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12 February, 2012

Family devastated after healthy daughter dies following routine operation

Nobody gave a damn until too late so a woman died

A grief-stricken family have been left asking how a “fit and healthy” woman could go into hospital for a routine operation, only for her to die four days later.

Joanna Henderson, a management consultant, had gone into hospital for a routine operation to remove her gallbladder and believed when she came round from sedation that it had gone well. She was looking forward to returning home and even rang her mother to ask for a lift.

But four days later Ms Henderson, a “fit and healthy” woman was dead – killed by a series of fatal mistakes.

A coroner’s inquest last week found that the 41 year-old died from multiple organ failure “resulting from intra-surgical complications”. During the operation Jeremy Thompson, the surgeon, had accidentally severed key blood vessels.

Clinical staff at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, in west London, also failed to pass on the results of crucial blood tests which could have led to life-saving action being taken more promptly.

Westminster coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe found that Ms Henderson’s care also suffered from the high turnover of doctors caused by European Union rules limiting their working hours.

Following the damning verdict Ms Henderson’s family are now preparing to sue the hospital trust for negligence.

Judith Gunton, Ms Henderson’s mother, said: “The loss of my daughter has been devastating for all her family and her huge circle of friends. What happened was an horrendous shock to us – there is no word big enough to describe it.

"A fit young woman goes into hospital for a routine operation and doesn’t come out, other than to be rushed with blue lights across London to a second hospital, where she dies.”

Ms Henderson elected to undergo surgery after suffering problems with her gallbladder.

But the inquest heard that during the operation, on August 17 last year, Mr Thompson “caused an injury” to the right branch of her portal vein and the right hepatic artery – which distribute oxygen-depleted blood to the liver,

As a result “it was necessary to undertake a repair which meant clamping the blood supply to the liver. During this clamping the right lobe of the liver suffered a period of ischemia and was subsequently infected”, the inquest heard.

Dr Radcliffe found that following the operation “there was a lack of communication” between the surgeon and other staff about the risk of liver ischemia – a restriction in the blood supply. A blood sample which would have given an indication of the potential for liver ischemia “was not acted upon”.

Rather than being readmitted to intensive care for an urgent CAT scan Ms Henderson was moved onto a surgical ward on August 18. On waking, and under the impression the operation had gone well, Ms Henderson telephoned her mother to ask if she could give her a lift home, saying she expected to be discharged shortly.

But in the early hours of August 19, Ms Henderson’s condition suddenly deteriorated and she was moved back to intensive care, suffering from “very severe acidosis”, a condition in which the acidity in the blood increases.

Dr Radcliffe found that “despite intensive treatment it was not possible to correct the acidosis.

A CAT scan revealed infarction of the right lobe of the liver”, meaning that the tissue in her liver was dying due to a lack of oxygen as a result of an obstruction to the blood supply.

Later that day Ms Henderson was transferred to the liver unit at King’s College Hospital, in Camberwell, south London.

However, Dr Radcliffe found that the hours of acute metabolic instability she had suffered proved “too much of an insult to her body and slowly her organs began to shut down and give up the fight”. Two days later, despite intensive resuscitation and surgery, Ms Henderson died of multi-organ failure.

Dr Radcliffe said the restriction on doctors’ hours laid down in the European working time directive had resulted in a frequent turnover of medical staff, “rather than the continuous care that used to be provided”.

She said that in Ms Henderson’s case that might have made the difference between a doctor realising the importance of a liver function test and a new junior doctor arriving on the ward without that knowledge. “That blood test was missed. It was never one thing, it was a number of small things. That blood test could have been another opportunity for awareness of underlying conditions,” said Dr Radcliffe.

“It is not possible to say her life would have been saved with an earlier transfer, but on the whole, the earlier you get treatment, the better the outcome.”

Mrs Gunton, of Richmond, west London, said: “Joanna believed she was having a routine operation and would be out and about with speed. "Indeed on the day of the operation there was even talk of her being out ‘some time after 6’ and she asked me if I would pick her up. “We are so grateful to King’s College for all they did in their fantastic liver unit to try to save her.

"Nothing can bring her back, but we hope that changes that are being made within the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital will mean that other parents, families and friends do not have to go through the same ghastliness as we have had to. "She lives on thanks to the marvellous 41 years and 3 months of glorious memories we have of her.”

Ms Henderson’s friend and neighbour, Loma Halden, a books editor, said: “Joanna wasn’t at all the type to worry about going into hospital. "She’d never have thought there was going to be a problem. At first she seemed fine.

"She had come round from the operation and all seemed OK. When she woke up she called her family to arrange for them to pick her up, but then she suddenly deteriorated.”

Ms Halden added: “She was a wonderful, vibrant young woman who had a very successful career. It is terribly, terribly sad. And what makes it so much worse is that it sounds as if her death could have been avoided.”

Mr Thompson is a consultant surgeon with more than 30 years experience of gastrointestinal surgery. As well as carrying out NHS work at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital and the Royal Marsden in Fulham, west London, he has a private practice at the Lister Hospital, in Chelsea. He is also the co-author of Clinical Surgery, described as an “authoritative and comprehensive textbook for medical students and residents”.

Chelsea and Westminster Hospital said it had implemented the recommendations of an internal investigation into Ms Henderson’s death and would implement the coroner’s additional recommendations.

It said it was working with its provider of pathology services to improve the communication of urgent blood results, and that the “communication of patient information between medical teams working on a shift basis has been thoroughly reviewed and actions have been put in place”.

Heather Lawrence, Chelsea and Westminster’s chief executive, said: “The Trust has apologised to the family and we extend our deepest sympathies and regret to them for Joanna Henderson’s untimely and unexpected death.” Mr Thompson declined to comment.

SOURCE



Top British judge ordered to scrap human rights ruling

Britain’s most senior immigration judge has been ordered to scrap a ruling which allowed a foreign killer to stay in Britain on human rights grounds.

Court of Appeal judges quashed the ruling in which Mr Justice Blake and a colleague allowed Rocky Gurung, from Nepal, to remain in the UK. They said the original judgment suffered from an “error of approach” and looked like “a search for reasons for not deporting him”.

The decision landed Mr Justice Blake in a second controversy, only days after he was criticised for permitting an Indian male nurse to remain in Britain following a jail term for indecently assaulting a woman patient.

It is expected to increase pressure on immigration judges amid growing concerns over how criminals are exploiting human rights laws.

David Cameron, the Prime Minister, has expressed alarm at the way human rights are preventing dangerous offenders and terrorists such as Abu Qatada from being deported.

Damian Green, the immigration minister, last night joined relatives of Gurung’s victim in welcoming the Court of Appeal’s decision. It means the case will now have to be heard again by the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber, of which Mr Justice Blake is president.

Gurung came to Britain in 2005, just three years before he committed the crime. The victim of his attack, Bishal Gurung (no relation), was a hard-working waiter whose father Cpl Khem Barsad Gurung served with the Gurkhas for 16 years.

In April 2008 Bishal was working at a Nepalese restaurant in Esher, Surrey, when he came to London to celebrate Nepalese new year. After leaving a party on a boat on the Thames in the early hours he was chased along the Embankment by 10 to 15 men including Rocky Gurung. The Old Bailey heard the gang falsely accused Bishal of hitting another man, Kemik Thakali, with a bottle.

One witness told the court that Bishal was “on his hands and knees” being kicked or beaten by seven or eight men and was then thrown into the river by Rocky Gurung and Thakali, from Morden, south-west London. Bishal’s body was in the Thames for two weeks before it was found.

Rocky Gurung and Thakali were both jailed for three years for manslaughter. The law says offenders jailed for 12 months or more are subject to “automatic deportation” but there is an exemption if removing them would breach their human rights.

At the end of his sentence Rocky Gurung, also a Gurkha's son, appealed against the Home Office’s decision to deport him, and lost. He then appealed again to the Upper Tribunal – the case overseen by Mr Justice Blake. He claimed that deporting him to Nepal would breach his “right to family life” even though he was single, had no children and lived with his parents.

In a judgment first disclosed in January last year, the court ruled in the killer’s favour that deporting him would be “disproportionate”.

The Home Office later appealed to the Court of Appeal and a panel led by Lord Justice Rix concluded Mr Justice Blake’s decision was faulty. “It appears to us that there has been an error of approach on the part of the Upper Tribunal,” ruled the three appeal judges.

They said they were “troubled” by the conclusion of Mr Justice Blake that the “nature and seriousness” of the offence did not in themselves justify interference with Rocky Gurung’s human rights through deportation. Such an argument “misplaces the emphasis”, said the panel.

“Much of the determination has the appearance of a search for reasons for not deporting him rather than – as in our view it ought to have been – an inquiry into whether, despite the statutory policy of automatic deportation, article 8 of the Convention would be violated by its implementation,” they said.

Bishal’s sister Karuna, 29, from north London, said: “The previous decision was completely wrong. I am extremely happy it has been thrown out. I would like to see Bishal’s killer deported.”

Ian Macdonald QC, the chairman of the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, said: “I’m sure Mr Justice Blake will be feeling like he’s been rapped on the knuckles, but that is how the law works. This is why we have an appellate system.”

The case also illustrates the tortuous legal process faced by the government to deport serious foreign criminals, with the cost of the Gurung case thought to run into tens of thousands of pounds.

Mr Justice Blake, as Nicholas Blake QC, was previously a human rights barrister at Matrix Chambers, which is most closely associated with Cherie Blair, the wife of former prime minister Tony Blair. He was knighted in 2008 and appointed president of the Upper Tribunal Immigration and Asylum Chamber in 2010. Previously he co-authored the legal textbook Immigration, Asylum and Human Rights.

In a judgment published at the end of last week, Mr Justice Blake allowed Milind Sanade, a male nurse from India, to remain in Britain despite being convicted of indecently assaulting a pregnant 21-year-old patient and asking “Does this feel good?”

The Home Office tried to remove Sanade at the end of his prison sentence under automatic deportation rules but Mr Justice Blake and a colleague upheld his second appeal under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which enshrines in law the right to a private or family life.

Sanade, of Chelmsford, is married with two children born in England. Yesterday his family were not at home, and neighbours said they had gone away.

Because Sanade has now been now struck off the nursing register and is under other restrictions which prevent him working unsupervised with women, the judges said: “He is more regulated in his future conduct in the United Kingdom than he would be in India. “Whilst we recognise that this was an offence involving gross breach of trust this is not criminal conduct at the higher end of the range of seriousness.”

Sanade, 36, said last night: “I’m just glad to put my sentence behind me. I’m sorry for what happened but I’ve served the time and now I should be here in the UK with my family.”

Other similar appeals considered by Mr Justice Blake at the same time, involving two Jamaican criminals each with children holding British nationality, were rejected.

SOURCE



A voice of sanity from the real 1984

I mentioned yesterday the travails of Ray Honeyford. What he wrote could well have been written yesterday. He was a true prophet. The first few paragraphs below:

The issues and problems of our multi-racial inner cities are frequently thrown into sharp relief for me. As the head teacher of a school in the middle of a predominantly Asian area, I am often witness to scenes which have the raw feel of reality — and the recipient of vehement criticism, whenever I question some of the current educational orthodoxies connected with race. It is very difficult to write honestly and openly of my experiences and the reflections they evoke, since the race relations lobby is extremely powerful in the state education service. The propaganda generated by multi-racial zealots is now augmented by a growing bureaucracy of race in local authorities. And this makes freedom of speech difficult to maintain. By exploiting the enormous tolerance, traditional in this country, the race lobby has so managed to induce and maintain feelings of guilt in the well-disposed majority, that decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are uncertain even of their right to think those thoughts. They are intimidated not only by their fear of giving offence by voicing their own reasonable concerns about the inner cities, but by the necessity of conducting the debate in a language which is dishonest.

The term ‘racism’, for instance, functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought. It conflates prejudice and discrimination, and thereby denies a crucial conceptual distinction. It is the icon word of those committed to the race game. And they apply it with the same sort of mindless zeal as the inquisitors voiced ‘heretic’ or Senator McCarthy spat out ‘Commie’. The word ‘black’ has been perverted. Every non-white is now, officially, ‘black’, be he Indian, Pakistani or Vietnamese. This gross and offensive dichotomy has an obvious purpose: the creation of an atmosphere of anti-white solidarity. To suppress and distort the enormous variations within races which I every day observe by using language in this way is an outrage to all decent people — whatever their skin colour.

And there are other distortions: race riots are described by the politically motivated as ‘uprisings’, and by a Lord of Appeal as a ‘superb and healthy catalyst for the British people’ — and the police blamed for the behaviour of violent thugs; rather like the patient blaming the doctor because he has a cold in the head. ‘Cultural enrichment’ is the approved term for the West Indian’s right to create an ear-splitting cacophony for most of the night to the detriment of his neighbour’s sanity, or for the Notting Hill Festival whose success or failure is judged by the level of street crime which accompanies it. At the schools’ level the term refers to such things as the Muslim parent’s insistence on banning his daughter from drama, dance and sport, i.e. imposing a purdah mentality in schools committed to the principle of sexual equality

More HERE



British Christian street preacher who allegedly told gay couple they would 'burn in hell' in High Street rant is cleared of wrongdoing

A Christian street preacher was yesterday cleared of harassing a gay couple - after telling them homosexuals would 'burn in hell'. Religious Michael Overd, 47, was accused of using threatening or abusive language against Craig Manning and Craig Nichol as he preached last July.

A court heard that he approached the pair in busy Taunton High Street, Somerset, calling them ‘sinners’ and proclaiming they would ‘burn in hell’.

But Overd claimed he was merely exercising his right to expression by reading from the bible and was acquitted of the charge by Taunton Deane Magistrates yesterday.

Dean Lampard, from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), speaking after the verdict, said: 'We take allegations of this nature very seriously and when we reviewed the case we determined it was appropriate to charge Mr Overd with harassment.

'We examined the evidence and were satisfied that there was a realistic prospect of conviction and that it was in the public interest to bring criminal proceedings.

'Everyone has the right to live their life free from harassment and distress and we will continue to work closely with Avon and Somerset Constabulary to investigate any allegations of hate crime of any sort, be it homophobic, racist, religious or disability hate crime.'

Overd's lawyers claimed his client was merely reciting a passage from 1 Corinthians

The court heard claims the lay preacher was provoked by a previous altercation with Mr Nichol and Mr Manning in October 2010, when he saw them holding hands.

Mr Nichol, giving evidence at the two-day trial, said as soon as Overd saw them from around 10 metres away on July 16 last year 'the expression on his face changed'. He said: 'He said ‘I have already told these two sinners over here that they are going to burn in hell’. 'He looked at us and pointed at us when he said it. His voice was quite loud and very clear. I felt angry, embarrassed and ashamed.

'I asked him who he was to judge me and he said ‘it’s God’s words, it is in the bible’. 'He said I should repent and ask God for forgiveness.'

Paul Diamond, representing Overd, claimed his client was merely reciting a passage from 1 Corinthians. The passage reads: 'Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.'

SOURCE



Low-cost degrees in the Netherlands attracting British students

You don't have to speak double Dutch - and the fees are significantly cheaper. That's why more and more British students are flocking to universities in the Netherlands, it was reported today.

Traditionally, the UK's seats of learning have attracted a whopping share of European total of students who travel abroad to study. More than a quarter came to Britain in 2009, the latest year for which figures are available.

But as fees have risen to £9,000 a year, universities in the Netherlands have reported a significant increase in interest from the UK. At Maastricht University, figures released this month show 255 Britons have applied for places in September, two-and-a-half times the comparable figure a year ago. Four years ago there were just 18 British students in Maastricht. The figure is now 163 and that could double later this year.

At home, recent figures show a 8,500 drop in the number of 18-year-olds applying for university places in England this year.

The cost of courses in the Netherlands, the fact courses are taught in English and it is easy travel to the country via the Eurostar service are believed to be behind the rise. Undergraduate tuition fees in the Netherlands are currently €1,713 (£1,440) for an academic year, less than one sixth of the £9,000 maximum being levied in England from September. Not only that, for students of any EU nationality who can prove they are working 32 hours a month, the Dutch government hands out grants of €265.

Colin Behr, a second-year European studies scholar from Devon, told The Guardian: 'Going to another country to study is very daunting. But it's a great opportunity. The reason I'm here is the quality and the value for money. It definitely feels more serious than the UK.'

British students now occupy fourth place in the list of nationalities studying at Maastricht and their numbers are rising relatively fast.

Jeanine Gregersen-Hermans, the university's marketing director, said: 'The situation in Britain has changed, so we expect a lot more applications this year. People have been forced to look outside [the UK] and now it has snowballed.'

Yet the number of students coming to Britain still dwarfs the number leaving to study abroad. Of 600,000 EU students taking degrees in non-native union countries, 175,000 were in the UK.

In contrast, only 11,800 Britons were studying elsewhere in the EU, compared with 80,000 Germans, 47,000 French and 41,000 Italians.

SOURCE





11 February, 2012

HEALTH SECRETARY ANDREW LANSLEY SHRUGS OFF CALL TO QUIT

HEALTH Secretary Andrew Lansley last night fought off demands that he should sacrifice himself to ensure the survival of the Coalition’s under-fire NHS reforms.

Mr Lansley was forced to hit back amid a Tory bust-up over the changes to Britain’s healthcare.

Asked if it was time to resign, he replied: “No, it is not. Because we, as a government, have committed to supporting the NHS. “This legislation has been supported by the House of Commons, by the House of Lords. It is because the NHS matters so much, because we believe in the values of the NHS, we have to be prepared to reform.”

The speculation over Mr Lansley’s future was sparked when Tory grassroots site ConservativeHome claimed three Cabinet ministers had privately “rung the alarm bell” about the shake-up.

One apparently called for the Health Secretary to be replaced, another said the Bill should be dropped, and a third had likened the NHS reforms to the poll tax.

Editor Tim Montgomerie wrote: “David Cameron’s greatest political achievement as leader of the opposition was to neutralise health as an issue. The greatest mistake of his time as Prime Minister has been to put it back at the centre of political debate.”

Labour has tabled a motion demanding the publication of the register of any risks to the NHS caused by the reforms.

SOURCE



Mathematics 'too hard for students and dons': British universities drop subject from science courses

Competition from the Far East is a standard boogeyman in education debates but in this case it is real. There is huge mathematical talent in China and Chinese mathematicians are already to be found in universities just about everywhere

It's not an entirely new problem either. My mathematical talents are slim to the point of invisibility but in the large Sociology Dept. where I worked during my academic career it usually fell to me to teach statistical analysis! Nobody else was willing or able to do it. Yet statistical analysis is an integral part of sociological research

Universities are dropping maths from degree courses because students – and their lecturers – cannot cope with it, a report warns today. Decades of substandard maths education in schools has led to a ‘crisis’ in England’s number skills, threatening the future of the economy, it says.

Universities are being forced to dumb down degree courses requiring the use of maths, including sciences, economics, psychology and social sciences. Students are unable to tackle complex problems and their lecturers struggle to teach them anyway, it is claimed.

The reputation of the country’s universities and graduates is now under threat, according to the report, ‘Solving the Maths Problem’, published by the education lobby group RSA.

After looking at maths education in other countries, the authors found that lessons and qualifications in English schools were ‘not fit for purpose’.

They say that classes fail to stretch the brightest while leaving weaker pupils ill-equipped to use maths for work and family budgeting, and warn of a growing knock-on effect on universities.

‘English universities are sidelining quantitative and mathematical content because students and staff lack the requisite confidence and ability,’ the report says, adding that English universities are ‘not keeping pace’ with international standards.

Some universities are no longer advertising the level of maths needed to study particular subjects for fear of putting off applicants, the report warns.

It adds: ‘Recent research suggests that universities are marginalising mathematical content in the delivery of degree courses because English students are not capable of studying it.’

The report by the RSA – formally called the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce – suggests that all students should be required to study maths until the age of 18, with the introduction of sixth-form qualifications such as ‘Maths for Citizenship’. England is just one of a handful of developed nations that fail to educate pupils in maths until that age, it says.

Only 15 per cent of youngsters study the subject past 16, aside from GCSE candidates taking resits to boost their grades.

The report also backs the introduction of a ‘double award’ maths GCSE, with one section concentrating on maths for everyday life and the other covering formal maths such as algebra and geometry.

‘Mathematics knowledge and qualifications are increasingly important gateways to further and higher education, for crucial life-skills and in order to respond to economic change,’ it says. ‘But the way mathematics is taught and assessed in England has not always kept pace with these changes or with the needs of learners and has left one in four adults functionally innumerate.’

SOURCE








A British prophet sacrificed to appease the mob



The great Irish writer C.S. Lewis once said that ‘of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive’. That is a perfect description of the bullying authoritarianism bred by the dogma of political correctness.

In the name of promoting tolerance, race-fixated zealots exercise the most extreme intolerance, suppressing free debate and indulging in witch-hunts against anyone who dissents from their creed of multi-cultural diversity.

Nothing ever exemplified this pattern of behaviour more graphically than the downfall of former Bradford headmaster Ray Honeyford, who died yesterday, aged 77.

A mild-mannered, popular teacher who devoted his career to the education of disadvantaged children, Honeyford was hounded from his job in the mid-1980s for daring to challenge some of the fashionable orthodoxies of race relations.

Like a character in George Orwell’s 1984, he was deemed to have committed a crime for expressing his views. Branded a racist, he was turned into a figure of national notoriety by a noisy alliance of Left-wingers, municipal ideologues and professional grievance-mongers. The atmosphere of synthetic outrage ensured his reputation was shattered and his career left in ruins.

Yet Honeyford was the victim of a gross injustice. The portrayal of him as a racial bigot could not be further from the truth. As the headmaster of Drummond Middle School in Bradford, he spent most of his time working with ethnic minority pupils, since 95 per cent of Drummond’s intake was of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin.

It was a measure of his success that the school was heavily oversubscribed, with the greatest demand for places coming from Muslim parents. Nor was Honeyford anything like the reactionary that his enemies painted. In fact, he hailed from an unprivileged working-class background in Manchester, one reason that he had such a passion for education as a force for social mobility.

Honeyford’s father was a labourer who had been badly wounded in World War I and his mother was the daughter of penniless Irish immigrants. Honeyford himself failed the 11-plus and had to leave technical school at 15 to support his family, though he was so determined to become a teacher that he completed a degree through night classes.

Having qualified, he taught in a variety of inner-city schools before taking over at Drummond in 1981. Honeyford’s experience of running a largely Asian school gave him a special insight into the iniquities of multiculturalism, the official doctrine that had held sway in state education since the 1970s.

According to this policy, ethnic minority children were encouraged to cling on to their cultures, customs, even languages, while the concept of a shared British identity was treated with contempt. Honeyford thought this approach was deeply damaging. He feared that it promoted division, hindered integration and undermined pupils’ opportunities to succeed in wider British society.

He voiced his concerns by writing an article in the obscure conservative political magazine The Salisbury Review, which was then edited by the distinguished philosopher Roger Scruton.

In it, Honeyford stated that white children constituted the ‘ethnic minority’ in many urban schools: ‘It is very difficult to write honestly and openly of my experiences and the reflections they evoke,’ he wrote, ‘since the race lobby is extremely powerful in the State education service. ‘The term racism functions not as a word with which to create insight, but as a slogan designed to suppress constructive thought.’

The race lobby had become so powerful, he added, that ‘decent people are not only afraid of voicing certain thoughts, they are even uncertain of their right to think those thoughts.’

Among the points that Honeyford made was a criticism of ‘the large number of Asians whose aim is to preserve intact the values and attitudes of the Indian sub-continent’, while he also condemned certain black intellectuals ‘of aggressive disposition who know little of the traditions of understatement, civilised discourse and respect for reason.’

Despite the journal’s tiny circulation, the article sparked a huge outcry in Bradford. A mood of hysteria seemed to grip the city. The mayor Mohammed Ajeeb stoked the flames of anger by calling on Honeyford to be sacked for demonstrating ‘prejudice against certain sections of our community’.

Honeyford had to be given police protection after a number of death threats, picket lines formed outside the school and subjected him to constant abuse, while pupils were given badges proclaiming ‘Hate Your Headmaster’ along with a ‘Pupils’ Charter’ advocating open disobedience.

When one Sikh shopkeeper privately expressed his support, Honeyford urged him to speak out. The Sikh said he could not, because he feared that his shop would be burnt down.

Soon Honeyford was suspended by the local education authority, and though he was subsequently reinstated by the Court of Appeal, a group of aggrieved, politicised parents ensured that it was impossible for him to do his job. In December 1985, he accepted a financial settlement and retired from Drummond Middle.

A broken man, he never returned to teaching. Instead he dabbled in political journalism and policy-making, as well as serving for a spell as a Tory councillor in Bury.

He wrote of how the episode had made his wife Angela, who was also a teacher, suffer acute anxiety. ‘I was daily watching her grow more and more depressed,’ he said after he finally accepted his settlement. ‘I am relieved the conflict is over. It is a reasonable settlement, but no amount of money can compensate for the loss of one’s career or the anguish which Angela and myself have suffered.’

Ray Honeyford should have been able to give so much more.

When I interviewed him in recent years, he was as courteous as ever, but he remained rightly embittered at what happened to him.

Yet he also derived a degree of satisfaction about having been so prescient in that explosive article. Despite all the abuse he endured at the time, many of his warnings about multiculturalism proved correct. He predicted that, without a unifying sense of national identity, we would become an ever-more divided country, which is exactly what has occurred.

Large parts of urban Britain are increasingly split along racial lines, with many Britons now feeling like aliens in their own land. In London, only six per cent of primary schools have a significant white majority.

Even Trevor Phillips, the Chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, recently warned that ‘some districts are on their way to becoming fully fledged ghettoes — black holes into which no one goes without fear or trepidation.’ Phillips went on, using words that could have come from Honeyford, that Britain ‘is sleep-walking into segregation’.

When Mr Phillips first began to publicly question the dogma of multiculturalism at the Tory Conference in 2005 — a dogma, incidentally his commission had been enforcing rigorously for many years — Honeyford wrote in the Daily Mail of his surprise and relief.

‘What is so galling,’ he wrote, ‘is that what Trevor Phillips has been saying this week is what I was saying 20 years ago as the headmaster of a predominantly Asian school in Yorkshire. Trevor Phillips calls for integration, the teaching of English and the inculcation of British values, precisely as I did in the mid-1980s.’

The passing of time has shown that Honeyford was equally justified in his warning about Muslim separatism, which has dramatically accelerated in the 28 years since his Salisbury Review article. That process is reflected in the growth of Muslim faith schools and the informal official acceptance of sharia courts. The Department for Work and Pensions even turns a blind eye towards polygamy in its lax distribution of benefits.

We have also seen the rise of Islamic extremism and domestic terrorism, as well as disturbing cases of practices such as honour killings and ethnic gang warfare.

When Honeyford wrote his article, he was branded a heretic. His words had to be suppressed, his influence crushed. But that did not stop him being right.

SOURCE



Clarkson in trouble again

Because of his popularity, Clarkson is about the only man in Britain who can say what he thinks

"A disfigurement charity has called for Jeremy Clarkson and the BBC to apologise after the Top Gear presenter compared the shape of a new car to “people with growths on their faces”.

In an episode of the BBC motoring show broadcast last Sunday, Mr Clarkson likened a Japanese car with a large bulge on the back to a “really ugly” growth.

He suggested that people “wouldn’t talk to [the car] at a party” and did an impression of the elephant man, the disfigured Victorian character, after fellow presenter Richard Hammond dubbed the vehicle “the elephant car”.

