Eye on Britain
Friday, July 31, 2009
British schoolchildren now discouraged from skipping
The little girls twirl their skipping ropes while the boys gather round to bash each other's conkers. In the corner, another group of children scramble up a tree. For many parents, it is a picture of the perfect playground scene.
But it is not one they are likely to see today. It lives on only in memories of their childhood, while their own school-age children are more likely to be glued to a computer screen. More than three in four of today's little girls do not play with skipping ropes, a survey has found.
The figure compares with 94 per cent of their mothers who remember skipping to rhymes and songs when they were at school. Little more than 33 per cent of boys play conkers, while 83 per cent of their fathers have fond memories of glorious conker battles at the same age.
A growing appetite for computer games and television is not the only reason that traditional games appear to be passing the present generation by. The survey shows that parents believe today's 'cotton-wool culture', in which children are molly-coddled and not allowed to take any risks, is to blame. Eighty per cent of parents said modern health and safety regulations were behind the demise of traditional playground favourites such as skipping, conkers, hopscotch, British bulldog and climbing trees.
More than 4,000 parents were questioned for the survey on how childhood freedom is being curtailed. They felt children were missing out on exercise and developing social skills by not being encouraged to play traditional games.
There were also concerns that parents themselves can be over-protective of their children, which means fewer are allowed to play outdoors out of school hours.
Overall, 59 per cent of parents said childhood today was worse than when they were young. Independent child psychologist Emma Kenny analysed the results of the survey which was carried out for a soft drink company. 'Many treasured children's activities are becoming rare, but it's the implications of this that are the cause for concern,' she said. 'Traditional children's play activities such as hopscotch, climbing trees or playing tag provide learning experiences based on imagination. 'These all help kids develop key skills such as team playing, counting and creativity that are crucial to their future development.'
Recent research suggests teachers are equally concerned and that almost half believe pupils are negatively affected by the ever-tightening grip of health and safety rules. Under these rules some schools have banned snowball fights, sports-day sack races and even nature walks for fear of injury and the chance of being sued for compensation by parents.
Emma Kenny added: 'This "Big Mothered Britain" mentality is in fact restricting opportunities for our children to learn and play freely. 'Ultimately, we're seeing a gap emerge in today's younger generation in the "fun" skills that we learn through a wide variety of physical and mental activities. 'This in turn, is not giving our kids the best opportunities for their future.'
SOURCE
Greenie bird and landscape lovers stymie Greenie warming-haters
There's no such thing as a happy Greenie
Europe's largest onshore windfarm project has been thrown in severe doubt after the RSPB and official government agencies lodged formal objections to the 150-turbine plan, it emerged today. The setback adds to the problems facing the government's ambition to install 10,000 new turbines across the UK by 2020 as part of its plan to cut the carbon emissions causing climate change.
The proposed 550MW windfarm, sprawling across the centre of Shetland's main island, would add almost 20% to existing onshore wind capacity. But the objectors say the plans could seriously damage breeding sites for endangered birds, including a rare wader, the whimbrel, which was unexpectedly discovered by the windfarm developer's own environmental survey teams. Other species at risk include the red throated diver, golden plover and merlin.
The RSPB heavily criticised the proposal from Viking Energy after initially indicating it could support the scheme. The RSPB also claims now that installation of the turbines could release significant carbon dioxide from the peat bogs affected, undermining the turbines' potential to combat global warming. The group's fears have been endorsed by the government's official conservation advisers, Scottish Natural Heritage, and SNH has also objected to the "magnitude" of the scheme, claiming it could kill many of these birds through collisions with the 145-metre-high structures.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which oversees pollution and waste laws in Scotland, has also formally objected, making it inevitable the scheme will now go to a full public inquiry and intensifying pressure on the developers to alter the scale of the project.
In a detailed critique of the proposal, Sepa has asked Viking Energy to significantly rethink its plans to cut out and dump up to 1m cubic metres of peat during construction, and asked ministers to impose tough conditions to protect local water quality and freshwater species .
Bill Manson, a director of Viking Energy, the community-owned company which is collaborating with Scottish and Southern Energy on the scheme, said it would be prepared to negotiate. "I believe there's a dialogue to be had, which will assuage their fears, I hope," he said.
A Scottish government consultation on the 800m scheme closed yesterday, with more than 3,600 of Shetland's 21,000 islanders signing a petition calling for the project to be scrapped. The Shetland Amenity Trust, a local heritage and archaeological charity, and one of Scotland's major countryside access organisations, the John Muir Trust, have also objected, arguing that the proposal would have a "hugely damaging detrimental impact" on the treeless, hilly landscape.
The dispute has highlighted the conflicts arising over the siting of major windfarms on land, between the need to exploit the most windy locations and the desire to preserve the rural environment.
The government wants to have an additional 6,000 onshore and 4,000 offshore wind turbines installed by 2020 to meet its legally binding target of generating 15% of all energy from renewable sources . There are currently about 2,400 turbines. Ed Milliband, the energy and climate change secretary, has set out an ambitious plan to transform the UK to a low-carbon economy. But the plans to change the planning system to make windfarm approvals quicker and give priority to renewable projects in granting national grid connections prompted significant criticism on the siting and cost of windfarms.
Within a week, the newly formed National Association of Wind Action Groups pledged to campaign against the harmful impact of wind turbine developments on communities and landscapes. Another blow came from the decision of Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas to close the UK's only blade manufacturing plant on the Isle of Wight. The company said the UK wind market was not growing fast enough and that projects had been slowed down by planning objections.
Existing windfarms have 3,000MW of capacity, but another 9,600MW is in the planning process. A further 6,000MW has planning permission but no funding and on Monday the government announced a 1bn loan package to try to fill that funding gap. It argues that the UK has the largest potential for wind power in Europe and already has more offshore wind installed than any other country. Miliband has said that climate change poses a greater threat to landscapes than windfarms and that opposing them should be "socially unacceptable".
Scotland is already home to more than half the UK's onshore wind capacity and Shetland is a key location. The islands reputedly experience the highest and most consistent wind speeds of any comparable place on earth. One small turbine at Lerwick, known as Betsy, is believed to be the world's most productive, reaching 59% of its potential output.
The Viking scheme, if approved by ministers, would alone generate a fifth of Scotland's domestic electricity needs and earn up to 37m a year in profits for Shetland. Manson said yesterday that the scheme had to be large-scale for the energy regulator and National Grid to agree to lay the 300m interconnector cable that would carry the electricity to the mainland. A scheme even half its current size would not be commercially viable. But opponents claim that the scheme is far too large and that, with a further 62 miles of access roads, it would significantly affect a fifth of the main island's desolate interior and industrialise the landscape.
"We can't simply build our way out of climate change," said John Hutchison, chairman of the John Muir Trust. "It is both cheaper and less destructive to reduce energy need and waste, rather than cover the wild landscapes that define Scotland and its people with wind turbines."
SOURCE
British teachers put on the spot
A teaching union is to campaign against the new code of conduct for teachers, which it says intrudes on their private lives. The code, which will come into force in October, states that teachers must "demonstrate honesty and integrity and uphold public trust and confidence in the teaching profession".
Teachers are also expected to "maintain reasonable standards in their own behaviour" or face disciplinary procedures, according to the General Teaching Council, the profession's watchdog, which drew up the code.
The actions of teachers while off duty will now be under the spotlight - a move that the NASUWT, a teaching union, said set "unreasonable expectations of how people should conduct themselves".
The teaching council has said that, for example, those who drink heavily and disgrace themselves face discipline for bringing the profession into disrepute, even if it is outside school hours and they have not broken the law.
Chris Keates, chief executive of the NASUWT, said that there was a lot of anger among teachers about the revised code. The union is to ask members to protest against the code in the coming months. "Teachers are entitled to a private life," Ms Keates said. "It will lead to teachers being put in a position that no other workers are put in. Their conduct outside work is under a scrutiny that no one else's life would be under."
The NASUWT is calling for the code to be abandoned because, it says, teachers are already subject to professional standards, capability and disciplinary measures for their conduct in school.
The General Teaching Council said that the code "sets out expectations of reasonable standards of behaviour but does not limit a teacher's right to a private life".
SOURCE
Organic food 'no better for health than factory-farmed food' says U.K. government report
Which has outraged the faddists. How nasty of science to debunk superstition!
Organic food is no healthier than other produce, according to the Government's food watchdog. The largest ever review into the science behind organic food found that it contained no more nutritional value than factory-farmed meat or fruit and vegetables grown using chemical fertilisers. The findings challenge popular assumptions about the organic industry, worth 2 billion in the UK. Consumer groups said that shoppers may now think twice before buying organic.
The report, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, was carried out by experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who studied data collected over 50 years.
Organic groups were incensed by the findings. The Soil Association accused the FSA of ignoring up-to-date evidence and pre-empting EU research for political reasons. Lord Melchett, its policy director, said that he had urged the FSA to delay its report. "They have jumped the gun," he said.
The FSA researchers were led by by a public health nutritionist, Dr Alan Dangour. They found that there was no significant benefit from drinking milk or eating meat, vegetables, fruit, poultry and eggs from organic sources, as opposed to the products of conventional farm systems.
Pro-organic groups criticised the findings of the year-long review, which cost 120,000. They said that the conclusions, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, failed to take into account the impact of pesticides and herbicides. Organic farming bans artificial chemical fertilisers and has stricter animal welfare rules than conventional farming.
Dr Dangour said that, as a nutritionist, he was not qualified to look at pesticides. "There is a possibility that organic food has less pesticide residues, but this was not part of the review," he said. "Potentially this may be an area for further research." He added: "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced crops and livestock on the basis of nutritional supremacy."
Among the differences identified by the study was a higher phosphorous content in organic food. Dr Dangour said: "Phosphorus is an important mineral and is available in everything we eat. It is important for public health but the difference in the content between organic and conventional foods was not statistically relevant in terms of health." He added: "Acidity is also higher in organic produce but acidity is about taste and sensory perception and makes no difference at all for health."
Nitrogen levels were found to be higher in conventional produce, but this was not surprising given the use of nitrogen as a fertiliser in commercial agriculture. But the levels posed no better or worse impacts on human health, the research said.
A study of 52,000 papers was made, but only 162 scientific papers published between January 1958 and February last year were deemed relevant, of which just 55 met the strict quality criteria for the study, Dr Dangour said.
Twenty-three nutrients were analysed. In 20 categories there were no significant differences between production methods and the nutrient content. The differences detected were most likely to have been due to differences in fertiliser use and ripeness at harvest, and were unlikely to provide any health benefits.
The Soil Association challenged the conclusions that some nutritional differences between organic and conventional food were not important. It said it was particularly concerned that the researchers dismissed higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic food - such as 53.6 higher levels of beta-carotene and 38.4 per cent more flavonoids in organic foods - according to the mean percentage difference of samples analysed. Dr Dangour was adamant that these were not relevant because of the level of standard error in the research - which was 37 per cent for beta-carotene and 10.6 per cent for flavonoids.
The authors said in their conclusion: "No evidence of a difference in content of nutrients and other substances between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products was detected for the majority of nutrient assessed in this review, suggesting that organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products are broadly comparable in their nutrient content."
Gill Fine, the FSA's director of consumer choice, said: "This study does not mean that people should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food."
In reaching their conclusions, the report's authors were accused of pre-empting a Brussels study being carried out by Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Farming at Newcastle University, which is due to be published this year. [A Professor of ecological farming! Well. He would be an unbiased source to go to wouldn't he? But for all he knows about farming, does he know anything about nutrition?] Professor Leifert told The Times that his research found higher level of antioxidants - which help the body to combat cancer and cardiovascular disease - in organic foods. He said that the FSA did not want to admit that there was anything good in organic food. "The Government is worried they will then have to have a policy to make organic food available to everyone," he said.
SOURCE
Hundreds of thousands of migrants in Britain for handouts, says senior judge
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to Britain just to get welfare benefits, a senior judge declared yesterday. Judge Ian Trigger said the cost of the handouts has helped to double the national debt. He spoke out as he gave a two-year jail sentence to a Jamaican drug minder who disappeared from the notice of immigration authorities after claiming asylum.
He told Lucien McClearley, 31, at Liverpool Crown Court: 'Your case illustrates all too clearly the completely lax immigration policy that exists and has existed over recent years.' Sentencing McClearley, he added: 'People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.
'In the past ten years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central Government has wasted billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments. 'For every 1 that the decent citizen, who is hard-working, pays in taxes, nearly 10 per cent goes on servicing that national debt. That is twice the amount it was in 1997 when this Government came to power.'
McClearley arrived legally in Britain in November 2001 on a visitor's visa. He was arrested in October 2002 after it ran out but claimed asylum and was released while this was being processed.
He then 'disappeared from the radar of the authorities', the court heard. His application was rejected in 2004 but he was only arrested this February after police stopped a car he was driving and noticed it smelled of cannabis. A search of the house where McClearley was staying in Everton uncovered cannabis worth 7,200, a gram of cocaine and a fake passport.
He admitted taking a vehicle without consent, possessing cannabis and cocaine, possessing a class-B drug with intent and two counts of possessing false identity documents.
Judge Trigger, who is also a part-time immigration judge, told McClearley: 'The fact that it took nearly two years to process your claim shows how desperate the situation in this country has become.' The 65-year-old judge said he 'hoped and trusted' McClearley would be deported immediately on release.
SOURCE
Even very clever politicians can fall foul of speech rules
Yes. I know about Joe Biden but who ever said he was clever? This is about the head of the British Conservative party, a graduate of Eton and Oxford:
The little girls twirl their skipping ropes while the boys gather round to bash each other's conkers. In the corner, another group of children scramble up a tree. For many parents, it is a picture of the perfect playground scene.
But it is not one they are likely to see today. It lives on only in memories of their childhood, while their own school-age children are more likely to be glued to a computer screen. More than three in four of today's little girls do not play with skipping ropes, a survey has found.
The figure compares with 94 per cent of their mothers who remember skipping to rhymes and songs when they were at school. Little more than 33 per cent of boys play conkers, while 83 per cent of their fathers have fond memories of glorious conker battles at the same age.
A growing appetite for computer games and television is not the only reason that traditional games appear to be passing the present generation by. The survey shows that parents believe today's 'cotton-wool culture', in which children are molly-coddled and not allowed to take any risks, is to blame. Eighty per cent of parents said modern health and safety regulations were behind the demise of traditional playground favourites such as skipping, conkers, hopscotch, British bulldog and climbing trees.
More than 4,000 parents were questioned for the survey on how childhood freedom is being curtailed. They felt children were missing out on exercise and developing social skills by not being encouraged to play traditional games.
There were also concerns that parents themselves can be over-protective of their children, which means fewer are allowed to play outdoors out of school hours.
Overall, 59 per cent of parents said childhood today was worse than when they were young. Independent child psychologist Emma Kenny analysed the results of the survey which was carried out for a soft drink company. 'Many treasured children's activities are becoming rare, but it's the implications of this that are the cause for concern,' she said. 'Traditional children's play activities such as hopscotch, climbing trees or playing tag provide learning experiences based on imagination. 'These all help kids develop key skills such as team playing, counting and creativity that are crucial to their future development.'
Recent research suggests teachers are equally concerned and that almost half believe pupils are negatively affected by the ever-tightening grip of health and safety rules. Under these rules some schools have banned snowball fights, sports-day sack races and even nature walks for fear of injury and the chance of being sued for compensation by parents.
Emma Kenny added: 'This "Big Mothered Britain" mentality is in fact restricting opportunities for our children to learn and play freely. 'Ultimately, we're seeing a gap emerge in today's younger generation in the "fun" skills that we learn through a wide variety of physical and mental activities. 'This in turn, is not giving our kids the best opportunities for their future.'
SOURCE
Greenie bird and landscape lovers stymie Greenie warming-haters
There's no such thing as a happy Greenie
Europe's largest onshore windfarm project has been thrown in severe doubt after the RSPB and official government agencies lodged formal objections to the 150-turbine plan, it emerged today. The setback adds to the problems facing the government's ambition to install 10,000 new turbines across the UK by 2020 as part of its plan to cut the carbon emissions causing climate change.
The proposed 550MW windfarm, sprawling across the centre of Shetland's main island, would add almost 20% to existing onshore wind capacity. But the objectors say the plans could seriously damage breeding sites for endangered birds, including a rare wader, the whimbrel, which was unexpectedly discovered by the windfarm developer's own environmental survey teams. Other species at risk include the red throated diver, golden plover and merlin.
The RSPB heavily criticised the proposal from Viking Energy after initially indicating it could support the scheme. The RSPB also claims now that installation of the turbines could release significant carbon dioxide from the peat bogs affected, undermining the turbines' potential to combat global warming. The group's fears have been endorsed by the government's official conservation advisers, Scottish Natural Heritage, and SNH has also objected to the "magnitude" of the scheme, claiming it could kill many of these birds through collisions with the 145-metre-high structures.
The Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa), which oversees pollution and waste laws in Scotland, has also formally objected, making it inevitable the scheme will now go to a full public inquiry and intensifying pressure on the developers to alter the scale of the project.
In a detailed critique of the proposal, Sepa has asked Viking Energy to significantly rethink its plans to cut out and dump up to 1m cubic metres of peat during construction, and asked ministers to impose tough conditions to protect local water quality and freshwater species .
Bill Manson, a director of Viking Energy, the community-owned company which is collaborating with Scottish and Southern Energy on the scheme, said it would be prepared to negotiate. "I believe there's a dialogue to be had, which will assuage their fears, I hope," he said.
A Scottish government consultation on the 800m scheme closed yesterday, with more than 3,600 of Shetland's 21,000 islanders signing a petition calling for the project to be scrapped. The Shetland Amenity Trust, a local heritage and archaeological charity, and one of Scotland's major countryside access organisations, the John Muir Trust, have also objected, arguing that the proposal would have a "hugely damaging detrimental impact" on the treeless, hilly landscape.
The dispute has highlighted the conflicts arising over the siting of major windfarms on land, between the need to exploit the most windy locations and the desire to preserve the rural environment.
The government wants to have an additional 6,000 onshore and 4,000 offshore wind turbines installed by 2020 to meet its legally binding target of generating 15% of all energy from renewable sources . There are currently about 2,400 turbines. Ed Milliband, the energy and climate change secretary, has set out an ambitious plan to transform the UK to a low-carbon economy. But the plans to change the planning system to make windfarm approvals quicker and give priority to renewable projects in granting national grid connections prompted significant criticism on the siting and cost of windfarms.
Within a week, the newly formed National Association of Wind Action Groups pledged to campaign against the harmful impact of wind turbine developments on communities and landscapes. Another blow came from the decision of Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas to close the UK's only blade manufacturing plant on the Isle of Wight. The company said the UK wind market was not growing fast enough and that projects had been slowed down by planning objections.
Existing windfarms have 3,000MW of capacity, but another 9,600MW is in the planning process. A further 6,000MW has planning permission but no funding and on Monday the government announced a 1bn loan package to try to fill that funding gap. It argues that the UK has the largest potential for wind power in Europe and already has more offshore wind installed than any other country. Miliband has said that climate change poses a greater threat to landscapes than windfarms and that opposing them should be "socially unacceptable".
Scotland is already home to more than half the UK's onshore wind capacity and Shetland is a key location. The islands reputedly experience the highest and most consistent wind speeds of any comparable place on earth. One small turbine at Lerwick, known as Betsy, is believed to be the world's most productive, reaching 59% of its potential output.
The Viking scheme, if approved by ministers, would alone generate a fifth of Scotland's domestic electricity needs and earn up to 37m a year in profits for Shetland. Manson said yesterday that the scheme had to be large-scale for the energy regulator and National Grid to agree to lay the 300m interconnector cable that would carry the electricity to the mainland. A scheme even half its current size would not be commercially viable. But opponents claim that the scheme is far too large and that, with a further 62 miles of access roads, it would significantly affect a fifth of the main island's desolate interior and industrialise the landscape.
"We can't simply build our way out of climate change," said John Hutchison, chairman of the John Muir Trust. "It is both cheaper and less destructive to reduce energy need and waste, rather than cover the wild landscapes that define Scotland and its people with wind turbines."
SOURCE
British teachers put on the spot
A teaching union is to campaign against the new code of conduct for teachers, which it says intrudes on their private lives. The code, which will come into force in October, states that teachers must "demonstrate honesty and integrity and uphold public trust and confidence in the teaching profession".
Teachers are also expected to "maintain reasonable standards in their own behaviour" or face disciplinary procedures, according to the General Teaching Council, the profession's watchdog, which drew up the code.
The actions of teachers while off duty will now be under the spotlight - a move that the NASUWT, a teaching union, said set "unreasonable expectations of how people should conduct themselves".
The teaching council has said that, for example, those who drink heavily and disgrace themselves face discipline for bringing the profession into disrepute, even if it is outside school hours and they have not broken the law.
Chris Keates, chief executive of the NASUWT, said that there was a lot of anger among teachers about the revised code. The union is to ask members to protest against the code in the coming months. "Teachers are entitled to a private life," Ms Keates said. "It will lead to teachers being put in a position that no other workers are put in. Their conduct outside work is under a scrutiny that no one else's life would be under."
The NASUWT is calling for the code to be abandoned because, it says, teachers are already subject to professional standards, capability and disciplinary measures for their conduct in school.
The General Teaching Council said that the code "sets out expectations of reasonable standards of behaviour but does not limit a teacher's right to a private life".
SOURCE
Organic food 'no better for health than factory-farmed food' says U.K. government report
Which has outraged the faddists. How nasty of science to debunk superstition!
Organic food is no healthier than other produce, according to the Government's food watchdog. The largest ever review into the science behind organic food found that it contained no more nutritional value than factory-farmed meat or fruit and vegetables grown using chemical fertilisers. The findings challenge popular assumptions about the organic industry, worth 2 billion in the UK. Consumer groups said that shoppers may now think twice before buying organic.
The report, commissioned by the Food Standards Agency, was carried out by experts from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, who studied data collected over 50 years.
Organic groups were incensed by the findings. The Soil Association accused the FSA of ignoring up-to-date evidence and pre-empting EU research for political reasons. Lord Melchett, its policy director, said that he had urged the FSA to delay its report. "They have jumped the gun," he said.
The FSA researchers were led by by a public health nutritionist, Dr Alan Dangour. They found that there was no significant benefit from drinking milk or eating meat, vegetables, fruit, poultry and eggs from organic sources, as opposed to the products of conventional farm systems.
Pro-organic groups criticised the findings of the year-long review, which cost 120,000. They said that the conclusions, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, failed to take into account the impact of pesticides and herbicides. Organic farming bans artificial chemical fertilisers and has stricter animal welfare rules than conventional farming.
Dr Dangour said that, as a nutritionist, he was not qualified to look at pesticides. "There is a possibility that organic food has less pesticide residues, but this was not part of the review," he said. "Potentially this may be an area for further research." He added: "A small number of differences in nutrient content were found to exist between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock, but these are unlikely to be of any public health relevance. "Our review indicates that there is currently no evidence to support the selection of organically over conventionally produced crops and livestock on the basis of nutritional supremacy."
Among the differences identified by the study was a higher phosphorous content in organic food. Dr Dangour said: "Phosphorus is an important mineral and is available in everything we eat. It is important for public health but the difference in the content between organic and conventional foods was not statistically relevant in terms of health." He added: "Acidity is also higher in organic produce but acidity is about taste and sensory perception and makes no difference at all for health."
Nitrogen levels were found to be higher in conventional produce, but this was not surprising given the use of nitrogen as a fertiliser in commercial agriculture. But the levels posed no better or worse impacts on human health, the research said.
A study of 52,000 papers was made, but only 162 scientific papers published between January 1958 and February last year were deemed relevant, of which just 55 met the strict quality criteria for the study, Dr Dangour said.
Twenty-three nutrients were analysed. In 20 categories there were no significant differences between production methods and the nutrient content. The differences detected were most likely to have been due to differences in fertiliser use and ripeness at harvest, and were unlikely to provide any health benefits.
The Soil Association challenged the conclusions that some nutritional differences between organic and conventional food were not important. It said it was particularly concerned that the researchers dismissed higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic food - such as 53.6 higher levels of beta-carotene and 38.4 per cent more flavonoids in organic foods - according to the mean percentage difference of samples analysed. Dr Dangour was adamant that these were not relevant because of the level of standard error in the research - which was 37 per cent for beta-carotene and 10.6 per cent for flavonoids.
The authors said in their conclusion: "No evidence of a difference in content of nutrients and other substances between organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products was detected for the majority of nutrient assessed in this review, suggesting that organically and conventionally produced crops and livestock products are broadly comparable in their nutrient content."
Gill Fine, the FSA's director of consumer choice, said: "This study does not mean that people should not eat organic food. What it shows is that there is little, if any, nutritional difference between organic and conventionally produced food and that there is no evidence of additional health benefits from eating organic food."
In reaching their conclusions, the report's authors were accused of pre-empting a Brussels study being carried out by Carlo Leifert, Professor of Ecological Farming at Newcastle University, which is due to be published this year. [A Professor of ecological farming! Well. He would be an unbiased source to go to wouldn't he? But for all he knows about farming, does he know anything about nutrition?] Professor Leifert told The Times that his research found higher level of antioxidants - which help the body to combat cancer and cardiovascular disease - in organic foods. He said that the FSA did not want to admit that there was anything good in organic food. "The Government is worried they will then have to have a policy to make organic food available to everyone," he said.
SOURCE
Hundreds of thousands of migrants in Britain for handouts, says senior judge
Hundreds of thousands of immigrants come to Britain just to get welfare benefits, a senior judge declared yesterday. Judge Ian Trigger said the cost of the handouts has helped to double the national debt. He spoke out as he gave a two-year jail sentence to a Jamaican drug minder who disappeared from the notice of immigration authorities after claiming asylum.
He told Lucien McClearley, 31, at Liverpool Crown Court: 'Your case illustrates all too clearly the completely lax immigration policy that exists and has existed over recent years.' Sentencing McClearley, he added: 'People like you, and there are literally hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people like you, come to these shores to avail themselves of the generous welfare benefits that exist here.
'In the past ten years the national debt of this country has risen to extraordinary heights, largely because central Government has wasted billions of pounds. Much of that has been wasted on welfare payments. 'For every 1 that the decent citizen, who is hard-working, pays in taxes, nearly 10 per cent goes on servicing that national debt. That is twice the amount it was in 1997 when this Government came to power.'
McClearley arrived legally in Britain in November 2001 on a visitor's visa. He was arrested in October 2002 after it ran out but claimed asylum and was released while this was being processed.
He then 'disappeared from the radar of the authorities', the court heard. His application was rejected in 2004 but he was only arrested this February after police stopped a car he was driving and noticed it smelled of cannabis. A search of the house where McClearley was staying in Everton uncovered cannabis worth 7,200, a gram of cocaine and a fake passport.
He admitted taking a vehicle without consent, possessing cannabis and cocaine, possessing a class-B drug with intent and two counts of possessing false identity documents.
Judge Trigger, who is also a part-time immigration judge, told McClearley: 'The fact that it took nearly two years to process your claim shows how desperate the situation in this country has become.' The 65-year-old judge said he 'hoped and trusted' McClearley would be deported immediately on release.
SOURCE
Even very clever politicians can fall foul of speech rules
Yes. I know about Joe Biden but who ever said he was clever? This is about the head of the British Conservative party, a graduate of Eton and Oxford:
"It was meant to be the ideal low-risk, softball interview before he headed off to France for his holidays. But yesterday David Cameron's last media appearance before the summer break ended in awkward apologies after he used an inappropriate word during a breakfast radio programme favoured by his wife, Samantha.
The Tory leader used the word "twat" as he explained to Christian O'Connell, a presenter on Absolute Radio, why he did not use the Twitter social networking service. "The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it - too many twits might make a twat," he said. In the studio his remark was greeted with laughter. Mr O'Connell said: "That's fantastic."
However, according to the Collins English Dictionary, the word can refer to female genitals, a girl or woman "considered sexually", or a foolish or despicable person. Shortly afterwards Mr Cameron risked making the situation worse by saying people were "pissed off" with politicians - although he added hastily: "Sorry, I can't say that in the morning." ...
According to Mr O'Connell, the Conservative leader was ticked off by Gabby Bertin, his press secretary, as he left the studio. The presenter described the exchange between Mr Cameron and Ms Bertin in a podcast released shortly after the broadcast. "She leapt out of her skin after the first part of the interview," the presenter said. "He said [to her] `That seemed to go OK'. She said, `Yeah, apart from the language'.
"He said `Oh, yeah, pissed, sorry about that, I'm really sorry' . . . She said `No, it was the twat'. "He said, `That's not a swearword'. I think he must be posh, where a lot of them don't think twat is a swearword. His press secretary went, `It is'."
The presenter hailed Cameron as "a good bloke" who had been as relaxed as if he were "down the boozer". Mr O'Connell joked that the t-word was not viewed too seriously by radio regulators: "In terms of the fines we can get, it is not one of the big ones."
Source
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Elderly Brits kept impoverished by a socialist government that spends most of its money on a myriad of bureaucrats
Retired elderly better treated in Romania and Poland!!?? That's "caring" British socialism for you
Britain has a higher proportion of pensioners living below the poverty line than Romania, figures show. The elderly in this country are among the poorest in Europe, according to a breakdown by charities. Only in Estonia, Latvia and Cyprus are the aged more likely to be among the poorest in society. The comparisons, based on EU figures, follow a decade in which pensioners have been slipping down the league table of wealth in Britain.
This is largely because state benefits for the worst-off pensioners have slipped behind those available to the other poorest group in society, single mothers. Ministers have also acknowledged that elderly people with their own incomes and homes suffer because of the impact of soaring council tax bills.
The figures from Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm, were compiled by the charities Age Concern and Help the Aged. They reveal the proportion of pensioners in each EU country who live on incomes below 60 per cent of average.
The measure does not identify how many older people have plentiful material goods such as houses and cars despite low incomes, and is often regarded as a measure of equality rather than real poverty. But the charities said they were useful to show the number of older people who are at risk of living in poverty.
In Britain nearly one in three over-65s, or 30 per cent, are on incomes below the poverty threshold. That is lower only than the 51 per cent in Cyprus, 33 per cent in Latvia, and 33 per cent in Estonia.
Britain's 30 per cent is equal to the 30 per cent poverty risk rate in the other Baltic republic, Lithuania. In comparison, only 19 percent fall below the threshold in Romania and in Poland that figure is just eight per cent. The elderly also fare considerably better in Germany where the proportion below the poverty line is 17 per cent, in France 13 per cent and Holland 10 per cent.
Least likely pensioners to be poor are in the Czech republic, where only one in 20, five per cent, falls below the 60 per cent poverty line.
The figures also show that pensioners are more likely to be poor in Britain than other groups. While pensioners here come fourth from bottom of the table, for child poverty Britain ranks fifth from bottom and for poverty risk among adults under 65 ninth.
The study comes ahead of a major Government review of pensioner poverty due to be published this week. The charities said other research has shown that older people are skipping meals to save money and two out of five cannot afford to buy essential items.
Age Concern director Michelle Mitchell said: `Even before the recession set in, many older people were not keeping up with the pace at which the general wealth of the nation has increased.'
SOURCE
Special privileges for gypsy children in Britain
More than a thousand gipsy and traveller children have been given laptop computers to help them with their schoolwork. The free equipment and wireless internet access is estimated to be worth up to 750 per pupil, and is costing the taxpayer 300,000 a year. Some children are also being handed printers and digital cameras under a controversial Government-backed scheme aimed at encouraging them to stay in education.
Figures have revealed that free IT equipment has been handed to 1,317 pupils from gipsy and traveller families since 2004. However, ministers have admitted that some of the laptops have been used by parents to buy and sell goods, and book foreign holidays online.
Last night, the Conservatives, who obtained the figures, warned that the scheme risked fuelling resentment among taxpayers. Only days ago it emerged that gipsy and traveller children are being given priority admission to popular state schools. In addition, gipsy and traveller families are getting priority to see GPs and dentists.
The Electronic Learning and Mobility Programme (E-LAMP) is designed to offer 'quality distance learning opportunities' to gipsy and traveller children who regularly change schools and are on the move throughout large parts of the school year. Under the scheme, being run in 330 schools, the children are given laptops with, for example, 3G wireless internet software, which enables them to study while travelling and keep in touch with their 'base' school.
There are an estimated one million children from around 350,000 gipsy and traveller families in the UK, but fewer than 9 per cent obtain five good GCSEs including maths and English.
Studies have shown that children who relocate regularly quickly become demotivated with learning and disengaged with their school friends and school life. In addition, many traveller parents provide little support for their children's academic learning, with a small number believing that formal education offers little or no value to their children's futures.
In a written Parliamentary answer, schools minister Jim Knight said 1,317 laptops were issued from 2004 to 2009. He said: 'The vast majority are still out on loan to the students. There have only been seven incidents of minor accidental damage. One laptop was sold by the family, but recovered quickly as it had been tagged.'
A survey by the National Association of Teachers of Travellers has found adult travellers are using their children's laptops to book holidays, shop and sell goods online. It said: 'Initially the restriction on data transfer allowed, due to shared group tariff packages, caused issues when the students became more confident workers and their parents discovered the joys of Amazon, eBay and booking flights online.'
Tory local government spokesman Bob Neill said: 'However well-meaning, I am concerned the Government's policies on travellers threaten to undermine community cohesion and inflame community tensions. 'The British people believe in fair play - it's not fair that one small group get privileged access to public services, whilst hard-working families who struggle to pay their bills and taxes are pushed to the back of the queue.'
SOURCE
British Met Office/CRU Finds the Mole
Climate data must be kept secret!
by Steve McIntyre
Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector", interfere with the "effective conduct of international relations", "hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations" and "seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions." [Wow! If that's not a confession that they deceive the public about their data, I don't know what would be]
Although they have confirmed the breach of security, neither the Met Office nor CRU have issued a statement warning the public of the newCRU_tar leak. Nor, it seems, have they notified the various parties to the alleged confidentiality agreements that there has been a breach in those confidentiality agreements, so that the opposite parties can take appropriate counter-measures to cope with the breach of security by UK institutions. Thus far, the only actions by either the Met Office or CRU appear to have been a concerted and prompt effort to cover up the breach of security by attempting to eradicate all traces of the mole's activities. My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.
Nor have either the Met Office or CRU contacted me asking me not to further disseminate the sensitive data nor to destroy the data that I have in my possession.
By not doing so, they are surely opening themselves up to further charges of negligence for the following reasons. Their stated position is that, as a "non-academic", my possession of the data would be wrongful (a position with which I do not agree, by the way). Now that they are aware that I am in possession of the data (and they are aware, don't kid yourselves), any prudent lawyer would advise them to immediately to notify me that I am not entitled to be in possession of the data and to ask/instruct me to destroy the data that I have in my possession and not to further disseminate the sensitive data. You send out that sort of letter even if you think that the letter is going to fall on deaf ears.
Since I am always eager to help climate scientists with these conundrums, I'll help them out a little here. If, prior to midnight Eastern time on Thursday, a senior executive of the Met Office or the University of East Anglia notifies me that I am in wrongful possession of the data and directly requests me to destroy my copies of the CRU station data in question and thereby do my part in the avoidance of newCRU_tar proliferation, I will do so.
I will, of course, continue my FOI requests since I do not believe, for a minute, that their excuses have any validity nor am I convinced that the alleged confidentiality agreements actually exist nor, if they exist, am I convinced that they prohibit the provision of the data to me.
SOURCE
British Air passenger tax is just another burden for families that will stop those nasty average people from messing up tourist spots
WITH so much grim news at home, from the recession to swine flu, plenty of us are hoping that summer holidays will be a much needed respite from the doom and gloom. Unfortunately, even when we try to get away from it all and take a holiday, the Government uses that as another excuse to raid our bank account. Last summer, the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed that a family of four travelling to Florida for a summer holiday faced a 200 tax bill before they even got on the aircraft.
Part of that big tax bill is the Air Passenger Duty (APD) that is charged on airline tickets. You would hope that the Government might try to help out and cut the burden on ordinary families when the country is in recession. Since 2006, however, APD for one-way, short-haul flights to Europe has doubled to 10 and it is set to rise to 12 by the end of next year - that means we'll have had a 140 per cent increase in four years.
This week we've discovered that APD isn't just pushing up the cost of travelling abroad. It is also contributing to a cut in the number of flights available, making it less likely that we can go where we want, when we want. The no-frills airline Ryanair, Europe's largest operator, has announced that it is to cut flights from UK airports. These cuts, which amount to a 40 per cent reduction in capacity, are most likely to fall on London Stansted, the start of many families' holidays.
Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, blamed the "Scottish misers", as he described the Chancellor and Prime Minister, and said the move was a protest against plans to increase Air Passenger Duty on short flights, which he branded "insane and damaging". It is not just Ryanair which has criticised excessive APD rates. Easyjet, Ryanair's chief rival, has attacked the tax, branding it "certifiably bonkers".
Virgin Atlantic has also come out against the tax and started printing anti-APD messages on their e-tickets. BALPA, the airline pilots' union, has said that the rise will cripple the industry and put long-haul holidays out of reach of ordinary families while the Association of British Travel Agents has said the rise in APD will have a substantial impact on the airline industry.
Attacking the airlines like this will have serious consequences for the British economy. Ryanair's cuts are set to cost 2,500 jobs - from its own staff and among workers such as baggage handlers.
Air Passenger Duty isn't just hurting airlines and travel agents. With the pound so low against the dollar and euro, we should be attracting more tourists, but visits from abroad are down by 32.8 million. Big taxes on flights put off people from visiting the UK.
Ironically, earlier rises in APD probably increased emissions from air travel. Air Passenger Duty encourages people to fly further within its "bands", to Sydney instead of New York or the south of Italy instead of the north of France for example, and that means higher emissions. That issue has been addressed to a certain extent by the new bands introduced this year, but it is still doing little to reduce emissions.
There are other anomalies, too. For example the distance is measured to each country's capital city, so flights to Barbados, an eight-hour flight from London, are charged at a higher rate than flights to Los Angeles, which is 11 hours away. That can mean punishing extra bills for families - for example a family of four travelling to Egypt, just a couple of hours from Europe, will pay an extra 240 from 2010.
APD is supposed to be a green tax designed to correct negative externalities. Put simply, the Government makes polluters pay for the costs they impose on everyone else by increasing the level of climate change in the years to come, that way they will only pollute if the benefits of doing so really outweigh the costs.
TaxPayers' Alliance research has shown that we are already being charged more than we should in green taxes to compensate for the greenhouse gases that Britain produces. The Department for Transport itself has produced research which shows taxes on flights are higher than necessary to compensate for the environmental harm created by aircrafts' emissions.
It is clear that Air Passenger Duty is functioning not as a green tax but as another means to raise revenue. All that is achieved by increasing the cost of air travel is to make it harder for ordinary families to enjoy a much-needed break, as the higher taxes mean not just more expensive flights but fewer options over when and where to fly.
It really is sad that the people who suffer the most are those who were able to enjoy foreign holidays for the first time when budget airlines made them affordable.
SOURCE
Some wind power disillusionment from Britain
An aquarium in Devon has taken down two wind turbines after seagulls were killed when they collided with the blades.
The 15m (50ft) high 6kW turbines at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth were installed in 2006 for a 3.6m sustainable energies project. But the Hoe-based attraction has taken them down after several birds died, it said. The aquarium also said they had not produced as much electricity as hoped.
Caroline Johnson, of the aquarium, said: "The major problems included where they were positioned. "The eddying effect of the wind meant they weren't producing as much energy as they potentially could have. "The loss of life of seagulls flying into the turbines was also a problem and, following a gale, the turbines were damaged."
SOURCE
Cut size of chocolate bars to fight obesity, says British food watchdog
Some people will never learn. Such cuts tend to cause people to buy TWO amounts of the shrunken food item -- with a total INCREASE in the amounts consumed
Chocolate fans, be warned: your sugary snack is set to get smaller. The Food Standards Agency wants manufacturers to reduce the size of chocolate bars by about a fifth to help to cut calorie intake. It proposes that by 2012 standard-sized bars should be no more than 50g. Currently, Mars bars are 58g and twin Bounty bars are 57g.
Manufacturers have also been asked to sell bite-size bars as single items, of 40g or under, instead of in multi-bar bags. The agency hopes to discourage companies from marketing giant-sized bars and will urge manufacturers to promote lower-calorie treats. The aim is to help consumers to reduce the number of calories and the amount of saturated fat that they eat.
By 2050, 60 per cent of Britons will be obese unless the nation's diet is improved, according to health chiefs, with the cost to the National Health Service estimated to reach more than 8.4 billion. Officials decided to push for smaller bite-size bars rather than developing healthier recipes because European Union rules restrict sugar and fat reductions in chocolate.
Restrictions on the size of carbonated drinks were also put forward yesterday as part of the consultation with the food industry. It is also proposed that, within six years, fizzy drinks should be sold in smaller containers, with 250ml (8.8 fl.oz) suggested as the norm instead of the current standard 330ml for most brands. Added sugar levels to drinks should be reduced by 4 per cent within three years - the idea being that consumers will be weaned off very sweet drinks without noticing the lower sugar content.
Gill Fine, of the agency, said: "We are not telling people what to eat. We want to make it easier for people to make healthier choices - to choose foods with reduced saturated fat and sugar - or smaller portion sizes." Saturated fat should be cut by 10 per cent in cakes, biscuits, and pastry. The agency is hoping for voluntary action by the industry but if companies fail to respond, ministers might force their hand by threatening to legislate.
The Food and Drink Federation expressed disappointment at moves to set what are seen as arbitrary targets for specific nutrients in certain foods, rather than encouraging consumers to follow a balanced diet and lifestyle
SOURCE
Pay donors to end the shortage of IVF eggs, says British watchdog
Official authoritarianism wilting under the pressure of reality
A longstanding ban on selling sperm and eggs should be reconsidered to address a national shortage of donors, the head of the Government's fertility watchdog says.
Payments to donors could cut the number of childless couples travelling abroad for treatment, Lisa Jardine, of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, told The Times.
The removal of anonymity for donors in 2005 and strict rules against payments have provoked a crisis in fertility treatment, forcing many couples to wait years for the therapy they need to start a family. A recent study showed that access to eggs and sperm was the main reason why hundreds of British couples became "fertility tourists" each month.
The number of treatment cycles using donated eggs fell by 25 per cent between 2004 and 2006; the number of women using donated sperm fell by 30 per cent. These trends have convinced Professor Jardine that the authority should reconsider its 2006 ruling that donors can get up to 250 in expenses but no direct payments.
Her move will raise concerns about a market in human tissue and exploitation of women as egg donation is invasive and involves an element of risk. In countries that allow payment, such as the United States, Spain and Russia, young women often donate to wipe out debts or to fund university fees.
Professor Jardine said that the law already treated eggs, sperm and embryos differently from other tissues, so there was no danger of setting a precedent for the sale of organs such as kidneys. Payment would also ensure that more women were treated in licensed domestic clinics, rather than in countries with less stringent regulations.
"I'm not saying the decision arrived at before I became chair wasn't the right one at the time," she said. "But given the evidence that egg shortage is driving women overseas, I feel a responsibility to look at it again."
She said the principle that women could be compensated for donating had been established already through egg-sharing schemes, in which women were offered cheaper IVF for agreeing to give away some of their eggs.
The professor also called for a debate on the ethics of sperm and egg donation across generations and within families. She pointed to a case in which a lesbian couple had conceived with eggs donated by one partner, which were fertilised by the other woman's brother. Each partner had one of the resulting embryos implanted and carried to term.
SOURCE
Britain's Left-run NHS deliberately kills off older people
Do you really think Obamacare will be different?
Older women with breast cancer are less likely to receive "standard" treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery than younger women, a report says today. Only 16 per cent of patients over 65 received chemotherapy compared with 77 per cent of patients under 50, according to an audit of British health services by the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer. A total of 48 per cent of women aged 80 and over did not receive any type of surgery, compared with 3.5 per cent of women aged under 50. Only 42 per cent of women aged 65 and over received breast-conserving surgery, compared with 51 per cent of women under 65. Meanwhile, only 31 per cent of breast cancer patients over 80 received radiotherapy, compared with 78 per cent of patients under 50.
The audit, which was published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed 48,983 cancer patients from 11 regional cancer networks. Breakthrough Breast Cancer said that although some of the findings could be accounted for by some women not wanting some of the treatments or surgery, the figures were too high to be explained through patient choice alone.
Maggie Alexander, the charity's director of policy and campaigns, said: "Breakthrough is concerned that there appear to be significant differences in treatment given to patients depending on their age. "All women should be offered appropriate treatment options no matter what their age, and that's why we are now investigating this issue to find out what lies behind these differences."
Gill Lawrence, the director of the West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit, who led the project, added: "We encourage breast units to review their services and to identify ways in which they can be improved. "Although the data in this report are for breast cancers diagnosed in 2004, we are confident that the data highlight issues that still exist today."
SOURCE
British police must not wear British flag -- but homosexual flags are OK
This shows how far Leftism has gone in Britain. They despise their own country.
An utterly disgraceful British bureaucracy: "The Ministry of Defence faced mounting public anger yesterday as it tried to cut the compensation awarded to a soldier who is fighting in Afghanistan after recovering from a gunshot wound that left him with one leg shorter than the other. Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, also wants to reduce the payout to a Marine who fractured his right thigh while on a training exercise. The case at the Court of Appeal could prevent hundreds of servicemen and women from receiving larger compensation packages for their injuries. If the MoD fails in its appeal, it could lead to the rewriting of the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, a tariff listing sums to be awarded for different types of injury. Critics have accused the MoD of failing in its duty of care towards soldiers."
Retired elderly better treated in Romania and Poland!!?? That's "caring" British socialism for you
Britain has a higher proportion of pensioners living below the poverty line than Romania, figures show. The elderly in this country are among the poorest in Europe, according to a breakdown by charities. Only in Estonia, Latvia and Cyprus are the aged more likely to be among the poorest in society. The comparisons, based on EU figures, follow a decade in which pensioners have been slipping down the league table of wealth in Britain.
This is largely because state benefits for the worst-off pensioners have slipped behind those available to the other poorest group in society, single mothers. Ministers have also acknowledged that elderly people with their own incomes and homes suffer because of the impact of soaring council tax bills.
The figures from Eurostat, the EU's statistical arm, were compiled by the charities Age Concern and Help the Aged. They reveal the proportion of pensioners in each EU country who live on incomes below 60 per cent of average.
The measure does not identify how many older people have plentiful material goods such as houses and cars despite low incomes, and is often regarded as a measure of equality rather than real poverty. But the charities said they were useful to show the number of older people who are at risk of living in poverty.
In Britain nearly one in three over-65s, or 30 per cent, are on incomes below the poverty threshold. That is lower only than the 51 per cent in Cyprus, 33 per cent in Latvia, and 33 per cent in Estonia.
Britain's 30 per cent is equal to the 30 per cent poverty risk rate in the other Baltic republic, Lithuania. In comparison, only 19 percent fall below the threshold in Romania and in Poland that figure is just eight per cent. The elderly also fare considerably better in Germany where the proportion below the poverty line is 17 per cent, in France 13 per cent and Holland 10 per cent.
Least likely pensioners to be poor are in the Czech republic, where only one in 20, five per cent, falls below the 60 per cent poverty line.
The figures also show that pensioners are more likely to be poor in Britain than other groups. While pensioners here come fourth from bottom of the table, for child poverty Britain ranks fifth from bottom and for poverty risk among adults under 65 ninth.
The study comes ahead of a major Government review of pensioner poverty due to be published this week. The charities said other research has shown that older people are skipping meals to save money and two out of five cannot afford to buy essential items.
Age Concern director Michelle Mitchell said: `Even before the recession set in, many older people were not keeping up with the pace at which the general wealth of the nation has increased.'
SOURCE
Special privileges for gypsy children in Britain
More than a thousand gipsy and traveller children have been given laptop computers to help them with their schoolwork. The free equipment and wireless internet access is estimated to be worth up to 750 per pupil, and is costing the taxpayer 300,000 a year. Some children are also being handed printers and digital cameras under a controversial Government-backed scheme aimed at encouraging them to stay in education.
Figures have revealed that free IT equipment has been handed to 1,317 pupils from gipsy and traveller families since 2004. However, ministers have admitted that some of the laptops have been used by parents to buy and sell goods, and book foreign holidays online.
Last night, the Conservatives, who obtained the figures, warned that the scheme risked fuelling resentment among taxpayers. Only days ago it emerged that gipsy and traveller children are being given priority admission to popular state schools. In addition, gipsy and traveller families are getting priority to see GPs and dentists.
The Electronic Learning and Mobility Programme (E-LAMP) is designed to offer 'quality distance learning opportunities' to gipsy and traveller children who regularly change schools and are on the move throughout large parts of the school year. Under the scheme, being run in 330 schools, the children are given laptops with, for example, 3G wireless internet software, which enables them to study while travelling and keep in touch with their 'base' school.
There are an estimated one million children from around 350,000 gipsy and traveller families in the UK, but fewer than 9 per cent obtain five good GCSEs including maths and English.
Studies have shown that children who relocate regularly quickly become demotivated with learning and disengaged with their school friends and school life. In addition, many traveller parents provide little support for their children's academic learning, with a small number believing that formal education offers little or no value to their children's futures.
In a written Parliamentary answer, schools minister Jim Knight said 1,317 laptops were issued from 2004 to 2009. He said: 'The vast majority are still out on loan to the students. There have only been seven incidents of minor accidental damage. One laptop was sold by the family, but recovered quickly as it had been tagged.'
A survey by the National Association of Teachers of Travellers has found adult travellers are using their children's laptops to book holidays, shop and sell goods online. It said: 'Initially the restriction on data transfer allowed, due to shared group tariff packages, caused issues when the students became more confident workers and their parents discovered the joys of Amazon, eBay and booking flights online.'
Tory local government spokesman Bob Neill said: 'However well-meaning, I am concerned the Government's policies on travellers threaten to undermine community cohesion and inflame community tensions. 'The British people believe in fair play - it's not fair that one small group get privileged access to public services, whilst hard-working families who struggle to pay their bills and taxes are pushed to the back of the queue.'
SOURCE
British Met Office/CRU Finds the Mole
Climate data must be kept secret!
by Steve McIntyre
Late yesterday (Eastern time), I learned that the Met Office/CRU had identified the mole. They are now aware that there has in fact been a breach of security. They have confirmed that I am in fact in possession of CRU temperature data, data so sensitive that, according to the UK Met Office, my being in possession of this data would, "damage the trust that scientists have in those scientists who happen to be employed in the public sector", interfere with the "effective conduct of international relations", "hamper the ability to protect and promote United Kingdom interests through international relations" and "seriously affect the relationship between the United Kingdom and other Countries and Institutions." [Wow! If that's not a confession that they deceive the public about their data, I don't know what would be]
Although they have confirmed the breach of security, neither the Met Office nor CRU have issued a statement warning the public of the newCRU_tar leak. Nor, it seems, have they notified the various parties to the alleged confidentiality agreements that there has been a breach in those confidentiality agreements, so that the opposite parties can take appropriate counter-measures to cope with the breach of security by UK institutions. Thus far, the only actions by either the Met Office or CRU appear to have been a concerted and prompt effort to cover up the breach of security by attempting to eradicate all traces of the mole's activities. My guess is that they will not make the slightest effort to discipline the mole.
Nor have either the Met Office or CRU contacted me asking me not to further disseminate the sensitive data nor to destroy the data that I have in my possession.
By not doing so, they are surely opening themselves up to further charges of negligence for the following reasons. Their stated position is that, as a "non-academic", my possession of the data would be wrongful (a position with which I do not agree, by the way). Now that they are aware that I am in possession of the data (and they are aware, don't kid yourselves), any prudent lawyer would advise them to immediately to notify me that I am not entitled to be in possession of the data and to ask/instruct me to destroy the data that I have in my possession and not to further disseminate the sensitive data. You send out that sort of letter even if you think that the letter is going to fall on deaf ears.
Since I am always eager to help climate scientists with these conundrums, I'll help them out a little here. If, prior to midnight Eastern time on Thursday, a senior executive of the Met Office or the University of East Anglia notifies me that I am in wrongful possession of the data and directly requests me to destroy my copies of the CRU station data in question and thereby do my part in the avoidance of newCRU_tar proliferation, I will do so.
I will, of course, continue my FOI requests since I do not believe, for a minute, that their excuses have any validity nor am I convinced that the alleged confidentiality agreements actually exist nor, if they exist, am I convinced that they prohibit the provision of the data to me.
SOURCE
British Air passenger tax is just another burden for families that will stop those nasty average people from messing up tourist spots
WITH so much grim news at home, from the recession to swine flu, plenty of us are hoping that summer holidays will be a much needed respite from the doom and gloom. Unfortunately, even when we try to get away from it all and take a holiday, the Government uses that as another excuse to raid our bank account. Last summer, the TaxPayers' Alliance revealed that a family of four travelling to Florida for a summer holiday faced a 200 tax bill before they even got on the aircraft.
Part of that big tax bill is the Air Passenger Duty (APD) that is charged on airline tickets. You would hope that the Government might try to help out and cut the burden on ordinary families when the country is in recession. Since 2006, however, APD for one-way, short-haul flights to Europe has doubled to 10 and it is set to rise to 12 by the end of next year - that means we'll have had a 140 per cent increase in four years.
This week we've discovered that APD isn't just pushing up the cost of travelling abroad. It is also contributing to a cut in the number of flights available, making it less likely that we can go where we want, when we want. The no-frills airline Ryanair, Europe's largest operator, has announced that it is to cut flights from UK airports. These cuts, which amount to a 40 per cent reduction in capacity, are most likely to fall on London Stansted, the start of many families' holidays.
Michael O'Leary, Ryanair's chief executive, blamed the "Scottish misers", as he described the Chancellor and Prime Minister, and said the move was a protest against plans to increase Air Passenger Duty on short flights, which he branded "insane and damaging". It is not just Ryanair which has criticised excessive APD rates. Easyjet, Ryanair's chief rival, has attacked the tax, branding it "certifiably bonkers".
Virgin Atlantic has also come out against the tax and started printing anti-APD messages on their e-tickets. BALPA, the airline pilots' union, has said that the rise will cripple the industry and put long-haul holidays out of reach of ordinary families while the Association of British Travel Agents has said the rise in APD will have a substantial impact on the airline industry.
Attacking the airlines like this will have serious consequences for the British economy. Ryanair's cuts are set to cost 2,500 jobs - from its own staff and among workers such as baggage handlers.
Air Passenger Duty isn't just hurting airlines and travel agents. With the pound so low against the dollar and euro, we should be attracting more tourists, but visits from abroad are down by 32.8 million. Big taxes on flights put off people from visiting the UK.
Ironically, earlier rises in APD probably increased emissions from air travel. Air Passenger Duty encourages people to fly further within its "bands", to Sydney instead of New York or the south of Italy instead of the north of France for example, and that means higher emissions. That issue has been addressed to a certain extent by the new bands introduced this year, but it is still doing little to reduce emissions.
There are other anomalies, too. For example the distance is measured to each country's capital city, so flights to Barbados, an eight-hour flight from London, are charged at a higher rate than flights to Los Angeles, which is 11 hours away. That can mean punishing extra bills for families - for example a family of four travelling to Egypt, just a couple of hours from Europe, will pay an extra 240 from 2010.
APD is supposed to be a green tax designed to correct negative externalities. Put simply, the Government makes polluters pay for the costs they impose on everyone else by increasing the level of climate change in the years to come, that way they will only pollute if the benefits of doing so really outweigh the costs.
TaxPayers' Alliance research has shown that we are already being charged more than we should in green taxes to compensate for the greenhouse gases that Britain produces. The Department for Transport itself has produced research which shows taxes on flights are higher than necessary to compensate for the environmental harm created by aircrafts' emissions.
It is clear that Air Passenger Duty is functioning not as a green tax but as another means to raise revenue. All that is achieved by increasing the cost of air travel is to make it harder for ordinary families to enjoy a much-needed break, as the higher taxes mean not just more expensive flights but fewer options over when and where to fly.
It really is sad that the people who suffer the most are those who were able to enjoy foreign holidays for the first time when budget airlines made them affordable.
SOURCE
Some wind power disillusionment from Britain
An aquarium in Devon has taken down two wind turbines after seagulls were killed when they collided with the blades.
The 15m (50ft) high 6kW turbines at the National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth were installed in 2006 for a 3.6m sustainable energies project. But the Hoe-based attraction has taken them down after several birds died, it said. The aquarium also said they had not produced as much electricity as hoped.
