr Davies told the pathologist: "The panel has concluded that you deliberately ignored the guidelines so as to carry out the post-mortem examination simply at a time of your own convenience, and very shortly before radiographers would have been readily available. "Against that background the panel has concluded that your acts and omissions amount to misconduct."

The panel earlier found Dr Patel had been "irresponsible" and not met the standard expected of a Home Office pathologist when he failed to identify marks on the body of a five-year-old girl which suggested she had been violently attacked prior to her death in 2002. Mr Davies said the panel considered it "probable" Dr Patel "performed only a cursory external examination of the body" and failed to spot a damaged shoulder blade.

The panel ruled today that Dr Patel's conduct in the case amounted to deficient professional performance but not to misconduct. The girl's body was exhumed to allow a second post-mortem examination to take place and Mr Davies said: "It is noted that in this case if the body had been cremated then critical evidence would have been lost. "Had you allowed your suspicions greater scope, then the exhumation of a child and the attendant potential distress might have been avoided."

Adrian Hopkins QC, representing Patel, had argued that the two cases involving children should not reflect on Dr Patel's current fitness to practise as post-mortem examinations are now carried out by specialist paediatric pathologists and he had not undertaken one since 2004.

Mr Davies said the issues of record-keeping and adherence to guidelines were still relevant. Mr Davies said the panel believed there were "fundamental weaknesses" in Dr Patel's conduct and professional performance. "It does not consider that the limited extent to which you have accepted criticisms and offered assurances for the future show genuine insight into the character and range of your shortcomings."

He said the panel was not satisfied there was no risk of the conduct being repeated "particularly against a background of evidence that you have been willing to jeopardise your professional independence by complying with the wishes of others".

The panel is not expected to make a decision on sanctions until later this week. Dr Patel, whose full name is Mohmed Saeed Sulema Patel, has already been suspended from the Home Office register of forensic pathologists amid questions about his post-mortem examination of Mr Tomlinson.

The 47-year-old newspaper seller died during London's G20 riots in April last year after being pushed to the ground by a police officer. Dr Patel's competency was called into question after two other pathologists agreed that Mr Tomlinson, who was an alcoholic, died as a result of internal bleeding, probably from his diseased liver, after falling on his elbow.

The alleged shortcomings in Dr Patel's examination of Mr Tomlinson's body were revealed by prosecutors as they announced that no charges would be brought over the death.

SOURCE



Competition in health care does work

Even in Britain

We all know that the centralisers, statists and bureaucrats are going nuts over this idea that there should be competition within the NHS. Health care is different they say, markets won't work and anyway, the NHS is the wonder of the world it is. Presumably why no one has ever copied it.

That health care is different is true: so's the market in water different from that for houses. This might mean that we want to take care in the way in which we construct a market, how it is regulated, but it doesn't mean that we don't actually want to have markets at all. As we find from the limited allowance of markets that were introduced into the NHS a few years back:

The last Labour administration introduced competition between healthcare providers as part of its drive to increase productivity in healthcare. In 2006 the government mandated that all patients must be offered the choice of five – and by 2008 any – hospital in the National Health Service for their treatment.

OK, the result?

We find that hospitals located in areas where patients have more choice are of a higher clinical quality – as measured by lower death rates following admissions – and their patients stay in hospital for shorter periods compared with hospitals located in less competitive areas. What’s more, the hospitals in competitive markets have achieved this without increasing total operating costs or shedding staff. These findings suggest that the policy of choice and competition in healthcare can have benefits – quality in English hospitals in areas in which more competition is possible has risen without a commensurate increase in costs.

Markets bring fewer deaths, shorter hospital stays at no extra cost. We spend the same and get better results: productivity rises is another way of saying the same thing.

So it appears that health care is not as different as all that: competition does its thing of driving up productivity even there. Whocoulddanode?

SOURCE



Foreign language study in British schools

The BBC asked “Should British pupils give up studying French?” However, the key issue isn’t whether or not children should be learning French, but the fact that schools are encouraging children to take easier subjects so that the school scores well on the league tables. Crucially this is not always to the advantage of the children, especially if they plan to apply to elite universities.

Independent schools tend not to do this because their reputation requires that they take greater interest in their pupils. In contrast, many state schools are taking the easy way out. Without radical reform of the education system, the government will only be able to choose between the blunt tools of either compulsion or league tables. Both have undesirable unintended consequences.