James Partridge, the chief executive of charity Changing Faces, said that Mr Clarkson’s comments “create a culture of ridicule and bullying” against people who are ill, disabled or have unusual features.

The charity has written a letter of complaint to Ofcom, the broadcasting watchdog, and the BBC, which has received 55 complaints about the broadcast.

Source

10 February, 2012

Bishops fight to save NHS chaplains

It is particularly at times of illness and death that religion is a great help to many people

Leading bishops led calls to defend hospital chaplains in the face of a campaign to exclude religious influence from the National Health Service. Secularist campaigners have demanded that the taxpayer should no longer fund chaplains at a time when the NHS is making cuts.

In an impassioned debate at the Church of England General Synod in London, bishops called for “every effort” to be made to preserve their position.

The Church faces a series of challenges to its official role. Today, the High Court will hand down judgment in what could prove to be a landmark case over the role religious worship plays in public places.

An atheist councillor from Bideford, Devon, launched a legal challenge over the practice of opening meetings with Christian prayers. The National Secular Society, which supported the challenge, believes religion should no longer have a privileged role in a society where church attendance is in decline.

But Christians say secularisation could undermine the foundations of society.

Last year, the National Secular Society published a report singling out hospital chaplains. It argued that they cost the NHS £29 million a year for “no clinical benefit”.

Speaking in the debate, the Rt Rev Mike Hill, Bishop of Bristol, said hospitals would be “poorer” places without chaplains and patients would be denied comprehensive care if their services were removed. “Their services are offered not only to patients, but also to their relatives and to other health care staff, enhancing greatly the healing environment,” he said.

“As with much in life, the true value of our chaplains might only be appreciated if they were no longer present. “Every effort ought to be made, and is being made, to resist secularist calls for chaplains to be excluded from the NHS.”

The Bishop of Carlisle, the Rt Rev James Newcome, said chaplains provided support and counselling at “crucial” moments in people’s lives. “The cost of chaplaincy is minute as a proportion of the overall NHS budget and the role of chaplains is widely recognised by other health care professionals as making a very valuable contribution to the process of healing,” he said.

A motion affirming “all who promote health and wholeness in body and spirit” in the NHS, including chaplains, was carried.

In a report last year, the National Secular Society said the NHS could afford 1,000 nursing assistants or a new community hospital every year if spending on chaplains was capped.

Data from 227 NHS trusts in England found that savings of £18.5 million a year could be made if each brought its spending into line with those with the lowest costs.

Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence say dying patients should have access to religious or spiritual leaders. They stipulate that doctors should draw up individual “death plans” to ensure patients die with dignity, including having religious support.

SOURCE



Workshy UK where hardly anyone lives in hardship... but we also have Europe's highest rate of homes without jobs

Britain has Europe’s highest rate of people living in homes where no one has a job, it was revealed yesterday. But at the same time, the proportion of families who consider themselves to be ‘deprived’ is one of the lowest in the EU.

Analysts point to this contradiction as evidence that our welfare system is too generous to the workshy. Nearly one in eight children and working age adults in the UK live in a home where no one goes out to work. However fewer than one in 20 say they can’t afford to pay their bills, eat properly, go on holiday, run a car or have a colour TV or a mobile phone.

The picture of a country where large numbers of people do not work – yet can afford to live as if they earn good money – was put together by Eurostat, the EU’s statistics arm.

It comes as the Government faces opposition to its attempts to cap families to a maximum income from state handouts of £26,000 a year.

The figures show there is a higher proportion of people living in homes without work in the UK than in EU countries hit by the euro crisis.

In Britain, 13.1 per cent of the population aged under 59 lives in a home where no adult works for 20 per cent of their time. In Germany, the workless proportion of the population is 11.1 per cent, in France 9.8 per cent, and in Italy 10.2 per cent.

Britain’s closest rival in the workless league table is Belgium, where 12.6 per cent of people under 59 are in homes with very little work. However, in Britain only 4.8 per cent of people count as ‘materially deprived’, similar to levels in Germany which has 4.5 per cent.

This means that they cannot afford to pay for four out of nine ‘deprivation items’. The nine things that are considered to lift a family out of the deprived category are the ability to pay the rent or utility bills on time; to keep the house warm; to be able to pay an unexpected bill; to eat meat or fish every second day; to afford a week’s holiday; to run a car; to have a washing machine; to have a colour TV and to have a mobile phone.

In France, the ‘deprived’ make up 5.8 per cent of the population and in Italy 6.9 per cent.

Yesterday critics said the figures exposed flaws in the welfare system. Douglas Carswell, Tory MP for Clacton, said: ‘They show that the welfare system is not doing what it is supposed to do. It is meant to help people who need help because they have fallen on hard times, not people who have learned to play the system.

‘The welfare system has become a means of achieving lifestyle choices for people who do not want jobs, and who are reluctant to get up at six in the morning to go out to work.’

Economist Ruth Lea, of the Arbuthnot Banking Group, added: ‘One factor is that Britain has more single parent families than other countries in Europe. Families with two parents tend to be working families.’

SOURCE



BBC tells its staff: don’t call Qatada extremist

The BBC has told its journalists not to call Abu Qatada, the al-Qaeda preacher, an “extremist”. In order to avoid making a “value judgment”, the corporation’s managers have ruled that he can only be described as “radical”.

Journalists were also cautioned against using images suggesting the preacher is overweight.

A judge ruled this week that the Muslim preacher, once described as “Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man in Europe”, should be released from a British jail, angering ministers and MPs.

Adding to the row, Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, yesterday insisted that Qatada “has not committed any crime” and said his release has nothing to do with the European Court of Human Rights.

A British court has called Qatada a “truly dangerous individual” and even his defence team has suggested he poses a “grave risk” to national security.

Despite that background, BBC journalists were told they should not describe Qatada as an extremist. The guidance was issued at the BBC newsroom’s 9.00am editorial meeting yesterday, chaired by a senior manager, Andrew Roy.

According to notes of the meeting, seen by The Daily Telegraph, journalists were told: “Do not call him an extremist – we must call him a radical. Extremist implies a value judgment.”

The guidance was criticised by experts and MPs. Maajid Nawaz of Quilliam, a counter-extremist think tank, accused the BBC of “liberal paralysis” over Islamic extremism, saying journalists must be honest about Qatada’s record. He said: “A radical is someone who is different from the norm. An extremist is someone who promotes extreme views and actions, like killing innocents.”

James Clappison, a Conservative member of the Commons home affairs select committee, said the guidance was unjustifiable. He said: “Given the evidence about this man, it makes you wonder what you have to do for the BBC to call you an extremist.”

BBC staff were also cautioned against using library images suggesting the cleric is overweight, because he has “lost a lot of weight”.

A BBC spokesman said: “We think very carefully about the language we use. We do not ban words – the notes are a reflection of a live editorial discussion about how to report the latest developments on this story.”

SOURCE



Let little kids be kids

Britain requires that a demanding "curriculum" be taught to pre-schoolers but there are good reasons to condemn an obsession with early learning, depriving children of fun and formative skills

This is a tale of two sisters. The elder sister, who is now nine, went to nursery at six months (before she could even sit up unaided) and announced, thoughtfully, aged two years and two months: “I want to go to the Mosque and pray to Allah” – which came as a surprise to me, and an even bigger surprise to the parish priest.

As she was my first child, and hence the rather put-upon repository of all-my-hopes-and-dreams, I spent anguished, sleepless nights worrying about her progress and fretting over milestones. So I felt relieved and vindicated to see that, thanks to her early education, she has marvellous social skills, confidence and a lively, interested mind.

The other sister, who is three and a half, is pottering about the kitchen singing snatches of Les Misérables, blowing raspberries and demanding a biscuit as I type.

Flinty exponents of the “nappy curriculum” might observe that her penmanship isn’t quite up to the Lindisfarne Gospels yet, that she jumbles her colours (albeit deliberately, to tease me) and her childcare provision falls into the recklessly relaxed, “pillar-to-post” category.

As she was my second child, she has a much easier time of it as I am far too busy filling and emptying the washing machine to calibrate her fine motor skills on a daily basis.

So I am mightily relieved and vindicated to see that, thanks to her unstructured play, she possesses marvellous social skills, confidence and a lively, interested mind. Gosh. Who would have guessed? Well, for a start, the expert authors of an impassioned letter to The Daily Telegraph, urging a rethink on the “schoolification” of children’s early years.

Academics and authors ranging from Oxford neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield, writer Philip Pullman and childcare guru Penelope Leach have warned that controversial educational reforms are robbing young children of the opportunity and, more alarmingly still, the ability to play.

The compulsory nappy curriculum that all nurseries, pre-schools and childminders are supposed to follow places too much emphasis on formal learning and the three Rs, they claim, and they are going so far as to set up a new group, Early Childhood Action, to push for an alternative, less stifling curriculum.

“Every early-years teacher in the state and the independent sector has told me how much they wish the Government wouldn’t treat childhood as a race,” says Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood and a signatory to the letter.

“Schools have become sausage factories as it is, and putting little children into the grinder earlier and earlier doesn’t make it any better.”

It’s a disturbing image, but there’s a groundswell of opinion that the Government needs to be shocked into taking action. Although the Coalition is reducing the number of curricular targets, it hasn’t dispensed with them all.

“The first years of a child’s life are crucial in their development and the Audit Commission said just last week that the introduction of the 'nappy curriculum’ hasn’t made any difference to children’s academic attainment by the age of seven.”

Quite so. My elder daughter, Lily, passed through nursery before the Labour government’s Early Years Foundation Stage became mandatory, in 2008. I’m very glad she missed it; as far as I could tell, there was quite enough structure in place already, without requirements to achieve multiple academic targets (69 to be precise) by the age of five.

Without wishing to sound like an old hippy, isn’t childhood supposed to be about fun? I mean, if you can’t smear paint in your hair and babble a load of old nonsense when you’re two years old, when can you?

I’m no educational consultant, but even I see no advantage to insisting children learn to read before they’re five. On the contrary, it’s downright harmful to force-feed them phonics when they ought to be balancing on walls, throwing balls and making weapons out of Stickle Bricks.

Some, of course, take to books early, like eager little ducklings to water, but you can always tell the ones who have been hot-housed by pushy parents as they tend (like forced rhubarb) to be pale and anaemic and not nearly as rosy and characterful as those reared, as nature intended, in the fresh air.

I share Palmer’s exasperation and frustration that the unhappy nappy curriculum appears to have been of no empirical benefit whatsoever. One in 10 boys leaves primary school with a reading age of that of a seven-year-old, or worse. Figures released last December revealed that four in 10 pupils seen as high fliers at the age of seven are struggling to reach their potential by the time they sit their end-of-school tests aged 11 – which amounts to 50,000 bright children effectively being failed by the education system.

Oh, and we continue to slip down the league of every international education table. I find it particularly vexing to note that all work and no play makes Jack plunge from 17th to 25th in reading ability. How is that supposed to tally with toddler targets? In the Scandinavian countries, formal education doesn’t begin until seven, and they still outstrip us.

Ironically, alongside the disproportionate importance placed on early academic targets, today’s battery-reared children are losing their independence.

Early-years educationalists report that the youngest pupils are unable to put their coats on, change for PE or go to the lavatory without assistance (62 per cent of teachers say they have seen a rise in toileting “accidents”). The blame for this has been placed firmly at the feet of “busy” parents who haven’t taught the most basic life skill of all to their offspring. How can any mother be that preoccupied, I wonder. And whatever happened to the social stigma of tweenagers in nappies?

Possibly more salient is that changes in legislation mean that headteachers can no longer stipulate children must be toilet-trained before starting school, so there’s less incentive to concentrate the minds of Britain’s more laissez-faire parents.

I wonder if Education Secretary Michael Gove ever bumps into England’s chief medical officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, in the corridors of Whitehall? Obviously, not recently, or she might have given him an earful about her guidance, published last July, that under-fives should exercise for at least three hours a day.

According to NHS figures, nearly a quarter of children aged four and five are overweight or obese. By 2050, that number could rise to 63 per cent. Our national preoccupation – and the middle classes are more guilty of this than most – with exam results and grades has led to the skewed situation whereby achievements (at least, the only achievements that matter) are all in the mind.

“Emotional and behavioural difficulties are on the rise, communication skills are suffering and children aren’t being physically challenged and interacting with each other, because nurseries are expected to sit them down and crack on with formal work,” says Palmer.

“As long as you talk to your children, sing songs, read books and let them run about outside, then you are laying the foundations for learning later in life.”

Sometimes it’s as if the education system is being run by paranoid first-time parents, excruciatingly fixated on measuring performance and obtaining early results (by any means necessary) rather than on bringing up healthy, happy, enthusiastic youngsters. I used to be a Newbie too, so I know whereof I speak. But now I have two children, and, accordingly, a sense of perspective. And let’s just say that the most magical moments of my early childhood weren’t spent at a desk.

Which is why I think it’s high time politicians took their shoes and socks off, wiggled their toes in the sandpit and asked: “What on earth are we playing at?”

SOURCE



Is 'fire ice' wonder fuel buried under the Scottish coast?

A new wonder fuel dubbed ‘fire ice’ could be buried under the Scottish coast, according to government ministers and experts.

They suspect that massive quantities of methane hydrates reserves are locked off the coast of western Shetland, and that there is possibly enough to last 300 years.

The sherbet-like substance, which consists of methane trapped in ice, has already been tipped by energy experts to be the next major energy resource. The wonder fuel was initially thought only to exist in the outer reaches of the solar system. But fire ice has been discovered under the permafrost in the Arctic Circle and on some seabeds.

UK Energy Minister Charles Hendry said the government believes it is ‘possible’ that the substance is buried in Scottish waters.

He said: ‘The presence of methane hydrates in deep waters west of Shetland is possible, but has not been established. In the absence of any commercial technology for exploiting such resources, no estimate of reserves can be made at the present time.’

Japanese experts are already carrying out test drilling off the south east coast of Japan and commercial production could start as soon as 2016. And global reserves of the substance could be more than the total for all other fossil fuels put together.

Professor Bahman Tohidi, director of the Centre for Gas Hydrate Research at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh said: ‘For methane hydrate you need water depths of more than 1,640ft. ‘The only place we have those water depths is west of Shetland. We haven’t seen any hydrates yet but there could be some there.

‘If there is a potential, it needs to be investigated. ‘I would say there are chances of it being in UK waters, but even if there is nothing in the UK we should be developing the technology.

‘It definitely will be a major industry. I always say it is far too big to be ignored - it’s like the elephant sitting outside your doorstep and we can’t ignore it. Sooner or later we will develop the technology.’

Despite fears that disrupting the seabed could release methane and accelerate climate change, scientists believe replacing the methane with oxygen could help tackle global warming.

A spokeswoman for industry body Oil and Gas UK said: ‘We’re not aware of anyone investigating it in the UK but the volume of methane trapped in hydrates is believed to be very large worldwide.’

Alex Kemp, renowned Aberdeen University professor of petroleum economics, said: ‘I haven’t heard of it being present in any significant amounts in the UK continental shelf. ‘In other countries, for example New Zealand, it is regarded as having a big potential. They think they have large amounts. There is the question of what technology to use to extract it. It’s all very futuristic.’

Methane hydrate has long been regarded by oil and gas companies as a nuisance, because it can block marine drilling rigs.

The substance is formed within marine sediments where the gas is generated by chemical reactions or by microbes breaking down organic matter. The gas then works its way up to the sea bed where sediments tend to be much cooler.

The cooling allows the methane molecules to form weak chemical bonds with the surrounding water molecules, producing solid methane hydrate. However, such bonds also require high pressure - so methane hydrate forms only in deep water.

SOURCE



Brown racist calls an Indian a "coconut"

I guess most readers here know it already but a "coconut" is brown on the outside and white on the inside. It is a condemnation of adopting mainstream (white) values.

"A leading force in football's battle against racism has been criticised after he called an Asian supporter a 'coconut'.

Piara Powar, who is the executive director of the Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) organisation, has been a vocal figure in the game's recent rows.

But an exchange on Twitter has left Mr Powar, who is also Asian, embroiled in a race controversy of his own making.

Liverpool fan Parmjit Singh, 34, tweeted @piarapower: 'Interesting how u haven't given your opinion on the news that a £mufc fan was arrested on Wednesday for alleged racial abuse.'

He received a staggering reply from Mr Powar, who used Twitter's private messaging function to contact Mr Singh, which said: 'Get lost Singh. Have no false consciousness. Don't be a coconut.'

Mr Singh was referring to Manchester United fan Howard Hobson, 57, who was today fined £200 for chanting racist abuse at a black Stoke City player during a match on January 31.

Mr Powar had earlier condemned Liverpool FC and the way it handled the Luis Suarez affair - where the striker was banned for eight games after being found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra during a match against Manchester United in October.

Source

9 February, 2012

Baby boy who survived major surgery just two days after birth was killed by hospital blunder weeks later

The hospital put an inexperienced doctor in charge who was out of his depth in a specialist unit -- and he got it wrong and killed a baby

A baby who survived major organ surgery died after being transferred to a hospital where 'bad failings' proved fatal, an inquest heard yesterday.

Ethan Cross was born with his organs outside his body, and underwent corrective surgery aged just a few days old.

Two months later he was on the road to recovery but a hearing was told that his brain was fatally starved of oxygen when a breathing tube was inserted incorrectly.

At the inquest, deputy coroner Andrew Cross described that staff at Derriford Hospital, Plymouth 'failed collectively' to save Ethan's life. He also noted a lack of experience and confidence in a new doctor who was expected to take charge of the emergency.

Mr Cross said: 'In my view there were failings, bad failings even. There was not, however, a total and complete failure. 'Individually competent people failed collectively in this critical situation.'

Ethan was born on September 7, 2009 at a specialist hospital in Bristol because doctors were aware some of his organs were growing outside his body.

Aged just a few days old he underwent a major operation to place his organs back inside his body.

The inquest heard that, despite a number of minor incidents, he was no longer considered to be in a life-threatening condition and was transferred to Derriford Hospital, Plymouth on November 6 and put on a ventilator.

However the two-month-old died on November 14 2009 when a breathing tube that had become dislodged was replaced too slowly.

Staff in the neonatal intensive care unit that night included an experienced staff nurse who was tasked with giving Ethan one-to-one care, and a ward sister who had worked on the unit for ten years.

There was also two new doctors, a specialist registrar in charge of the ward and a senior house officer. A consultant was on call for the ward when the the 'critical event' happened at around 4am on November 7.

Mr Cox said the 'likely trigger' was that Ethan’s breathing tube became displaced from his windpipe into his oesophagus.

He noted that staff’s initial response was 'appropriate', including Ethan being given oxygen and increased ventilation and that the consultant, who was telephoned at about 4.15am, was called at the right time.

However, before the consultant arrived, the registrar failed to provide 'confident clear leadership'.

He described staff had relied too heavily on listening to Ethan’s chest to check whether the tube was in place - a method an expert witness had described as 'notoriously difficult'.

Mr Cox said the registrar’s actions demonstrated 'little experience' of the specialist skills required.

The tube was finally removed on the advice of the consultant, who was travelling to the hospital. He arrived shortly afterwards and replaced it, but by that time it was too late.

Mr Cox recorded a verdict of death by misadventure. Ethan’s mother Shelley Cross, 29, attended the inquest but declined to comment.

Robert Antrobus, who represented the family during the inquest, said: 'The family are grateful to the coroner for his thorough review of the events leading up to Ethan’s death. 'Sadly the coroner, delivering a verdict of misadventure, has found evidence of substandard care which has played a significant part in baby Ethan’s death.

'The family does however acknowledge that the Trust have undertaken a full investigation which highlighted problems with Ethan’s care through its serious untoward incidents (SUI) procedure. 'The family sincerely hope that the lessons learned in this tragic case result in other families not having to go through what they did.'

The hospital has since apologised, stating that they are 'extremely sorry that there were failings in the care'. A spokesperson for Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust said: 'We offer our sincere sympathies to the parents and family of baby Ethan. 'This was a very sad case and we are extremely sorry that there were failings in the care given to Ethan.

'As the coroner noted during the inquest, we had undertaken a full investigation into what happened and, as a result, we have made a series of robust changes within our neonatal intensive care unit during the past year.'

SOURCE



Literacy in English schools at 'Dickensian-era levels' warns minister as classics are ignored

Dickensian levels of illiteracy still plague parts of England despite decades of increases in state spending on education, a minister declared yesterday.

Schools Minister Nick Gibb said ‘shadows of Charles Dickens’s world’ persisted in the country’s poorest areas despite major social advances. Expectations of children moving through the school system were too ‘modest’, with teachers settling too often for a ‘good enough’ standard, he claimed.

The result was under-achievement by thousands of youngsters, with one in six still struggling to read fluently by the age of 11.

In a speech on the 200th anniversary of the author’s birth, Mr Gibb warned that, just as in Victorian times, literacy problems were ‘heavily orientated towards the poorest in our communities’. ‘We need – if you’ll forgive the Dickens pun – much greater expectations of children in reading,’ he added.

He also said pupils at primary school should be encouraged to read ‘complex’ books by authors such as Michael Morpurgo, Jacqueline Wilson and Roald Dahl, while secondary pupils should read at least one Dickens novel during their teens.

Classic works of literature were being ignored, he warned, with tens of thousands of pupils gaining GCSEs in English literature without studying any books written before the 20th century.

More than 90 per cent of answers on novels in English literature papers were on the same three works – Of Mice and Men, Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird. Out of more than 300,000 who took the country’s most popular paper last year, just 1,236 read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, 285 read Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd and 187 read Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.

‘Unfortunately, even when young people do wish to read, the exam system does not encourage them,’ Mr Gibb said. Despite a wide curriculum, ‘the English Literature GCSE only actually requires students to study four or five texts, including one novel’. He also claimed children in England were ‘falling out of love’ with reading.

A study of 65 developed nations ranked the UK at 47th for the number of children who read for pure enjoyment, he said. Some 40 per cent of pupils did not read for pleasure, against just 10 per cent in Kazakhstan and Albania.

Mr Gibb said the current target set for 11-year-olds at the end of primary school – that they reach level four in reading – was too ‘modest’. Youngsters should aspire to the elite level five, he said.

A survey of 500 employers by the Confederation of British Industry last year found that 42 per cent were dissatisfied with school-leavers’ basic skills, while army recruiting officers have warned that hundreds of would-be soldiers have been turned away for failing basic literacy and numeracy tests.

Mr Gibb’s speech came as he launched a national reading competition designed to encourage seven to 12-year-olds – especially boys – to read more fiction.

SOURCE



British Gov. Bans Christian Group From Advertising That God Can Heal Illnesses

I wonder when they will crack down on the Prince of Wales' "Duchy originals" -- which is a line of quack medicines

Faith healing comes with a fair share of controversy. For some non-believers, the notion that a higher power would intervene to heal the afflicted it patently absurd. For some believers, even, the practice seems somewhat above and beyond the earthly realm of possibility.

Yet for others, faith healing is an important tenet that showcases the full power and ability of the Almighty. But in England, the government is agreeing with the former cohorts, as an agency is cracking down on the notion that God can cure those in need.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), Britain’s media advertising watchdog, has banned a Christian group from making claims on its web site and advertising brochures that God can cure a number of ailments, RNS reports. According to the ad authority, the group Healing on the Streets (HOTS) Baths was being both irresponsible and misleading in its stated claims about God’s power to heal.

HOPS Bath has claimed that ulcers, depression, allergies, asthma, paralysis and sleeping disorders, among other illness, can be cured by the Lord. After an anonymous individual complained about one of group’s leaflets, the ASA investigated and concluded that the ads “could encourage false hope and were irresponsible.” The leaflet reads:

“Need Healing? God can heal today! Do you suffer from Back Pain, Arthritis, MS, Addiction … Ulcers, Depression, Allergies, Fibromyalgia, Asthma, Paralysis, Crippling Disease, Phobias, Sleeping disorders or any other sickness?

The BBC has more regarding the group’s reaction

“It seems very odd to us that the ASA wants to prevent us from stating on our website the basic Christian belief that God can heal illness.

“All over the world as part of their normal Christian life, Christians believe in, pray for and experience God’s healing; our ministry, in common with many churches, has been active in praying for God’s healing (of Christians and non Christians) for many years.”

The group said it had tried to reach a compromise, “but there are certain things that we cannot agree to – including a ban on expressing our beliefs”.

The ASA has distinguished itself as extremely strict when it comes to oversight. In fact, it‘s considered among the world’s most stringent advertising oversight agencies.

SOURCE



The British army under fire from elf'n'safety and a busybody culture making babies of us all

Once upon a time, when a man chose a career as a soldier, everybody — including himself — knew he was making a deal. In return for more excitement, travel and adventure than he would get as a bank clerk or supermarket manager, he put his life on the line.

Not any more. Last week, the head of the Army, General Sir Peter Wall, made a speech in which he deplored the growing public belief that if wars are fought right, nobody gets killed.

‘I sense there is an expectation in some circles in society that the sort of zero-risk culture that is understandably sought in many other walks of life ought to be achievable on the battlefield,’ he said.

Sir Peter’s dismay is widely shared in the armed forces, and among senior veterans. Recently, I heard General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded the SAS in the Falklands, deplore the new ethic created by coroners, human rights cases and media pressure, which he believes to be gravely damaging the Army as a fighting service.
Litigation

The plague virus of health and safety is seeping into the military, as into every aspect of British life. We are conditioning ourselves to believe that with proper management, we can eliminate risk. Yet as we slither down this sorry road, we diminish the quality of all our lives, and especially those of the young.

For the past month, I have been shooting a documentary for BBC TV, to mark the 30th anniversary of the Falklands War. Again and again during filming, small incidents and exchanges have reminded me how much the world, and especially our society, has changed its attitude to risk since 1982.

First came Mike Rose’s remarks before the camera about risk-aversion. Then we went to view construction of one of the Royal Navy’s new carriers at Rosyth.

Before entering the shipyard, as at almost every modern industrial facility, we had to watch a ten-minute health and safety video. Its message could have been conveyed in ten seconds: wear a hard hat, behave sensibly and watch out.

But the company’s lawyers obviously advise that unless every visitor views a childishly exhaustive safety briefing, the yard could be vulnerable to litigation from one of the vulture flock of compensation lawyers that now crowd the courts.

Next day, we were filming Royal Marines cliff-climbing at a quarry in Argyll. I hate heights and am getting old and clumsy. As I made my way along a slate face to shoot a sequence, I gazed uncomfortably down 80ft or so and thought: ‘If I am fool enough to slip and fall, who will get sued? The BBC or the Ministry of Defence?’ I mean, nobody made me wear a safety harness.

I was tempted to stop and write a last will and testament saying: ‘If I break my neck, I want absolutely nobody to get blamed.’ But even then, some idiotic coroner would probably decide that I could not have been of sound mind to say such a thing, so somebody should be blamed anyway.

It is madness, and most of the young realise this. We filmed a group of teenage schoolchildren from Somerset talking about their attitude to history, and to the Falklands. Several of them said, unprompted, that they regret everybody is now so desperate to avoid exposing them to danger that it is much harder for them than it was for our generation to have adventures — which every right-thinking boy or girl wants to do.

I was thinking of their remarks last week, reading accounts of the tragic deaths of the two Essex schoolchildren Olivia Bazlinton and Charlotte Thompson on a level crossing in 2005. Network Rail admits breaches of health and safety regulations, for which the company faces heavy fines.