Caroline Johnson, of the aquarium, said: "The major problems included where they were positioned. "The eddying effect of the wind meant they weren't producing as much energy as they potentially could have. "The loss of life of seagulls flying into the turbines was also a problem and, following a gale, the turbines were damaged."
SOURCE
Cut size of chocolate bars to fight obesity, says British food watchdog
Some people will never learn. Such cuts tend to cause people to buy TWO amounts of the shrunken food item -- with a total INCREASE in the amounts consumed
Chocolate fans, be warned: your sugary snack is set to get smaller. The Food Standards Agency wants manufacturers to reduce the size of chocolate bars by about a fifth to help to cut calorie intake. It proposes that by 2012 standard-sized bars should be no more than 50g. Currently, Mars bars are 58g and twin Bounty bars are 57g.
Manufacturers have also been asked to sell bite-size bars as single items, of 40g or under, instead of in multi-bar bags. The agency hopes to discourage companies from marketing giant-sized bars and will urge manufacturers to promote lower-calorie treats. The aim is to help consumers to reduce the number of calories and the amount of saturated fat that they eat.
By 2050, 60 per cent of Britons will be obese unless the nation's diet is improved, according to health chiefs, with the cost to the National Health Service estimated to reach more than 8.4 billion. Officials decided to push for smaller bite-size bars rather than developing healthier recipes because European Union rules restrict sugar and fat reductions in chocolate.
Restrictions on the size of carbonated drinks were also put forward yesterday as part of the consultation with the food industry. It is also proposed that, within six years, fizzy drinks should be sold in smaller containers, with 250ml (8.8 fl.oz) suggested as the norm instead of the current standard 330ml for most brands. Added sugar levels to drinks should be reduced by 4 per cent within three years - the idea being that consumers will be weaned off very sweet drinks without noticing the lower sugar content.
Gill Fine, of the agency, said: "We are not telling people what to eat. We want to make it easier for people to make healthier choices - to choose foods with reduced saturated fat and sugar - or smaller portion sizes." Saturated fat should be cut by 10 per cent in cakes, biscuits, and pastry. The agency is hoping for voluntary action by the industry but if companies fail to respond, ministers might force their hand by threatening to legislate.
The Food and Drink Federation expressed disappointment at moves to set what are seen as arbitrary targets for specific nutrients in certain foods, rather than encouraging consumers to follow a balanced diet and lifestyle
SOURCE
Pay donors to end the shortage of IVF eggs, says British watchdog
Official authoritarianism wilting under the pressure of reality
A longstanding ban on selling sperm and eggs should be reconsidered to address a national shortage of donors, the head of the Government's fertility watchdog says.
Payments to donors could cut the number of childless couples travelling abroad for treatment, Lisa Jardine, of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, told The Times.
The removal of anonymity for donors in 2005 and strict rules against payments have provoked a crisis in fertility treatment, forcing many couples to wait years for the therapy they need to start a family. A recent study showed that access to eggs and sperm was the main reason why hundreds of British couples became "fertility tourists" each month.
The number of treatment cycles using donated eggs fell by 25 per cent between 2004 and 2006; the number of women using donated sperm fell by 30 per cent. These trends have convinced Professor Jardine that the authority should reconsider its 2006 ruling that donors can get up to 250 in expenses but no direct payments.
Her move will raise concerns about a market in human tissue and exploitation of women as egg donation is invasive and involves an element of risk. In countries that allow payment, such as the United States, Spain and Russia, young women often donate to wipe out debts or to fund university fees.
Professor Jardine said that the law already treated eggs, sperm and embryos differently from other tissues, so there was no danger of setting a precedent for the sale of organs such as kidneys. Payment would also ensure that more women were treated in licensed domestic clinics, rather than in countries with less stringent regulations.
"I'm not saying the decision arrived at before I became chair wasn't the right one at the time," she said. "But given the evidence that egg shortage is driving women overseas, I feel a responsibility to look at it again."
She said the principle that women could be compensated for donating had been established already through egg-sharing schemes, in which women were offered cheaper IVF for agreeing to give away some of their eggs.
The professor also called for a debate on the ethics of sperm and egg donation across generations and within families. She pointed to a case in which a lesbian couple had conceived with eggs donated by one partner, which were fertilised by the other woman's brother. Each partner had one of the resulting embryos implanted and carried to term.
SOURCE
Britain's Left-run NHS deliberately kills off older people
Do you really think Obamacare will be different?
Older women with breast cancer are less likely to receive "standard" treatments such as chemotherapy, radiotherapy or surgery than younger women, a report says today. Only 16 per cent of patients over 65 received chemotherapy compared with 77 per cent of patients under 50, according to an audit of British health services by the charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer. A total of 48 per cent of women aged 80 and over did not receive any type of surgery, compared with 3.5 per cent of women aged under 50. Only 42 per cent of women aged 65 and over received breast-conserving surgery, compared with 51 per cent of women under 65. Meanwhile, only 31 per cent of breast cancer patients over 80 received radiotherapy, compared with 78 per cent of patients under 50.
The audit, which was published in the British Journal of Cancer, analysed 48,983 cancer patients from 11 regional cancer networks. Breakthrough Breast Cancer said that although some of the findings could be accounted for by some women not wanting some of the treatments or surgery, the figures were too high to be explained through patient choice alone.
Maggie Alexander, the charity's director of policy and campaigns, said: "Breakthrough is concerned that there appear to be significant differences in treatment given to patients depending on their age. "All women should be offered appropriate treatment options no matter what their age, and that's why we are now investigating this issue to find out what lies behind these differences."
Gill Lawrence, the director of the West Midlands Cancer Intelligence Unit, who led the project, added: "We encourage breast units to review their services and to identify ways in which they can be improved. "Although the data in this report are for breast cancers diagnosed in 2004, we are confident that the data highlight issues that still exist today."
SOURCE
British police must not wear British flag -- but homosexual flags are OK
This shows how far Leftism has gone in Britain. They despise their own country.
"Scores of Scotland Yard officers are in open revolt after being banned from wearing Union Flag badges in support of British troops. Met chiefs have decreed that the tiny emblems - which cost 1 with proceeds going to charity - must be removed after a complaint that they are offensive. But furious junior officers are continuing to wear them in defiance at the politically correct stance.
The row started when 200 officers at Heathrow Airport were barred from wearing the badges last month on the grounds that they were in breach of the Met's strict dress code.
The order is thought to have followed a complaint from a member of public that the symbol is `offensive'. But about 70 officers, many of whom have been in the Services or have relatives fighting in Afghanistan, have ignored the directive despite warnings of disciplinary action.
Mr Smyth, who represents more than 30,000 rank and file officers, said staff in the Royalty and Diplomatic Protection Group, CO19 firearms squad and dog units have joined the revolt. In a statement on the Metropolitan Police Federation's website, he said: `As the country mourned the deaths of young soldiers and saluted the heroism of the men and women fighting in Afghanistan, Met officers at the airport were ordered to take off small, one-inch square Union Flag badges because someone had complained they were offensive.'
Officers at Heathrow were also ordered to take down a Union Flag hoisted on June 27 - Armed Forces Day - because it was not an `approved ensign'. Strict rules are in place about when the Union Flag can be flown at individual police stations.
In February, Scotland Yard was hit by another row over political correctness after the Union Flag hanging outside a police station was replaced by a gay rights flag to mark Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) history month. This is despite Met rules stating that only the Union Flag and its own flag can fly from force buildings.
Source
An utterly disgraceful British bureaucracy: "The Ministry of Defence faced mounting public anger yesterday as it tried to cut the compensation awarded to a soldier who is fighting in Afghanistan after recovering from a gunshot wound that left him with one leg shorter than the other. Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, also wants to reduce the payout to a Marine who fractured his right thigh while on a training exercise. The case at the Court of Appeal could prevent hundreds of servicemen and women from receiving larger compensation packages for their injuries. If the MoD fails in its appeal, it could lead to the rewriting of the Armed Forces Compensation Scheme, a tariff listing sums to be awarded for different types of injury. Critics have accused the MoD of failing in its duty of care towards soldiers."
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
British dictate: universities must do more for the working class
One confused man below. How is it going to help the working class by making fees more expensive? The only way is if the universities give more students free tuition. But that would negate what they gained through higher fees. So why bother? Leftist non-logic very much in evidence here -- as is a Nelsonian blind eye to the fact that it is failing schools that are hurting the poor -- not the universites
Universities must recruit more working-class students to justify an increase in tuition fees, Lord Mandelson said yesterday. He also admitted that a long-awaited review of top-up tuition fees, to begin this autumn, would not conclude before the general election. This means neither political party will face the wrath of middle-class voters if the review decides - as expected - that the current 3,000 cap on fees should rise.
Lord Mandelson set out his vision for higher education in his first speech to leading vice-chancellors since taking responsibility for universities as the Business Secretary.
It heralded an end to universities' reputation as ivory towers catering for full-time, young undergraduates living away from home. The future lies in mature and part-time students taking shorter or alternative degrees, such as two-year honours degrees, part-time degrees and modular programmes that do not result in a degree, he said. This was reflected in his choice of setting for the speech: Birkbeck - which offers only part-time degrees. It is part of the University of London.
Universities' efforts to attract students from poor backgrounds had not been good enough, Lord Mandelson said. He "intended to turn up the spotlight on university admissions".
He described a university education as a ticket to the best-paid employment and said access to it would "inevitably define the degree of social mobility in Britain". He added: "Any institution that wants to use greater costs to the student to fund excellence must face an equal expectation to ensure its services remain accessible to more than just those with the ability to pay."
Universities are desperately trying to widen access by providing bursaries, setting up summer schools for disadvantaged teenagers and visiting primary schools. While this has improved the breadth of intake, many older institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge, remain dominated by middle-class and independent school students.
Lord Mandelson had a dig at elite universities, asking: "Why, for all the work in the sector and all the seriousness with which it has tackled this question, are we still making only limited progress in widening access to higher education to young people from poorer backgrounds - especially at our most selective universities? It is not enough for universities simply to confer life advantages from one generation of professionals to their children."
He wanted going to university to become a "peer group ambition" among pupils, but refused to be drawn on the detail of how he thought universities should widen access - or whether they should accept lower grades from applicants from disadvantaged families.
Rather than operating as remote institutions, universities should be forging links with local business and exploiting their talent for commercial gain, Lord Mandelson said. He accepted that they were not "factories for producing workers", but said more could set up companies that market the expertise of their postgraduates and professors.
Foreign students - who account for 8 per cent of income earned by universities - are vital to the economy, Lord Mandelson said, although he revealed that several vice-chancellors had contacted him with concerns about a points-based visa system that makes it more difficult for some potential students to come to Britain.
Universities emphasised the key role of schools in widening participation in higher education. Wendy Piatt, of the elite Russell Group of universities, said: "Evidence shows that academic achievement at school continues to be key factor in determining whether a student will go on to university."
Diana Warwick, of Universities UK, said: "While we recognise the importance of universities having strong links with employers and schools in raising aspiration, we are clear that greater attainment at 16 is still the critical factor in achieving wider participation in higher education."
Paul Wellings, of the 1994 Group of research intensive universities, said: "It is crucial that universities work in partnership with schools to provide advice and raise aspirations."
SOURCE
Another crime-fighting bright idea flops in Britain
There's nothing nearly as effective as locking them up for a LONG time -- as they do in many parts of the USA. Bright new ideas for penal reform never stop coming but they never work -- as I have noted previously
A radical US-style court initiative in which judges monitor each criminal's progress after sentencing has failed to cut reoffending rates. The results are a blow to supporters of specialist community justice courts who had hoped for better results in preventing criminals returning to a life of crime.
Community courts involve a hands-on approach by judges who monitor offenders once they have left the dock and on-site agencies to help to deal with the underlying problems behind criminal behaviour such as drugs or housing. But reconviction rates for offenders dealt with by the North Liverpol and Salford community courts were marginally worse than those who went through an ordinary court in Manchester.
Of offenders who went through the North Liverpool court, 38.7 per cent were convicted of a further crime within a year and 38.3 per cent of those dealt with at Salford, compared with a reoffending rate of 37 cent in the Manchester court.
The position was even worse on breaking the terms of punishment. "Those in North Liverpool and Salford combined were significantly more likely to breach sentence conditions than those in Manchester," said a report.
One reason for the higher breach rate in North Liverpool may be linked to tougher monitoring of offenders by probation officers, who adopt a more rigorous approach than those in Manchester, it suggested. However, the official study said there was an indication that the initiative might reduce slightly the number of crimes committed when a criminal reoffends.
The North Liverpool Community Justice Centre opened in September 2005, and cost 5.4 million to establish and costs 1.8 million a year to run. The smaller project in Salford cost 150,000 to set up and cost 100,000 a year to run.
Based on the Red Hook Community Justice Centre in New York, the courts use a multi-agency approach, referring offenders on-the-spot to professionals who deal with their specific problems, from housing to addiction. They also seek local residents' views on particular problems and appropriate punishment.
The idea was supported enthusiastically by Lord Woolf when he was Lord Chief Justice and by David Blunkett, when Home Secretary, who both visited the Red Hook centre, were impressed with its work and decided to create a similar community justice court in England. The Ministry of Justice said: "This report looked at reoffending in the first year of the initiative when community justice was in a very early stage of development - the initiative will need more time for the effects to bed in to give a true picture of reoffending rates." Ministers have already abandoned plans for a network of the community courts, saying there was no money to fund them.
SOURCE
British regulators don't know how to regulate social workers
Now tell us something we didn't know already
The competence of Ofsted to inspect children's services and help to protect young people from abuse and neglect has been challenged by the Government's child protection chief. Sir Roger Singleton used his first interview in the post to warn ministers that too many Ofsted staff lacked the skill and experience to hold social workers to account and drive up standards. If matters did not improve and inspectors failed to win the respect of social workers it would be "all too easy" for their judgments and recommendations to be ignored, he warned.
Ofsted took responsibility for inspecting children's services in April 2007. Concerns over its performance were raised a year later when it emerged that inspectors had given Haringey a clean bill of health months after the death of Baby P, who was on the child protection register and under the watch of its social workers. He died of horrific injuries in August 2007. Ministers refused to accept that the death meant Ofsted was not up to the job of inspecting children's services, although a new system of regulation was swiftly adopted.
Sir Roger, who was made the Government's first chief adviser on the safety of children in March, welcomed the changes but said that problems remained. "Obviously, it makes it all too easy for those who are inspected to ignore the results if they don't have respect for the inspectors. It is important Ofsted works to build its regard and respect in this area. It is not in any of our interests to have a view that they are not competent," he said.
He said that he had heard "quite a lot of dissatisfaction from the field" about the work of inspectors that could no longer be ignored. The main complaint was the "high rate of variability" in what they knew about vulnerable children and safeguarding in particular. "It is difficult to think there is not some substance to it," he said.
Sir Roger, a former chief executive of Barnardo's, noted that Ofsted had recently announced plans to hire 20 or more inspectors with direct experience of children's social care as a sign that it recognised its problems. Ofsted also announced that it has appointed John Goldup, a former senior social worker from Tower Hamlets, as a director. He is the only person with experience of child protection to reach board level. "It will be necessary to improve the range of skills and experience that Ofsted inspectors have in relation to children's social care," Sir Roger said.
Fears over Ofsted have also been sounded by MPs including Barry Sheerman, the Labour chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, who has twice asked Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector, to give evidence on the performance of children's services.
The Conservatives are reviewing Ofsted's future and do not rule out taking away its role to inspect children's services. "Ofsted is basically a schools' inspectorate that is conducting a paper exercise when it goes to children's services departments," said Tim Loughton, the Tory children's spokesman. "They don't go out on the beat. They stay in the office and look at files. They simply don't have the right people."
Ofsted rejected any suggestion that it needed to improve its performance. Roger Shippam, its director for children, said: "We do not recognise the criticism that Ofsted lacks social care expertise. It is understandable that there is much anxiety surrounding the inspection of social care at the moment, especially following the death of Baby Peter."
SOURCE. More details of how hopeless and corrupt the system is here
What Does & Does Not Cause Climate Change and the threat to integrity in science
by Piers Corbyn
A letter to Professor Sir Peter Knight, Senior Principal at Imperial College for research strategy and deputy to the Rector
Dear Peter
Further to the very interesting discussions we had at the Imperial College centenary dinner event in 2008 on matters of Climate Change and the integrity of Science I attach my updated presentation on What Does & Does not Cause Climate Change. This extends the points I made to you to include new findings I presented at the RCSA Centenary dinner on Dec 9th 2008 and the New York International Climate Change Conference on March 10th 2009 and also new graphs from USA scientists showing continuing decline in world temperatures despite rising CO2 levels.
The point I made that the CO2 driver theory of Climate Change is refuted by the evidence and will be cast aside by solar-based science and therefore it would be better for Imperial to lead its demise and advances in new science rather than lose credibility by defending the indefensible, stands more strongly than ever.
The CO2-centered Climate theory and all that stands with it in business and politics is doomed; or if it is not doomed then the integrity of science itself is surely doomed. It is incumbent on scientists of with moral fibre to defend evidence-based science and the integrity of science.
I recall that 40 years ago this week I and other students at Imperial stayed up all night to watch the Moon landing on 20th July 1969. That was an historic moment. If science and engineering then had been conducted at the abysmal level of integrity now displayed by 'Climate Science' & the theory of man-made Global Warming, the Moon landing would never have succeeded and neither would much of the advances of science since then.
Please have a look at and feel free to circulate the presentation and also the information I include therein about the proven significant skill of our solar-based method of long range forecasting (Solar Weather Technique) and let me know of any comments you may have.
More HERE
Fancy a British passport? Just move to Scotland: Home Office's 'absurd' new plan to tackle immigration
Immigrants who want a British passport will have a better chance if they agree to move to Scotland under `absurd' new Home Office plans.
Concerns about a huge expected increase in the population over the next 20 years have forced the Government to propose a points-based system for those seeking citizenship. The population of 61million is expected to hit 70million by 2029 and ministers want to make it harder for migrants on work permits to stay permanently.
But yesterday, the Scottish Secretary revealed that if immigrants were willing to live in under-populated parts of Britain, they would find it easier to pass the test. Jim Murphy said: `Having lived and worked in Scotland is proposed as one way to earn points.'
The move, contained in a draft consultation to be released in the next few weeks, means prospective British citizens already settled in Britain may flock north of the border to ensure they have enough points to be successful. But it is unknown what measures will be taken to police the system and prevent abuses.
Critics point out it will be extremely difficult to check that an applicant is living and working in Scotland and whether they will stay there. Also, once a passport application is approved, the Government has no control over the person's movements.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: `This is completely absurd. Is the Government proposing to rebuild Hadrian's Wall to prevent people from crossing the border? `It is a completely inappropriate idea for solving problems in Scotland or the rest of the UK.'
Campaigners said it could damage a sound Home Office policy that is designed to make it tougher for migrants to settle in Britain. At present, there is a firm link between a migrant obtaining a visa to work here, and going on to receive a British passport. Under these rules, the number of British passports given to migrants is set to hit a record of almost 220,000 this year. During the first three months of 2009, 54,615 citizenship applications were rubber-stamped by the Home Office - up 57 per cent on the same period a year earlier, and the equivalent of nearly one every two minutes. At current rates, the number of immigrants receiving passports - and with them the right to claim full benefits - will obliterate the previous record of 164,540 approvals, set in 2007. Last year, the number of passports granted was 129,310, and when Labour came to power in 1997, just 37,010 people were given citizenship.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migrationwatch UK, said: `It is an excellent scheme to split economic migration from the right to settle, but it makes no sense to treat Scotland differently. `A condition requiring residency in Scotland is completely unenforceable. `England receives over 90 per cent of immigration, and faces 95 per cent of the extra 10million population now projected for the next 20 years. We cannot allow the tail to wag the dog on a matter that is so important to the future of our society.'
A Home Office spokesman said: `The points system has already proved to be a powerful tool for controlling migration, which is why we are now looking at applying its principles to the path to citizenship. `The measures require migrants to earn citizenship. `This is the first step towards breaking the automatic link between temporary residence and permanent settlement. `But, we want to look at raising the bar even more.'
SOURCE
One confused man below. How is it going to help the working class by making fees more expensive? The only way is if the universities give more students free tuition. But that would negate what they gained through higher fees. So why bother? Leftist non-logic very much in evidence here -- as is a Nelsonian blind eye to the fact that it is failing schools that are hurting the poor -- not the universites
Universities must recruit more working-class students to justify an increase in tuition fees, Lord Mandelson said yesterday. He also admitted that a long-awaited review of top-up tuition fees, to begin this autumn, would not conclude before the general election. This means neither political party will face the wrath of middle-class voters if the review decides - as expected - that the current 3,000 cap on fees should rise.
Lord Mandelson set out his vision for higher education in his first speech to leading vice-chancellors since taking responsibility for universities as the Business Secretary.
It heralded an end to universities' reputation as ivory towers catering for full-time, young undergraduates living away from home. The future lies in mature and part-time students taking shorter or alternative degrees, such as two-year honours degrees, part-time degrees and modular programmes that do not result in a degree, he said. This was reflected in his choice of setting for the speech: Birkbeck - which offers only part-time degrees. It is part of the University of London.
Universities' efforts to attract students from poor backgrounds had not been good enough, Lord Mandelson said. He "intended to turn up the spotlight on university admissions".
He described a university education as a ticket to the best-paid employment and said access to it would "inevitably define the degree of social mobility in Britain". He added: "Any institution that wants to use greater costs to the student to fund excellence must face an equal expectation to ensure its services remain accessible to more than just those with the ability to pay."
Universities are desperately trying to widen access by providing bursaries, setting up summer schools for disadvantaged teenagers and visiting primary schools. While this has improved the breadth of intake, many older institutions, such as Oxford and Cambridge, remain dominated by middle-class and independent school students.
Lord Mandelson had a dig at elite universities, asking: "Why, for all the work in the sector and all the seriousness with which it has tackled this question, are we still making only limited progress in widening access to higher education to young people from poorer backgrounds - especially at our most selective universities? It is not enough for universities simply to confer life advantages from one generation of professionals to their children."
He wanted going to university to become a "peer group ambition" among pupils, but refused to be drawn on the detail of how he thought universities should widen access - or whether they should accept lower grades from applicants from disadvantaged families.
Rather than operating as remote institutions, universities should be forging links with local business and exploiting their talent for commercial gain, Lord Mandelson said. He accepted that they were not "factories for producing workers", but said more could set up companies that market the expertise of their postgraduates and professors.
Foreign students - who account for 8 per cent of income earned by universities - are vital to the economy, Lord Mandelson said, although he revealed that several vice-chancellors had contacted him with concerns about a points-based visa system that makes it more difficult for some potential students to come to Britain.
Universities emphasised the key role of schools in widening participation in higher education. Wendy Piatt, of the elite Russell Group of universities, said: "Evidence shows that academic achievement at school continues to be key factor in determining whether a student will go on to university."
Diana Warwick, of Universities UK, said: "While we recognise the importance of universities having strong links with employers and schools in raising aspiration, we are clear that greater attainment at 16 is still the critical factor in achieving wider participation in higher education."
Paul Wellings, of the 1994 Group of research intensive universities, said: "It is crucial that universities work in partnership with schools to provide advice and raise aspirations."
SOURCE
Another crime-fighting bright idea flops in Britain
There's nothing nearly as effective as locking them up for a LONG time -- as they do in many parts of the USA. Bright new ideas for penal reform never stop coming but they never work -- as I have noted previously
A radical US-style court initiative in which judges monitor each criminal's progress after sentencing has failed to cut reoffending rates. The results are a blow to supporters of specialist community justice courts who had hoped for better results in preventing criminals returning to a life of crime.
Community courts involve a hands-on approach by judges who monitor offenders once they have left the dock and on-site agencies to help to deal with the underlying problems behind criminal behaviour such as drugs or housing. But reconviction rates for offenders dealt with by the North Liverpol and Salford community courts were marginally worse than those who went through an ordinary court in Manchester.
Of offenders who went through the North Liverpool court, 38.7 per cent were convicted of a further crime within a year and 38.3 per cent of those dealt with at Salford, compared with a reoffending rate of 37 cent in the Manchester court.
The position was even worse on breaking the terms of punishment. "Those in North Liverpool and Salford combined were significantly more likely to breach sentence conditions than those in Manchester," said a report.
One reason for the higher breach rate in North Liverpool may be linked to tougher monitoring of offenders by probation officers, who adopt a more rigorous approach than those in Manchester, it suggested. However, the official study said there was an indication that the initiative might reduce slightly the number of crimes committed when a criminal reoffends.
The North Liverpool Community Justice Centre opened in September 2005, and cost 5.4 million to establish and costs 1.8 million a year to run. The smaller project in Salford cost 150,000 to set up and cost 100,000 a year to run.
Based on the Red Hook Community Justice Centre in New York, the courts use a multi-agency approach, referring offenders on-the-spot to professionals who deal with their specific problems, from housing to addiction. They also seek local residents' views on particular problems and appropriate punishment.
The idea was supported enthusiastically by Lord Woolf when he was Lord Chief Justice and by David Blunkett, when Home Secretary, who both visited the Red Hook centre, were impressed with its work and decided to create a similar community justice court in England. The Ministry of Justice said: "This report looked at reoffending in the first year of the initiative when community justice was in a very early stage of development - the initiative will need more time for the effects to bed in to give a true picture of reoffending rates." Ministers have already abandoned plans for a network of the community courts, saying there was no money to fund them.
SOURCE
British regulators don't know how to regulate social workers
Now tell us something we didn't know already
The competence of Ofsted to inspect children's services and help to protect young people from abuse and neglect has been challenged by the Government's child protection chief. Sir Roger Singleton used his first interview in the post to warn ministers that too many Ofsted staff lacked the skill and experience to hold social workers to account and drive up standards. If matters did not improve and inspectors failed to win the respect of social workers it would be "all too easy" for their judgments and recommendations to be ignored, he warned.
Ofsted took responsibility for inspecting children's services in April 2007. Concerns over its performance were raised a year later when it emerged that inspectors had given Haringey a clean bill of health months after the death of Baby P, who was on the child protection register and under the watch of its social workers. He died of horrific injuries in August 2007. Ministers refused to accept that the death meant Ofsted was not up to the job of inspecting children's services, although a new system of regulation was swiftly adopted.
Sir Roger, who was made the Government's first chief adviser on the safety of children in March, welcomed the changes but said that problems remained. "Obviously, it makes it all too easy for those who are inspected to ignore the results if they don't have respect for the inspectors. It is important Ofsted works to build its regard and respect in this area. It is not in any of our interests to have a view that they are not competent," he said.
He said that he had heard "quite a lot of dissatisfaction from the field" about the work of inspectors that could no longer be ignored. The main complaint was the "high rate of variability" in what they knew about vulnerable children and safeguarding in particular. "It is difficult to think there is not some substance to it," he said.
Sir Roger, a former chief executive of Barnardo's, noted that Ofsted had recently announced plans to hire 20 or more inspectors with direct experience of children's social care as a sign that it recognised its problems. Ofsted also announced that it has appointed John Goldup, a former senior social worker from Tower Hamlets, as a director. He is the only person with experience of child protection to reach board level. "It will be necessary to improve the range of skills and experience that Ofsted inspectors have in relation to children's social care," Sir Roger said.
Fears over Ofsted have also been sounded by MPs including Barry Sheerman, the Labour chairman of the Commons Select Committee on Children, Schools and Families, who has twice asked Christine Gilbert, the chief inspector, to give evidence on the performance of children's services.
The Conservatives are reviewing Ofsted's future and do not rule out taking away its role to inspect children's services. "Ofsted is basically a schools' inspectorate that is conducting a paper exercise when it goes to children's services departments," said Tim Loughton, the Tory children's spokesman. "They don't go out on the beat. They stay in the office and look at files. They simply don't have the right people."
Ofsted rejected any suggestion that it needed to improve its performance. Roger Shippam, its director for children, said: "We do not recognise the criticism that Ofsted lacks social care expertise. It is understandable that there is much anxiety surrounding the inspection of social care at the moment, especially following the death of Baby Peter."
SOURCE. More details of how hopeless and corrupt the system is here
What Does & Does Not Cause Climate Change and the threat to integrity in science
by Piers Corbyn
A letter to Professor Sir Peter Knight, Senior Principal at Imperial College for research strategy and deputy to the Rector
Dear Peter
Further to the very interesting discussions we had at the Imperial College centenary dinner event in 2008 on matters of Climate Change and the integrity of Science I attach my updated presentation on What Does & Does not Cause Climate Change. This extends the points I made to you to include new findings I presented at the RCSA Centenary dinner on Dec 9th 2008 and the New York International Climate Change Conference on March 10th 2009 and also new graphs from USA scientists showing continuing decline in world temperatures despite rising CO2 levels.
The point I made that the CO2 driver theory of Climate Change is refuted by the evidence and will be cast aside by solar-based science and therefore it would be better for Imperial to lead its demise and advances in new science rather than lose credibility by defending the indefensible, stands more strongly than ever.
The CO2-centered Climate theory and all that stands with it in business and politics is doomed; or if it is not doomed then the integrity of science itself is surely doomed. It is incumbent on scientists of with moral fibre to defend evidence-based science and the integrity of science.
I recall that 40 years ago this week I and other students at Imperial stayed up all night to watch the Moon landing on 20th July 1969. That was an historic moment. If science and engineering then had been conducted at the abysmal level of integrity now displayed by 'Climate Science' & the theory of man-made Global Warming, the Moon landing would never have succeeded and neither would much of the advances of science since then.
Please have a look at and feel free to circulate the presentation and also the information I include therein about the proven significant skill of our solar-based method of long range forecasting (Solar Weather Technique) and let me know of any comments you may have.
More HERE
Fancy a British passport? Just move to Scotland: Home Office's 'absurd' new plan to tackle immigration
Immigrants who want a British passport will have a better chance if they agree to move to Scotland under `absurd' new Home Office plans.
Concerns about a huge expected increase in the population over the next 20 years have forced the Government to propose a points-based system for those seeking citizenship. The population of 61million is expected to hit 70million by 2029 and ministers want to make it harder for migrants on work permits to stay permanently.
But yesterday, the Scottish Secretary revealed that if immigrants were willing to live in under-populated parts of Britain, they would find it easier to pass the test. Jim Murphy said: `Having lived and worked in Scotland is proposed as one way to earn points.'
The move, contained in a draft consultation to be released in the next few weeks, means prospective British citizens already settled in Britain may flock north of the border to ensure they have enough points to be successful. But it is unknown what measures will be taken to police the system and prevent abuses.
Critics point out it will be extremely difficult to check that an applicant is living and working in Scotland and whether they will stay there. Also, once a passport application is approved, the Government has no control over the person's movements.
Shadow immigration minister Damian Green said: `This is completely absurd. Is the Government proposing to rebuild Hadrian's Wall to prevent people from crossing the border? `It is a completely inappropriate idea for solving problems in Scotland or the rest of the UK.'
Campaigners said it could damage a sound Home Office policy that is designed to make it tougher for migrants to settle in Britain. At present, there is a firm link between a migrant obtaining a visa to work here, and going on to receive a British passport. Under these rules, the number of British passports given to migrants is set to hit a record of almost 220,000 this year. During the first three months of 2009, 54,615 citizenship applications were rubber-stamped by the Home Office - up 57 per cent on the same period a year earlier, and the equivalent of nearly one every two minutes. At current rates, the number of immigrants receiving passports - and with them the right to claim full benefits - will obliterate the previous record of 164,540 approvals, set in 2007. Last year, the number of passports granted was 129,310, and when Labour came to power in 1997, just 37,010 people were given citizenship.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of the campaign group Migrationwatch UK, said: `It is an excellent scheme to split economic migration from the right to settle, but it makes no sense to treat Scotland differently. `A condition requiring residency in Scotland is completely unenforceable. `England receives over 90 per cent of immigration, and faces 95 per cent of the extra 10million population now projected for the next 20 years. We cannot allow the tail to wag the dog on a matter that is so important to the future of our society.'
A Home Office spokesman said: `The points system has already proved to be a powerful tool for controlling migration, which is why we are now looking at applying its principles to the path to citizenship. `The measures require migrants to earn citizenship. `This is the first step towards breaking the automatic link between temporary residence and permanent settlement. `But, we want to look at raising the bar even more.'
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
British "organic" farmer goes broke
These jerks always think that they are so holy, that they know it all and that everyone else is a fool. Reality has a way of intruding, however
It is The Good Life dream that turned sour. Just months after landing a job as the "food champion" of the London mayor Boris Johnson, Rosie Boycott has had to wind up her organic farm after it failed to make a profit. The demise of the smallholding, set over eight acres in Somerset, left Boycott, a former editor of the Daily Express, and her husband 200,000 out of pocket and has resulted in the couple falling out with their former farm manager.
Boycott launched the venture more than four years ago in an attempt to grow healthy, locally produced, affordable food. She charted her progress as townie-turned-country dweller in a book called Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes.
It was Boycott's passion for sustainable living which inspired Johnson, the capital's Tory mayor, to appoint her as his principal food adviser in September last year. Boycott said at the time: "There are many aspects of our current food system which are damaging the environment through wasteful practices and producing poor-quality food. "It simply does not need to be the case that Londoners cannot have access to locally produced, top-quality food but we have to have a radical rethink to find ways to make this happen." Since taking up the role, for which she is paid up to 20,000-a-year, Boycott has been busy drawing up plans to convert unused plots of land in London, including the roof of the Hayward art gallery, into public vegetable patches.
However, her own rural idyll appears to have been unravelling. The Gloucestershire old spot pigs and chickens Boycott once kept have long gone and the site of her farm, Dillington Park Nurseries, has now been converted into allotments. Accounts filed at Companies House show that the farm never made a profit. Early on, monthly outgoings were 2,329 and income a meagre 1,544. The last published set of accounts, for the year ending 2007, reveal a loss of more than 41,000.
Boycott, a former alcoholic, and her second husband, Charles Howard, a barrister, paid 70,000 to set up the farm at the end of 2004 on the site of a Victorian walled garden on the Dillington estate near Ilminster. It was located close to the Dairy House, a weekend retreat that the couple rented since 2002. Boycott wrote in her book: "We were looking to make every square inch as productive as possible and we were looking to find as many ways as possible to generate an income. "Our friends all too often refer to our farm as a hobby but I realise that has changed. It's not just a hobby any more, it's something that matters very much to Charlie and me and our life together. Somehow it has to succeed."
To smooth their way, the couple recruited David Bellew to manage the farm. Last week, however, it emerged that Bellew, who is listed as a director and shareholder of Dillington Park Nurseries, has fallen out with Boycott and moved on to another job. A local shop owner said: "David worked his fingers to the bone. He was the unsung hero. Yes, Rosie financed it, but it was David's expertise that got it off the ground and kept it going. He came very close to pulling it off." Bellew refused to elaborate on the acrimony this weekend. "With hindsight I wish I had never got involved," he said. "Ironically, I'm better for the experience. I've learnt the true value of things and people."
When asked about the farm's collapse and her relationship with Bellew, Boycott referred inquiries to her lawyers at Harbottle & Lewis, a firm which acts for the Prince of Wales, Kate Moss and David and Victoria Beckham. The lawyers sought to deflect a series of questions from The Sunday Times and threatened to sue on grounds of privacy, citing the European Convention on Human Rights.
Boycott claimed through her lawyers that the decision to convert her farm into new plots for up to 18 families had been mutually agreed between herself, Lord Cameron, the owner of Dillington estate and a former head of the Countryside Agency, and the Allotments Association, which controls the project. Boycott and Howard have retained one of the allotment strips.
A spokeswoman for Boris Johnson said the mayor thought Boycott was doing a "terrific" job. "She seizes opportunities in the most unlikely corners and through her force of personality and uncompromising commitment will leave a lasting legacy in London of thousands of extra food- growing spaces," he said.
SOURCE
British university education for the wealthy only?
That seems to be where Britain is heading -- despite repeated claims that they want more working class kids at university. Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
STUDENTS face tuition fees of 7,000 a year by 2013 under plans being developed by both Labour and the Conservatives. Both parties are studying an overhaul of the system under which top universities would be allowed to lift fees above the current legal limit of 3,225, while many former polytechnics would offer no-frills degrees for free.
The proposal was handed by John Denham, the former universities secretary, to Lord Mandelson, the business, innovation and skills secretary, who has taken over responsibility for higher education. Vice-chancellors say a 7,000 maximum fee is the "consensus" figure - the minimum to rescue university finances without being so high as to be politically unacceptable.
There is a legal obligation on the government to consider the future of the current fee system, which was introduced in 2006, after its first three years of operation. Mandelson is due to launch the review this autumn. It is thought highly unlikely it will be finished before the next election, which must be held by next June.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are anxious to avoid fees becoming an issue with voters. Labour blamed its loss of marginal seats in university towns at the 2005 election on its recent legislation for the previous increase in fees.
One vice-chancellor said: "A simple rise in the cap to 7,000 could be put through soon after this election and it would have the advantage of letting the government cut the amount it puts into universities."
It has emerged, however, that Mandelson is also studying options that go far beyond simply deciding whether fees can be increased. Denham's idea calls for a wholesale restructuring of higher education. Some post-1992 universities and further education colleges could offer free, government-funded "walk to study" degrees, often in vocational subjects, to local students living at home. Elite research institutions, meanwhile, would be allowed to charge far higher fees than at present, with students paying for future earning power.
Denham did not put a figure on fees in his scenario, but experts who worked closely with him said it could eventually mean a ceiling of 15,000, including a 2,000 "levy" to fund bursaries for poorer students.
David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, has also studied Denham's plan. He said the Conservatives would not decide their policy in advance of the review, and cautioned: "Just putting up fees has a series of problems. Charging more at the bottom of the recession will be tough, and universities would have to show any extra fees were going to help the quality of education - a challenge to which I don't think they have yet risen."
Supporters of an increase believe university funding has become an emergency. Cuts of 5%-20% in government funding for higher education are expected whoever wins the next election, despite increasing numbers of students.
Seven universities, including London Metropolitan and Thames Valley, are on a secret official list of institutions at risk of financial failure, a total expected to reach as high as 30 next year.
Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor of Lancaster and incoming chairman of the 1994 Group of research institutions, warned of a "valley of death" over the next few years until fees could be raised, with universities forced into severe cutbacks.
Another source said political considerations were bound to hamper the funding review. "Mandelson is nowhere near knowing how he wants to fund universities," he said. "This is not a government that believes it will actually be making decisions, but it is thinking about how to box the Tories in."
He added: "A few months ago I would have thought it inconceivable for any change to come in before 2013. Now I see the possibility of George Osborne [the shadow chancellor] putting it into a `days of misery' package after the election. It would technically be possible to bring in change for 2011."
A condition of freeing universities to charge higher fees is likely to be that better-off students are charged a levy on fees to subsidise bursaries for those on lower incomes. Further cross-subsidy could be provided by money from overseas students and alumni.
Luke Johnson, the Channel 4 chairman and entrepreneur who is a member of Oxford's fundraising committee, said: "It is inevitable there will be higher fees and more independence, but it has to go hand in hand with much more for bursaries. There is a disproportionate number of private school undergraduates at Oxford and it is by no means ideal."
Alan Ryan, retiring warden of New College, Oxford, said his college was drawing up bursary plans to ensure no family on an income of less than 35,000 would be worse off if fees were raised from their current level.
Birmingham University, meanwhile, is one of those planning in the long term to offer "needs-blind" admission, in which bursaries for poor students are provided mainly from a levy on better-off students.
Last week Alan Milburn, the former cabinet minister, wrote in a report commissioned by Gordon Brown that such an arrangement could promote social mobility by drawing more people from poorer families into university.
Tomorrow, in a speech to Universities UK, an association of vice-chancellors, Mandelson is expected to take up Milburn's theme and warn that institutions need to step up efforts to bring in more students from poor backgrounds through their admission and bursary policies.
Some universities are already making preparations for an increase. Exeter is understood to be one of several preparing an aggressive strategy of charging fees of at least 7,000. It will also offer generous bursaries in addition to non-means-tested awards - including sports and academic scholarships - to lure the best students regardless of income.
The result will be far higher debts for those whose studies are not covered by bursaries. Recent research by Universities UK has found that raising fees to 7,000 would bring average debts of 32,400, compared with the current 20,000.
SOURCE
Official kangaroo courts in Britain
The kangaroo is native to Australia but Britain is hard to beat for kangaroo courts. The divorce courts have recently had their veil of secrecy partly lifted after huge newspaper campaigns about their injustices but the immigration courts would do Soviet Russia proud. I suppose it is to be expected. Britain has now been run by the Left for 12 years. Combine malice, chronic bungling and indifference to justice and you are in deep trouble if the authorities notice you for any reason -- just like the old USSR
Today the latest session of Britain's secret trials begins at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in London. The appellants coming up before the SIAC over the next week are seven of the Pakistani students arrested before Easter under suspicion of terrorist activity. There was blanket media coverage at the time, helped by the intervention of the Prime Minister, who felt the need to declare: "We are dealing with a very big terrorist plot."
Two weeks later all 12 students originally arrested were released without charge to far less fanfare. It was then announced that 10 were to be deported on national security grounds. One returned to Pakistan while two others were released last week, pending visa issues being investigated. The remaining seven, however, now face Britain's secret system of justice overseen by the SIAC and operating under the aegis of immigration law.
The SIAC deals with appeals against decisions made by the Home Office to deport or exclude individuals from Britain on national security grounds. The process has all the appearance of a court, but operates more like a star chamber.
Secret evidence plays a big role in the process, with the appellants not told what they are accused of to justify their deportation. Neither are their lawyers allowed to know this information. Instead special advocates are appointed, who are allowed to see the evidence against them. A damning indictment of the process comes from Dinah Rose QC, who acted as a special advocate. "I heard the appellant ask the judge the question: 'Why are you sending me to prison?' To which the judge replied: 'I cannot tell you that.' I could not believe that I was witnessing such an event in a British court. I could not believe that nobody protested or made a fuss. They simply took him to jail, without any explanation at all," said Rose.
This system of justice overseen by the SIAC has come to prominence since 9/11, when the Government turned to immigration law as a means of holding foreign nationals without trial, pending deportation. Following 9/11, the Government rushed through the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act, which allowed foreign nationals to be detained without trial indefinitely. In 2004, the law lords ruled that it was unlawful under the Human Rights Act to detain people without trial. It was as a result of this ruling that control orders were devised.
These effectively amounted to being detained under house arrest. There were short periods of time when the individual could go outside into a prescribed area. They were also required to wear a tag and ring up the tagging company a number of times a day.
One of those originally detained under this process in December 2001 was an Algerian man known only as "G". He was imprisoned, then released on house arrest-style bail conditions then re-arrested after the London bombings, and served with a deportation notice. While in prison he then tried to kill himself using wire. Today, "G" continues to live with his wife and two young children under house arrest conditions on deportation bail. "No one here has ever told me what I am accused of. I have no rights here it seems. In Britain animals have rights. I have less rights than an animal," he said.
It is onto this conveyor belt of injustice that the seven Pakistani students enter today. The one way out of this nightmare is to agree to leave the country. This, though, is not an option for most who fled their home countries like Algeria as refugees in fear of their lives. Were they to return, as some have, they would be likely to face torture, prison or death.
The Pakistani students case is somewhat different to that of the others being detained in that they did not flee their home country. However, it is not an appetising prospect to return to Pakistan under the cloud of terrorist suspicion. To their credit the students remain committed to resuming their studies in the UK.
There have been some encouraging signs of progress in the effort to roll back the operation of this secretive system of injustice. Last month, the law lords ruled that control orders breached the Human Rights Act in that the reliance on secret evidence denied the appellants a fair trial. Meanwhile, some 90 MPs have signed an early day motion calling for an end to the use of secret evidence.
In the case of the students, the government may just be about to score a PR own goal. It created such a public fuss around the initial arrests, only to then declare no charges were being brought. As a result there is sure to be more interest about the plight of the students as they enter the SIAC process. It can only be hoped that, come the end of this week, a little more light has been shed on this secret system of justice. It must also be hoped that all those students who want to can resume the studies that were so brutally interrupted back in April.
SOURCE
"I've recently read that cranberry juice doesn't help to prevent cystitis after all. Should I stop drinking it now?"
An interesting contrary view to a recent knockback
The answer, in a word, is no. The news story that you are referring to arose when Ocean Spray submitted research to a new EU body, the European Food Safety Authority, in the hope that it would be allowed to make the health claim on its cartons that drinking a certain amount of cranberry juice each day would prevent cystitis. The panel agreed that while research does show this to be the case in laboratory studies, more studies were needed to be sure of the exact "dose" needed in humans.
Professor Stuart Stanton, Emeritus Professor of Urogynaecology at St George's Hospital in London, who is versed with the EU panel and the research submitted, has been recommending cranberry juice to his patients for more than 20 years. He says that it is necessary for us to appreciate that much of what is recommended in everyday medicine is founded on years of experience and anecdotal findings, as well as clinical research.
In his view, cranberry juice is beneficial in preventing urinary infections and he makes the rather timely point that if women who have read about the panel's findings suddenly stop drinking it, GPs, who are already overburdened with the demands of swine flu, could see more patients presenting with what had previously been well-controlled urinary infections.
It is also important to remember, however, that cranberry juice is not a medicine. While the latter are man-made and very specific dose-response mechanisms can be determined for them, it is frequently very hard, if not impossible, to achieve the same in food products that contain naturally functional ingredients.
That said, from the work that has already been carried out, scientific thinking suggests that two glasses of cranberry juice, containing 80mg of proanthocyanidins (PACs), is roughly the amount needed for it to "do its job" - ie, to stop cystitis-causing E. coli bacteria from attaching to the walls of the urinary tract and setting up infections.
It is thought that the PACs may work by wrapping themselves directly around the E. coli so that the bacteria cannot grab on to receptors in the lining of the bladder and urethra, or that they may block the receptors themselves so that there is no room for the E. coli to dock.
Either way, the result is that the bacteria leave the body without the opportunity to set up infections. This prevents patients from needing constantly to take antibiotics, which is good news, because you do not get the risk of building up antibiotic resistance.
The important point to bear in mind is that PACs in cranberry juice work in helping to prevent infections taking hold, which is why if you are prone to them, it is a good idea to drink some of the juice each day. If the E. coli do get their little "claws" into the lining of your tracts, they bind securely and at this point antibiotics are the only real option.
Test-tube experiments suggest that cranberry juice extracts may also be able to fight salmonella infections. Test-tube work also has found that they appear to prevent the ulcer-causing Helicobacter pylori from attaching itself to the stomach lining.
The red antioxidant pigments in cranberry juice also seem, again in laboratory tests, to help to stop platelets in blood from clumping together. If this happened in our bodies, this would assist in keeping blood thin and potentially lower the chances of clots forming that can trigger heart attacks and strokes.
Other interesting super nutrients present in cranberries include EGCG found also in green tea and linked with possible disease-fighting properties including cancer.
The tart taste of cranberries is down to the PACs, which give them their potential health benefits and are present in nature to stop insects feasting on them. For us to be able to tolerate the taste, sugar or sweeteners need to be added to cranberry juice drinks.
SOURCE
British "elf 'n safety" madness even hits the Greenies
What has been "safe" for years suddenly became unsafe
Organisers of Europe's biggest eco-awareness event have had to cancel their 15th annual festival after police and the local council raised safety fears days before it was to start. The Big Green Gathering (BGG), which was due to be attended by up to 20,000 people paying 125 per ticket, may now have to go into receivership, leaving thousands out of pocket.
Described as a "celebration of our natural world" in a village fte atmosphere, the festival combines practical advice and demonstrations on sustainable lifestyles combined with entertainment powered by the wind and the sun. Visitors to the event are shown how to become self-sustaining, including how to build their own houses and grown their own food.
The five-day festival was due to open on Wednesday but the organisers surrendered their licence yesterday after concerns, including issues involving road and fire safety, could not be resolved with police and the local council.
Directors of the BGG, which has been running since 1994, are furious. Penny Kemp, a director, told The Times: "Our barrister has said it appears the council, police and regulatory authorities have leaned heavily on the road closure people to make sure we don't get the order."
She added that some of the reasons given for not allowing the event included the fire precautions not being good enough, even though they were the same as last year when the festival went ahead.
An inspector at Avon and Somerset Police refused to say what exactly their concerns were. Mendip District Council was due to go to the High Court in London today to apply for an injunction to stop the gathering in the Mendip Hills going ahead.
Thousands of adults had paid 125 for a ticket and 50 for their children to attend. The Big Green Gathering is designed for people within the green movement who wanted a festival focused on green issues. According to its website, The Big Green Gathering is for "people who care about health, the environment, sustainability, our children's future and life in general. It is a celebration of our natural world and our place within it. As such it is a place for enjoyment, learning and fun. Unhealthy activities are not encouraged. The only things taken in excess should be love, peace, joy and friendship."
This year, Gardener's World, BBC's Ethical Man and many other environmental experts were said to be going to help people to reduce their carbon footprint.
Ms Kemp added that they had a multi-agency meeting on Thursday and as far as they were concerned everything was still going ahead. But as they had to cancel the event at such a late stage they may have to go into receivership as they had paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds, including 27,000 to the police. She said: "We hope to be able to pay people back, but I just don't know. It is desperately sad that a peaceful event enjoyed by thousands of people over many years has been stopped by the police and the council for what I think are unjust reasons."
The directors of the Big Green Gathering issued a statement saying that they had "taken extensive legal advice from a prominent QC and other eminent lawyers" and had been left with "no option" but to surrender their licence. "The event will now not take place and the directors advise and request that no one who was intending to attend the event should attempt to do so as the site is now closed and it is likely that they will be turned away by the police. "It is our intention to avoid any confrontation or public disorder in regards to this and it is our earnest hope that all of those involved will follow this advice. "It is with great sadness that we have been forced into this position and we express our profound apologies to all concerned."
Avon and Somerset Police would only say: "It has been cancelled. The reasons are on our website." The statement said: "Police are warning people planning to attend the Big Green Gathering 2009, that the event has been cancelled due to a number of contributing factors that could not be overcome. "Today (Sunday, July 26) organisers of the Big Green Gathering surrendered their licence to Mendip Council. "Avon and Somerset Police worked with the event organisers as well as our multi-agent partners, and subsequently went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that this event took place. However, due to a number of issues including road and fire safety that could not be resolved the event organisers surrendered their licence. "Police would now like to advise any persons planning on travelling to the area for this event not to, they will be turned away."
Big Green Gathering Chair Brig Oubridge said: "At the multi-agency meeting on Thursday 23rd July, we were still negotiating with the police and the council under the genuine belief that things were progressing and we were continuing to spend money on infrastructure, wages and security. "If they knew they were going to cancel the event, we can only conclude that this drive to increase expenditure appears to be a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the Big Green Gathering. "The injunction served on the Big Green Gathering was primarily addressing the fact that the Big Green Gathering did not obtain the necessary road closure despite the fact that the Highways Agency had previously indicated that this would be done.
"The Big Green Gathering has been running an event since 1994 and never before has public safety been an issue. The BGG has an exemplary record on health and safety and crime levels have always been low for the number of people on site."
SOURCE
British bureaucracy runs amok yet again
A surfboard is a ship?
Canoes, surfboards and dinghies are to be given the same legal status as cruise liners and oil tankers in a clampdown on reckless behaviour at sea. Unpowered craft including sailboards and bodyboards are to be reclassified as ships to bring their users within regulations for merchant shipping.
Users face prison and fines of up to 50,000 if they are held liable for any accidents. A family in a dinghy or a beginner oarsman could be prosecuted if they collided with a swimmer. Anyone out on the water would be liable to a random breath test. The change was initially prompted by pressure to reduce accidents involving reckless use of jet skis, which have caused nine deaths in the past ten years. But the Department for Transport has infuriated many of Britain's four million water sports enthusiasts by proposing to extend the regulations to unpowered craft. All watercraft would be classed as "ships" and thus bound by safety regulations enshrined in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1995. Surfers and canoeists in particular are adamant that they should not be subjected to such legislation.
Mark Wesson, a member of the British Surfing Association's executive council, said: "We shall certainly be opposing this, and goodness knows what holidaymakers are going to make of this. It may put a lot of people off investing in a surfboard."
Rob Barber, owner of a bodyboarding school in Newquay, Cornwall, suggested that the plan was too bizarre to enforce. "Common sense says you don't go out on a surfboard when you are drunk - it's not something you do," he said.
Jason Smith, editor of Canoe and Kayak magazine, said: "There is a clear difference between a powered and an unpowered craft and it seems draconian if someone is in the sea in a beginner's-style kayak after drinking a beer and then they may be prosecuted. I don't think readers will like it one bit."
Gus Lewis, legal officer at the Royal Yachting Association, the governing body for dinghies, yachts, rigid inflatable boats and sailboards, said everyone at sea should follow the same safety rules. But he said the association did not support new drink-driving rules for amateur sailors, since it is already an offence to behave in such a way as to endanger a ship or an individual.
Mr Lewis questioned whether the laws should apply to canoes and surfers. "We would include windsurfers, though, for we would say they navigate waters. If you got injured by a windsurfer or a dinghy, you'd be angry if they were somehow above the law." The proposals, in a consultation paper, are intended to close a legal loophole identified in the Court of Appeal four years ago. Judges overturned the conviction of Mark Goodwin, of Weymouth, Dorset, who nearly killed a man when riding a jet ski. They ruled a jet ski was not a seagoing ship, so not subject to the merchant shipping legislation. The new rules would bring Britain into line with a Convention on International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea.
Most yacht and speedboat owners already comply with the equivalent of a highway code for the sea, and until the judgment most people thought both motor and sailing boats were governed by the rules. A spokeswoman for the DfT said the intention was to "prevent the irresponsible few from spoiling the fun of everyone else". She added: "Everyone should be free to enjoy themselves on the water in the knowledge that there are sanctions to deal with those who would put their safety at risk."
SOURCE
British government drips losing in their attack on Michael Savage
His accusation that he was attacked on racial grounds has now been confirmed
These jerks always think that they are so holy, that they know it all and that everyone else is a fool. Reality has a way of intruding, however
It is The Good Life dream that turned sour. Just months after landing a job as the "food champion" of the London mayor Boris Johnson, Rosie Boycott has had to wind up her organic farm after it failed to make a profit. The demise of the smallholding, set over eight acres in Somerset, left Boycott, a former editor of the Daily Express, and her husband 200,000 out of pocket and has resulted in the couple falling out with their former farm manager.
Boycott launched the venture more than four years ago in an attempt to grow healthy, locally produced, affordable food. She charted her progress as townie-turned-country dweller in a book called Spotted Pigs and Green Tomatoes.
It was Boycott's passion for sustainable living which inspired Johnson, the capital's Tory mayor, to appoint her as his principal food adviser in September last year. Boycott said at the time: "There are many aspects of our current food system which are damaging the environment through wasteful practices and producing poor-quality food. "It simply does not need to be the case that Londoners cannot have access to locally produced, top-quality food but we have to have a radical rethink to find ways to make this happen." Since taking up the role, for which she is paid up to 20,000-a-year, Boycott has been busy drawing up plans to convert unused plots of land in London, including the roof of the Hayward art gallery, into public vegetable patches.
However, her own rural idyll appears to have been unravelling. The Gloucestershire old spot pigs and chickens Boycott once kept have long gone and the site of her farm, Dillington Park Nurseries, has now been converted into allotments. Accounts filed at Companies House show that the farm never made a profit. Early on, monthly outgoings were 2,329 and income a meagre 1,544. The last published set of accounts, for the year ending 2007, reveal a loss of more than 41,000.
Boycott, a former alcoholic, and her second husband, Charles Howard, a barrister, paid 70,000 to set up the farm at the end of 2004 on the site of a Victorian walled garden on the Dillington estate near Ilminster. It was located close to the Dairy House, a weekend retreat that the couple rented since 2002. Boycott wrote in her book: "We were looking to make every square inch as productive as possible and we were looking to find as many ways as possible to generate an income. "Our friends all too often refer to our farm as a hobby but I realise that has changed. It's not just a hobby any more, it's something that matters very much to Charlie and me and our life together. Somehow it has to succeed."
To smooth their way, the couple recruited David Bellew to manage the farm. Last week, however, it emerged that Bellew, who is listed as a director and shareholder of Dillington Park Nurseries, has fallen out with Boycott and moved on to another job. A local shop owner said: "David worked his fingers to the bone. He was the unsung hero. Yes, Rosie financed it, but it was David's expertise that got it off the ground and kept it going. He came very close to pulling it off." Bellew refused to elaborate on the acrimony this weekend. "With hindsight I wish I had never got involved," he said. "Ironically, I'm better for the experience. I've learnt the true value of things and people."