Others in the article echo my point. For example, the language learning expert Paul Noble states that "the core reason is because pupils know French is difficult to pass, and difficult to get something out of it”, while Michel Monsauret, attache for education at the French Embassy in London, points out that subjects such as religious studies are on the increase because they are perceived to be easier. Mr Monsauret correctly states that “languages are taught more extensively at private schools in the UK, and their pupils go on to dominate places at Oxbridge and the other best universities."

Predictably the National University of Teachers (NUT) is appalled: “The policy drift on modern foreign languages is unforgivable”. Children, according to the NUT, aren’t adequately equipped for life in a global society. A bit rich coming from an organization set up to protect the interests of teachers even when against the benefits to parents and children; an organization that is the biggest impediment to reform. Asking the NUT what is best for children is like asking a turkey what should be eaten at Christmas – the goose will always be cooked.

Whether one’s child should be taught French, German, Cantonese or Chamicuro should be solely that of the parents. Of course, they will be limited by what is being offered, which is an argument for a dynamic and competitive system – one driven by the free market, not bureaucratic oversight. That learning a language involves no literature shows how bankrupt the teaching is many of our schools. As such, the lamentations of Aida Edemariam and others are frankly irrelevant.

The teaching of French – or lack of it – is symbolic of the wider failure of bureaucratic control of the education.

SOURCE



British schoolboys 'being held back by women teachers' as gender stereotypes are reinforced in the classroom

Women teachers are holding back boys by reprimanding them for typically male behaviour, according to a study out today. They are reinforcing stereotypes that boys are ‘silly’ in class, refuse to ‘sit nicely like the girls’ and are more likely to indulge in ‘schoolboy pranks’.

Women teachers may also unwittingly perpetuate low expectations of boys’ academic achievement and encourage girls to work harder by letting them think they are cleverer.

Schools should avoid dividing pupils into ability groups because the practice often results in girls dominating the higher-achieving tables, concluded the Kent University research.

The study of primary schools in the county suggests that under-performance among boys in most national exams could be linked to lower expectations.

The research mainly implicates women teachers, since nearly 90 per cent of primary school teachers are female. It warned that school staff find boys’ play, such as wielding toy guns, ‘particularly challenging and difficult’. Boys are punished and urged to conform to a more feminine style of play instead of being taught how to play responsibly with their preferred toys.

Bonny Hartley, the study’s lead author, said: ‘By seven or eight years old, children of both genders believe that boys are less focused, able, and successful than girls – and think that adults endorse this stereotype. There are signs that these expectations have the potential to become self-fulfilling in influencing
children’s actual conduct and achievement.’

Girls as young as four think they are cleverer, try harder and are better behaved than equivalent boys, her study found. By the age of seven and eight, boys also believe that their female classmates are more likely have these qualities.

For the study, 238 children aged four to ten were presented with a series of scenarios such as ‘this child is really clever’ and ‘this child always finishes their work’. They were then asked to point to a picture of a boy or a girl to say which they thought was being talked about.

The findings show that from the first year of school girls said their sex was more likely to record better conduct and achievement. From the age of eight, boys were also more likely to say that girls had better performance, motivation and effort, self-control and conduct.

In the second part of the study – being presented today at the British Educational Research Association annual conference at Warwick University – the children were asked if adults believed boys or girls were cleverer and better behaved.

From an early age, girls believe grown-ups think girls have better conduct and achievement. Boys develop the same beliefs around the age of eight.

The study drew no distinction between the beliefs and classroom practices of male and female teachers. Further research by the same team will consider the specific gender stereotypes held by teachers.

SOURCE



Seven myths about green jobs

Comment from Britain

Yet more proof that government mandates are not apt at solving problems, be it creating jobs or cutting carbon emissions. A study published today by International Policy Network, titled Seven Myths about Green Jobs reveals the hidden-costs of “green investments”. Resources will be wasted and growth will be slowed, while there is no guarantee that the environment will benefit.

The coalition government has announced a whole range of green measures to both cut emissions and create jobs: from low-carbon business support programmes to a Green Investment Bank. We can expect the initiatives to be cemented in legislation by this autumn, and rolled out through the country by 2012. After all, the Prime Minister pledged to deliver “the greenest government ever”. And best of all, Clegg assures us that he’ll impress us by “quietly getting on with the job”.