Yet am I the only person in Britain who asks the question: ‘Why did they not stop and think before crossing the line when red lights were flashing and yodel warnings sounding?’

It is utterly understandable that their parents, distraught with grief, dismiss suggestions that the girls behaved recklessly. But it seems to me that we now expect government and public bodies to protect us all, and especially children, from even the most ill-advised personal actions.

As a teenager, I sometimes did foolish things on and around railway lines because I liked to live dangerously. But I did not doubt then, and do not doubt now, that if anything had gone wrong and I had been injured or killed, blame should have rested solely with me.

Last autumn, my wife and I were among a group visiting some wonderful castles and monasteries along the Black Sea coast. We made jokes about the fact that, in Turkey, Georgia and Ukraine, we could clamber freely on rickety medieval buildings above sheer mountain drops. In Britain, alas, they would be rigorously fenced off as a threat to public safety.

The National Trust and its staff have suffered shockingly from harassment by the Health And Safety Executive, not least in respect of trees, of which you may notice the Trust owns quite a few.

At one point, a senior NT executive was moved to demand of an H&S gauleiter: ‘Are you expecting us to fence off every tree on our properties in case a branch falls on somebody?’ And by gosh, these tyrants came close to demanding just that.

We should recognise the punitive cash costs we inflict on ourselves by demanding that life should become inexorably safer, safer, safer. The railways are statistically our least perilous means of travel. But every time a fatal accident takes place, following a hue and cry, Network Rail or the regional companies are bullied into spending millions of pounds installing new equipment to insure against any repetition.

It would never occur to us to make the same demands, following car accidents such as happen every day. Expenditures on safety are often wildly disproportionate to risk.

But the real price of health and safety madness is paid by all of us as people, morally enfeebled. If we accept no personal responsibility for our actions — and even children are perfectly capable of bearing some — we become sheep, fit only to be herded from pen to pen.

As for soldiers, to return to Sir Peter Wall’s speech last week, it is almost demented for the media, civilian coroners and judges to try to make their trade as safe as stacking supermarket shelves. Almost every man who serves in Afghanistan admits to the buzz he gains from combat — precisely because it is dangerous.

Although the Army has had to fight its recent campaigns amid a deplorable shortage of helicopters, we should ignore much of the claptrap about alleged equipment failures: our soldiers in Afghanistan are the best-equipped Army Britain has ever put into the field.

If their kit is not perfect, it is because nothing ever is. If commanders sometimes make mistakes which cost lives, and earn magisterial rebukes from ignorant coroners, this is because young men do make mistakes, and in war the price is paid in blood.

I often deplore my generation moaning about how Britain is not what it was in our younger days. We must sometimes bow to the spirit of a new century; certain things have got better.

But the spreading pollution of the blame culture, the corrosion even of the spirit of our fighting men by health and safety, seems wholly deplorable. It suggests a society in moral decline, which aspires to make babes in arms of us all.

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Aspirin 'not to blame' for stomach bleeding - that's due to a bug, say scientists

This is a rather exciting challenge to some long-accepted wisdom

Thousands of patients are unable to take daily aspirin to prevent heart attack and stroke, because of the risk of stomach bleeding. Instead, they have to be given more expensive and sometimes less effective treatments.

But, now, scientists have identified what they think is the real cause of stomach bleeding linked to aspirin — a common stomach bug. This new theory could transform the way many people with cardiovascular disease are treated.

It also opens up the possibility that otherwise healthy people, who are currently advised not to take a daily aspirin, because of the risk of bleeding, might be able to take it safely for its cancer-preventing benefits.

Low-dose daily aspirin is a lifesaver, helping to prevent blood clots in the arteries supplying the heart and brain.

It is also prescribed for problems such as atrial fibrillation, a common condition that causes an irregular heartbeat, as this can also lead to the formation of blood clots. More recently, the drug has also been linked to a lower risk of cancers.

However, it does carry the risk of abdominal pain and stomach bleeds, and for this reason many patients are advised not to take it.

This risk was thought to be due to aspirin directly irritating the stomach lining and causing an ulcer. Now researchers from Nottingham University believe that helicobacter pylori bacterium (H. pylori), a common stomach bug, may in fact be responsible for the ulcers — and that aspirin merely exacerbates them.

The scientists think treating this problem at the source by eliminating the bacteria would leave more people able to tolerate aspirin, and so reduce their risk of heart attack and stroke.

One in four people is infected with H.pylori at some point, and though many people show no symptoms, it is thought to be the principal cause of stomach ulcers: about three in 20 people infected with it develop a stomach ulcer.

Now research has also linked the bacterium to bleeding from aspirin. In a study by Nottingham University, 60 per cent of patients who suffered internal bleeding while taking low-dose aspirin tested positive for the bacterium (H.pylori is detected using a breath test).

As the researchers explained: ‘Our hypothesis is that H.pylori causes the ulcer, and aspirin, by thinning the blood, makes it bleed. 'If the bacterium is eradicated, the patient will not get an ulcer and therefore there is no increased bleeding risk with aspirin.’

Now a new trial of 40,000 UK patients will investigate this. Doctors at five universities across the UK — Oxford, Durham, Southampton, Birmingham and Nottingham — will carry out the trial, the Helicobacter Eradication Aspirin Trial, starting next month and ending in March 2016.

In the study, patients aged 60 and over who are taking low-dose aspirin will first be given the breath test for the H.pylori bacterium.

Those found to be infected will receive a one-week course of eradication drug treatment of strong antibiotics, or a placebo treatment.

Commenting on the study, Dr Jonathan Lyne, a consultant cardiologist who practises in London and at the Mater Private Hospital in Dublin, said: ‘Aspirin is a cornerstone of treatment in almost all patients with vascular disease.

‘Concern in using this drug in those with a history of stomach ulceration and bleeding has always led to consideration of not using it in these patients, or using alternative drugs that may be more expensive and potentially not as effective.

‘Furthermore, the potential cost savings in preventing hospital admissions, investigations and treatments related to ulcers and bleeding caused by aspirin and H.pylori would be welcome not just to patients but to the NHS as a whole.’

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8 February, 2012

Baby born on pavement outside hospital in -4C after maternity staff "didn't hear" mother-to be pressing the buzzer

A pregnant woman gave birth on a hospital pavement in freezing temperatures after it took nurses almost four minutes to answer the buzzer on the maternity unit door, it has been claimed.

Traumatised Lisa McNeil delivered her baby boy on the doorstep of the Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife, on one of the coldest nights of the year as she waited for help from maternity staff.

Despite repeated attempts to alert staff, she was forced to remove her underwear and give birth on all fours - on the ground in front of strangers - because midwives were unable to hear the buzzer.

The temperature was -4C in the early hours of Sunday when the 25-year-old gave birth to Jackson.

Lisa was helped by her mother, 46-year-old Karen Barnes, who used her cardigan as a safety net to stop the baby hitting his head on the concrete.

The family insist they waited six minutes before midwives arrived, and that Karen even used her fingernails to try to prise open the doors. NHS Fife blamed the delay on the wrong buzzer being pressed, which midwives were unable to hear.

Hospital bosses said the call system used by the family was for the assessment department and not the delivery suite and that staff were on the scene within two minutes once the second, correct buzzer was pressed.

Phone and video evidence shows at least three minutes and 49 seconds between the first buzzer being pressed and help arriving.

The delay came just 25 minutes after hospital staff had themselves advised the expectant mother to come in to the maternity unit.

Jackson, who weighed a healthy 8lb 14oz, was doing well last night but his mother said the experience was humiliating and horrific.

She said: 'It was like a horror movie. I was in a lot of pain and bleeding. It was surreal. They knew I was coming but no one heard us buzzing to get in or our screams for help. 'We were trying to get in for six minutes before I had no choice but to give birth there and then.

'I don’t think anyone should be put through the humiliation of having to give birth on a pavement outside a hospital in front of strangers. 'I dread to think what could have happened to Jackson if my mum hadn’t caught him in my cardigan. He could have hit his head on the pavement.

'It still hasn’t sunk in and I feel a bit dazed about it like it happened to someone else. I can’t take it in. It is quite unbelievable really.'

NHS Fife issued a statement last night in which it said the family called at two minutes to midnight and were advised to go to the maternity unit. It said: 'Midwives were with the lady within two minutes of her arrival at the door.' It added: 'NHS Fife appreciates that this will have been a difficult time for the family, however, it is not always possible to predict the speed of delivery.'

Timings show that Lisa, her mother and 22-year-old partner Ryan pushed the buzzer at 27 minutes and five seconds past midnight.

NHS Fife said in its statement this was the buzzer for 'assessment' and not for the delivery suite. The right button was pressed just over a minute later.

Midwives arrived at Lisa’s side at 30 minutes and 54 seconds past midnight, by which time Jackson had arrived.

Lisa said the situation was a 'disgrace' but she did not blame the nurses for what happened. She added: 'It is not their fault that the buzzer is in the wrong place and they can’t hear it. 'The buzzer is linked to a video intercom which is placed in the maternity ward but the nurses are busy and they didn’t hear it.

'I don’t think they should lock the maternity unit at night at all. Something needs to be done to make sure this never happens again.'

She said of the nurses: 'They were fantastic and very apologetic when they came down and saw me on all fours on the pavement.' But she added: 'I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t speak out about this. I am still in shock but I wouldn’t want this to happen to anyone else.'

Her mother called for an investigation into the issue. She said: 'This should never have been allowed to happen in a new state-of-art hospital which just opened last month. It was a nightmare I will never forget.

'My poor daughter was forced to pull down in her underwear in front of passers-by and get down on her hands and knees on a frozen pavement to give birth to her child at the door of a maternity unit. 'It is scandalous and must never, ever happen again. I kept my hand on that buzzer for six minutes and shouted and screamed and even tried to prise the door open with my fingernails but no one came.

'I don’t blame the nurses either. They are very busy and didn’t hear the buzzer but the whole system needs to be looked at and they need to make sure that it is manned round-the-clock. 'I will be calling for an investigation into this to make sure no one has to suffer and be humiliated like my daughter.'

SOURCE



Why are we so soft on dodgy doctors? There are 7,000 complaints about them in a single year - yet just ELEVEN are struck off

Doreen Williams had a chest infection — it wasn’t serious but her GP thought it best to admit the 71-year-old to hospital so that she could have stronger, intravenous antibiotics. Seven days later, Mrs Williams was dead as a result of a pulmonary embolism — a blood clot on the lungs which had developed while she was in hospital.

Her death was entirely needless, says her daughter Karen Rutland. ‘My mother was a busy retired teacher who had visited Wales and Cornwall in the two months before her death,’ she explains. ‘She had chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a long-term lung condition, but it never seriously affected her daily life. 'It just meant she had to be careful to get proper treatment for chest infections.’

Mrs Rutland, 56, has no doubt what was to blame for her mother’s untimely death. ‘She was not given the intravenous antibiotics or standard blood tests until five days after she was admitted to hospital. 'And although she was at high risk of a blood clot because of her age and her lung condition, she was never given the blood-thinning medication that would have prevented it.’

The doctor in charge also issued a ‘do not resuscitate’ order — without discussing it with the family. So, as Mrs Williams lay dying, neither the doctors nor nurses intervened to save her life.

Shocked and distressed by this betrayal of her mother, Mrs Rutland, a former management consultant from Cornwall, did what most people would do. She tried to complain. She got nowhere.

The doctor denied any responsibility for her mother’s death. And Luton and Dunstable Hospital Trust, where Mrs Williams spent her last days, refused to accept any wrongdoing.

Perhaps most frustrating, however, was the response of the General Medical Council. This is the only medical regulatory body in the UK with the power to suspend or strike off doctors in the interests of patient safety. Initially, the GMC’s senior investigating team recommended the doctor in charge of Mrs Williams’s care should face a Fitness to Practise hearing. But the hearing was cancelled — twice — because the GMC’s medical advisors said there was ‘an insufficient case to answer’.

However, the coroner who later examined the case said he found it ‘inconceivable that vital steps were not taken to follow up’ particular warning signs that something was seriously wrong. ‘There was every reason to believe that after a short stay in hospital, Mrs Williams should have been well enough to return home,’ he said.

So why didn’t the GMC take action? It is a question being asked in an increasing number of cases of alleged medical negligence. The concern is that the GMC, which is funded by the doctors it regulates, is biased in their favour and shields those it is supposed to discipline.

Furthermore, it is accused of treating whistleblowers who try to expose malpractice as pariahs.

Five years ago Sir Liam Donaldson, who was then the government’s Chief Medical Officer, described the GMC as ‘secretive, tolerant of sub-standard practice and dominated by professional interest rather than that of the patient’.

It’s a criticism that won’t go away. Last year, the Parliamentary Health Select Committee described the GMC in a highly critical report as ‘overly lenient’ to doctors — while just a few months ago, the chair of the Patients’ Association, Dr Mike Smith, accused the organisation of ‘clearly under-investigating complaints submitted by patients’.

The statistics speak for themselves. There were 7,000 complaints to the GMC last year. Only 17 per cent of those by patients were investigated — with only 11 doctors struck off as a result of these patient complaints. It is worth noting that once the GMC makes a decision, there is no right of appeal from the complainant.

Even when decisions do go against doctors, the criticism is that the disciplinary process takes far too long, allowing incompetent doctors to continue putting the public at risk.

In January 2010, Dr Jane Barton was found guilty of serious misconduct after a GMC investigation found she’d given painkillers at six times the recommended dose to 12 elderly patients, causing their death at two wards she ran at the Gosport War Memorial Hospital in Hampshire. Yet it took 12 years after the first complaints were made for the GMC to initiate the investigation.

‘If Dr Barton had been suspended by the GMC in 1998 when her actions were first questioned, then many of these patients would have been saved, including my mother,’ says Ann Reeves, 57, whose mother Elsie Devine died aged 88 of a ‘substantial overdose’ of opiates administered by Dr Barton in 1999.

Incredibly, despite finally finding Dr Barton guilty of serious misconduct, a Fitness to Practise panel — who are appointed by the GMC — still allowed her to continue working as a GP (she has since retired).

Indeed, in 2010, 39 other doctors were permitted by panels to remain on the medical register even though the GMC’s own investigators recommended they be struck off.

One of these was general surgeon Gideon Lauffer, who was found guilty of serious misconduct after a series of botched operations that caused the death of two patients and injured 18 more.

Yet a Fitness to Practise panel ignored the advice and imposed a six-month suspension allowing him to return to work ‘under supervision’. By November 2011, he was back at work.

Karen Rutland had little idea of the failings of the GMC when she decided to complain to the organisation about her mother’s death in 2006. While Doreen Williams was in hospital, her husband Ralph had become increasingly worried. Mrs Rutland recalls: ‘He told me the consultant in charge of my mother, Dr Tariq Mirza Rehman, hadn’t started her on the intravenous antibiotics.’ So, the next day, the concerned father and daughter spoke to Dr Rehman. ‘He told us in a reassuring voice how very seriously he was taking our mother’s care.’

But after her mother’s death, Mrs Rutland learned that from the moment Mrs Williams was admitted, Dr Rehman was responsible for a series of glaring omissions in her care. The full extent of neglect was revealed at an inquest in January 2011 — five years after Mrs Williams’s death.

The inquest heard that not only did Dr Rehman fail to prescribe Mrs Williams antibiotics, but he didn’t give her medication routinely prescribed to hospital patients of her age and health background to prevent the blood clot.

There were other more serious failings too. The level of oxygen in Mrs Williams’s blood dropped — a warning sign of a pulmonary embolism — and fell further on the day of her death, which should have resulted in her emergency transfer to intensive care.

At 3pm on Mrs Williams’s final day, Dr Rehman issued a ‘do not resuscitate’ order, a step that is supposed to be taken by doctors at the end of a terminally ill person’s life to stop resuscitation in the event of a cardiac arrest — thereby preventing unnecessary suffering.

Such a step was ‘entirely inappropriate and unwarranted’, according to Dr Vincent Mak, a respiratory medicine and intensive care consultant at Central Middlesex Hospital, North West London, and an independent expert witness at the inquest.

He noted Mrs Williams’s health prior to admission was ‘of reasonable quality’, adding that ‘she had recently had an echocardiogram that showed her heart was working well’.

By issuing the ‘do not resuscitate’ order, Dr Rehman breached two sets of legally binding guidelines, including failing to record the reason for taking this drastic step — which is mandatory. Nor did he consult with Mrs Williams, later insisting that she did not have mental capacity — another claim denounced as untrue by the coroner.

It is also mandatory for doctors to notify a coroner if a death is unexpected —Dr Rehman did not do this. Instead, he allowed Mrs Williams’s death certificate to carry the cause of death as septicaemia and pneumonia.

The coroner summed up his concerns as Dr Rehman stood in the witness box as: ‘You failed to pay attention and treat the patient in front of you’.

Despite these findings, the hospital trust supported Dr Rehman and denied any wrongdoing. So Mrs Rutland turned to the GMC for help.

‘We saw it as our duty to ensure no other family would suffer as we have,’ she says. Yet in 2008, the Fitness to Practise panel, a group of medical and non-medical volunteers, appointed to investigate Dr Rehman’s behaviour, was cancelled — because an independent medical expert claimed ‘none of the points in respect of medical management reflect either incompetence or malpractice’.

Astonishingly, the same thing happened a year later when a second hearing was set up following a complaint from the Rutlands.

Despite the coroner’s unusually critical verdict last January, the GMC insists its own rules prevent it from ‘reviewing a decision to cancel a hearing’.

Chief executive Niall Dickson recently defended the organisation’s record, claiming problems often lie with flawed perceptions of the GMC’s responsibilities. ‘Our job is not to punish doctors but to protect patients by taking action against a failing doctor,’ he said.

‘We look closely at every complaint to see if the doctor’s fitness to practise could be impaired but will only take a case forward if the complaint indicates serious concerns about the doctor. In the majority of cases where a doctor has made a single mistake, this is not indicative of a bad doctor, however catastrophic the consequences.’

So what exactly does a doctor have to do in order to provoke ‘serious concerns’ by the GMC? The worrying answer may be to tell the truth — there is growing concern that doctors who try to blow the whistle on unsafe practice could can end up facing disciplinary action themselves.

Two weeks ago, the GMC issued new guidance reminding doctors they have a duty to raise concerns about poor patient care. Yet it’s an empty warning for Dr Kim Holt, a consultant community paediatrician at Haringey Primary Care Trust.

In 2006, Dr Holt was suspended by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the trust that then employed her, after blowing the whistle on staff shortages and a ‘chaotic’ appointment system at the clinic where, months later, Baby P (Peter Connelly) was treated days before his death.

‘It didn’t ever get to the stage of a complaint to the GMC. But there was an attempt to discredit me, to force me out of medicine as a damage limitation exercise,’ she recalls. ‘I was lucky in that I’ve now been reinstated in my job. But I’ve met several doctors who have been reported to the GMC by their trusts after they became whistleblowers, and a handful who have even been struck off the medical register. ‘Hospitals use threats of referral and actual referral to the GMC as a means of ensuring silence from medical staff.’

Brian Jarman, professor of primary health care at Imperial College, London, agrees changes are needed. ‘There is precious little evidence the GMC supports doctors who speak out when they see failing practice. Why doesn’t the GMC have a confidential helpline for people who see problems at their hospitals? That would be a start.’

Later this year, the GMC will supervise the launch of a revalidation scheme under which doctors’ performances will be evaluated every five years.

Katherine Murphy, of The Patients’ Association, is not impressed. ‘Unfortunately the GMC’s record on managing complaints makes you wonder how revalidation will work — and whether it’s going to be friends revalidating friends,’ she says.

‘We have many experiences of good care and unsung heroes in the NHS,’ adds Mrs Rutland. ‘But there has to be a way of taking action against the bad ones — otherwise standards slipping and people dying unnecessarily becomes acceptable.’

Luton and Dunstable Hospital Trust was unable to provide a comment.

SOURCE



Killer's 'family life' plea is thrown out meaning Nepalese thug CAN be removed from Britain

Judges have quashed a notorious ruling which allowed a Nepalese killer with no wife or children to stay in the UK to protect his right to a family life. Campaigners hope the ruling in the case of Rocky Gurung will be the first step towards restoring some common sense to the country’s deportation and human rights laws.

Gurung was one of a group of thugs who killed an innocent man by throwing him into the Thames on a drunken night out. The victim, Bishal Gurung – no relation – was the son of a hero Gurkha.

The Home Secretary wanted to remove the killer from the UK once he had served his jail sentence for what the trial judge called ‘wanton and inexcusable violence’. But, in a judgment that provoked outrage, the Upper Tribunal of the asylum and immigration court ruled that deporting Gurung would breach Article 8 of Labour’s Human Rights Act – the right to a family life.

His parents live in Britain, and he successfully argued that if he were deported, his father would have to go with him to look after him, breaking up his family here.

Critics said it marked an alarming extension in the scope of Article 8, which is blocking more than one deportation every day.

Now, the three senior Appeal Court judges have overturned the tribunal’s verdict.

They said the tribunal seemed to have spent its time looking for reasons why they shouldn’t deport Gurung, now 23. A different panel will look at the case afresh. Gurung will remain here while it is considered.

Last night, the verdict was welcomed by Tory Dominic Raab, the MP who represents the victim’s family. He said: ‘This ruling highlights the shambles in our deportation system. The immigration tribunal allows far too many serious criminals to avoid deportation on inflated human rights grounds.’

The Appeal Court judgment describes Gurung, who was given indefinite leave to remain in Britain in 2005, as a ‘physically fit and intellectually sound young man who had lived in Nepal in the past’. It went on: ‘There was no objective need for his father to return with him, save perhaps briefly, if he was now deported there.’

Bishal Gurung, 23, was a waiter whose father served with the Gurkhas for 16 years. In April 2008, Bishal was chased along the Embankment in London by up to 15 men before being forced to the ground and kicked repeatedly in the head, then hurled into the Thames.

Following a trial in 2009, Rocky Gurung was convicted of manslaughter, along with an associate, and jailed for three years.

SOURCE



Will the Church of England ever find peace?

Unlikely. The dressup queens in its clergy are killing it

Arguments about women bishops will dominate public proceedings of the Synod, but gay marriage is one of the burning issues behind the scenes.

Across the country, the 477 members of the Church of England’s governing body are bundling reports, agendas and background papers into suitcases ready for next week’s four-day General Synod in London.

But while the wood-panelled walls of the circular chamber at Church House, Westminster, echo to the sound of debates on such matters as the Draft Parochial Fees and Scheduled Matters Amending Order, the real decisions will be made furtively in the tearoom during breaks and, for those lucky enough to have received their gilt-edged invitation card, at the white-tie Dinner to the Archbishops and Bishops held at Mansion House every two years.

At the heart of the most important discussions is the question of whether the Church wants to go along with the increasingly liberal mood of English society, or whether it chooses to stick with its traditions.

There is, as always, a list of contentious issues gripping the Church, but such is the speed at which its bureaucracy moves that only one of them – the decades-long argument over women bishops – is on the order paper at General Synod. Meanwhile, at the top of the “shadow” agenda, and certain to be the subject of heated argument, are same-sex partnerships – specifically, the urgent question of whether or not clergy should be allowed to host civil partnership ceremonies in church.

Thanks to an amendment attached to the Equality Act at the last minute in the House of Lords, and passed into law last December, civil partnerships can now be held in places of worship. But because of fears of lawsuits against conservative clergy, the rules require that the governing body of a religion voluntarily agrees to “opt in” to host the events.

The Church of England’s lawyers say it is under no obligation to perform civil ceremonies, using the memorable analogy that a “gentlemen’s outfitter is not required to supply women’s clothes”. Even blessing services for such unions are banned by the Church of England, although that did not stop one rector from allowing two male priests to exchange vows and rings in his church, the picturesque St Bartholomew the Great in the City of London.

But now 100 clerics in the diocese of London, among them Giles Fraser, the former Canon of St Paul’s who resigned during the Occupy London protest, have signed a letter stating that they should have the right to host civil partnerships on grounds of “individual conscience”, just as they can choose to marry divorcees in their churches.

Their letter follows remarks made by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph last week, in which he insisted that the state did not have any power to change the long-settled definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. “We’ve seen dictators do it in different contexts and I don’t want to redefine very clear social structures that have been in existence for a long time and then overnight the state believes it could go in a particular way,” he said.

Although he was immediately branded “Archbigot” by equality campaigners, despite his making clear he did not disapprove of civil partnerships, no senior clerics have spoken out publicly against him. Many are no doubt weighing up the effects on their existing congregations, and the likelihood of attracting new churchgoers, if they were to declare themselves open for gay weddings. Church of England attendance is now down to 923,700 on an average Sunday. And despite a 4 per cent rise in 2010, the number of church weddings has been in decline for years, so gay couples who have resisted civil partnerships as “second-class” could provide a welcome boost.

However powerful the voices of the 100 London rebels may be, they must know that any move to grant them rights of individual conscience would have to be considered by Synod first and would also wait on a House of Bishops review of policy on civil partnerships in general.

While that issue fizzles in the corridors and tearoom next week, the Church will once again put its arguments about women bishops centre stage. Although most in the Church now accept that women will soon be fitted for mitres, about 1,000 outright opponents have departed for Rome over the past year and more are expected to follow, and it is still by no means sure that the lengthy legislative process will proceed smoothly. The Synod will be an opportunity for substantial revisions to the plans, which could see them sent back to the 44 dioceses for further consideration rather than sent forward for the deciding vote at York this July.

Yesterday’s visit by the Prince of Wales and the Bishop of London to a bastion of traditionalism, three Anglo-Catholic churches in north London where no women are allowed to preach, may be seen by liberals as a glimpse of the vanishing world of “smells and bells”. But others may view it as supportive of an important statement made by both Archbishops in the Synod background papers – that they want the C of E to remain a broad church “in which conscientious difference of theological judgement is fully respected”.

The question of how the Church is perceived by the outside world is of crucial importance to its future, though it is likely to be ducked at Synod. There will be much back-slapping in the corridors over the recent performance of the Lords Spiritual – the 26 bishops who sit in the House of Lords. Long regarded by the Left as an embarrassing anachronism in multicultural, democratic Britain, they became the toast of liberals last week for leading a defeat of government plans to cap benefits at £26,000 a year (though that has since been overturned in the Commons).

What most bishops will be talking about is the intervention of the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, who missed the Welfare Reform Bill debate but then used a newspaper article to declare that benefits dependency encourages “fecklessness”.

A remarkable degree of unity was on show in the Church as clerics weighed in against their former leader, who faced accusations of buying into evil Tory ideology as well as being “yesterday’s man”. But few seemed to consider that Lord Carey, who previously had a column in the multi-million-selling News of the World, was expressing the views of many ordinary people, as well as government ministers.

Next week will also be the first gathering of Synod since the “debacle” – to quote Lord Carey again – at St Paul’s, another example of how the leadership of the Church, convinced of its moral superiority and used to getting its way, was unable to see how it looked to the outside world. First it welcomed the protesters, then it tried to blackmail them into leaving by closing the cathedral doors, then it sided with the Corporation of London in trying to have them evicted, then it backed down and was forced to deal with the resignation of its dean and canon chancellor.

Since then, we have been treated to a stream of articles by bishops declaring that Jesus would have camped out with the Occupy crowd and denouncing the robber barons of capitalism (who for years have funded their cathedral restoration projects). Again, of course, none of this will be discussed on the record at Synod.

All present will be wondering if the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, will be making his last appearance in the chamber. Lambeth Palace has noticeably failed to deny reports circulating since October that Dr Williams is to return early to his natural home of academia, and the choice of his successor will help determine how the Church is seen by the public as well as affecting its internal wranglings.