When asked about the farm's collapse and her relationship with Bellew, Boycott referred inquiries to her lawyers at Harbottle & Lewis, a firm which acts for the Prince of Wales, Kate Moss and David and Victoria Beckham. The lawyers sought to deflect a series of questions from The Sunday Times and threatened to sue on grounds of privacy, citing the European Convention on Human Rights.
Boycott claimed through her lawyers that the decision to convert her farm into new plots for up to 18 families had been mutually agreed between herself, Lord Cameron, the owner of Dillington estate and a former head of the Countryside Agency, and the Allotments Association, which controls the project. Boycott and Howard have retained one of the allotment strips.
A spokeswoman for Boris Johnson said the mayor thought Boycott was doing a "terrific" job. "She seizes opportunities in the most unlikely corners and through her force of personality and uncompromising commitment will leave a lasting legacy in London of thousands of extra food- growing spaces," he said.
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British university education for the wealthy only?
That seems to be where Britain is heading -- despite repeated claims that they want more working class kids at university. Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?
STUDENTS face tuition fees of 7,000 a year by 2013 under plans being developed by both Labour and the Conservatives. Both parties are studying an overhaul of the system under which top universities would be allowed to lift fees above the current legal limit of 3,225, while many former polytechnics would offer no-frills degrees for free.
The proposal was handed by John Denham, the former universities secretary, to Lord Mandelson, the business, innovation and skills secretary, who has taken over responsibility for higher education. Vice-chancellors say a 7,000 maximum fee is the "consensus" figure - the minimum to rescue university finances without being so high as to be politically unacceptable.
There is a legal obligation on the government to consider the future of the current fee system, which was introduced in 2006, after its first three years of operation. Mandelson is due to launch the review this autumn. It is thought highly unlikely it will be finished before the next election, which must be held by next June.
Both Labour and the Conservatives are anxious to avoid fees becoming an issue with voters. Labour blamed its loss of marginal seats in university towns at the 2005 election on its recent legislation for the previous increase in fees.
One vice-chancellor said: "A simple rise in the cap to 7,000 could be put through soon after this election and it would have the advantage of letting the government cut the amount it puts into universities."
It has emerged, however, that Mandelson is also studying options that go far beyond simply deciding whether fees can be increased. Denham's idea calls for a wholesale restructuring of higher education. Some post-1992 universities and further education colleges could offer free, government-funded "walk to study" degrees, often in vocational subjects, to local students living at home. Elite research institutions, meanwhile, would be allowed to charge far higher fees than at present, with students paying for future earning power.
Denham did not put a figure on fees in his scenario, but experts who worked closely with him said it could eventually mean a ceiling of 15,000, including a 2,000 "levy" to fund bursaries for poorer students.
David Willetts, the shadow universities secretary, has also studied Denham's plan. He said the Conservatives would not decide their policy in advance of the review, and cautioned: "Just putting up fees has a series of problems. Charging more at the bottom of the recession will be tough, and universities would have to show any extra fees were going to help the quality of education - a challenge to which I don't think they have yet risen."
Supporters of an increase believe university funding has become an emergency. Cuts of 5%-20% in government funding for higher education are expected whoever wins the next election, despite increasing numbers of students.
Seven universities, including London Metropolitan and Thames Valley, are on a secret official list of institutions at risk of financial failure, a total expected to reach as high as 30 next year.
Paul Wellings, vice-chancellor of Lancaster and incoming chairman of the 1994 Group of research institutions, warned of a "valley of death" over the next few years until fees could be raised, with universities forced into severe cutbacks.
Another source said political considerations were bound to hamper the funding review. "Mandelson is nowhere near knowing how he wants to fund universities," he said. "This is not a government that believes it will actually be making decisions, but it is thinking about how to box the Tories in."
He added: "A few months ago I would have thought it inconceivable for any change to come in before 2013. Now I see the possibility of George Osborne [the shadow chancellor] putting it into a `days of misery' package after the election. It would technically be possible to bring in change for 2011."
A condition of freeing universities to charge higher fees is likely to be that better-off students are charged a levy on fees to subsidise bursaries for those on lower incomes. Further cross-subsidy could be provided by money from overseas students and alumni.
Luke Johnson, the Channel 4 chairman and entrepreneur who is a member of Oxford's fundraising committee, said: "It is inevitable there will be higher fees and more independence, but it has to go hand in hand with much more for bursaries. There is a disproportionate number of private school undergraduates at Oxford and it is by no means ideal."
Alan Ryan, retiring warden of New College, Oxford, said his college was drawing up bursary plans to ensure no family on an income of less than 35,000 would be worse off if fees were raised from their current level.
Birmingham University, meanwhile, is one of those planning in the long term to offer "needs-blind" admission, in which bursaries for poor students are provided mainly from a levy on better-off students.
Last week Alan Milburn, the former cabinet minister, wrote in a report commissioned by Gordon Brown that such an arrangement could promote social mobility by drawing more people from poorer families into university.
Tomorrow, in a speech to Universities UK, an association of vice-chancellors, Mandelson is expected to take up Milburn's theme and warn that institutions need to step up efforts to bring in more students from poor backgrounds through their admission and bursary policies.
Some universities are already making preparations for an increase. Exeter is understood to be one of several preparing an aggressive strategy of charging fees of at least 7,000. It will also offer generous bursaries in addition to non-means-tested awards - including sports and academic scholarships - to lure the best students regardless of income.
The result will be far higher debts for those whose studies are not covered by bursaries. Recent research by Universities UK has found that raising fees to 7,000 would bring average debts of 32,400, compared with the current 20,000.
SOURCE
Official kangaroo courts in Britain
The kangaroo is native to Australia but Britain is hard to beat for kangaroo courts. The divorce courts have recently had their veil of secrecy partly lifted after huge newspaper campaigns about their injustices but the immigration courts would do Soviet Russia proud. I suppose it is to be expected. Britain has now been run by the Left for 12 years. Combine malice, chronic bungling and indifference to justice and you are in deep trouble if the authorities notice you for any reason -- just like the old USSR
Today the latest session of Britain's secret trials begins at the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) in London. The appellants coming up before the SIAC over the next week are seven of the Pakistani students arrested before Easter under suspicion of terrorist activity. There was blanket media coverage at the time, helped by the intervention of the Prime Minister, who felt the need to declare: "We are dealing with a very big terrorist plot."
Two weeks later all 12 students originally arrested were released without charge to far less fanfare. It was then announced that 10 were to be deported on national security grounds. One returned to Pakistan while two others were released last week, pending visa issues being investigated. The remaining seven, however, now face Britain's secret system of justice overseen by the SIAC and operating under the aegis of immigration law.
The SIAC deals with appeals against decisions made by the Home Office to deport or exclude individuals from Britain on national security grounds. The process has all the appearance of a court, but operates more like a star chamber.
Secret evidence plays a big role in the process, with the appellants not told what they are accused of to justify their deportation. Neither are their lawyers allowed to know this information. Instead special advocates are appointed, who are allowed to see the evidence against them. A damning indictment of the process comes from Dinah Rose QC, who acted as a special advocate. "I heard the appellant ask the judge the question: 'Why are you sending me to prison?' To which the judge replied: 'I cannot tell you that.' I could not believe that I was witnessing such an event in a British court. I could not believe that nobody protested or made a fuss. They simply took him to jail, without any explanation at all," said Rose.
This system of justice overseen by the SIAC has come to prominence since 9/11, when the Government turned to immigration law as a means of holding foreign nationals without trial, pending deportation. Following 9/11, the Government rushed through the Anti-terrorism Crime and Security Act, which allowed foreign nationals to be detained without trial indefinitely. In 2004, the law lords ruled that it was unlawful under the Human Rights Act to detain people without trial. It was as a result of this ruling that control orders were devised.
These effectively amounted to being detained under house arrest. There were short periods of time when the individual could go outside into a prescribed area. They were also required to wear a tag and ring up the tagging company a number of times a day.
One of those originally detained under this process in December 2001 was an Algerian man known only as "G". He was imprisoned, then released on house arrest-style bail conditions then re-arrested after the London bombings, and served with a deportation notice. While in prison he then tried to kill himself using wire. Today, "G" continues to live with his wife and two young children under house arrest conditions on deportation bail. "No one here has ever told me what I am accused of. I have no rights here it seems. In Britain animals have rights. I have less rights than an animal," he said.
It is onto this conveyor belt of injustice that the seven Pakistani students enter today. The one way out of this nightmare is to agree to leave the country. This, though, is not an option for most who fled their home countries like Algeria as refugees in fear of their lives. Were they to return, as some have, they would be likely to face torture, prison or death.
The Pakistani students case is somewhat different to that of the others being detained in that they did not flee their home country. However, it is not an appetising prospect to return to Pakistan under the cloud of terrorist suspicion. To their credit the students remain committed to resuming their studies in the UK.
There have been some encouraging signs of progress in the effort to roll back the operation of this secretive system of injustice. Last month, the law lords ruled that control orders breached the Human Rights Act in that the reliance on secret evidence denied the appellants a fair trial. Meanwhile, some 90 MPs have signed an early day motion calling for an end to the use of secret evidence.
In the case of the students, the government may just be about to score a PR own goal. It created such a public fuss around the initial arrests, only to then declare no charges were being brought. As a result there is sure to be more interest about the plight of the students as they enter the SIAC process. It can only be hoped that, come the end of this week, a little more light has been shed on this secret system of justice. It must also be hoped that all those students who want to can resume the studies that were so brutally interrupted back in April.
SOURCE
"I've recently read that cranberry juice doesn't help to prevent cystitis after all. Should I stop drinking it now?"
An interesting contrary view to a recent knockback
The answer, in a word, is no. The news story that you are referring to arose when Ocean Spray submitted research to a new EU body, the European Food Safety Authority, in the hope that it would be allowed to make the health claim on its cartons that drinking a certain amount of cranberry juice each day would prevent cystitis. The panel agreed that while research does show this to be the case in laboratory studies, more studies were needed to be sure of the exact "dose" needed in humans.
Professor Stuart Stanton, Emeritus Professor of Urogynaecology at St George's Hospital in London, who is versed with the EU panel and the research submitted, has been recommending cranberry juice to his patients for more than 20 years. He says that it is necessary for us to appreciate that much of what is recommended in everyday medicine is founded on years of experience and anecdotal findings, as well as clinical research.
In his view, cranberry juice is beneficial in preventing urinary infections and he makes the rather timely point that if women who have read about the panel's findings suddenly stop drinking it, GPs, who are already overburdened with the demands of swine flu, could see more patients presenting with what had previously been well-controlled urinary infections.
It is also important to remember, however, that cranberry juice is not a medicine. While the latter are man-made and very specific dose-response mechanisms can be determined for them, it is frequently very hard, if not impossible, to achieve the same in food products that contain naturally functional ingredients.
That said, from the work that has already been carried out, scientific thinking suggests that two glasses of cranberry juice, containing 80mg of proanthocyanidins (PACs), is roughly the amount needed for it to "do its job" - ie, to stop cystitis-causing E. coli bacteria from attaching to the walls of the urinary tract and setting up infections.
It is thought that the PACs may work by wrapping themselves directly around the E. coli so that the bacteria cannot grab on to receptors in the lining of the bladder and urethra, or that they may block the receptors themselves so that there is no room for the E. coli to dock.
Either way, the result is that the bacteria leave the body without the opportunity to set up infections. This prevents patients from needing constantly to take antibiotics, which is good news, because you do not get the risk of building up antibiotic resistance.
The important point to bear in mind is that PACs in cranberry juice work in helping to prevent infections taking hold, which is why if you are prone to them, it is a good idea to drink some of the juice each day. If the E. coli do get their little "claws" into the lining of your tracts, they bind securely and at this point antibiotics are the only real option.
Test-tube experiments suggest that cranberry juice extracts may also be able to fight salmonella infections. Test-tube work also has found that they appear to prevent the ulcer-causing Helicobacter pylori from attaching itself to the stomach lining.
The red antioxidant pigments in cranberry juice also seem, again in laboratory tests, to help to stop platelets in blood from clumping together. If this happened in our bodies, this would assist in keeping blood thin and potentially lower the chances of clots forming that can trigger heart attacks and strokes.
Other interesting super nutrients present in cranberries include EGCG found also in green tea and linked with possible disease-fighting properties including cancer.
The tart taste of cranberries is down to the PACs, which give them their potential health benefits and are present in nature to stop insects feasting on them. For us to be able to tolerate the taste, sugar or sweeteners need to be added to cranberry juice drinks.
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British "elf 'n safety" madness even hits the Greenies
What has been "safe" for years suddenly became unsafe
Organisers of Europe's biggest eco-awareness event have had to cancel their 15th annual festival after police and the local council raised safety fears days before it was to start. The Big Green Gathering (BGG), which was due to be attended by up to 20,000 people paying 125 per ticket, may now have to go into receivership, leaving thousands out of pocket.
Described as a "celebration of our natural world" in a village fte atmosphere, the festival combines practical advice and demonstrations on sustainable lifestyles combined with entertainment powered by the wind and the sun. Visitors to the event are shown how to become self-sustaining, including how to build their own houses and grown their own food.
The five-day festival was due to open on Wednesday but the organisers surrendered their licence yesterday after concerns, including issues involving road and fire safety, could not be resolved with police and the local council.
Directors of the BGG, which has been running since 1994, are furious. Penny Kemp, a director, told The Times: "Our barrister has said it appears the council, police and regulatory authorities have leaned heavily on the road closure people to make sure we don't get the order."
She added that some of the reasons given for not allowing the event included the fire precautions not being good enough, even though they were the same as last year when the festival went ahead.
An inspector at Avon and Somerset Police refused to say what exactly their concerns were. Mendip District Council was due to go to the High Court in London today to apply for an injunction to stop the gathering in the Mendip Hills going ahead.
Thousands of adults had paid 125 for a ticket and 50 for their children to attend. The Big Green Gathering is designed for people within the green movement who wanted a festival focused on green issues. According to its website, The Big Green Gathering is for "people who care about health, the environment, sustainability, our children's future and life in general. It is a celebration of our natural world and our place within it. As such it is a place for enjoyment, learning and fun. Unhealthy activities are not encouraged. The only things taken in excess should be love, peace, joy and friendship."
This year, Gardener's World, BBC's Ethical Man and many other environmental experts were said to be going to help people to reduce their carbon footprint.
Ms Kemp added that they had a multi-agency meeting on Thursday and as far as they were concerned everything was still going ahead. But as they had to cancel the event at such a late stage they may have to go into receivership as they had paid out hundreds of thousands of pounds, including 27,000 to the police. She said: "We hope to be able to pay people back, but I just don't know. It is desperately sad that a peaceful event enjoyed by thousands of people over many years has been stopped by the police and the council for what I think are unjust reasons."
The directors of the Big Green Gathering issued a statement saying that they had "taken extensive legal advice from a prominent QC and other eminent lawyers" and had been left with "no option" but to surrender their licence. "The event will now not take place and the directors advise and request that no one who was intending to attend the event should attempt to do so as the site is now closed and it is likely that they will be turned away by the police. "It is our intention to avoid any confrontation or public disorder in regards to this and it is our earnest hope that all of those involved will follow this advice. "It is with great sadness that we have been forced into this position and we express our profound apologies to all concerned."
Avon and Somerset Police would only say: "It has been cancelled. The reasons are on our website." The statement said: "Police are warning people planning to attend the Big Green Gathering 2009, that the event has been cancelled due to a number of contributing factors that could not be overcome. "Today (Sunday, July 26) organisers of the Big Green Gathering surrendered their licence to Mendip Council. "Avon and Somerset Police worked with the event organisers as well as our multi-agent partners, and subsequently went above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that this event took place. However, due to a number of issues including road and fire safety that could not be resolved the event organisers surrendered their licence. "Police would now like to advise any persons planning on travelling to the area for this event not to, they will be turned away."
Big Green Gathering Chair Brig Oubridge said: "At the multi-agency meeting on Thursday 23rd July, we were still negotiating with the police and the council under the genuine belief that things were progressing and we were continuing to spend money on infrastructure, wages and security. "If they knew they were going to cancel the event, we can only conclude that this drive to increase expenditure appears to be a deliberate attempt to bankrupt the Big Green Gathering. "The injunction served on the Big Green Gathering was primarily addressing the fact that the Big Green Gathering did not obtain the necessary road closure despite the fact that the Highways Agency had previously indicated that this would be done.
"The Big Green Gathering has been running an event since 1994 and never before has public safety been an issue. The BGG has an exemplary record on health and safety and crime levels have always been low for the number of people on site."
SOURCE
British bureaucracy runs amok yet again
A surfboard is a ship?
Canoes, surfboards and dinghies are to be given the same legal status as cruise liners and oil tankers in a clampdown on reckless behaviour at sea. Unpowered craft including sailboards and bodyboards are to be reclassified as ships to bring their users within regulations for merchant shipping.
Users face prison and fines of up to 50,000 if they are held liable for any accidents. A family in a dinghy or a beginner oarsman could be prosecuted if they collided with a swimmer. Anyone out on the water would be liable to a random breath test. The change was initially prompted by pressure to reduce accidents involving reckless use of jet skis, which have caused nine deaths in the past ten years. But the Department for Transport has infuriated many of Britain's four million water sports enthusiasts by proposing to extend the regulations to unpowered craft. All watercraft would be classed as "ships" and thus bound by safety regulations enshrined in the Merchant Shipping Act, 1995. Surfers and canoeists in particular are adamant that they should not be subjected to such legislation.
Mark Wesson, a member of the British Surfing Association's executive council, said: "We shall certainly be opposing this, and goodness knows what holidaymakers are going to make of this. It may put a lot of people off investing in a surfboard."
Rob Barber, owner of a bodyboarding school in Newquay, Cornwall, suggested that the plan was too bizarre to enforce. "Common sense says you don't go out on a surfboard when you are drunk - it's not something you do," he said.
Jason Smith, editor of Canoe and Kayak magazine, said: "There is a clear difference between a powered and an unpowered craft and it seems draconian if someone is in the sea in a beginner's-style kayak after drinking a beer and then they may be prosecuted. I don't think readers will like it one bit."
Gus Lewis, legal officer at the Royal Yachting Association, the governing body for dinghies, yachts, rigid inflatable boats and sailboards, said everyone at sea should follow the same safety rules. But he said the association did not support new drink-driving rules for amateur sailors, since it is already an offence to behave in such a way as to endanger a ship or an individual.
Mr Lewis questioned whether the laws should apply to canoes and surfers. "We would include windsurfers, though, for we would say they navigate waters. If you got injured by a windsurfer or a dinghy, you'd be angry if they were somehow above the law." The proposals, in a consultation paper, are intended to close a legal loophole identified in the Court of Appeal four years ago. Judges overturned the conviction of Mark Goodwin, of Weymouth, Dorset, who nearly killed a man when riding a jet ski. They ruled a jet ski was not a seagoing ship, so not subject to the merchant shipping legislation. The new rules would bring Britain into line with a Convention on International Regulations for Prevention of Collisions at Sea.
Most yacht and speedboat owners already comply with the equivalent of a highway code for the sea, and until the judgment most people thought both motor and sailing boats were governed by the rules. A spokeswoman for the DfT said the intention was to "prevent the irresponsible few from spoiling the fun of everyone else". She added: "Everyone should be free to enjoy themselves on the water in the knowledge that there are sanctions to deal with those who would put their safety at risk."
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British government drips losing in their attack on Michael Savage
His accusation that he was attacked on racial grounds has now been confirmed
"Former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has suffered a major setback in her legal battle with American 'shock jock' Michael Savage after her officials were accused of banning him from the country on racial grounds. Emails written by Home Office officials privately acknowledged the ban on Mr Savage would provide 'balance' to a list dominated by Muslims - and linked the decision to Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
The officials admitted their action could look 'duplicitous' and cited his 'homophobia' as a reason the move would receive public support. The Right-wing radio presenter, whose hardline views on Islam, rape and autism have caused outrage in the US but whose show, The Savage Nation, has eight million listeners, was identified in May by Ms Smith as one of 16 people barred due to their political views.
Mr Savage, who had not even applied for entry to Britain, claimed his name had been 'plucked out of a hat' because he was 'controversial and white'. He has since served a 100,000 libel writ on Ms Smith, who announced his ban on television.
Now, correspondence released under Freedom of Information legislation suggests the banning of Mr Savage, whose real name is Michael Weiner, was based on a party political calculation made at the highest level of Government. One message, sent by an unidentified Home Office official on November 27 last year, said that 'with Weiner, I can understand that disclosure of the decision would help provide a balance of types of exclusion cases'.
The documents include a draft recommendation, marked 'Restricted', saying: 'We will want to ensure that the names disclosed reflect the broad range of cases and are not all Islamic extremists.'
Source
Monday, July 27, 2009
Even Warmists don't believe their own guff -- deeds speak louder than words
The guy writing below is a Warmist true-believer so struggles to understand why his allegedly Warmist colleagues behave "hypocritically". He ends up attributing their inconsistent behavior to incompetent communication. Yet his interlocutors are very well informed, so what level of communication would be needed to change them? North-Korean-style brainwashing? That seems to be where his argument leads
At a recent dinner at the University of Oxford, a senior researcher in atmospheric physics was telling me about his coming holiday in Thailand. I asked him whether he was concerned that his trip would make a contribution to climate change - we had, after all, just sat through a two-hour presentation on the topic. "Of course," he said blithely. "And I'm sure the government will make long-haul flights illegal at some point."
I had deliberately steered our conversation this way as part of an informal research project that I am conducting - one you are welcome to join. My participants so far include a senior adviser to a leading UK climate policy expert who flies regularly to South Africa ("my offsets help set a price in the carbon market"), a member of the British Antarctic Survey who makes several long-haul skiing trips a year ("my job is stressful"), a national media environment correspondent who took his family to Sri Lanka ("I can't see much hope") and a Greenpeace climate campaigner just back from scuba diving in the Pacific ("it was a great trip!").
Intriguing as their dissonance may be, what is especially revealing is that each has a career predicated on the assumption that information is sufficient to generate change. It is an assumption that a moment's introspection would show them was deeply flawed.
It is now 44 years since US president Lyndon Johnson's scientific advisory council warned that our greenhouse gas emissions could generate "marked changes in climate". That's 44 years of research costing, by one estimate, $3 billion per year, symposia, conferences, documentaries, articles and now 80 million references on the internet. Despite all this information, opinion polls over the years have shown that 40 per cent of people in the UK and over 50 per cent in the US resolutely refuse to accept that our emissions are changing the climate. Scarcely 10 per cent of Britons regard climate change as a major problem.
I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see it as proof of our society's failure to construct a shared belief in climate change.
I use the word "belief" in full knowledge that climate scientists dislike it. Vicky Pope, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter, UK, wrote in The Guardian earlier this year: "We are increasingly asked whether we 'believe in climate change'. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence."
I could not disagree more. People's attitudes towards climate change, even Pope's, are belief systems constructed through social interactions within peer groups. People then select the storylines that accord best with their personal world view. In Pope's case and in my own this is a world view that respects scientists and empirical evidence.
But listen to what others say. Most regard climate change as an unsettled technical issue still hotly debated by eggheads. Many reject personal responsibility by shifting blame elsewhere - the rich, the poor, the Americans, the Chinese - or they suspect the issue is a Trojan horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists who want to spoil their fun.
The climate specialists in my informal experiment are no less immune to the power of their belief systems. They may be immersed in the scientific evidence, yet they have nonetheless developed ingenious storylines to justify their long-haul holidays.
More HERE
The British class war never stops
The Leftist government constantly looks for any means it can find to tear down the middle classes
Shocking new details of a stealth tax of up to 600 for householders with views of any kind, patios, conservatories and even a nearby bus stop are revealed for the first time today. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show millions of homes have already been secretly assessed by Labour in preparation for council tax hikes expected to target the middle class after the Election. Homes have been given 'value significant codes' which will make virtually every desirable feature taxable.
Although not every home has been assessed, so far nearly 100,000 householders face being penalised simply for having a scenic view from their windows. Even those who have a mere glimpse of a river, hill or park - or any other pleasing outlook - stand to pay more under a special category for 'partial scenic views'. Worst hit among the 11 types of view are likely to be the 26,346 assessed so far as enjoying a full sea view and the 21,709 who overlook a golf course or farmland. People with garages, conservatories and patios - and even parking spaces - are also in the firing line.
While the list is by no means complete, the figures indicate the chilling detail with which the inspectors are examining Britain's homes. The documents also reveal the sheer pettiness of the new rules. Balconies are divided into those up to three square metres, three to five square metres and so on. The 'Conservatories' category even covers lean-tos and differentiates between single and double-glazed.
The Valuation Office Agency, which is compiling the massive database of every home in England, has divided the three-quarters of a million people with conservatories into four groups. The 115,610 with double-glazed conservatories will be hit harder than the 43,821 with single glazing.
People with patios could be in for a shock. A total of 4,932 homes have been registered as having 'value significant' patios - Whitehall jargon for big ones, perhaps with built-in barbecues. There are likely to be tens of thousands more.
Others who enjoy living in a peaceful area will soon have to pay for the privilege. A total of 38,081 homes have so far been given the coding of TQ, which tells council tax chiefs that they live in a quiet street or cul-de-sac.
The UP code for those with good access to public transport, such as those living near a bus stop, may find their council tax goes in the same direction - up.
Some of the details released by the VOA resemble a manual for taxing rich householders till the pips squeak. About 13,000 homes with pools are listed, with separate categories for indoor and outdoor; as are 1,731 equestrian paddocks; 4,933 stables; 2,863 tennis courts; and 2,268 penthouses.
The system gives all 23million homes in England one of about 100 'dwelling-house codes' for each type, from modest council flats up to mansions. It takes account of architectural styles: brick, thatch or stone fascias, sash windows, age periods and size. If and when the revaluation takes place, tax will be calculated through a vast and complex formula which uses these codings. Householders with one or a number of the features could see their council tax band move up by one or possibly two levels. Moving up from Band D to Band E could mean a rise of around 300. Moving up to Band F could result in a 600 increase.
Shadow Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman said: 'Gordon Brown's council tax inspectors have been caught red-handed preparing the way for massive tax rises on middle England after the Election, to fill the black hole in Britain's ruined public finances. There is now cast-iron proof of a council tax revaluation by stealth. 'Only Labour would think of taxing people for looking out of their own windows. Conservatives will scrap these tax-raising plans and abolish tax inspectors' rights of entry into your home.'
The Government has spent a staggering 13million on the VOA's scheme to build the new database. Ministers have secretly renewed a multi-million-pound deal between the VOA and leading property website Rightmove to access sale prices and floorplans for tens of thousands of homes. The Treasury refused to say how much information the VOA received from Rightmove, whose website has a databank comprising 400million pages of information. In addition, the Government has spent 3.7million on a US computer system that can pinpoint households on a map and list information gleaned from house-to-house inspections....
In 2005, Ministers shelved plans to revalue property, originally set for 2007, over fears of a backlash from voters who could face massive council tax rises. However, they have not ruled out going ahead with the revaluation if Labour wins the Election.
Window taxes and similar attempts to make people pay for household features have long caused controversy. In 1696, a tax on windows was introduced to replace the Hearth Tax based on the number of fireplaces in a property, which was abolished because people resented inspectors snooping in their homes. The Window Tax was assessed from outside, making it cheaper to levy. But people avoided it by blocking up windows, and it was abolished in 1851.
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How Britain's cultural elite rejects middle-class values and censors debate
Conservatism as heresy
The BBC maintains the absurd myth that it is always politically neutral, but occasionally one of its senior employees writes or says something that lets the cat out of the bag. In an article earlier this week in the BBC's in-house journal, otherwise known as The Guardian, the Corporation's controller of drama commissioning, Ben Stephenson, wrote: 'We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.'
Left-of-centre thinking! Are you shocked? Even surprised? I confess I am not. Despite ritual denials, I had assumed that the minds behind the BBC's somewhat depleted drama output were sympathetic to Left-wing ideas rather than Right-wing ones. In a similar way, many of the people who run BBC news or current affairs programmes evidently have Left-wing leanings.
Imagine that you were a brilliant young playwright who had conceived a play about the destructive psychological effects which abortion can have on women. Mr Stephenson or his sidekicks would not clap you on the back. You would be shown the door, if you had ever been let through it. The Right-wing authors who have written for the BBC over the past 30 years can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. John Osborne, who began as an anti-Establishment firebrand with Look Back In Anger and ended his days as a grumpy Tory, was given some airtime in his dotage.
Then there was Ian Curteis. His play about the Falklands War, which was sympathetic to Margaret Thatcher, was binned by the BBC, and finally shown after 15 years as a kind of historical curiosity. The decks would have been immediately cleared had he portrayed Lady Thatcher as a bloodthirsty warmonger.
Most of the BBC's culture programmes have a left-of-centre perspective. For example, the contributors invited to appear on BBC2's Newsnight Review almost invariably belong to the soft Left. The occasional Right-winger is allowed on, though he or she may feel obliged to fall in with the prevailing Left-wing consensus.
It would be silly to single out the BBC for blame. The Corporation merely reflects a general takeover of our culture by the Left. It is difficult to think of any leading novelist, poet or playwright who could be even vaguely described as Right-wing. Tom Stoppard? Ronald Harwood? Only at a pinch.
Art is more difficult to define in political terms. All that can be said is that the BBC tends to celebrate fashionable post-modern artists, many of whom have little ability other than the power to shock, while ignoring immensely gifted artists whose work is more traditional.
Over the past 30 or 40 years, the Left has captured the citadels of our culture. I don't mean the old formidable communist Left, which is dead and buried, but a trendy soft Left whose world view is promulgated by The Guardian and the BBC. This is the club which aspiring members of the cultural elite are required to join.
What is fascinating is that during most of the 20th century the Left did not exert a stranglehold over our culture. Three of the four writers who are generally seen as the fathers of modernism could reasonably be described as Right-wing, sometimes dangerously so. T. S. Eliot became a devout Anglican and small 'c' conservative. The poet W. B. Yeats flirted with Mussolini, while the American writer Ezra Pound became, I regret to say, a paid-up fascist. Two of the greatest English poets of the last century, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin, ended their days on the Right. Auden, like Eliot, rejected the atheism of his youth, and embraced religion. Some of Larkin's political views were extremely Right-wing, and would probably lead to his being banned by the BBC were he around today.
Both Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, two of our finest mid-20th-century novelists, were firmly of the Right, though neither of them had much time for the Tory Party. Waugh famously said that 'the trouble with the Conservative Party is that it has not turned the clock back one second'.
Of course, I am not pretending that all the great writers of the 20th century were Right-wing. Far from it. The Bloomsbury group, whose members included Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, were the intellectuals forebears of the modern liberal-Left. Bernard Shaw was a socialist, as was H. G. Wells. Waugh's friend, the novelist Graham Greene, moved increasingly to the Left, and ended his days as a trenchant anti-American.
All I am saying is that throughout most of the 20th century there were Left-wing writers and Right-wing writers who argued and differed and were sometimes friends. There was a debate. There were choices. What we have now is a Left-wing literary monopoly, many of whose members apparently believe that it is impossible in the modern age to be a great writer and Right-wing.
You may say it is wrong to attach labels such as ' Right-wing' and 'Left-wing' to all authors. But every writer is in some sense political, even one as apparently removed from great events as Jane Austen. When Elizabeth Bennet lets fly at the odiously snobbish aristocrat Lady Catherine de Burgh in Pride And Prejudice, Austen is celebrating middle-class virtues of plain-speaking and honesty against ignorant aristocratic pretension. That is a political point.
To return to the BBC's Ben Stephenson, he doubtless sees himself as an iconoclast challenging the status quo. But in fact he is part of the status quo, conforming to the Leftist beliefs that predominate in the BBC. Courage lies in questioning the status quo. That is what artists are supposed to do. Members of our cultural consensus huddle within their ramparts, terrified of promoting ideas or thoughts they deem unacceptable.
Perennial themes in the Corporation's increasingly sparse drama are the evils of poverty, the excessive power of the State and the smugness of the bourgeoisie. I grant these can be rewarding, but there are many other important things going on in our society. Yet these would not be considered proper subjects for a BBC play.
The increasing power of the State could be examined not so much on account of its passion for surveillance as because of its apparent desire to end up by employing every worker in the country. The breakdown of the family, which partly explains the squalor, violence and human degradation visible in many of our towns, would be a fertile subject for drama. So might the social and cultural transformation brought about by uncontrolled immigration.
But the liberal-Left consensus, nourished by The Guardian and the BBC, believes in an ever-expanding public sector. It does not place much value on marriage. It is relaxed about mass immigration. So three subjects which concern many people are ruled out. They cannot even be addressed. It is equally hard to imagine a BBC play that grappled with the harmful effects of abortion, or showed religion in a sympathetic light.
We live in a cultural monopoly mediated by the BBC. Most writers believe more or less the same. Discordant voices are excluded, or at best muted. For much of the time a Leftist elite talks to itself in endless circles. All this helps to explain my feeling that we live in a narrow, boring, self-satisfied little country.
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The British police have been trained to hate the middle class too
Company director arrested for attempted murder after rescuing son being beaten by yobs
A company director has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after confronting a gang of yobs who were attacking his stepson. Colin Philpott, 58, allegedly stabbed a 16-year-old in the chest during the incident in the front garden of his 500,000 Tudor-style house.
He had awoken late on Friday night to discover stepson Alex Lee being beaten by the group of teenagers. Mr Lee, 25, had gone outside to stop the gang from vandalising Mr Philpott's Jaguar car. Mr Lee was said to have then been punched and kicked in the head, suffering a broken nose and concussion for which he needed hospital treatment.
Susanne Philpott, 51, says her husband - who owns an escalator cleaning company - rushed out to defend her son with a letter-opener he had grabbed from a shelf. It was then that the teenager was allegedly stabbed five times. He was taken to hospital and was last night said to be stable.
When police arrived at the five-bedroom house in Crowthorne, Berkshire, Mr Philpott was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Five youths, aged 16 and 17, were arrested on suspicion of assault and criminal damage.
Mrs Philpott said: `My son and I came out at about 11pm after hearing a bang and we saw two young guys outside our house. `They returned 15 minutes later - with three others - and all were visibly drunk. I took a digital camera and told them that if they vandalised anything else I'd take pictures as evidence. `One said that he would kill me and burn down my house. I was terrified and when Alex tried to calm him down, the other four got worked up and they all attacked him. Alex ended up on the ground with all five of them on him, kicking him in the head and stomach. I was so frightened for him that I screamed for Colin, who was in bed.
`He came running out - still barefoot and half asleep - and saw the mess Alex was in so ran back into the house. He grabbed the first thing he saw, which was a letter-opener, and confronted the boys. `They attacked Colin and I saw one stumble into the road as Colin screamed for me to call the police. When the police arrived and then arrested Colin, I was gob-smacked. `It was heartbreaking to see him handcuffed and carted off like a common criminal. He is a hardworking, honest family man and was only trying to protect us.'
The mother of two, who works as a training consultant, said the quiet neighbourhood had been blighted by teenagers attacking cars and defacing gardens for several months. She claimed that just days earlier, Mr Philpott's 30,000 S-Type Jaguar had been smothered with hair gel while it was parked on the driveway. `We have had lots of trouble with vandals and they have targeted us twice within a week. The worst thing is that I am now terrified in my own home. `The police have installed a panic button but I still don't feel safe. My husband and I had a holiday planned but now I wouldn't feel safe leaving my 22-year-old daughter on her own. `I just can't get over how one minute you're happy and everything is fine and the next your life has been turned upside down by some mindless yobs.' ....
Other residents said gangs of youngsters had ripped up flower beds, thrown eggs at them and thrown objects through open windows. Neighbours have reported the anti-social behaviour to the local council and a councillor is said to have asked Thames Valley Police to take action.
Last night the force confirmed that Mr Philpott had been released on bail, pending possible charges.
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It's not pushy parents Britain needs, it's pushy schools
Education in Britain is bedevilled by social class considerations and the British Left have never been able to decide whether middle-class families should be a model for the workers to aim at or an evil to be avoided. Generally, however, they do their best to destroy the middle class, but tend to destroy the working class even more in the process
With its usual self-serving incoherence, Gordon Brown's government has come out, in the person of the Blairite MP Alan Milburn, in favour of "pushy parents". Milburn's report for Brown on social mobility found that "parental interest has four times more influence on attainment by the age of 16 than does socioeconomic background". He said last week that he wanted "more pushy parents, not fewer".
How odd it is to hear such talk from a man authorised by the prime minister to say things that sound just the opposite of what Brown and old Labour have always stood for. It seems only yesterday that Brown's blue-eyed boy, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, and his people were being sniffy about pushy parents.
It reminds me of Peter Mandelson's notorious remark that he was "intensely relaxed" about people being "filthy rich".
Personally I am not only relaxed but rather in favour of pushy parents, up to a point, being one myself. But I think the government should be careful of what it allows itself to say it wishes for. Its members may not all realise what pushy parents are like.
Pushy parents are not just mothers and fathers who show "parental interest", which is highly to be desired and all too rare. Pushy parents are red in tooth and aspirational in claw; they are social Darwinists to a man and a woman and while I think their struggles are natural and largely unstoppable - pushy parents, like the poor, are always with us - I do not think a socialist-lite government ought to be crying out for more of them.
In any case, it can't; it won't work. The soft left culture of the Labour party and of nearly all our national institutions, particularly of our state schools, is entirely at odds with the culture of pushy parents.
Being a pushy parent begins even before parenthood. Pushy parents-to-be, in their quest for the best possible of everything, put their babies down for favoured schools, or move to a good school catchment area, before they are even born. Pushy mothers-to-be eat carefully chosen super-foods to push the embryonic brain to the peak of its potential and listen to carefully chosen music to ensure high-level music appreciation later in life. I admit I myself thought like that.
But then I was the child of a pushy parent - a single mother whose determination ensured that I, like my brothers, did well enough to get scholarships to private schools and full grants to university - something denied to poor but aspiring teenagers today. She even tried to persuade me, years later, to teach my own infant children maths according to some American baby-genius method, when they were still almost too young to speak.
Unusual then, such extremes are now common among hyper-competitive pushy mummies. I am glad to say that I refused; nor did I make my children do Suzuki violin lessons at three or competitive tennis at six, as did so many other mothers of my acquaintance.
That's because the cost, I know, of such expectations on children can be high; it means forcing them to confront the constant fear of failure, including failing to pass into a school at the age of four when your elder sister did before you - something our politicians seem unable to understand and many teachers seem quite unable to accept.
Is that what Milburn is recommending? In my case it meant going into several exams with a chamber pot, as extreme anxiety regularly made me throw up because I had been encouraged to be so desperate to win. Per ardua ad astra - which, as those who've been crammed into elitist schools by pushy parents will know, means the way to the stars, whatever they may be, is pretty damn hard - and, of course, a lot of people fall by the wayside.
Although pushy parents never stop pushing themselves, they also contract out whenever they can to professional pushers in the form of private schools, evening tutors and even live-in holiday tutors.
My day at a good private school in the West Country began about 6am when, under parental pressure, I got out of bed to catch up with homework. I had to be in school by 8.10am and couldn't go home until 7pm - in that time I had nine 40-minute periods of lessons or study each day (and five on Saturday mornings), one period of compulsory games, one of music practice and some time for eating; at home later I had more homework and reading.
To my astonishment, my daughter's day at a top London day school was (and is) just as long and much more competitive, as the girls were all much cleverer than those at my school. There are also casualties to match among children at such academic private schools - boys and girls who collapse under the strain, who drop out with addictions and eating disorders.
This is what it means to push a child, for better and for worse. It takes not only a lot of money and effort all round, but also a lot of time. It astonishes me how short the day is, by comparison, at state schools - how can clever state school children hope to accomplish anything like as much as their private school competitors, or foreign competitors from pushy cultures, if they have less than half the amount of teaching or carefully supervised study?
Equally, seeing children come out of state school in the early afternoon, I often wonder how many of their parents would really want to see them studying as hard as private school children - particularly if their children are not bright. Putting such intense demands on the brightest children, even agreeing to select precisely which are the brightest children, is outside the mindset of the state educational establishment. Private schools don't question it; state schools cannot accept it. It is anathema to the all-shall-have-prizes, all-shall-have-A-levels culture. And while that culture may be beginning to change, even the notion that one child is much more intelligent than another is still widely unacceptable among educationists.
The government should be calling not for pushy parents, but for pushier state schools, and for a system that can find an acceptable way of selecting and teaching all children according to their real aptitudes; the failure of our education system cannot be either blamed on or solved by parents. It is the educational culture that is to blame. And what will save our schools is a recognition, which is indeed characteristic of pushy parents, that the world is a painfully competitive place.
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Stupid British health bureaucracy overwhelms the ambulance service
Overstretched ambulance crews are needlessly attending emergency call-outs from people wrongly advised to dial 999 by the Government's swine flu hotline
One paramedic said he had raced to four unnecessary calls in one 12-hour shift on Friday. None of those he attended needed emergency treatment but all had been told to dial 999 after ringing the flu hotline for an assessment. It is feared that a combination of unqualified staff and a series of vague questions at the start of the telephone assessment are to blame.
The situation was revealed after the paramedic, from East Midlands Ambulance Service, rang the flu line from the home of a 55-year-old woman in Nottingham whose daughter had been advised to ring the emergency services. By chance his call was answered by a Mail on Sunday reporter working at the Teleperformance call centre in Leicestershire. He told the reporter: `This lady doesn't need an ambulance, she just needs the drugs.' He added: `This is the fourth today. Four call-outs to people who think they have swine flu and have been told to ring an ambulance.'
The reporter explained what had happened to the team leader, Adam, who was clearly very busy. All the agents at the centre said they had referred callers to 999. There are fears seriously ill patients could be put at risk while ambulances are diverted needlessly. As our investigation found, one worker at the centre, Brian, admitted he had instructed all six of his callers to ring 999 `because that's what the computer tells me to do'.
At the start of each call, the workers have to ask 11 vaguely worded questions to assess whether the suspected swine flu victim is in need of emergency treatment. An affirmative answer to any of these questions, which include `Are they breathing irregularly?', immediately leads the staff to a screen that says: `Assessment Complete - Dial 999.'
An ambulance worker, who asked not to be identified, said: `If you ask someone if they have difficulty breathing, they might say yes, even if they just have a blocked-up nose. That makes it a high priority call. 'It would be better if they employed medically qualified people who were able to ask follow-up questions.'
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: `Staff in the call centres have to ask certain questions to make sure anyone who needs emergency treatment gets it. We are keeping an eye on this and how often it's happening and are talking to the ambulance trusts.' [Talk is all they are capable of]
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More British immigration stupidity
Britain has nearly half a million Muslims and blacks staying on in the country depite having had their "asylum" claims rejected as false yet the bureaucrats are harassing a perfectly decent couple who have done their best to comply with the rules but have been the victims of bureaucratic sloth and bungling. If she actually is deported it will be a total disgrace perpetrated by a government that claims to "care" but which really cares about nothing other than its own power
A rule meant to protect vulnerable young women from being forced into unwanted marriages is threatening to tear a 19-year-old Canadian away from the new husband she loves. Rochelle Roberts, originally from Revelstoke, B.C., has been told she is about to be deported from the United Kingdom and will not be allowed back in to live with her Welsh husband Adam Wallis, 28, until she is 21 years old.
The newlyweds have become collateral damage in the wake of changes to British immigration law intended to deter British nationals and their families from bringing young, unwilling brides from abroad and forcing them into often-abusive marriages. "It's not right," Roberts told the BBC. "There shouldn't be an age limit on when I should and should not be able to get married and be in love, because it just doesn't feel right."
The couple met in Canada two years ago and corresponded online until March last year, when Roberts travelled to visit Wallis at his home near Aberystwyth in Wales, the BBC reported yesterday. She entered the country on a six-month visa with plans to leave again a month later, but she fell in love and decided to get married and stay right where she was.
A month before her visitor visa was set to expire, Roberts and Wallis applied to the British Home Office for permission to marry, which - after delays caused when authorities lost their passport photos - came through about a week before her visa ran out. The couple did not actually get married until two weeks later, which meant Roberts had technically overstayed her official welcome.
A spokesperson from the British Home Office gave her illegal status at the time of their wedding as the official reason why Roberts is going to be deported: "(Her) age was not the reason her application was refused." But that is not the whole story.
Just four days after the pair married last November, the immigration rules changed and increased the required age for a spousal visa from 18 to 21. That means she could not have returned to Canada to apply for a spousal visa and move straight back to Wales. She would have to wait until 2011, which is how long she is now asked to wait before going back if she is deported.
An official at the UK Border Agency sent a letter to Wallis' MP, Mark Williams, whom the couple had turned to for help, describing the looming separation as an "inconvenience," the television report said. "It's more than just an inconvenience," Roberts told the BBC. "He's ripping my marriage apart. He is taking the only thing I have and throwing it away and there is nothing I can do about it."
The couple believe their case is made all the more bizarre by the fact that in any other country in the European Union they would be treated as a married couple and Roberts would be allowed to work. "It's insane," Adam Wallis told the BBC. "I could go to Ireland and she could work from the moment she arrived in Ireland ... anywhere in Europe."
The British government passed the Forced Marriages Act in 2007 as a human-rights measure to give family and civil courts some power to protect thousands of young women from mainly Asian backgrounds - the majority from Pakistan and Bangladesh - being forced to marry against their will. "It is a very real social problem here and is fully linked to perceptions within some communities of issues of shame and honour," lawyer and part-time judge Khatun Sapnara, who helped draft the legislation, said from London yesterday. "It is quite widespread. I mean there are cases related to families from Europe, Africa, the Middle East as well as Southeast Asia, although the majority of cases affect women from Pakistan and Bangladesh."
Changing the minimum age came later and Sapnara said she did not agree with it. "I always thought that it might actually prevent people who were legitimately married without any issue of force and that it would interfere with their right to marry someone of their choosing and to live a life together." She said the Home Office commissioned independent research that showed changing the age limit would do little to prevent forced marriages, but officials decided to ignore its findings. "Overall, we believe there are various benefits (that) outweigh the drawbacks," the Home Office spokesperson said.
Williams said he was horrified by their story. "(It is) government policy that starts out with good intentions but a blanket approach that nets in the most innocent of people," the MP told the BBC. Another British parliamentarian said the government might be willing to reconsider the law. "This is clearly a case which needs to be looked at by a minister," Keith Vaz, who chairs the Commons home affairs select committee, told the Guardian newspaper.
The Home Office would not reveal the timeline for deportation, but Roberts fears it could happen any time. "I'm living on edge because I don't know if they're going to turn up at six o'clock in the morning and grab me and chuck me out of the country," she told the BBC. "We don't know what our life holds, really, it's in flux almost," said Wallis, who recently started a new job as an electrical technician. "We can't make plans."
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When "bad" is a bad word
In Britain, of course:
The guy writing below is a Warmist true-believer so struggles to understand why his allegedly Warmist colleagues behave "hypocritically". He ends up attributing their inconsistent behavior to incompetent communication. Yet his interlocutors are very well informed, so what level of communication would be needed to change them? North-Korean-style brainwashing? That seems to be where his argument leads
At a recent dinner at the University of Oxford, a senior researcher in atmospheric physics was telling me about his coming holiday in Thailand. I asked him whether he was concerned that his trip would make a contribution to climate change - we had, after all, just sat through a two-hour presentation on the topic. "Of course," he said blithely. "And I'm sure the government will make long-haul flights illegal at some point."
I had deliberately steered our conversation this way as part of an informal research project that I am conducting - one you are welcome to join. My participants so far include a senior adviser to a leading UK climate policy expert who flies regularly to South Africa ("my offsets help set a price in the carbon market"), a member of the British Antarctic Survey who makes several long-haul skiing trips a year ("my job is stressful"), a national media environment correspondent who took his family to Sri Lanka ("I can't see much hope") and a Greenpeace climate campaigner just back from scuba diving in the Pacific ("it was a great trip!").
Intriguing as their dissonance may be, what is especially revealing is that each has a career predicated on the assumption that information is sufficient to generate change. It is an assumption that a moment's introspection would show them was deeply flawed.
It is now 44 years since US president Lyndon Johnson's scientific advisory council warned that our greenhouse gas emissions could generate "marked changes in climate". That's 44 years of research costing, by one estimate, $3 billion per year, symposia, conferences, documentaries, articles and now 80 million references on the internet. Despite all this information, opinion polls over the years have shown that 40 per cent of people in the UK and over 50 per cent in the US resolutely refuse to accept that our emissions are changing the climate. Scarcely 10 per cent of Britons regard climate change as a major problem.
I do not accept that this continuing rejection of the science is a reflection of media distortion or scientific illiteracy. Rather, I see it as proof of our society's failure to construct a shared belief in climate change.
I use the word "belief" in full knowledge that climate scientists dislike it. Vicky Pope, head of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Change in Exeter, UK, wrote in The Guardian earlier this year: "We are increasingly asked whether we 'believe in climate change'. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence."
I could not disagree more. People's attitudes towards climate change, even Pope's, are belief systems constructed through social interactions within peer groups. People then select the storylines that accord best with their personal world view. In Pope's case and in my own this is a world view that respects scientists and empirical evidence.
But listen to what others say. Most regard climate change as an unsettled technical issue still hotly debated by eggheads. Many reject personal responsibility by shifting blame elsewhere - the rich, the poor, the Americans, the Chinese - or they suspect the issue is a Trojan horse built by hair-shirted environmentalists who want to spoil their fun.
The climate specialists in my informal experiment are no less immune to the power of their belief systems. They may be immersed in the scientific evidence, yet they have nonetheless developed ingenious storylines to justify their long-haul holidays.
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The British class war never stops
The Leftist government constantly looks for any means it can find to tear down the middle classes
Shocking new details of a stealth tax of up to 600 for householders with views of any kind, patios, conservatories and even a nearby bus stop are revealed for the first time today. Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show millions of homes have already been secretly assessed by Labour in preparation for council tax hikes expected to target the middle class after the Election. Homes have been given 'value significant codes' which will make virtually every desirable feature taxable.
Although not every home has been assessed, so far nearly 100,000 householders face being penalised simply for having a scenic view from their windows. Even those who have a mere glimpse of a river, hill or park - or any other pleasing outlook - stand to pay more under a special category for 'partial scenic views'. Worst hit among the 11 types of view are likely to be the 26,346 assessed so far as enjoying a full sea view and the 21,709 who overlook a golf course or farmland. People with garages, conservatories and patios - and even parking spaces - are also in the firing line.
While the list is by no means complete, the figures indicate the chilling detail with which the inspectors are examining Britain's homes. The documents also reveal the sheer pettiness of the new rules. Balconies are divided into those up to three square metres, three to five square metres and so on. The 'Conservatories' category even covers lean-tos and differentiates between single and double-glazed.
The Valuation Office Agency, which is compiling the massive database of every home in England, has divided the three-quarters of a million people with conservatories into four groups. The 115,610 with double-glazed conservatories will be hit harder than the 43,821 with single glazing.
People with patios could be in for a shock. A total of 4,932 homes have been registered as having 'value significant' patios - Whitehall jargon for big ones, perhaps with built-in barbecues. There are likely to be tens of thousands more.
Others who enjoy living in a peaceful area will soon have to pay for the privilege. A total of 38,081 homes have so far been given the coding of TQ, which tells council tax chiefs that they live in a quiet street or cul-de-sac.
The UP code for those with good access to public transport, such as those living near a bus stop, may find their council tax goes in the same direction - up.
Some of the details released by the VOA resemble a manual for taxing rich householders till the pips squeak. About 13,000 homes with pools are listed, with separate categories for indoor and outdoor; as are 1,731 equestrian paddocks; 4,933 stables; 2,863 tennis courts; and 2,268 penthouses.
The system gives all 23million homes in England one of about 100 'dwelling-house codes' for each type, from modest council flats up to mansions. It takes account of architectural styles: brick, thatch or stone fascias, sash windows, age periods and size. If and when the revaluation takes place, tax will be calculated through a vast and complex formula which uses these codings. Householders with one or a number of the features could see their council tax band move up by one or possibly two levels. Moving up from Band D to Band E could mean a rise of around 300. Moving up to Band F could result in a 600 increase.
Shadow Local Government Secretary Caroline Spelman said: 'Gordon Brown's council tax inspectors have been caught red-handed preparing the way for massive tax rises on middle England after the Election, to fill the black hole in Britain's ruined public finances. There is now cast-iron proof of a council tax revaluation by stealth. 'Only Labour would think of taxing people for looking out of their own windows. Conservatives will scrap these tax-raising plans and abolish tax inspectors' rights of entry into your home.'
The Government has spent a staggering 13million on the VOA's scheme to build the new database. Ministers have secretly renewed a multi-million-pound deal between the VOA and leading property website Rightmove to access sale prices and floorplans for tens of thousands of homes. The Treasury refused to say how much information the VOA received from Rightmove, whose website has a databank comprising 400million pages of information. In addition, the Government has spent 3.7million on a US computer system that can pinpoint households on a map and list information gleaned from house-to-house inspections....
In 2005, Ministers shelved plans to revalue property, originally set for 2007, over fears of a backlash from voters who could face massive council tax rises. However, they have not ruled out going ahead with the revaluation if Labour wins the Election.
Window taxes and similar attempts to make people pay for household features have long caused controversy. In 1696, a tax on windows was introduced to replace the Hearth Tax based on the number of fireplaces in a property, which was abolished because people resented inspectors snooping in their homes. The Window Tax was assessed from outside, making it cheaper to levy. But people avoided it by blocking up windows, and it was abolished in 1851.
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How Britain's cultural elite rejects middle-class values and censors debate
Conservatism as heresy
The BBC maintains the absurd myth that it is always politically neutral, but occasionally one of its senior employees writes or says something that lets the cat out of the bag. In an article earlier this week in the BBC's in-house journal, otherwise known as The Guardian, the Corporation's controller of drama commissioning, Ben Stephenson, wrote: 'We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking.'
Left-of-centre thinking! Are you shocked? Even surprised? I confess I am not. Despite ritual denials, I had assumed that the minds behind the BBC's somewhat depleted drama output were sympathetic to Left-wing ideas rather than Right-wing ones. In a similar way, many of the people who run BBC news or current affairs programmes evidently have Left-wing leanings.
Imagine that you were a brilliant young playwright who had conceived a play about the destructive psychological effects which abortion can have on women. Mr Stephenson or his sidekicks would not clap you on the back. You would be shown the door, if you had ever been let through it. The Right-wing authors who have written for the BBC over the past 30 years can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. John Osborne, who began as an anti-Establishment firebrand with Look Back In Anger and ended his days as a grumpy Tory, was given some airtime in his dotage.
Then there was Ian Curteis. His play about the Falklands War, which was sympathetic to Margaret Thatcher, was binned by the BBC, and finally shown after 15 years as a kind of historical curiosity. The decks would have been immediately cleared had he portrayed Lady Thatcher as a bloodthirsty warmonger.
Most of the BBC's culture programmes have a left-of-centre perspective. For example, the contributors invited to appear on BBC2's Newsnight Review almost invariably belong to the soft Left. The occasional Right-winger is allowed on, though he or she may feel obliged to fall in with the prevailing Left-wing consensus.
It would be silly to single out the BBC for blame. The Corporation merely reflects a general takeover of our culture by the Left. It is difficult to think of any leading novelist, poet or playwright who could be even vaguely described as Right-wing. Tom Stoppard? Ronald Harwood? Only at a pinch.
Art is more difficult to define in political terms. All that can be said is that the BBC tends to celebrate fashionable post-modern artists, many of whom have little ability other than the power to shock, while ignoring immensely gifted artists whose work is more traditional.
Over the past 30 or 40 years, the Left has captured the citadels of our culture. I don't mean the old formidable communist Left, which is dead and buried, but a trendy soft Left whose world view is promulgated by The Guardian and the BBC. This is the club which aspiring members of the cultural elite are required to join.
What is fascinating is that during most of the 20th century the Left did not exert a stranglehold over our culture. Three of the four writers who are generally seen as the fathers of modernism could reasonably be described as Right-wing, sometimes dangerously so. T. S. Eliot became a devout Anglican and small 'c' conservative. The poet W. B. Yeats flirted with Mussolini, while the American writer Ezra Pound became, I regret to say, a paid-up fascist. Two of the greatest English poets of the last century, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin, ended their days on the Right. Auden, like Eliot, rejected the atheism of his youth, and embraced religion. Some of Larkin's political views were extremely Right-wing, and would probably lead to his being banned by the BBC were he around today.