Sound too good to be true? That’s because it is.

What we are likely to see are more bureaucratic jobs, more red tape. And yet more resources siphoned away from productive sectors of the economy.

In fact, many green job proposals actively push for resources to be taken away from highly-productive activities. A United Nations report even calls for fruit to be picked by hand, rather than by machine.

As for the cost? Today’s “green investments” will just add to our already colossal national debt. Even the United Nations admits that a full-fledged green transition - the type they dream about – could cost hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars.

SOURCE



Britain's business bosses to host Climate Change debate

Former government chief scientist Sir David King, in the green corner, to take on arch-sceptic Lord Lawson in public showdown

The most prominent climate sceptic and the most vocal advocate of the cause in the UK are to take part in their first public debate on the subject.

The "clash of the titans" will be between Lord Lawson of Blaby, the former Conservative chancellor and chairman of the sceptical Global Warming Policy Foundation, and Sir David King, a former government chief scientist who once warned that climate change was "more serious even than the threat of terrorism".

The CBI will host the event at its annual climate change conference in November, and it is likely to inject renewed vigour into a deadlocked debate between two camps that seldom meet face to face and appear to be increasingly entrenched in their positions.

King, head of the Smith school of enterprise and the environment at Oxford University, told the Guardian he had accepted the challenge because he was concerned about a rise in public scepticism about climate change since the affair of the leaked emails from the University of East Anglia last year. These appeared to show that scientists had manipulated data and abused the academic review process, though they were later cleared of these charges.

"It is important to deal with the climate sceptics' arguments and deal with them fairly robustly," said King. "I usually avoid the climate sceptics because I seem to be giving them airtime. [But] Lawson is a well-known speaker, so it is not as though I'm taking somebody lightweight on."

In a written statement, Lawson said: "I have agreed to do this because this is clearly an important issue which needs to be properly debated, and those who promote the conventional wisdom on the issue are usually reluctant to engage in rational debate.

"The cause of reasoned debate on this issue in the UK is not helped, of course, by the fact that there is no difference between the policies of the three political parties so far as global warming is concerned."

Lawson has previously written that he accepts that global warming is happening, although he has also described climate science as "particularly uncertain". In a recent article, he repeated the sceptics' argument: "So far this century there has been no recorded warming at all."

Lawson also claims the impacts on humans have been exaggerated and is critical of current policies to tackle the problem by cutting carbon emissions, writing that the international political pledge to limit warming to 2C above the average before the industrial revolution is "devoid of either scientific basis or the slightest operational significance", and advocating mass spending on adapting to the changes instead.

King said that with 2010 projected to be the hottest year on record, it was a good time publicly to counter the claim that temperatures are not rising: although most years since 1998 had been cooler than that record hot year, they were still among the hottest years on record and above the long-term average.

Emma Wild, the CBI's principal policy adviser for climate change, said: "Both are high-profile figures and passionate advocates for their views. We expect a frank and engaging debate."

SOURCE (See the original for links)










Stories from a very strange place. Not even Kafka could have envisaged a country where only 2.5% of the police force are actually available to assist the public -- but that is modern Britain. Yes: 2.5%, not 25%.


Postings from Brisbane, Australia by John Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.) -- former member of the Australia-Soviet Friendship Society, former anarcho-capitalist and former member of the British Conservative party.


Some TERMINOLOGY for non-British readers: The British "A Level" exam is roughly equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma. Rather confusingly, you can get As, Bs or Cs in your "A Level" results. Entrance to the better universities normally requires several As in your "A Levels".


Again for American readers: A "pensioner" is a retired person living on Social Security


Consensus. Margaret Thatcher in a 1981 speech: "For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word "consensus."... To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects—the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?


For my sins I have always loved G.B. Shaw's witty comment: "No Englishman can open his mouth without causing another Englishman to despise him". But Shaw was Irish, of course.


Britain has enormous claims to fame -- most of which the Labour goverment has been doing its best to destroy. But one glory no-one can destroy is British humour. And if you don't "get" British humour, your life is a dreary desert indeed. A superb sample here


Here is a link to my favourite British political speech since WWII. It is by Nigel Farage, the Leader of the UK Independence Party. He is referring to the Fascistic decision by the EU parliament to act as if their huge new "constitution" had been approved by the voters when in fact majorities in France, Ireland and Nederland (Holland) have rejected it at the ballot box. He points out that abuse is all they have to offer when he points out the impropriety of their actions.