Dr Sentamu is the bookies’ favourite, with opinion divided over whether his strident opposition to gay marriage will dent or boost his chances. Despite his meteoric rise through the Church’s ranks, he accepts that Canterbury is a near-impossible job and he would likely be happier were he to remain in York.

After all the unwanted headlines generated by Dr Williams – such as his comments on sharia law and the democratic illegitimacy of radical Coalition policies – Church officials are now expected to put up younger bishops who rarely express their opinions on contentious issues and are not associated with either the conservative or liberal wings.

But it remains unclear if this stance will be welcomed by the people who still make their way to the pews every Sunday, whose average age is now 61 and who have long been characterised as the “Tory party at prayer”.

But, of course, none of this will be discussed in public at the General Synod next week.

SOURCE



Trial by jury: The case for the defence

We should fight hard to defend the right to a jury trial, which remains the ‘lamp that shows that freedom lives’

This week, the UK Ministry of Justice revealed plans to save £30million by restricting the right to trial by jury in ‘minor cases’. The reforms would target offences currently referred to as ‘either way’, because the defendant has the right to choose between being tried by a jury in the Crown Court or by a magistrate in the Magistrates’ Court.

The reforms have been championed by the Magistrates’ Association and the ‘victims’ champion’ Louise Casey, a one-woman quango who in March 2010 was appointed by the New Labour government to represent the interests of victims in the criminal justice system. In November 2010, Casey called for identical restrictions to trial by jury in her report, Ending the Justice Waiting Game: A Plea For Common Sense, in which she derided ‘the administration of law that concerns itself with due process and the rights of offenders’. Speaking to The Times (London) this week, she said: ‘We should not view the right to a jury trial as being so sacrosanct that its exercise should be at the cost of victims of serious crime.’

Many have pointed out that Casey is just the latest in a long line of members of the English establishment who have sought to limit trial by jury. Lord Roskill’s 1986 report on trial by jury in cases involving serious fraud advocated abolishing juries in fraud trials to make the process more ‘expeditious’, despite finding no evidence that jurors were less capable of understanding fraud than judges were. The Runciman report in 1994 recommended abolishing the right to elect trial by jury for certain offences, saying that for many crimes the view of the jury was ‘unnecessary’. Jack Straw called the right to trial by jury ‘frankly eccentric’ in his failed bid to push his doomed Criminal Justice (Mode of Trial) Bill on to the statute book in 2003.

Judges, politicians and quango-staffers may see the system of trial by jury as an ‘eccentric’ waste of time and money. But at a time when successive governments have engaged in a prolonged assault on the rights of defendants in criminal trials, standing up for the jury system - famously described by Lord Devlin in the 1950s as the ‘lamp that shows that freedom lives’ - has never been more important. Its value in rebalancing the hugely unequal relationship between the accused citizen and the powers of the state cannot be underestimated.

Juries ensure that the law is applied in a way which is consistent with the social values of the day. This is why juries have the power to acquit a defendant in the face of overwhelming evidence of their guilt. In the nineteenth century, juries in the United States used this power to acquit law-enforcement officers charged with offences under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 for harbouring escaped slaves, even when they had been directed to convict by the judge. These acquittals led the Wisconsin High Court to become the first state court to rule the Fugitive Slave Act to be unconstitutional in 1854. Later, in the 1930s, many juries acquitted those charged with producing alcohol during the days of Prohibition. These acquittals eventually forced prosecutors to stop taking Prohibition cases up in the first place.

More recently, juries have acquitted defendants accused of murder even on overwhelming evidence of their guilt, if they have taken the view that they are not deserving of punishment. For example, Kay Gilderdale was cleared of attempting to murder her 31-year-old daughter, who was suffering from chronic ME, despite clear evidence that her daughter was unconscious when she injected her with morphine. The unfettered discretion afforded to juries enables them to hold the black letter of the law up to contemporary social norms and to make a democratic decision as to whether the defendant is guilty or not.

The jury also represents one of the last areas of public life where we, as members of the public, are absolutely trusted to make important decisions for ourselves. The judge is highly restricted in what he can ask a jury about their deliberations; if he is seen to be putting undue pressure on them to convict, the verdict will be overturned. This esteem has ancient roots. The Athenian speech writer Lysias described the jury’s verdict as ‘sovereign over all the city’s affairs’ and said juries had the power to decide whether the law was ‘powerful or powerless’. In the Roman republics, the decision of the single magistrate was only appealable to the citizen courts made up of up to 1,000 citizens, the verdict of which was absolutely final.

Today, however, the idea that a defendant’s guilt should be determined democratically is being eroded. More and more criminal offences are punishable by way of a fixed-penalty notice, dished out without any need to go before the courts. Bureaucratic organisations like the Independent Safeguarding Authority can effectively punish individuals by restricting their right to work without the need for any criminal conviction. Reams of new legislation encourage defendants, through discounts on their sentence or with prohibitive restrictions on legal aid, to plead guilty as quickly as possible.

All of these measures, along with the attacks on the jury system, are part of the same anti-democratic trend that places efficiency and cost saving before the rights of defendants to a fair trial. We should resist this trend by standing up for the principle of the jury trial, as one of the last remaining guarantors of our stake in criminal justice.

SOURCE



Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer, Government warns

Another rotation of the merrygoround! Wine is both good and bad for you, apparently. No science is cited below so I have my doubts about this latest pronunciamento. Mediterranean people drink a lot of wine and they are usually held up as a good diet example. Do they have runaway rates of oral cancer? I think we would have heard of it if they do

Drinking two large glasses of wine a day triples the risk of developing mouth cancer, a government campaign will warn. Television adverts which start running on Sunday evening will say that drinking "just a little bit more" than recommended daily limits for alcohol increases the risk of serious health problems.

Government advice states that men should drink no more than four units a day and women should have no more than three. A large 250ml glass of wine is classed as three units, as is a pint of continental lager.

The adverts will say that those who regularly drink six units in a day double their chance of high blood pressure and triple the risk of developing mouth cancer.

Mouth cancer is diagnosed in more than 5,000 people a year, leading to about 1,800 deaths, while about 12 million people have high blood pressure, increasing their chances of strokes and heart attacks.

The adverts, run under the Change4Life banner, will encourage drinkers to cut down by having alcohol-free days, not drinking at home before going out, swapping to low or alcohol-free drinks and using smaller glasses.

Mouth cancer, also known as oral cancer, is uncommon, but cases have risen by 20 per cent in the past three decades. It affects twice as many men as women.

High blood pressure is far more common, with about 12 million sufferers in the UK, about 7 million of whom are diagnosed.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, said the campaign was being launched "to alert people that it is not just binge drinkers who damage their health".

David Cameron has recently indicated that he might back a minimum alcohol price in England to deter excess consumption, overruling the advice of Mr Lansley, who believes the move would have little impact.

SOURCE



Conceited young far-Leftist insults the Queen



The Queen is much-loved in Britain so you would have to be full of yourself to say such things. But Leftists ARE generally full of themselves. He also appears to be of Maltese extraction so may not like Britain generally.

"An aide to a shadow minister was yesterday forced to apologise for a ‘shameful slur’ which likened the Queen to a benefit scrounger.

Matt Zarb-Cousin, who works for shadow justice minister Andy Slaughter, provoked outrage by suggesting the Queen had been ‘scrounging benefits off the taxpayer’ for 60 years.

As the Queen marked 60 years on the throne, Mr Zarb-Cousin wrote on Twitter: ‘Congratulations this morning to Queen Elizabeth II. 60 years of scrounging benefits off the taxpayer without being caught.’

But Mr Zarb-Cousin, who is also on the left-wing Fabian society’s youth committee, was later forced to apologise after he was given a dressing down by his bosses.

Labour sources said that the aide had been given a ‘carpeting’ after Mr Slaughter became aware of his controversial remarks.

Describing his behaviour as ‘totally unacceptable’, the Shadow Justice minister said: ‘The Queen has given great service to our country and these comments are totally unacceptable.

Source

He is of course entitled to express his opinion but he also must wear any condemnation of it. As it is he appears to have suffered little in the way of consequences, other than having killed off any future political aspirations he may have had. Even a return to Malta might not help him. Malta is a member of the British Commonwealth and the Queen is generally held in high esteem there.



Academic sparks outcry for comparing Britain's colonisation of New Zealand to Holocaust

We read:

"A leading academic has sparked outrage after comparing the Holocaust that killed six million Jews to Britain's colonisation of New Zealand. Language lecturer Keri Opai claimed that New Zealand's native indigenous Maori were suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder following the 'holocaust' of British rule.

But last night the President of the New Zealand Jewish Council slammed the Maori academic for 'trivialising state sponsored genocide'.

During the New Zealand Wars of 1845-1872, which saw the Maori defended their tribal lands from British colonial forces, 20,000 Maori were killed while hundreds of thousands more were driven from their homes.

The debate on national identity was part of a special broadcast on Waitangi Day - the holiday that marks the signing of the first treaty between representatives of the British Crown and M?ori chiefs in 1840.

The document has always been disputed because the English and M?ori versions of the treaty differed significantly. The British believed it gave it sovereignty over New Zealand and gave their appointed Governor the legal power to rule the country.

But M?ori believed they ceded to the Crown a right of governance in return for protection, without giving up their authority to manage their own affairs.

Source

What is usually glided over is that it was Maori killing Maori that was the major cause of death after the British arrival. The Maori were vastly impressed by guns and gladly traded land for guns -- which they then used to kill off neighboring Maori tribes. It was in fact only British influence that eventually brought peace.





7 February, 2012

NHS useless when you really need them

Girl, 2, riddled with cancer tumours now in remission after pioneering treatment in U.S.

When Dawn and John MacGlashan had their baby twins in 2009 they were devastated to learn that while their daughter Molly was perfectly healthy, her sister Lilly had a devastating cancer.

The toddler has since spent her short existence fighting for the chance of a normal life and at one point was given just 24 hours to live.

But after being ‘written off’ by doctors in the UK when she relapsed following chemotherapy treatment, the toddler has celebrated her second birthday with her twin after undergoing pioneering treatment in America.

Lilly now has a much more promising prognosis after she was treated at the American cancer hospital that successfully treated actor Michael Douglas for throat cancer last year.

Scans have shown that where there were once ‘dozens and dozens’ of tumours in her brain, retina or spine, there is now no trace of the disease.

The toddler is now part-way through an antibody treatment designed to prevent the cancer from returning to her body and doctors have told her parents there is a 70 per cent chance she will remain free of the childhood cancer neuroblastoma.

Her mother, Dawn, 43, said: ‘At one point before we went to New York, the doctors told us Lilly was likely to die at home in the end. She was written off, but she has amazed everybody .

‘Lilly has had to fight so hard because the treatment is so bad. She is the only current documented case in the world with neuroblastoma in her retinas.'

Mrs MacGlashan and husband John, 47, estimate their daughter’s fight for life has cost around £500,000 on medical treatment and accommodation costs in New York City, where they have rented an apartment since Lilly’s treatment began in March.

The family have raised close to £300,000 after more than a year of fundraising events in their home town of Dunstable, Bedfordshire, including marathon runs, sponsored swims and charity music nights, but need all the help they can to raise the balance of the cash.

Mrs MacGlashan added: ‘It’s the most awful thing to have to fundraise, but when you have a child that’s fighting so hard it drives you on.’

Lilly was diagnosed with neuroblastoma in her stomach at just six weeks old, after an 8cm tumour grew in her stomach. Doctors said the tumour was curable and removed it...only to discover later that the cancer had spread to her brain, spinal cord and both retinas.

Lilly was given high-dose chemotherapy at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge to shrink the new tumours, but her only real hope lay in an experimental antibody drug available only at a private cancer clinic in New York.

After Lilly’s case was highlighted in the Daily Mail in January, the family raised enough cash to head across the Atlantic to begin Lilly’s treatment at the private Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center(US spelling) in Manhattan, which is trialling the antibody drug called 8H9.

After a final course of chemotherapy, followed by radiation therapy to tackle what was left of the tumours, Lilly had a series of injections of 8H9 into the brain via a catheter implanted under the scalp, which rid the brain, spine and retinas of the remaining tiny specks of cancer which were too small for chemotherapy and radiation to shift.

Lilly is now part-way through a final course of antibodies aimed at expelling any microscopic cancer cells that may be present in the rest of her body.

The MacGlashans returned home to the UK to celebrate the twins' second birthday in December, but will return to New York later this year so Lilly can complete her treatment.

Mrs MacGlashan, who gave up work as a mobile hairdresser when Lilly was diagnosed, added: ‘Molly has played such a big part in her fight. They have that bond you here about with twins – Molly cries a lot when Lilly is sick. But when Lilly is fine, Molly is too.

‘Once, when Lilly had an injection at Addenbrookes she screamed. Molly was staying in the family accommodation on site and at that very moment, she screamed too.’

The devoted mother has three older children from a previous relationship.

Mr MacGlashan, a maintenance electrician, was allowed to take a year’s unpaid leave to allow him to accompany Lilly and the rest of the family to New York.

Lilly’s consultant in New York, Dr Kim Kramer, said neuroblastoma that came back in the brain was once considered a ‘lethal type of relapse’.

But Dr Kramer, an associate attending in paediatric neuro-oncology, said Lilly was proof of the ‘great strides’ that have been made in beating the disease.

She said: ‘Ten per cent of patients who have had bad neuroblastoma run the risk of it returning in the brain. When it does, it is usually one or two tumours, not dozens and dozens as Lilly had throughout her brain, spine and retinas.

‘We have made great progress and have treated plenty of children who have beaten this and gone on to live good lives without the cancer coming back anywhere in their bodies. ‘Lilly is doing great. Her scans are wonderful and she’s as adorable and active as her sister.’

SOURCE



£15bn lawyers' bill for NHS blunders: Avalanche of no-win, no-fee claims push costs up 13%

A tremendous reminder of how great is NHS negligence. Why can't they get it right in the first place?

An avalanche of claims against doctors has left the Health Service with a £15.7billion bill. The sum – one seventh of the annual NHS budget – has had to be set aside to pay compensation over future years to tens of thousands of victims of clinical negligence.

A report by MPs reveals that much of the bill is the result of blunders that have left babies brain-damaged. Advances in medical science mean that these children live much longer, increasing their lifelong care bill.

But a substantial part of the rise is also being blamed on ‘no-win no-fee’ lawyers, who encourage patients to make negligence claims because they will not have to pay costs if they lose.

If the patients win, the NHS has to pay even more than normal because no-win no-fee lawyers charge more to defendants to cover their own bills in lost cases. Around a third of all the money paid out by the NHS in compensation goes straight into the pockets of lawyers.

The £15.7billion figure, which dates from 2009/10, is 13 per cent up on the liability bill from the previous year. Officials admit it could be an underestimate because, if more court cases than expected go against the NHS, the full cost could exceed £23billion.

The figure is contained in a report on the ‘Whole of Government Accounts’ by the public accounts committee. It also revealed the full cost of Labour’s PFI deals.

It shows that in 2009/10 – Labour’s last year in power – the NHS believed that clinical negligence claims would cost it £15.7billion over future years. This is an actuarial calculation, based on the number of claims the NHS believes there is a very good chance of it not being able to defend, the severity of the claimed errors and how much a victim would be paid out for these mistakes. The figure includes an estimate of the cost of mistakes that have not yet been claimed for.

Last year, more than 8,500 clinical negligence claims were received by the NHS – 30 per cent up on 2009/10. Around £1billion is actually paid each year to victims of blunders. In the report, the Public Accounts Committee warns: ‘Claims for clinical negligence outstanding at 31 March 2010 could cost £15.7billion, or 15 per cent of the government’s total provision for future expenses arising from events that have happened in the past.

‘The Treasury ... did not know that clinical claims recorded by the NHS Litigation Authority had increased by some 31 per cent in 2010/11 or what plans were in place to reduce liabilities for clinical negligence.’

Peter Walsh of Action Against Medical Accidents said: ‘One of the most unhelpful things that has happened in recent years is the increase in the more disreputable lawyers who get involved in no-win no-fee deals. This makes it all the more baffling that the Government wants to scrap legal aid for clinical negligence cases. This will encourage claims farmers and no-win no-fee, leaving the NHS to pick up the tabs. This bill will increase.’

Emma Boon of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: ‘It is extremely worrying that clinical negligence is costing taxpayers billions – especially as no-win no-fee solicitors and a growing compensation culture are partly responsible.’

She added: ‘Health chiefs need to learn lessons from negligence cases and urgently address this issue. The cost to taxpayers is shockingly high.’ A source at the Ministry of Justice said there were concerns that lawyers may be artificially inflating the cost of claims.

A spokesman for the Department of Health said: ‘The vast majority of the millions of people treated by the NHS every year experience good quality, safe and effective care.

‘However, if patients do not receive the treatment they should, and mistakes are made, it is right that they are entitled to compensation and the NHS Litigation Authority plays a vital role in ensuring claims are settled as swiftly as possible.

‘The Government’s ambitious proposals for reforming the civil litigation system will support the NHS in dealing with costly litigation cases. ‘We want to strike the right balance between access to compensation claims and ensuring costs are proportionate, sustainable and affordable.’

SOURCE



Store security guard is fired for chasing a thief who swiped 20 DVDs... because of crazy British 'elf and safety obsession

When security guard Charles Oloro spotted a shoplifter slipping out of his store with an armful of DVDs, he knew exactly what to do. He gave chase through the shopping centre before catching him and marching him back to the store.

But instead of being congratulated by his bosses, the 42-year-old HMV worker was sacked for apprehending a suspect outside the shop premises.

HMV policy is for security guards to avoid all confrontations with suspects that have the potential to escalate into something more serious. That includes trying to catch thieves once they have carried their stolen goods through the exit doors.

A spokesman for the chain said the rules were introduced in 2007 after a member of staff was stabbed to death in Norwich after apprehending a thief.

Mr Oloro, who has worked for HMV for 14 years, caught the thief in the St Nicholas Centre, Sutton, South London, on New Year’s Eve. He had been watching him acting suspiciously around a display of DVDs. The man had picked up about 20 films before making his way towards the exit.

Once he was close to the doors, he darted out pursued by a quick-thinking Mr Oloro – who caught him 30ft away.

The security guard then frogmarched him back to the shop where he called police. But despite recovering the stolen goods, his actions saw him hauled in front of his bosses, and led to him losing his job.

Mr Oloro, who has two mortgages to pay, said he was just trying to help the shop and save them from losing money. He said: ‘Twenty DVDs is £200 for the shop and that was too much to lose. ‘In a time of recession, I just wanted to save the shop money, and this is how they repay me.’ He said he even went to his manager after the incident to apologise for leaving the shop.

HMV later issued a statement defending their actions.

A spokesman said: ‘While I am not in a position to give specific details of why Mr Oloro has been dismissed... not least because he still has a right of appeal, which we would not wish to prejudice, I can confirm he was asked to leave for an accumulation of reasons.’

But HMV customer Kieran Spears, defended Mr Oloro’s actions. ‘Charlie is a hero,’ he said. ‘He has been there as long as I remember, he’s such a nice guy and everyone knows him. ‘What is the point in having security guards if they cannot tackle thieves?

SOURCE



Let people wear the cross with pride: Bishops join motion to defend Christianity against human rights zealots

Three bishops will call for the Church of England's national assembly to stand up for the right of Christians to wear a cross. They are among more than a hundred members of the Synod to sign a motion condemning the 'silencing' of outward displays of Christianity.

Supporters say the Church should defend Christians against the 'overzealous' interpretation of human rights and equality legislation by judges, politicians and employers.

The motion also calls for the Church to make a landmark statement that wearing a cross is an integral part of the Christian faith. It cites 'ludicrous' cases of Christian practices and symbols being forbidden.

The motion also adds that attempts to scrap prayers at council meetings and to ban employees from wearing the cross could ultimately lead to religion being confined to the home.

The Bishop of Peterborough, the Rt Rev Donald Allister, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'It is to say, OK, if you say wearing a cross isn’t a compulsory part of Christianity, we agree. 'But it is a duty of a Christian to be public about their faith as well as private, and that is clear New Testament teaching.'

The intervention by clergy and lay members of the General Synod comes as four Christians who believe they have suffered discrimination for their beliefs fight a landmark legal battle in the European Court of Human Rights.

The motion highlights the case of Gary McFarlane, a marriage counsellor who was fired for refusing to give sex therapy to homosexual couples.

Mr McFarlane is one of four Christians taking legal action at a landmark European Court of Human Rights hearing because they believe British laws have failed to protect their human rights to wear religious symbols or opt out of gay rights legislation.

Mr McFarlane, from Bristol, was sacked by marriage guidance service Relate in 2008 after he said he could not do anything to promote gay sex.

The former church elder has again appealed on the grounds of religious discrimination that Relate had refused to accommodate his religious beliefs.

He lost his appeal for unfair dismissal at Bristol Crown Court in April 2010 and accused senior judges of being biased against Christianity.

The other cases in the action are of Shirley Chaplin, a Devon nurse banned from working on the wards after she failed to hide a cross she had worn since the age of 16, Nadia Eweida, a check-in clerk for British Airways who was told to remove her small crucifix at work and registrar Lilian Ladele, who was disciplined by Islington council in North London after refusing to officiate at civil partnership ceremonies.

The Rev Stephen Trott, a rector in Boughton, Northampton, who drew up the motion, said: 'There are four cases being appealed currently to the ECHR and that’s an example of the sort of court action where we would be able to say that the established Church, which is part of the law of the land, takes the view that it’s not only a right, it’s a duty of Christians to manifest their faith in public.'

In December, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, appealed to Prime Minister David Cameron on their behalf.

But the Government told the European Court of Human Rights that it backed the British judges and does not accept that the Christians have suffered discrimination. To the dismay of Lord Carey, the Government even said that wearing a cross or a crucifix was not a 'generally recognised' Christian practice – even though Church leaders say it is a hugely significant symbol.

Lord Carey said: ‘I am very disappointed for the individuals concerned who have simply followed their conscience. 'Such is the result of a liberal establishment that has become deeply illiberal.'

SOURCE



No chance of the Church of England connecting with British youth

As if the Guardian were not already preachy enough, it has signed up an actual preacher to write its leaders and op-eds. The Rev Dr Giles Fraser resigned as a canon of St Paul’s in sympathy with people camped on its doorstep for whom I think the kindest word is “troubled”. His departure puzzled his colleagues, who had detected beneath his right-on sound bites a Trollopian eagerness for preferment. They were wrong. Giles is now a professional hack, and he has used his first big article to suggest that the Occupy movement may “revitalise traditional Christianity”.

Of all the delusions nurtured by Left-wing Christians, perhaps the loopiest is that anyone under the age of 40 gives a monkey’s about their opinions. Let me spell this out for ex-Canon Fraser (who, like his former boss Richard Chartres, is jolly keen on his “Doctor” title, though unlike the bishop he at least has a proper doctorate).

Chartres could don mitre and nose-peg and ordain the Occupy protesters as priests of the Church of England and it still wouldn’t revitalise Christianity. England’s few remaining churchgoers have lost any sympathy they had with the smelly fanatics, who yesterday locked boy scouts out of their London headquarters so they could squat in it.

But the crucial point is that the sharpest young opinion-formers are atheists. This is a development that seems to have been missed by the old boobies who pass for bishops in the Anglican and Catholic Churches. It’s a rapid and startling change in our religious landscape and not one that is going to be reversed.

The average bright 25-year-old Briton isn’t looking for supernatural solutions to existential problems. Senior churchmen speak of the “spiritual hunger” of the young. That’s wishful thinking. The next generation don’t believe in God. Few of them frame their arguments as rabidly as Richard Dawkins; they don’t all use the word “atheist” – “humanist” is cooler – but that’s what they are. If they worship anything, it’s “human rights” or, in the case of Johann Hari, Laurie Penny and Owen Jones, themselves.

Their attitude towards Christians ranges from indifference to hatred. This is partly thanks to the paedophile scandal in the Catholic Church. We can argue about the extent to which this has been misreported, but not about the fact that crimes against children were covered up by bishops (and not just conservative ones, either). These crimes were seized upon by academics, writers and opportunistic publishers to create an indestructible caricature of institutional Christianity.

One reason that caricature isn’t challenged is that this is the first generation of young people whose parents didn’t go to church themselves. Their religious education consists of nativity plays, visits to Sikh temples and lectures about energy-saving light bulbs.

But that doesn’t make the new atheists stupid, despite their intergalactic levels of conceit. The brightest of them are far, far cleverer than the bishops, who (if you ignore the puzzling anomaly of Rowan Williams) are men of middling intellect – and that’s being polite, in the case of the Catholic hierarchy. All that drivel about “religion in the public square” makes me want to convert to a more rigorous creed, such as a Prince Philip-worshipping cargo cult. I was going to suggest that, for all the good they do, the bishops might as well join Giles Fraser and write Guardian leaders for a living. But, frankly, they’re not up to it.

SOURCE



Britain’s Wind Lunacy

THE big freeze has not just caused major disruption across the country. It has also exposed the hollowness of fashionable green rhetoric about global warming.

For years, environmental zealots have indulged in alarmist talk about relentlessly soaring temperatures caused by mankind’s destructive irresponsibility. Typical of this scaremongering was the claim made in 2000 by Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the university of East Anglia, that “children just aren’t going to know what snow is”.

How foolish those words now look more than a decade later as Britain is gripped by Arctic weather. Indeed, contrary to the green lobby’s shrill declaration that “the science is settled” on the reality of man- made global warming, there is now a wealth of evidence that earth is not heating up at all.

One recent study by the Met office, based on readings from 30,000 measuring stations, indicates that there has been no significant increase in temperatures over the past 15 years.

But nothing will halt the environmental fanatics who are driven by dogma rather than the search for the truth. That is why they are so keen on manipulating data, bullying their opponents and spreading lurid propaganda.

Our ruling political class has swallowed the green agenda because it gives them an excuse to grab more power while posing self-righteously as the saviours of the planet. In the name of protecting future generations they can pursue their favourite activities of imposing regulations, dishing out subsidies and raising taxes.

Always keen to expand the role of the state labour enthusiastically adopted this approach, especially when Ed Miliband was Climate Change secretary in Gordon Brown’s government until 2010.

But the coalition has been just as bad. Miliband’s successor, the liberal Democrat Chris Huhne, was an aggressive evangelist for green policies no matter what the burden to the public. since his resignation on Friday, Huhne’s place has been taken by fellow liberal Democrat Ed Davey.

Though he has been hailed as a more pragmatic figure than Huhne it is likely that Davey will pursue the same line. “I am determined to follow on Chris’s priorities,” he proclaimed on taking office.

Many Conservatives, however, are rightly disturbed at the Government’s continuing infatuation with expensive environmentalism. And their concern has focused on the ministerial obsession with wind farms, the most controversial, high-profile aspect of the fashionable green agenda.

OVER the weekend no fewer than 101 Tory MPs, along with a few politicians from other parties, wrote a letter to David Cameron urging that he cut the lavish, counter-productive subsidies given to wind power.

The rebellious Tories are right to challenge the coalition. The onward march of wind farms has been a disaster for the country, imposing savage increases on household electricity bills while doing nothing to enhance our energy supplies. Wind turbines are monuments of political folly, a triumph of dogma over common sense. Chris Huhne, with the characteristic fervour of a green extremist, called these massive structures “elegant and beautiful” but the truth is that they are unsightly monstrosities.