Both Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, two of our finest mid-20th-century novelists, were firmly of the Right, though neither of them had much time for the Tory Party. Waugh famously said that 'the trouble with the Conservative Party is that it has not turned the clock back one second'.
Of course, I am not pretending that all the great writers of the 20th century were Right-wing. Far from it. The Bloomsbury group, whose members included Virginia Woolf, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strachey, were the intellectuals forebears of the modern liberal-Left. Bernard Shaw was a socialist, as was H. G. Wells. Waugh's friend, the novelist Graham Greene, moved increasingly to the Left, and ended his days as a trenchant anti-American.
All I am saying is that throughout most of the 20th century there were Left-wing writers and Right-wing writers who argued and differed and were sometimes friends. There was a debate. There were choices. What we have now is a Left-wing literary monopoly, many of whose members apparently believe that it is impossible in the modern age to be a great writer and Right-wing.
You may say it is wrong to attach labels such as ' Right-wing' and 'Left-wing' to all authors. But every writer is in some sense political, even one as apparently removed from great events as Jane Austen. When Elizabeth Bennet lets fly at the odiously snobbish aristocrat Lady Catherine de Burgh in Pride And Prejudice, Austen is celebrating middle-class virtues of plain-speaking and honesty against ignorant aristocratic pretension. That is a political point.
To return to the BBC's Ben Stephenson, he doubtless sees himself as an iconoclast challenging the status quo. But in fact he is part of the status quo, conforming to the Leftist beliefs that predominate in the BBC. Courage lies in questioning the status quo. That is what artists are supposed to do. Members of our cultural consensus huddle within their ramparts, terrified of promoting ideas or thoughts they deem unacceptable.
Perennial themes in the Corporation's increasingly sparse drama are the evils of poverty, the excessive power of the State and the smugness of the bourgeoisie. I grant these can be rewarding, but there are many other important things going on in our society. Yet these would not be considered proper subjects for a BBC play.
The increasing power of the State could be examined not so much on account of its passion for surveillance as because of its apparent desire to end up by employing every worker in the country. The breakdown of the family, which partly explains the squalor, violence and human degradation visible in many of our towns, would be a fertile subject for drama. So might the social and cultural transformation brought about by uncontrolled immigration.
But the liberal-Left consensus, nourished by The Guardian and the BBC, believes in an ever-expanding public sector. It does not place much value on marriage. It is relaxed about mass immigration. So three subjects which concern many people are ruled out. They cannot even be addressed. It is equally hard to imagine a BBC play that grappled with the harmful effects of abortion, or showed religion in a sympathetic light.
We live in a cultural monopoly mediated by the BBC. Most writers believe more or less the same. Discordant voices are excluded, or at best muted. For much of the time a Leftist elite talks to itself in endless circles. All this helps to explain my feeling that we live in a narrow, boring, self-satisfied little country.
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The British police have been trained to hate the middle class too
Company director arrested for attempted murder after rescuing son being beaten by yobs
A company director has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after confronting a gang of yobs who were attacking his stepson. Colin Philpott, 58, allegedly stabbed a 16-year-old in the chest during the incident in the front garden of his 500,000 Tudor-style house.
He had awoken late on Friday night to discover stepson Alex Lee being beaten by the group of teenagers. Mr Lee, 25, had gone outside to stop the gang from vandalising Mr Philpott's Jaguar car. Mr Lee was said to have then been punched and kicked in the head, suffering a broken nose and concussion for which he needed hospital treatment.
Susanne Philpott, 51, says her husband - who owns an escalator cleaning company - rushed out to defend her son with a letter-opener he had grabbed from a shelf. It was then that the teenager was allegedly stabbed five times. He was taken to hospital and was last night said to be stable.
When police arrived at the five-bedroom house in Crowthorne, Berkshire, Mr Philpott was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Five youths, aged 16 and 17, were arrested on suspicion of assault and criminal damage.
Mrs Philpott said: `My son and I came out at about 11pm after hearing a bang and we saw two young guys outside our house. `They returned 15 minutes later - with three others - and all were visibly drunk. I took a digital camera and told them that if they vandalised anything else I'd take pictures as evidence. `One said that he would kill me and burn down my house. I was terrified and when Alex tried to calm him down, the other four got worked up and they all attacked him. Alex ended up on the ground with all five of them on him, kicking him in the head and stomach. I was so frightened for him that I screamed for Colin, who was in bed.
`He came running out - still barefoot and half asleep - and saw the mess Alex was in so ran back into the house. He grabbed the first thing he saw, which was a letter-opener, and confronted the boys. `They attacked Colin and I saw one stumble into the road as Colin screamed for me to call the police. When the police arrived and then arrested Colin, I was gob-smacked. `It was heartbreaking to see him handcuffed and carted off like a common criminal. He is a hardworking, honest family man and was only trying to protect us.'
The mother of two, who works as a training consultant, said the quiet neighbourhood had been blighted by teenagers attacking cars and defacing gardens for several months. She claimed that just days earlier, Mr Philpott's 30,000 S-Type Jaguar had been smothered with hair gel while it was parked on the driveway. `We have had lots of trouble with vandals and they have targeted us twice within a week. The worst thing is that I am now terrified in my own home. `The police have installed a panic button but I still don't feel safe. My husband and I had a holiday planned but now I wouldn't feel safe leaving my 22-year-old daughter on her own. `I just can't get over how one minute you're happy and everything is fine and the next your life has been turned upside down by some mindless yobs.' ....
Other residents said gangs of youngsters had ripped up flower beds, thrown eggs at them and thrown objects through open windows. Neighbours have reported the anti-social behaviour to the local council and a councillor is said to have asked Thames Valley Police to take action.
Last night the force confirmed that Mr Philpott had been released on bail, pending possible charges.
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It's not pushy parents Britain needs, it's pushy schools
Education in Britain is bedevilled by social class considerations and the British Left have never been able to decide whether middle-class families should be a model for the workers to aim at or an evil to be avoided. Generally, however, they do their best to destroy the middle class, but tend to destroy the working class even more in the process
With its usual self-serving incoherence, Gordon Brown's government has come out, in the person of the Blairite MP Alan Milburn, in favour of "pushy parents". Milburn's report for Brown on social mobility found that "parental interest has four times more influence on attainment by the age of 16 than does socioeconomic background". He said last week that he wanted "more pushy parents, not fewer".
How odd it is to hear such talk from a man authorised by the prime minister to say things that sound just the opposite of what Brown and old Labour have always stood for. It seems only yesterday that Brown's blue-eyed boy, Ed Balls, the schools secretary, and his people were being sniffy about pushy parents.
It reminds me of Peter Mandelson's notorious remark that he was "intensely relaxed" about people being "filthy rich".
Personally I am not only relaxed but rather in favour of pushy parents, up to a point, being one myself. But I think the government should be careful of what it allows itself to say it wishes for. Its members may not all realise what pushy parents are like.
Pushy parents are not just mothers and fathers who show "parental interest", which is highly to be desired and all too rare. Pushy parents are red in tooth and aspirational in claw; they are social Darwinists to a man and a woman and while I think their struggles are natural and largely unstoppable - pushy parents, like the poor, are always with us - I do not think a socialist-lite government ought to be crying out for more of them.
In any case, it can't; it won't work. The soft left culture of the Labour party and of nearly all our national institutions, particularly of our state schools, is entirely at odds with the culture of pushy parents.
Being a pushy parent begins even before parenthood. Pushy parents-to-be, in their quest for the best possible of everything, put their babies down for favoured schools, or move to a good school catchment area, before they are even born. Pushy mothers-to-be eat carefully chosen super-foods to push the embryonic brain to the peak of its potential and listen to carefully chosen music to ensure high-level music appreciation later in life. I admit I myself thought like that.
But then I was the child of a pushy parent - a single mother whose determination ensured that I, like my brothers, did well enough to get scholarships to private schools and full grants to university - something denied to poor but aspiring teenagers today. She even tried to persuade me, years later, to teach my own infant children maths according to some American baby-genius method, when they were still almost too young to speak.
Unusual then, such extremes are now common among hyper-competitive pushy mummies. I am glad to say that I refused; nor did I make my children do Suzuki violin lessons at three or competitive tennis at six, as did so many other mothers of my acquaintance.
That's because the cost, I know, of such expectations on children can be high; it means forcing them to confront the constant fear of failure, including failing to pass into a school at the age of four when your elder sister did before you - something our politicians seem unable to understand and many teachers seem quite unable to accept.
Is that what Milburn is recommending? In my case it meant going into several exams with a chamber pot, as extreme anxiety regularly made me throw up because I had been encouraged to be so desperate to win. Per ardua ad astra - which, as those who've been crammed into elitist schools by pushy parents will know, means the way to the stars, whatever they may be, is pretty damn hard - and, of course, a lot of people fall by the wayside.
Although pushy parents never stop pushing themselves, they also contract out whenever they can to professional pushers in the form of private schools, evening tutors and even live-in holiday tutors.
My day at a good private school in the West Country began about 6am when, under parental pressure, I got out of bed to catch up with homework. I had to be in school by 8.10am and couldn't go home until 7pm - in that time I had nine 40-minute periods of lessons or study each day (and five on Saturday mornings), one period of compulsory games, one of music practice and some time for eating; at home later I had more homework and reading.
To my astonishment, my daughter's day at a top London day school was (and is) just as long and much more competitive, as the girls were all much cleverer than those at my school. There are also casualties to match among children at such academic private schools - boys and girls who collapse under the strain, who drop out with addictions and eating disorders.
This is what it means to push a child, for better and for worse. It takes not only a lot of money and effort all round, but also a lot of time. It astonishes me how short the day is, by comparison, at state schools - how can clever state school children hope to accomplish anything like as much as their private school competitors, or foreign competitors from pushy cultures, if they have less than half the amount of teaching or carefully supervised study?
Equally, seeing children come out of state school in the early afternoon, I often wonder how many of their parents would really want to see them studying as hard as private school children - particularly if their children are not bright. Putting such intense demands on the brightest children, even agreeing to select precisely which are the brightest children, is outside the mindset of the state educational establishment. Private schools don't question it; state schools cannot accept it. It is anathema to the all-shall-have-prizes, all-shall-have-A-levels culture. And while that culture may be beginning to change, even the notion that one child is much more intelligent than another is still widely unacceptable among educationists.
The government should be calling not for pushy parents, but for pushier state schools, and for a system that can find an acceptable way of selecting and teaching all children according to their real aptitudes; the failure of our education system cannot be either blamed on or solved by parents. It is the educational culture that is to blame. And what will save our schools is a recognition, which is indeed characteristic of pushy parents, that the world is a painfully competitive place.
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Stupid British health bureaucracy overwhelms the ambulance service
Overstretched ambulance crews are needlessly attending emergency call-outs from people wrongly advised to dial 999 by the Government's swine flu hotline
One paramedic said he had raced to four unnecessary calls in one 12-hour shift on Friday. None of those he attended needed emergency treatment but all had been told to dial 999 after ringing the flu hotline for an assessment. It is feared that a combination of unqualified staff and a series of vague questions at the start of the telephone assessment are to blame.
The situation was revealed after the paramedic, from East Midlands Ambulance Service, rang the flu line from the home of a 55-year-old woman in Nottingham whose daughter had been advised to ring the emergency services. By chance his call was answered by a Mail on Sunday reporter working at the Teleperformance call centre in Leicestershire. He told the reporter: `This lady doesn't need an ambulance, she just needs the drugs.' He added: `This is the fourth today. Four call-outs to people who think they have swine flu and have been told to ring an ambulance.'
The reporter explained what had happened to the team leader, Adam, who was clearly very busy. All the agents at the centre said they had referred callers to 999. There are fears seriously ill patients could be put at risk while ambulances are diverted needlessly. As our investigation found, one worker at the centre, Brian, admitted he had instructed all six of his callers to ring 999 `because that's what the computer tells me to do'.
At the start of each call, the workers have to ask 11 vaguely worded questions to assess whether the suspected swine flu victim is in need of emergency treatment. An affirmative answer to any of these questions, which include `Are they breathing irregularly?', immediately leads the staff to a screen that says: `Assessment Complete - Dial 999.'
An ambulance worker, who asked not to be identified, said: `If you ask someone if they have difficulty breathing, they might say yes, even if they just have a blocked-up nose. That makes it a high priority call. 'It would be better if they employed medically qualified people who were able to ask follow-up questions.'
A spokesman for the Department of Health said: `Staff in the call centres have to ask certain questions to make sure anyone who needs emergency treatment gets it. We are keeping an eye on this and how often it's happening and are talking to the ambulance trusts.' [Talk is all they are capable of]
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More British immigration stupidity
Britain has nearly half a million Muslims and blacks staying on in the country depite having had their "asylum" claims rejected as false yet the bureaucrats are harassing a perfectly decent couple who have done their best to comply with the rules but have been the victims of bureaucratic sloth and bungling. If she actually is deported it will be a total disgrace perpetrated by a government that claims to "care" but which really cares about nothing other than its own power
A rule meant to protect vulnerable young women from being forced into unwanted marriages is threatening to tear a 19-year-old Canadian away from the new husband she loves. Rochelle Roberts, originally from Revelstoke, B.C., has been told she is about to be deported from the United Kingdom and will not be allowed back in to live with her Welsh husband Adam Wallis, 28, until she is 21 years old.
The newlyweds have become collateral damage in the wake of changes to British immigration law intended to deter British nationals and their families from bringing young, unwilling brides from abroad and forcing them into often-abusive marriages. "It's not right," Roberts told the BBC. "There shouldn't be an age limit on when I should and should not be able to get married and be in love, because it just doesn't feel right."
The couple met in Canada two years ago and corresponded online until March last year, when Roberts travelled to visit Wallis at his home near Aberystwyth in Wales, the BBC reported yesterday. She entered the country on a six-month visa with plans to leave again a month later, but she fell in love and decided to get married and stay right where she was.
A month before her visitor visa was set to expire, Roberts and Wallis applied to the British Home Office for permission to marry, which - after delays caused when authorities lost their passport photos - came through about a week before her visa ran out. The couple did not actually get married until two weeks later, which meant Roberts had technically overstayed her official welcome.
A spokesperson from the British Home Office gave her illegal status at the time of their wedding as the official reason why Roberts is going to be deported: "(Her) age was not the reason her application was refused." But that is not the whole story.
Just four days after the pair married last November, the immigration rules changed and increased the required age for a spousal visa from 18 to 21. That means she could not have returned to Canada to apply for a spousal visa and move straight back to Wales. She would have to wait until 2011, which is how long she is now asked to wait before going back if she is deported.
An official at the UK Border Agency sent a letter to Wallis' MP, Mark Williams, whom the couple had turned to for help, describing the looming separation as an "inconvenience," the television report said. "It's more than just an inconvenience," Roberts told the BBC. "He's ripping my marriage apart. He is taking the only thing I have and throwing it away and there is nothing I can do about it."
The couple believe their case is made all the more bizarre by the fact that in any other country in the European Union they would be treated as a married couple and Roberts would be allowed to work. "It's insane," Adam Wallis told the BBC. "I could go to Ireland and she could work from the moment she arrived in Ireland ... anywhere in Europe."
The British government passed the Forced Marriages Act in 2007 as a human-rights measure to give family and civil courts some power to protect thousands of young women from mainly Asian backgrounds - the majority from Pakistan and Bangladesh - being forced to marry against their will. "It is a very real social problem here and is fully linked to perceptions within some communities of issues of shame and honour," lawyer and part-time judge Khatun Sapnara, who helped draft the legislation, said from London yesterday. "It is quite widespread. I mean there are cases related to families from Europe, Africa, the Middle East as well as Southeast Asia, although the majority of cases affect women from Pakistan and Bangladesh."
Changing the minimum age came later and Sapnara said she did not agree with it. "I always thought that it might actually prevent people who were legitimately married without any issue of force and that it would interfere with their right to marry someone of their choosing and to live a life together." She said the Home Office commissioned independent research that showed changing the age limit would do little to prevent forced marriages, but officials decided to ignore its findings. "Overall, we believe there are various benefits (that) outweigh the drawbacks," the Home Office spokesperson said.
Williams said he was horrified by their story. "(It is) government policy that starts out with good intentions but a blanket approach that nets in the most innocent of people," the MP told the BBC. Another British parliamentarian said the government might be willing to reconsider the law. "This is clearly a case which needs to be looked at by a minister," Keith Vaz, who chairs the Commons home affairs select committee, told the Guardian newspaper.
The Home Office would not reveal the timeline for deportation, but Roberts fears it could happen any time. "I'm living on edge because I don't know if they're going to turn up at six o'clock in the morning and grab me and chuck me out of the country," she told the BBC. "We don't know what our life holds, really, it's in flux almost," said Wallis, who recently started a new job as an electrical technician. "We can't make plans."
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When "bad" is a bad word
In Britain, of course:
"A teacher faces the sack after complaining about the behaviour of her class on Facebook. Sonya McNally, 35, has been suspended on full pay since calling the 13-year-olds `bad' in a private conversation on the social networking site. In a post on March 20, the supply teacher wrote: `By the way, (class) 8G1 are just as bad as 8G2.'
Another teacher involved in the discussion, Kirsten Allenby-Moore, took offence. She complained to the council's human resources department, writing: `I found the comments personally insulting as the 2 classes mentioned where [sic] both mine.' It is understood she teaches both classes information technology once a week.
Education officials at North East Lincolnshire Council suspended Mrs McNally from Humberston Comprehensive School in Grimsby in April and launched an investigation. In a report to the headteacher, Mrs McNally is accused of `bringing the school into disrepute'. The previous headteacher resigned in December after Ofsted inspectors rated the school `inadequate' in 13 key areas. [So it really is bad]
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Sunday, July 26, 2009
Blunt warning about Greens under the bed
Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today's environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous
Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt's memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.
Blunt talks of "the religious quality" of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today's developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.
His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today's college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar.
Both identify an end utopia that is difficult to dispute. The diktat "from each according to his ability, to each according to his means" sounds lovely on paper. Greens promise a world in which we actually survive a coming ecological apocalypse. A desirable outcome, undoubtedly.
But the means to these ends seem similarly insurmountable. Both routes demand an immediate suspension of human nature.
Ideologies often credit man with either more nobility or more venality than he deserves. In reality he is a mundane creature. He wants a home for himself and those he loves, stocked with food. And he wants to have the right to control his own destiny, own his own stuff, and to acquire more if he can without interference or fear of imminent death. Such low-level acquisitive desires support high concepts: property rights and the rule of law, without which there would be no foundation for democracy.
My desire to live a free, mundane life is a fundamental cog in our messy, glorious, capitalist democracy. It is built on millions of such small entrenched postitions. Red-filtered, my desires are despicable and bourgeois and must be beaten out of me with indoctrination or force. Green-filtered, my small desires are despicable acts of ecological vandalism. My house is a carbon factory. My desire to travel, to own stuff, to eat meat, to procreate, to heat my house, to shower for a really, really long time; all are evil.
The word evil is used advisedly. Both the green and red positions are infused with overpowering religiosity. Dissenters from the consensus are shunned apostates. Professor Ian Pilmer, the Australian geologist and climate change sceptic, could not find a publisher for his book Heaven and Earth, which questions the orthodoxy about global warming. He is the subject of hate mail and demonstrations. It is entirely immaterial whether he is right or wrong. An environment that stifles his right to a voice is worse than one that is overheating.
Even within the convinced camp, dissent from certain party lines is frowned upon. Nuclear power is the cheapest, greenest alternative to fossil fuels that we possess, yet it is anathema to advocate its proliferation at the expense of wind and sun. Fans of nuclear are the Trotskys of the movement, subject to batterings by verbal ice pick.
The great ecological timebomb is population growth. By 2050 the United Nations' demographers expect the world's population to reach 9.2 billion, compared with 6.8 billion today. That's 2.4 billion extra carbon footprints. Half measures seem futile. We all hope for some new technology to rescue us. But what if it never materialises? The logical position is to be a cheerleader for swine flu, but not in my backyard. Do we have to pray for swine flu to ravage foreign children, to save our own from frying in the future?
We are at the early stage of the green movement. A time akin to pre-Bolshevik socialism, when all believed in the destruction of the capitalist system, but were still relatively moderate about the means of getting there. We are at the stage of naive dreamers and fantasists. Russia was home to the late 19th-century Narodnik movement, in which rich sons of the aristocracy headed into the countryside to tell the peasants it was their moral imperative to become a revolutionary class. They retreated, baffled, to their riches when the patronised peasants didn't want to revolt. Zac Goldsmith and Prince Charles look like modern Narodniks, talking glib green from the safety of their gilded lives.
Indulge me in some historical determinism. We, the peasants, are failing to rise up and embrace the need to change. We will not choose to give up modern life, with all its polluting seductions. Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.
The old two-cow analogy is a useful one. You have two cows. The communist steals both your cows, and may give you some milk, if you're not bourgeois scum. The fascist lets you keep the cows but seizes the milk and sells it back to you. Today's Green says you can keep the cows, but should choose to give them up as their methane-rich farts will unleash hell at some unspecified point in the future. You say, sod it, I'll keep my cows thanks. Tomorrow's green, the Bolshevik green, shoots the cows and makes you forage for nuts.
If the choice is between ecological meltdown, or a more immediate curtailment of our freedom, where do those of us who are neither red nor green, but a recalcitrant grey, turn? Back to those small desires, and a blinkered hope that the choice never becomes so stark. If it does, I'll take my chances with Armageddon.
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Hooray! Brits catch and jail yet another lying bitch
But she only got 18 months so will be out in 9. I noted another such incident just days ago. So much for the feminist assertion that women don't make false rape claims
A woman who falsely accused her ex-boyfriend of rape when he broke off their relationship was jailed yesterday for her 'vile lies'. Louise Johnson, 37, drove Andrew Tutty to the brink of suicide after he was arrested and suspended from his job. After accusing the care worker of the rape, Johnson then took out an injunction against her former lover whom she claimed was continuing to harass her. The mother-of-one then contacted police again to claim Mr Tutty had turned up at her home with a knife, ordered her to strip and then threatened to rape her.
Yesterday a judge told Johnson she was guilty of telling 'lies of the most vile kind' as Mr Tutty told of the 'devastating' impact of the case on his life. The 41-year-old was arrested twice, had his DNA swabbed and spent two-and-a-half months on police bail until he was able to prove his innocence when CCTV proved he was with his son at a train station 160 miles away when Johnson claimed he turned up at her home with the knife.
Mr Tutty, from Dudley, West Midlands, said: 'I couldn't believe it when I was arrested by the police. It was devastating - especially as I was suspended from my job over it. 'It has been a long slow two years during which my name has been dragged through the mud. I have been through hell. 'It has been a nightmare and I would not be on this earth if it had not been for the support of friends and family. I would be six feet under.'
The couple met through their jobs as carers at a residential care home for disturbed young people. They had only been going out for two months before Mr Tutty ended the relationship in March 2007.
Alka Brigue, prosecuting, said Johnson took Mr Tutty's decision to finish the relationship 'very badly'. He was first arrested on suspicion of rape in July 2007. Johnson claimed he had forced her to perform a sex act on him but the incident never took place. The following month Johnson took out the injunction and a short time later Mr Tutty was arrested again after she claimed that, armed with the knife, he arrived at her home in Tividale, West Midlands, ordered her to strip and threatened to rape her.
Miss Brigue said: 'Johnson claimed he turned up at her home and assaulted her. He took clothes off and attempted to rape her. 'She said there were blows to various parts of her body from his hands and fists. He also brandished a knife.' Wolverhampton Crown Court heard at that precise time Mr Tutty had been filmed on CCTV boarding a train in Gosport, Hampshire, with his son.
In a victim impact statement filed with the court, Mr Tutty described how Johnson's lies caused him 'considerable distress and discomfort'. He has since been reinstated to his job.
Johnson then complained she had received a string of text messages from Mr Tutty and that he had again assaulted her but, at the time, he had been attending his mother's 67th birthday party before going straight to work. Analysis of Johnson's phone suggested she had sent the messages herself, a source said.
The court heard Johnson had made a string of allegations against other people over the previous 12 years. It is understood she had accused a man of raping her in 2005, although charges were never proceeded with.
The court heard Johnson suffered from a personality disorder. Samantha Powis, defending, said Johnson had suffered from abuse as a child. Her alleged tormentor was acquitted after a trial. Miss Powis said Johnson 'accepts these were gravely serious allegations and they not only undermined him but those who make genuine complaints.' Johnson admitted perverting the course of justice. Judge Nicholas Syfret QC told her the two arrests had a 'huge impact' on the life of Mr Tutty.
Jailing her for 18 months, Judge Syfret said: 'He felt suicidal and it affected his work. These allegations were not only embarrassing but they meant he was suspended fromdoing his job.' The judge said there were people who felt 'there is no smoke without fire' and, while he was completely innocent, they would believe there was some truth in the allegations. 'There was not a word of truth in what you said,' the Recorder told Johnson.
'A colossal strain was put on police resources while they investigated these complaints and you also undermined the causes of genuine people who had been the subject of serious complaints.' He told her only a custodial sentence could be justified because the offence she had committed made it notoriously difficult for women who had been raped to get justice.
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Competition has become a dirty word in British schools, says Dame Kelly
Dame Kelly Holmes yesterday launched a stinging attack on the decline of competitive sport in schools and said it risked spawning a generation of bad losers. The double Olympic champion and former Army physical training instructor blamed a culture of political correctness for making 'competitiveness' a dirty word. Her comments come a year after Gordon Brown admitted Labour had made a 'tragic mistake' by allowing dozens of mainly left-wing councils to scrap competitive sports in schools in the 1980s.
This meant huge numbers of inter- school matches and tournaments were cut from state schools after theorists claimed children on losing teams could end up psychologically traumatised. After the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Government pledged to end a 'medals for all' culture in which sports days have been cancelled and field sports 'dumbed down'.
But Dame Kelly has criticised established policies that continue to allow health and safety concerns to ride roughshod over sporting rivalry. The 39-year-old former middle distance athlete said: 'Too often, in these politically sensitive times, it seems that competitiveness is seen as a dirty word. 'I was surprised by how many schools I came across where sports day had been abandoned. It's very important to learn how to lose. 'What you should do is pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again. If everyone gets a prize, where on earth is the incentive to push yourself to do better next time?'
The retired British recordbreaking athlete, who won two gold medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics, called for competitive sport to play a much larger part in the school curriculum.
Dame Kelly, who was awarded an honorary degree from Brunel University this week, told Heat magazine: 'Competitive sport can increase a child's confidence, develop their social skills and get them fit into the bargain.'
The Prime Minister has promised to reverse the longterm decline in competitive school games in the run-up to the London Olympics. Fixtures between schools dropped 70 per cent in the early 1990s following a steady decade-long decline, according to figures from the Secondary Heads Association. But in 2007, Government figures showed numbers were still falling. One million fewer school children were pitted against their classmates than the previous year.
In total, 3.1million pupils aged five to 16 - equal to more than four in ten school children - did not play any competitive sport, while 438 schools did not hold a sports day, a survey for the Department for Children, Schools and Families showed.
Last year the Football Association banned children under the age of eight from playing in football leagues and cups amid fears they are under too much pressure. Youngsters can still play matches but results must be kept private and no league tables can be compiled. They should not compete in knockout tournaments where trophies or medals are at stake, FA officials said.
SOURCE
Heart valve patients recalled after three die from deadly bug infection following operations at same British government hospital
More than 100 heart surgery patients are being recalled for urgent tests after three died from an infection. A further five patients given new heart valves at Nottingham City Hospital face having repeat operations. All were suffering from staphylococcal infection, similar to the antibiotic-resistant MRSA which has killed hundreds of hospital patients in recent years.
Nottingham University-Hospitals NHS Trust says it is sure the infection, which is common and carried on the skin, was not spread via contaminated operating theatres. One of the most likely routes of transmission was via a surgeon who transferred it to patients during surgery, possibly through poor hygiene or contaminated equipment.
The 'precautionary' recall involves all patients who have received heart valve replacements at the hospital's Trent Cardiac Centre since January. The deaths occurred between May and this month. Dr Stephen Fowlie, medical director of the trust, said no other types of heart operations or other surgery have shown any cause for concern.
Results are awaited from checks on a further 28 patients who had very similar operations, with one patient still being sought. In addition, 79 patients who had a different kind of heart valve operation at the heart centre this year are being contacted but they are considered low-risk. All patients are aged between their early 60s and 80s and the deaths happened between May and July.
Dr Stephen Fowlie, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said 'It is with great regret that we confirm that some patients who underwent heart valve operations since January developed an infection with the same bug. 'There have been eight confirmed cases so far, three of whom have died. The other five are receiving treatment and remain stable.
More here
British motoring guru Clarkson in row over four-letter abuse of Prime Minister
Amazing what you can get away with in Britain if you are popular. The fact that a naughty comment was made off-air did not save Carol Thatcher, one might recall
Britain's Labour Party loses another by-election: "British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party has suffered another embarrassing by-election defeat. It was the first poll triggered by a recent scandal over politicians' expenses. Labour was pushed into second place by the main opposition Conservatives in the Norwich North constituency in eastern England. The Conservatives overturned Labour's majority of 5549 at the last election in 2005 to take the seat by more than 7000 votes. The sitting lawmaker, Ian Gibson, quit last month after revelations that he claimed nearly 80,000 ($162,000) in second-home expenses on a London flat which he later sold cheaply to his daughter. Mr Brown admitted it was "clearly a disappointing result" but said voters were disenchanted with all main parties in the wake of the expenses furore. Although it comes as little surprise, the defeat shows Mr Brown's government facing a struggle to beat David Cameron's Conservatives -- who are well ahead in opinion polls -- at a general election which must be held within a year. Mr Cameron said the Tory victory showed people had "had enough" of Mr Brown and "want change in our country". Chloe Smith, the victorious Conservative candidate, is only 27 years old and will be the youngest politicians in the House of Commons. She will take her seat when parliament returns in October from its summer recess, which started this week."
British Fuel scheme "failing the poorest": "A scheme aimed at improving households' fuel efficiency and cutting fuel poverty is `failing the poorest and most vulnerable,' MPs have said. Nearly a fifth of the funding for the multi-million pound Warm Front scheme was going to households that were already energy efficient. And 15m was spent on measures that did little to pull households out of fuel poverty, the committee of MPs said.The government is aiming to end fuel poverty in England by 2016."
Once the lure of communism seduced the idealistic. Today's environmental ideologues risk becoming just as dangerous
Britain is, thankfully, an ideologically barren land. The split between Right and Left is no longer ideological, but tribal. Are you a nice social liberal who believes in markets, or a nasty social liberal who believes in markets? Anthony Blunt's memoirs, published this week, reveal a different age, one in which fascism and communism were locked in a seemingly definitive battle for souls.
Blunt talks of "the religious quality" of the enthusiasm for the Left among the students of Cambridge. There is only one ideology in today's developed world that exercises a similar grip. If Blunt were young today, he would not be red; he would be green.
His band of angry young men would find Gore where once they found Marx. Blunt evokes a febrile atmosphere in which each student felt his own decision had the power to shape the future. Where once they raged about the fleecing of the proletariat and quaked at the march of fascism, Blunt and his circle, transposed to today's college bar, would rage about the fleecing of the planet and quake at its imminent destruction. If you squint, red and green look disarmingly similar.
Both identify an end utopia that is difficult to dispute. The diktat "from each according to his ability, to each according to his means" sounds lovely on paper. Greens promise a world in which we actually survive a coming ecological apocalypse. A desirable outcome, undoubtedly.
But the means to these ends seem similarly insurmountable. Both routes demand an immediate suspension of human nature.
Ideologies often credit man with either more nobility or more venality than he deserves. In reality he is a mundane creature. He wants a home for himself and those he loves, stocked with food. And he wants to have the right to control his own destiny, own his own stuff, and to acquire more if he can without interference or fear of imminent death. Such low-level acquisitive desires support high concepts: property rights and the rule of law, without which there would be no foundation for democracy.
My desire to live a free, mundane life is a fundamental cog in our messy, glorious, capitalist democracy. It is built on millions of such small entrenched postitions. Red-filtered, my desires are despicable and bourgeois and must be beaten out of me with indoctrination or force. Green-filtered, my small desires are despicable acts of ecological vandalism. My house is a carbon factory. My desire to travel, to own stuff, to eat meat, to procreate, to heat my house, to shower for a really, really long time; all are evil.
The word evil is used advisedly. Both the green and red positions are infused with overpowering religiosity. Dissenters from the consensus are shunned apostates. Professor Ian Pilmer, the Australian geologist and climate change sceptic, could not find a publisher for his book Heaven and Earth, which questions the orthodoxy about global warming. He is the subject of hate mail and demonstrations. It is entirely immaterial whether he is right or wrong. An environment that stifles his right to a voice is worse than one that is overheating.
Even within the convinced camp, dissent from certain party lines is frowned upon. Nuclear power is the cheapest, greenest alternative to fossil fuels that we possess, yet it is anathema to advocate its proliferation at the expense of wind and sun. Fans of nuclear are the Trotskys of the movement, subject to batterings by verbal ice pick.
The great ecological timebomb is population growth. By 2050 the United Nations' demographers expect the world's population to reach 9.2 billion, compared with 6.8 billion today. That's 2.4 billion extra carbon footprints. Half measures seem futile. We all hope for some new technology to rescue us. But what if it never materialises? The logical position is to be a cheerleader for swine flu, but not in my backyard. Do we have to pray for swine flu to ravage foreign children, to save our own from frying in the future?
We are at the early stage of the green movement. A time akin to pre-Bolshevik socialism, when all believed in the destruction of the capitalist system, but were still relatively moderate about the means of getting there. We are at the stage of naive dreamers and fantasists. Russia was home to the late 19th-century Narodnik movement, in which rich sons of the aristocracy headed into the countryside to tell the peasants it was their moral imperative to become a revolutionary class. They retreated, baffled, to their riches when the patronised peasants didn't want to revolt. Zac Goldsmith and Prince Charles look like modern Narodniks, talking glib green from the safety of their gilded lives.
Indulge me in some historical determinism. We, the peasants, are failing to rise up and embrace the need to change. We will not choose to give up modern life, with all its polluting seductions. Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves. Ultra-green states cannot arise without some form of forced switch to autocracy; the dictatorship of the environmentalists.
The old two-cow analogy is a useful one. You have two cows. The communist steals both your cows, and may give you some milk, if you're not bourgeois scum. The fascist lets you keep the cows but seizes the milk and sells it back to you. Today's Green says you can keep the cows, but should choose to give them up as their methane-rich farts will unleash hell at some unspecified point in the future. You say, sod it, I'll keep my cows thanks. Tomorrow's green, the Bolshevik green, shoots the cows and makes you forage for nuts.
If the choice is between ecological meltdown, or a more immediate curtailment of our freedom, where do those of us who are neither red nor green, but a recalcitrant grey, turn? Back to those small desires, and a blinkered hope that the choice never becomes so stark. If it does, I'll take my chances with Armageddon.
SOURCE
Hooray! Brits catch and jail yet another lying bitch
But she only got 18 months so will be out in 9. I noted another such incident just days ago. So much for the feminist assertion that women don't make false rape claims
A woman who falsely accused her ex-boyfriend of rape when he broke off their relationship was jailed yesterday for her 'vile lies'. Louise Johnson, 37, drove Andrew Tutty to the brink of suicide after he was arrested and suspended from his job. After accusing the care worker of the rape, Johnson then took out an injunction against her former lover whom she claimed was continuing to harass her. The mother-of-one then contacted police again to claim Mr Tutty had turned up at her home with a knife, ordered her to strip and then threatened to rape her.
Yesterday a judge told Johnson she was guilty of telling 'lies of the most vile kind' as Mr Tutty told of the 'devastating' impact of the case on his life. The 41-year-old was arrested twice, had his DNA swabbed and spent two-and-a-half months on police bail until he was able to prove his innocence when CCTV proved he was with his son at a train station 160 miles away when Johnson claimed he turned up at her home with the knife.
Mr Tutty, from Dudley, West Midlands, said: 'I couldn't believe it when I was arrested by the police. It was devastating - especially as I was suspended from my job over it. 'It has been a long slow two years during which my name has been dragged through the mud. I have been through hell. 'It has been a nightmare and I would not be on this earth if it had not been for the support of friends and family. I would be six feet under.'
The couple met through their jobs as carers at a residential care home for disturbed young people. They had only been going out for two months before Mr Tutty ended the relationship in March 2007.
Alka Brigue, prosecuting, said Johnson took Mr Tutty's decision to finish the relationship 'very badly'. He was first arrested on suspicion of rape in July 2007. Johnson claimed he had forced her to perform a sex act on him but the incident never took place. The following month Johnson took out the injunction and a short time later Mr Tutty was arrested again after she claimed that, armed with the knife, he arrived at her home in Tividale, West Midlands, ordered her to strip and threatened to rape her.
Miss Brigue said: 'Johnson claimed he turned up at her home and assaulted her. He took clothes off and attempted to rape her. 'She said there were blows to various parts of her body from his hands and fists. He also brandished a knife.' Wolverhampton Crown Court heard at that precise time Mr Tutty had been filmed on CCTV boarding a train in Gosport, Hampshire, with his son.
In a victim impact statement filed with the court, Mr Tutty described how Johnson's lies caused him 'considerable distress and discomfort'. He has since been reinstated to his job.
Johnson then complained she had received a string of text messages from Mr Tutty and that he had again assaulted her but, at the time, he had been attending his mother's 67th birthday party before going straight to work. Analysis of Johnson's phone suggested she had sent the messages herself, a source said.
The court heard Johnson had made a string of allegations against other people over the previous 12 years. It is understood she had accused a man of raping her in 2005, although charges were never proceeded with.
The court heard Johnson suffered from a personality disorder. Samantha Powis, defending, said Johnson had suffered from abuse as a child. Her alleged tormentor was acquitted after a trial. Miss Powis said Johnson 'accepts these were gravely serious allegations and they not only undermined him but those who make genuine complaints.' Johnson admitted perverting the course of justice. Judge Nicholas Syfret QC told her the two arrests had a 'huge impact' on the life of Mr Tutty.
Jailing her for 18 months, Judge Syfret said: 'He felt suicidal and it affected his work. These allegations were not only embarrassing but they meant he was suspended fromdoing his job.' The judge said there were people who felt 'there is no smoke without fire' and, while he was completely innocent, they would believe there was some truth in the allegations. 'There was not a word of truth in what you said,' the Recorder told Johnson.
'A colossal strain was put on police resources while they investigated these complaints and you also undermined the causes of genuine people who had been the subject of serious complaints.' He told her only a custodial sentence could be justified because the offence she had committed made it notoriously difficult for women who had been raped to get justice.
SOURCE
Competition has become a dirty word in British schools, says Dame Kelly
Dame Kelly Holmes yesterday launched a stinging attack on the decline of competitive sport in schools and said it risked spawning a generation of bad losers. The double Olympic champion and former Army physical training instructor blamed a culture of political correctness for making 'competitiveness' a dirty word. Her comments come a year after Gordon Brown admitted Labour had made a 'tragic mistake' by allowing dozens of mainly left-wing councils to scrap competitive sports in schools in the 1980s.
This meant huge numbers of inter- school matches and tournaments were cut from state schools after theorists claimed children on losing teams could end up psychologically traumatised. After the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Government pledged to end a 'medals for all' culture in which sports days have been cancelled and field sports 'dumbed down'.
But Dame Kelly has criticised established policies that continue to allow health and safety concerns to ride roughshod over sporting rivalry. The 39-year-old former middle distance athlete said: 'Too often, in these politically sensitive times, it seems that competitiveness is seen as a dirty word. 'I was surprised by how many schools I came across where sports day had been abandoned. It's very important to learn how to lose. 'What you should do is pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again. If everyone gets a prize, where on earth is the incentive to push yourself to do better next time?'
The retired British recordbreaking athlete, who won two gold medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics, called for competitive sport to play a much larger part in the school curriculum.
Dame Kelly, who was awarded an honorary degree from Brunel University this week, told Heat magazine: 'Competitive sport can increase a child's confidence, develop their social skills and get them fit into the bargain.'
The Prime Minister has promised to reverse the longterm decline in competitive school games in the run-up to the London Olympics. Fixtures between schools dropped 70 per cent in the early 1990s following a steady decade-long decline, according to figures from the Secondary Heads Association. But in 2007, Government figures showed numbers were still falling. One million fewer school children were pitted against their classmates than the previous year.
In total, 3.1million pupils aged five to 16 - equal to more than four in ten school children - did not play any competitive sport, while 438 schools did not hold a sports day, a survey for the Department for Children, Schools and Families showed.
Last year the Football Association banned children under the age of eight from playing in football leagues and cups amid fears they are under too much pressure. Youngsters can still play matches but results must be kept private and no league tables can be compiled. They should not compete in knockout tournaments where trophies or medals are at stake, FA officials said.
SOURCE
Heart valve patients recalled after three die from deadly bug infection following operations at same British government hospital
More than 100 heart surgery patients are being recalled for urgent tests after three died from an infection. A further five patients given new heart valves at Nottingham City Hospital face having repeat operations. All were suffering from staphylococcal infection, similar to the antibiotic-resistant MRSA which has killed hundreds of hospital patients in recent years.
Nottingham University-Hospitals NHS Trust says it is sure the infection, which is common and carried on the skin, was not spread via contaminated operating theatres. One of the most likely routes of transmission was via a surgeon who transferred it to patients during surgery, possibly through poor hygiene or contaminated equipment.
The 'precautionary' recall involves all patients who have received heart valve replacements at the hospital's Trent Cardiac Centre since January. The deaths occurred between May and this month. Dr Stephen Fowlie, medical director of the trust, said no other types of heart operations or other surgery have shown any cause for concern.
Results are awaited from checks on a further 28 patients who had very similar operations, with one patient still being sought. In addition, 79 patients who had a different kind of heart valve operation at the heart centre this year are being contacted but they are considered low-risk. All patients are aged between their early 60s and 80s and the deaths happened between May and July.
Dr Stephen Fowlie, medical director at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said 'It is with great regret that we confirm that some patients who underwent heart valve operations since January developed an infection with the same bug. 'There have been eight confirmed cases so far, three of whom have died. The other five are receiving treatment and remain stable.
More here
British motoring guru Clarkson in row over four-letter abuse of Prime Minister
Amazing what you can get away with in Britain if you are popular. The fact that a naughty comment was made off-air did not save Carol Thatcher, one might recall
"Jeremy Clarkson has been given a 'ticking off' by a BBC boss after using the most offensive swear word to describe Gordon Brown in front of a studio audience. The Top Gear presenter made the remark as part of his warm-up act before filming at the Dunsfold Aerodrome in Surrey, where the BBC2 car show is made.
Although some of the audience 'burst out laughing' at his comments, BBC2 controller Janice Hadlow later gave Clarkson a 'dressing down' in front of crew.
The 49-year-old host's remarks come less than six months after he was forced to apologise for calling Mr Brown a 'one-eyed Scottish idiot' during an interview with Australian journalists.
On Wednesday, Clarkson is understood to have told fans: 'I get into trouble talking about Gordon Brown, he is a silly c***.'
Witnesses say Miss Hadlow approached him at the end of the show and that Clarkson reacted angrily to her concerns. One insider said Clarkson was always 'irreverent' and used colourful language during his warm-up. They also pointed out that his comments were made off-air and were part of the usual banter before the show.
Despite this, Miss Hadlow and Clarkson 'had it out' near the programme's green room, where the BBC boss made it clear she had been annoyed by his behaviour and that it was unacceptable. However, a spokesman for the BBC last night denied claims that the pair had had an argument or that the matter had been referred to both the BBC Trust and its director-general.
'Janice Hadlow went to watch a recording of Top Gear as it is BBC2's top-rated programme, and as controller of BBC2, she holds both the programme and Jeremy in high regard,' he added.
Source
Britain's Labour Party loses another by-election: "British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Labour Party has suffered another embarrassing by-election defeat. It was the first poll triggered by a recent scandal over politicians' expenses. Labour was pushed into second place by the main opposition Conservatives in the Norwich North constituency in eastern England. The Conservatives overturned Labour's majority of 5549 at the last election in 2005 to take the seat by more than 7000 votes. The sitting lawmaker, Ian Gibson, quit last month after revelations that he claimed nearly 80,000 ($162,000) in second-home expenses on a London flat which he later sold cheaply to his daughter. Mr Brown admitted it was "clearly a disappointing result" but said voters were disenchanted with all main parties in the wake of the expenses furore. Although it comes as little surprise, the defeat shows Mr Brown's government facing a struggle to beat David Cameron's Conservatives -- who are well ahead in opinion polls -- at a general election which must be held within a year. Mr Cameron said the Tory victory showed people had "had enough" of Mr Brown and "want change in our country". Chloe Smith, the victorious Conservative candidate, is only 27 years old and will be the youngest politicians in the House of Commons. She will take her seat when parliament returns in October from its summer recess, which started this week."
British Fuel scheme "failing the poorest": "A scheme aimed at improving households' fuel efficiency and cutting fuel poverty is `failing the poorest and most vulnerable,' MPs have said. Nearly a fifth of the funding for the multi-million pound Warm Front scheme was going to households that were already energy efficient. And 15m was spent on measures that did little to pull households out of fuel poverty, the committee of MPs said.The government is aiming to end fuel poverty in England by 2016."
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Education is increasingly a road to nowhere in socialist Britain
"Any luck?" I ask my daughter, as she returns from her latest foray into town. Her glum face gives the answer. She is leaving school today and, in October, will be going to university - Oxford, if she gets the grades she needs. In a perfect world, she would get a summer job, earn some money, then go travelling for a few weeks. But not much about the world is perfect these days. That low-paid summer job is proving far more elusive than a place at university.
In the recession-hit Cotswolds, where she lives, the temporary jobs in shops and pubs and cafs are just not there, or have already been taken, probably by someone from Warsaw or Tallinn. She touts around her neatly typed CV, littered with As and A*s, but nobody wants to know. "Sorry, luv. Perhaps at Christmas..."
Friends with children in a similar position have the same story to tell. The son of a friend in Wimbledon is typical. After weeks of rejection, he thought he had finally got lucky when he spotted a vacancy in a Vietnamese restaurant. "I'm sorry, we only recruit Vietnamese." "But I thought that was illegal," he stammered, drawing on his A-level politics and economics. "It's how we do things here," came the reply.
Even at the All England Club, where skilled labour is needed to pour Pimm's into a glass without spilling it, 20 per cent fewer catering staff were recruited this year. Not even the Andy Murray magic can generate jobs in the depths of a recession. If the Scot couldn't play tennis, he would probably be out of work himself.
Youth unemployment is at its highest for 16 years, rising to 726,000 in the three months to the end of May, a quarterly increase of 95,000, according to figures released yesterday. Earlier this month it was reported that, among 16 to 24 year-olds, the Murray generation, the number of Neets in the UK is about to pass a million for the first time. Neets - and it is a term we are going to hear a lot more - is government jargon for young people "not in education, employment or training". The forgotten underclass.
A MILLION? It is a terrifying statistic, when you think about it. That is an awful lot of wasted, stunted, frustration-filled lives. It is hard not to link it to another statistic unveiled this week - that the UK has the worst record of violent crime of any country in the EU. Perhaps David Cameron's talk of a broken society is not so exaggerated after all.
If the plight of children leaving school at 16 without a GCSE to their name is grim, the plight of those like my daughter, armed to the teeth with GCSEs but unable to find the most menial work, is equally depressing - if not more so.
All through their childhoods, they have been sold the same dream - by their parents, by their teachers, by the government. That, if they buckle down at school and take their studies seriously, it will be worth their while in the long run. That their hard work will be rewarded with a place at university and a well-paid job.
The dream may not be in tatters, but it has frayed so badly around the edges that it is not surprising so many young people have become cynical and disaffected. Life is not always fair: we imbibe that lesson in our mother's milk. But if reasonable expectations are consistently and savagely disappointed, why bother to try to better yourself at school and university?
Education, education, education, said Tony Blair. Perhaps he should have said unemployment, unemployment, unemployment. Data from the Higher Education Standards Authority released this week indicates that, of those who graduated last summer, eight per cent were still out of work six months later.
The ones with vocational degrees such as medicine are all right. The poor lambs who thought reading history or philosophy or computer sciences would boost their career prospects have had a rude awakening. They are just itching to get their feet under a desk, any desk, so they can pay off those five-figure student loans, but they are having to wait. And wait. And wait.
Young people have time on their side, of course, and with the recession affecting all sections of society, unemployed graduates are no more deserving of sympathy than carmakers or engineers who have been made redundant in their early 50s. But the souring of young dreams, particularly when those dreams are rooted in legitimate aspirations and backed up by hard work, is particularly corrosive. It jeopardises all our futures. Without the optimism of youth, what hope is there of building a stronger economy or a fairer society?
There is not going to be much youthful optimism on view this summer; in fact, school-leavers will be caught between a rock and a hard place. Jobs are in such short supply that they are applying for university in record numbers; but with only a small increase in the number of places available, an estimated 60,000 teenagers will be turned away from university in September and, in most cases, have to join the dole queue.
Even the lucky ones who get university places are caught in an economic vice of frightening rigidity. Student grants and loans are going to be frozen next year, while tuition fees rise. To make ends meet, the students are going to have to grub around for part-time jobs, which will be in short supply or, in Vietnamese restaurants, zero per cent supply, to paraphrase the Prime Minister.
As summer turns to autumn, the students who have managed to avoid swine flu will find themselves riddled with financial insecurity and self-doubt. What are they doing at university in the first place? Where is it all leading? Will that degree be worth anything in the outside world?
Then, next spring in all likelihood, the final indignity. The first general election at which they can vote. Their first chance to have a say at the ballot box about the sort of Britain they want to live in. But why bother to vote? The sins of New Labour are just part of an age-old malaise: politicians promising a better education for all, then dashing the hopes they have so recklessly raised.
If the young took to the streets, as they have in Iran, their anger might be a harbinger of better times ahead. As it is, they seem, in all too many cases, to have succumbed to disillusion and apathy.
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking along the canal in Oxford when I saw a couple of young men perched on top of a bridge, moodily throwing stones into the water. Their faces were pale and sullen and they scowled at me as I approached. There was a trail of lager cans and cigarette ends beside them.
Town or gown? Town, I would have said, without hesitation, 12 months ago. They had the anger of the long-term unemployed about them. They were not throwing stones into the water for fun: they were throwing them to let off steam. Then I overheard one of them talking about Euripides. So not town, gown. Students at a world-famous university. The top of the educational tree.
And if life at the top of the tree is that bad, what chance for those clinging to the lower branches?
SOURCE
British swine flu farce
No wonder Britain has the worst incidence of it
I was the first in my house to go down with the H1N1 virus. It was only a matter of time before someone else in the family followed. Seven days after my initial symptoms, my husband woke up with the telltale sore throat, headache and general all-over ennui that signal the start of this virus. By yesterday he was no better, his throat inflamed and his temperature hovering around the 38C mark.
I called the new swine flu helpline. A well-spoken, pre-recorded gentleman gave me a clear explanation of the clinical nature of swine flu. In a passage that reminded me faintly of Mitchell and Webb's "Remain Indoors" sketch, I was told to stay at home if I or someone I knew was experiencing any of the symptoms, and to visit the website or call this number: 0800 1513100.
Not wishing to drag my husband into the shed that doubles as my office, I decided to try the telephone option. Much to my surprise, I got through quickly and easily to a rather nervous-sounding woman from Scotland. Anxiously, she checked that I was calling from England (this service doesn't work for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland).
Was the person I was calling on behalf of a child? No. Were they with me? Yes. Were they also in England. Er, yes. Asleep or awake? Awake. Could they talk without loss of breath? Yes. She checked again: it's not a child? No. Are they making grunting noises? What, like the baby in Alice in Wonderland? No, not yet at any rate. Could the patient touch his chin to his chest. Yes.
There was a long silence while this information, clearly the bit of the questionnaire that is designed to weed out meningitis and other serious infections - the work that an actual doctor would normally do - was being processed. She then asked for his date of birth and name, and we proceeded to the meat of the survey - sorry, assessment.
It was at this point that the process became a shade farcical. As the questions progressed, it became clear that not only did the operator have no formal medical training, she wasn't even familiar with basic health terminology. For example, she struggled to read out the word "Relenza"; When asking if the patient had any other metabolic conditions, the word "metabolic" seemed to baffle her, as did the names of various drugs; and the term "cystic fibrosis" eluded her completely. I really wasn't expecting any detailed clinical knowledge, but surely basic literacy should be a requirement.
Nevertheless, the computer seemed satisfied, and so I was told that my husband was authorised for a course of antivirals. I was given a number, which the woman stressed I could be told only once (in the manner of that other great British farce, 'Allo 'Allo) and that if I lost, would not be reissued. I was to take this number, along with my ID, to my antiviral collection point.
Meanwhile, in a darkened room somewhere, a friend of mine with early symptoms was on her laptop. By her own admission more likely to be suffering from hypochondria than real flu, she had nevertheless decided she wanted to be on the safe side and secure some Tamiflu just in case. Even with a rudimentary knowledge of all things swine, she managed to tick all the right boxes and rang me, delighted, to say that for her, too, the computer had said yes.
Quite why the Government has taken swine flu away from the medically qualified and franchised it out to some of David Brent's less sparky colleagues is a mystery. People whose day jobs normally consist of conducting market research surveys should not be in charge of speaking to potentially sick people. That is at the very least the job of nurses. Anything less is a dereliction of duty.
The principal dangers from this virus seems to be with secondary infections: complications arising from the illness. When the person assessing your symptoms can't even read the questions, it hardly offers much grounds for reassurance. All that will happen is that the genuinely ill will get overlooked, and the wily will get their Tamiflu.
Next stop, eBay.
SOURCE
Another report:
'Are you unconscious?': What happened when the Mail phoned the new swine flu hotline
The National Pandemic Flu Service hotline was caught up in controversy almost as soon as it was launched yesterday. Callers were asked to describe their symptoms by call centre workers with no medical training.
Concerns were raised by doctors and campaign groups as patients were asked a series of bizarre questions including whether they were 'unconscious' or 'unresponsive'.
Launched at 3pm, the helpline and website were intended to dispense antivirals quickly to those at risk and take the pressure off GPs. But thousands of sufferers were given conflicting information by the 2,000 call centre workers with just three hours of experience.
Calls made by the Daily Mail revealed inconsistencies in the advice given.....
More here
British wind power plan blown off course
The Government was facing a growing credibility gap over green jobs last night as environmental campaigners and trade unionists united to fight the closure of Britain's sole major wind turbine plant.
Only last week, ministers proclaimed a green employment future for the UK involving 400,000 jobs in environmental industries such as renewable energy - yet this week they are declining to intervene over the forthcoming closure of the Vestas Wind Systems plant on the Isle of Wight, with nearly 600 redundancies.
Workers at the Newport factory, which makes wind turbine blades, were last night staging their third night of occupation of the plant in an attempt to prevent the closure which is scheduled for 31 July. In an alliance not seen before, they were being helped by climate-change campaigners who have set up an ad hoc camp outside the factory and yesterday helped to get food to the occupiers.
Vestas, a Danish company which is the world's biggest wind energy group, announced in April it was pulling out of the UK, citing the difficulties of getting wind farms built in Britain in the face of local "Nimby" opposition campaigns and the slowness of the planning system.
"A problem we are facing is our inability to get planning consent," said a senior company executive. "We needed a stable long-term market and that was not there in the UK. We have made clear to the Government that we need a market. We do not need money."
Several weeks before the closure announcement, Vestas bosses led by the chief executive, Ditlev Engle, went to 10 Downing Street for a high-level meeting attended by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, where they made specific demands for more direct government support. When this was not forthcoming, the closure was announced.
While the Government may not have felt able to respond to what were in effect threats from a private manufacturing company, the consequence of allowing the country's major wind energy manufacturing plant to fold has attracted ferocious criticism from the green movement.
This was not least because of the prospect that the 7,000 or so wind turbines Britain will install over the next decade to help meet its climate-change targets will have to come from abroad, even though last week both Mr Miliband and the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, launching the Government's climate strategy, went to great lengths to stress the green business opportunities of Britain becoming a low-carbon economy.
"Last week Labour promised Britain would install thousands of wind turbines in the coming years. Are ministers really now saying they'd rather buy those turbines from abroad than make them here in the UK?" said Robin Oakley, head of the Greepeace climate campaign. "Letting this factory close is like a football manager saying he's up for the cup then dropping his only goal scorer. It just doesn't make sense.
"It is factories like this and engineers like the ones occupying it that Britain desperately needs if ministers are serious about launching a green industrial revolution."