Farage's expression, "A complete shower" is British slang meaning a group of completely incompetent and useless failures. It originated in the British armed forces where its unabbreviated version was "A complete shower of sh*t".


Britain appears to be the first country where anti-patriotism gained strong hold. Even Friedich Engels (the co-worker with Karl Marx who died in 1895) was a furious German patriot. Much of the British elite were anti-patriotic from the early 20th century onwards, however. The "Cambridge spies" (from one of Britain's two most prestigious universities) are a good example of that. Although Cambridge appears to have been the chief nest of spies-to-be in Britain of the 30s, however, Oxford was also very Leftist. In 1933 (9th Feb.) the Oxford Union debated the motion: "This House will in no circumstances fight for King and Country". The motion was overwhelmingly carried (275 to 153).


I have an abiding fascination with the Church of England. It is the sort of fascination one might have for a once-distinguished elderly relative who has gone bad and become a slave to the bottle. But nothing I can say about the C of E (which these days seems to stand for The Church of the Environment) could surpass what the whole of English literature says of it -- which ranges from seeing it as a collection of nincompoops and incompetents to seeing it as comprised of evil hypocrites. Yet its 39 "Articles of Religion" of 1562 are an abiding and eloquent statement of Protestant faith. But I guess that 1562 is a long time ago.


Links about antisemitism in 21st century Britain here and here and here and here and here


The intellectual Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 121-180) could well have been thinking of modern Britain when he said: "The object in life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."


On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.


I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the RD are still sending mailouts to my 1950s address


The kneejerk response of the Green/Left to people who challenge them is to say that the challenger is in the pay of "Big Oil", "Big Business", "Big Pharma", "Exxon-Mobil", "The Pioneer Fund" or some other entity that they see, in their childish way, as a boogeyman. So I think it might be useful for me to point out that I have NEVER received one cent from anybody by way of support for what I write. As a retired person, I live entirely on my own investments. I do not work for anybody and I am not beholden to anybody. And I have NO investments in oil companies, mining companies or "Big Pharma"


UPDATE: Despite my (statistical) aversion to mining stocks, I have recently bought a few shares in BHP -- the world's biggest miner, I gather. I run the grave risk of becoming a speaker of famous last words for saying this but I suspect that BHP is now so big as to be largely immune from the risks that plague most mining companies. I also know of no issue affecting BHP where my writings would have any relevance. The Left seem to have a visceral hatred of miners. I have never quite figured out why.


I am an army man. Although my service in the Australian army was chiefly noted for its un-notability, I DID join voluntarily in the Vietnam era, I DID reach the rank of Sergeant, and I DID volunteer for a posting in Vietnam. So I think I may be forgiven for saying something that most army men think but which most don't say because they think it is too obvious: The profession of arms is the noblest profession of all because it is the only profession where you offer to lay down your life in performing your duties. Our men fought so that people could say and think what they like but I myself always treat military men with great respect -- respect which in my view is simply their due.


Although I have been an atheist for all my adult life, I have no hesitation in saying that the single book which has influenced me most is the New Testament. And my Scripture blog will show that I know whereof I speak.


Many people hunger and thirst after righteousness. Some find it in the hatreds of the Left. Others find it in the love of Christ. I don't hunger and thirst after righteousness at all. I hunger and thirst after truth. How old-fashioned can you get?


My academic background

My full name is Dr. John Joseph RAY. I am a former university teacher aged 65 at the time of writing in 2009. I was born of Australian pioneer stock in 1943 at Innisfail in the State of Queensland in Australia. I trace my ancestry wholly to the British Isles. After an early education at Innisfail State Rural School and Cairns State High School, I taught myself for matriculation. I took my B.A. in Psychology from the University of Queensland in Brisbane. I then moved to Sydney (in New South Wales, Australia) and took my M.A. in psychology from the University of Sydney in 1969 and my Ph.D. from the School of Behavioural Sciences at Macquarie University in 1974. I first tutored in psychology at Macquarie University and then taught sociology at the University of NSW. My doctorate is in psychology but I taught mainly sociology in my 14 years as a university teacher. In High Schools I taught economics. I have taught in both traditional and "progressive" (low discipline) High Schools. Fuller biographical notes here