Paradoxically, for all the cheer-leading of the green lobby, they do terrible damage to the environment. They despoil the landscape, create noise pollution and are a men- ace to wildlife. It is estimated that 400,000 birds are killed every year in America by their revolving blades.

Moreover, wind farms are both costly and inefficient, which is why they have to be so heavily subsidised. The Government pours £522million every year into support for wind power, for which we all have to pay through increased electricity charges. Green politics operates like robin Hood in reverse, taking from the hard- pressed citizens through electricity bills and giving to rich landowners through handouts.

The outlay for this madness is likely to soar in the coming years as the coalition expands the role of wind power. There are already 3,500 turbines in Britain but the Government wants another 10,000 onshore and 4,300 offshore by 2020, a programme that will ultimately cost £140billion, the equivalent of £5,600 for every household. Within eight years wind subsidies will account for about a fifth of our electricity bills.

BUT the rush to wind makes little difference to energy generation. Despite all the profligate funding, wind turbines currently supply a pitiful 2.7 per cent of our electricity. Even if 10 per cent of the entire country was covered in wind farms they could still only provide a sixth of our needs. That is because turbines are so hopelessly unre- liable. on still days they produce nothing yet if the wind gusts at more than 56mph they have to be shut down because they become unstable
.
In 2010, onshore turbines operated on average at just 21 per cent of capacity, making a mockery of the greens’ claim that wind can ever be an effective source of power.

While we cripple ourselves in an expensive display of ideological superiority, nations such as China, India and Brazil are forging ahead. It does not have to be like this. We are a uniquely energy rich country with plentiful supplies of oil, gas and coal, as well as nuclear expertise.

We should be exploiting our resources to become richer, not submitting to green lunacy to make ourselves poorer.

SOURCE



5,000 underperforming head teachers are blighting England's primary schools, warns inspector

More than 5,000 head teachers are failing to do their jobs properly, the chief inspector of schools declared today.

Sir Michael Wilshaw warned that poor leadership was blighting about a quarter of England’s 21,000 primary and secondary schools.

Weak heads were failing to get a grip on substandard teaching and simply ‘trotting out excuses’ such as poverty and deprivation for low exam grades, he said.

The explosive claim - certain to aggravate many heads and teachers - came as Sir Michael prepares to unveil a tough new inspection regime later this week. Schools will be given no notice of inspections and ‘coasting’ schools face intense monitoring.

The ‘satisfactory’ grading used by Ofsted for years will be scrapped because it ‘falsely denotes acceptable provision’. Instead these schools will be judged to ‘require improvement’.

Figures from Ofsted reveal that 23 per cent of heads missed out on a ‘good’ rating at their last inspection. A further one per cent were found to be failing.

At the same time, heads have benefited from pay rises with around 700 now on six-figure salaries.

‘Everything flows from leadership - that just has to be said,’ said Sir Michael, himself a former head, latterly at Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, London.

‘We are not going to improve the quality of teaching unless there is a) strong leadership and b) really strong performance management of staff.’

He added: ‘If we are going to improve standards in this country, we have got to create leadership that does not offer excuses for poor performance. ‘That is too often the case, I am absolutely clear about that.

‘A whole range of issues are trotted out - it is ethnicity or it is poverty or it is background or it is years of poor performance in a particular city or region. ‘We have heard them all before. We won’t move forward if we don’t have a no-excuses culture. ‘We haven’t got it at the moment, we must develop it.’

Sir Michael said parents were too willing to believe a school was good simply because their child liked it.

‘A lot of parents will say, “Well my child is happy here”. We need to say, “Well yes, they may be happy and relationships might be good but actually they should be achieving a lot more,” he said, in an interview with the Sunday Times.

Other reforms championed by Sir Michael - due to be set out in a consultation document on Thursday - include stripping inspection reports of jargon and ‘Ofsted-speak’. Instead comments will be ‘blunt and straightforward’.

Ofsted has already launched a Parent View website which allows parents to rate their children’s schools.

Sir Michael also plans to target 3,000 so-called ‘coasting’ schools - including 300,000 in affluent areas - that have been graded satisfactory in two consecutive inspections.

On their third inspection, they face being put in special measures unless their rating improves to ‘good’.

He also floated the idea of checking how many A*, A and B grades pupils at these schools are achieving instead of merely focusing on C-grades.

Sir Michael added that heads played a crucial role in fostering good teaching. Poor leadership was responsible for the ‘national disaster’ of thousands of teachers leaving the profession soon after qualifying, he warned. These new teachers were left floundering without the support they needed, especially when it came to enforcing good behaviour in class.

Sir Michael warned last week that thousands of teachers have been awarded £5,000-a-year performance-related pay rises that cannot be justified. Some heads and governors of ‘indiscriminately’ promoting teachers to a higher pay scale, he said.

In fact, up to 40 per cent of teaching was not good enough - a figure that was ‘very high’, he claimed.

SOURCE



Cancer 'slowed by cooked tomatoes' (?)

This is a very preliminary finding from a study in laboratory glassware only

A nutrient in cooked tomatoes has been shown in laboratory studies to slow the growth of - and even kill - prostate cancer cells, scientists said today.

Dr Mridula Chopra and colleagues at the University of Portsmouth tested the effect of the nutrient lycopene on the simple mechanism through which cancer cells hijack a body's healthy blood supply to grow and spread. They found that lycopene, which is what gives tomatoes their red colour, intercepts cancer's ability to make the connections it needs to attach to a healthy blood supply.

The researchers, from the university's School of Pharmacy and Biomedical Sciences, are now calling for tests to check if the same reaction occurs in the human body.

Director of the research Dr Chopra said: "This simple chemical reaction was shown to occur at lycopene concentrations that can easily be achieved by eating processed tomatoes."

Lycopene is present in all red fruits and vegetables, but its concentrations are highest in tomatoes and it becomes more readily available and biologically active when it comes from processed tomatoes with a small amount of cooking oil added.

Dr Chopra said: "I stress that our tests were done in test tubes in a laboratory and more testing needs to be carried out to confirm our findings, but the laboratory evidence we have found is clear - it is possible to intercept the simple mechanism some cancer cells use to grow at concentrations that can be achieved by eating sufficient cooked tomatoes."

The research, which is published in the British Journal of Nutrition, was part-funded by Heinz after the food manufacturer asked for more research to follow up earlier studies by the same researchers which showed a significant increase in lycopene levels in blood and semen samples after subjects ate 400g (14oz) of processed tomatoes for two weeks.

Dr Chopra and her colleagues Simone Elgass and Alan Cooper said they had a firm agreement they would publish their results irrespective of the outcome.

Cancer cells can remain dormant for years until their growth is triggered through the secretion of chemicals which initiate the process of linking cancer cells with endothelial cells which act as healthy gatekeeper cells lining blood vessels. This allows the cancer cells to reach out and attach to the blood supply.

In the laboratory experiments, lycopene was shown to disrupt this linking process, without which cancer cells cannot grow.

The researchers explained that all cancer cells use a similar mechanism (angiogenesis) to "feed" upon a healthy blood supply.

They said there was added importance of this mechanism for prostate cancer because lycopene tends to accumulate in prostate tissues.

Dr Chopra said: "The important thing is for sufficient lycopene to reach where it can matter. We know that in case of prostate tissues it gets there. "We have tested this in the labs but we don't yet know if the same action will happen in the body.

"Individuals will vary in how much lycopene their bodies make available to fight cancer cell growth and the ability of lycopene to 'intercept' in this way in the body is likely to vary between tomato products - both processing and cooking with fat have previously been shown to make lycopene more effective biologically.

"The type of tomatoes which offer the most effective lycopene also differs and more tests need to be done to find the best breed of tomato for this purpose."

It was suggested in their previous research that smokers might have to consume more tomatoes than non-smokers to achieve the benefits of lycopene due to the presence of high oxidative stress in smokers.

Eleanor Barrie, senior science information officer at Cancer Research UK, said: "Some existing cancer drugs target the formation of new blood vessels, but more research is needed to show how they could be used to help cancer patients.

"This small study doesn't directly tell us if lycopene has any effect against cancer, but research like this can help us to understand more about how the chemical affects blood vessel formation."

SOURCE





6 February, 2012

NHS spends £23m a year on translators: Costs rise as hospitals cater for 120 languages

Most of these people would have relatives who could translate for them

The NHS spends £64,000 a day on translation services, a report reveals today. The cost to the taxpayer has risen by 17 per cent since 2007, with more than £23million spent last year.

Experts said huge sums could be saved if hospitals and GP surgeries pooled resources – and warned that translating information for those who do not speak English could encourage segregation.

Following freedom of information requests to every NHS trust, the report states that the Health Service spent £23.3million on written translation and interpreters last year.

Some trusts translated material into 120 languages.

Julia Manning, of 2020Health, the think-tank that conducted the research, said: ‘The costs involved are truly staggering in an age of austerity, and incredible when taken in the context of efficiency savings of £20billion across the Health Service.

‘Urgent action must be taken by trusts to stem the flow of translation costs, and our report sets out a number of recommendations that would do exactly that without altering the level of care given.’

These include establishing a central library of information that has already been translated, which could be used by trusts across the country.

The report also highlights trusts which do not provide any translation services, and instead produce documents in ‘easy to read’ English suitable for patients learning the language.

A spokesman for Calderdale Primary Care Trust in Halifax said it did not ‘routinely translate anything’, adding: ‘Research among patient groups told us that they actually prefer the easy-read version, rather than a translated brochure.’

Miss Manning continued: ‘It wouldn’t take much effort to drastically cut the £23million of taxpayers’ money that is spent each year on bureaucratic and often duplicated translation .?.?. and free the money up for treating patients.’

The report reveals that trusts across Birmingham spent £4.9million on translation and interpreters last year.

Other big spenders include Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which spent £3.7million; Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, which spent £2.4million; and London-based Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, which spent £2million.

Emma Boon, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘Taxpayers will be shocked that so much is being spent on translation and interpretation in the NHS.

They expect their money to be going towards treatment for sick people, not on language services.

‘There will always be a need for some interpretation – for example, if people visiting the UK get sick and need emergency treatment.

‘But those who live in Britain should make an effort to learn to speak English so that they are not burdening services like the NHS with ongoing costs for translation.’

The report also examines the effects of using translators on society.

It questions whether catering to those who do not speak the language is helpful, or instead ostracises them from the English-speaking majority.

Many public bodies provide translations, but their legal obligation is far from clear.

The Human Rights Act only requires translations if someone is arrested or charged with a criminal offence – but the Race Relations Act says that all parts of the community should have access to services.

It emerged last year that the Ministry of Justice spent more than £100million in six years on translation. The Ministry is now cutting its budget by £2billion.

By the next general election, it plans to have closed almost 150 courts.

In August, it was reported that the police had spent £82million on translators in three years.

SOURCE



100 British Conservatives revolt over wind farms

David Cameron has been hit by a major protest by Conservative MPs over the Government’s backing for wind farms, The Sunday Telegraph can disclose.

A total of 101 Tory MPs have written to the Prime Minister demanding that the £400 million-a-year subsidies paid to the “inefficient” onshore wind turbine industry are “dramatically cut”.

The backbenchers, joined by some MPs from other parties, have also called on Mr Cameron to tighten up planning laws so local people have a better chance of stopping new farms being developed and protecting the countryside.

The demands will be a headache for Ed Davey, the Liberal Democrat Energy Secretary, who joined the Cabinet on Friday when Chris Huhne resigned after being charged with perverting the course of justice.

Mr Huhne, who denies claims that he asked his ex-wife, Vicky Pryce, to accept speeding penalty points on his behalf, was an enthusiastic proponent of wind farms. There are currently more than 3,000 onshore wind turbines in Britain.

At least 4,500 more turbines are expected to go up as the Government’s drive to meet legally binding targets for cutting carbon emissions sparks a green energy boom.

Critics say wind farms are inefficient because the wind cannot be guaranteed to blow at times of greatest energy demand. They are also said to be unsightly, blighting the landscape.

Wind farms are also accused of forcing up energy bills while swallowing disproportionate amounts of taxpayer-funded subsidies.

The Tory MPs, including several of the party’s rising stars as well as former ministers, say it is wrong that hard-pressed consumers must pay for the expansion of onshore wind power.

In the letter sent to No 10 Downing Street last week, which has been seen by The Sunday Telegraph, the MPs say they have become “more and more concerned” about government “support for onshore wind energy production”.

“In these financially straitened times, we think it is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production that typifies onshore wind turbines,” they say. The MPs want the savings spread between other “reliable” forms of renewable energy production.

They have also called on Mr Cameron to change the proposed National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) so that it gives local people who object to proposed wind farms a better chance of victory in the planning process. The framework has finished a public consultation process and is awaiting the green light from ministers.

The letter reads: “We also are worried that the new National Planning Policy Framework, in its current form, diminishes the chances of local people defeating onshore wind farm proposals through the planning system.”

The number of Tory signatories to the letter, organised by Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservative backbencher, means that the controversy could be the biggest protest to hit Mr Cameron since the Coalition was formed. Last October, 81 Tory MPs defied him in a Commons vote on holding a referendum over Britain’s future in the European Union.

The letter’s backers claim that while other Conservatives who are ministers and parliamentary private secretaries are unable to sign because they are part of the government “payroll”, they too privately support the move against wind farms.

It is understood that there is also support from the Treasury. Among the signatories are former Conservative ministers including David Davis and Christopher Chope, as well as party grandees such as Bernard Jenkin and Nicholas Soames. They are joined by several rising stars including Matthew Hancock, Nadhim Zahawi and Steven Barclay.

Mr Hancock, who is close to the Chancellor, George Osborne, said last night: “I support renewable energy but we need to do it in a way that gives the most value for money and that does not destroy our natural environment.”

Another Tory MP who signed the letter, Tracey Crouch, said: “It is tragic that we blight our countryside with hideous electricity pylons and now we intend not only to do the same with onshore wind farms but also to subsidise them.

“I’d much rather see better planning regulations and greater investment in other sources of renewable energy, which will protect the beauty of our countryside for future generations.”

Latest figures from Ofgem, the energy regulator, showed that £1.1 billion in taxpayer subsidies was paid to the producers of renewable energy in 2009-10.

Of this, about £522 million was for wind power, with most going to onshore wind farms. Much of this cash ended up in the hands of energy companies and investment funds which are based abroad.

The highest-profile critic of the onshore wind industry is the Duke of Edinburgh. Last year it emerged that the Duke claimed farms were a “disgrace” and they would “never work”.

Mr Huhne, by contrast, has described turbines as “elegant” and “beautiful”. His successor, Mr Davey, is thought to be bringing a more pragmatic approach to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.

Mr Davey says he is committed to promoting a “green economy” but has also stated that he is “conscious” of the impact on households of high energy bills in tough economic times.

A Downing Street spokesman said: “We need a low carbon infrastructure and onshore wind is a cost effective and valuable part of the diverse energy mix.

“The Government has commissioned a review of subsidy levels and we are proposing a cut for onshore wind subsidies to take into account the fact that costs are coming down.

“We are committed to giving local communities the power to shape the spaces in which they live and are getting rid of regional targets introduced by the last government.”

SOURCE



Britain's professor of crap

David Cameron and Michael Gove were yesterday said to be against the idea of Lib Dem-backed Professor Les Ebdon becoming university access supremo. Looking at some of the Mickey Mouse courses offered by his college, it is not hard to see why.

Chum Ebdon is vice-chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire (formerly Luton College of Higher Education). Some of its degrees are less than scholastic in flavour.

Take its two-year course in carnival arts, offering undergraduates the chance to ‘learn how to design and make carnival costumes and decorations’. Is this higher education or an extension of Blue Peter? By carnival, the university means Notting Hill rather than the Carnevale di Venezia.

If steel drumming and feather-bikini stitching (and, presumably, riot control) are not to your taste, Prof Ebdon offers degrees in beauty spa management. Work experience ‘is gained from working in the college’s own salon’. It brings new resonance to the term ‘foundation’ course.

There is a course in ‘breastfeeding counselling’, a degree in football studies and a post-grad course in sport tourism management. That one promises ‘academic theory in tourism, leisure and events’. Ah, events, dear boy, events. But they probably mean it in the egg-and-spoon-race sense.

The University of Ebdon also offers a course in travel agency. It encourages people already working in the travel business to come along for a couple of years to ‘fine-tune those personal qualities that will make you an excellent candidate for travel management positions’. Is it really the duty of public money to get travel agents promoted?

Prof Ebdon, a leading critic of university fees, thinks so. Those of you whose taxes help fund the University of Bedfordshire and his salary (some £246,000 at last count) may disagree. His proposed berth at the Office for Fair Access pays £45,000 for just two days a week.

How can Lib Dems even think of allowing such a goon to dictate principles to our best universities?

SOURCE



Numeracy Campaign: British teenagers among worst for dropping maths

British schoolchildren are less likely to study maths to a high standard than in most other developed countries because of failings in the way the subject is delivered, a leading academic has warned.

Prof Stephen Sparks said that few pupils took maths beyond the age of 16 after being “put off” by test-driven lessons in primary and secondary school.

He said classes often focused on the dry “procedures” behind sums to make sure children pass exams instead of passing on a well-rounded understanding of the subject.

Only one in eight teenagers studies maths in the sixth-form, leaving Britain trailing behind many other developed nations. Between 50 and 100 per cent of teenagers in other countries, including the Czech Republic, Estonia, Fin-

land, Japan and Korea, study maths to a decent level, the figures show. Prof Sparks, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Mathematics Education (ACME), which represents academics and teachers, said the number of pupils failing to take A-level maths “puts us at a real anomaly internationally and likely affects our economic competitiveness”.

The comments came as The Daily Telegraph started a campaign, Make Britain Count, to highlight the scale of the mathematical crisis and provide parents with tools to boost their children’s numeracy.

The Nuffield Foundation compared the number of pupils studying advanced maths in 24 industrialised countries. Around 13 per cent of students took

A-levels in the subject in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, numbers reached around a quarter. In almost every other nation, more than half of pupils took advanced maths courses, while in eight countries, including South Korea, Russia, Sweden and Taiwan, maths was compulsory until the age of 18.

Prof Sparks called for the majority of pupils to study maths up to the age of 18, and said that some teenagers should take tailored courses “between a GCSE and A-level”. “The reason some people are being put off maths is related to that issue of teaching to the test,” he said. “Schools are given a big incentive to make sure pupils pass tests, which doesn’t necessarily mean that they get the well-rounded understanding that a good education requires.”

SOURCE



Vitamin D could help combat the effects of aging in eyes

If you are a mouse. Since mice have short lives and we have long ones, studying aging in mice and hoping it will generalize to humans is considerable optimism

Researchers funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) have found that vitamin D reduces the effects of ageing in mouse eyes and improves the vision of older mice significantly. The researchers hope that this might mean that vitamin D supplements could provide a simple and effective way to combat age-related eye diseases, such as macular degeneration (AMD), in people.

The research was carried out by a team from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and is published in the current issue of the journal Neurobiology of Ageing.

Professor Glen Jeffery, who led the work, explains "In the back of the eyes of mammals, like mice and humans, is a layer of tissue called the retina. Cells in the retina detect light as it comes into the eyes and then send messages to the brain, which is how we see. This is a demanding job, and the retina actually requires proportionally more energy than any other tissue in the body, so it has to have a good supply of blood. However, with ageing the high energy demand produces debris and there is progressive inflammation even in normal animals. In humans this can result in a decline of up to 30% in the numbers of light receptive cells in the eye by the time we are 70 and so lead to poorer vision."

The researchers found that when old mice were given vitamin D for just six weeks, inflammation was reduced, the debris partially removed, and tests showed that their vision was improved.

The researchers identified two changes taking place in the eyes of the mice that they think accounted for this improvement. Firstly, the number of potentially damaging cells, called macrophages, were reduced considerably in the eyes of the mice given vitamin D. Macrophages are an important component of our immune systems where they work to fight off infections. However in combating threats to the aged body they can sometimes bring about damage and inflammation. Giving mice vitamin D not only led to reduced numbers of macrophages in the eye, but also triggered the remaining macrophages to change to a different configuration. Rather than damaging the eye the researchers think that in their new configuration macrophages actively worked to reduce inflammation and clear up debris.

The second change the researchers saw in the eyes of mice given vitamin D was a reduction in deposits of a toxic molecule called amyloid beta that accumulates with age. Inflammation and the accumulation of amyloid beta are known to contribute, in humans, to an increased risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the largest cause of blindness in people over 50 in the developed world. The researchers think that, based on their findings in mice, giving vitamin D supplements to people who are at risk of AMD might be a simple way of helping to prevent the disease.

Professor Jeffery said "When we gave older mice the vitamin D we found that deposits of amyloid beta were reduced in their eyes and the mice showed an associated improvement of vision. People might have heard of amyloid beta as being linked to Alzheimer's disease and new evidence suggests that vitamin D could have a role in reducing its build up in the brain. So, when we saw this effect in the eyes as well, we immediately wondered where else these deposits might be being reduced."

Professor Jeffery and his team then went on to study some of the blood vessels of their mice. They found that the mice that had been given the vitamin D supplement also had significantly less amyloid beta built up in their blood vessels, including in the aorta.

Professor Jeffery continues "Finding that amyloid deposits were reduced in the blood vessels of mice that had been given vitamin D supplements suggests that vitamin D could be useful in helping to prevent a range of age-related health problems, from deteriorating vision to heart disease."

Professor Jeffery thinks that this link between vitamin D and a range of age-related diseases might be linked to our evolutionary history. For much of human history our ancestors lived in Africa, probably without clothes, and so were exposed to strong sunlight all year round. This would have triggered vitamin D production in the skin. Humans have only moved to less sunny parts of the world and adopted clothing relatively recently and so might not be well adapted to reduced exposure to the sun. Secondly, life expectancy in the developed world has increased greatly over the past few centuries, so reduced exposure to vitamin D is now coupled with exceptionally long lifespan.

Professor Jeffery said "Researchers need to run full clinical trials in humans before we can say confidently that older people should start taking vitamin D supplements, but there is growing evidence that many of us in the Western world are deficient in vitamin D and this could be having significant health implications."

Professor Douglas Kell, BBSRC Chief Executive said "Many people are living to an unprecedented old age in the developed world. All too often though, a long life does not mean a healthy one and the lives of many older people are blighted by ill health as parts of their bodies start to malfunction.

"If we are to have any hope of ensuring that more people can enjoy a healthy, productive retirement then we must learn more about the changes that take place as animals age. This research shows how close study of one part of the body can lead scientists to discover new knowledge that is more widely applicable. By studying the fundamental biology of one organ scientists can begin to draw links between a number of diseases in the hope of developing preventive strategies."

SOURCE



Damning British report finds £2 billion free nursery scheme 'has failed'

Theory trumps facts again. The American equivalent -- Head Start -- has been failing for 40 years

Labour's multi-billion pound investment in free nursery education has failed to raise school standards, a damning auditors’ report revealed yesterday. Free sessions for all three and four-year-olds - costing up to £1.9 billion-a-year - have failed to translate into improved exam results at age seven.

The scheme was specifically intended to boost children’s development throughout primary and secondary school. But a report by the National Audit Office found ‘it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits’.

The authors found that the quality of nurseries was patchy across the country, partly due to poor qualifications among some staff.

Providers were allowed to go an average of 47 months between official inspections, denying parents current information about nursery standards.

Labour introduced free nursery places for four-year-olds in 1998, adding three-year-olds to the scheme in 2004. By September 2010, both three and four-year-olds were eligible for 15 hours per week of free education, for 38 weeks a year.

The Coalition plans to expand the scheme still further, reaching 40 per cent of two-year-olds by 2014/15.

But the public spending watchdog found no evidence the scheme had improved children’s learning - despite the introduction of a so-called ‘nappy [diaper] curriculum’ for nurseries setting down a raft of developmental milestones.

The first children to benefit from two years of free nursery sessions from age three sat national tests for seven-year-olds in 2009, auditors said. Yet results in the so-called ‘key stage one’ tests have shown barely any improvement since 2007.

‘The department did intend that the entitlement would have lasting effects on child development throughout primary school and beyond,’ the report said. ‘National key stage one results, however, have shown almost no improvement since 2007, so it is not yet clear that the entitlement is leading to longer-term educational benefits.’

There was tentative evidence of an effect on children’s learning at five, the report said, but it had failed to last until age seven.

The findings come as a blow to the Government, which has estimated that better education standards driven by the free nursery places will boost national wealth.

Civil servants claim that a pupil achieving five GCSEs at grade C or above will go on to reap lifetime earnings £45,000 than a classmate with no GCSEs.

It needs to bring 5,542 extra children to the five GCSEs benchmark to ensure the nursery places scheme breaks even.

Auditors found that the free nursery entitlement cost £1.6billion in 2010/11, rising to £1.9billion in 2011/12.

The Department for Education has no clear information on how much the scheme cost prior to this, it emerged.

But the best nurseries were not necessarily the best-funded, and quality was variable across the country, the research found. In some areas, just 64 per cent of nurseries were judged by Ofsted to offer a good standard of education, against 97 per cent in others.

Overall, three in 10 children received their free sessions at nurseries not rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted.

Amyas Morse, head of the National Audit Office, said the Department for Education needed to do more to assess the long-term benefits of the scheme. This was necessary ‘to get the best return for children from the £1.9billion spent each year.’

SOURCE



Hate-filled academics at Britain's Oxford university: "Baroness Thatcher is at the centre of a new row at Oxford University after plans to name a building after Britain's first female Prime Minister were revealed. Some academics are hoping to snub one of the university's most illustrious alumnae again - more than 25 years after protests there led to her being denied an honorary degree. Thatcher became the first Oxford educated Prime Minister since the Second World War to be refused an honorary degree from the University in 1985 following student protests amidst cuts to education. And now 17 years on a new revolt could halt plans to name a new facility after her."





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 February, 2012

'Stiff upper lip' denying terminally ill a 'good death'

The British “stiff upper lip” and the stigma surrounding death are denying more than 100,000 people a year the chance of dying in their own homes surrounded by their loved ones, a leading GP has warned.

Prof Mayur Lakhani, chairman of the National Council for Palliative Care, said many terminally ill patients miss out on the consolation of a “good death” because both they and their doctors are too afraid to talk about the end.

A practising GP and former chair of the Royal College of General Practitioners, Prof Lakhani called for a “change of philosophy” in the medical profession to allow for greater acceptance of death, including its “spiritual” dimension.

He said that without a different approach people will continue being condemned to spending their final days in hospitals when they could be in the relative comfort of their own home or a dedicated hospice.

Prof Lakhani was speaking as GPs were offered new training videos with advice on how to broach the subject of “end of life” care.

Last week a study in Scotland found that so-called “Anticipatory Care Plans” (ACPs) helped dramatically reduce the number of unplanned hospital admissions for people facing the end of their lives.

The plans enable patients with long-term conditions to set out what kind of treatment they want in the event of a sudden deterioration, enabling them to opt out of invasive or painful treatment which might not significantly prolong their life.

They deal with a much wider range of scenarios than “advance directives” – or “living will”, which deals with what treatment patients want in the final hours of their life and questions such as resuscitation.

Almost 500,000 people a year die in Britain, the majority of them in hospitals after suffering conditions such as cancer, heart disease or respiratory failure.

But studies have shown that, given the choice, around 70 per cent of people would prefer to die at home and around a third of those who die in hospital could have been cared for at home.

He said: “These decisions should be made early because if you do plan early it gives you a chance to say ‘goodbye’ and say ‘sorry’ and say ‘I love you’. “The spiritual bit is very important as well, it is not just about health care it is about a more humane society. “I think we need to change our philosophy to say ‘we are not going to be able to cure these people but actually we can help them have a good death – a happy ending’.”