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party leader and the Isle of Wight's MEP, sent a message of support to the workers and called for immediate government intervention to save the factory from closure. "The decision to close the facility represents a spectacular failure by government ministers to adequately promote green industries, and protect the future of manufacturing in this country," she said.
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "This closure exposes the hollow truth of Labour's climate change strategy." Five Labour MPs have already signed a Commons motion protesting against the closure.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said the company had taken a commercial decision to reduce its production capacity across northern Europe. She acknowledged there were "cultural and planning issues" behind the construction of wind farms, but promised they would be tackled by the climate strategy. She said: "We are hopeful Vestas will go ahead with their plans for a research and development facility on the Isle of Wight which could provide up to a further 300 jobs and also help develop and test products that are suitable for the UK offshore market."
Vestas erected a fence around the site in response to the protest. Workers claimed it was being put up to stop food or drink being sent in. One said: "We are convinced this is against the Human Rights Act because we are being denied humanitarian aid."
Three protesters were arrested outside the site. Hampshire Police said a 28-year-old man from Southampton had been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and a 49-year-old man from Portsmouth was arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace.
A London man, aged 38, was arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace and later released without charge.
SOURCE
Stress in the womb can last a lifetime, say researchers behind new exhibit
The logic below is far from unassailable. What they have is a correlation between cortisol in the amniotic fluid and baby IQ. Maybe (for instance) the cortisol level is dispositional rather than situational -- in which case maybe there is some genetic link between neuroticism and IQ
Visitors can see how their stress levels could affect the heart rate of their unborn baby and find out why pregnant women should reduce their anxiety, at a new exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, which opens today.
The researchers behind the exhibit, from Imperial College London, hope that it will raise families' awareness of the importance of reducing levels of stress and anxiety in expectant mothers. They say that reducing stress during pregnancy could help prevent thousands of children from developing emotional and behavioural problems.
Visitors to the Exhibition will have the chance to play a game that shows how a mother's stress can increase the heart rate of her unborn baby. They will also be able to touch a real placenta, encased safely in plastic. The placenta is crucial for fetal development and it usually protects the unborn baby from the stress hormone cortisol. However, when the mother is stressed, the placenta becomes less protective and the mother's cortisol may have an effect on the fetus.
The Imperial researchers' work has shown that maternal stress and anxiety can alter the development of the baby's brain. This in turn can result in a greater risk of emotional problems such as anxiety or depression, behavioural problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and being considerably slower at learning. Some studies have even suggested that it may increase the likelihood of later violent or criminal behaviour. Their findings have suggested that the effects of stress during pregnancy can last many years, including into adolescence.
Professor Vivette Glover, the lead researcher behind the exhibit from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College London, said: "We all know that if a mother smokes or drinks a lot of alcohol while pregnant it can affect her fetus. Our work has shown that other more subtle factors, such as her emotional state, can also have long-term effects on her child. We hope our exhibit will demonstrate in a fun way why we all need to look after expectant mothers' emotional wellbeing.
"Our research shows that stress due to the mother's relationship with her partner can be particularly damaging. We want fathers visiting our exhibit to see how they can help with the development of their child even before the birth, by helping their partner to stay happy," added Professor Glover.
The researchers say that the stress hormone cortisol may be one way in which the fetus is affected by the mother's anxiety during pregnancy. Usually the placenta protects the unborn baby from the mother's cortisol, by producing an enzyme that breaks the hormone down. When the mother is very stressed, this enzyme works less well and lets her cortisol through the placenta. By studying the amount of cortisol in the amniotic fluid, the Imperial researchers' latest study suggests that the higher the level of cortisol in the womb, the lower the toddler's cognitive development or "baby IQ" at 18 months.
Kieran O'Donnell from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College London said: "We are very excited to have this opportunity to talk with the public about our work. We think that by promoting awareness of this subject we may be able to benefit many families in the future."
SOURCE
Four out of five Britons want immigration capped, poll shows
Eight out of ten voters want a cap on immigration and say Alan Johnson is 'out of touch' with the public mood. The findings are revealed in two separate opinion polls which will set alarm bells ringing for the Home Secretary. Mr Johnson recently insisted he does not 'lie awake at night' worrying about the UK population soon reaching 70million.
But his stance is even at odds with voters in his own rock solid Labour constituency of Hull West and Hessle, where 80 per cent of people said both that he was out of step with their views, and that immigration was putting too much strain on public services. The polls were carried out by the pressure group Migrationwatch and by the Home Office itself.
The Ipsos Mori research for Mr Johnson's department found 81 per cent of Britons favour a cap on immigration - a policy which Mr Johnson explicitly rejected only a few days ago. The Migrationwatch poll, conducted by ORB, found 81 per cent of the public are worried about the prospect of the population reaching 70million in 2028, as predicted by Whitehall statisticians. It is currently 61million. Seventy- eight per cent say Alan Johnson is out of touch with people like them.
And 76 per cent want to see net immigration - the number of migrants entering the country minus the number leaving - cut from its present level of 237,000 a year to 50,000 or less. Of that 76 per cent, 32 per cent want to see a policy of 'one in, one out' while 22 per cent want to see no immigration at all.
Broken down by party affiliation, 90 per cent of Conservative voters are worried about a population of 70 million. For Labour voters it was 70 per cent and for the Liberal Democrats 76 per cent.
In Mr Johnson's own constituency, 83 per cent of voters want to see net immigration reduced to 50,000 a year or less, and 78 per cent oppose his general attitude to immigration and population. Some 73 per cent are concerned that Britain is losing its identity and culture.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: 'The new Home Secretary and the Prime Minister are hopelessly out of touch with the mood of the nation on this issue. 'This is not just about a "cap" on immigration. It is about the future of our country. 'Failure to cut immigration back to the level of the early Nineties will result in our population going to 70, then 80million and beyond as immigration is the main driver of population growth. 'In many parts of Britain the public are seething with resentment at the total failure of the political class to take seriously their deep concerns about the impact of immigration on the future of our country.'
The Home Office's own research, released separately to the Migrationwatch poll, found that 64 per cent of adults believe 'laws on immigration should be much tougher', while another 9 per cent said immigration should be halted completely. Only 7 per cent favoured more relaxed immigration policies. While the economy has taken over as the biggest single concern facing adults in the UK - up from 4 to 54 per cent in the past 18 months - immigration remains a major issue.
In the Home Office study, 69 per cent described immigration as either a 'big problem' or a 'very big problem', listing the burden on public service and pressure on jobs as their main concerns.
The Home Secretary caused astonishment last week when he told MPs he was relaxed about Britain's population rising from its current level of 61million to 70million in the next few years, claiming he 'did not lie awake' worrying about the prospect. He rejected setting an upper limit on the UK population, claiming any figure would be 'arbitrary' and would harm the economy. And he accused those who argue that mass immigration has left more native Britons unemployed of using the same rhetoric of 'hate and division' as fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
A Home Office spokesman said of the Migrationwatch poll: 'This survey tells us nothing - it is based on leading questions, and the Home Secretary's comments about Britain's population have been taken out of context. 'The Home Secretary made it very clear that he did not favour a cap on immigration because it is a crude measure which could harm the economy and is not as effective as the points-based system the Government introduced in 2008.'
SOURCE
"Any luck?" I ask my daughter, as she returns from her latest foray into town. Her glum face gives the answer. She is leaving school today and, in October, will be going to university - Oxford, if she gets the grades she needs. In a perfect world, she would get a summer job, earn some money, then go travelling for a few weeks. But not much about the world is perfect these days. That low-paid summer job is proving far more elusive than a place at university.
In the recession-hit Cotswolds, where she lives, the temporary jobs in shops and pubs and cafs are just not there, or have already been taken, probably by someone from Warsaw or Tallinn. She touts around her neatly typed CV, littered with As and A*s, but nobody wants to know. "Sorry, luv. Perhaps at Christmas..."
Friends with children in a similar position have the same story to tell. The son of a friend in Wimbledon is typical. After weeks of rejection, he thought he had finally got lucky when he spotted a vacancy in a Vietnamese restaurant. "I'm sorry, we only recruit Vietnamese." "But I thought that was illegal," he stammered, drawing on his A-level politics and economics. "It's how we do things here," came the reply.
Even at the All England Club, where skilled labour is needed to pour Pimm's into a glass without spilling it, 20 per cent fewer catering staff were recruited this year. Not even the Andy Murray magic can generate jobs in the depths of a recession. If the Scot couldn't play tennis, he would probably be out of work himself.
Youth unemployment is at its highest for 16 years, rising to 726,000 in the three months to the end of May, a quarterly increase of 95,000, according to figures released yesterday. Earlier this month it was reported that, among 16 to 24 year-olds, the Murray generation, the number of Neets in the UK is about to pass a million for the first time. Neets - and it is a term we are going to hear a lot more - is government jargon for young people "not in education, employment or training". The forgotten underclass.
A MILLION? It is a terrifying statistic, when you think about it. That is an awful lot of wasted, stunted, frustration-filled lives. It is hard not to link it to another statistic unveiled this week - that the UK has the worst record of violent crime of any country in the EU. Perhaps David Cameron's talk of a broken society is not so exaggerated after all.
If the plight of children leaving school at 16 without a GCSE to their name is grim, the plight of those like my daughter, armed to the teeth with GCSEs but unable to find the most menial work, is equally depressing - if not more so.
All through their childhoods, they have been sold the same dream - by their parents, by their teachers, by the government. That, if they buckle down at school and take their studies seriously, it will be worth their while in the long run. That their hard work will be rewarded with a place at university and a well-paid job.
The dream may not be in tatters, but it has frayed so badly around the edges that it is not surprising so many young people have become cynical and disaffected. Life is not always fair: we imbibe that lesson in our mother's milk. But if reasonable expectations are consistently and savagely disappointed, why bother to try to better yourself at school and university?
Education, education, education, said Tony Blair. Perhaps he should have said unemployment, unemployment, unemployment. Data from the Higher Education Standards Authority released this week indicates that, of those who graduated last summer, eight per cent were still out of work six months later.
The ones with vocational degrees such as medicine are all right. The poor lambs who thought reading history or philosophy or computer sciences would boost their career prospects have had a rude awakening. They are just itching to get their feet under a desk, any desk, so they can pay off those five-figure student loans, but they are having to wait. And wait. And wait.
Young people have time on their side, of course, and with the recession affecting all sections of society, unemployed graduates are no more deserving of sympathy than carmakers or engineers who have been made redundant in their early 50s. But the souring of young dreams, particularly when those dreams are rooted in legitimate aspirations and backed up by hard work, is particularly corrosive. It jeopardises all our futures. Without the optimism of youth, what hope is there of building a stronger economy or a fairer society?
There is not going to be much youthful optimism on view this summer; in fact, school-leavers will be caught between a rock and a hard place. Jobs are in such short supply that they are applying for university in record numbers; but with only a small increase in the number of places available, an estimated 60,000 teenagers will be turned away from university in September and, in most cases, have to join the dole queue.
Even the lucky ones who get university places are caught in an economic vice of frightening rigidity. Student grants and loans are going to be frozen next year, while tuition fees rise. To make ends meet, the students are going to have to grub around for part-time jobs, which will be in short supply or, in Vietnamese restaurants, zero per cent supply, to paraphrase the Prime Minister.
As summer turns to autumn, the students who have managed to avoid swine flu will find themselves riddled with financial insecurity and self-doubt. What are they doing at university in the first place? Where is it all leading? Will that degree be worth anything in the outside world?
Then, next spring in all likelihood, the final indignity. The first general election at which they can vote. Their first chance to have a say at the ballot box about the sort of Britain they want to live in. But why bother to vote? The sins of New Labour are just part of an age-old malaise: politicians promising a better education for all, then dashing the hopes they have so recklessly raised.
If the young took to the streets, as they have in Iran, their anger might be a harbinger of better times ahead. As it is, they seem, in all too many cases, to have succumbed to disillusion and apathy.
Yesterday afternoon, I was walking along the canal in Oxford when I saw a couple of young men perched on top of a bridge, moodily throwing stones into the water. Their faces were pale and sullen and they scowled at me as I approached. There was a trail of lager cans and cigarette ends beside them.
Town or gown? Town, I would have said, without hesitation, 12 months ago. They had the anger of the long-term unemployed about them. They were not throwing stones into the water for fun: they were throwing them to let off steam. Then I overheard one of them talking about Euripides. So not town, gown. Students at a world-famous university. The top of the educational tree.
And if life at the top of the tree is that bad, what chance for those clinging to the lower branches?
SOURCE
British swine flu farce
No wonder Britain has the worst incidence of it
I was the first in my house to go down with the H1N1 virus. It was only a matter of time before someone else in the family followed. Seven days after my initial symptoms, my husband woke up with the telltale sore throat, headache and general all-over ennui that signal the start of this virus. By yesterday he was no better, his throat inflamed and his temperature hovering around the 38C mark.
I called the new swine flu helpline. A well-spoken, pre-recorded gentleman gave me a clear explanation of the clinical nature of swine flu. In a passage that reminded me faintly of Mitchell and Webb's "Remain Indoors" sketch, I was told to stay at home if I or someone I knew was experiencing any of the symptoms, and to visit the website or call this number: 0800 1513100.
Not wishing to drag my husband into the shed that doubles as my office, I decided to try the telephone option. Much to my surprise, I got through quickly and easily to a rather nervous-sounding woman from Scotland. Anxiously, she checked that I was calling from England (this service doesn't work for Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland).
Was the person I was calling on behalf of a child? No. Were they with me? Yes. Were they also in England. Er, yes. Asleep or awake? Awake. Could they talk without loss of breath? Yes. She checked again: it's not a child? No. Are they making grunting noises? What, like the baby in Alice in Wonderland? No, not yet at any rate. Could the patient touch his chin to his chest. Yes.
There was a long silence while this information, clearly the bit of the questionnaire that is designed to weed out meningitis and other serious infections - the work that an actual doctor would normally do - was being processed. She then asked for his date of birth and name, and we proceeded to the meat of the survey - sorry, assessment.
It was at this point that the process became a shade farcical. As the questions progressed, it became clear that not only did the operator have no formal medical training, she wasn't even familiar with basic health terminology. For example, she struggled to read out the word "Relenza"; When asking if the patient had any other metabolic conditions, the word "metabolic" seemed to baffle her, as did the names of various drugs; and the term "cystic fibrosis" eluded her completely. I really wasn't expecting any detailed clinical knowledge, but surely basic literacy should be a requirement.
Nevertheless, the computer seemed satisfied, and so I was told that my husband was authorised for a course of antivirals. I was given a number, which the woman stressed I could be told only once (in the manner of that other great British farce, 'Allo 'Allo) and that if I lost, would not be reissued. I was to take this number, along with my ID, to my antiviral collection point.
Meanwhile, in a darkened room somewhere, a friend of mine with early symptoms was on her laptop. By her own admission more likely to be suffering from hypochondria than real flu, she had nevertheless decided she wanted to be on the safe side and secure some Tamiflu just in case. Even with a rudimentary knowledge of all things swine, she managed to tick all the right boxes and rang me, delighted, to say that for her, too, the computer had said yes.
Quite why the Government has taken swine flu away from the medically qualified and franchised it out to some of David Brent's less sparky colleagues is a mystery. People whose day jobs normally consist of conducting market research surveys should not be in charge of speaking to potentially sick people. That is at the very least the job of nurses. Anything less is a dereliction of duty.
The principal dangers from this virus seems to be with secondary infections: complications arising from the illness. When the person assessing your symptoms can't even read the questions, it hardly offers much grounds for reassurance. All that will happen is that the genuinely ill will get overlooked, and the wily will get their Tamiflu.
Next stop, eBay.
SOURCE
Another report:
'Are you unconscious?': What happened when the Mail phoned the new swine flu hotline
The National Pandemic Flu Service hotline was caught up in controversy almost as soon as it was launched yesterday. Callers were asked to describe their symptoms by call centre workers with no medical training.
Concerns were raised by doctors and campaign groups as patients were asked a series of bizarre questions including whether they were 'unconscious' or 'unresponsive'.
Launched at 3pm, the helpline and website were intended to dispense antivirals quickly to those at risk and take the pressure off GPs. But thousands of sufferers were given conflicting information by the 2,000 call centre workers with just three hours of experience.
Calls made by the Daily Mail revealed inconsistencies in the advice given.....
More here
British wind power plan blown off course
The Government was facing a growing credibility gap over green jobs last night as environmental campaigners and trade unionists united to fight the closure of Britain's sole major wind turbine plant.
Only last week, ministers proclaimed a green employment future for the UK involving 400,000 jobs in environmental industries such as renewable energy - yet this week they are declining to intervene over the forthcoming closure of the Vestas Wind Systems plant on the Isle of Wight, with nearly 600 redundancies.
Workers at the Newport factory, which makes wind turbine blades, were last night staging their third night of occupation of the plant in an attempt to prevent the closure which is scheduled for 31 July. In an alliance not seen before, they were being helped by climate-change campaigners who have set up an ad hoc camp outside the factory and yesterday helped to get food to the occupiers.
Vestas, a Danish company which is the world's biggest wind energy group, announced in April it was pulling out of the UK, citing the difficulties of getting wind farms built in Britain in the face of local "Nimby" opposition campaigns and the slowness of the planning system.
"A problem we are facing is our inability to get planning consent," said a senior company executive. "We needed a stable long-term market and that was not there in the UK. We have made clear to the Government that we need a market. We do not need money."
Several weeks before the closure announcement, Vestas bosses led by the chief executive, Ditlev Engle, went to 10 Downing Street for a high-level meeting attended by the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, where they made specific demands for more direct government support. When this was not forthcoming, the closure was announced.
While the Government may not have felt able to respond to what were in effect threats from a private manufacturing company, the consequence of allowing the country's major wind energy manufacturing plant to fold has attracted ferocious criticism from the green movement.
This was not least because of the prospect that the 7,000 or so wind turbines Britain will install over the next decade to help meet its climate-change targets will have to come from abroad, even though last week both Mr Miliband and the Business Secretary, Lord Mandelson, launching the Government's climate strategy, went to great lengths to stress the green business opportunities of Britain becoming a low-carbon economy.
"Last week Labour promised Britain would install thousands of wind turbines in the coming years. Are ministers really now saying they'd rather buy those turbines from abroad than make them here in the UK?" said Robin Oakley, head of the Greepeace climate campaign. "Letting this factory close is like a football manager saying he's up for the cup then dropping his only goal scorer. It just doesn't make sense.
"It is factories like this and engineers like the ones occupying it that Britain desperately needs if ministers are serious about launching a green industrial revolution."
Caroline Lucas, the Green Party leader and the Isle of Wight's MEP, sent a message of support to the workers and called for immediate government intervention to save the factory from closure. "The decision to close the facility represents a spectacular failure by government ministers to adequately promote green industries, and protect the future of manufacturing in this country," she said.
Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said: "This closure exposes the hollow truth of Labour's climate change strategy." Five Labour MPs have already signed a Commons motion protesting against the closure.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change said the company had taken a commercial decision to reduce its production capacity across northern Europe. She acknowledged there were "cultural and planning issues" behind the construction of wind farms, but promised they would be tackled by the climate strategy. She said: "We are hopeful Vestas will go ahead with their plans for a research and development facility on the Isle of Wight which could provide up to a further 300 jobs and also help develop and test products that are suitable for the UK offshore market."
Vestas erected a fence around the site in response to the protest. Workers claimed it was being put up to stop food or drink being sent in. One said: "We are convinced this is against the Human Rights Act because we are being denied humanitarian aid."
Three protesters were arrested outside the site. Hampshire Police said a 28-year-old man from Southampton had been arrested on suspicion of assaulting a police officer and a 49-year-old man from Portsmouth was arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace.
A London man, aged 38, was arrested on suspicion of a breach of the peace and later released without charge.
SOURCE
Stress in the womb can last a lifetime, say researchers behind new exhibit
The logic below is far from unassailable. What they have is a correlation between cortisol in the amniotic fluid and baby IQ. Maybe (for instance) the cortisol level is dispositional rather than situational -- in which case maybe there is some genetic link between neuroticism and IQ
Visitors can see how their stress levels could affect the heart rate of their unborn baby and find out why pregnant women should reduce their anxiety, at a new exhibit at the Royal Society Summer Science Exhibition, which opens today.
The researchers behind the exhibit, from Imperial College London, hope that it will raise families' awareness of the importance of reducing levels of stress and anxiety in expectant mothers. They say that reducing stress during pregnancy could help prevent thousands of children from developing emotional and behavioural problems.
Visitors to the Exhibition will have the chance to play a game that shows how a mother's stress can increase the heart rate of her unborn baby. They will also be able to touch a real placenta, encased safely in plastic. The placenta is crucial for fetal development and it usually protects the unborn baby from the stress hormone cortisol. However, when the mother is stressed, the placenta becomes less protective and the mother's cortisol may have an effect on the fetus.
The Imperial researchers' work has shown that maternal stress and anxiety can alter the development of the baby's brain. This in turn can result in a greater risk of emotional problems such as anxiety or depression, behavioural problems such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and being considerably slower at learning. Some studies have even suggested that it may increase the likelihood of later violent or criminal behaviour. Their findings have suggested that the effects of stress during pregnancy can last many years, including into adolescence.
Professor Vivette Glover, the lead researcher behind the exhibit from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College London, said: "We all know that if a mother smokes or drinks a lot of alcohol while pregnant it can affect her fetus. Our work has shown that other more subtle factors, such as her emotional state, can also have long-term effects on her child. We hope our exhibit will demonstrate in a fun way why we all need to look after expectant mothers' emotional wellbeing.
"Our research shows that stress due to the mother's relationship with her partner can be particularly damaging. We want fathers visiting our exhibit to see how they can help with the development of their child even before the birth, by helping their partner to stay happy," added Professor Glover.
The researchers say that the stress hormone cortisol may be one way in which the fetus is affected by the mother's anxiety during pregnancy. Usually the placenta protects the unborn baby from the mother's cortisol, by producing an enzyme that breaks the hormone down. When the mother is very stressed, this enzyme works less well and lets her cortisol through the placenta. By studying the amount of cortisol in the amniotic fluid, the Imperial researchers' latest study suggests that the higher the level of cortisol in the womb, the lower the toddler's cognitive development or "baby IQ" at 18 months.
Kieran O'Donnell from the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College London said: "We are very excited to have this opportunity to talk with the public about our work. We think that by promoting awareness of this subject we may be able to benefit many families in the future."
SOURCE
Four out of five Britons want immigration capped, poll shows
Eight out of ten voters want a cap on immigration and say Alan Johnson is 'out of touch' with the public mood. The findings are revealed in two separate opinion polls which will set alarm bells ringing for the Home Secretary. Mr Johnson recently insisted he does not 'lie awake at night' worrying about the UK population soon reaching 70million.
But his stance is even at odds with voters in his own rock solid Labour constituency of Hull West and Hessle, where 80 per cent of people said both that he was out of step with their views, and that immigration was putting too much strain on public services. The polls were carried out by the pressure group Migrationwatch and by the Home Office itself.
The Ipsos Mori research for Mr Johnson's department found 81 per cent of Britons favour a cap on immigration - a policy which Mr Johnson explicitly rejected only a few days ago. The Migrationwatch poll, conducted by ORB, found 81 per cent of the public are worried about the prospect of the population reaching 70million in 2028, as predicted by Whitehall statisticians. It is currently 61million. Seventy- eight per cent say Alan Johnson is out of touch with people like them.
And 76 per cent want to see net immigration - the number of migrants entering the country minus the number leaving - cut from its present level of 237,000 a year to 50,000 or less. Of that 76 per cent, 32 per cent want to see a policy of 'one in, one out' while 22 per cent want to see no immigration at all.
Broken down by party affiliation, 90 per cent of Conservative voters are worried about a population of 70 million. For Labour voters it was 70 per cent and for the Liberal Democrats 76 per cent.
In Mr Johnson's own constituency, 83 per cent of voters want to see net immigration reduced to 50,000 a year or less, and 78 per cent oppose his general attitude to immigration and population. Some 73 per cent are concerned that Britain is losing its identity and culture.
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of Migrationwatch, said: 'The new Home Secretary and the Prime Minister are hopelessly out of touch with the mood of the nation on this issue. 'This is not just about a "cap" on immigration. It is about the future of our country. 'Failure to cut immigration back to the level of the early Nineties will result in our population going to 70, then 80million and beyond as immigration is the main driver of population growth. 'In many parts of Britain the public are seething with resentment at the total failure of the political class to take seriously their deep concerns about the impact of immigration on the future of our country.'
The Home Office's own research, released separately to the Migrationwatch poll, found that 64 per cent of adults believe 'laws on immigration should be much tougher', while another 9 per cent said immigration should be halted completely. Only 7 per cent favoured more relaxed immigration policies. While the economy has taken over as the biggest single concern facing adults in the UK - up from 4 to 54 per cent in the past 18 months - immigration remains a major issue.
In the Home Office study, 69 per cent described immigration as either a 'big problem' or a 'very big problem', listing the burden on public service and pressure on jobs as their main concerns.
The Home Secretary caused astonishment last week when he told MPs he was relaxed about Britain's population rising from its current level of 61million to 70million in the next few years, claiming he 'did not lie awake' worrying about the prospect. He rejected setting an upper limit on the UK population, claiming any figure would be 'arbitrary' and would harm the economy. And he accused those who argue that mass immigration has left more native Britons unemployed of using the same rhetoric of 'hate and division' as fascist leader Oswald Mosley.
A Home Office spokesman said of the Migrationwatch poll: 'This survey tells us nothing - it is based on leading questions, and the Home Secretary's comments about Britain's population have been taken out of context. 'The Home Secretary made it very clear that he did not favour a cap on immigration because it is a crude measure which could harm the economy and is not as effective as the points-based system the Government introduced in 2008.'
SOURCE
Friday, July 24, 2009
British schools are the problem, not its elite universities
Alan Milburn's new report into social mobility is not entirely surprising. Those of us who write about education know that social position, the background you come from and what your parents do, all make a huge difference to what you will become when you grow up. And in today's Times, Mr Milburn writes about social mobility and education.
But the new report covers more than our children's schools - and has over 80 recommedations. Certain professions should have a much wider intake, says Mr Milburn, and so should universities.
But here's John O'Leary, author of the Good University Guide, with his take on the report: he's not completely impressed....
"There are many good ideas in Alan Milburn's report on social mobility, Unleashing Aspiration - not least a proposed network of careers mentors and the extension of financial support beyond full-time undergraduates. But few of them involve universities, which the report considers the key to greater mobility.
Like most of the debates in this area, this one confuses widening participation in higher education as a whole with fair access to the most prestigious universities. Both are important, but they are not the same thing. So by encouraging more students to stay at home and go to their local FE college, for example, you may send out the message that it does not matter where people take a degree.
In fact, as the report acknowledges, it does matter both in terms of the quality of course and subsequent career prospects. What prospective students need - especially those from families and schools with little knowledge of universities - is the best possible advice on their options. These may involve highly selective universities, but the most suitable course might well be elsewhere.
The report assumes that the most highly-qualified students should go to the universities at the top of the league tables, quoting the 13 regarded by the Sutton Trust as the cream of the crop. The fact that there are 13, rather than ten or 20, shows what an arbitrary dividing line this is. Are the tens of thousands who apply to Manchester (the most popular university in terms of applications) or Exeter (which is in the current top ten in The Times Good University Guide) deluded?
Mr Milburn's panel wants yet more information to be published on the socio-economic background of entrants to university. But there are statistics galore on students' class, school and home area. A few more will not change anything.
Not surprisingly, there is no flash of inspiration in the report that will transform access to the most selective universities. Many of the proposals, such as partnerships with poor schools and extra leeway for applicants from schools and colleges with low average results, are well established already. If anything, the 392m spent on widening participation over the past five years to limited effect, suggests that there are too many initiatives, rather than too few.
Mr Milburn - and the Government, which commissioned the report - are right to be concerned about access to the professions and, by extension, to the top universities. Indeed, David Willetts, who leads for the Conservatives on universities, raised many of the same concerns in a speech to the Politeia think tank yesterday. But, while the charge of social elitism can still be levelled at a few universities, the focus should be on state schools if real progress is to be made on social mobility."
SOURCE
Another grateful asylum seeker at work
A rapist who posed as a policeman to get into his 89-year-old victim's home was snared because she copied a scene from CSI and scratched his face for DNA. Bouncer Mauro Lopes, 31, who weighs 20 stone, raped the frail seven-stone widow twice after tricking his way into her home in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
In the midst of her horrific ordeal she had the presence of mind to remember an episode of the cult U.S. forensics drama - and clawed his face knowing police would be able to retrieve his DNA from under her fingernails. It allowed detectives to catch Lopes just two days after the attack on March 14 because he was already on the national database after a drink-driving offence in 2005.
Lopes, who won asylum after coming to the UK from Angola on a false passport seven years ago, was jailed for nine years at Leeds Crown Court yesterday. Prosecuting, Felicity Davis said the attack - after Lopes put a large pillow over the woman's face - was so violent that she had to be taken to hospital with heavy bleeding.
But the widow of 20 years managed to tell police: 'I have been watching CSI so I scratched his face so you could get DNA from my fingernails.' Unable now to live alone, she is in a care home but still has trouble sleeping. She cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Anne Dixon, defending, told the court that Lopes was remorseful and, in his own words, 'had fallen out of his personality with drink'. He carried out the attack following a visit to a lapdancing club after discovering his girlfriend was cheating on him.
Judge Peter Collier QC said his offences were 'vile and extreme' and added: 'He is a 31-year-old man with all his faculties and his desires. He got drunk and did something unspeakable.' Lopes had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. It is thought he will be deported at the end of his sentence.
SOURCE
Failed asylum seekers will get free British health care
They should not even be still in Britain
NHS treatment will be available for tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers to ensure their human rights are honoured, it was announced yesterday. At present, they are denied free treatment if an asylum bid has been turned down but they have not left the country. But a Government U-turn means failed applicants who are destitute or cannot return home 'through no fault of their own', will be entitled to free care.
The decision increases the numbers potentially able to use the NHS by tens of thousands. But the campaign group MigrationWatch believes it could open the floodgates to 'up to a million' illegal immigrants. Last night doctors undermined the strategy by saying it was not their job to act as immigration officers - raising the possibility that GPs would refuse to ask failed asylum seekers tough questions about their status.
There are understood to be around 450,000 failed asylum seekers who have not left the country, although only 10 or 20,000 are directly affected by the new rules.
Yesterday Health Minister Ann Keen presented the measures which include the new clause as an attempt to end health tourism, where residents from poorer countries travel to Britain for treatment, as well as maintaining the Government's commitment to human rights. In a written statement to the Commons, she said: 'Persons seeking refuge or asylum are already exempted from charges for the duration of their application, including the full appeal process. 'The Government has not been persuaded that this full exemption should be extended to all whose application has failed but have not yet left the country.
'It has however recognised the case for those whose claim has been refused but who are being supported by the UK Border Agency because they would otherwise-be destitute, have children-and/or because it is impossible-to return home through no fault of their own. 'It is therefore proposed that an exemption from charges is extended to this group.'
Health tourism is understood to cost the NHS more than 200million a year. Most countries have social insurance systems where patients are expected to prove they can pay before being treated. But our NHS is free at the point of need.
Mrs Keen said ministers wanted to see rules which would mean foreigners with significant debts to the NHS being banned from entering Britain. She is also 'investigating the longer-term feasibility' of introducing a requirement that everyone entering the country would have to have health insurance.
Mrs Keen said: 'These changes will support a clearer and fairer system of access to free NHS services that will maintain the confidence of the public and prevent inappropriate access, while maintaining our commitment to human rights.'
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said the rules gave the green light for up to one million illegal immigrants to get free NHS care. This is possible because GPs can put patients on their books without checking if they are entitled to free care. Sir Andrew said: 'This is yet another capitulation to the immigration lobby. No wonder they are queueing up in Calais.'
The British Medical Association said all failed asylum seekers should be treated free - and that it was not their job to decide who is eligible for free care and who is not. Head of ethics Dr Vivienne Nathanson said: 'There are many who have had an asylum claim refused, cannot return home and need urgent treatment. This announcement, while positive, applies to only one group and does not go far enough.'
SOURCE
Infantile defacing of the Bible is sad for the defacers not for the Bible
It shows how poorly they have been taught the wonderful stories and great truths of the Bible. Unlike the Koran the Bible does not require enforced respect. It is is just there for those who are blessed to drink of its wisdom and feel the liberating power of its messaage
A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art - and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity. The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth. The open Bible is a central part of Made in God's Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: "If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it."
The exhibit, Untitled 2009, was proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church, which said that the idea was to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text. But to the horror of many Christians, including the community church, visitors have daubed its pages with comments such as "This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all." A contributor wrote on the first page of Genesis: "I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this."
The Church of Scotland expressed concern, the Roman Catholic Church called the exhibit infantile, and a Christian lawyers' group said that the exhibition was symptomatic of a broken and lawless society.
The exhibition has been created by the artists Anthony Schrag and David Malone, in association with organisations representing gay Christians and Muslims. Mr Schrag, the gallery's artist in residence, said that he did not believe in God, but that his research for the 7,000 show had underlined his respect for people of faith.
The community church, which celebrates "racial, cultural, linguistic, sexual, gender and theological diversity", had suggested the "interactive" Bible and pens and Mr Schrag, 34, said he had been intrigued. "Any offensive things that have been written are not the point of the work," he said. "It was an open gesture. Are those who say they are upset offended by the things that people write, or just by the very notion that someone should write on a Bible?"
The artist, a Canadian who took a master's degree at Glasgow School of Art, said that human rights were at the centre of the show. "If we are to open up the Bible for discussion, surely we have to invite people to speak out," he said. "Art allows us to discuss difficult things, and Goma allows difficult discussions to take place - that is why Glasgow is at the cutting edge of contemporary art."
Jane Clarke, a minister of the community church, said she regretted the insults that had appeared. "The Bible should never be used like that. It was our intention to reclaim it as a sacred text," she said. While the exhibition's supporters insist that the exhibit promotes "inclusivity" and should break down barriers between orthodox religion and gay and transgendered people, most contributors have paid scant regard to matters of sexuality.
One writer has altered the first line of the Old Testament from "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth" to "In the beginning, God (me) I created religion." Another has written "The Gospel According to Luke Skywalker". The main sentiment, however, is rage at Christianity. "F*** the Bible", one message says.
Last night the producers of the exhibition indicated that the most offensive pages would be removed, but Christians expressed outrage and disbelief that the show had been staged at all. "This is symbolic of the state of our broken and lawless society," said Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre. "We have got to a point where we call the desecration of the Bible modern art. The Bible stands for everything this art does not: for creation, beauty, hope and regeneration."
The Church of Scotland said it condemned any sacrilegious act. "We would discourage anyone from defacing the Bible," a Kirk spokesman said. A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced."
A video by Roxanne Claxton forms a second element in the exhibition. It shows a young woman ripping pages out of the Bible and stuffing them in her knickers and bra, and in her mouth. The film showed "the word as power", Mr Schrag said. "Roxanne gave a performance where she ate a Bible and it became part of her."
Made in God's Image is part of a series of exhibitions focusing on human rights organised by Culture and Sport Glasgow, part of the city council. The division's chief executive is Dr Bridget McConnell, wife of the former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell.
SOURCE
100m blood filter treatment that stops CJD is `too expensive for NHS patients'
Just firing a few of their army of clerks and administrators would enable them to afford it easily
A medical breakthrough that prevents the spread of the human form of mad cow disease via blood transfusions may be denied to NHS patients because it costs too much. More than 60 adults having surgery have received blood free of the risk of variant CJD in trials overseen by the National Blood and Transplant Authority. The advance centres on a filter that can remove the rogue vCJD protein, called a prion, from blood in just 30 minutes - eliminating the patient's risk of catching the brain disease.
The filter could restore faith in British blood supplies which are proven to be tainted with vCJD after several deaths related to transfusions. But documents reveal it has been branded `not cost-effective' and experts warn it will double the price of producing red blood cells, leaving a bill for an extra 100million.
Donors who do not realise they are carrying the disease, which can have an incubation period of up to 50 years before showing symptoms, risk passing on vCJD when they give blood. It is feared as many as one in 4,000 could be carriers. There is no reliable way of testing stored blood to see if it is infected.
The filter simply clips on to the blood collection bag and red cells are slowly dripped through it into an empty bag underneath. Any prions are captured in a mesh containing resins that are designed to `attract' amino acids found on the surface of vCJD proteins. Animal studies have proved it prevents transmission of the deadly disease through blood transfusions.
But minutes of the advisory committee on the Safety of Blood Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) record: `Implementation of prion filtration is not cost-effective under the majority of scenarios modelled for risk.'
One proposal is for filtered blood to be initially given only to under 16s, on grounds of cost, as they are least likely to have been exposed to `mad cow' disease through eating BSE-infected meat.
Estimates from the National Blood and Transplant Authority say the cost to the NHS of producing one unit of blood - about a pint - would double, from 50 to around 100 using the filter, meaning it could cost about 100million to introduce.
However, while declining to give exact figures, manufacturer MacoPharma says its P-Capt filter - which is classed as a medical device and was awarded the European CE quality mark in 2006 - would probably cost the health service half this amount.
Judy Kenny, wife of Deryck Kenny, 69, who died in 2003 after contracting vCJD through a blood transfusion, said: `As a nurse, I know there has to be good evidence it is safe and it works. `As the wife of someone who died after contracting vCJD through blood, I think cost should not be a reason to stop it being introduced.'
A spokesman for the Health Department said: `Cost benefit analysis is carried out on all new measures to assist SaBTO in its decision and is one of several factors it will consider. `This does not mean prion filtration will be turned down purely on the basis of cost.'
SOURCE
BRITISH CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY IN DOUBT AS NEW GOVERNMENT LOOMS LARGE
Planning delays caused by a transition to a new government after next year's election threaten to hold up investment needed to secure Britain's energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions, industry leaders have warned. Ernst & Young, the professional services group, says in a report on Tuesday that the years to 2015 will be "critical" in determining whether Britain meets targets to develop renewable energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Over the next seven years the industry will have to invest 90bn ($149bn) in new wind farms, power stations, electricity networks and energy efficiency measures to have a chance of achieving the government's objectives, E&Y believes.
But concerns are growing in the energy industry that Tory plans to sweep away the new planning system being introduced by Labour will create uncertainty and delay investment plans until well after the next election, expected to be held in May next year.
Tony Ward, a partner in E&Y's power team, said: "If a transition to a new government doesn't happen seamlessly, then the risk is we won't be on the critical path for some investments. If a new nuclear power station, for example, is to be operating in 2018, there are critical decision points only 12 to 18 months away."
Industry concerns centre on the new Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will take decisions on large projects including energy investments, and the National Policy Statements, due in the autumn, which are intended to shape planning decisions.
The Conservatives plan to subsume the IPC into the Planning Inspectorate and pass its role for decisions on strategic projects to a minister, probably the energy secretary in the case of power stations, wind farms and grid connections. The energy industry fears another period of uncertainty while the new system beds down. The Tories plan to retain the NPSs, but the statements are subject to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny and the industry is keen to avoid further delay.
Sarwjit Sambhi, director of power generation at Centrica, which commissioned the E&Y study, said: "We don't have a problem with [the Tory plan] per se; we just hope that it happens expediently and smoothly."
SOURCE
BRITISH AIRLINES CUT FLIGHTS IN GREEN TAX-HIKE PROTEST
Britain's largest low-cost airline is to cut almost a third of its flights from Stansted this winter, blaming "unfair" passenger taxes for making the routes uneconomical. Ryanair, which currently runs 40 aircraft from Stansted, its main London hub, will run just 24 planes from October, leading to a 30 per cent reduction in the number of weekly flights. It is the latest airline to cut its schedules, increasing the pressure from the aviation and tourist industries on the Chancellor to review the controversial air passenger duty (APD).
Belgium, Holland, Greece and Spain have all reduced or scrapped similar taxes to boost tourism during the recession. Yesterday Ryanair's arch-rival easyJet joined in the attack, branding the tax "certifiably bonkers".
The British Air Transport Association (Bata) has already approached the Government over the issue as many of its members have warned the measure could have a disastrous impact on an industry already suffering heavily from the effects of the recession. An industry analyst, Rigas Doganis, said that the decline of the aviation industry had been "absolutely frightening".
However, industry sources believe that while a 1 rise in the tax in November appears to be a "fait accompli", they are concentrating their efforts on stopping a doubling of the tax, due to come in next year. APD first came into effect in 1994 but was overhauled in the pre-Budget report last November. The tax is in four bands, dependent on how far the passenger flies. In Europe, there is currently a flat 10 fee for passengers on shorthaul economy flights, rising to 40 to fly further. This will rise to 22 and 90 from November next year. The Government introduced it as a green tax, which easyJet rejected yesterday. "As an environmental tax it is stupidity itself as it is a flat rate. A passenger flying on the most environmentally friendly plane will pay the same as one on a dirty old banger."
Virgin Atlantic also came out against the tax, and has started printing anti-APD messages on its e-tickets. Sir Richard Branson called it "one of the most unjust taxes out there" on a website launched railing against APD. He said there was "not a shred of evidence to suggest the 2bn-plus currently raised is going towards environmental or sustainable projects".
More HERE
Drinking milk 'cuts risk of dying from heart disease and stroke by one fifth'
This appears to be a review of epidemiological studies with all their attendant limitations. Maybe middle class kids are given more milk so all we are seeing is a class effect, for instance
Drinking milk could cut your chances of dying from heart disease and stroke, say scientists. Contrary to reports that milk harms health, they claim consumption could reduce the risk of succumbing to chronic illness by as much as a fifth.
Scientists at Reading and Cardiff universities reviewed 324 studies on the effects of milk consumption. They found milk protects against developing most diseases, apart from prostate cancer, and can cut deaths from illnesses by 15 to 20 per cent.
Reading University's Professor Ian Givens said milk had more to offer than just building strong bones and helping growth. 'Our review made it possible to assess whether increased milk consumption provides a survival advantage or not,' he said. 'We believe it does. 'When the numbers of deaths from coronary heart disease, stroke and colo-rectal cancer were taken into account, there is strong evidence of an overall reduction in the risk of dying. 'We found no evidence milk might increase the risk of developing conditions, with the exception of prostate cancer. '
The reviewers say that encouraging greater milk consumption might eventually reduce NHS treatment costs because of lower levels of chronic disease. 'There is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms involved and for focused studies to confirm the epidemiological evidence since this topic has major implications for the agri-food industry' said Professor Givens.
SOURCE
British schoolboy is first convicted of racist abuse of classmate
Bullying is very common at school and blacks are often abusive and intimidating to whites (read the second post down here if you doubt it) but I have yet to hear of a black kid going ro jail over it
Alan Milburn's new report into social mobility is not entirely surprising. Those of us who write about education know that social position, the background you come from and what your parents do, all make a huge difference to what you will become when you grow up. And in today's Times, Mr Milburn writes about social mobility and education.
But the new report covers more than our children's schools - and has over 80 recommedations. Certain professions should have a much wider intake, says Mr Milburn, and so should universities.
But here's John O'Leary, author of the Good University Guide, with his take on the report: he's not completely impressed....
"There are many good ideas in Alan Milburn's report on social mobility, Unleashing Aspiration - not least a proposed network of careers mentors and the extension of financial support beyond full-time undergraduates. But few of them involve universities, which the report considers the key to greater mobility.
Like most of the debates in this area, this one confuses widening participation in higher education as a whole with fair access to the most prestigious universities. Both are important, but they are not the same thing. So by encouraging more students to stay at home and go to their local FE college, for example, you may send out the message that it does not matter where people take a degree.
In fact, as the report acknowledges, it does matter both in terms of the quality of course and subsequent career prospects. What prospective students need - especially those from families and schools with little knowledge of universities - is the best possible advice on their options. These may involve highly selective universities, but the most suitable course might well be elsewhere.
The report assumes that the most highly-qualified students should go to the universities at the top of the league tables, quoting the 13 regarded by the Sutton Trust as the cream of the crop. The fact that there are 13, rather than ten or 20, shows what an arbitrary dividing line this is. Are the tens of thousands who apply to Manchester (the most popular university in terms of applications) or Exeter (which is in the current top ten in The Times Good University Guide) deluded?
Mr Milburn's panel wants yet more information to be published on the socio-economic background of entrants to university. But there are statistics galore on students' class, school and home area. A few more will not change anything.
Not surprisingly, there is no flash of inspiration in the report that will transform access to the most selective universities. Many of the proposals, such as partnerships with poor schools and extra leeway for applicants from schools and colleges with low average results, are well established already. If anything, the 392m spent on widening participation over the past five years to limited effect, suggests that there are too many initiatives, rather than too few.
Mr Milburn - and the Government, which commissioned the report - are right to be concerned about access to the professions and, by extension, to the top universities. Indeed, David Willetts, who leads for the Conservatives on universities, raised many of the same concerns in a speech to the Politeia think tank yesterday. But, while the charge of social elitism can still be levelled at a few universities, the focus should be on state schools if real progress is to be made on social mobility."
SOURCE
Another grateful asylum seeker at work
A rapist who posed as a policeman to get into his 89-year-old victim's home was snared because she copied a scene from CSI and scratched his face for DNA. Bouncer Mauro Lopes, 31, who weighs 20 stone, raped the frail seven-stone widow twice after tricking his way into her home in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
In the midst of her horrific ordeal she had the presence of mind to remember an episode of the cult U.S. forensics drama - and clawed his face knowing police would be able to retrieve his DNA from under her fingernails. It allowed detectives to catch Lopes just two days after the attack on March 14 because he was already on the national database after a drink-driving offence in 2005.
Lopes, who won asylum after coming to the UK from Angola on a false passport seven years ago, was jailed for nine years at Leeds Crown Court yesterday. Prosecuting, Felicity Davis said the attack - after Lopes put a large pillow over the woman's face - was so violent that she had to be taken to hospital with heavy bleeding.
But the widow of 20 years managed to tell police: 'I have been watching CSI so I scratched his face so you could get DNA from my fingernails.' Unable now to live alone, she is in a care home but still has trouble sleeping. She cannot be identified for legal reasons.
Anne Dixon, defending, told the court that Lopes was remorseful and, in his own words, 'had fallen out of his personality with drink'. He carried out the attack following a visit to a lapdancing club after discovering his girlfriend was cheating on him.
Judge Peter Collier QC said his offences were 'vile and extreme' and added: 'He is a 31-year-old man with all his faculties and his desires. He got drunk and did something unspeakable.' Lopes had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of rape and one count of sexual assault. It is thought he will be deported at the end of his sentence.
SOURCE
Failed asylum seekers will get free British health care
They should not even be still in Britain
NHS treatment will be available for tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers to ensure their human rights are honoured, it was announced yesterday. At present, they are denied free treatment if an asylum bid has been turned down but they have not left the country. But a Government U-turn means failed applicants who are destitute or cannot return home 'through no fault of their own', will be entitled to free care.
The decision increases the numbers potentially able to use the NHS by tens of thousands. But the campaign group MigrationWatch believes it could open the floodgates to 'up to a million' illegal immigrants. Last night doctors undermined the strategy by saying it was not their job to act as immigration officers - raising the possibility that GPs would refuse to ask failed asylum seekers tough questions about their status.
There are understood to be around 450,000 failed asylum seekers who have not left the country, although only 10 or 20,000 are directly affected by the new rules.
Yesterday Health Minister Ann Keen presented the measures which include the new clause as an attempt to end health tourism, where residents from poorer countries travel to Britain for treatment, as well as maintaining the Government's commitment to human rights. In a written statement to the Commons, she said: 'Persons seeking refuge or asylum are already exempted from charges for the duration of their application, including the full appeal process. 'The Government has not been persuaded that this full exemption should be extended to all whose application has failed but have not yet left the country.
'It has however recognised the case for those whose claim has been refused but who are being supported by the UK Border Agency because they would otherwise-be destitute, have children-and/or because it is impossible-to return home through no fault of their own. 'It is therefore proposed that an exemption from charges is extended to this group.'
Health tourism is understood to cost the NHS more than 200million a year. Most countries have social insurance systems where patients are expected to prove they can pay before being treated. But our NHS is free at the point of need.
Mrs Keen said ministers wanted to see rules which would mean foreigners with significant debts to the NHS being banned from entering Britain. She is also 'investigating the longer-term feasibility' of introducing a requirement that everyone entering the country would have to have health insurance.
Mrs Keen said: 'These changes will support a clearer and fairer system of access to free NHS services that will maintain the confidence of the public and prevent inappropriate access, while maintaining our commitment to human rights.'
Sir Andrew Green, chairman of MigrationWatch, said the rules gave the green light for up to one million illegal immigrants to get free NHS care. This is possible because GPs can put patients on their books without checking if they are entitled to free care. Sir Andrew said: 'This is yet another capitulation to the immigration lobby. No wonder they are queueing up in Calais.'
The British Medical Association said all failed asylum seekers should be treated free - and that it was not their job to decide who is eligible for free care and who is not. Head of ethics Dr Vivienne Nathanson said: 'There are many who have had an asylum claim refused, cannot return home and need urgent treatment. This announcement, while positive, applies to only one group and does not go far enough.'
SOURCE
Infantile defacing of the Bible is sad for the defacers not for the Bible
It shows how poorly they have been taught the wonderful stories and great truths of the Bible. Unlike the Koran the Bible does not require enforced respect. It is is just there for those who are blessed to drink of its wisdom and feel the liberating power of its messaage
A publicly funded exhibition is encouraging people to deface the Bible in the name of art - and visitors have responded with abuse and obscenity. The show includes a video of a woman ripping pages from the Bible and stuffing them into her bra, knickers and mouth. The open Bible is a central part of Made in God's Image, an exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (Goma) in Glasgow. By the book is a container of pens and a notice saying: "If you feel you have been excluded from the Bible, please write your way back into it."
The exhibit, Untitled 2009, was proposed by the Metropolitan Community Church, which said that the idea was to reclaim the Bible as a sacred text. But to the horror of many Christians, including the community church, visitors have daubed its pages with comments such as "This is all sexist pish, so disregard it all." A contributor wrote on the first page of Genesis: "I am Bi, Female & Proud. I want no god who is disappointed in this."
The Church of Scotland expressed concern, the Roman Catholic Church called the exhibit infantile, and a Christian lawyers' group said that the exhibition was symptomatic of a broken and lawless society.
The exhibition has been created by the artists Anthony Schrag and David Malone, in association with organisations representing gay Christians and Muslims. Mr Schrag, the gallery's artist in residence, said that he did not believe in God, but that his research for the 7,000 show had underlined his respect for people of faith.
The community church, which celebrates "racial, cultural, linguistic, sexual, gender and theological diversity", had suggested the "interactive" Bible and pens and Mr Schrag, 34, said he had been intrigued. "Any offensive things that have been written are not the point of the work," he said. "It was an open gesture. Are those who say they are upset offended by the things that people write, or just by the very notion that someone should write on a Bible?"
The artist, a Canadian who took a master's degree at Glasgow School of Art, said that human rights were at the centre of the show. "If we are to open up the Bible for discussion, surely we have to invite people to speak out," he said. "Art allows us to discuss difficult things, and Goma allows difficult discussions to take place - that is why Glasgow is at the cutting edge of contemporary art."
Jane Clarke, a minister of the community church, said she regretted the insults that had appeared. "The Bible should never be used like that. It was our intention to reclaim it as a sacred text," she said. While the exhibition's supporters insist that the exhibit promotes "inclusivity" and should break down barriers between orthodox religion and gay and transgendered people, most contributors have paid scant regard to matters of sexuality.
One writer has altered the first line of the Old Testament from "In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth" to "In the beginning, God (me) I created religion." Another has written "The Gospel According to Luke Skywalker". The main sentiment, however, is rage at Christianity. "F*** the Bible", one message says.
Last night the producers of the exhibition indicated that the most offensive pages would be removed, but Christians expressed outrage and disbelief that the show had been staged at all. "This is symbolic of the state of our broken and lawless society," said Andrea Minichiello Williams, director of the Christian Legal Centre. "We have got to a point where we call the desecration of the Bible modern art. The Bible stands for everything this art does not: for creation, beauty, hope and regeneration."
The Church of Scotland said it condemned any sacrilegious act. "We would discourage anyone from defacing the Bible," a Kirk spokesman said. A spokesman for the Catholic Church said: "One wonders whether the organisers would have been quite as willing to have the Koran defaced."
A video by Roxanne Claxton forms a second element in the exhibition. It shows a young woman ripping pages out of the Bible and stuffing them in her knickers and bra, and in her mouth. The film showed "the word as power", Mr Schrag said. "Roxanne gave a performance where she ate a Bible and it became part of her."
Made in God's Image is part of a series of exhibitions focusing on human rights organised by Culture and Sport Glasgow, part of the city council. The division's chief executive is Dr Bridget McConnell, wife of the former Labour First Minister Jack McConnell.
SOURCE
100m blood filter treatment that stops CJD is `too expensive for NHS patients'
Just firing a few of their army of clerks and administrators would enable them to afford it easily
A medical breakthrough that prevents the spread of the human form of mad cow disease via blood transfusions may be denied to NHS patients because it costs too much. More than 60 adults having surgery have received blood free of the risk of variant CJD in trials overseen by the National Blood and Transplant Authority. The advance centres on a filter that can remove the rogue vCJD protein, called a prion, from blood in just 30 minutes - eliminating the patient's risk of catching the brain disease.
The filter could restore faith in British blood supplies which are proven to be tainted with vCJD after several deaths related to transfusions. But documents reveal it has been branded `not cost-effective' and experts warn it will double the price of producing red blood cells, leaving a bill for an extra 100million.
Donors who do not realise they are carrying the disease, which can have an incubation period of up to 50 years before showing symptoms, risk passing on vCJD when they give blood. It is feared as many as one in 4,000 could be carriers. There is no reliable way of testing stored blood to see if it is infected.
The filter simply clips on to the blood collection bag and red cells are slowly dripped through it into an empty bag underneath. Any prions are captured in a mesh containing resins that are designed to `attract' amino acids found on the surface of vCJD proteins. Animal studies have proved it prevents transmission of the deadly disease through blood transfusions.
But minutes of the advisory committee on the Safety of Blood Tissues and Organs (SaBTO) record: `Implementation of prion filtration is not cost-effective under the majority of scenarios modelled for risk.'
One proposal is for filtered blood to be initially given only to under 16s, on grounds of cost, as they are least likely to have been exposed to `mad cow' disease through eating BSE-infected meat.
Estimates from the National Blood and Transplant Authority say the cost to the NHS of producing one unit of blood - about a pint - would double, from 50 to around 100 using the filter, meaning it could cost about 100million to introduce.
However, while declining to give exact figures, manufacturer MacoPharma says its P-Capt filter - which is classed as a medical device and was awarded the European CE quality mark in 2006 - would probably cost the health service half this amount.
Judy Kenny, wife of Deryck Kenny, 69, who died in 2003 after contracting vCJD through a blood transfusion, said: `As a nurse, I know there has to be good evidence it is safe and it works. `As the wife of someone who died after contracting vCJD through blood, I think cost should not be a reason to stop it being introduced.'
A spokesman for the Health Department said: `Cost benefit analysis is carried out on all new measures to assist SaBTO in its decision and is one of several factors it will consider. `This does not mean prion filtration will be turned down purely on the basis of cost.'
SOURCE
BRITISH CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY IN DOUBT AS NEW GOVERNMENT LOOMS LARGE
Planning delays caused by a transition to a new government after next year's election threaten to hold up investment needed to secure Britain's energy supplies and cut carbon dioxide emissions, industry leaders have warned. Ernst & Young, the professional services group, says in a report on Tuesday that the years to 2015 will be "critical" in determining whether Britain meets targets to develop renewable energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.
Over the next seven years the industry will have to invest 90bn ($149bn) in new wind farms, power stations, electricity networks and energy efficiency measures to have a chance of achieving the government's objectives, E&Y believes.
But concerns are growing in the energy industry that Tory plans to sweep away the new planning system being introduced by Labour will create uncertainty and delay investment plans until well after the next election, expected to be held in May next year.
Tony Ward, a partner in E&Y's power team, said: "If a transition to a new government doesn't happen seamlessly, then the risk is we won't be on the critical path for some investments. If a new nuclear power station, for example, is to be operating in 2018, there are critical decision points only 12 to 18 months away."
Industry concerns centre on the new Infrastructure Planning Commission, which will take decisions on large projects including energy investments, and the National Policy Statements, due in the autumn, which are intended to shape planning decisions.