He added that in other societies, such as India or Mexico, death appeared to be a more accepted part of life. “It is a societal thing, we have become less open, death takes place in hospital not at home, most people have never seen a dead body,” he said. “It is a fact of life but people have become scared and they think it is going to tempt fate by discussing it. “It is the stiff upper lip … we have become more reserved and this is a difficult issue.

“But I think if we become a little bit more open about it, what I have seen as a practising doctor is that there is an enormous sense of relief when this comes out into the open and people start talking about it.”

Mark Hazelwood, director of the Scottish Partnership for Palliative Care, said: “I think as a society we are reticent about talking about these things and we don’t come across conversations where it is happening so it can be a reinforcing thing.

“Doctors are part of our society, just as all of us would, doctors can find these topics difficult to discuss.

“It can be too far away as well, they can be concerned about upsetting patients and diminishing the hope that the patients may have, it can be a difficult judgment.”

Scotland has been at the forefront of several new initiatives to promote the use of ACPs.

They include a new electronic system in which care plans would be more easily accessible to out-of-hours doctors or paramedics.

SOURCE



Outrage as yob pupils 'allowed back into lessons on appeal' in Britain

Pupils expelled from school for dealing drugs, attacking other children and carrying weapons are being allowed back into lessons against teachers’ wishes, it emerged today.

Figures show more than 500 children permanently barred from school lodged an appeal against the decision last year.

In around one-in-four cases, independent appeals panels found in favour of the pupil. Some 400 expelled pupils have been reinstated over the last five years.

According to data obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, one child in Lewisham, south London, was allowed back into class despite being permanently excluded for setting off fireworks in a crowd of students.

In Bournemouth, a child who was expelled after admitting smoking a cannabis joint on the school field was allowed back into lessons even though the head teacher said the reinstatement would send out a "very damaging message".

The Government has now taken action to ban appeals panels from reinstating pupils who have been permanently expelled as part of a fresh crackdown on indiscipline.

Ministers insist the move will give head teachers the final say over bad behaviour and shift the balance of power in schools away from unruly pupils.

Nick Seaton, a spokesman for the Campaign for Real Education, said: "It undermines the authority of the teachers and the school if pupils who have been expelled are allowed back in.

"Youngsters should know exactly where they stand, and if they are told there are certain zero-tolerance policies for some misdemeanors, then there should be no exceptions. Schools should have the final say."

Data obtained after an FOI request to local authorities in England showed how children routinely appealed against expulsions last year.

Cases included:

* A child in Blackburn who was allowed back into school despite fears staff were at risk following repeated verbal outbursts, with the appeals panel ruling that teachers needed to make more allowances for the pupil;

* A pupil who was expelled for being openly defiant and rude to teachers in Hampshire before being allowed back because he had only been suspended once before;

* A school in Lambeth that was told it was too harsh on one pupil after expelling him for attacking another child;

* A pupil who was expelled from a Barking and Dagenham school for carrying a craft knife – only to be allowed back when the school admitted it was at fault for not securing the knives in the design and technology classroom;

* A Nottinghamshire school that reinstated a child expelled for carrying drugs after the panel agreed there was no evidence the pupil had been trying to supply it to others.

Under the Government’s new Education Bill, appeals panels have been retained and they can order a school to reconsider an expulsion case. But panels cannot order schools to take pupils back.

A spokesman for the Department of Education, said: "We agree that no child should be allowed to continually disrupt a class, causing misery to other pupils and teachers.

“That's why the Education Bill will stop appeals panels sending excluded children back to the school from which they were excluded.

"Independent review panels will ensure there is a quick, fair and independent process for reviewing exclusions, and will place more emphasis on professional judgement and the impact of poor behaviour in the classroom".

SOURCE



Greenie nut caught out in Britain

The feud between Energy Secretary Chris Huhne and his economist ex-wife Vicky Pryce culminated yesterday in sensational charges against both of perverting the course of justice.

Mr Huhne, the first Cabinet minister in history to be forced from office by a criminal prosecution, fiercely protested his innocence and pledged to fight the charge of using his former wife’s name to escape speeding penalty points.

Greek-born Miss Pryce, by contrast, made no reference to how she intends to plead, simply declaring she hoped for a rapid resolution to the case.

If she admits the charge, she could be called to give evidence against Mr Huhne, while if she decides to plead not guilty, she will almost certainly end up side by side with her husband in the dock.

The allegations, which stretch back to 2003, surfaced after the couple separated in 2010 when the Energy Secretary announced he was leaving his wife of 27 years for his aide Carina Trimingham, who had previously been in a civil partnership with a woman.

It is claimed that the millionaire MP sought to evade speeding points by putting them in Miss Pryce’s name.

The long-running criminal probe has sent shock waves through the Liberal Democrats and the Government as a whole.

Friends said Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg’s wife Miriam telephoned Miss Pryce minutes after she learned she was to face trial, telling her: ‘If you need somewhere to stay, if the kids need support, we’re here.’

One friend who spoke to Miss Pryce after charges were announced said: ‘She seems very cheerful and in a good mood. It’s like a Greek drama. But she was very buoyed up by Miriam’s call.’

For months, the Energy Secretary had appeared confident that charges would not be brought, declaring only last week that he believed prosecutors would drop the case.

Allies even suggested that he might stay in his job if he faced trial – a prospect apparently killed off by Mr Clegg and Cabinet

Yesterday 57-year-old Mr Huhne, who has three children and two stepchildren with his former wife, quit shortly after charges were announced, describing the decision to take the case to court as ‘deeply regrettable’.

‘I am innocent of these charges and I intend to fight this in the courts and I am confident that a jury will agree,’ he insisted. He said he was resigning as Energy Secretary ‘to avoid any distraction’ to his official duties or trial defence.

Mr Huhne and his ex-wife face the extremely serious charge of perverting the course of justice – an offence for which, along with perjury, former Tory Cabinet minister Jonathan Aitken was jailed for 18 months.

A jail sentence of more than 12 months would mean Mr Huhne’s Parliamentary career coming to an end, as well as his Cabinet one. MPs who are imprisoned for more than a year automatically lose their seats.

Regardless of the merits of the case against him, his departure from the Cabinet was met with private delight by many senior Tories, who have regarded him as an abrasive and grandstanding coalition colleague.

Mr Huhne’s relationship with Mr Clegg has also long been tense. Mr Clegg only narrowly defeated Mr Huhne in a contest for the Lib Dem leadership, and Mr Huhne’s allies always insisted he would have been crowned the winner had a bunch of postal votes not been delayed.

The Deputy Prime Minister went out of his way to suggest Mr Huhne could make a swift return to Government if he was acquitted.

In a letter to his former leadership rival, Mr Clegg said: ‘I fully understand your decision to stand down from government in order to clear your name, but I hope you will be able to do so rapidly so that you can return to play a key role in Government as soon as possible.’

The Prime Minister pointedly made no mention of a possible return in his own letter accepting Mr Huhne’s resignation.

During a visit to Plymouth, Mr Cameron said: ‘I think Chris Huhne has made the right decision, given the circumstances.’ Mr Cameron’s spokesman declined to say that the Prime Minister felt any personal sympathy for Mr Huhne.

The charges relate to a speeding offence committed on March 12, 2003. It is said to have taken place while Mr Huhne was driving back from Stansted airport having returned from the European Parliament, where he was then an MEP.

Last week Essex police took possession of emails and other material from the Sunday Times, which published an interview with Miss Pryce in which she first made the allegations.

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Britain's Solar power incentives lose their shine

The fledgling industry has been flourishing, but the halving of government subsidies has thrown it into confusion

The last year hasn’t been a happy one for the British economy: GDP fell by 0.2 per cent in the final quarter of 2011; unemployment rose to a 17-year high; and government debt recently reached a record £1 trillion.

One sector, however, has been bathing in the broad sunlit uplands of growth. In 2010 there were 450 solar businesses, employing around 3,000 people; by the end of last year, there were almost 4,000, employing more than 25,000 people. In September alone, some 16,000 households had solar panels installed – twice as many as in June – as everyone from farmers to vicars to Mick Jagger (plus thousands of other canny home owners with £12,000 to spare) scrambled to take advantage of generous government subsidies.

It was, said Lord Marland, an energy minister, in a House of Lords debate this week about halving the subsidies, “one of the most ridiculous schemes ever dreamed up”.

The Government’s case is that the taxpayer is paying through the nose to subsidise inefficient technology at the expense of other renewable technologies. The solar industry argues that the Government has acted unlawfully, putting thousands of jobs at risk and stifling a promising industry at birth.

The feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme was introduced, appropriately for its detractors, on April 1, 2010. Under the scheme, householders could install solar panels on their roofs – at around £12,000 – and receive a high rate, guaranteed for 25 years, from energy companies for the electricity generated, while simultaneously saving on their energy costs (the average installation generates just over half a home’s energy needs).

According to the Energy Saving Trust, the average household could expect to be almost £1,200 a year better off by selling electricity to the grid at a rate of 43.3p per kilowatt hour (six times more than the energy companies pay for their own electricity).

Inevitably, the generous scheme ran out of control – there were more than three times as many solar installations as predicted. The Department of Energy and Climate Change estimated that, if the subsidies continued at the same rate, £100 could be added to everyone’s electricity bills by 2020. Meanwhile, the average cost of a solar panel had fallen by a third. Last October, the Government decided that this jamboree had to stop.

They went about it in a remarkably cack-handed way, however, announcing a halving of the tariff to 21p on December 12 – 11 days before a consultation period finished. A high court judge found this legally flawed, following a challenge by Friends of the Earth and two solar firms. On January 25, the Court of Appeal upheld his decision. Chris Huhne, the former Energy Secretary, was said to be considering a further appeal, to the Supreme Court, just before he resigned to spend more of his own time in the courts.

This has left the solar industry in limbo, as customers have variously rushed to take advantage of offers before they vanish or stood back to see what happens next. Now that the Government has lost its appeal, there is a further window until March 3 before the feed-in tariff is reduced. Anyone installing a system before then can join existing solar owners in benefiting from the 41p rate.

“It went ballistic before Christmas,” says Andy Tanner, chief executive of Plug Into the Sun, a firm that’s been operating in Penzance for seven years. “Then it was as dead as a doornail. Now it’s gone ballistic again. However, we’re on tenterhooks for February 9.”

That is the date when the Government announces the results of its consultation, including a scantily reported proposal to pay feed-in tariffs only to homes with an energy performance certificate of grade C or above. “That would rule out some 80 per cent of our customers,” says Tanner.

Toby Darbyshire, chief executive of Engensa, which is based in London and made a profit of £2 million on a turnover of £15 million in its first year of trading, has a list of 400 potential customers wondering whether or not to install solar panels.

“There’s a huge amount of uncertainty in the industry at the moment,” he says. “There is real anger about the sledgehammer way this has happened.”

The industry’s beef is not so much with the tariff cut – Engensa had even been lobbying the Government to reduce it, to make the industry more viable in the long term – as with the timing. “It’s left the industry high and dry,” says Derry Newman, chief executive of Solarcentury, one of the firms that took the Government to court. Solarcentury has had to scrap 12 new jobs, each of which had attracted more than 60 applicants. Investor confidence has evaporated, leading the company to cancel a social housing project in Wales. While the hysterical predictions in December of 25,000 job losses haven’t (yet) turned out to be true, some firms have gone bust. “Lots are just hanging on,” says Newman. “The small guys with large bank loans, who don’t have the cash-flow to pay them back.”

Of course, many of us without solar power – but still subsidising it – will wonder just how sympathetic we’re supposed to be. Even with a reduced feed-in tariff, those who can afford the installations will still make more than £600 a year. We’ll still be helping them to recoup their initial investment, albeit in 18 years, instead of 10. As Lord Marland put it this week: “It is already going to cost the consumer £7 billion for £400 million of net present value. This is on a product where you need the electricity when the sun doesn’t shine. It is going to produce 1.1 per cent of our electricity supply, and it doesn’t target the needy and the consumers.”

The response of the solar industry is: bear with us a little longer. According to the Solar Future campaign, costs will come down so much over the next decade that new solar capacity will not have to be subsidised. The total subsidy, it estimates, over the next 30 years will be a maximum of £9 per household.

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How green zealots are destroying the planet: The provocative claim from a writer vilified for denying global warming

Just imagine a world where you never had to worry about global warming, where the ice caps, the ‘drowning’ Maldives and the polar bears were all doing just fine.

Imagine a world where CO2 was our friend, fossil fuels were a miracle we should cherish, and economic growth made the planet cleaner, healthier, happier and with more open spaces.

Actually, there’s no need to imagine: it already exists. So why do so many people still believe otherwise?

How come, against so much evidence, everyone from the BBC to your kids’ teachers to the Coalition government (though that may change somewhat now Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has resigned), to the President of the Royal Society to the Prince of Wales continues to pump out the message that man-made ‘climate change’ is a major threat?

Why, when the records show that there has been no global warming since 1997, are we still squandering billions of pounds trying to avert it?

These are some of the questions I set out to answer in my new book — which I can guarantee will not make me popular with environmentalists.

Almost every day, on Twitter or by email, I get violent messages of hate directed not just at me, but even my children. Separately, I’ve been criticised by websites such as the Campaign Against Climate Change (Honorary President: the environmental activist and writer George Monbiot). I’ve had a green activist set up a false website in my name to misdirect my internet traffic. I’ve been vilified everywhere from the Guardian to a BBC Horizon documentary as a wicked ‘denier’ who knows nothing about science.

Not that I’m complaining. Margaret Thatcher once famously said: ‘I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.’ That’s just how I feel about my critics’ ad hominem assaults. They’re born not of strength but out of sheer desperation.

The turning point towards some semblance of sanity in the great climate war came in November 2009 with the leak of the notorious Climategate emails from the University of East Anglia.

What these showed is that the so-called ‘consensus’ science behind Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) — ie the theory that man-made CO2 is causing our planet to heat up in a dangerous, unprecedented fashion — simply cannot be trusted.

The experts had, for years, been twisting the evidence, abusing the scientific process, breaching Freedom of Information requests (by illegally hiding or deleting emails and taxpayer-funded research) and silencing dissent in a way which removes all credibility from the scaremongering reports they write for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

(The IPCC is the heavily politicised but supposedly neutral UN advisory body which has been described by President Obama as the ‘gold standard’ of international climate science.)

Since Climategate, the scientific case against AGW theory has hardened still further. Experiments at the CERN laboratory in Geneva have supported the theory of Danish physicist Henrik Svensmark that the sun — not man-made CO2 — is the biggest driver of climate change.

The latest data released by the Met Office, based on readings from 30,000 measuring stations, confirms there has been no global warming for 15 years.

Now, with sunspot activity (solar flares caused by magnetic activity) at its lowest since the days of the 17th-century frost fairs on the Thames, it seems increasingly likely we are about to enter a new mini Ice Age. Should we be bothered by this? Of course we should. Not only does it mean that for the rest of our lives we’re likely to be doomed to experience colder winters and duller summers, but it also makes us victims of perhaps the most expensive fraud in history.

Over the past 20 years, across the Western world, billions of pounds, dollars and euros have been squandered by governments on hare-brained schemes to ‘combat climate change’.

Taxes have been raised, regulations increased, flights made more expensive, incandescent light bulbs banned, landscapes despoiled by ugly, bird-chomping wind farms, economic growth curtailed — all to deal with what now turns out to have been a non-existent problem: man-made CO2.

But if anthropogenic warming is not the threat environmentalists would have us believe, why do so many people believe it is? And how come so many disparate groups — from the hair-shirt anti-capitalist activists of Greenpeace and Friends Of The Earth to the executives of big corporations, to politicians of every hue from Gordon Brown to David Cameron to scientists at NASA and the UEA — are working together to promote this pernicious myth?

The short answer is ‘follow the money’.

Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the UEA which was at the centre of the ‘Climategate’ scandal, for example, was given £13.7 million in grants for his department’s research work; the environmental non-governmental organisations such as Greenpeace came on board because scaremongering helps them raise revenue.

You’re not going to give money to the charity’s Project Thin Ice if you think the polar bear is good for another 10,000 years, but you might if you’re told it’s seriously endangered.

Politicians were attracted because it was a good way of being seen to be addressing an issue of popular concern, and a handy excuse to put up taxes.

Big corporations joined in the scam as a) it enabled them to ‘greenwash’ their image through campaigns like BP’s ‘Beyond Petroleum’ and b) it meant all that extra environmental regulation would be a handy way of pricing their smaller competitors out of the market place.

But money isn’t the only reason. If you read the private emails of the Climategate scientists, what you discover is that most of them genuinely believe in the climate change peril.

That’s why they lied about the evidence and why they tried to destroy the careers of those scientists who disagreed with them: because they wanted to scare politicians into action before time ran out. This was not science, in other words, but political activism.

A similar ‘end justifies the means’ mentality seems to prevail among all those environmental lobby groups. They don’t exaggerate or misrepresent because they’re bad people. They do it, as a former head of Greenpeace once charmingly put it when accused of having overstated the decline in Arctic sea ice, to ‘emotionalise the issue’; because they want to make the rest of the world care about these issues as much as they do.

Powerful feelings, though, are hardly the most sensible basis for global policy. Especially not when, as it turns out, they are based on a misreading of the facts.

One of the grimmest ironies of the modern environmental movement is just how much damage it has done to the planet in the name of ‘saving’ it. Green biofuels (crops such as palm oil grown for fuel) have not only led to the destruction of millions of acres of rainforest in Asia, Africa and South America, but are now known to produce four times more CO2 pollution than fossil fuels.

Wind farms, besides blighting views, destroying topsoil and causing massive noise pollution, kill around 400,000 birds a year in the U.S. alone. Environmentalists, in fact, have a disastrous track record when it comes to predictions and policy recommendations. Rachel Carson’s 1962 bestseller Silent Spring — which promised a cancer epidemic from pesticides — led to a near worldwide ban on the malarial pesticide DDT, thus condemning millions in the Third World to die from malaria.

Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 bestseller The Population Bomb, meanwhile, rehearsed another of the green movement’s favourite themes: overpopulation. By the Seventies and Eighties, he warned, hundreds of millions of us would be dying like flies because there wouldn’t be enough food.

Why did Ehrlich’s prediction never come to pass? Because, like most of the greenies’ doomsday scenarios, it overlooked one vital factor: progress.

Because the green movement has for years been ideologically wedded to the notion that mankind is an ecological curse (‘The Earth has a cancer. The cancer is man’, as a global think tank called The Club of Rome, which includes several current and former heads of state, puts it), it fails to understand the role which technology, human ingenuity and adaption play in our species’ survival.
Ehrlich’s population disaster was averted thanks to a brilliant American scientist called Norman Borlaug who devised new mutant strains of wheat which managed to treble cereal production on the starving Indian subcontinent.

Of course, there is still widespread concern over the use of genetically modified crops, but scientists argue that with proper safeguards in place they can actually be more environmentally friendly than conventional crops, using less water and fewer pesticides.

Similar technological advances in the field of energy make a nonsense of environmentalists’ claims that we are running out of fuel: long before coal ran out came the petroleum revolution; and, though we still have plenty of oil left, we now have the miracle of shale gas which lies in abundance everywhere from Blackpool to the North Sea, and is released using blasts of high-pressure liquid to open pockets of gas in rock.

When, many decades hence, that runs out we will start to harvest clathrates (solid methane deposits) buried on the ocean floor.

Economic progress is not our enemy but our friend. It is an historical fact that the richer nations are, the more money they have to spare on ensuring a cleaner environment: compare the relatively clean air in London to the choking smog that envelops Beijing and Delhi; look at where the worst ecological disasters happened in the last century — under impoverished Communist regimes, from the Aral Sea to Chernobyl.

But the greens refuse to accept this because, according to their quasi-religious doctrine, industrial civilisation is a curse and economic growth a disease which can only be cured by rationing and self-sacrifice, higher taxes and greater state control.

That’s why I call my new book Watermelons — because it’s about zealots who are green on the outside, but in political terms, red on the inside. If only their views weren’t so influential, in schools, universities, in the media, in the corridors of power, the global economy wouldn’t be nearly in the mess it’s in today.

As someone who loves long walks in unspoilt countryside and who wants a brighter future for his children, I’m sickened by the way environmental activists tar anyone who disagrees with them as a selfish, polluting, anti-science ‘denier’.

The real deniers are those ideological greens who refuse to look at hard evidence (not just pie-in-the-sky computer models which are no more accurate than the suspect data fed into them) and won’t accept that their well-intentioned schemes to make our world a better place are in fact making it uglier, poorer and less free.

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Child's right to see an absent father: New British law to help millions from broken homes

Already in place in Australia

Millions of children from broken homes are to be granted new rights to a 'full and continuing relationship' with both their parents.

The move is designed to ensure that the parent who leaves the family home – most commonly the father – cannot be cut out of their children's lives following an acrimonious separation.

Ministers have decided that a change in the law is vital in the face of heartbreaking evidence that huge numbers of youngsters whose families split up lose contact with one parent for ever.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke have been at odds over the proposals

Courts will be put under a duty to ensure that unless their welfare is threatened by staying in touch with either their mother or father, children have an 'equal right to a proper relationship with both'.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have dismissed objections from Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke and overturned the findings of a major review of family law which was published last year.

On Monday, the Government will announce a ministerial working group that will draw up radical changes to the 1989 Children Act.

The Act states that the child's needs come first in law courts, but campaigners for fathers' rights complain that judges repeatedly pander to the idea that mothers are 'more important' than fathers.

Unmarried fathers say they are often at a particular disadvantage, having to apply for a 'parental responsibility order' through a court or have one granted through an agreement with the mother.

'The Act is going to be rewritten,' said a Government source. 'The welfare of children must of course remain paramount – but alongside that there will be an equal right for a child to have a proper relationship with both parents.
Children's Minister Tim Loughton said courts are 'rarely the best place' for resolving conflicts between parents about the care of children

'There should be no inbuilt legal bias towards the father or mother, and where there are no welfare issues, we want to see this principle reinforced through law.

'This is about children. We want to be clear that both parents should have a full and continuing role in their children's life after a separation.'

Ministers will pledge £10million for mediation services to encourage more couples to settle their disputes out of court.

Children's Minister Tim Loughton told the Mail: 'The courts are rarely the best place for resolving private disputes about the care of children. That's why we want to see greater use of mediation to solve parental disputes out of court.
Betrayal of the family

'It is also right that we continue to encourage fathers to take responsibility as equal parents and to be fully involved with their children from the outset.'

The decision overturns the main finding of a family justice review, conducted for the Ministry of Justice by businessman David Norgrove, which was published in November.

It concluded that giving fathers shared or equal time, or even the right to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children, 'would do more harm than good'.

The proposals immediately sparked a Cabinet revolt, led by Mr Duncan Smith and Mr Clegg, who insisted that the law must be amended to strengthen fathers' rights.

Official figures show that one in five children from broken homes lose touch with their absent parent, usually their father, within three years and never see them again.

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4 February, 2012

Emergency callers failed by third of ambulance trusts

A third of ambulance trusts are now failing to reach enough of the most seriously ill patients within the required time, new figures show.

The Department of Health stipulates that an ambulance should reach 95 per cent of 'Category A' cases - where a person's life is in immediate danger - within 19 minutes. However, in December four out of England's 12 ambulance services did not manage to reach that figure - double the previous number.

Until then only two were consistently failing to do so - East Midlands and East of England ambulance trusts. Now North West Ambulance Service and South Central Ambulance Service are on that list as well.

Nationwide, 96.1 per cent of such calls received a response within 19 minutes in December, compared to 96.8 per cent for the eight months from April to December 2011.

Meanwhile, the proportion of Category A cases in which a vehicle was dispatched within seven minutes fell, from 77.1 per cent in November to 74.0 per cent.

A Department of Health spokesman said the increase was due to an increase in demand over the holiday season. [And in a typically British way, they weren't prepared for it] He said: "December saw a greater number of people going to hospital by ambulance than previous months, but despite this, the NHS is still on course to meet its targets by the end of the year."

"Patients should be able to expect a coherent 24/7 urgent and emergency care service which is accessible and safe. We expect all ambulance trusts, commissioners and the wider NHS to look at the data for their region and perform at the highest level."

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MPs' 'sexist' beer ban: Top Totty ale outlawed in the Commons bar

And the brewers are laughing all the way to the bank



Like many real ales, its quirky name helps it to stand out from the crowd. Unfortunately for a brew branded 'Top Totty', it stood out a little too much for one female Labour MP who has managed to have it banned from a House of Commons bar.

Kate Green, the party's equalities spokesman, said she found the beer – which has a pump plate with a cartoon picture of a bikini-clad bunny girl – offensive, adding later that it 'demeans women'.

Despite never having even seen the pump in question – and the bar not receiving a single complaint – Miss Green yesterday stood up in the Commons chamber to demand it be removed from sale.

Last night, however, her stance provoked a backlash from men and women alike who branded her 'humourless' and criticised her 'knee-jerk puritanism'. Slater's Ales, meanwhile, the ale's family-run Staffordshire brewery, said the outcry had seen its orders double.

The £2.70-a-pint beer was banned from the Strangers' Bar, where MPs can take guests, within an hour of Miss Green's complaint. Leader of the House Sir George Young intervened to rid Parliament of what he called 'offensive pictures'.

Miss Green, MP for Stretford and Urmston in Greater Manchester, brought up the issue at business questions in the Commons, where she called for a debate in the House on 'dignity at work in Parliament'.

She took up parliamentary time to say: 'I was disturbed last night to learn that the guest beer in the Strangers' Bar is called Top Totty, and that there is a picture of a nearly naked woman on the tap.' She said later on Twitter that it 'demeans women'.

But many MPs did not share her outrage. Tory Tracey Crouch asked on Twitter: 'Why is a beer called Top Totty offensive & now banned from Commons?' Fellow Conservative MP Nadine Dorries tweeted: 'Westminster = sense of humour-free zone. Banning of the Top Totty beer was weak PC decision and gives sensible pro-women advocates a bad name.'

The ale – described as 'blonde, full bodied with a voluptuous hop aroma' – had been introduced as a guest ale by Tory Jeremy Lefroy, MP for Stafford, where it is brewed. Mr Lefroy said: 'These guest ale slots offer a very welcome opportunity for small independent breweries like Slater's to reach a wider audience with their products, some of which have cheeky names.'

The ban was also denounced by Mike Nattrass, Stafford's UKIP MEP, and Claire Fox, director of think-tank the Institute of Ideas. Mr Nattrass said: 'Miss Green really is a humourless sort. This sort of knee-jerk puritanism does more to damage the cause of equality than a thousand beer labels.' And Miss Fox said: 'What really demeans women is the idea that we've no sense of humour – and MPs acting as sanctimonious killjoys in our name.'

Last night Vicki Slater, of Slater's Ales, said: 'At first I just couldn't believe it that in this economic climate a Labour MP would get exercised about the name of a beer.

'But all this publicity has been a blessing. After the fuss, it sold out immediately. People have been phoning from all over Britain asking us to supply their pubs. We're delivering twice as much Top Totty tomorrow as we ever have before.'

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Assistant head teacher 'bullied, undermined and victimised staff at British school where colleague collapsed and died'... but she's cleared to return to the classroom



A former assistant head teacher ‘bullied, intimidated, undermined and victimised’ her colleagues, including one young teacher who collapsed and died on school premises, a disciplinary panel has heard.