The Conservatives plan to subsume the IPC into the Planning Inspectorate and pass its role for decisions on strategic projects to a minister, probably the energy secretary in the case of power stations, wind farms and grid connections. The energy industry fears another period of uncertainty while the new system beds down. The Tories plan to retain the NPSs, but the statements are subject to consultation and parliamentary scrutiny and the industry is keen to avoid further delay.
Sarwjit Sambhi, director of power generation at Centrica, which commissioned the E&Y study, said: "We don't have a problem with [the Tory plan] per se; we just hope that it happens expediently and smoothly."
SOURCE
BRITISH AIRLINES CUT FLIGHTS IN GREEN TAX-HIKE PROTEST
Britain's largest low-cost airline is to cut almost a third of its flights from Stansted this winter, blaming "unfair" passenger taxes for making the routes uneconomical. Ryanair, which currently runs 40 aircraft from Stansted, its main London hub, will run just 24 planes from October, leading to a 30 per cent reduction in the number of weekly flights. It is the latest airline to cut its schedules, increasing the pressure from the aviation and tourist industries on the Chancellor to review the controversial air passenger duty (APD).
Belgium, Holland, Greece and Spain have all reduced or scrapped similar taxes to boost tourism during the recession. Yesterday Ryanair's arch-rival easyJet joined in the attack, branding the tax "certifiably bonkers".
The British Air Transport Association (Bata) has already approached the Government over the issue as many of its members have warned the measure could have a disastrous impact on an industry already suffering heavily from the effects of the recession. An industry analyst, Rigas Doganis, said that the decline of the aviation industry had been "absolutely frightening".
However, industry sources believe that while a 1 rise in the tax in November appears to be a "fait accompli", they are concentrating their efforts on stopping a doubling of the tax, due to come in next year. APD first came into effect in 1994 but was overhauled in the pre-Budget report last November. The tax is in four bands, dependent on how far the passenger flies. In Europe, there is currently a flat 10 fee for passengers on shorthaul economy flights, rising to 40 to fly further. This will rise to 22 and 90 from November next year. The Government introduced it as a green tax, which easyJet rejected yesterday. "As an environmental tax it is stupidity itself as it is a flat rate. A passenger flying on the most environmentally friendly plane will pay the same as one on a dirty old banger."
Virgin Atlantic also came out against the tax, and has started printing anti-APD messages on its e-tickets. Sir Richard Branson called it "one of the most unjust taxes out there" on a website launched railing against APD. He said there was "not a shred of evidence to suggest the 2bn-plus currently raised is going towards environmental or sustainable projects".
More HERE
Drinking milk 'cuts risk of dying from heart disease and stroke by one fifth'
This appears to be a review of epidemiological studies with all their attendant limitations. Maybe middle class kids are given more milk so all we are seeing is a class effect, for instance
Drinking milk could cut your chances of dying from heart disease and stroke, say scientists. Contrary to reports that milk harms health, they claim consumption could reduce the risk of succumbing to chronic illness by as much as a fifth.
Scientists at Reading and Cardiff universities reviewed 324 studies on the effects of milk consumption. They found milk protects against developing most diseases, apart from prostate cancer, and can cut deaths from illnesses by 15 to 20 per cent.
Reading University's Professor Ian Givens said milk had more to offer than just building strong bones and helping growth. 'Our review made it possible to assess whether increased milk consumption provides a survival advantage or not,' he said. 'We believe it does. 'When the numbers of deaths from coronary heart disease, stroke and colo-rectal cancer were taken into account, there is strong evidence of an overall reduction in the risk of dying. 'We found no evidence milk might increase the risk of developing conditions, with the exception of prostate cancer. '
The reviewers say that encouraging greater milk consumption might eventually reduce NHS treatment costs because of lower levels of chronic disease. 'There is an urgent need to understand the mechanisms involved and for focused studies to confirm the epidemiological evidence since this topic has major implications for the agri-food industry' said Professor Givens.
SOURCE
British schoolboy is first convicted of racist abuse of classmate
Bullying is very common at school and blacks are often abusive and intimidating to whites (read the second post down here if you doubt it) but I have yet to hear of a black kid going ro jail over it
"A schoolboy is facing the threat of a year in a young offenders' institute after he became the first to be convicted of racially harrassing a fellow pupil.
The 15-year-old boy, who cannot be named, caused a 14-year-old classmate to attempt suicide by repeatedly calling her "wog, coon, nigger, gorilla and golliwog" for six months. Lincoln magistrates, who convicted the boy of racially aggravated harassment, heard that the girl took a mixture of pills and wrote a goodbye note to her family. The behaviour of the boy, who had no previous convictions, was condemned as "merciless" last night by anti-racism campaigners.
However, his conviction - the first for the crime over an incident in a school - prompted questions over whether such bullying should be dealt with through criminal law. David Green, the director of Civitas, the right-leaning think-tank, said that while the boy's behaviour should be condemned, "the law does not belong in the schoolyard in these cases".
"We are not talking stabbings or serious assault here," Dr Green said. "This should be a matter for the school and the children's parents." Josie Appleton, the director of the anti-regulation think-tank the Manifesto Club, which will publish a paper on schools' obligations over racist incidents this autumn, added: "This should be dealt with in the school.
"Criminalising it undermines the authority of schools. Teachers have to be able to set a moral example."
The boy, who denied the charge, was convicted after a six-hour trial. He will be sentenced on August 13. He faces a maximum two-year detention and training order, including 12 months in a young offenders' institute.
However, Sunil Khanna, the boy's solicitor, said: "I'm not sure a criminal prosecution was the right way forward. "I know this goes beyond normal bullying, but mistakes that might have been down to youthful ignorance will now stick with him years."
The boy's grandfather said: "It's difficult to know what to believe, they can make more out of court cases sometimes than there is. He has always protested his innocence and we are not a racist family."
Source
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Hooray! Another lying bitch goes to jail
This is one aspect of British law that it pretty good. They do jail women for false rape claims -- though not long enough in my view. The woman should serve the same time that a man would have got
A mother was jailed for two years yesterday for crying rape against a man she met on a dating website. Jennifer Day, 34, who made the false allegation against former boyfriend Andrew Saxby after a row, was told by the judge that she had undermined efforts to treat genuine rape victims fairly and sympathetically.
The court also heard that Mr Saxby was subjected to 'degrading and upsetting' examinations while being held by police for ten hours. Judge Ian Graham said the investigation had wasted 4,000 of taxpayers' money and 270 police man hours.
He added: 'The police have put great stores on providing sympathetic treatments of women who make genuine complaints of rape and you abused that. 'You have undermined and jeopardised the efforts that are being made about the need to treat genuine victims of rape properly, fairly and sympathetically. 'The offence is in itself a serious one, it has terrible consequences potentially and actually for the victim and wider implications for those women who have genuinely been raped.'
Day, a former nurse, from Corringham, Essex, split up with the father of her four-year-old daughter in 2007 after he had an affair with their lodger, Basildon Crown Court heard. She began drinking heavily to cope with the rejection and using dating websites. In September 2007 she met Mr Saxby, who worked for the Ford car company, through the Dating Direct website.
They began a relationship, but the court heard that she was also seeing another man. In January last year, the couple rowed after Mr Saxby accused her of having another man at her home. Afterwards, Day dialled 999 and accused Mr Saxby of rape. He was arrested in front of his colleagues and taken to the police station.
Judge Graham said: 'It was an extraordinary performance which involved deliberate untruths as the jury found.' The court heard that Mr Saxby was released without charge after Day dropped the allegation, although she still maintained it was true. She was found guilty of one count of perverting the course of justice last month.
During the trial, the court heard how Day had a history of making up stories. The jury was told that while working at Royal London Hospital in East London as a nurse, she suffered stress-related hair loss and led her colleagues to believe it was cancer.
Rebecca Lee, mitigating, said Day had been under a lot of strain following the break-up of her relationship with the father of her daughter. She said: 'She got involved with dating websites and going out when her daughter was staying with her former partner, going out to pubs and engaging in what she would call risky behaviour and behaving totally out of character.' Day apologised unreservedly for the allegation, the court heard.
But the judge rejected calls to suspend the sentence. 'Mr Saxby is a completely respectable man who had formed a relationship with you and had shown considerable affection and kindness of the kind you said you craved,' he said. 'His reward was to be the subject of this completely false complaint.'
Day burst into tears as she was taken down to the cells.
SOURCE
Charity, private schools and the public benefit in Britain
Private schools in Britain have traditionally been regarded as charities and been given certain tax exemptions as a result. The Labour government hates private schools so is trying to end those concessions. The hatchetwoman is the aptly-named Dame Suzy Leather, who herself had a privileged education but wants to deny that to as many others as possible
It's entirely possible to argue with a straight face that private schools damage the nation. I may disagree with you, think your contention that everyone should be forced into the failing State sector absurd, but that would be my opinion, not an objective fact thrown up by the universe to frustrate you.
However, if we were to try and discuss the costs and benefits of there being a private school sector, we would at least agree that parents paying more money to have their children educated, money over and above the taxes they have already paid the State to educate their children, is a public benefit. No? Saving the State billions which it can spend upon other things is indeed a public benefit? Sure, maybe it's one we might need to offset against other things, but it is a benefit? Not, apparently, if you are the Charities Commission:
However, this is not the worst of what the Commission is no doing as it looks at the charitable status of all those private schools. This is:
When a bureaucracy will not tell you what the law is, when they insist that everything is simply to be left to their discretion, then we have left the rule of law far behind. Indeed, I would argue that in this situation we have left the governance methods of a civilised society far behind.
Apologies for my fundamentalism in such matters but just as I'm sure there are both costs and benefits to having a private school system (and on net, benefits) there are also costs and benefits to having a Charities Commission. If such Commission is going to start using Kafka as an operations manual then, on net, we'd be better off without it. Abolish it and force Dame Suzi Leather to work for a living for a change.
SOURCE
British Hospital to face second inquiry after damning report
An NHS hospital is to be scrutinised in a second official inquiry after a report found that "appalling" emergency care led to patients dying needlessly. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said that current and former staff would be expected to co-operate with the independent inquiry into Stafford Hospital.
In March an investigation by the Healthcare Commission condemned "appalling" and "shocking" standards of care at the hospital, run by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period, and a lack of nursing staff was said to have contributed to poor patient care.
Despite two additional Department of Health reviews, campaigners and nursing unions have called for a public inquiry to analyse what part Government targets played in the failings. Mr Burnham said that the new inquiry would be chaired by Robert Francis, QC, a leading clinical negligence lawyer, who will hear evidence from patients and families and identify lessons for the future.
The inquiry was announced as part of measures to tackle "exceptional failures" in foundation trusts, which have a degree of independence from the Department of Health and control most NHS hospitals in the country. The Government said that if the chairman considered it necessary to require witnesses to attend, the Secretary of State would take the necessary steps to ensure this happened.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that the inquiry would not go far enough. "This independent inquiry could play a part in renewing public confidence but not to the same extent as a public inquiry," he said. "While I welcome the acknowledgement that individual cases have not been given a sufficient hearing, other critical issues have been sidelined. The terms of reference neither scrutinise the role of the Department of Health nor the impact of the Government's policies."
Last week Antony Sumara was appointed as chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, while Sir Stephen Moss was appointed as chairman. Former chief executive Martin Yeates resigned in March, along with the chairman, Toni Brisby, before the damning report was published. [They should both be prosecuted for murder]
SOURCE
BBC executive says corporation should foster 'left-of-centre thinking'
A senior BBC executive has claimed that the corporation should foster "left-of-centre thinking", leading to accusations of political bias from the Conservatives. Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning, said that the corporation should encourage "peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking."
According to its own royal charter, the BBC must "be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output".
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, said: "What Ben Stephenson said was a clear breach of the BBC's impartiality obligations. "No journalist or editor should be following a political agenda, let alone someone as senior as a controller." Mr Hunt said that he had written to Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, "asking for an immediate retraction and apology".
Peter Whittle, the director of The New Culture Forum, a right-leaning think tank, said: "The political slant in the non-news output of the BBC is for many harder to detect but is actually far more insidious and damaging in the effect it has on our cultural drift."
Mr Stephenson made the comments in a newspaper article in which he responded to criticism from Tony Garnett, a television producer, who accused the BBC's drama department of changing "in ways which have coarsened both it and wider culture." He wrote: "If we didn't all think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn't, wouldn't our lives, and more importantly, our TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking."
He later denied that he had meant the comment to have a political meaning. "Like 'left-field', it is a phrase that I use with frequency when talking to the creative community to encourage them to develop and approach their ideas from a completely new perspective," he said.
A BBC source said that executives believed that their casting of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, in an episode of EastEnders, proved that they did not have a left-wing bias.
Meanwhile, a report yesterday said that the licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters, because the BBC was failing to fulfil its public service remit. The paper, by Frank Field MP and David Rees, argued that the licence fee should be put in the hands of a new independent commissioning body. Broadcasters, including the BBC, would then pitch ideas for public service programmes to the body and be awarded funding accordingly. BBC One, BBC Three, Radio 1 and Radio 2 should all be put up for sale, it added.
SOURCE
A very pointed question recently asked in Britain's House of Commons
An email from the skeptical Peter Lilley [LilleyP@parliament.uk], an economist and energy analyst who is also a member of Parliament on behalf of the Conservative party:
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband): "Today's debate is held at an appropriate time - a week after the 17 countries of the Major Economies Forum met in L'Aquila in Italy and accepted the long-held scientific consensus that we should seek to prevent dangerous climate change above 2ψ C."
Peter Lilley: "The average temperature in Cornwall is more than 2ψ C higher than the average temperature in the north-east of England. Is it really dangerous for someone to move from Newcastle to Cornwall? Would it be dangerous if the north-east of England became as warm as Cornwall? Would it be dangerous if Cornwall became as warm as the Loire valley? That is what a 2ψ C increase would involve."
See Cols 462 & 482 of Hansard for 16th July
`Low carbon' is code for low ambitions
The UK's new climate change plan shows how the green ethos is used to add a gloss of respectability to economic and visionary failure
Given its isolation, unpopularity and dysfunctional relationship with `the vision thing', it seems highly unlikely that Gordon Brown's government is capable of starting a revolution. Yet that, apparently, is what it did yesterday.
Ed Miliband, the UK climate change secretary, unveiled the government's plans for cutting carbon emissions in the UK by 34 per cent by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050. In the fields of manufacturing, energy production, transport and housing, revealed Miliband in 650 pages of shiny manifestos and strategy documents, carbon-use will be slashed. Commentators were overjoyed, describing it as `nothing less than a green industrial revolution', which might rank as `one of the most important moments in British economic history' (1).
Steady on. There is nothing remotely revolutionary about Miliband's plans. And the only sense in which they are historic is that they represent - albeit in a coded, PC fashion - Britain's disavowal of its own industrial history and its final embrace of the slow life, low ambitions and the realities of economic failure. Miliband's vision, or rather anti-vision, reveals what the politics of low carbon is really all about: accommodating to the economic downturn and to the dearth of big plans for the future.
Where growing and aspirational nations like China and India produce carbon - which is simply the byproduct of large-scale energy production and manufacturing - sluggish and increasingly insignificant nations like Britain produce less carbon, or no carbon, or now, in the words of Miliband, `low carbon': codeword for a nation that isn't doing very much at all. Miliband's plans expose how the green ethos can be used to add a gloss of respectability to already-existing economic and visionary failure.
In many ways, the documents published by Miliband yesterday represented a bizarre celebration of Britain's slowdown, particularly in manufacturing, over the past 15 to 20 years. In the kind of green lingo that excites officials and commentators, Miliband effectively boasted about the fact that Britain is producing and building fewer tangible things today than it was in 1990. He outlined how New Labour has committed Britain to cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, and then said we are already more than half way to achieving that goal. `We've already achieved around a 21 per cent cut since 1990', his factsheet said, `[which is the] equivalent of cutting emissions entirely from four cities the size of London' (2).
But it is deeply disingenuous to present a 21 per cent fall in carbon emissions since 1990, the equivalent of getting rid of four Londons, as a product of some conscious, profound desire to rein in carbon-use and make the nation cleaner. Such a reduction in emissions was not brought about by the erection of a few windfarms off the south coast of England or the introduction of bin-monitoring recycling policies in the cities; more fundamentally, it reflects the contraction of manufacturing in Britain and the creeping replacement of a one-time productive economy with a services-based economy, aspects of which are not productive at all (especially the financial services sector).
Over the same period now presented by Miliband as the Glorious Era of Low Carbon, the British economy underwent huge changes. In 1986, manufacturing made up around 21 per cent of British economic activity; today it accounts for only 13 per cent. At the same time, the service side of the economy grew enormously: in 1975 services accounted for 55 per cent of British GDP; today they account for 75 per cent (3).
The post-1990 fall in carbon emissions, the effective winding down of four cities, was brought about by the closure of the remaining coalpits, the shutting up of factories, the export of car manufacturing overseas (most notoriously, with the sale of MG Rover Group for a song to Nanjing Automobile Group in 2005), and so on. All that the 21 per cent reduction in CO2 really tells us, in any meaningful sense, is that Britain is producing less real stuff today; it has fewer and fewer workers whose job is to create real, tangible things and who in the process emit the byproduct of carbon. A services-based economy tends to be `cleaner' than a manufacturing-based economy. Miliband is cynically presenting manufacturing downturn, and all the job losses and city and community deprivation that go along with it, as a brilliant central-government strategy to `clean up Britain' (4).
When it comes to planning for the future, Miliband's documents show how `building a low-carbon Britain' is justification for ditching big plans. Between now and 2020, when 34 per cent of CO2 emissions will have been cut, Miliband envisages that a whopping 50 per cent of that cut will be in the `power and heavy industry' sector, compared with 20 per cent in transport, 15 per cent in homes, 10 per cent in workplaces, and five per cent in agriculture (5). It is striking, and also rather predictable, that the climate change secretary of a nation that was once the `workshop of the world' but which now carries out less and less manufacturing should envision the biggest fall in CO2 emissions taking place in heavy industry. What he really means is that fewer things will be done in that area in the next 10, 20 or 30 years; but, rather than seeing that as a potential problem he celebrates it as part of the process of creating a new kind of world-beating low-carbon nation.
There is a glaring contradiction in some of Miliband's plans. He opportunistically celebrates the lower carbon levels that have fundamentally resulted from the sclerosis of properly productive activity, yet doesn't realise that such sclerosis is likely to impact even on his low-carbon plans. For example, in order to cut CO2 emissions in the energy sector, Miliband proposes building vastly more windfarms and new nuclear power stations (he can keep his windfarms, but more nuclear is a very good idea). However, earlier this year Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer, closed its major factory on the Isle of Wight, with the loss of 600 jobs, and cited lack of investment and too much red tape in planning procedures as the main problem (6). In response to Miliband's nuclear proposals, energy companies have complained that, actually, Britain is not conducive to big building projects right now, because everything gets tied up in endless judicial reviews and public consultations (7).
In short, Britain's general lack of manufacturing-based productivity has made the country `cleaner', yes, but it has also made it far harder to get anything done. A lack of investment in manufacturing and big build projects has lowered carbon, but it has also lowered the chances of making things happen speedily and effectively. The irony is too much: Britain is low carbon because it produces less stuff, and it is that very lack of productivity that might hamper some of Miliband's plans to make Britain even more low carbon, for example by building new nuclear power stations.
In transport and house-building, too, the low-carbon approach has clearly become a way of presenting the death of vision as something wonderful. Yesterday the minister for transport, Lord Adonis, spelt out his vision for a low-carbon transport system: his plan is not to overhaul roads, build more motorways or lay down vastly more railtracks, but rather to play around with the vehicles that travel on the already-existing creaking infrastructure. So he will introduce tougher regulation of cars that emit a lot of CO2, perhaps taxing their drivers more than others, and will spend 250million on customer incentives designed to promote electric cars. He also wants to create `sustainable travel cities': places where people travel by foot or by bike (8). Here, Britain's lack of transport vision, its abandonment of road-building and infrastructure investment over the past 10 to 15 years, is re-presented as part of the big, conscious plan for a low-carbon future.
In housing, where 10 per cent of the planned CO2 cuts will happen between now and 2020, there is not nearly enough talk of building the millions of new homes that Britain needs. Instead there is a headline focus on monitoring how we all live in the homes we have right now. One plan is to put `smart electricity meters' in 26million homes, so that we can measure how much energy we're using: those who use small amounts will be rewarded with financial incentives. This is probably what Lord Mandelson meant yesterday, when he said the big low-carbon project would `reshape our lives' (9).
The Miliband plan reveals something profound about the politics of environmentalism: it justifies, even celebrates, underdevelopment and lack of investment in infrastructure, but in the dishonest language of `low carbon' and `cleaner futures'. This is the opposite of revolutionary. Indeed, the government's adoption of a new language that effectively heralds Britain's position as a slow, meek and visionless nation is, in many ways, the final nail in the coffin of the industrial revolution that gave birth to modern Britain.
SOURCE
Cheating Saudi princess granted asylum
This is one immigration decision with which I heartily agree. There are SOME genuinely threatened refugees
A SAUDI princess who fell pregnant during an affair with a British man has been granted asylum in the UK after she claimed she could face the death penalty if she went home. A British court granted refugee status to the young woman, who is married to a member of the Saudi royal family, after she told the judge her adultery made her liable to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia, The Independent newspaper reports.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office in London refused to confirm the report, saying it did not comment on individual cases.
According to the newspaper, the princess - who was granted anonymity by the court - is one of a small number of citizens of Saudi Arabia who claim asylum in Britain but whose cases are not openly acknowledged by either government. Recognition by the British Government would be viewed as criticism of human rights in Saudi Arabia, which would embarrass both sides, it said.
The princess reportedly met her English boyfriend, who is not a Muslim, during a visit to London. She became pregnant the following year and returned to Britain to have the baby in secret.
Since then her family has broken off contact with her, and she persuaded a court that if she returned home then both she and her child would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law, namely flogging and stoning to death.
SOURCE
This is one aspect of British law that it pretty good. They do jail women for false rape claims -- though not long enough in my view. The woman should serve the same time that a man would have got
A mother was jailed for two years yesterday for crying rape against a man she met on a dating website. Jennifer Day, 34, who made the false allegation against former boyfriend Andrew Saxby after a row, was told by the judge that she had undermined efforts to treat genuine rape victims fairly and sympathetically.
The court also heard that Mr Saxby was subjected to 'degrading and upsetting' examinations while being held by police for ten hours. Judge Ian Graham said the investigation had wasted 4,000 of taxpayers' money and 270 police man hours.
He added: 'The police have put great stores on providing sympathetic treatments of women who make genuine complaints of rape and you abused that. 'You have undermined and jeopardised the efforts that are being made about the need to treat genuine victims of rape properly, fairly and sympathetically. 'The offence is in itself a serious one, it has terrible consequences potentially and actually for the victim and wider implications for those women who have genuinely been raped.'
Day, a former nurse, from Corringham, Essex, split up with the father of her four-year-old daughter in 2007 after he had an affair with their lodger, Basildon Crown Court heard. She began drinking heavily to cope with the rejection and using dating websites. In September 2007 she met Mr Saxby, who worked for the Ford car company, through the Dating Direct website.
They began a relationship, but the court heard that she was also seeing another man. In January last year, the couple rowed after Mr Saxby accused her of having another man at her home. Afterwards, Day dialled 999 and accused Mr Saxby of rape. He was arrested in front of his colleagues and taken to the police station.
Judge Graham said: 'It was an extraordinary performance which involved deliberate untruths as the jury found.' The court heard that Mr Saxby was released without charge after Day dropped the allegation, although she still maintained it was true. She was found guilty of one count of perverting the course of justice last month.
During the trial, the court heard how Day had a history of making up stories. The jury was told that while working at Royal London Hospital in East London as a nurse, she suffered stress-related hair loss and led her colleagues to believe it was cancer.
Rebecca Lee, mitigating, said Day had been under a lot of strain following the break-up of her relationship with the father of her daughter. She said: 'She got involved with dating websites and going out when her daughter was staying with her former partner, going out to pubs and engaging in what she would call risky behaviour and behaving totally out of character.' Day apologised unreservedly for the allegation, the court heard.
But the judge rejected calls to suspend the sentence. 'Mr Saxby is a completely respectable man who had formed a relationship with you and had shown considerable affection and kindness of the kind you said you craved,' he said. 'His reward was to be the subject of this completely false complaint.'
Day burst into tears as she was taken down to the cells.
SOURCE
Charity, private schools and the public benefit in Britain
Private schools in Britain have traditionally been regarded as charities and been given certain tax exemptions as a result. The Labour government hates private schools so is trying to end those concessions. The hatchetwoman is the aptly-named Dame Suzy Leather, who herself had a privileged education but wants to deny that to as many others as possible
It's entirely possible to argue with a straight face that private schools damage the nation. I may disagree with you, think your contention that everyone should be forced into the failing State sector absurd, but that would be my opinion, not an objective fact thrown up by the universe to frustrate you.
However, if we were to try and discuss the costs and benefits of there being a private school sector, we would at least agree that parents paying more money to have their children educated, money over and above the taxes they have already paid the State to educate their children, is a public benefit. No? Saving the State billions which it can spend upon other things is indeed a public benefit? Sure, maybe it's one we might need to offset against other things, but it is a benefit? Not, apparently, if you are the Charities Commission:
David Lyscom, the chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, has tried, without success, to convince Leather that billions of pounds of taxpayers' money that is saved by schools educating children privately is a "public benefit" in itself.
However, this is not the worst of what the Commission is no doing as it looks at the charitable status of all those private schools. This is:
The commission have not told us what the test we have to pass is.
When a bureaucracy will not tell you what the law is, when they insist that everything is simply to be left to their discretion, then we have left the rule of law far behind. Indeed, I would argue that in this situation we have left the governance methods of a civilised society far behind.
Apologies for my fundamentalism in such matters but just as I'm sure there are both costs and benefits to having a private school system (and on net, benefits) there are also costs and benefits to having a Charities Commission. If such Commission is going to start using Kafka as an operations manual then, on net, we'd be better off without it. Abolish it and force Dame Suzi Leather to work for a living for a change.
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British Hospital to face second inquiry after damning report
An NHS hospital is to be scrutinised in a second official inquiry after a report found that "appalling" emergency care led to patients dying needlessly. Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, said that current and former staff would be expected to co-operate with the independent inquiry into Stafford Hospital.
In March an investigation by the Healthcare Commission condemned "appalling" and "shocking" standards of care at the hospital, run by Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. Between 400 and 1,200 more people died than would have been expected in a three-year period, and a lack of nursing staff was said to have contributed to poor patient care.
Despite two additional Department of Health reviews, campaigners and nursing unions have called for a public inquiry to analyse what part Government targets played in the failings. Mr Burnham said that the new inquiry would be chaired by Robert Francis, QC, a leading clinical negligence lawyer, who will hear evidence from patients and families and identify lessons for the future.
The inquiry was announced as part of measures to tackle "exceptional failures" in foundation trusts, which have a degree of independence from the Department of Health and control most NHS hospitals in the country. The Government said that if the chairman considered it necessary to require witnesses to attend, the Secretary of State would take the necessary steps to ensure this happened.
Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, said that the inquiry would not go far enough. "This independent inquiry could play a part in renewing public confidence but not to the same extent as a public inquiry," he said. "While I welcome the acknowledgement that individual cases have not been given a sufficient hearing, other critical issues have been sidelined. The terms of reference neither scrutinise the role of the Department of Health nor the impact of the Government's policies."
Last week Antony Sumara was appointed as chief executive of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, while Sir Stephen Moss was appointed as chairman. Former chief executive Martin Yeates resigned in March, along with the chairman, Toni Brisby, before the damning report was published. [They should both be prosecuted for murder]
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BBC executive says corporation should foster 'left-of-centre thinking'
A senior BBC executive has claimed that the corporation should foster "left-of-centre thinking", leading to accusations of political bias from the Conservatives. Ben Stephenson, the controller of BBC drama commissioning, said that the corporation should encourage "peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking."
According to its own royal charter, the BBC must "be independent in all matters concerning the content of its output".
Jeremy Hunt, the shadow culture secretary, said: "What Ben Stephenson said was a clear breach of the BBC's impartiality obligations. "No journalist or editor should be following a political agenda, let alone someone as senior as a controller." Mr Hunt said that he had written to Mark Thompson, the BBC Director General, "asking for an immediate retraction and apology".
Peter Whittle, the director of The New Culture Forum, a right-leaning think tank, said: "The political slant in the non-news output of the BBC is for many harder to detect but is actually far more insidious and damaging in the effect it has on our cultural drift."
Mr Stephenson made the comments in a newspaper article in which he responded to criticism from Tony Garnett, a television producer, who accused the BBC's drama department of changing "in ways which have coarsened both it and wider culture." He wrote: "If we didn't all think differently, have different ideas of what works and what doesn't, wouldn't our lives, and more importantly, our TV screens be less interesting? We need to foster peculiarity, idiosyncrasy, stubborn-mindedness, left-of-centre thinking."
He later denied that he had meant the comment to have a political meaning. "Like 'left-field', it is a phrase that I use with frequency when talking to the creative community to encourage them to develop and approach their ideas from a completely new perspective," he said.
A BBC source said that executives believed that their casting of Boris Johnson, the Conservative Mayor of London, in an episode of EastEnders, proved that they did not have a left-wing bias.
Meanwhile, a report yesterday said that the licence fee should be shared with other broadcasters, because the BBC was failing to fulfil its public service remit. The paper, by Frank Field MP and David Rees, argued that the licence fee should be put in the hands of a new independent commissioning body. Broadcasters, including the BBC, would then pitch ideas for public service programmes to the body and be awarded funding accordingly. BBC One, BBC Three, Radio 1 and Radio 2 should all be put up for sale, it added.
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A very pointed question recently asked in Britain's House of Commons
An email from the skeptical Peter Lilley [LilleyP@parliament.uk], an economist and energy analyst who is also a member of Parliament on behalf of the Conservative party:
The Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (Edward Miliband): "Today's debate is held at an appropriate time - a week after the 17 countries of the Major Economies Forum met in L'Aquila in Italy and accepted the long-held scientific consensus that we should seek to prevent dangerous climate change above 2ψ C."
Peter Lilley: "The average temperature in Cornwall is more than 2ψ C higher than the average temperature in the north-east of England. Is it really dangerous for someone to move from Newcastle to Cornwall? Would it be dangerous if the north-east of England became as warm as Cornwall? Would it be dangerous if Cornwall became as warm as the Loire valley? That is what a 2ψ C increase would involve."
See Cols 462 & 482 of Hansard for 16th July
`Low carbon' is code for low ambitions
The UK's new climate change plan shows how the green ethos is used to add a gloss of respectability to economic and visionary failure
Given its isolation, unpopularity and dysfunctional relationship with `the vision thing', it seems highly unlikely that Gordon Brown's government is capable of starting a revolution. Yet that, apparently, is what it did yesterday.
Ed Miliband, the UK climate change secretary, unveiled the government's plans for cutting carbon emissions in the UK by 34 per cent by 2020 and by 80 per cent by 2050. In the fields of manufacturing, energy production, transport and housing, revealed Miliband in 650 pages of shiny manifestos and strategy documents, carbon-use will be slashed. Commentators were overjoyed, describing it as `nothing less than a green industrial revolution', which might rank as `one of the most important moments in British economic history' (1).
Steady on. There is nothing remotely revolutionary about Miliband's plans. And the only sense in which they are historic is that they represent - albeit in a coded, PC fashion - Britain's disavowal of its own industrial history and its final embrace of the slow life, low ambitions and the realities of economic failure. Miliband's vision, or rather anti-vision, reveals what the politics of low carbon is really all about: accommodating to the economic downturn and to the dearth of big plans for the future.
Where growing and aspirational nations like China and India produce carbon - which is simply the byproduct of large-scale energy production and manufacturing - sluggish and increasingly insignificant nations like Britain produce less carbon, or no carbon, or now, in the words of Miliband, `low carbon': codeword for a nation that isn't doing very much at all. Miliband's plans expose how the green ethos can be used to add a gloss of respectability to already-existing economic and visionary failure.
In many ways, the documents published by Miliband yesterday represented a bizarre celebration of Britain's slowdown, particularly in manufacturing, over the past 15 to 20 years. In the kind of green lingo that excites officials and commentators, Miliband effectively boasted about the fact that Britain is producing and building fewer tangible things today than it was in 1990. He outlined how New Labour has committed Britain to cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent on 1990 levels by 2020, and then said we are already more than half way to achieving that goal. `We've already achieved around a 21 per cent cut since 1990', his factsheet said, `[which is the] equivalent of cutting emissions entirely from four cities the size of London' (2).
But it is deeply disingenuous to present a 21 per cent fall in carbon emissions since 1990, the equivalent of getting rid of four Londons, as a product of some conscious, profound desire to rein in carbon-use and make the nation cleaner. Such a reduction in emissions was not brought about by the erection of a few windfarms off the south coast of England or the introduction of bin-monitoring recycling policies in the cities; more fundamentally, it reflects the contraction of manufacturing in Britain and the creeping replacement of a one-time productive economy with a services-based economy, aspects of which are not productive at all (especially the financial services sector).
Over the same period now presented by Miliband as the Glorious Era of Low Carbon, the British economy underwent huge changes. In 1986, manufacturing made up around 21 per cent of British economic activity; today it accounts for only 13 per cent. At the same time, the service side of the economy grew enormously: in 1975 services accounted for 55 per cent of British GDP; today they account for 75 per cent (3).
The post-1990 fall in carbon emissions, the effective winding down of four cities, was brought about by the closure of the remaining coalpits, the shutting up of factories, the export of car manufacturing overseas (most notoriously, with the sale of MG Rover Group for a song to Nanjing Automobile Group in 2005), and so on. All that the 21 per cent reduction in CO2 really tells us, in any meaningful sense, is that Britain is producing less real stuff today; it has fewer and fewer workers whose job is to create real, tangible things and who in the process emit the byproduct of carbon. A services-based economy tends to be `cleaner' than a manufacturing-based economy. Miliband is cynically presenting manufacturing downturn, and all the job losses and city and community deprivation that go along with it, as a brilliant central-government strategy to `clean up Britain' (4).
When it comes to planning for the future, Miliband's documents show how `building a low-carbon Britain' is justification for ditching big plans. Between now and 2020, when 34 per cent of CO2 emissions will have been cut, Miliband envisages that a whopping 50 per cent of that cut will be in the `power and heavy industry' sector, compared with 20 per cent in transport, 15 per cent in homes, 10 per cent in workplaces, and five per cent in agriculture (5). It is striking, and also rather predictable, that the climate change secretary of a nation that was once the `workshop of the world' but which now carries out less and less manufacturing should envision the biggest fall in CO2 emissions taking place in heavy industry. What he really means is that fewer things will be done in that area in the next 10, 20 or 30 years; but, rather than seeing that as a potential problem he celebrates it as part of the process of creating a new kind of world-beating low-carbon nation.
There is a glaring contradiction in some of Miliband's plans. He opportunistically celebrates the lower carbon levels that have fundamentally resulted from the sclerosis of properly productive activity, yet doesn't realise that such sclerosis is likely to impact even on his low-carbon plans. For example, in order to cut CO2 emissions in the energy sector, Miliband proposes building vastly more windfarms and new nuclear power stations (he can keep his windfarms, but more nuclear is a very good idea). However, earlier this year Vestas, the wind turbine manufacturer, closed its major factory on the Isle of Wight, with the loss of 600 jobs, and cited lack of investment and too much red tape in planning procedures as the main problem (6). In response to Miliband's nuclear proposals, energy companies have complained that, actually, Britain is not conducive to big building projects right now, because everything gets tied up in endless judicial reviews and public consultations (7).
In short, Britain's general lack of manufacturing-based productivity has made the country `cleaner', yes, but it has also made it far harder to get anything done. A lack of investment in manufacturing and big build projects has lowered carbon, but it has also lowered the chances of making things happen speedily and effectively. The irony is too much: Britain is low carbon because it produces less stuff, and it is that very lack of productivity that might hamper some of Miliband's plans to make Britain even more low carbon, for example by building new nuclear power stations.
In transport and house-building, too, the low-carbon approach has clearly become a way of presenting the death of vision as something wonderful. Yesterday the minister for transport, Lord Adonis, spelt out his vision for a low-carbon transport system: his plan is not to overhaul roads, build more motorways or lay down vastly more railtracks, but rather to play around with the vehicles that travel on the already-existing creaking infrastructure. So he will introduce tougher regulation of cars that emit a lot of CO2, perhaps taxing their drivers more than others, and will spend 250million on customer incentives designed to promote electric cars. He also wants to create `sustainable travel cities': places where people travel by foot or by bike (8). Here, Britain's lack of transport vision, its abandonment of road-building and infrastructure investment over the past 10 to 15 years, is re-presented as part of the big, conscious plan for a low-carbon future.
In housing, where 10 per cent of the planned CO2 cuts will happen between now and 2020, there is not nearly enough talk of building the millions of new homes that Britain needs. Instead there is a headline focus on monitoring how we all live in the homes we have right now. One plan is to put `smart electricity meters' in 26million homes, so that we can measure how much energy we're using: those who use small amounts will be rewarded with financial incentives. This is probably what Lord Mandelson meant yesterday, when he said the big low-carbon project would `reshape our lives' (9).
The Miliband plan reveals something profound about the politics of environmentalism: it justifies, even celebrates, underdevelopment and lack of investment in infrastructure, but in the dishonest language of `low carbon' and `cleaner futures'. This is the opposite of revolutionary. Indeed, the government's adoption of a new language that effectively heralds Britain's position as a slow, meek and visionless nation is, in many ways, the final nail in the coffin of the industrial revolution that gave birth to modern Britain.
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Cheating Saudi princess granted asylum
This is one immigration decision with which I heartily agree. There are SOME genuinely threatened refugees
A SAUDI princess who fell pregnant during an affair with a British man has been granted asylum in the UK after she claimed she could face the death penalty if she went home. A British court granted refugee status to the young woman, who is married to a member of the Saudi royal family, after she told the judge her adultery made her liable to death by stoning in Saudi Arabia, The Independent newspaper reports.
A spokeswoman for the Home Office in London refused to confirm the report, saying it did not comment on individual cases.
According to the newspaper, the princess - who was granted anonymity by the court - is one of a small number of citizens of Saudi Arabia who claim asylum in Britain but whose cases are not openly acknowledged by either government. Recognition by the British Government would be viewed as criticism of human rights in Saudi Arabia, which would embarrass both sides, it said.
The princess reportedly met her English boyfriend, who is not a Muslim, during a visit to London. She became pregnant the following year and returned to Britain to have the baby in secret.
Since then her family has broken off contact with her, and she persuaded a court that if she returned home then both she and her child would be subject to capital punishment under Sharia law, namely flogging and stoning to death.
SOURCE
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Britain's secretive Leftist government
I smile when I hear this Government insisting that it is committed to openness about its own behaviour (MPs' expenses, Iraq inquiry passim).
This is partly because I was a member of the senior Civil Service when the Freedom of Information Act was formulated in 1999 and I remember all the whispered discussions about how to circumvent it (never write anything down, don't keep minutes of sensitive meetings), and partly because I have just emerged from a gruelling battle to make use of Britain's information laws and have found the odds stacked firmly against me.
My Whitehall stint ended seven years ago after Downing Street tried to blame me for the misbehaviour of Stephen Byers, the Transport and Local Government Secretary at the time, and his spin doctor, Jo Moore.
The Government eventually made a public apology to me and paid substantial compensation, but I was curious to find out who had picked me as a scapegoat, and who had led the smear campaign against me when I refused to go quietly.
So in April 2006 I filed a subject access request for all the information the Government held on me and expected to get it within the 40-day deadline specified by the Freedom of Information Act. Some hope. The Government didn't even reply within 40 days let alone provide the data.
When I asked why it was not sending me the information, I triggered a mildly surreal sequence of excuses that went on for two years: we have faulty IT equipment; manpower shortages; new priorities; "I am on holiday in France, R. Smith, Data Controller"; pressure of other business; change in IT supplier; the need to consult widely; Christmas leave commitments; third-party interests; concerns over data security . . .
I was patient and polite, but I was being fobbed off. I complained to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which enforces the information laws, and it replied that the Government "is likely to have contravened the Act". Months went by and I heard nothing more.
When I rang, the ICO said that it had mislaid the case file. I asked for a meeting. At ICO headquarters in Wilmslow, Cheshire, I found an understaffed, cowed and demoralised organisation with nothing like the clout and resources the job demands. Staff members told me that they were stressed, overworked and scared of challenging the Government (which pays their wages).
Around this time, a friend in the Civil Service informed me that ministers were holding discussions about destroying the information I had asked for, potentially a criminal offence. When I asked about this, the Government's departmental knowledge officer, Richard Smith, wrote: "No information is held relating to discussions or correspondence regarding the provision or non-provision of the information you requested."
But I later discovered that he wrote on the same day to another official: "We have needed to consult widely on this request because of the nature of the data we hold . . . Please regard this as confidential and not for passing on to Martin Sixsmith."
I urged the ICO to demand that the Government hand over the data. The ICO threatened enforcement action, but the Government did not reply. So the ICO set another deadline, which the Government also ignored. When the Government failed to meet a third deadline, the ICO moved it back again.
It was clear that the Government was accustomed to bullying and ignoring a toothless ICO, and that the ICO had no stomach to take it on. It was not until September 2008, after some vigorous lobbying from me, that the ICO finally agreed to issue an enforcement notice. Surprise, surprise, the Government still refused to comply and the case was sent on appeal to the Information Tribunal, the FoI equivalent of the High Court.
I thought that I was getting somewhere now, but if the ICO was bad, the tribunal officials were worse: communications from its proper officers were shambolic, contradictory and semi-literate.
When the case opened at Crown Chambers in the Temple, the Government was calling the shots. I requested that proceedings be held in public, as permitted by the act, but the Government's QCs harangued the chairman into closing the doors, and the public (including me) were locked out.
I asked how much taxpayers' money had been spent contesting the case - the Government was represented by two QCs, the ICO by one, and the panel of judges included a further two QCs - but I was told that it was not in the public interest for me to know this. One of the lawyers told me later that the figure was in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The information I was seeking had no bearing on national security but, because it was politically embarrassing, the Government was prepared to spend three years and substantial public funds to keep it secret. If I weren't so bloody-minded, the ICO would have caved in and the Government would have got away with it.
But last month, three years after it all began, a heap of documents landed on my doormat. They are heavily redacted, but they show that senior civil servants backed up the view that Stephen Byers misled Parliament and that it was Alastair Campbell who circulated false information about me.
Campbell's language is delightfully choice: it might turn up in the rantings of Malcolm Tucker in the next series of The Thick of It.
I am still trawling through the contents of the documents - they will provide a story for another day - but for now the lesson is clear: there is no truth in the rumour that the Government has embraced openness and honesty.
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A British Leftist advocating vouchers? Sort of
By Alan Milburn (Alan Milburn, MP, is chairman of the British Government's panel on social mobility)
The motor force of an open society, in which social mobility is extensive, is education. A good school opens the door to a good career. Today I launch the final report of the panel that I have been chairing on how professional careers can be open to people of talent, regardless of background. A huge expansion in professional jobs in the next decade will bring the potential for a new wave of social mobility. But, as our report makes clear, generations of low and middle-income young people will miss out unless we do more to close the educational attainment gap in schools.
In the past decade the Government has done much to improve results, refurbish schools and raise standards. The number of failing schools is falling. City academies, located in the poorest areas, are helping to improve the GCSE results of children who receive free school meals at a faster rate than those who do not.
Despite this progress, the attainment gap by social position is still substantial. The chance of children eligible for free school meals - roughly the poorest 15 per cent by family income - getting good qualifications by the age of 16 is still less than a third that of their better-off classmates. Poor areas are still far too likely to have poor schools. But, as the large number of appeals over school places demonstrates, it is not just the most disadvantaged who can be caught in the gap between the demand for good schools and their supply. It is also many middle-income families.
Better-off parents can sidestep these problems. They can take their children out of state schools and send them to private schools. They can buy extra tuition or move near a good school to guarantee a place.
When affluence buys attainment it restricts mobility. Some believe the answer lies in academic selection - and a return to grammar schools. But there is precious little evidence that schools selecting pupils does anything to close the attainment gap. The evidence from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the US is that it is not schools selecting pupils, but parents being able to choose schools that raises standards generally and helps the disadvantaged particularly.
There is a lot of good thinking out there, if it can be brought together. The Conservatives say that city academies should be extended in both primary and secondary schools. They also say, rightly, that the supply of education places could be opened up to greater competition, particularly in areas of underperformance. The seeds of this have been sown: under Labour's existing legislation 19 new schools have been opened and 37 more are due over the next four years. Undoubtedly, however, new impetus could be injected by new partners, such as chains of state schools or schools sponsored by groups of parents, being invited to take over or work with underperforming schools.
The Liberal Democrats have argued that, in poor areas, schools could receive additional funding or each pupil from a disadvantaged background could attract a premium payment to recognise particular needs. They have a good point, but there are already higher levels of funding for deprivation. The problem is that money allocated nationally is not always handed on to schools by local authorities. The Government's recent White Paper argued that additional funding for each pupil from a disadvantaged background should be passed on. That is why the Government should aim for 100 per cent of deprivation-funding being passed to schools.
Other reforms could close the attainment gap and benefit pupils from middle as well as lower-income families. Schools could be asked to report on pupils' outcomes as well as examination results. They could assess the progress made between pupils starting school, leaving school and their destination after school. The Government could then consider how schools could be paid according to the progress their pupils make. That could provide a powerful incentive to drive up standards and improve pupils' outcomes.
And we could give parents who do not at present have access to a good school the power to get it. I have proposed that parents be given a new right of redress to choose a better school for their child if they live in an area where the schools are consistently performing badly. Parents could be given an education credit worth 150 per cent of the cost of the child's schooling for a state school of their choice. The extra funding would give good schools an incentive to expand pupil numbers and broaden their social intake.
Each of these ideas is controversial and contested. But my panel believes that the Government should examine these and other reforms as part of a sustained drive to close the educational attainment gap.
It is no longer sustainable for our education system to produce a cohort of youngsters who lack the skills to compete in the modern labour market. For reasons of economic progress, we need a second wave of social mobility. But, more than that, this is a question of basic justice. A talent unfulfilled is not just an opportunity cost. It is an opportunity lost.
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Mother banned from British school for confronting bully who used son as 'human punch bag'
School hates to have its failures noted
A mother has been banned from a primary school after confronting a bully who used her five-year- old son as a 'human punch bag'. Christine Hart, 38, calmly asked the pupil to 'please stop hitting' her son Arthur after he endured months of bullying despite several complaints to teachers. But a teaching assistant saw and hauled her off to the headmistress, who told her not to cross the school gates and to attend a hearing with the governors to discuss her conduct.
Miss Hart spoke to the pupil last week when she dropped Arthur off at his classroom at Orleans Infants School, which serves a well-to-do catchment area in Twickenham, South-West London.
She has been warned she could face a further six-month ban for 'verbally abusing' the pupil and interrupting a class. She was also told that causing a 'nuisance' at school could constitute a criminal offence and that any further incidents will be reported to police. 'I am being punished because I stood up for my son when the school appeared to be doing nothing about my complaints,' she said. 'What message does this send to the boy? I don't know if he's ever been told off. Instead, I'm the one who is made to feel in the wrong. 'The message is hit Arthur whenever you like as you cannot be touched. If anyone challenges you, they will be cast out of school and threatened with the police.'
The school issued a statement saying that pupil safety was paramount and all bullying procedures had been followed.
Miss Hart, a journalist, said the bullying began when Arthur started at the school last September. 'He used to come home in tears and say that he didn't want to go back and could I teach him at home,' she added.
Two months ago Miss Hart saw Arthur being set upon by a classmate at a party in the school hall. 'Art was standing alone when one boy ran up to him and started using him as a punch bag, literally hitting him several times on the chest,' she said. 'Other boys then ran up to him grabbed him round the neck and arms and he was being hit. I was rooted to the spot.'
On another occasion Arthur, who suffers from asthma, was jumped on by a group of boys in the playground. 'He was squashed under a pile of them and said he couldn't breathe,' she said.
In an attempt to build bridges, Miss Hart laid on a picnic for her son and one of his tormentors, and they played together. But the bullying began again almost straight away. The night before his mother spoke to the boy in class, Arthur cried and said going to school made him feel scared
Miss Hart said: 'I saw the boy sitting in the classroom so I approached him, knelt by his side, made eye contact and said "please stop hitting Art". 'The boy thought for a moment and said he would stop. I was not in any way aggressive and he seemed to respond positively. 'The next thing I knew was a teacher's assistant came rushing up saying I couldn't do that, and she marched me off to the head teacher's office.'
Miss Hart said that headmistress Pip Utting initially seemed sympathetic. But later she received a phone call saying she was banned from taking Arthur to his classroom, before a letter from the school arrived warning that she could face police action in future.
'I feel I've no choice but to move my child or take him to private martial arts classes himself to fight off this boy and his entourage,' she said.
In a statement, Mrs Utting said: 'We cannot discuss individual cases especially when investigations may be in progress.'
SOURCE
YOU DON'T SAY: EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME 'SERIOUSLY FLAWED'
The system of trading carbon emissions at the heart of the ambitious low-carbon plan announced by the government last week is seriously flawed and close to becoming irrelevant, according to researchers behind a new analysis.
So-called "hot air" carbon credits - those which do not result in any actual emissions cuts - could be so numerous that companies covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme would not have to make any cuts to their own emissions until 2015, says the report from climate campaign group, Sandbag. The hot air permits result from the over-allocation of emissions allowances and from those going unused as the recession cuts economic activity.
The ETS covers 50% of the UK and EU's carbon emissions, mainly in the energy, cement, steel, glass and manufacturing sectors. Companies in these sectors are allocated allowances for the carbon they emit, with the total number shrinking over time, theoretically forcing companies to buy additional permits to pollute if they do not cut their emissions.
A large proportion of the UK's promised cut of 34% by 2020 will come via British companies in the ETS. Globally, the carbon trading market was worth _92bn (79bn) in 2008, trading 5bn tonnes. However, the large number of carbon permits that have been allocated and a fall in emissions due to the recession, have made the trading system less effective.
More HERE
WHEN WIND POWER BLOWS, JOBS WILL FALL
You may recall the Beyond the Fringe sketch in which Squadron Leader Peter Cook tells Jonathan Miller, the doleful pilot, that he must set out on a doomed mission because "we need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war".
I was irresistibly reminded of this by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, in his launch of plans to cut carbon emissions by switching to "renewables" for more than 30% of our energy use. This, he claimed, would "rise to the moral challenge of climate change".
Miliband is of the generation of politicians struggling to find a great moral cause. Earlier in the Labour administration Tony Blair thought he had found it with wars of choice far from home, but that has, to put it mildly, lost its lustre. Now it is the "war against climate change", given additional moral potency by the notion that the greatest concentration of sufferers from global rising temperatures would be among the world's poorest.
Miliband's citing of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in support of his policy of subsidising the construction of many thousands of otherwise uneconomic wind turbines might appear grotesque, even comical; but not if you genuinely believe that Britain's switching from coal to wind power for its electricity generation will save the lives of countless Africans.
I have no idea whether Miliband truly believes that it will - but if he does, he is deluded. The UK is responsible for less than 2% of global carbon emissions - a figure set to fall sharply, regardless of what we do, as a result of the startlingly rapid industrial-isation of countries such as China and India: each year the increase in Chinese CO2 emissions alone is greater than those produced by the entire British economy. On the fashionable assumption that climate change is entirely driven by CO2 emissions, the effect on global temperatures of Britain closing every fossil fuel power station would be much smaller than the statistical margin of error: in effect, zero.
The scientists at the energy and climate change department know this, but their political masters see things differently. Gordon Brown claims: "Britain is leading the world in the battle against climate change." Such remarks are regarded as absurd in the chancelleries of Europe: if you do take as a measure of such commitment the proportion of domestic energy already supplied by renewables, the UK occupies 25th place in the European Union league table, above only Malta and Luxembourg.
Nevertheless, there is one great merit in being a follower rather than a leader in renewable energy: we can see how other European countries have fared in the experiment. Germany has long been subsidising wind power to the extent of almost _5 billion a year. Yet recent German Green party internal e-mails leaked to Der Spiegel magazine show this has not led to a reduction of a single gram of CO2 emitted on the continent of Europe. The much-vaunted emissions trading system is one reason: Germany's unused certificates were snapped up at negligible cost by coal producers in countries such as Poland and Slovakia, which were thus able to increase their output of greenhouse gases.
There is a second reason, which would remain even if the European emissions trading system were to be scrapped. Because the wind blows intermittently, and may be at its calmest at times of freezing weather, Germany has not been able to close a single one of its conventional power stations, despite its vast investment in wind power.
Indeed, Paul Golby, who runs the British operations of E.ON, Europe's biggest wind-power producer, has told the government that a 90% fossil fuel or nuclear back-up will be needed for any of the National Grid's future wind-power capacity. As Martin Fuchs, his German boss, pointed out: "The wind, sadly, does not blow where large quantities of power are required . . . on September 12 last year wind power contributed 38% of our grid power requirements at all times, but on September 30 the figure went down to 0.2%."
The powerful wind-turbine lobby in Germany constantly harps on about the number of jobs "created" by its subsidised investment, quite ignoring the number of jobs destroyed by high-cost energy, or indeed the greater number of jobs that could be created if the same amounts were invested in more profitable activities. This is why the Bremen Energy Institute argues that "wind energy macro-economically has a negative employment impact".
Given the run-down state of our conventional generating capacity, it is easy to see that the government's suspiciously round number of a "100 billion" expenditure on installing 7,000 offshore steel structures, each the height of Blackpool Tower, at a projected rate of more than two every working day over the next decade, does not begin to cover the real cost. This is why the overall price of wind energy is a multiple of that incurred by nuclear power, which is equally carbon-free but does not appeal to the moral vanity of politicians.
Admittedly, the Labour government has made a belated commitment to replacing our ageing nuclear reactors - far too late to fill the yawning energy gap that Britain faces in the coming decade. As Professor Ian Fells points out in the new Civitas pamphlet Nations Choose Prosperity: "The energy agenda is focused on carbon emissions rather than security of supply and potential costs. What is rarely considered is the consequential costs when power cuts are inflicted." These costs are not just measured in the collapse of business, but also in human lives, especially of the elderly and infirm.
Miliband claimed last week that the result of his proposals would be an increase in costs to energy users of about 17%. However, the business and enterprise department admitted last year that Britain's existing "climate policies" - even before Miliband's latest Big New Idea - would add an extra 55% to energy bills. It's obvious where this will lead: to the exit from Britain (and, indeed, Europe) of much of what remains of energy-intensive manufacturing industry - the euphemistic jargon term is "carbon leakage".
Jeremy Nicholson, the director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents such industries as steel and aluminium, is exasperated beyond measure: "A future administration will have to say in public what ministers and their officials already admit in private, that the renewables target is neither practical nor affordable. Outsourcing our emissions is not a solution to a global problem. Politicians need to understand that unilateral action will come at a terrible cost in terms of UK manufacturing jobs, investment and export revenue, for no discernible environmental gain - is that really what they want?"
On the day Nicholson said this to me, last Thursday, Anglesey Aluminium, the biggest consumer of electricity in Wales, announced that it would cease production, precisely because it could see no prospect of signing up to a long-term supply of electricity at a rate at which it could make a profit. And on the day of Miliband's announcement, a group of Labour MPs presented a "Save Our Steel" petition, saying: "We need to make sure we act before the light goes out."
It may well be that the English steel mills will become unable to compete globally, even at current domestic energy prices; but deliberately to make them uncompetitive is industrial vandalism - and even madness when the consequence of Miliband's Martin Luther King moment may be the lights going out not just for producers but for all of us in our homes. This is worse than a futile gesture: it is immoral.
SOURCE
Gun and car crash victims face long ambulance ride to new British trauma units
British ambulance response times are already erratic .... And time is of the essence in many cases of serious injury
FOUR "super" accident and emergency units designed to treat gun crime and car crash victims in London are to be given the green light today. The most seriously ill patients will be fast-tracked to the major trauma centres for life-saving emergency care. But campaigners said lives will be put at risk as the centres are not spread evenly across London, meaning those on the outskirts face long journeys.
A joint committee of all London's primary care trusts is set to approve the hospital centres which will be set up at the Royal London in Whitechapel, King's College in Denmark Hill, St George's in Tooting and St Mary's in Paddington. The units will be open by the end of next year. NHS body Healthcare for London, which is developing plans for the trauma centres, insisted every Londoner will be a maximum of 45 minutes by ambulance away from one. [That eats up a lot of the "golden hour" (first hour after injury) during which some seriously injured persons can be saved]
But Geoff Martin, chairman of London Health Emergency, said: "Millions of Londoners on the outskirts will now face a dangerously long journey to the centre to access emergency trauma care. We think the 45-minute maximum journey time is optimistic and with only one air ambulance this whole scheme represents a massive gamble with life or death services."
There are also concerns that none of the centres is near Heathrow. Mr Martin added: "It defies belief. That leaves the UK's major airport dangerously exposed and we are demanding an urgent rethink before these plans are cast in stone."
But a spokeswoman for Healthcare for London said most major trauma incidents, such as stabbings, shootings and car accidents, happen in central London. She added: "The important thing is to get the right treatment, even if it means spending an extra 10 minutes in an ambulance."
The trauma centres will be staffed by a consultant at all times and specialists in every discipline, including trauma, orthopaedic and neuro-surgeons. The units will cost 14million a year to run, and the money will come from PCT budgets. Matt Thompson, clinical director for trauma services in London, said: "These patients are some of the most seriously injured patients that any hospital will ever see. It is vitally important that they have access to the right expertise and services if their lives are to be saved and disabilities reduced. "The proposed new trauma system - made up of major trauma centres linked to local trauma centres - would rival the best in the world. It is a fantastic opportunity for London to improve the care of these patients."
The PCT committee is also expected to approve plans to create eight specialist centres for stroke victims at Charing Cross, King's College, Northwick Park, Queen's, St George's, the Princess Royal, the Royal London and University College hospitals. These will provide specialist care for the first 72 hours after a stroke or until a patient is stabilised. They will open by summer 2011 and cost around 23million a year. Patients will be taken to the units within 30 minutes. But acute services in other hospitals are expected to be closed as part of the process. Campaigners fear the Royal Free in Belsize Park will lose its emergency stroke unit.
Dr Nick Losseff, interim clinical director for stroke services in London, said: "Patients and their families can be assured these will save lives and prevent disability."
SOURCE
Google cleared of responsibility for indexing defamatory comments
An out-of-character ruling by Mr Justice Eady. He normally finds defamation at the drop of a hat. He has almost singlehandedly made Britain the libel capital of the world. But apparently even he has his limits.
I smile when I hear this Government insisting that it is committed to openness about its own behaviour (MPs' expenses, Iraq inquiry passim).
This is partly because I was a member of the senior Civil Service when the Freedom of Information Act was formulated in 1999 and I remember all the whispered discussions about how to circumvent it (never write anything down, don't keep minutes of sensitive meetings), and partly because I have just emerged from a gruelling battle to make use of Britain's information laws and have found the odds stacked firmly against me.
My Whitehall stint ended seven years ago after Downing Street tried to blame me for the misbehaviour of Stephen Byers, the Transport and Local Government Secretary at the time, and his spin doctor, Jo Moore.
The Government eventually made a public apology to me and paid substantial compensation, but I was curious to find out who had picked me as a scapegoat, and who had led the smear campaign against me when I refused to go quietly.
So in April 2006 I filed a subject access request for all the information the Government held on me and expected to get it within the 40-day deadline specified by the Freedom of Information Act. Some hope. The Government didn't even reply within 40 days let alone provide the data.
When I asked why it was not sending me the information, I triggered a mildly surreal sequence of excuses that went on for two years: we have faulty IT equipment; manpower shortages; new priorities; "I am on holiday in France, R. Smith, Data Controller"; pressure of other business; change in IT supplier; the need to consult widely; Christmas leave commitments; third-party interests; concerns over data security . . .
I was patient and polite, but I was being fobbed off. I complained to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), which enforces the information laws, and it replied that the Government "is likely to have contravened the Act". Months went by and I heard nothing more.
When I rang, the ICO said that it had mislaid the case file. I asked for a meeting. At ICO headquarters in Wilmslow, Cheshire, I found an understaffed, cowed and demoralised organisation with nothing like the clout and resources the job demands. Staff members told me that they were stressed, overworked and scared of challenging the Government (which pays their wages).
Around this time, a friend in the Civil Service informed me that ministers were holding discussions about destroying the information I had asked for, potentially a criminal offence. When I asked about this, the Government's departmental knowledge officer, Richard Smith, wrote: "No information is held relating to discussions or correspondence regarding the provision or non-provision of the information you requested."
But I later discovered that he wrote on the same day to another official: "We have needed to consult widely on this request because of the nature of the data we hold . . . Please regard this as confidential and not for passing on to Martin Sixsmith."
I urged the ICO to demand that the Government hand over the data. The ICO threatened enforcement action, but the Government did not reply. So the ICO set another deadline, which the Government also ignored. When the Government failed to meet a third deadline, the ICO moved it back again.
It was clear that the Government was accustomed to bullying and ignoring a toothless ICO, and that the ICO had no stomach to take it on. It was not until September 2008, after some vigorous lobbying from me, that the ICO finally agreed to issue an enforcement notice. Surprise, surprise, the Government still refused to comply and the case was sent on appeal to the Information Tribunal, the FoI equivalent of the High Court.
I thought that I was getting somewhere now, but if the ICO was bad, the tribunal officials were worse: communications from its proper officers were shambolic, contradictory and semi-literate.
When the case opened at Crown Chambers in the Temple, the Government was calling the shots. I requested that proceedings be held in public, as permitted by the act, but the Government's QCs harangued the chairman into closing the doors, and the public (including me) were locked out.
I asked how much taxpayers' money had been spent contesting the case - the Government was represented by two QCs, the ICO by one, and the panel of judges included a further two QCs - but I was told that it was not in the public interest for me to know this. One of the lawyers told me later that the figure was in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.
The information I was seeking had no bearing on national security but, because it was politically embarrassing, the Government was prepared to spend three years and substantial public funds to keep it secret. If I weren't so bloody-minded, the ICO would have caved in and the Government would have got away with it.
But last month, three years after it all began, a heap of documents landed on my doormat. They are heavily redacted, but they show that senior civil servants backed up the view that Stephen Byers misled Parliament and that it was Alastair Campbell who circulated false information about me.
Campbell's language is delightfully choice: it might turn up in the rantings of Malcolm Tucker in the next series of The Thick of It.
I am still trawling through the contents of the documents - they will provide a story for another day - but for now the lesson is clear: there is no truth in the rumour that the Government has embraced openness and honesty.
SOURCE
A British Leftist advocating vouchers? Sort of
By Alan Milburn (Alan Milburn, MP, is chairman of the British Government's panel on social mobility)
The motor force of an open society, in which social mobility is extensive, is education. A good school opens the door to a good career. Today I launch the final report of the panel that I have been chairing on how professional careers can be open to people of talent, regardless of background. A huge expansion in professional jobs in the next decade will bring the potential for a new wave of social mobility. But, as our report makes clear, generations of low and middle-income young people will miss out unless we do more to close the educational attainment gap in schools.
In the past decade the Government has done much to improve results, refurbish schools and raise standards. The number of failing schools is falling. City academies, located in the poorest areas, are helping to improve the GCSE results of children who receive free school meals at a faster rate than those who do not.
Despite this progress, the attainment gap by social position is still substantial. The chance of children eligible for free school meals - roughly the poorest 15 per cent by family income - getting good qualifications by the age of 16 is still less than a third that of their better-off classmates. Poor areas are still far too likely to have poor schools. But, as the large number of appeals over school places demonstrates, it is not just the most disadvantaged who can be caught in the gap between the demand for good schools and their supply. It is also many middle-income families.
Better-off parents can sidestep these problems. They can take their children out of state schools and send them to private schools. They can buy extra tuition or move near a good school to guarantee a place.
When affluence buys attainment it restricts mobility. Some believe the answer lies in academic selection - and a return to grammar schools. But there is precious little evidence that schools selecting pupils does anything to close the attainment gap. The evidence from countries such as Denmark, Sweden and the US is that it is not schools selecting pupils, but parents being able to choose schools that raises standards generally and helps the disadvantaged particularly.
There is a lot of good thinking out there, if it can be brought together. The Conservatives say that city academies should be extended in both primary and secondary schools. They also say, rightly, that the supply of education places could be opened up to greater competition, particularly in areas of underperformance. The seeds of this have been sown: under Labour's existing legislation 19 new schools have been opened and 37 more are due over the next four years. Undoubtedly, however, new impetus could be injected by new partners, such as chains of state schools or schools sponsored by groups of parents, being invited to take over or work with underperforming schools.
The Liberal Democrats have argued that, in poor areas, schools could receive additional funding or each pupil from a disadvantaged background could attract a premium payment to recognise particular needs. They have a good point, but there are already higher levels of funding for deprivation. The problem is that money allocated nationally is not always handed on to schools by local authorities. The Government's recent White Paper argued that additional funding for each pupil from a disadvantaged background should be passed on. That is why the Government should aim for 100 per cent of deprivation-funding being passed to schools.
Other reforms could close the attainment gap and benefit pupils from middle as well as lower-income families. Schools could be asked to report on pupils' outcomes as well as examination results. They could assess the progress made between pupils starting school, leaving school and their destination after school. The Government could then consider how schools could be paid according to the progress their pupils make. That could provide a powerful incentive to drive up standards and improve pupils' outcomes.
And we could give parents who do not at present have access to a good school the power to get it. I have proposed that parents be given a new right of redress to choose a better school for their child if they live in an area where the schools are consistently performing badly. Parents could be given an education credit worth 150 per cent of the cost of the child's schooling for a state school of their choice. The extra funding would give good schools an incentive to expand pupil numbers and broaden their social intake.
Each of these ideas is controversial and contested. But my panel believes that the Government should examine these and other reforms as part of a sustained drive to close the educational attainment gap.
It is no longer sustainable for our education system to produce a cohort of youngsters who lack the skills to compete in the modern labour market. For reasons of economic progress, we need a second wave of social mobility. But, more than that, this is a question of basic justice. A talent unfulfilled is not just an opportunity cost. It is an opportunity lost.
SOURCE
Mother banned from British school for confronting bully who used son as 'human punch bag'
School hates to have its failures noted
A mother has been banned from a primary school after confronting a bully who used her five-year- old son as a 'human punch bag'. Christine Hart, 38, calmly asked the pupil to 'please stop hitting' her son Arthur after he endured months of bullying despite several complaints to teachers. But a teaching assistant saw and hauled her off to the headmistress, who told her not to cross the school gates and to attend a hearing with the governors to discuss her conduct.
Miss Hart spoke to the pupil last week when she dropped Arthur off at his classroom at Orleans Infants School, which serves a well-to-do catchment area in Twickenham, South-West London.
She has been warned she could face a further six-month ban for 'verbally abusing' the pupil and interrupting a class. She was also told that causing a 'nuisance' at school could constitute a criminal offence and that any further incidents will be reported to police. 'I am being punished because I stood up for my son when the school appeared to be doing nothing about my complaints,' she said. 'What message does this send to the boy? I don't know if he's ever been told off. Instead, I'm the one who is made to feel in the wrong. 'The message is hit Arthur whenever you like as you cannot be touched. If anyone challenges you, they will be cast out of school and threatened with the police.'
The school issued a statement saying that pupil safety was paramount and all bullying procedures had been followed.
Miss Hart, a journalist, said the bullying began when Arthur started at the school last September. 'He used to come home in tears and say that he didn't want to go back and could I teach him at home,' she added.
Two months ago Miss Hart saw Arthur being set upon by a classmate at a party in the school hall. 'Art was standing alone when one boy ran up to him and started using him as a punch bag, literally hitting him several times on the chest,' she said. 'Other boys then ran up to him grabbed him round the neck and arms and he was being hit. I was rooted to the spot.'
On another occasion Arthur, who suffers from asthma, was jumped on by a group of boys in the playground. 'He was squashed under a pile of them and said he couldn't breathe,' she said.
In an attempt to build bridges, Miss Hart laid on a picnic for her son and one of his tormentors, and they played together. But the bullying began again almost straight away. The night before his mother spoke to the boy in class, Arthur cried and said going to school made him feel scared
Miss Hart said: 'I saw the boy sitting in the classroom so I approached him, knelt by his side, made eye contact and said "please stop hitting Art". 'The boy thought for a moment and said he would stop. I was not in any way aggressive and he seemed to respond positively. 'The next thing I knew was a teacher's assistant came rushing up saying I couldn't do that, and she marched me off to the head teacher's office.'
Miss Hart said that headmistress Pip Utting initially seemed sympathetic. But later she received a phone call saying she was banned from taking Arthur to his classroom, before a letter from the school arrived warning that she could face police action in future.
'I feel I've no choice but to move my child or take him to private martial arts classes himself to fight off this boy and his entourage,' she said.
In a statement, Mrs Utting said: 'We cannot discuss individual cases especially when investigations may be in progress.'
SOURCE
YOU DON'T SAY: EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME 'SERIOUSLY FLAWED'
The system of trading carbon emissions at the heart of the ambitious low-carbon plan announced by the government last week is seriously flawed and close to becoming irrelevant, according to researchers behind a new analysis.
So-called "hot air" carbon credits - those which do not result in any actual emissions cuts - could be so numerous that companies covered by the EU Emissions Trading Scheme would not have to make any cuts to their own emissions until 2015, says the report from climate campaign group, Sandbag. The hot air permits result from the over-allocation of emissions allowances and from those going unused as the recession cuts economic activity.
The ETS covers 50% of the UK and EU's carbon emissions, mainly in the energy, cement, steel, glass and manufacturing sectors. Companies in these sectors are allocated allowances for the carbon they emit, with the total number shrinking over time, theoretically forcing companies to buy additional permits to pollute if they do not cut their emissions.
A large proportion of the UK's promised cut of 34% by 2020 will come via British companies in the ETS. Globally, the carbon trading market was worth _92bn (79bn) in 2008, trading 5bn tonnes. However, the large number of carbon permits that have been allocated and a fall in emissions due to the recession, have made the trading system less effective.
More HERE
WHEN WIND POWER BLOWS, JOBS WILL FALL
You may recall the Beyond the Fringe sketch in which Squadron Leader Peter Cook tells Jonathan Miller, the doleful pilot, that he must set out on a doomed mission because "we need a futile gesture at this stage. It will raise the whole tone of the war".
I was irresistibly reminded of this by Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, in his launch of plans to cut carbon emissions by switching to "renewables" for more than 30% of our energy use. This, he claimed, would "rise to the moral challenge of climate change".
Miliband is of the generation of politicians struggling to find a great moral cause. Earlier in the Labour administration Tony Blair thought he had found it with wars of choice far from home, but that has, to put it mildly, lost its lustre. Now it is the "war against climate change", given additional moral potency by the notion that the greatest concentration of sufferers from global rising temperatures would be among the world's poorest.
Miliband's citing of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech in support of his policy of subsidising the construction of many thousands of otherwise uneconomic wind turbines might appear grotesque, even comical; but not if you genuinely believe that Britain's switching from coal to wind power for its electricity generation will save the lives of countless Africans.
I have no idea whether Miliband truly believes that it will - but if he does, he is deluded. The UK is responsible for less than 2% of global carbon emissions - a figure set to fall sharply, regardless of what we do, as a result of the startlingly rapid industrial-isation of countries such as China and India: each year the increase in Chinese CO2 emissions alone is greater than those produced by the entire British economy. On the fashionable assumption that climate change is entirely driven by CO2 emissions, the effect on global temperatures of Britain closing every fossil fuel power station would be much smaller than the statistical margin of error: in effect, zero.
The scientists at the energy and climate change department know this, but their political masters see things differently. Gordon Brown claims: "Britain is leading the world in the battle against climate change." Such remarks are regarded as absurd in the chancelleries of Europe: if you do take as a measure of such commitment the proportion of domestic energy already supplied by renewables, the UK occupies 25th place in the European Union league table, above only Malta and Luxembourg.
Nevertheless, there is one great merit in being a follower rather than a leader in renewable energy: we can see how other European countries have fared in the experiment. Germany has long been subsidising wind power to the extent of almost _5 billion a year. Yet recent German Green party internal e-mails leaked to Der Spiegel magazine show this has not led to a reduction of a single gram of CO2 emitted on the continent of Europe. The much-vaunted emissions trading system is one reason: Germany's unused certificates were snapped up at negligible cost by coal producers in countries such as Poland and Slovakia, which were thus able to increase their output of greenhouse gases.
There is a second reason, which would remain even if the European emissions trading system were to be scrapped. Because the wind blows intermittently, and may be at its calmest at times of freezing weather, Germany has not been able to close a single one of its conventional power stations, despite its vast investment in wind power.
Indeed, Paul Golby, who runs the British operations of E.ON, Europe's biggest wind-power producer, has told the government that a 90% fossil fuel or nuclear back-up will be needed for any of the National Grid's future wind-power capacity. As Martin Fuchs, his German boss, pointed out: "The wind, sadly, does not blow where large quantities of power are required . . . on September 12 last year wind power contributed 38% of our grid power requirements at all times, but on September 30 the figure went down to 0.2%."
The powerful wind-turbine lobby in Germany constantly harps on about the number of jobs "created" by its subsidised investment, quite ignoring the number of jobs destroyed by high-cost energy, or indeed the greater number of jobs that could be created if the same amounts were invested in more profitable activities. This is why the Bremen Energy Institute argues that "wind energy macro-economically has a negative employment impact".
Given the run-down state of our conventional generating capacity, it is easy to see that the government's suspiciously round number of a "100 billion" expenditure on installing 7,000 offshore steel structures, each the height of Blackpool Tower, at a projected rate of more than two every working day over the next decade, does not begin to cover the real cost. This is why the overall price of wind energy is a multiple of that incurred by nuclear power, which is equally carbon-free but does not appeal to the moral vanity of politicians.
Admittedly, the Labour government has made a belated commitment to replacing our ageing nuclear reactors - far too late to fill the yawning energy gap that Britain faces in the coming decade. As Professor Ian Fells points out in the new Civitas pamphlet Nations Choose Prosperity: "The energy agenda is focused on carbon emissions rather than security of supply and potential costs. What is rarely considered is the consequential costs when power cuts are inflicted." These costs are not just measured in the collapse of business, but also in human lives, especially of the elderly and infirm.
Miliband claimed last week that the result of his proposals would be an increase in costs to energy users of about 17%. However, the business and enterprise department admitted last year that Britain's existing "climate policies" - even before Miliband's latest Big New Idea - would add an extra 55% to energy bills. It's obvious where this will lead: to the exit from Britain (and, indeed, Europe) of much of what remains of energy-intensive manufacturing industry - the euphemistic jargon term is "carbon leakage".
Jeremy Nicholson, the director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, which represents such industries as steel and aluminium, is exasperated beyond measure: "A future administration will have to say in public what ministers and their officials already admit in private, that the renewables target is neither practical nor affordable. Outsourcing our emissions is not a solution to a global problem. Politicians need to understand that unilateral action will come at a terrible cost in terms of UK manufacturing jobs, investment and export revenue, for no discernible environmental gain - is that really what they want?"
On the day Nicholson said this to me, last Thursday, Anglesey Aluminium, the biggest consumer of electricity in Wales, announced that it would cease production, precisely because it could see no prospect of signing up to a long-term supply of electricity at a rate at which it could make a profit. And on the day of Miliband's announcement, a group of Labour MPs presented a "Save Our Steel" petition, saying: "We need to make sure we act before the light goes out."
It may well be that the English steel mills will become unable to compete globally, even at current domestic energy prices; but deliberately to make them uncompetitive is industrial vandalism - and even madness when the consequence of Miliband's Martin Luther King moment may be the lights going out not just for producers but for all of us in our homes. This is worse than a futile gesture: it is immoral.
SOURCE
Gun and car crash victims face long ambulance ride to new British trauma units
British ambulance response times are already erratic .... And time is of the essence in many cases of serious injury
FOUR "super" accident and emergency units designed to treat gun crime and car crash victims in London are to be given the green light today. The most seriously ill patients will be fast-tracked to the major trauma centres for life-saving emergency care. But campaigners said lives will be put at risk as the centres are not spread evenly across London, meaning those on the outskirts face long journeys.
A joint committee of all London's primary care trusts is set to approve the hospital centres which will be set up at the Royal London in Whitechapel, King's College in Denmark Hill, St George's in Tooting and St Mary's in Paddington. The units will be open by the end of next year. NHS body Healthcare for London, which is developing plans for the trauma centres, insisted every Londoner will be a maximum of 45 minutes by ambulance away from one. [That eats up a lot of the "golden hour" (first hour after injury) during which some seriously injured persons can be saved]
But Geoff Martin, chairman of London Health Emergency, said: "Millions of Londoners on the outskirts will now face a dangerously long journey to the centre to access emergency trauma care. We think the 45-minute maximum journey time is optimistic and with only one air ambulance this whole scheme represents a massive gamble with life or death services."
There are also concerns that none of the centres is near Heathrow. Mr Martin added: "It defies belief. That leaves the UK's major airport dangerously exposed and we are demanding an urgent rethink before these plans are cast in stone."
But a spokeswoman for Healthcare for London said most major trauma incidents, such as stabbings, shootings and car accidents, happen in central London. She added: "The important thing is to get the right treatment, even if it means spending an extra 10 minutes in an ambulance."
The trauma centres will be staffed by a consultant at all times and specialists in every discipline, including trauma, orthopaedic and neuro-surgeons. The units will cost 14million a year to run, and the money will come from PCT budgets. Matt Thompson, clinical director for trauma services in London, said: "These patients are some of the most seriously injured patients that any hospital will ever see. It is vitally important that they have access to the right expertise and services if their lives are to be saved and disabilities reduced. "The proposed new trauma system - made up of major trauma centres linked to local trauma centres - would rival the best in the world. It is a fantastic opportunity for London to improve the care of these patients."
The PCT committee is also expected to approve plans to create eight specialist centres for stroke victims at Charing Cross, King's College, Northwick Park, Queen's, St George's, the Princess Royal, the Royal London and University College hospitals. These will provide specialist care for the first 72 hours after a stroke or until a patient is stabilised. They will open by summer 2011 and cost around 23million a year. Patients will be taken to the units within 30 minutes. But acute services in other hospitals are expected to be closed as part of the process. Campaigners fear the Royal Free in Belsize Park will lose its emergency stroke unit.
Dr Nick Losseff, interim clinical director for stroke services in London, said: "Patients and their families can be assured these will save lives and prevent disability."
SOURCE
Google cleared of responsibility for indexing defamatory comments
An out-of-character ruling by Mr Justice Eady. He normally finds defamation at the drop of a hat. He has almost singlehandedly made Britain the libel capital of the world. But apparently even he has his limits.
"A landmark ruling in the [British] High Court has cleared Google of all responsibility for indexing defamatory comments that appear in blogs, news articles and forums.
The search engine giant was brought to court by Metropolitan International Schools, a company which operates learning courses in the development of games under the name Train2Game. It was attempting to sue Google after comments it claimed were defamatory, written in a forum of a website, appeared on Google's search results page.
However, Mr Justice Eady, a High Court judge who specialises in defamation cases such as the recent Max Mosley trial, ruled on Friday, July 17, that Google was not a publisher of the comments, only a facilitator through automated results and therefore could not be held responsible for them. "When a snippet is thrown up on the user's screen in response to his search, it points him in the direction of an entry somewhere on the web that corresponds, to a greater or lesser extent, to the search terms he has typed in. "It is for him to access or not, as he chooses. [Google] has merely, by the provision of its search service, played the role of a facilitator."
A Google spokesperson said: "We are pleased with this result, which reinforces the principle that search engines aren't responsible for content that is published on third party websites. Mr Justice Eady made clear if someone feels they have been defamed by material on a website then they should address their complaint to the person who actually wrote and published the material, and not a search engine, which simply provides a searchable index of content on the internet."
The ruling will bring the UK more in line with the US legislation on this issue. Section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act makes it clear that intermediaries are not liable for defamation online. However, until now no such ruling existed in the UK, nor has Google ever had to defend itself against this claim before.
Source
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Benefits of breastfeeding being oversold
NHS claims about benefits of breastfeeding are false and oversold, as there is little evidence that mother's milk protects babies against illness or allergies, says a leading experts. Michael Kramer, a professor of paediatrics who has advised the World Health Organisation and Unicef, said that much of the evidence used to persuade mothers to breastfeed was either wrong or out of date.
However, mothers who breastfed had a different outlook from those who did not and were more likely to follow advice on all health issues. That meant their families were likely to have a healthier lifestyle and that could in turn explain better outcomes for their children.
The most recent NHS leaflets given to all pregnant women and new mothers said that breastfeeding protects a baby against obesity, allergies, asthma and diabetes. This is repeated by most other public health bodies such as the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust.
Professor Kramer, based at McGill University, Montreal, has studied evidence on breastfeeding since 1978, and has advised the World Health Organisation, Unicef, and the Cochrane Library on breastfeeding research. Evidence that breastfeeding protects against obesity was flawed, he said. "The evidence it protects against allergies and asthma is also weak. And there is very little evidence that it reduces the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and blood pressure. "I don't favour overselling the evidence, we should not be conveying false information. I think some of the advice promulgated on obesity or allergies is false information."
Mothers who were more likely to follow medical advice on breastfeeding were also more likely to be part of a family that acted healthily in other ways. So although breastfed babies may have better outcomes, this could easily be because of other factors.
However, he said that some claims were well founded, such as the protective effect on ear infections and gastrointestinal illnesses. "The formula milk industry jump on every piece of equivocal evidence. But the breastfeeding lobby have a way of ignoring the evidence. Both sides are not being very scientific," he said.
Joan Wolf, an academic who has spent five years researching the medical literature on breastfeeding, said that only the benefits on gastrointestinal illnesses had been conclusively proven. "The evidence we have now is not compelling. It certainly does not justify the rhetoric," said Ms Wolf, an assistant professor from Texas A&M University. "I'm not sure there should be a public health campaign on infant feeding in the West. "
A Department of Health spokesman defended the advice, saying that it was based on an expert review of the studies. Jacque Gerrard, the Royal College of Midwives's director for England, said that its advice was based on "the evidence that is out there, endorsed by the Department of Health". "Breastfeeding is the right way to produce healthy babies," she said.
SOURCE
Another disastrous NHS hospital
And the boss escapes without any retribution
Deaths at Broadmoor high security hospital and other institutions will be linked to management failures in a highly critical report this week. Executives at West London Mental Health NHS Trust failed to investigate promptly "serious untoward incidents", including patient suicides, meaning that staff were unable to learn lessons that might have prevented further deaths, an inquiry by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is expected to conclude.
The trust's chief executive, Simon Crawford, left on Friday to take up a job at the health authority NHS London.
Services at the trust have been under scrutiny since 2004 when Peter Bryan, a cannibalistic killer awaiting trial for murder, was transferred to a medium-security ward, where he killed Richard Loudwell, another inmate.
That incident is the subject of another report, to be published next month. The report into the West London Mental Health NHS Trust was triggered after complaints from families and patient groups. An official risk assessment report by NHS London issued West London Mental Health Trust with a "red" alert rating over its governance last month.
NHS London said of Mr Crawford's move: "Discussions have taken place between Simon Crawford and the trust and they both agreed that the time was right for Simon to move on and it would be helpful for his own development to have experience in another sector."
His departure echoes those at Mid Staffordshire and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospital trusts, where executives left before critical findings were published. Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said that it was disgusting that chief executives appeared to be "jumping before they were pushed". "This is a reward for failure approach," she said. "Poor and sloppy governance of trusts leads to appalling patient care and unnecessary deaths."
In a separate report, the CQC reported on how patients detained under the Mental Health Act in England were treated. The review, published on behalf of the former Mental Health Act Commission, found evidence of "worrying and poorly documented practices" surrounding control and restraint, patients at risk of suicide being left unmonitored and under-18s and women being transferred inappropriately to adult or mixed-sex units.
SOURCE
NHS is a bottomless pit for taxpayer funds
More and more bureaucrats have to be fed
The National Health Service is facing "the biggest financial crisis in its history" requiring tax rises or large cuts to other government departments just to maintain its budget, a report predicts. Spending on the NHS has doubled in a decade to more than 106 billion for next year, but the NHS needs to brace itself for a funding freeze that could last for six years, two leading think-tanks say.
The report, by the King's Fund and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), suggests that even under the most optimistic funding scenario, the NHS will struggle to meet people's healthcare needs without significantly increasing its productivity after 2011.
Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have promised "real-terms growth" in NHS funding, or at least no cuts to the health budget in real terms if they win the next election. But these promises would inevitably result in hard decisions, such as cuts to other Whitehall budgets or an increase in tax over the period to 2017, the report says.
Over the next spending review period, from 2011-12 to 2013-14, the budget across all spending departments, including the NHS, could reduce in real terms by an average of 2.3 per cent each year, according to the IFS. These cuts could be restricted if taxes were increased, the authors of the report say. Limiting other departmental cuts to 2 per cent a year, while freezing the NHS budget over the next spending review period would require additional revenue of about 10.6 billion - equivalent to an extra 340 per family.
If, as seems likely, the NHS has at least three or four years of low or zero growth, it will be the first time in its history that it has had to go for such a long period with rising demand and little or no new money, the report says. But even if the NHS budget is not cut in real terms, future funding is likely to fall short of the population's healthcare needs by more than 30 billion.
John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund, said: "Everybody knows that the financial forecast is going to be bad, but we've tried to put some numbers on this and figure out where the cuts might come. Our analysis shows that the NHS is facing the most significant financial challenge in its history."
In 2002, Sir Derek Wanless published a landmark report that set out the funding projections needed to maintain "solid progress" in the NHS, Mr Appleby said. The projections assumed improvements in health-related lifestyle behaviour and increased productivity in the NHS. "But even if spending is maintained or increases slightly, funding would still fall short of the solid progress mark by between 6.4 billion and 32.4 billion by 2016-17 at today's prices," he said. "This is equivalent to between 6 per cent and 31 per cent of the entire NHS budget."
Part of the shortfall could, in principle, be filled by increasing productivity in the NHS. To do this, over the period from 2011-2017, the NHS would need to make gains of between 3.9 billion and 8.2 billion per year. This is equivalent to improvements of 3.7 to 7.7 per cent per year.
But the Office for National Statistics estimates that average productivity between 1997 and 2007 has fallen each year by 0.4 per cent on average, while private sector productivity growth averages about only 2 per cent a year.
"The service has enjoyed unprecedented increases in funding since the turn of the century, but those days will soon be over," Mr Appleby said. "That is why it is crucial that the service does all it can over the next two years to prepare itself for the financial freeze that will take hold over the two coming spending review periods."
Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the King's Fund, said: "The scale of what is about to hit the healthcare system is unprecedented. It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the challenge ahead."
SOURCE
British Parents 'will have no say' over sex education in schools
Parents will be given barely any say in the content of sex education classes under Government plans to make the subject compulsory for children as young as five, a report warns today. Schools are currently free to draw up their own policies on sex education and are obliged to consult parents.
But proposals unveiled by Children's Secretary Ed Balls earlier this year to make the subject mandatory in primary and secondary schools will inevitably limit parents' influence, says a report from the Family Education Trust. Parents would have less power to keep explicit materials out of the classroom and object to the Government's 'misplaced' and 'counterproductive' promotion of contraceptives in lessons.
Norman Wells, the trust's director, said: 'Making personal, social and health education statutory would reduce the influence of parents over what is taught. 'Making it part of the curriculum would inevitably make schools less accountable to parents in what is a particularly sensitive and controversial subject area.' He added: 'There is a definite agenda at work to undermine the role of parents and to tear down traditional moral standards. The need for parents to be alert and vigilant has never been greater.'
Under the Government's plans, which are open to public consultation until the end of the week, primary schools would be required to teach sex and relationships education for the first time. Currently they do not have to cover the issue at all beyond the basic requirements of the science curriculum.
Draft plans suggest children aged five would learn to name parts of the body while sevenyearolds will learn about physical changes linked to puberty. Nine-year-olds would begin to learn about the facts of life.
In secondary schools sex education would become a statutory part of the national curriculum for the first time. Parents would retain their right to withdraw pupils from lessons. But hardly any exercise this amid concerns about their children being singled out by classmates or discovering the material anyway in the playground.
A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: 'Schools have an important role to play in providing effective sex and relationship education, which is essential if young people are to make responsible and well informed decisions about their lives.'
SOURCE
Britain's love-affair with homosexuality again
A doctor has been removed from an adoption panel because she refuses to endorse applications by homosexual couples. Dr Sheila Matthews, who is a Christian, was told that her beliefs on gay adoption were incompatible with equality legislation and council policies. The paediatrician had asked to be allowed to abstain from voting in cases involving same-sex couples. But that led to her being barred from the panel altogether.
The married mother of one said she had been 'made to pay for being honest and upholding my personal integrity'. 'I don't feel that placing children for adoption with same-sex couples is the best place for them,' said the 50-year-old doctor. 'As a Christian, I don't believe it's an appropriate lifestyle and I don't believe the outcomes for children would be as good as if they were placed with heterosexual couples.'
Dr Matthews said men and women brought different skills to parenting, with mothers more nurturing and fathers more challenging. She said children of gay adoptive parents would be more likely to be bullied. 'Professionally and personally I cannot recommend placement in a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child, despite what politicians may have legislated for,' she said.
For the past five years she has analysed medical examinations of prospective adoptive parents on behalf of the panel to establish whether the candidates were healthy enough to provide longterm care for a child. Dr Matthews would then take part in the vote to decide if the candidates should be approved.
In the past, Dr Matthews had abstained from votes on same-sex parents.
But in February a homosexual couple applied to the panel - the first to do so following the introduction of equality legislation at the end of last year. Dr Matthews was happy to interpret for the panel the couple's medical assessments but was barred from participating after saying she would abstain from voting. Northamptonshire County Council told her she had been replaced on the panel because of the ' significant problems' her views created for the adoption service. In a letter she was told that her stance went against complying with the law and would not help the council attract the widest range of suitable adopters.
She has appealed against the decision and says she may be forced to go to an employment tribunal on the grounds of religious discrimination. The Christian Legal Centre is backing her case and has referred it to Paul Diamond, a leading religious rights barrister.
The council said it was ' communicating' with Dr Matthews, who lives in Kettering, but could not comment further. More than 3,200 children were adopted in England last year - 90 by gay couples.
SOURCE
British jeweller in race probe over his ban on gypsies after string of raids on his shop
The global Left just cannot accept that all groups are not the same
British backdown on list that defamed Michael Savage
We read:
NHS claims about benefits of breastfeeding are false and oversold, as there is little evidence that mother's milk protects babies against illness or allergies, says a leading experts. Michael Kramer, a professor of paediatrics who has advised the World Health Organisation and Unicef, said that much of the evidence used to persuade mothers to breastfeed was either wrong or out of date.
However, mothers who breastfed had a different outlook from those who did not and were more likely to follow advice on all health issues. That meant their families were likely to have a healthier lifestyle and that could in turn explain better outcomes for their children.
The most recent NHS leaflets given to all pregnant women and new mothers said that breastfeeding protects a baby against obesity, allergies, asthma and diabetes. This is repeated by most other public health bodies such as the Royal College of Midwives and the National Childbirth Trust.
Professor Kramer, based at McGill University, Montreal, has studied evidence on breastfeeding since 1978, and has advised the World Health Organisation, Unicef, and the Cochrane Library on breastfeeding research. Evidence that breastfeeding protects against obesity was flawed, he said. "The evidence it protects against allergies and asthma is also weak. And there is very little evidence that it reduces the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and blood pressure. "I don't favour overselling the evidence, we should not be conveying false information. I think some of the advice promulgated on obesity or allergies is false information."
Mothers who were more likely to follow medical advice on breastfeeding were also more likely to be part of a family that acted healthily in other ways. So although breastfed babies may have better outcomes, this could easily be because of other factors.
However, he said that some claims were well founded, such as the protective effect on ear infections and gastrointestinal illnesses. "The formula milk industry jump on every piece of equivocal evidence. But the breastfeeding lobby have a way of ignoring the evidence. Both sides are not being very scientific," he said.
Joan Wolf, an academic who has spent five years researching the medical literature on breastfeeding, said that only the benefits on gastrointestinal illnesses had been conclusively proven. "The evidence we have now is not compelling. It certainly does not justify the rhetoric," said Ms Wolf, an assistant professor from Texas A&M University. "I'm not sure there should be a public health campaign on infant feeding in the West. "
A Department of Health spokesman defended the advice, saying that it was based on an expert review of the studies. Jacque Gerrard, the Royal College of Midwives's director for England, said that its advice was based on "the evidence that is out there, endorsed by the Department of Health". "Breastfeeding is the right way to produce healthy babies," she said.
SOURCE
Another disastrous NHS hospital
And the boss escapes without any retribution
Deaths at Broadmoor high security hospital and other institutions will be linked to management failures in a highly critical report this week. Executives at West London Mental Health NHS Trust failed to investigate promptly "serious untoward incidents", including patient suicides, meaning that staff were unable to learn lessons that might have prevented further deaths, an inquiry by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is expected to conclude.
The trust's chief executive, Simon Crawford, left on Friday to take up a job at the health authority NHS London.
Services at the trust have been under scrutiny since 2004 when Peter Bryan, a cannibalistic killer awaiting trial for murder, was transferred to a medium-security ward, where he killed Richard Loudwell, another inmate.
That incident is the subject of another report, to be published next month. The report into the West London Mental Health NHS Trust was triggered after complaints from families and patient groups. An official risk assessment report by NHS London issued West London Mental Health Trust with a "red" alert rating over its governance last month.
NHS London said of Mr Crawford's move: "Discussions have taken place between Simon Crawford and the trust and they both agreed that the time was right for Simon to move on and it would be helpful for his own development to have experience in another sector."
His departure echoes those at Mid Staffordshire and Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells hospital trusts, where executives left before critical findings were published. Katherine Murphy, of the Patients Association, said that it was disgusting that chief executives appeared to be "jumping before they were pushed". "This is a reward for failure approach," she said. "Poor and sloppy governance of trusts leads to appalling patient care and unnecessary deaths."
In a separate report, the CQC reported on how patients detained under the Mental Health Act in England were treated. The review, published on behalf of the former Mental Health Act Commission, found evidence of "worrying and poorly documented practices" surrounding control and restraint, patients at risk of suicide being left unmonitored and under-18s and women being transferred inappropriately to adult or mixed-sex units.
SOURCE
NHS is a bottomless pit for taxpayer funds
More and more bureaucrats have to be fed
The National Health Service is facing "the biggest financial crisis in its history" requiring tax rises or large cuts to other government departments just to maintain its budget, a report predicts. Spending on the NHS has doubled in a decade to more than 106 billion for next year, but the NHS needs to brace itself for a funding freeze that could last for six years, two leading think-tanks say.
The report, by the King's Fund and Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), suggests that even under the most optimistic funding scenario, the NHS will struggle to meet people's healthcare needs without significantly increasing its productivity after 2011.
Both Gordon Brown and David Cameron have promised "real-terms growth" in NHS funding, or at least no cuts to the health budget in real terms if they win the next election. But these promises would inevitably result in hard decisions, such as cuts to other Whitehall budgets or an increase in tax over the period to 2017, the report says.
Over the next spending review period, from 2011-12 to 2013-14, the budget across all spending departments, including the NHS, could reduce in real terms by an average of 2.3 per cent each year, according to the IFS. These cuts could be restricted if taxes were increased, the authors of the report say. Limiting other departmental cuts to 2 per cent a year, while freezing the NHS budget over the next spending review period would require additional revenue of about 10.6 billion - equivalent to an extra 340 per family.
If, as seems likely, the NHS has at least three or four years of low or zero growth, it will be the first time in its history that it has had to go for such a long period with rising demand and little or no new money, the report says. But even if the NHS budget is not cut in real terms, future funding is likely to fall short of the population's healthcare needs by more than 30 billion.
John Appleby, chief economist at the King's Fund, said: "Everybody knows that the financial forecast is going to be bad, but we've tried to put some numbers on this and figure out where the cuts might come. Our analysis shows that the NHS is facing the most significant financial challenge in its history."
In 2002, Sir Derek Wanless published a landmark report that set out the funding projections needed to maintain "solid progress" in the NHS, Mr Appleby said. The projections assumed improvements in health-related lifestyle behaviour and increased productivity in the NHS. "But even if spending is maintained or increases slightly, funding would still fall short of the solid progress mark by between 6.4 billion and 32.4 billion by 2016-17 at today's prices," he said. "This is equivalent to between 6 per cent and 31 per cent of the entire NHS budget."
Part of the shortfall could, in principle, be filled by increasing productivity in the NHS. To do this, over the period from 2011-2017, the NHS would need to make gains of between 3.9 billion and 8.2 billion per year. This is equivalent to improvements of 3.7 to 7.7 per cent per year.
But the Office for National Statistics estimates that average productivity between 1997 and 2007 has fallen each year by 0.4 per cent on average, while private sector productivity growth averages about only 2 per cent a year.
"The service has enjoyed unprecedented increases in funding since the turn of the century, but those days will soon be over," Mr Appleby said. "That is why it is crucial that the service does all it can over the next two years to prepare itself for the financial freeze that will take hold over the two coming spending review periods."
Niall Dickson, the chief executive of the King's Fund, said: "The scale of what is about to hit the healthcare system is unprecedented. It would be a grave mistake to underestimate the challenge ahead."
SOURCE
British Parents 'will have no say' over sex education in schools
Parents will be given barely any say in the content of sex education classes under Government plans to make the subject compulsory for children as young as five, a report warns today. Schools are currently free to draw up their own policies on sex education and are obliged to consult parents.
But proposals unveiled by Children's Secretary Ed Balls earlier this year to make the subject mandatory in primary and secondary schools will inevitably limit parents' influence, says a report from the Family Education Trust. Parents would have less power to keep explicit materials out of the classroom and object to the Government's 'misplaced' and 'counterproductive' promotion of contraceptives in lessons.
Norman Wells, the trust's director, said: 'Making personal, social and health education statutory would reduce the influence of parents over what is taught. 'Making it part of the curriculum would inevitably make schools less accountable to parents in what is a particularly sensitive and controversial subject area.' He added: 'There is a definite agenda at work to undermine the role of parents and to tear down traditional moral standards. The need for parents to be alert and vigilant has never been greater.'
Under the Government's plans, which are open to public consultation until the end of the week, primary schools would be required to teach sex and relationships education for the first time. Currently they do not have to cover the issue at all beyond the basic requirements of the science curriculum.
Draft plans suggest children aged five would learn to name parts of the body while sevenyearolds will learn about physical changes linked to puberty. Nine-year-olds would begin to learn about the facts of life.
In secondary schools sex education would become a statutory part of the national curriculum for the first time. Parents would retain their right to withdraw pupils from lessons. But hardly any exercise this amid concerns about their children being singled out by classmates or discovering the material anyway in the playground.
A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: 'Schools have an important role to play in providing effective sex and relationship education, which is essential if young people are to make responsible and well informed decisions about their lives.'
SOURCE
Britain's love-affair with homosexuality again
A doctor has been removed from an adoption panel because she refuses to endorse applications by homosexual couples. Dr Sheila Matthews, who is a Christian, was told that her beliefs on gay adoption were incompatible with equality legislation and council policies. The paediatrician had asked to be allowed to abstain from voting in cases involving same-sex couples. But that led to her being barred from the panel altogether.
The married mother of one said she had been 'made to pay for being honest and upholding my personal integrity'. 'I don't feel that placing children for adoption with same-sex couples is the best place for them,' said the 50-year-old doctor. 'As a Christian, I don't believe it's an appropriate lifestyle and I don't believe the outcomes for children would be as good as if they were placed with heterosexual couples.'
Dr Matthews said men and women brought different skills to parenting, with mothers more nurturing and fathers more challenging. She said children of gay adoptive parents would be more likely to be bullied. 'Professionally and personally I cannot recommend placement in a same-sex household to be in the best interest of a child, despite what politicians may have legislated for,' she said.
For the past five years she has analysed medical examinations of prospective adoptive parents on behalf of the panel to establish whether the candidates were healthy enough to provide longterm care for a child. Dr Matthews would then take part in the vote to decide if the candidates should be approved.
In the past, Dr Matthews had abstained from votes on same-sex parents.
But in February a homosexual couple applied to the panel - the first to do so following the introduction of equality legislation at the end of last year. Dr Matthews was happy to interpret for the panel the couple's medical assessments but was barred from participating after saying she would abstain from voting. Northamptonshire County Council told her she had been replaced on the panel because of the ' significant problems' her views created for the adoption service. In a letter she was told that her stance went against complying with the law and would not help the council attract the widest range of suitable adopters.
She has appealed against the decision and says she may be forced to go to an employment tribunal on the grounds of religious discrimination. The Christian Legal Centre is backing her case and has referred it to Paul Diamond, a leading religious rights barrister.
The council said it was ' communicating' with Dr Matthews, who lives in Kettering, but could not comment further. More than 3,200 children were adopted in England last year - 90 by gay couples.
SOURCE
British jeweller in race probe over his ban on gypsies after string of raids on his shop
The global Left just cannot accept that all groups are not the same
"In the past 18 months alone jeweller Michael Plant has repeatedly been targeted by Eastern European thieves. At first he left it to the police to track down those responsible and hoped they would eventually be brought to justice. But with no sign of any arrests and still more raids, he decided to ban them from his shop - only to be threatened with prosecution for racial hatred.
'I'm not racist, but the fact is I have been targeted repeatedly by Eastern European criminals,' said Mr Plant, 62, yesterday. 'I should have a right to say which people come into my shop and not face allegations of racial discrimination. 'Obviously I don't think all of them are bad, but how can I distinguish who is good and who is bad? Some people coming in to this country illegally seem to have more rights than me.'
After each raid he called in the police to investigate but with no arrests and more stock stolen he decided to make a stand and placed a sign in his window which read: 'Sorry, we do not serve Rumanian or East European gypsies.'
After a tip-off from a member of the public, a senior police officer warned him that if it was not removed immediately he could be charged with producing racially offensive material. 'The sign was written in anger after the robbery,' said Mr Plant. 'I feared we would get more in that afternoon. 'I just put it straight in the door. The police took offence at the word "gipsies". 'I've had several robberies and the capture of criminals is very low.
Police said Mr Plant had fallen foul of the Race Relations Act which recognises gipsies and travellers as ethnic groups. A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: 'Police received a report that a shop was displaying a sign which contained writing that was deemed to be offensive. 'Officers have spoken with the owner of the shop. He has been advised that the notice is offensive and he has since removed it.
'We take all complaints of this nature extremely seriously.' [What they DON'T take seriously is theft]
SOURCE
British backdown on list that defamed Michael Savage
We read:
"Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to scrap his predecessor's policy of naming and shaming people banned from Britain for spreading race hate and terrorism. The U-turn follows Jacqui Smith's controversial decision two months ago to announce a list of 16 people branded as 'least wanted' in the UK.
It led to a claim for 100,000 damages by U.S. radio 'shock jock' Michael Savage, who objected to being put in the same category as Islamic hate preachers and terrorists.
The Mail on Sunday has been told that Mr Johnson believes the move was a blunder and does not propose to issue similar lists in the future. But the switch could have major legal consequences for the Government. Mr Savage is suing Ms Smith for libel over the list and abandoning the policy could make it impossible to contest his demand for damages.
Source
Monday, July 20, 2009
Sarah Kennedy 'spoken to' by BBC for praising immigration critic during Radio 2 show
We read:
Given the troubles with Muslims and the high crime-rate among blacks, there are many Britons today who believe that Powell has been proved right in giving the warnings he did. "Enoch was right", they say 40 years later -- though only in private conversations.
Powell never in fact mentioned "rivers of blood". He was a distinguished classical scholar and alluded to something written by the Roman poet Virgil: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". He certainly foresaw deaths but not on quite the scale his critics have alleged.
The whole speech is here. It was a rather leisurely and academic speech, certainly not rabble rousing, but it referred to realities that were already widely recognized and reading it today does tend to show Powell as remarkably prescient. The article above describes Powell as "Right-wing" but he in fact got a lot of support from unionists, including strikes in support of him. That is why the political class to this day demonizes him only in a cautious way. The lady above was simply "spoken to", for instance. Having wharf labourers going on strike in support of one of the most distinguished Professors of Classical Greek must be one of the more amazing events in social history!
Powell was a brilliant scholar and a devout Christian and foresaw that his speech would be controversial but he felt that someone had to say in public what many were saying in private so he is an exemplar to those who believe in free speech.
NHS heart treatment `among worst in West
TREATMENT for heart disease in Britain is worse than almost anywhere else in the western world, despite pledges by Labour to improve services. A new study reveals that fewer NHS patients have access to defibrillators, pacemakers and heart surgery than in most neighbouring nations. In some parts of Britain, such as the northwest, up to a third of patients are failing to receive life-saving operations.
Doctors are demanding a public debate on how to tackle the growing pressure on heart services. One in three people in Britain are destined to suffer from heart disease.
The study, Access to Cardiac Care, has been commissioned by the British Heart Foundation, the British Cardiovascular Society and a coalition of 41 charities and voluntary groups. The report predicts that demand for heart treatment will double by 2020, yet there is no clear indication that funds will be available to pay for it.
The forecast is in stark contrast to the ambition shown 10 years ago by Alan Milburn, then the health secretary, when heart disease claimed 140,000 lives annually. In a newspaper article at the time, Milburn said: "Tackling heart disease is one of the keys not only to a healthier nation but to a fairer nation." However, the number dying from heart disease has since increased to 198,000, with one in three victims under 75.
The study, carried out by Oxford Healthcare Associates, showed startling regional variations in cardiac services, with "overprovision" of treatment in affluent cities and the shires.
Roger Boyle, the heart czar, said heart operations had increased by 59% since 2000 and that deaths from cardiovascular disease had fallen by 44% in the past decade.
SOURCE
British Muslim imposes his religion on others
Muslim care home owner bans oldsters from eating bacon sandwiches. But publicity forces a backdown, as usual
A Muslim care home owner has been branded 'a disgrace' after banning his pensioner residents from eating bacon. The 40 pensioners - none of them Muslim - were shocked when all pork products were cut off the menu by owner Dr Zulfikar Ali Khan. He stopped deliveries from the butcher who supplied the home for years and instead ordered halal-meat only from another firm.
It meant that the elderly residents at the 40-bed Queen's Care Centre in the pit village of Maltby, near Rotherham, missed out on traditional favourites like bacon sandwiches, sausage and mash, ham sandwiches and sausage rolls.
But the move has brought a furious reaction from the 37-strong staff - and the families of residents. Said a relative of an elderly resident : 'This is a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years an deserve better. 'They are paying customers who are making profits for this man. The least he can do is give them their favourite food. 'Bacon butties and bangers and mash is traditional English food and that's what these people want, it's shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man.'
Said one member of staff , who asked not to be named: 'Only halal meat was delivered to the home and all pork products such as bacon, ham sandwiches, pork pies, sausages and even lard were stopped. 'He did not consult the residents or seek their approval. Bacon sandwiches are a favourite here. 'It's also quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this.
'For many years meat has been supplied by Crawshaws, a Rotherham family butcher but that contract ended two weeks ago and since then only halal meat has been delivered along with other products with brand names you would not recognise. 'We were told that if people wanted pork products we could go out and get them, but in reality this has not worked. 'We only have halal meat on the premises and so this is all we had to serve to residents because there is no other meat in the building.'
When asked about the decision, Dr Khan, who has owned the home since 1994, suggested that the halal meat had been brought in for Muslim staff - but he is believed to be the only one the only in the building. He said staff had misconceptions about the situation and added : 'As soon as we realised residents were not getting what they wanted it was resolved at a senior staff meeting a week ago. 'We will be ordering all types of meat . It is complete nonsense. The residents are free to have whatever they want.
'Regarding meat we are moving from Crawshaws to Browns Meat Supplies - a British company which supplies all kinds of meat. 'There has been one delivery of halal meat and people have misunderstood the concept. As soon as I realised this I held a senior staff meeting which was minuted and I made it abundantly clear that residents could have any meat product or food they wished. 'I agree it would be quite wrong for someone to impose their religious or cultural beliefs on others, but this is not the case.'
Said a former member of staff who still has connections with the home: 'I believe Dr Khan intended to serve only halal meat at the home but has had to think again because of the row. 'The staff have been very unhappy and the manager has just left, one of several to go in the last few years.'
SOURCE
Have British universities taught their students anything?
Higher education used to be exciting and guarantee a good job. Not any more
A broken promise? Or a noble aspiration that ended in disappointment? Of all the targets set by New Labour when it first came to power in 1997, the real headline-grabber - the one we all remember - was the aim of having 50 per cent of school leavers in higher education. That one felt good, emotionally, however half-baked the thinking behind it.
In this brave new 50/50 world, higher education would no longer be the preserve of a privileged minority, but a natural progression from a normal schooling. And the prospect of universities opening their doors to children whose parents and grandparents had missed out on the chance appealed to people across the political divide. It mirrored the kind of Britain we all wanted to live in.
Nobody focused too much on the small print. What would all these new university entrants be studying? How useful would their degrees be to them in later life? Who was going to pay for all this? It was the headline figure that caught the eye: 50 per cent. Half the population. A reasonable target for a modern democracy.
Twelve years on from the Labour landslide of 1997, the 50 per cent target is as remote as ever, like a mirage in a desert. In 2008-9, 39.8 per cent of people aged between 18 and 30 were in higher education, compared with 39.2 per cent 10 years earlier - absolutely minuscule progress, however you crunch the figures. The proportion did rise to 42 per cent in 2005 but that was a freak year, statistically - there was a surge of students wanting to enrol before the introduction of top-up tuition fees.
Hopes of widening access to higher education have also been cruelly disappointed. Research published earlier this year showed that children from the poorest 25 per cent of families make up just 6.5 per cent of the student population. From Wolverhampton to Newcastle, there is an educational underclass that refuses to go away. No target set in Whitehall can shift it one jot. In the very poorest areas, fewer than one in 20 school-leavers go on to university.
This coming autumn, thanks to the economic recession, is going to be a particularly depressing time for apostles of higher education. Millions of British children still aspire to go university. UCAS applications are up eight per cent on last year. But the requisite university places are not there for them. The Government has had to put a cap of 10,000, down from 15,000, on the number of new places which universities can offer.
The problem is not a lack of interest in learning among the young: it is the lack of a structure in which that appetite for learning can be satisfied. There are not enough good, useful, challenging degree courses to go around. And, with increasing numbers of pupils getting good grades at A level, it has become harder and harder for universities to sort the wheat from the chaff at the application stage.
In previous years, because of the clearing system, most school-leavers who were determined to go on to higher education managed to find a course somewhere, even if it was not their first choice. This year, the gap between supply and demand will ensure an awful lot of disappointed youngsters in August and September.
Well, perhaps they should just swallow their disappointment and get on with their lives. It should not take Sir Alan Sugar to remind us that success in life is not achieved by racking up letters after your name but by hard graft, enterprise and a teaspoonful of arrogance.
Yes, a degree can be a passport to a secure career and a comfortable income, but not even that can be taken for granted any more.
Interestingly, a recent survey indicated that only 49 per cent of employers planned to recruit graduates this year. Companies that would normally comb the universities for talent are tightening their belts like everyone else, which can only mean one thing - graduate unemployment on a significant scale.
Not so long ago, the idea that you could go to university, get a good degree, then have to join the dole queue like everyone else, was anathema. I remember, as a student in the late Seventies, staring horrified at a front-page news story about an Oxford graduate with a first-class degree who was still unemployed nine months after graduating. That story would not make the front pages today; in fact, it would hardly be worth reporting at all. The unemployed graduate, with a five-figure student loan to pay off, but not a sniff of a job, is part of the social furniture of our times.
My elder daughter, now 23, is a medical student in London. She should be able to find a job when she graduates: the country needs every doctor it can get. But for her contemporaries who have left good universities with degrees in arts subjects, the outlook is much bleaker. Some of them have found reasonably paid jobs. Others are still doing the sort of non-professional jobs they were doing before they went up to university. Not surprisingly, they are starting to ask themselves; was it worth it?
It is a question which more and more students are asking themselves while they are still at university. They enrol to read geography or film studies or political science, or whatever, go to the odd lecture, attend seminars, take notes, dash off essays at three in the morning. But, deep down, they get no real enjoyment from their studies, which seem too much like hard work. They have been told that higher education will be good for them: they have not been told that it will only be good for them if they want to do it.