While employed as acting deputy head in South Yorkshire Moira Ogilvie, 40, allegedly ‘bullied’ staff, made them spy on each other and acted in an inappropriate manner towards children - including making obscene ‘finger gestures’ towards them.

The assistant head teacher of High Greave Junior School, Rotherham is also alleged to have discussed confidential information, and asked members of staff to report on their colleagues behind each other’s backs.

Appearing at a General Teaching Council conduct hearing in Birmingham, she was found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct, but can return to teaching under certain conditions.

The hearing heard how 29-year-old teacher Britt Pilton had been found dead at the school in February 2009.

Presenting officer Laura Ryan told the panel: ‘Bullying is recognised as being a problem amongst pupils, so it is vital it is not present in staff responsible for those pupils.

‘Members of staff reported that Moira Ogilvie had asked them to spy on each other. ‘That she had left them feeling victimised, intimidated, bullied and harassed, and that she had been seen making obscene finger gestures to pupils.’

One victim of the toxic leadership was 29-year-old teacher Britt Pilton. The bride-to-be, 29, faced 12 months of pressure at the school before she had a panic-attack and was found dead on the floor of a school toilet, an inquest in 2009 found.

In a letter, fellow teacher Natalie Garbutt said that on the day of Miss Pilton’s death, she had been ‘concerned that photocopying she had left in the photocopier had been removed by Moira Ogilvie to substantiate claims in relation to her professional conduct.’

Natalie Garbutt, a teacher at the school, gave a statement to the GTC committee in September. She told the panel about how Miss Pilton’s name had been removed from her pigeon hole in the staff room on the day following her funeral. Miss Garbutt said this had made staff feel uneasy because they ‘didn’t want all evidence of her to be taken away.’

She added that Miss Ogilvie had joked that the school, which had been facing the prospect of a drop in pupil numbers, would no longer have to worry.

Miss Garbutt said: ‘Moira made some comments that I think were meant to be light-hearted.’ She added: ‘She commented about there not being any staffing issues now because we had enough staff for the children.’

Miss Garbutt told the panel that Miss Ogilvie had asked her to ‘keep tabs’ on Miss Pilton after telling her that there were too many staff at the school. Miss Garbutt said: ‘The thing with Britt was her attendance was quite poor, she wasn’t always prepared for her lessons, things like that and I was asked to make notes on things that Britt did.’ She added that she thought Miss Ogilvie wanted to gather evidence to use against Miss Pilton.

She said: ‘Britt made a lot of mistakes, she had a lot of time off and if there was going to be any body that would have to leave then evidence was needed to be collected.’

Another member of staff, Rachel Green, claimed that Miss Ogilvie had remarked that Miss Pilton’s replacement was ‘a better teacher than Britt ever was’ in front of a child.

Giving a statement to the panel, former head teacher June Hitchcock said that the school had been ‘devastated’ by the loss of Miss Pilton. She said staff were ‘devastated, completely. It was a total shock. It affected them, I would suggest it still affects them deeply. ‘It was a huge loss professionally and personally for some of the staff who were very close to Britt Pilton.’

Still, despite being found guilty, Ms Ogilvie will be allowed to continue to teach under a conditional registration order: 'She will able to return to register and teach on the position but she cannot take line management responsibilities,' GTC press officer Sam Haidar told Mail Online. 'She needs to take an accredited mentoring or reflected management course.'

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Drug addiction 'may be hereditary' as siblings have brain abnormality which makes self-control difficult

Drug users hooked on crack cocaine may have inherited their vulnerability to addictive behaviour, scientists claimed yesterday.

Researchers found that drug addicts and their non-addicted siblings share certain features of the brain, meaning it may be hard-wired for addictive behaviour.

Scientists who scanned the brains of 50 pairs of brothers and sisters of whom one was a cocaine addict found that both siblings had brain abnormalities that made self-control more difficult.

The findings increase understanding of why some people with a family history of drug abuse have a higher risk of addiction than others. The study could also help vulnerable people lean how to take control before addictions set in.

However, the work by the University of Cambridge also suggested that although there may be a genetic base for addiction, some people can overcome this predisposition to stay off drugs.

A study in the Lancet medical journal in January said that as many as 200 million people use illicit drugs worldwide each year, with use highest in wealthy countries.

Unhealthy addictions can also range from narcotics and prescription medicines to legal substances like cigarettes and alcohol and lifestyle factors such as over-eating or gambling.

Scientists have noticed brain differences in drug addicts before, but as yet they were not sure whether those differences came before the drug use, or were as a result of it.

Karen Ersche of the Behavioural and Clinical Neuroscience Institute at Britain's Cambridge University led a team of researchers who got around this problem by studying pairs of biological siblings - one addicted and one with no history of chronic drug or alcohol abuse - and comparing both siblings' brains to those of other healthy people.

Their results, published in the journal Science, showed that both addict and non-addict siblings shared the same abnormality in the parts of the brain linked to controlling behaviour - regions known as the fronto-striatal systems.

'It has long been known that not everyone who takes drugs becomes addicted, and that people at risk of drug dependence typically have deficits in self-control,' said Ersche.

'Our findings now shed light on why the risk of becoming addicted to drugs is increased in people with a family history:... Parts of their brains underlying self-control abilities work less efficiently.

Paul Keedwell a consultant psychiatrist at Britain's Cardiff University, who was not involved in the research but was encouraged by its findings, said: 'If we could get a handle on what makes unaffected relatives of addicts so resilient we might be able to prevent a lot of addiction from taking hold.'

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Hidden dissent at a great temple of Warmism (the UEA)

Nick Brooks in Email 1558:

"I'm always wary of claims (p3) that we are entering a period of unprecedented warmth. I do not know what the mean global temperature was in the Holocene climatic optimum, but research suggests tropical sea-surface temperatures some 5-6 degrees higher than present. Even a smaller change would of course be catastrophic for many societies today, but unless there have been serious comparisons between today and the mid-Holocene and we can say with confidence that anthropogenic warming scenarios exceed such palaeoclimatic conditions such claims may come back to haunt us.

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Bacon butties, roast dinners and a cuppa: The 50 things that Brits love best about Britain show Brits are a nation of food lovers

I'm rather partial to a bacon butty myself



The tasty bacon butty is what we love most about Britain, a survey revealed today. A humble bacon sandwich topped the poll of the 50 things we most adore about the nation, with a traditional roast dinner taking second place.

Nothing washes down a meal better than a lovely cup of tea - which came in at number three in the survey of 60,000 Brits.

Our proud national history came fourth followed by the BBC in fifth, Big Ben in sixth and Buckingham Palace in seventh.

The love for our rolling hills will never dwindle as the beautiful English countryside made eighth spot.

Food continued its domination in the remainder of the top ten, with fish and chips and the Yorkshire Pudding coming in at ninth and tenth respectively.

Incredibly, the poll revealed that cheese is a greater national treasure than our monarch, with cheddar coming in at 13th on the list while the Queen trailed behind in 15th.

For an example of style, class and British engineering, the Aston Martin roared into 17th.

It is clear that Brits love bagging a bargain, which comes in at 30th on the list.

James Bond triumphed over Harry Potter as the nation’s best-loved fictional character.

And proving the quirkiness us Brits are known for is alive and well, that most alternative of British ‘sports’ - cheese rolling - made the last spot.

While perhaps when it comes to love, the debate is over, as Marmite finished narrowly outside the top 50.

‘When it comes to our great loves food is clearly on top and whether it’s a butty, bun or sanger the trusty bacon sandwich is a worthy winner of the top spot,’ said T-Mobile spokesman Spencer McHugh, after the company commissioned the research for a new TV ad.

He added: ‘Whether we’re eating it between bread or rolling it down a hill it’s obvious that we are a nation of food lovers.'

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3 February, 2012

You ARE more likely to die if taken to hospital at weekend: Study confirms that NHS care is worse on a Saturday and Sunday

Patients admitted to hospitals at weekends are far more likely to die than those taken there on weekdays, a major study has confirmed. Chances of recovery are jeopardised because senior doctors are absent and tests and scans are not immediately available.

A study of over 14million NHS admissions found that Sunday patients are 16 per cent more likely to die within the next 30 days than those brought in on a Wednesday. Patients admitted on a Saturday are 11 per cent more likely to die in 30 days.

Alarmingly, the researchers warned that patients who go to hospital at weekends tend to be sicker – making it crucial that they receive the highest standard of medical attention.

This is due to a higher number of road accidents, drink-related injuries and poor out-of-hours GP care that means patients’ deteriorate while treatment is delayed.

Earlier this week, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley ordered a ‘fundamental rethink’ of how hospitals are run at weekends.

Responding to this study Mr Lansley said: ‘It is unacceptable that patients admitted to hospital on a Saturday or Sunday stay longer and have worse results. ‘Much of the rest of the country continues to be open for the public’s needs at weekends – an NHS that revolves around patients should be the same.

‘By opening some services seven days a week, more patients will get the care and treatment that they need when they need it. In some parts of the NHS, this is already happening. 'On Saturdays and sometimes Sundays, some services have scanners open to provide tests, are doing operations, and have more senior staff around.’

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said: ‘The NHS exists to ensure that its users are given the best possible care, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is simply not acceptable for somebody to face an increased risk of death just because they were unfortunate enough to suffer an injury or get sick on a Saturday or Sunday as opposed to any other day of the week.’

Researchers from University College London – whose work was commissioned by the Department of Health – looked at 14.2million hospital admissions in 2009/10.

Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the researchers concluded: ‘There may be aspects of care associated with weekend admissions which disadvantage patients. ‘Some urgent conditions require prompt treatment and in some cases the way weekend care is organised may lead to delays which can adversely affect the outcome.’

The study backs up a report in November by Dr Foster Intelligence linking a higher death rate at weekends with poorer staff levels. Most consultants tend to work office hours and at weekends the wards are left in the hands of junior doctors. In addition, departments responsible for certain scans and blood tests are shut until Monday.

The researchers pointed out that patients admitted at weekends may be more seriously ill. Some who become seriously ill on Friday try and hang on until Monday, during which time they deteriorate further and end up needing urgent treatment. There are also more injuries from road accidents, alcohol and self-harming at weekends.

Dr Andrew Goddard, of the Royal College of Physicians, said: ‘This study is further evidence that patients admitted at weekends are more likely to die following admission than patients admitted to hospital during the week. ‘There are many reasons for this, but the two most important are that the patients are more ill and there are fewer doctors available.’

David Stout, deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation said: ‘There is no doubt that this is something the NHS has to improve. 'Patients should never have to worry about what is the "right" time to visit their local hospital.’

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Migrants seeking a life in Britain will be asked: Can you make the country better?

Migrants seeking permission to enter Britain must prove they will ‘add to the quality of life’ and not become ‘dependent’ on state support, a minister will say today.

Immigration minister Damian Green will say it is time for a major overhaul of the system left behind by Labour.

He will tell an audience in London: ‘We need to know not just that the right numbers of people are coming here, but that the right people are coming here. People who will benefit Britain, not just those who will benefit by Britain.’

The minister will also criticise the idea of migrants coming to Britain to claim benefits, saying: ‘Importing economic dependency on the State is unacceptable. Bringing people to this country who can play no role in the life of this country is equally unacceptable.’

Mr Green will set out the case for becoming more ‘selective’ about which non-EU citizens are granted a visa to work, study or marry.

He says the debate so far has focused on the Government’s pledge to reduce net migration – the number entering the country, compared to those leaving – from 250,000 last year to the ‘tens of thousands’. But Mr Green argues it is now time also to focus on exactly who is coming here and what they have to contribute.

He will tell the Policy Exchange think-tank: ‘What we need is a national consensus on how we can make immigration work for Britain. We are evidently a long way from such a consensus but I want to start to build it.’

Mr Green, saying the country wants entrepreneurs and exceptional artistic and scientific talent, will add: ‘Britain does not need more migrant middle managers, any more than it needs unskilled labour.’

A string of policy announcements are imminent from Home Secretary Theresa May.

New controls on the spouses of immigrants entering Britain will require them to prove they can speak a certain amount of English, and that they will not be reliant upon benefits. The family will be expected to show they have a household income of up to £26,000 a year.

In a separate move, foreign workers will not be permitted to remain unless they have special skills or investment capital.

Britain will have to find room for three million more people by 2025 even if not a single new immigrant comes here, official estimates revealed yesterday.

The population will grow relentlessly to nearly 65.3million by then, largely because of the impact on the birthrate of mass immigration over the past decade and a half.

Just finding somewhere to put the additional three million people would require three cities the size of Birmingham.

The continuing effects of the large-scale immigration under Labour were set out in Office for National Statistics projections of likely population levels. Without taking any new migrants into account, numbers are predicted to rise from the 2010 population estimate of 62,262,000 to 65,292,000 in 2025. If net migration is 200,000 a year, the 70million mark would be reached in 2027.

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Immigration is not just a numbers game – it’s about culture, too

Immigration stirs strong passions. But in Britain the debate about it can be rather confused. During the last election, a friend canvassed a finger-jabbing gentleman who said that he would be voting Liberal Democrat because “Nick Clegg will kick out all the immigrants”.

Most people know the difference between Nick Clegg and Nick Griffin. But do we know what immigration policy we want? Most of us – though fewer than in recent years – back some immigration. Since 1997, the share of our workforce born outside the United Kingdom has doubled from 7 per cent to 14 per cent. Net immigration rose from zero in 1992 to nearly a quarter of a million last year, when half a million people arrived but only half that number left.

The Government is trying to control overall numbers. But voters also want people who will fit in and contribute. Yesterday, Damian Green, the Immigration Minister, gave a speech exploring how to make immigration rules do those two things. He floated the idea that economic migrants might have to earn some kind of minimum salary – perhaps between £31,000 and £49,000 a year.

In this respect, his speech reflects an important change of approach. The Labour administration argued that migration expanded the economy, and had no impact on jobs. The new Government says it is interested not in the total size of the economy, but in the living standards of current residents.

In January, a report from the Migration Advisory Committee looked at whether non-EU immigration improved the welfare of current residents. It concluded that this question was impossible to answer at the moment. How do you compare the effects on jobs, tax, spending, congestion and so on? The report did, however, challenge the idea that migration has no impact on the labour market.

In the long run, migrants don’t “take” anyone’s job. The economy creates new jobs all the time. But it can take a while for this to happen, particularly in a recession. The MAC found that between 2005 and 2010, Britain gained an extra 700,000 working-age migrants from outside the EU. It thought this had reduced the employment of natives by about 130,000. However, they said the same effect might not occur in a period of stronger growth. To put this in context, there are 25 million UK‑born workers, so migrants reduced native employment by half of 1 per cent.

Limiting economic migration to those with better-paying jobs is one way to try to make it more likely that the net effect of immigration is positive for living standards. You might expect migrants with well-paying jobs to have a better chance of fitting in, but other things might help with this, too. For example, the Government has introduced an English language test for spouses, and is considering a test of their attachment to the country. It is also considering a rule that would prevent people on low incomes from bringing spouses. But it is treading warily because of human rights law. Judges recently struck down rules banning spouses aged under 21 from settling in Britain, introduced in a bid to reduce forced marriages.

For most people, culture is as important as numbers. So shouldn’t government also have a policy of integration once people have arrived? English language tuition might help them fit in. What about supplementary schools that mix children with others outside their community? Could housing policy avoid people becoming ghettoised? What kind of public events help people integrate?

The “citizenship test” under Labour became a joke, because it presented being British as if it was mainly about claiming benefits and knowing where the European Parliament meets. But what is Britishness, anyway? While the debate about immigration is becoming more sophisticated, the debate about Britishness and belonging has barely started.

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British shopper, 25, asked for ID to buy TEASPOONS – as shop worker says they could be used as drug paraphernalia

A woman was asked to prove her age when buying a packet of teaspoons - as a shop worker claimed they could be used as drug paraphernalia. Elinor Zuke, 25, was told by the self-service checkout at Sainsbury's that she needed age verification as she tried to buy a £1.19 pack of spoons.

A shop worker then intervened and said it was because of the risk they could be used for drugs - heroin users 'cook up' the drug in teaspoons.

Heroin is an illegal Class A drug - so it is irrelevant whether someone is over 18 - the spoon should not be used for that purpose anyway. The maximum sentence for possessing heroin is seven years in prison or an unlimited fine.

Ms Zuke said yesterday: 'I could not understand what the problem was -- when the supervisor said it was because they could be used as drug paraphernalia I was completely shocked. 'I would imagine the vast majority of spoons sold by Sainsbury's are used for nothing more nefarious than stirring a cup of tea. Having to prove I was over 18 to buy them seemed total madness.'

Sainsbury's blamed the mistake on a problem with its stock-keeping units which provide a unique identifier for each product on the shelves. A problem with the system meant that it asked for identification automatically. A spokeswoman said: 'The self-scan system recognised the spoon's SKU as one for a knife. This had now been rectified.

'We are very sorry for any inconvenience caused. Our Think 25 policy is designed to ensure age-related products are sold safely.'

In October 2009, Emma Sheppard, 21, was asked for identification when buying spoons in a Tesco store in Evesham, Worcestershire. She was forced to leave the store without the 57p pack of five spoons because she did not have a passport or driving licence with her. Tesco later apologised for the mistake.

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Let’s have a proper debate about the welfare state

Hooked on poverty porn, getting the unelected Lords to do their dirty work... there’s little progressive about today’s welfare-defenders

What is worse: elected politicians proposing to reform the welfare state, or unelected Lords, cheered on by liberals, unilaterally shooting down such reform? It’s the latter. Even if you aren’t a fan of Lib-Con plans to trim the welfare bill (I think it’s daft to imagine such trimming will reverse the economic downturn), you should be far more concerned by the patronising and profoundly undemocratic turn that the so-called radical side in this debate has taken. Today, the defenders of welfare are doing far more harm to what we might term progressive politics than the right-wingers seeking to rethink welfarism.

Yesterday, to the chagrin of liberal activists, the House of Lords failed to support a peer-proposed amendment to the government’s welfare reform bill. Having inflicted a triple defeat on the bill last week, by voting 224 to 186 against proposals relating to disability and incapacity allowances, the Lords had won a special place in the hearts of leftists opposed to the Lib-Cons. These unelected lords and ladies are ‘the only decent politicians left’, chirped one commentator. Another described them as ‘a blessing’. These observers will no doubt be disappointed that the Lords yesterday failed to deliver a fourth blow to the government’s plans, though hopefully they’ll have learned a lesson about how daft it is to rely on the whims of the rich and aloof when pursuing political agendas.

There are two problems with the notion that state welfare is so sacred it should never be reformed, even if that means getting the most undemocratic layer of the British political class to ringfence it from those grubby inhabitants of the elected Commons. Firstly, such an allergic reaction to the idea of having a serious debate about the size and shifting nature of state welfare means that the problems associated with welfarism – which are myriad – are never clarified, far less tackled. And secondly, calling on the unelected second chamber to fight the Commons over welfare is an insult to democracy and to the British public, who are reduced to the level of paupers who need good-hearted Lords to fight their battles and preserve their pennies.

You don’t have to be a fellow traveller of the Lib-Cons (I’ve never voted for either party) to recognise that the welfare system in Britain does need reform – radical reform. The problem with the government’s proposed reforms is that they’re driven by a penny-pinching mentality, designed to save the state cash. The real motivation behind welfare reform should be a humanist one – a recognition that intensive welfarism, the intrusion of the ‘caring state’ into every aspect of less well-off people’s lives, has damaged both individuals and communities and therefore should be questioned and challenged and, in part, done away with.

Of course, all civilised societies should provide for those who, for whatever reason, lack the capacity to feed and clothe and house themselves. Discretely distributed as a fund for those too poor or disabled to provide for themselves, welfare can be a good thing. The problem with the ever-growing welfare state in Britain is its permanency, the way it is now used to sustain, forever, huge swathes of people, including able-bodied people, and the impact that this has on people’s view both of themselves and their communities. When you’re encouraged to become reliant on the state rather than on your own wits or your own mates, your sense of individual resourcefulness declines, and your feeling of attachment to and reliance upon your community becomes corroded.

The social destructiveness of the cult of welfarism can best be seen in that part of welfare that is now most feverishly defended by liberal campaigners: the realm of incapacity and disability benefits. In recent decades, more and more people of working age have been redefined by the welfare state as ‘incapable’ of working or as disabled. This is, to say the least, curious at a time when we are healthier and longer-living than ever before. According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), Britain has one of the highest rates of incapacity/disability benefit-claiming in the Western world. Young people in Britain are more than twice as likely to claim sickness benefits as their Western European counterparts. Strikingly, there has been a big shift from the unemployment camp into the ‘incapable’ camp. In the 1980s, the number of people claiming unemployment benefit was nearly four times higher than the number claiming some kind of disability benefit; by 1997 the numbers were equal; today, the number claiming a disability benefit exceeds the number claiming unemployment benefit. Now, more than three million people are categorised as incapable of working, out of a non-working population of around five million.

Of course, there are many people who have serious impairments or illnesses that prevent them from working, and they should be provided for generously by society. But it’s pretty clear that, in recent decades, society has cynically cast the ‘incapacity’ net ever-wider, leading to more and more people effectively being rebranded as physically or mentally deficient rather than simply unemployed. That way, the unemployment stats can be massaged, and society’s failure to provide people with gainful employment can be redefined as an individual rather than a social failing – apparently it is because these people are weak, pathetic and ‘incapable’ that they cannot work, not because of the structural malaise of capitalist society and the lack of vision amongst those who govern it.

In a twisted irony, the leftists now fighting tooth-and-nail to protect incapacity/disability benefit from any criticism or reform are actually upholding a right-wing creation. Invalidity Benefit, which later became Incapacity Benefit, and which is now mixed together with various disability allowances, was first introduced under Ted Heath’s Tory government in 1971. The number of claimants grew exponentially under the Thatcher and Major governments in the 1980s and 90s – in 1981, 463,000 men and women were claiming invalidity/incapacity benefit; by the mid-1990s it was more than one million. The cynical rebranding of capable men and women as incapable was a useful tool for Tory governments that were throwing people out of work but which didn’t want the unemployment figures to look too shocking. It is remarkable that so-called progressives should now go to the wall to protect this cynical, Tory-invented idea that massive numbers of working men and women are actually too useless or mental or weak to work.

The end result of the spread of the concept of incapacity, and the relativistisation of the category of disability to include increasing numbers of people, is that individuals become both decommissioned and alienated. They are put out to pasture, told that they cannot work, which frequently becomes a self-fulfilling thing; and through their reliance on the faceless state, they become separated from their own communities, coming to be more dependent on the pity and favour of outsiders than on the support and tips of people they know and see every day.

Even worse than uncritically defending such a pernicious system is defending it in an undemocratic fashion. Today, the pro-welfare lobby, clearly disillusioned not only with the Commons but also with the dumb people who elect it, have turned to the unelected Lords to try to preserve the entire welfare state. Radical campaign groups and trade unions call on their members to ‘Adopt a Peer’ – that is, email a lord begging him to vote against government plans on the NHS and welfare – while commentators sing the praises of the peers, saying, yes, they might be ‘ennobled and stuck in an anachronistic institution’ but they are nonetheless willing to ‘speak up for the very poorest and sickest among us’.

A quick glance at history should be enough to shoot down the batty idea that the Lords are potential class warriors defending poor people’s welfare from evil elected officials. The constitutional crisis of 1909-1911 was brought about by the Lords’ refusal to back an early welfare package – Liberal prime minister Herbert Asquith’s ‘People’s Budget’ – and the Asquith government’s subsequent decision to override the Lords helped to define and bolster the ideal of democracy in Britain. Today’s welfare-defenders seem keen to turn the clock back, to revert to a time when the Lords, described by Thomas Paine as the ‘remains of aristocratical tyranny’, were expected to reprimand the Commons. Even if you do your peer-cheering in the name of standing up for ‘the very poorest and sickest’ (what’s with all the patronising Dickensian lingo?), the end result will be the same: the further concentration of moral authority and political power in the hands of a tyrannical few.

With their poverty-porn images of families too sick and destitute to care for themselves, and their love of Lords who stand up and make grandstanding speeches about ‘helping the poor’, today’s welfare-defenders are taking us into Downton Abbey territory – back to a pre-welfare state world of poor laws and posh pity where the very rich were pleaded with to help the lame and the weak. That is the essence of much modern welfare thinking. ‘Please, my lord, stop the evil politicians from taking away my grub and my blankets.’ Screw that. The less well-off are more than capable of looking after themselves, and don’t need to have democracy overturned in their name by unelected twits and their dizzy cheerleaders in the media.

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Thousands of 'Mickey Mouse' courses will no longer count in British High School league tables

More than 3,000 discredited vocational courses will be downgraded because pupils are shunning tough subjects, Michael Gove declared yesterday.

Schools will be barred from using ‘dead-end’ qualifications – including courses in ‘personal effectiveness’, fish husbandry and nail technology services – to count towards their league table rankings.

Youngsters will instead be encouraged to gain at least a C in English and maths and study science and a language.

The Education Secretary warned against pandering to the view that school is ‘like the movies or a club’ where pupils expect to find lessons ‘exciting’ – and drop out if they are too difficult.

‘If we say that we will tolerate or accept non-attendance on the basis that school is too hard then we are condemning children to a future where, at every stage they face a challenge, we make excuses rather than encouraging them to do better, and that way lies perdition,’ Mr Gove told the Commons education select committee.

‘It’s unacceptable that people are bristling at the requirement that we have children doing English, mathematics and science to an acceptable level.’

Under a GCSE ‘equivalence’ system introduced by Labour, schools were allowed to count more than 3,000 vocational courses towards their league table position.

The courses were deemed equivalent to one or more GCSEs and given league table points in an attempt to motivate disaffected pupils. One approved course was a Level 2 Certificate of Personal Effectiveness, which taught children how to claim the dole.
Chopped from the tables

A report commissioned by the Coalition found that many of the qualifications were ‘effectively dead-end’ with no use in the job market. Its author, Professor Alison Wolf, of King’s College London, said schools had been entering pupils for the courses just to amass league table points.

Mr Gove announced yesterday that only 125 out of 3,175 vocational qualifications for 14 to 16-year-olds meet new criteria for inclusion in league tables.

Of these only 75 will count towards the main yardstick of secondary school performance – the percentage of pupils achieving five A* to C grades including English and maths. And they will count as only one GCSE.

Schools will still be able to enter pupils for the qualifications, but from 2014 they will no longer count toward their league table rankings. Many are expected to wither on the vine.

Former education secretary David Blunkett said: ‘By all means slim them down but do not send the message that this is a wholesale trashing of what was there and that vocational education has been downgraded.’

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2 February, 2012

Medics 'missed three chances to save life of heart-attack father' who was sent home with antibiotics

Family history is a major diagnostic tool but even that was ignored

A father died after three medics failed to spot that he had suffered a heart attack, an inquest heard yesterday.

Dean Beresford, 44, said he was having chest pains and struggling to breathe, and that he had a family history of heart problems.

But after speaking to an NHS Direct nurse and to a GP by phone and being seen by another doctor, he was sent home with antibiotics for a cough. Less than two weeks later he collapsed and died.

A post-mortem examination showed his death was due to myocardial infarction – a rupture of the heart caused by his untreated heart attack.

Recording a narrative verdict, Coroner Stuart Fisher said it was clear there had been ‘serious deficiencies’ in Mr Beresford’s care.

He said there had been ‘three medical chances’ to save his life – all of which had been tragically missed. Lorry driver Mr Beresford lived with his partner Tina Coupland and their daughter Isobella, now four, in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire. Miss Coupland said: ‘The failings and mistakes by the NHS were there for all to see.’

The inquest in Lincoln heard that Mr Beresford called NHS Direct on Saturday, July 31, 2010 after suffering from crippling chest pains.

During a 17-minute telephone call with a nurse, he said: ‘I have had chest pains all week. I have pain shooting down my arms. The pain in my chest is slightly to the left. It’s a muscular throbbing and it feels like I have a fever. There is pain on the back of my neck.’

Nurse Beatrice Makonyola should have called an ambulance for him ‘within a minute’ of him describing these symptoms, the inquest was told. Instead, she recommended he wait to talk to an out-of-hours GP on the telephone. At the inquest Nurse Makonyola admitted it had been ‘obvious’ he was suffering from a heart attack. But at the time, she believed he was probably just suffering from a cough.

When he spoke to the out-of-hours GP, Mr Beresford repeated his symptoms and even mentioned that his mother had died of angina and his father had recently suffered a heart attack.

During that three-minute conversation, Dr Richard Smith, also failed to realise he was suffering from a heart attack – but told him to go and see a doctor face to face.

He then went to see out-of-hours GP Dr Kevin Lee at John Coupland Hospital in Gainsborough. After a ten-minute examination, Dr Lee diagnosed Mr Beresford with a ‘chesty cough’, gave him antibiotics and sent him home.

Mr Beresford, the brother of former professional footballer Marlon Beresford, stayed off work for a week. On August 11, two days after his return, he collapsed. He died later in hospital.

NHS Direct clinical director Tricia Hamilton admitted Nurse Makonyola was ‘out of her depth’, but added that she was now back at work after being suspended and sent for further training.

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Conspiratorial NHS lawyer is given £100,000 after she lost her job

An NHS lawyer who asked a doctor to suppress details of how a patient died has won a payout of more than £100,000.

Kate Levy was fired from her job as head of legal services at scandal-hit Stafford Hospital after details of the cover-up were exposed. But after taking her former employers to a tribunal, she has now been awarded £103,000 for ‘wrongful and unfair dismissal’.

Her sacking centred on a request she had made to consultant Ivan Phair over a report he had written into the death of John Moore-Robinson.

Mr Moore-Robinson’s father, Frank, branded the payout ‘morally criminal’. His 20-year-old son had been taken to the casualty department of Stafford Hospital after a mountain bike accident on Cannock Chase, Staffordshire, in 2006.

An X-ray revealed he had broken his ribs. He was vomiting and in agony but a junior doctor failed to spot a ruptured spleen and sent him home with painkillers. Within hours his parents called 999 because he was still in severe pain. He died minutes before paramedics arrived.

Mr Phair later wrote a report into the death for the coroner, which stated it was ‘avoidable’ and there was a ‘high probability that the level of care delivered was negligent’.

But when Miss Levy, 56, read the report, she wrote to Mr Phair asking him to delete the criticism to spare distress to Mr Moore-Robinson’s family and avoid ‘adverse publicity’.

Miss Levy was suspended and sacked after details of the cover-up were exposed in a Sunday newspaper two years ago. She lost an appeal against her dismissal and then started tribunal proceedings against the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.

At the start of this week’s hearing, the Trust conceded Miss Levy was ‘wrongfully and unfairly dismissed’, and authorised a settlement of £103,000.

Mr Moore-Robinson’s parents had received just £13,000 from the NHS litigation authority over their son’s death, to cover his funeral costs and their legal expenses during the 2007 inquest.

In the end, neither Mr Phair’s original report nor the amended version were sent to the coroner.

Last night Mr Moore-Robinson’s father said that senior executives at the Trust admitted to him that they had ‘cocked up big-time’ over the way Miss Levy’s dismissal was handled. He added: ‘In my opinion, the decision to sack her was correct. But it seems they went about it the wrong way.

‘I can accept that technically, the hospital may have been wrong to sack her but giving her a six-figure payout beggars belief. 'What she did was despicable and I hope she can live with herself. I just think it is obscene when you consider what we received for John’s death.’

In a statement, the Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust said: ‘Following legal advice we received from our barrister at the start of the tribunal, we conceded that Ms Levy was wrongfully and unfairly dismissed.’

Miss Levy, who had previously been cleared of any wrongdoing by both the police and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority, said: ‘I have always maintained that my actions were entirely consistent with my duties as a lawyer, and that I was not in breach of contract or otherwise guilty of any misconduct.’

Stafford Hospital was first hit by scandal in 2009 when a report by the NHS regulator, the Healthcare Commission, said appalling standards of care there may have contributed to the deaths of at least 400 patients.

Robert Francis QC then chaired an inquiry which concluded that patients were routinely neglected by a Trust that was ‘preoccupied with cost cutting and targets’.

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Useless British police put on the spot

'Three strikes' rule to tackle yob gangs: Police must act on complaints or face the sack

Police will no longer be able to ignore homeowners whose lives are being made a misery by yobs, the Home Secretary is set to announce. Once three separate complaints have been lodged, officers will have no option but to take action, Theresa May will say. The same will apply if five individuals from five different households in the same neighbourhood complain about the same issue.

If they still fail to respond, they can be hauled in front of a ‘crime commissioner’, who will have the power to fire chief constables.

Ministers hope the ‘community trigger’ system will halt a string of shocking cases where police and councils have failed to intervene to prevent homeowners being tormented.

They want to prevent a repeat of the case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled 18-year-old daughter Francecca – who had a mental age of four – when her cries for help went unheeded.

An inquest heard that yobs screamed obscenities at them, hurled stones and eggs at the windows, shoved dog excrement and fireworks through the letterbox, and threatened Miss Pilkington’s dyslexic son Anthony with a knife.

Despite receiving 33 desperate 999 calls in ten years, police said Miss Pilkington, 38, was ‘over-reacting’ and dismissed her as ‘low-priority’.

Unable to bear the torment any more, she decided death was her only escape, and killed herself and her daughter by setting fire to their car near their home in Barwell, Leicestershire, in October 2007.

A separate report by the police watchdog revealed officers were failing to visit tens of thousands of families whose lives are made a misery by louts. The Chief Inspector of Constabulary’s report said the true number of anti-social behaviour incidents could be twice as high as the 3.6million estimated by the Government in 2008-9.

In a speech in London today, Mrs May will say: ‘It’s too easy to overlook the harm that persistent anti-social behaviour causes. 'Many police forces, councils and housing providers are working hard, but I still hear horror stories of victims reporting the same problem over and over again, and getting no response.
Will police revert to Dutch protocol

‘These long-running problems – and the sense of helplessness that goes with them –can destroy a victim’s quality of life and shatter a community’s trust in the police. ‘The “trigger” will give victims and communities the right to demand that agencies who had ignored a problem must take action.’

The new power will target Community Safety Partnerships, which are joint panels of the police and local authority officials. It specifically deals with anti-social behaviour: low-level offending such as vandalism or intimidation.

Officers have in the past viewed it as a council job – leading to criticism they do not take bad behaviour seriously. But now either the police or council will be required to take steps to resolve a problem once it has reached the trigger stage, and reply to the complainant detailing a plan. Only ‘malicious’ complaints can be rejected.

From November, that reply will be copied to elected police and crime commissioners – who will be elected for the first time in November. These commissioners will have the power to fire under-performing chief constables.

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Why should my granny pay £40 a year for your solar energy?

The debacle over payments for solar energy in Britain is dragging on

We currently have an excessively generous system that pays people with solar panels 43p per kWh to generate energy - £1,000 a year, on average, according to the Energy Saving Trust.

This system, known as the feed in tariff, was designed to incentivise people to ‘go green’ and is paid for by all consumers, in the form of higher energy bills.

But if these lavish payments continue, it will add £40 a year to every household’s electricity bill by 2020. The Government had budgeted for each household to pay just £23 – an already iniquitous sum.

These green subsidies need to be curbed now to avoid spiralling bills. The Government is going to cut it to 21p per kwh from March – but will this reduction be enough?

The feed in tariff, launched in April 2010, is already proving to be a costly disaster for the Government. It desperately needs to rein in the cost or we will all end up paying the price.

At a time when there are already 5.5 million people in fuel poverty – where one tenth or more of a household’s income goes on fuel bills – it is madness to add to the burden of rising fuel bills with green initiatives.

Solar panels can cost around £10,000 to install, meaning they are usually the preserve of the well-off. Indeed, only 80,000 households have had them installed, out of 28 million households in total. Yet those with solar panels have already cost us £24 million in just three months from July to September 2011.

It seems particularly perverse, and totally contrary to the Government’s own aims to eradicate fuel poverty, that pensioners huddled under a duvet because they cannot afford to turn their heating on should be footing the bill. It is these pensioners who are paying to slash the energy bills of already-wealthy households.

In fact, the only people that have benefited from the feed in tariff are solar panel salesmen and the savvy investors looking for a good return on their cash. And sadly, research from Which? – as well as Money Mail’s postbag – reveals that many households who have bought solar panels have been mis-sold by unscrupulous salesmen who exaggerated the benefits.

The Government has mishandled the situation by failing to foresee that the cost of panels would fall as more people had them installed, thereby making the returns from feed in tariffs too generous. It has therefore been forced to cut the subsidy very quickly, leaving thousands of installers in doubt about their future.

Of course it would be great if we could secure thousands of jobs and lower our carbon emissions by incentivising people to adopt green energy. But the current feed in tariff is not the way to do it. It is expensive, regressive and unsustainable.

SOURCE



Global cooling strikes again

Britain to shiver in temperatures 'colder than the South Pole' as health chiefs say more than 1,500 people a week could die from killer freeze

A cold snap that has left dozens dead across Eastern Europe will reach Britain by the weekend. Temperatures are set to plunge far below freezing point making the country even colder than the South Pole. Forecasters are expecting overnight temperatures of between -8c (18f) and -10c (14f) on Friday.

The McMurdo research facility in Antarctica is currently recording -6c (21f) at night. The bitter cold has forced some countries to deploy their armed forces and set up emergency accommodation.

Health chiefs have also started warning that as a result of the freezing conditions, more than 1,500 people a week could be killed by the weather.

The Department of Health's Chief Medical Officer said that around 1,560 people, many elderly, would die due to cold weather each week between now and March in normal winter weather. That figure will rise 'substantially', however, due to extreme cold like that we are currently experiencing.

During last year's big freeze, the death rate in England and Wales shot up by 21 per cent from 9,220 a week to 11,193. Dame Sally Davies said: 'Mortality rises by 19 per cent in winter months in England, amounting to 27,000 excess deaths or 1,560 more people per week compared with the rest of the year. And very severe weather can substantially add to this death toll.

'The majority of UK deaths are among older people, especially women, and those with underlying health problems - but they are not people who would have died anyhow at that time.'

To help deal with the extreme cold, the Army has been put on standby. Around four inches of snow and ice could cover part of the country after a high pressure system hanging over Scandinavia which is pushing raw winds towards the UK.

Cold Weather Watch has now upgraded its severe weather warning to a level three, after stating that there was a 100 per cent probability of 'severe' conditions across most of England this week. With severe weather warnings already in place and chaos on the roads, the military have been put on standby should there be a level four 'major cold weather incident'.

When freezing conditions struck in 2010, members of the armed forces were called in to help clear snow from the roads and assist residents in particularly hard-hit areas. Mobilised soldiers will also help clear special locations such as doctors’ surgeries, care homes and hospitals.

According to the Met Office temperatures will drop to as low as -6C (21.2F) tomorrow and on Thursday, when daytime maximums will be no more than 3C (37.4F). Severe weather warnings for ice were also issued for last night and this morning across eastern parts of England and Scotland, and Northern Ireland, south-west England and south Wales.

Police in Devon and Cornwall have warned motorists in some parts of the region not to travel unless it is essential after snowfall over the higher areas of Exmoor and Dartmoor.

The Department of Health issued a 'Level 2' cold-weather alert running for the next two to three days, which is triggered when low temperatures give rise to significant health risks. It warned that low temperatures can especially be dangerous for the young and the elderly or those with chronic disease.

SOURCE



British selective school pupils wrongly expelled after Facebook smear campaign saying that they had sex in a store cupboard

Two grammar school pupils were expelled after a malicious gossip campaign broke out on Facebook claiming the pair had sex in a school store room and toilet. Trevor Evans and his girlfriend were 16 when they were first suspended from West Kirby Grammar School, in Wirral, where they were sixth-formers.

Within two days they were expelled, but an independent tribunal has found that the school failed to investigate the claims properly. It also ruled that not enough evidence had been found to permanently exclude the pair.

Trevor, now 17, strongly denies having had sex with his then girlfriend. He insists that he was consoling her in a toilet cubicle after she became upset.

His mother, Honora, heard about the allegations when she received a letter from headteacher Glenice Robinson in October last year. Since then she has been fighting to clear her son's name and insists the allegations were spread on Facebook.

She said: 'This was a vindictive campaign hatched by some girls at the school who posted malicious rumours about him on Facebook.'

Trevor, a keen musician, said: 'I just want to get back to school and resume my studies.'

Mrs Evans, who lives in the affluent village of Meols, said she had endured a traumatic three months in order to expose the school's failure to carry out a proper investigation. She said: 'The way the school dealt with this was a knee-jerk reaction and the right to education should be supported, not taken away.'

Headteacher Mrs Robinson said: 'It would not be appropriate to discuss specific details but the school always acts in the best interests of pupils.'

An announcement on whether the pair can return to school is yet to be made.

SOURCE



Complementary medicine courses in universities: how I beat the varsity quacks

The teaching of complementary medicine has no place in British universities, says David Colquhoun. David Colquhoun is professor of pharmacology at University College London

What would you think if your child went off to university to be taught that amethyst crystals “emit high yin energy”? Or that cancer can be cured by squirting coffee up the fundament? What if they were told in a lecture that the heart is not, as medical science has believed for centuries, a pump for circulating blood around the body but instead “the governor of our rational thought and behaviour”? Well, you’d probably want your tuition fees back for a start.

For more than a decade, “facts” such as these have been peddled by more than a dozen fully accredited, state-funded British universities: the above examples come from the University of Westminster and Edinburgh Napier University. Indeed, since the mid-1990s, such ideas have been presented and taught as if they were real medicine.

The teaching of “complementary” (that is, non-evidence-based) medicine is something about which scientists and rationalist campaign groups have been raising havoc for years. It may seem harmless and even a welcome alternative to traditional perspectives. But teaching people that homoeopathy is evidence-based when it isn’t, and encouraging students to distrust the scientific method, not only runs counter to reason, but can be dangerous.

“Complementary” medics can cause harm by persuading patients to shun medicines that can cure or alleviate their condition. In extreme cases – such as the prescription of herbal remedies for potentially fatal diseases such as Aids – it can kill. Steve Jobs, for example, might still be alive if he had not initially decided to treat his pancreatic cancer via diet, rather than radiotherapy.

As a senior scientist in one of Britain’s biggest and most respected universities, I was bemused when I first learnt of the existence of these bizarre courses. After all, we are beset by a plethora of regulatory agencies that are meant to put a stop to worthless degrees. Moreover, these bodies are supposed to guarantee that students are paying for accredited academic courses, not ones that professional scientists would dismiss as teaching ''magic’’.

The sad fact is that none of these regulators did anything to stop the infiltration of the mainstream. The Quality Assurance Agency has ticked its boxes and rubber-stamped these dubious courses. The Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Authority has allowed the misleading labelling of quack medicines. Trading Standards has been useless. The Department of Health has vacillated, and will not allow Nice (the National Institute for Clinical Excellence) to investigate, despite many requests to do so. Parliament has been unhelpful (perhaps not surprising, when one MP, David Tredinnick, got into trouble for buying astrology software on expenses).

The only organisation that has done anything sensible is the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which has said – for example – that advertisements placed by homeopaths cannot name particular diseases that they purport to treat. The ASA also reprimanded Boots for misleading claims on its homoeopathic “remedies”.

The true villains of the piece, however, are the vice-chancellors, who must take responsibility for what is taught at their university. In 2008, I wrote to the then vice-chancellor of the University of Wales, Marc Clement. I asked him, as a physicist, what his opinion was of this statement: “Implosion researchers have found that if water is put through a spiral, its field changes, and it then appears to have a potent, restorative effect on cells.”

This was written by the course leader for an MSc in “Nutrition” run by the Northern College of Acupuncture, but validated by the University of Wales. The validation committee did not appear to have noticed it. And Prof Clement did not reply to my request for an opinion about the wonders of “spiralised water”. The consequence of this, and hundreds of other “validations” conducted by the University of Wales, was that it was abolished, thanks to Welsh education minister Leighton Andrews. Yet action was only taken after the scandal was flagged up first by bloggers, and then in two programmes by BBC Wales. There is, surely, something very wrong when academic standards have to be maintained by online amateurs and local broadcasters.

What is encouraging, however, is that the tide appears to have turned. At the beginning of 2007, 16 universities offered 45 BSc degrees in make-believe medicine. There were even five degrees in homoeopathy (the medicine that contains no medicine). Now there are none. Likewise, degrees in naturopathy, reflexology and aromatherapy have all vanished from Britain’s universities. “Nutritional therapy” has almost gone, too.

This is especially good news, since the people who deal sensibly with nutrition are called dieticians. Anyone can be a self-styled “nutritionist”: the terms “nutritional therapy” or “nutritional medicine” usually refer to an individual who claims to be able to cure almost anything by diet, but whose aim is to sell you expensive and unnecessary – or even harmful – supplements. This practice was exposed in a recent investigation by Which? magazine, in which 14 out of 15 consultations were deemed “fails” and six out of 15 gave dangerous advice.

There are two obvious reasons for this welcome return to sanity. One is that the Freedom of Information Act allows anyone to find out what’s being taught to students. Universities have fought tooth and nail to hide the information, but they were overruled by the Information Commissioner, who decided that taxpayers should be able to see how their money was spent. The internet has also been a factor: vice-chancellors don’t like it when Googling their names produces references to “yin energy”.

But a more positive explanation may be that we seem at last to be emerging from the age of what we can call the “endarkenment”. People are less willing to believe things that aren’t true – whether it’s the presence of WMD in Iraq, the effectiveness of bankers’ derivatives, or the power of homoeopathy. They are also less willing to pay for them. The huge rise in tuition fees will cost the taxpayer money (through the loan scheme), but at least it may put the last nail in the coffin of quackery. Vice-chancellors seem remarkably insensitive to the contents of what’s taught, but they care a great deal about the money.

In terms of the remaining degrees, the courses that are predominantly in Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Chinese remedies are almost completely untested, and they are frequently contaminated and dangerous. They also contribute to the slaughter of rhinos, tigers and bears.

Acupuncture is more interesting. There is no doubt that it has had, in the past, greater acceptance by the medical establishment than other forms of alternative medicine. One welcome consequence is that there has been a lot more research into this practice than others. However, almost all of it points to the conclusion that it is no more than a theatrical placebo.

If you get yourself poked with needles, and the next day you feel better, there are two possible reasons. One is that you are experiencing a placebo effect. The other is the “get better anyway” effect or, in scientific parlance, “regression to the mean”. Acupuncture might sit at the respectable end of the fruitloopery spectrum, but I believe it has no place in a university, other than as a good example of how easy it is to fool yourself.

Over the past few years, bloggers and campaigners have made an enormous contribution to the resurgence of rational thinking. It is a shame that the official bodies that are supposed to protect us from the snake-oil salesmen have not done such a good job.

SOURCE



British bus drivers must not call passengers 'babe'

We read:

"A bus company is a warning drivers to not call passengers 'babe' in a bid to avoid lawsuits from offended women. Brighton & Hove Buses posted warnings to drivers in its head offices after a complaint from a woman who said she felt insulted by being called 'babe' when she boarded a bus.

The company also warned drivers they could face the sack if they call passengers 'love' or 'darling'.

One employee, who did not want to be named, said: 'It's just the height of political correctness. The drivers know how to best speak to customers. 'People don't want their drivers to be robots. What is the world coming to when you can't have a bit of friendly banter with passengers?'

Managing director Roger French said: 'A lady complained to us that she thought the language used by a driver was demeaning to her.

Source

"Babe" is always complimentary as far as I know so the woman who was offended must have had "issues".

Outside the Home Counties in England it is quite common for people to address one-another with terms of endearment -- with "Love" being the most common of such terms -- as it is in Australia. It is rather like the Southern U.S. "Honey" or "Hon". My favourite is one area where women commonly address one another as "M'dook" (My duck)!



‘Blasphemous’ UK Film Featuring Jesus Being Seduced on the Cross Approved 23 Years After Being Banned

This sounds pretty sick but as long as people are warned well in advance about the nature of the film, I see no reason to ban it. If you don't like it, don't buy a ticket. If you do buy a ticket, it says something about you

A victory for freedom of expression? The only movie ever banned in Britain for blasphemy was finally approved for distribution Tuesday, 23 years after it was outlawed.

The experimental short film “Visions of Ecstasy” features scenes of Jesus being seduced on the cross and became a free-speech cause celebre after Britain’s film censors refused to give it a rating, a requirement for legal distribution.

The British Board of Film Classification ruled in 1989 that a fantasy scene in which the Spanish mystic St. Teresa of Avila sexually caresses Christ’s body could constitute blasphemous libel. The board judged that cutting out the potentially blasphemous material would shorten the 19-minute film by half, so they refused to approve it.

Blasphemy was abolished as an offense in 2008 and on Tuesday the film board gave Wingrove’s film an “18” rating, meaning it may be viewed by adults.

The board acknowledged the film would be “deeply offensive to some viewers,” but was unlikely to cause harm.

Source

1 February, 2012

No blanket bans on procedures, says NHS panel

Local health authorities should not apply blanket bans to treatment labelled as being of 'low clinical value', an NHS panel has said

More and more primary care trusts (PCTs) have started making it harder for people to get treatment for a range of procedures, like knee replacements, cataract removals, varicose veins and obesity surgery.

For example, some have started issuing edicts that all obese patients awaiting certain operations must go on weightloss courses. They argue these are for clinical reasons, although many doctors and patients believe the real reason is to save money.

Now a team of experts, called the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention Right Care Team, has issued its "emerging views" to stop what it said was becoming a postcode lottery of care.

Surgical specialist groups and the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) should work with NHS managers to create "value-based clinical commissioning guidance", it said, according to GP magazine.

The panel was commissioned by Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of the NHS, to look at the issue.

Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, is very concerned at the NHS being seen to ration care. He said: "It is unacceptable for NHS bodies to deny patients the care they need or impose blanket bans on treatment. We have been clear that decisions about treatment for patients must be clinically justified and take the individual patient's needs into account.

"If a patient needs treatment then they should be able to receive it on the NHS although what is suitable for one patient may not be suitable for another with different medical or personal circumstances.

"Under our modernisation plans, we are giving even greater power to clinicians so they are able to ensure their patients receive the high quality care they need."

SOURCE



Parents must have the right to spank their children to instil discipline, says Boris Johnson

The Mayor of London spoke after a senior Labour MP blamed his party’s partial ban on smacking children for last August’s riots.

Former education minister David Lammy called for a return to Victorian laws on discipline, saying working-class parents needed to be able to use corporal punishment to deter unruly children from joining gangs and wielding knives.

He claimed parents were ‘no longer sovereign in their own homes’ and feared that social workers would take their children away if they chastised them.

Labour’s 2004 law did not completely ban smacking, but said a smack should cause no more than a reddening of the skin.

Last night Mr Johnson supported Mr Lammy, saying the current law was ‘confusing’, meaning that parents do not know how far they can go in terms of smacking their children.

‘People do feel anxious about imposing discipline on their children, whether the law will support them,’ he told the Pienaar’s Politics programme on BBC Radio 5 Live.

'Obviously you don’t want to have a licence for physical abuse or for violence and that’s very important.’

The Mayor said he believed he had the support of Education Secretary Michael Gove.

‘I know that people will have their own views, but let me just say on the issue that’s been raised a lot of times with me; the issue of are you allowed to chastise, are you allowed to impose discipline?’

SOURCE



Middle class Brits priced out of university by soaring tuition fees as applications fall by nearly 10%

Thousands of middle-class youngsters have been priced out of university by the trebling of tuition fees to £9,000-a-year, figures revealed yesterday.

Sixth-formers from families with pre-tax incomes between £40,000 and £80,000 have been hardest hit by fee hikes which threaten to leave graduates with debts of £50,000.

Several thousand youngsters from middle and higher-income homes have been put off applying by the prospect of paying up to £9,000-a-year in tuition charges on top of living costs. They fail to qualify for grants and other scholarships designed to lessen the impact of the new charging regime on the poorest.

Families earning less than £25,000 are eligible for maintenance grants to help meet living expenses, with universities also offering means-tested bursaries. Pupils with household incomes up to £42,600 qualify for partial grants.

The number of university applicants across England has fallen by nearly 10 per cent following news that most universities will impose higher charges this autumn. Older students have deserted higher education in greatest numbers, with lesser falls among 18-year-old school leavers.

But official figures yesterday showed a sharper fall among better-off sixth-formers than ‘disadvantaged’ candidates. According to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, the proportion of youngsters applying from the wealthiest fifth of the country dropped 2.5 percentage points – a fall of 3,000. These families live in postcodes that are most likely to send children to university. Their likely average gross household income is around £80,000.

The proportion of applicants from middle-earning families dropped by about one percentage point. In contrast, the percentage of pupils applying from the poorest fifth of England dipped just 0.2 points – around 280 students. These families live in postcodes least likely to send children to university, with a likely average income of £11,800-a-year.

On average, one in 20 18-year-olds who would have been expected to apply to university this year has failed to do so, UCAS said.

The figures suggest that wealthier youngsters are deciding in greater numbers to look for jobs instead of study for three years or more and build up mortgage-style debts in the process. The trend will be seen as mounting evidence of pressure on the so-called ‘squeezed middle’ – the group bearing the brunt of economic policies aimed at easing Britain’s financial woes.

Mary Curnock Cook, UCAS chief executive, said: ‘Our analysis shows that decreases in demand are slightly larger in more advantaged groups than in disadvantaged groups. Widely expressed concerns about recent changes in higher education funding arrangements having a disproportionate effect on more disadvantaged groups are not borne out by this data.’

Ministers insisted the number of 18-year-olds applying to university had largely held up despite the controversial fees policy, one of the Coalition’s most bitterly-contested reforms. Sources pointed out the number of school-leavers from affluent backgrounds applying for university was still significantly higher than from lower-income groups.

But Shabana Mahmood, Labour’s higher education spokesman, said: ‘The decision of the Tory-led Government to treble tuition fees to £9,000 is hitting young people and their aspirations. It is clear the drastic increase in fees and the increased debt burden is putting people of all ages off going to university and investing in their future. Most students will be paying off their debts most of their working lives.’

The figures show how total applications for degree courses starting in the autumn were down 7.4 per cent – almost 44,000. Of these, 25,789 were aged 19 to 21. Many applied last year, causing a spike in recruitment.

The overall drop in applications was softened by a rise in the numbers from outside Europe.

Among UK students, applications were down 8.7 per cent – and 9.9 per cent among those living in England. In contrast, the number of applications from Scottish students – who will not pay tuition fees next year – dropped just 1.5 per cent.

Under the reforms, graduates only start repaying their loans when their income reaches £21,000. Outstanding repayments are written off after 30 years. Graduates on lower incomes are charged less interest than those who land top jobs.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: ‘We cannot afford a system that puts people off university if we are to compete in the modern world.’

SOURCE











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