A few years back, the daughter of some friends of mine set gaily off to read English at Durham, having got three As in her A-levels, then dropped out after six months. "She's throwing her whole life away," wailed her father, a teacher. Not a bit of it. She was just bored, burnt out academically, and in need of a fresh challenge. In the university of life - in her case, working on a sheep farm in New Zealand - she learnt far more than she would have ever have learnt studying Wordsworth and Conrad.
She is back in England now, working for an IT company. Perhaps, in a few years, she will have rediscovered her appetite for academic study and apply for university again, or get a professional qualification. Or perhaps she won't bother, because she is happy and doing well and forging ahead in the working world, unburdened by the debts of her contemporaries who took out student loans and thought university was the answer to all their prayers.
From a utopian viewpoint, whatever your politics, the fact that higher education remains theoretically open to all but, in practice, is only enjoyed by a minority, will remain a source of disappointment. But we shouldn't get too hung up on statistics, particularly ones like that arbitrary 50 per cent target. A university education can be a joy, a privilege, a stepping stone; but it is not a prerequisite for a happy and successful career.
SOURCE
We read:
"Radio 2 presenter Sarah Kennedy has been chastised by the BBC for praising right-wing politician Enoch Powell during her show. During her early-morning show on Wednesday, Kennedy, 59, described Powell as 'the best prime minister this country never had'. Enoch Powell was famously sacked from the shadow cabinet by Ted Heath in 1968 after his 'Rivers of Blood' speech about the dangers of mass immigration.
A spokesman for the BBC said that the corporation had received 25 complaints by Friday and that the presenter had been 'spoken to' about the remark. She said: 'It was inappropriate for Sarah to offer an off-the-cuff political opinion and we have spoken to her and made that clear.'
In his infamous 'Rivers of Blood' speech to Conservatives in Birmingham's Midland Hotel in 1968, Enoch Powell spoke out the threats caused by the mass immigration of people from Britain's former colonies.. He also heavily criticised the planned anti-discrimination laws which would make it illegal to refuse service on grounds of race.
It caused deep divisions in public opinion with Powell accused of inflaming racial hatred by many, but applauded by others for saying the unsayable. He was quickly sacked from Edward Heath's shadow cabinet but he also received 120,000 letters of support.
Source
Given the troubles with Muslims and the high crime-rate among blacks, there are many Britons today who believe that Powell has been proved right in giving the warnings he did. "Enoch was right", they say 40 years later -- though only in private conversations.
Powell never in fact mentioned "rivers of blood". He was a distinguished classical scholar and alluded to something written by the Roman poet Virgil: "As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood". He certainly foresaw deaths but not on quite the scale his critics have alleged.
The whole speech is here. It was a rather leisurely and academic speech, certainly not rabble rousing, but it referred to realities that were already widely recognized and reading it today does tend to show Powell as remarkably prescient. The article above describes Powell as "Right-wing" but he in fact got a lot of support from unionists, including strikes in support of him. That is why the political class to this day demonizes him only in a cautious way. The lady above was simply "spoken to", for instance. Having wharf labourers going on strike in support of one of the most distinguished Professors of Classical Greek must be one of the more amazing events in social history!
Powell was a brilliant scholar and a devout Christian and foresaw that his speech would be controversial but he felt that someone had to say in public what many were saying in private so he is an exemplar to those who believe in free speech.
NHS heart treatment `among worst in West
TREATMENT for heart disease in Britain is worse than almost anywhere else in the western world, despite pledges by Labour to improve services. A new study reveals that fewer NHS patients have access to defibrillators, pacemakers and heart surgery than in most neighbouring nations. In some parts of Britain, such as the northwest, up to a third of patients are failing to receive life-saving operations.
Doctors are demanding a public debate on how to tackle the growing pressure on heart services. One in three people in Britain are destined to suffer from heart disease.
The study, Access to Cardiac Care, has been commissioned by the British Heart Foundation, the British Cardiovascular Society and a coalition of 41 charities and voluntary groups. The report predicts that demand for heart treatment will double by 2020, yet there is no clear indication that funds will be available to pay for it.
The forecast is in stark contrast to the ambition shown 10 years ago by Alan Milburn, then the health secretary, when heart disease claimed 140,000 lives annually. In a newspaper article at the time, Milburn said: "Tackling heart disease is one of the keys not only to a healthier nation but to a fairer nation." However, the number dying from heart disease has since increased to 198,000, with one in three victims under 75.
The study, carried out by Oxford Healthcare Associates, showed startling regional variations in cardiac services, with "overprovision" of treatment in affluent cities and the shires.
Roger Boyle, the heart czar, said heart operations had increased by 59% since 2000 and that deaths from cardiovascular disease had fallen by 44% in the past decade.
SOURCE
British Muslim imposes his religion on others
Muslim care home owner bans oldsters from eating bacon sandwiches. But publicity forces a backdown, as usual
A Muslim care home owner has been branded 'a disgrace' after banning his pensioner residents from eating bacon. The 40 pensioners - none of them Muslim - were shocked when all pork products were cut off the menu by owner Dr Zulfikar Ali Khan. He stopped deliveries from the butcher who supplied the home for years and instead ordered halal-meat only from another firm.
It meant that the elderly residents at the 40-bed Queen's Care Centre in the pit village of Maltby, near Rotherham, missed out on traditional favourites like bacon sandwiches, sausage and mash, ham sandwiches and sausage rolls.
But the move has brought a furious reaction from the 37-strong staff - and the families of residents. Said a relative of an elderly resident : 'This is a disgrace. The old people who are in the home and in their final years an deserve better. 'They are paying customers who are making profits for this man. The least he can do is give them their favourite food. 'Bacon butties and bangers and mash is traditional English food and that's what these people want, it's shocking that they should be deprived of the food they like on the whim of this man.'
Said one member of staff , who asked not to be named: 'Only halal meat was delivered to the home and all pork products such as bacon, ham sandwiches, pork pies, sausages and even lard were stopped. 'He did not consult the residents or seek their approval. Bacon sandwiches are a favourite here. 'It's also quite wrong that someone should impose their religious and cultural beliefs on others like this.
'For many years meat has been supplied by Crawshaws, a Rotherham family butcher but that contract ended two weeks ago and since then only halal meat has been delivered along with other products with brand names you would not recognise. 'We were told that if people wanted pork products we could go out and get them, but in reality this has not worked. 'We only have halal meat on the premises and so this is all we had to serve to residents because there is no other meat in the building.'
When asked about the decision, Dr Khan, who has owned the home since 1994, suggested that the halal meat had been brought in for Muslim staff - but he is believed to be the only one the only in the building. He said staff had misconceptions about the situation and added : 'As soon as we realised residents were not getting what they wanted it was resolved at a senior staff meeting a week ago. 'We will be ordering all types of meat . It is complete nonsense. The residents are free to have whatever they want.
'Regarding meat we are moving from Crawshaws to Browns Meat Supplies - a British company which supplies all kinds of meat. 'There has been one delivery of halal meat and people have misunderstood the concept. As soon as I realised this I held a senior staff meeting which was minuted and I made it abundantly clear that residents could have any meat product or food they wished. 'I agree it would be quite wrong for someone to impose their religious or cultural beliefs on others, but this is not the case.'
Said a former member of staff who still has connections with the home: 'I believe Dr Khan intended to serve only halal meat at the home but has had to think again because of the row. 'The staff have been very unhappy and the manager has just left, one of several to go in the last few years.'
SOURCE
Have British universities taught their students anything?
Higher education used to be exciting and guarantee a good job. Not any more
A broken promise? Or a noble aspiration that ended in disappointment? Of all the targets set by New Labour when it first came to power in 1997, the real headline-grabber - the one we all remember - was the aim of having 50 per cent of school leavers in higher education. That one felt good, emotionally, however half-baked the thinking behind it.
In this brave new 50/50 world, higher education would no longer be the preserve of a privileged minority, but a natural progression from a normal schooling. And the prospect of universities opening their doors to children whose parents and grandparents had missed out on the chance appealed to people across the political divide. It mirrored the kind of Britain we all wanted to live in.
Nobody focused too much on the small print. What would all these new university entrants be studying? How useful would their degrees be to them in later life? Who was going to pay for all this? It was the headline figure that caught the eye: 50 per cent. Half the population. A reasonable target for a modern democracy.
Twelve years on from the Labour landslide of 1997, the 50 per cent target is as remote as ever, like a mirage in a desert. In 2008-9, 39.8 per cent of people aged between 18 and 30 were in higher education, compared with 39.2 per cent 10 years earlier - absolutely minuscule progress, however you crunch the figures. The proportion did rise to 42 per cent in 2005 but that was a freak year, statistically - there was a surge of students wanting to enrol before the introduction of top-up tuition fees.
Hopes of widening access to higher education have also been cruelly disappointed. Research published earlier this year showed that children from the poorest 25 per cent of families make up just 6.5 per cent of the student population. From Wolverhampton to Newcastle, there is an educational underclass that refuses to go away. No target set in Whitehall can shift it one jot. In the very poorest areas, fewer than one in 20 school-leavers go on to university.
This coming autumn, thanks to the economic recession, is going to be a particularly depressing time for apostles of higher education. Millions of British children still aspire to go university. UCAS applications are up eight per cent on last year. But the requisite university places are not there for them. The Government has had to put a cap of 10,000, down from 15,000, on the number of new places which universities can offer.
The problem is not a lack of interest in learning among the young: it is the lack of a structure in which that appetite for learning can be satisfied. There are not enough good, useful, challenging degree courses to go around. And, with increasing numbers of pupils getting good grades at A level, it has become harder and harder for universities to sort the wheat from the chaff at the application stage.
In previous years, because of the clearing system, most school-leavers who were determined to go on to higher education managed to find a course somewhere, even if it was not their first choice. This year, the gap between supply and demand will ensure an awful lot of disappointed youngsters in August and September.
Well, perhaps they should just swallow their disappointment and get on with their lives. It should not take Sir Alan Sugar to remind us that success in life is not achieved by racking up letters after your name but by hard graft, enterprise and a teaspoonful of arrogance.
Yes, a degree can be a passport to a secure career and a comfortable income, but not even that can be taken for granted any more.
Interestingly, a recent survey indicated that only 49 per cent of employers planned to recruit graduates this year. Companies that would normally comb the universities for talent are tightening their belts like everyone else, which can only mean one thing - graduate unemployment on a significant scale.
Not so long ago, the idea that you could go to university, get a good degree, then have to join the dole queue like everyone else, was anathema. I remember, as a student in the late Seventies, staring horrified at a front-page news story about an Oxford graduate with a first-class degree who was still unemployed nine months after graduating. That story would not make the front pages today; in fact, it would hardly be worth reporting at all. The unemployed graduate, with a five-figure student loan to pay off, but not a sniff of a job, is part of the social furniture of our times.
My elder daughter, now 23, is a medical student in London. She should be able to find a job when she graduates: the country needs every doctor it can get. But for her contemporaries who have left good universities with degrees in arts subjects, the outlook is much bleaker. Some of them have found reasonably paid jobs. Others are still doing the sort of non-professional jobs they were doing before they went up to university. Not surprisingly, they are starting to ask themselves; was it worth it?
It is a question which more and more students are asking themselves while they are still at university. They enrol to read geography or film studies or political science, or whatever, go to the odd lecture, attend seminars, take notes, dash off essays at three in the morning. But, deep down, they get no real enjoyment from their studies, which seem too much like hard work. They have been told that higher education will be good for them: they have not been told that it will only be good for them if they want to do it.
A few years back, the daughter of some friends of mine set gaily off to read English at Durham, having got three As in her A-levels, then dropped out after six months. "She's throwing her whole life away," wailed her father, a teacher. Not a bit of it. She was just bored, burnt out academically, and in need of a fresh challenge. In the university of life - in her case, working on a sheep farm in New Zealand - she learnt far more than she would have ever have learnt studying Wordsworth and Conrad.
She is back in England now, working for an IT company. Perhaps, in a few years, she will have rediscovered her appetite for academic study and apply for university again, or get a professional qualification. Or perhaps she won't bother, because she is happy and doing well and forging ahead in the working world, unburdened by the debts of her contemporaries who took out student loans and thought university was the answer to all their prayers.
From a utopian viewpoint, whatever your politics, the fact that higher education remains theoretically open to all but, in practice, is only enjoyed by a minority, will remain a source of disappointment. But we shouldn't get too hung up on statistics, particularly ones like that arbitrary 50 per cent target. A university education can be a joy, a privilege, a stepping stone; but it is not a prerequisite for a happy and successful career.
SOURCE
Sunday, July 19, 2009
More vindictive and totally unreasonable British police behaviour (1)
They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. A couple who tidied up a garden were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. But if you get your car stolen the British police just yawn
A judge has blasted a waste of taxpayers' money after a couple who picked up items of rubbish from the garden of an abandoned house were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. Public-spirited Richard and Lynne Small, both 38, believed they were helping the environment when they recovered leftover junk from the garden near their home in Hull, East Yorks. They collected a pair of old boots, a hose-pipe, a plant, half a shoe lace and used tins of paint from the empty property and used a wheelie bin to carry the trash to their home just a few yards down the road.
But they were left stunned and humiliated when they were arrested, handcuffed and bundled into a police van after being confronted by four officers. After a five-month ordeal ending at the city's Crown Court the couple were finally released without charge. And the case judge has condemned the decision to pursue the matter as a sickening waste of taxpayers' money.
Bricklayer Richard said: 'We couldn't believe it when they slapped handcuffs us and threw us in a riot van. You'd think we'd robbed a bank the way we've been treated. 'When it finally got to court we were charged with the lesser offence of theft by finding and refusing to take a drugs test. We'd refused the drugs sample because we'd done nothing wrong. 'All we did was pick up a bit of litter, we were doing a public service. We'd just been on a walk and thought we could use some of the stuff. It was an eyesore. 'It's been very distressing. The police should be arresting criminals.'
The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence when the pair appeared at court and their barrister Paul Genney said: 'This was rough justice. It is a gross matter of overkill. 'One would question the reason for the arrest and as for the request to take a drugs test one can well understand their indignation.'
Recorder Paul Isaac formerly entered not guilty verdicts on the theft charges but gave the couple six month conditional discharges for refusing the drugs test. He said: 'This is all unfortunate. It does seem to me to bring this matter to the crown court is something of a waste of public resources. 'Whatever the rights and wrongs, your defence that you have taken these items believing them to be abandoned would likely have been accepted by any sensible jury.'
A spokesman for Humberside Police said: 'We had received a call from a member of the public saying they believed two people were stealing from the house. 'We followed procedure and now the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have decided not to continue the case.'
SOURCE
More vindictive and totally unreasonable British police behaviour (2)
They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. An offence to invite your friends to a BBQ via Facebook??
Riot police raided a 30th birthday barbecue because they thought the organiser, who had invited his friends via Facebook, was staging a rave. Four police cars, a riot van and a helicopter moved in on Andrew Poole's gathering which was taking place in a field owned by a friend. The coach driver had invited 17 guests to an 'event' on his social networking page by private invitation and was about to light the barbecue when the gazebo suddenly started flapping wildly and the sound of chopper blades filled the air.
The gazebo under which the party guests were gathered because it had started to rain. Then the police riot van arrived...
A police helicopter circled the field several times before four police cars and a riot van stormed into the field in a small village near Sowton, Devon. Eight officers wearing camouflage trousers and body armour then jumped out and ordered the party to be shut down or everyone would be arrested.
Andrew, of Exeter, Devon, said: 'It had started to rain so we had gone in under the gazebo. All of a sudden there was this noise in the sky - I honestly couldn't believe it. 'The thing then hovered over us for about 25 minutes, watching 15 people eat. They told us to take down the sound system and said everybody's got to leave. 'It was 4pm and we hadn't even plugged the music in yet. We tried to reason with them, and even offered for them to take the power lead for the sound system, but they were having none of it.
'It was on private land. We were nowhere near anyone. We weren't even playing any music. What effectively the police did was come in and stop fifteen people eating burgers.'
Andrew had spent 800 for the hire of the generator, marquee and food. The guests arrived at 3pm but soon after a police helicopter generated a huge dust cloud which covered his BBQ in debris.
Andrew said: 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There was also several plain-clothes officers as well. "I told them it was my 30th birthday. I said "this is a once in a lifetime event for me, please don't ruin it". But they kept on insisting I had been advertising it as an all-night rave on the internet.
'But I'd created an event, and 17 people had confirmed as guests, I did put the times on it as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over. 'They were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.
'We'd actually faced the speakers away from the village just in case nosy-neighbour types complained. But someone must have seen us putting up the marquee and phoned the police.'
SOURCE
Role of sun over-emphasised in melanoma skin cancers
But suntanning does give you wrinkles! From what I have seen elsewhere, the advice below is rather confused, however. Fair skin certainly gives you more cancers, but BCCs and SCCs rather than melanomas -- and it is melanomas that are the dangerous ones. Melanomas are actually quite rare among very fair-skinned people, from my reading in the matter. It is people who tan well who get the melanomas
WARNINGS that too much time spent in the sun can lead to the most deadly form of skin cancer have been over-emphasised, a controversial study has claimed. It found that, although sunbathing is a risk factor, the number of moles on a person's skin is the most important indicator of whether they will go on to develop melanoma. The scientists also identified two genes that dictate how many moles someone will have, and their risk of getting skin cancer.
The research, published in the journal Nature Genetics, is likely to reopen the debate over whether official health warnings about avoiding the sun are overstated and too general. The study's authors said such warnings would be more useful if they focused on those most at risk - namely anyone with more than 100 moles on their body, redheads and people with fair skin and taught them how to check their moles for changes in shape, size or colour.
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, and one of the new study's authors, said: "The number of moles you have is one of the strongest risk factors for melanoma - stronger even than sunshine."
Dr Veronique Bataille, a dermatologist at West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, added: "You often read that nearly all melanomas are caused by sunshine, which is not supported by the evidence. "Let's keep sunshine in the picture because it does make you age and causes you wrinkles. But let's move away from scaring people by saying they are going to die because they go in the sun."
SOURCE
False accusations against teachers in Britain
Pupils are threatening to accuse teachers of abusing them in order to avoid being punished for bad behaviour, MPs warn today. The report from the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee says new guidelines should be published to help head teachers deal with false allegations against their staff. It claims that teachers are often treated as guilty before they are proven innocent and demands that the Government justifies why unsubstantiated allegations are passed on to employers.
Teaching unions report increasing numbers of claims of physical abuse of pupils at the hands of their teachers, but a static number of convictions. "There is an increasingly prevalent attitude of pupils challenging teachers with comments asserting their legal rights and threats that they will make an allegation against the teacher if she seeks to reprimand them for misbehaviour," the report said. One head was told by a pupil: "I'm going to get you suspended."
The MPs are concerned at a trend for pupils to use social networking sites to make anonymous, false or malicious allegations against teachers. "Head teachers are still too hasty to suspend when an allegation is made. More use should be made of alternatives, and head teachers should be made aware that the lawfulness of suspension can be challenged and the courts may not view it as a neutral act," the MPs said.
Jane Watts, 52, was immediately suspended when a five-year-old pupil accused her of hitting her on the hand during a lesson. Despite being cleared by the police, Duke Street Primary School in Chorley, Lancashire, launched its own investigation. Mrs Watts was dismissed for gross misconduct, but was later reinstated with her punishment reduced. The distress caused by the accusation and investigation meant that Mrs Watts was unable to return to school because of ill health and a fear that she would be constantly under suspicion.
Andrew Kidd, head teacher at Duke Street Primary School, confirmed that a member of his staff was dismissed for misconduct, reinstated - and then dismissed again for "non-attendance". But he said "the original finding of misconduct was correct". Mrs Watts told The Times that she would never work as a teacher again because the accusation would stay on her record. She described herself as: "Going from someone who would happily take 220 children for hymn practice, meetings for parents and training [sessions], to someone who was afraid to walk around in Chorley and didn't want to go to the local supermarket. That's the effect it had."
SOURCE
There can be some reasonable alternatives to Britain's top private schools
No wonder demand for places in good state schools is soaring. Many people can no longer pay big bucks for top schools
Where do your children go to school?" I am frequently asked. It might be the social niceties of a business lunch, or the surroundings of a wedding reception. Do they want to check that you are in their league? Or do they want to make sure that you are doing that uniquely British thing - spending every last penny you possess (and many that you don't) on putting your children through the very best education you can obtain for them?
It is a British thing. The French, for instance, cannot fathom why we pay so much for private secondary schools. In Australia, where the Government gives private schools a subsidy for every child they spare the state having to educate, they wonder at the prices the British will pay for a private education. And the Americans find the concept ever so slightly mad.
We used to be one of those slightly mad families. For years we paid for our three children to attend the very best of Britain's private schools. We never considered doing anything else; we had both been educated privately and wanted for our children what had been provided for us.
But then the recession arrived, and we had to face the truth; we are not Goldman Sachs partners nor in possession of trust funds set up by munificent grandparents to pay for school fees. Our eldest son was about to start university. But the other two were being educated out of current income. Running a small business in a recession does not yield a lot of cash.
The prospect of using up what savings we had, and/or borrowing money, made us stop and think: why are we doing this? Will these children really be that much worse off in the state sector? We had looked at several private schools for our sons and chosen one that we thought would provide our children not only with an education, but wider skills and a network - membership of a club.
Now we had to challenge our long-held beliefs and go and see what choice was available to us; we were very pleasantly surprised. For secondary education we had a boys-only option, our closest state school, and, almost equidistant, a co-educational comprehensive with a very helpful and supportive headmaster who found another previously privately educated child to show us around. And if we were prepared to venture a little farther there was an 11-16 co-ed cited by Ofsted this year as having "an outstanding quality of education".
There was also the local private day school, which does not usually admit pupils at 14+, and whose 13+ place we had turned down a while ago in preference for one at one of the grandest public schools in the country. A letter explaining frankly why we had previously spurned them, and why we would be grateful for a further discussion, persuaded them to re-interview and re-examine our son. For 4,500 a term (as opposed to almost 12,000) he now has a place at a school that sends almost a third of its pupils to Oxbridge each year, where the parents are more likely to be our peers, and where he will make local friends rather than ones who live in Moscow or have a second home in Barbados.
The ten-year-old is returning to the local village primary school after a three-year absence; again, a truthful letter to the new headmistress paved the way.
The boys have been brilliant; the younger one is thrilled to be coming home from boarding school, and the older one, while very disappointed at leaving new friends and a school where he was extremely happy, recognises that as a family we will all be better prepared financially if he moves.
We will need to adjust our lives to do more hands-on parenting; that too is no bad thing. They have probably lost their "club membership"; we shall have to compensate. The process has been cathartic, and while we acknowledge that others may not have such high-quality options as we do in Oxfordshire, I would still encourage anyone facing financial challenges to consider something they may previously have considered heresy.
How will it turn out? I have no idea, but I would cite two people who have contacted me since I made our decision public. The first was a banker, whom I know. "I've always regarded private secondary education as absurdly expensive and, thank God, managed to put my two children through the grammar school system." He did, however, pay for one of them, who had good GCSE grades, to do her A levels in the private sector. "Just as I expected, this ended up as simply being an expensive private members' club and her results would have been just the same . . ."
The other is someone I had never met, a young man in his early twenties. His parents had done the same to him - removed him from one of the country's grandest establishments and sent him to the local (and very much cheaper) private day school. "I won't pretend the transition was all that easy. It was very difficult having my parents involved in my day-to-day education ... But I made new and good friends (who lived around the corner, rather than in Paris, New York etc) and found that I really enjoyed the additional freedom I got from going to a day school. I got my As and went to Durham."
He signed off his e-mail with the reassuring "It'll be fine." And do you know what? I suspect it will be. Contrary to long-held beliefs, private education, and especially the most expensive kind, is not necessarily the only option. The psychological barrier for us was, I suspect, much harder than the real one is going to be.
SOURCE
British Christian teacher tells of race slurs by Muslim pupils aged 8
Must not object to Muslim bigotry and hate
A teacher claims he has been sacked for reprimanding pupils who made racist remarks about his being a Christian. Nicholas Kafouris said he lost his 30,000-a-year post because he would not tolerate the 'openly racist' behaviour of pupils as young as eight. He said the predominantly Muslim youngsters openly praised Islamic extremists in class, and hailed the September 11 terrorists as 'heroes and martyrs'.
Greek-born Mr Kafouris, 40, taught for more than ten years at Bigland Green Primary in Tower Hamlets, East London, where according to the most recent Ofsted report 'almost all' the 465 pupils are from ethnic minorities and a vast proportion do not speak English as a first language.
He is taking the school, its headmistress and assistant head to an employment tribunal where he will claim he was forced out after highlighting the rise in racism among pupils.
In 2006, said Mr Kafouris, he brushed against a boy while giving him a book. 'He said rather brusquely to me, "Don't touch me, you're a Christian". I found this very offensive.' Later that year, he said children aged eight and nine in his class praised the suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks. 'In late November and December 2006, many various unacceptable and openly racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks were being made by many and various children in Year 4,' he said. 'These included, "We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up", "the Twin Towers bombers are heroes and martyrs", "we hate the Jews" and "we hate the Christians".'
And in January 2007, he claims some pupils 'expressed delight' that a child had died when a wall collapsed on him in London. When asked why, he said one of the children replied: 'Because he's English.' The following month, during a religious education lesson about Jonah and the whale, he claims one of the pupils asked if Jonah was a Jew, before shouting: 'I hate the Jews, they're our enemies.'
Mr Kafouris says he completed 'Racist Incident Reporting Sheets' and notified headmistress Jill Hankey in writing about each incident. But he claims his concerns were ignored because she wanted to maintain the school's 'good' Ofsted rating.
Mr Kafouris, who is unmarried and has no children, was also reprimanded for handling a discussion about religion with a child 'inappropriately', which he denies. He says assistant head Margaret Coleman accused him of shouting at pupils and telling them Muslims had produced suicide bombers - claims he rejects.
'I believe after I complained to the head about the racist and religious discrimination incidents, I suffered victimisation,' he says. 'I also suffered less favourable treatment and incurred harassment by the head and assistant head. 'The two people above created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, threatening, humiliating and offensive environment for me at my work.'
Mr Kafouris says the way he was treated brought on stress and depression, and that he was forced to take time off work. He was finally dismissed because of his absence, on April 30 this year. A spokesman for Tower Hamlets Council, on behalf of the school, said: 'The governing body stands by its decision and we believe all the correct procedures were followed.'
SOURCE
WANT TO LIVE IN A BRITISH ECO-TOWN? IT WILL COST YOU 13,000 JUST TO PARK ON THE OUTSKIRTS
So you will have to have the time, health and inclination to do a lot of walking even after you have paid a bomb to park your car
Drivers who want to live in an environmentally friendly "eco-town" will have to pay 13,000 for a parking space, Government documents reveal.
The news comes as ministers prepare to unveil the sites for the first ever eco-towns. Four sites in southern and central England which have received backing from their local councils are likely to go ahead to the planning stage - less than half the 10 eco-towns which were first mooted by Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, nearly two years ago.
According to Whitehall guidance on parking in the towns, motorists will be expected to leave their vehicles in car parks on the edge of the towns. The guidance, which has been obtained by the Conservatives, urges "car-free development" which involves "limited parking, separated from the residential areas".
It continues: "A parking space in one of the car parks at the edge of the development must be rented or purchased (at a cost of approximately 12,500 plus a monthly management fee). This cost is entirely separate from the cost of buying or renting a home".
More HERE
They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. A couple who tidied up a garden were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. But if you get your car stolen the British police just yawn
A judge has blasted a waste of taxpayers' money after a couple who picked up items of rubbish from the garden of an abandoned house were thrown into a riot van for attempted burglary. Public-spirited Richard and Lynne Small, both 38, believed they were helping the environment when they recovered leftover junk from the garden near their home in Hull, East Yorks. They collected a pair of old boots, a hose-pipe, a plant, half a shoe lace and used tins of paint from the empty property and used a wheelie bin to carry the trash to their home just a few yards down the road.
But they were left stunned and humiliated when they were arrested, handcuffed and bundled into a police van after being confronted by four officers. After a five-month ordeal ending at the city's Crown Court the couple were finally released without charge. And the case judge has condemned the decision to pursue the matter as a sickening waste of taxpayers' money.
Bricklayer Richard said: 'We couldn't believe it when they slapped handcuffs us and threw us in a riot van. You'd think we'd robbed a bank the way we've been treated. 'When it finally got to court we were charged with the lesser offence of theft by finding and refusing to take a drugs test. We'd refused the drugs sample because we'd done nothing wrong. 'All we did was pick up a bit of litter, we were doing a public service. We'd just been on a walk and thought we could use some of the stuff. It was an eyesore. 'It's been very distressing. The police should be arresting criminals.'
The Crown Prosecution Service offered no evidence when the pair appeared at court and their barrister Paul Genney said: 'This was rough justice. It is a gross matter of overkill. 'One would question the reason for the arrest and as for the request to take a drugs test one can well understand their indignation.'
Recorder Paul Isaac formerly entered not guilty verdicts on the theft charges but gave the couple six month conditional discharges for refusing the drugs test. He said: 'This is all unfortunate. It does seem to me to bring this matter to the crown court is something of a waste of public resources. 'Whatever the rights and wrongs, your defence that you have taken these items believing them to be abandoned would likely have been accepted by any sensible jury.'
A spokesman for Humberside Police said: 'We had received a call from a member of the public saying they believed two people were stealing from the house. 'We followed procedure and now the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have decided not to continue the case.'
SOURCE
More vindictive and totally unreasonable British police behaviour (2)
They are not the friendly Bobbies of old. They are now Left-trained thugs who see ordinary people as the enemy. An offence to invite your friends to a BBQ via Facebook??
Riot police raided a 30th birthday barbecue because they thought the organiser, who had invited his friends via Facebook, was staging a rave. Four police cars, a riot van and a helicopter moved in on Andrew Poole's gathering which was taking place in a field owned by a friend. The coach driver had invited 17 guests to an 'event' on his social networking page by private invitation and was about to light the barbecue when the gazebo suddenly started flapping wildly and the sound of chopper blades filled the air.
The gazebo under which the party guests were gathered because it had started to rain. Then the police riot van arrived...
A police helicopter circled the field several times before four police cars and a riot van stormed into the field in a small village near Sowton, Devon. Eight officers wearing camouflage trousers and body armour then jumped out and ordered the party to be shut down or everyone would be arrested.
Andrew, of Exeter, Devon, said: 'It had started to rain so we had gone in under the gazebo. All of a sudden there was this noise in the sky - I honestly couldn't believe it. 'The thing then hovered over us for about 25 minutes, watching 15 people eat. They told us to take down the sound system and said everybody's got to leave. 'It was 4pm and we hadn't even plugged the music in yet. We tried to reason with them, and even offered for them to take the power lead for the sound system, but they were having none of it.
'It was on private land. We were nowhere near anyone. We weren't even playing any music. What effectively the police did was come in and stop fifteen people eating burgers.'
Andrew had spent 800 for the hire of the generator, marquee and food. The guests arrived at 3pm but soon after a police helicopter generated a huge dust cloud which covered his BBQ in debris.
Andrew said: 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There was also several plain-clothes officers as well. "I told them it was my 30th birthday. I said "this is a once in a lifetime event for me, please don't ruin it". But they kept on insisting I had been advertising it as an all-night rave on the internet.
'But I'd created an event, and 17 people had confirmed as guests, I did put the times on it as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over. 'They were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.
'We'd actually faced the speakers away from the village just in case nosy-neighbour types complained. But someone must have seen us putting up the marquee and phoned the police.'
SOURCE
Role of sun over-emphasised in melanoma skin cancers
But suntanning does give you wrinkles! From what I have seen elsewhere, the advice below is rather confused, however. Fair skin certainly gives you more cancers, but BCCs and SCCs rather than melanomas -- and it is melanomas that are the dangerous ones. Melanomas are actually quite rare among very fair-skinned people, from my reading in the matter. It is people who tan well who get the melanomas
WARNINGS that too much time spent in the sun can lead to the most deadly form of skin cancer have been over-emphasised, a controversial study has claimed. It found that, although sunbathing is a risk factor, the number of moles on a person's skin is the most important indicator of whether they will go on to develop melanoma. The scientists also identified two genes that dictate how many moles someone will have, and their risk of getting skin cancer.
The research, published in the journal Nature Genetics, is likely to reopen the debate over whether official health warnings about avoiding the sun are overstated and too general. The study's authors said such warnings would be more useful if they focused on those most at risk - namely anyone with more than 100 moles on their body, redheads and people with fair skin and taught them how to check their moles for changes in shape, size or colour.
Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King's College London, and one of the new study's authors, said: "The number of moles you have is one of the strongest risk factors for melanoma - stronger even than sunshine."
Dr Veronique Bataille, a dermatologist at West Hertfordshire NHS Trust, added: "You often read that nearly all melanomas are caused by sunshine, which is not supported by the evidence. "Let's keep sunshine in the picture because it does make you age and causes you wrinkles. But let's move away from scaring people by saying they are going to die because they go in the sun."
SOURCE
False accusations against teachers in Britain
Pupils are threatening to accuse teachers of abusing them in order to avoid being punished for bad behaviour, MPs warn today. The report from the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee says new guidelines should be published to help head teachers deal with false allegations against their staff. It claims that teachers are often treated as guilty before they are proven innocent and demands that the Government justifies why unsubstantiated allegations are passed on to employers.
Teaching unions report increasing numbers of claims of physical abuse of pupils at the hands of their teachers, but a static number of convictions. "There is an increasingly prevalent attitude of pupils challenging teachers with comments asserting their legal rights and threats that they will make an allegation against the teacher if she seeks to reprimand them for misbehaviour," the report said. One head was told by a pupil: "I'm going to get you suspended."
The MPs are concerned at a trend for pupils to use social networking sites to make anonymous, false or malicious allegations against teachers. "Head teachers are still too hasty to suspend when an allegation is made. More use should be made of alternatives, and head teachers should be made aware that the lawfulness of suspension can be challenged and the courts may not view it as a neutral act," the MPs said.
Jane Watts, 52, was immediately suspended when a five-year-old pupil accused her of hitting her on the hand during a lesson. Despite being cleared by the police, Duke Street Primary School in Chorley, Lancashire, launched its own investigation. Mrs Watts was dismissed for gross misconduct, but was later reinstated with her punishment reduced. The distress caused by the accusation and investigation meant that Mrs Watts was unable to return to school because of ill health and a fear that she would be constantly under suspicion.
Andrew Kidd, head teacher at Duke Street Primary School, confirmed that a member of his staff was dismissed for misconduct, reinstated - and then dismissed again for "non-attendance". But he said "the original finding of misconduct was correct". Mrs Watts told The Times that she would never work as a teacher again because the accusation would stay on her record. She described herself as: "Going from someone who would happily take 220 children for hymn practice, meetings for parents and training [sessions], to someone who was afraid to walk around in Chorley and didn't want to go to the local supermarket. That's the effect it had."
SOURCE
There can be some reasonable alternatives to Britain's top private schools
No wonder demand for places in good state schools is soaring. Many people can no longer pay big bucks for top schools
Where do your children go to school?" I am frequently asked. It might be the social niceties of a business lunch, or the surroundings of a wedding reception. Do they want to check that you are in their league? Or do they want to make sure that you are doing that uniquely British thing - spending every last penny you possess (and many that you don't) on putting your children through the very best education you can obtain for them?
It is a British thing. The French, for instance, cannot fathom why we pay so much for private secondary schools. In Australia, where the Government gives private schools a subsidy for every child they spare the state having to educate, they wonder at the prices the British will pay for a private education. And the Americans find the concept ever so slightly mad.
We used to be one of those slightly mad families. For years we paid for our three children to attend the very best of Britain's private schools. We never considered doing anything else; we had both been educated privately and wanted for our children what had been provided for us.
But then the recession arrived, and we had to face the truth; we are not Goldman Sachs partners nor in possession of trust funds set up by munificent grandparents to pay for school fees. Our eldest son was about to start university. But the other two were being educated out of current income. Running a small business in a recession does not yield a lot of cash.
The prospect of using up what savings we had, and/or borrowing money, made us stop and think: why are we doing this? Will these children really be that much worse off in the state sector? We had looked at several private schools for our sons and chosen one that we thought would provide our children not only with an education, but wider skills and a network - membership of a club.
Now we had to challenge our long-held beliefs and go and see what choice was available to us; we were very pleasantly surprised. For secondary education we had a boys-only option, our closest state school, and, almost equidistant, a co-educational comprehensive with a very helpful and supportive headmaster who found another previously privately educated child to show us around. And if we were prepared to venture a little farther there was an 11-16 co-ed cited by Ofsted this year as having "an outstanding quality of education".
There was also the local private day school, which does not usually admit pupils at 14+, and whose 13+ place we had turned down a while ago in preference for one at one of the grandest public schools in the country. A letter explaining frankly why we had previously spurned them, and why we would be grateful for a further discussion, persuaded them to re-interview and re-examine our son. For 4,500 a term (as opposed to almost 12,000) he now has a place at a school that sends almost a third of its pupils to Oxbridge each year, where the parents are more likely to be our peers, and where he will make local friends rather than ones who live in Moscow or have a second home in Barbados.
The ten-year-old is returning to the local village primary school after a three-year absence; again, a truthful letter to the new headmistress paved the way.
The boys have been brilliant; the younger one is thrilled to be coming home from boarding school, and the older one, while very disappointed at leaving new friends and a school where he was extremely happy, recognises that as a family we will all be better prepared financially if he moves.
We will need to adjust our lives to do more hands-on parenting; that too is no bad thing. They have probably lost their "club membership"; we shall have to compensate. The process has been cathartic, and while we acknowledge that others may not have such high-quality options as we do in Oxfordshire, I would still encourage anyone facing financial challenges to consider something they may previously have considered heresy.
How will it turn out? I have no idea, but I would cite two people who have contacted me since I made our decision public. The first was a banker, whom I know. "I've always regarded private secondary education as absurdly expensive and, thank God, managed to put my two children through the grammar school system." He did, however, pay for one of them, who had good GCSE grades, to do her A levels in the private sector. "Just as I expected, this ended up as simply being an expensive private members' club and her results would have been just the same . . ."
The other is someone I had never met, a young man in his early twenties. His parents had done the same to him - removed him from one of the country's grandest establishments and sent him to the local (and very much cheaper) private day school. "I won't pretend the transition was all that easy. It was very difficult having my parents involved in my day-to-day education ... But I made new and good friends (who lived around the corner, rather than in Paris, New York etc) and found that I really enjoyed the additional freedom I got from going to a day school. I got my As and went to Durham."
He signed off his e-mail with the reassuring "It'll be fine." And do you know what? I suspect it will be. Contrary to long-held beliefs, private education, and especially the most expensive kind, is not necessarily the only option. The psychological barrier for us was, I suspect, much harder than the real one is going to be.
SOURCE
British Christian teacher tells of race slurs by Muslim pupils aged 8
Must not object to Muslim bigotry and hate
A teacher claims he has been sacked for reprimanding pupils who made racist remarks about his being a Christian. Nicholas Kafouris said he lost his 30,000-a-year post because he would not tolerate the 'openly racist' behaviour of pupils as young as eight. He said the predominantly Muslim youngsters openly praised Islamic extremists in class, and hailed the September 11 terrorists as 'heroes and martyrs'.
Greek-born Mr Kafouris, 40, taught for more than ten years at Bigland Green Primary in Tower Hamlets, East London, where according to the most recent Ofsted report 'almost all' the 465 pupils are from ethnic minorities and a vast proportion do not speak English as a first language.
He is taking the school, its headmistress and assistant head to an employment tribunal where he will claim he was forced out after highlighting the rise in racism among pupils.
In 2006, said Mr Kafouris, he brushed against a boy while giving him a book. 'He said rather brusquely to me, "Don't touch me, you're a Christian". I found this very offensive.' Later that year, he said children aged eight and nine in his class praised the suicide bombers in the 9/11 attacks. 'In late November and December 2006, many various unacceptable and openly racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Christian remarks were being made by many and various children in Year 4,' he said. 'These included, "We want to be Islamic bombers when we grow up", "the Twin Towers bombers are heroes and martyrs", "we hate the Jews" and "we hate the Christians".'
And in January 2007, he claims some pupils 'expressed delight' that a child had died when a wall collapsed on him in London. When asked why, he said one of the children replied: 'Because he's English.' The following month, during a religious education lesson about Jonah and the whale, he claims one of the pupils asked if Jonah was a Jew, before shouting: 'I hate the Jews, they're our enemies.'
Mr Kafouris says he completed 'Racist Incident Reporting Sheets' and notified headmistress Jill Hankey in writing about each incident. But he claims his concerns were ignored because she wanted to maintain the school's 'good' Ofsted rating.
Mr Kafouris, who is unmarried and has no children, was also reprimanded for handling a discussion about religion with a child 'inappropriately', which he denies. He says assistant head Margaret Coleman accused him of shouting at pupils and telling them Muslims had produced suicide bombers - claims he rejects.
'I believe after I complained to the head about the racist and religious discrimination incidents, I suffered victimisation,' he says. 'I also suffered less favourable treatment and incurred harassment by the head and assistant head. 'The two people above created an intimidating, hostile, degrading, threatening, humiliating and offensive environment for me at my work.'
Mr Kafouris says the way he was treated brought on stress and depression, and that he was forced to take time off work. He was finally dismissed because of his absence, on April 30 this year. A spokesman for Tower Hamlets Council, on behalf of the school, said: 'The governing body stands by its decision and we believe all the correct procedures were followed.'
SOURCE
WANT TO LIVE IN A BRITISH ECO-TOWN? IT WILL COST YOU 13,000 JUST TO PARK ON THE OUTSKIRTS
So you will have to have the time, health and inclination to do a lot of walking even after you have paid a bomb to park your car
Drivers who want to live in an environmentally friendly "eco-town" will have to pay 13,000 for a parking space, Government documents reveal.
The news comes as ministers prepare to unveil the sites for the first ever eco-towns. Four sites in southern and central England which have received backing from their local councils are likely to go ahead to the planning stage - less than half the 10 eco-towns which were first mooted by Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister, nearly two years ago.
According to Whitehall guidance on parking in the towns, motorists will be expected to leave their vehicles in car parks on the edge of the towns. The guidance, which has been obtained by the Conservatives, urges "car-free development" which involves "limited parking, separated from the residential areas".
It continues: "A parking space in one of the car parks at the edge of the development must be rented or purchased (at a cost of approximately 12,500 plus a monthly management fee). This cost is entirely separate from the cost of buying or renting a home".
More HERE
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The latest British injustice: How you could be acquitted and still face huge bill for costs
This makes the mere act of inititiating a prosecution a punishment for a crime of which you may be innocent. Costs will not be awarded in your favour if you use a private lawyer rather than a government one. And the government ones are so poorly paid that only the least competent ones would take on the work. And only the poor are eligible to use a government lawyer anyway. So this is yet another sly attack on the middle class by a hate-filled Leftist government
Plans to reform the legal aid system and cut almost 200 million from its budget have brought warnings of a two-tier justice system: one for the rich and another for the poor. For the first time, acquitted defendants in criminal trials will have to bear the bulk of their costs if they instruct someone other than a legal aid lawyer to defend them under the reforms. Defendants who are convicted in the Crown Court will be means-tested and forced to pay back some or all of their legal bills.
Details will be outlined next week of a new round of reforms to bring in fixed fees for legally aided family cases and "reverse auctions" for criminal legal aid contracts.
The measures, which have provoked fierce opposition from judges, lawyers and MPs, are part of an overhaul to save 193 million over three years from the 2 billion a year legal aid scheme. Some call it the biggest crisis in 60 years of legal aid.
Kim Hollis, QC, vice-chairwoman of equality and diversity on the Bar Council, said: "These proposed changes will set back the advances and benefits of access to justice brought by the legal aid scheme over decades. Overnight, a two-tier system will be created, whereby those who can afford to pay the best lawyers will be able to have their interests properly and fairly represented in court. But those who cannot will be left to the mercy of the spending cuts, the result of which is that high-quality advocates cannot afford to practise and are leaving in droves."
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, told The Times that he also wanted to cut the 127 million a year in legal aid that is spent on expert witnesses in court, including interpreters. The costs of such experts in criminal and civil trials are included in solicitors' legal aid costs. Mr Straw said that family cases in particular had become much more complex and needed to be simplified. "Costs have shot up and this is now a very expensive system."
Critics say that plans for fixed fees in family cases, to be outlined next week by the Legal Services Commmission, which runs legal aid, will hit vulnerable children and families. They claim the new rates will lead to barristers earning up to 30 per cent less and drive the most experienced out of legal aid work, causing delays in children and family cases.
The commission intends to move ahead with controversial plans for "reverse auctions" of legal aid contracts for police station work. The contracts will go to bidders offering "best value", with low bids a key factor. More than 6,000 solicitors have signed up to protest on Downing Street's website. They say that the plans will be disastrous for legal aid, drive down standards and decimate the defence service. The Conservatives have promised to suspend the reforms if they win the general election.
In an attempt to defuse the row, Lord Bach, the Justice Minister, is expected to delay the timescale for testing the plans, The Times has learnt. "The timetable is not yet fixed," he said. He robustly defended the reform package, which is aimed at achieving value for money within a tight budget and ensuring that legal aid helps as many people as possible. "Spending on legal aid in the last 20 years has increased from 835 million in today's prices - an average annual real terms growth of about 5 per cent - one of the fastest-growing areas of public expenditure."
He said he was determined that criminal legal aid should not squeeze the funds available for other kinds of help, and that was behind the drive to cut costs. Convicted defendants should pay towards their own costs if they could afford it, he said. Defendants who chose not to use legal aid and were acquitted should no longer be able to claim back all their costs. But for civil cases, eligibility limits had been increased by 5 per cent to "help those most in need". He said: "Up to 750,000 extra people could become eligible for [legal aid] help and representation."
The Government has also boosted funding for advice centres and other "not for profit" agencies, which now stood at 80 million compared with 24 million in 2001-02.
Carolyn Regan, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, said: "Our aim is to ensure access to justice for a greater number of people through advice, help and representation in court, from high-quality practitioners or the not-for-profit sector." Many more people were now being helped, she said. The total had doubled in five years to more than one million.
SOURCE
Children's authors outraged at British "Big brother" scheme for schools
A prominent group of children's authors and illustrators have said that they will stop visiting schools in protest against a new vetting scheme which comes into place in the Autumn. Some of the top names in children's publishing - including Philip Pullman, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake - have refused to register their names on a new government database.
Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, described the Home Office policy as "corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction." He said: "I've been going into schools as an author for 20 years, and on no occasion have I ever been alone with a child. The idea that I have become more of a threat and I need to be vetted is both ludicrous and insulting. "Children have never been in any danger from visiting authors or illustrators, and the idea that they should be is preposterous."
The Vetting and Barring Scheme is being managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which was set up following the murder of schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley, who was a janitor at their school at the time. All individuals working with children in schools will need to sign on to the database, at a cost of 64 per person, from October 12.
Michael Morpurgo, a former children's laureate and the author of War Horse, said that children would suffer as authors decided to stop visiting schools because of the regulations. "Writers don't go into schools for the money, they do it because they want to bring their stories to children and make readers of them. "The notion that I should somehow have got myself tested or passed in order to do this is absurd."
Quentin Blake, who has illustrated said: "You don't go to the trouble of being the Children's Laureate to pay 64 to have permission to talk to children. That is bizarre."
The Home Office said: "The UK already has one of the most advanced systems in the world for carrying out checks [That's a fact] on all those who work in positions of trust with children and vulnerable adults. From October this year the new Vetting and Barring Scheme will ensure these regulations are even more rigorous."
SOURCE
Shoddy marking of British grade-school exams again
Head teachers angered by the poor quality of marking in this year's national curriculum tests are sending back thousands of test papers to be marked again. Hundreds of primary schools are expected to write to the government agency responsible for exams to protest about sloppy marking and inconsistent standards.
The most talented children at some schools were penalised because the formulaic marking did not recognise their flair. Other schools discovered that right answers had been given a zero, or that wrong answers were marked as correct. Some pupils were penalised for not dotting the letter i - others were not.
The tests, formerly known as SATs, are a source of contention in schools and many heads and teachers would like them to be abolished. Those taken by 14-year-old pupils were scrapped last year, after the results from millions of papers went missing or were delayed. ETS, the company responsible, had its 156 million, five-year contract terminated, and an investigation found a backlog of 10,000 unanswered e-mails from worried schools.
Ministers insisted that this year's tests for 11-year-olds would run more smoothly. Government agencies boasted last week that 99.9 per cent of pupils had their results on time. However, two teaching unions, representing the majority of primary school teachers and heads, are planning to boycott the tests for 11-year-olds next year if Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, refuses to get rid of them.
Yesterday one of those unions, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which represents 85 per cent of primary heads, said that it was encouraging its members to write to Ofqual, the government agency responsible for exam standards. It said heads had complained of harsh and unfair marking, spellings being marked right when wrong and vice versa, little consistency in the marking of composition, clerical errors and mistakes in adding up marks. The marking scheme was time consuming and weighted to discourage schools from returning papers for review, the union said.
The importance of dotting every "i" was brought home to West Hill Primary in Cannock, Staffordshire, where some pupils were marked down for incorrect spelling if they failed to do so, but other children who had made the omission had dots added by the marker and were given a point. One 11-year-old pupil was given 0 out of a possible 2 marks for correctly spelling "stunning" but without dotting the i. Another child received 3 out of 12 in spelling for failing to dot the i in the words remain, various, scorching, distinctive, carrying and magical, all of which were spelt correctly.
Shaun Miles, the head teacher, has sent back eight papers out of 58. He said: "It's bizarre and petty. The marker had used a red pen and put dots over some letters, and given some children the mark, but not others. Those who were marked as wrong were graded Level 4 instead of Level 5."
Ian Foster, assistant secretary of the NAHT, said: "The bureaucracy and stress surrounding these outmoded tests, compounded by clear examples of inadequate marking, can be dispiriting for pupils and parents, and potentially put school leaders' careers on the line . . . There have been comments that maybe the quality has been usurped because of the tight marking deadline."
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Patient sues NHS after having terminal cancer wrongly diagnosed
When Philip Collins was told that he had cancer and had just six months to live, he quit his job, cashed in his pension and bought himself a powerful motorcycle. He was determined to enjoy the time left to him. When he was still alive a year later his doctors conducted a re-examination and admitted that there had been a mistake. The inoperable "tumour" on his gall bladder was a relatively harmless abscess.
Far from being delighted at his unexpected reprieve Mr Collins, 59, was devastated. He had spent his life savings and the powerful drugs that the doctors prescribed to keep him alive as long as possible had destroyed his health. Mr Collins, now 61, had even planned his own funeral. As well as buying the Triumph motorcycle, he had bought his wife Isabel a new car so that she would have transport after he had gone. The couple spent an emotional "last" Christmas together.
Two years later Mr Collins is seeking compensation from the NHS for his ordeal, which he said had left him "an absolute wreck" due to the quantity of drugs he had needlessly taken. Mr Collins, of Yetminster, Dorset, said: "When they told me I had cancer I knew I had a chance to do everything I wanted. I was a fit man and a keen motorcyclist. I still had a lot of working life left in me.
"When they told me I did not have cancer, it knocked me off balance. Now I cannot do anything. I'm an absolute wreck. If you have spent two years thinking you are going to die, then you are told you are not, it knocks you backwards."
Mrs Collins, 62, said that the couple were delighted that the original diagnosis was a mistake, but added that it had ruined her husband's life. She said: "We just don't understand how it could have happened. They obviously didn't look at the tests closely enough. I never used to believe in suing or compensation or anything like that."
Mr Collins's ordeal began when he lost his appetite suddenly and suffered weight loss and anaemia. He was given a scan at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester that revealed he had an abnormal gall bladder and liver. Further tests led doctors to believe that he had cancer and they told the the couple that he had only six months to live.
Mrs Collins said: "He was bitter and tearful but he took the news that he was going to die calmly. We took 18,000 out of a pension and he bought the Triumph motorbike, which had always been his dream. He even told me he wanted his coffin to be carried on the back of it at his funeral, which he had arranged."
After a grim "last Christmas" his 60th birthday came and went. Three weeks after a second CT scan doctors told Mr Collins that although he still had cancer, it was not terminal. Two weeks later he was told that he was suffering not from cancer, but from an abscess.
Dorset County Hospital's chief executive, Jan Bergman, has written to Mr Collins disclosing that the initial diagnosis was made before all the test results had been examined. He said that practices had been reviewed to ensure that surgeons looked at all information before reaching a conclusion. Mr Collins is now being treated at Yeovil District Hospital. A spokesman for Dorset County Hospital said: "We have been in contact with Mr and Mrs Collins about the conclusions of our investigation."
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NHS: 286m to help terminally ill to die at home `lost in system'
Millions of pounds of extra funds pledged by the Government for the care of terminally ill patients are failing to reach frontline health services, The Times has discovered. Nine out of ten local health authorities cannot identify their share of the 286 million promised last year to help people who want to die in their own homes, rather than in hospital.
Alan Johnson, then Health Secretary, announced the spending over two years last July as part of the End of Life Care strategy, claiming that it would honour Labour's manifesto pledge to double investment in specialist palliative care by 2011. Hospice directors say, however, that the money is being lost on the NHS balance sheet or spent on other services because it has not been ring-fenced.
Research by the charity Help the Hospices, seen by The Times, shows that of a sample of 28 NHS primary care trusts, only three could provide evidence of extra investment in palliative care this year. At least six of the trusts surveyed - in Blackpool, Bury, Cumbria, Devon, North Lancashire and West Essex - said that there was no extra money for end-of-life care because of financial pressures and the need for savings. Others were unable to identify a specific sum for end-of-life care, or said that no new money had appeared in their annual baseline allocation.
Only one in five deaths in England - most of which follow chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer or dementia - occurs in the home, although two thirds of people say that is where they would prefer to die. By comparison, 58 per cent of people die in hospital. Families complain that a lack of support, local hospice beds or pain management services leaves them no alternative.
A review of end-of-life care published yesterday by the Department of Health painted a quite different picture, claiming that the 286 million programme had made a good start and was set to deliver real service improvements. Mike Richards, the department's national director for cancer, added that while some funds had gone directly to trusts, money was also being held by the department "for national work".
The ten-year strategy aims to shift public attitudes to death and dying, invest in local workforce training and create "rapid response" nursing teams to provide care and support to those who wish to die in a hospice or at home.
David Praill, chief executive of Help the Hospices said: "This is a tragic indictment of the system. PCTs have been given a substantial amount of money to improve end-of-life care, and it simply isn't good enough that, one year on, many don't know where it is."
The pressure on local hospices - three quarters of which are funded by local charities rather than by the NHS - is rising, with more than 100,000 patients using services last year.
Adult hospices in England receive on average only 31 per cent of their funding from the Government, and the gap between what they spend on NHS patients and what the NHS contributes to that care is estimated at 200 million a year, and widening. Help the Hospices is concerned that the extra funding will be diverted to hospital-based care rather than the voluntary sector.
Richard Cowie, chief executive of St Clare Hospice, in Harlow, Essex, said that many local charitable organisations had not seen money being passed on by local NHS managers. "We have a decent working relationship with our local PCT, but their key statement is that they have to make cost-savings on existing budgets and that there is no new money," he said.
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Daily dose of baking soda `can keep kidney patients off dialysis'
Hard to believe but great if a proper double-blind study confirms it. I sometimes take the stuff for indigestion so maybe I have been doing myself more good than I thought
Research by British scientists has found that sodium bicarbonate - otherwise known as baking soda - can dramatically slow the progress of the condition. About three million people in Britain suffer from chronic kidney disease, which can lead to complete kidney failure, requiring regular dialysis. Patients commonly suffer from low bicarbonate levels, a condition called metabolic acidosis.
The pilot study conducted at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, was the first controlled test of the treatment in a clinical setting. In the study, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, researchers studied 134 patients with advanced chronic kidney disease and metabolic acidosis.
One group was randomly allocated a small daily dose of sodium bicarbonate in tablet form in addition to their usual care. Over a period of one year, the kidney function of these patients declined about two thirds more slowly than that of individuals who were not given the tablets. Their rate of decline was little different from what would be expected with normal ageing. Rapid progression of kidney disease occurred in just 9 per cent of patients given baking soda, compared with 45 per cent of the non-treated group.
Patients taking sodium bicarbonate tablets were also less likely to develop end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis, which takes over the function of the kidneys. Although their sodium levels were increased, it did not lead to problems with raised blood pressure.
An estimated 37,800 patients in Britain receive renal replacement therapy, which may involve dialysis or a kidney transplant. The cost of looking after kidney failure patients accounts for 3 per cent of the entire NHS budget. On average, each patient on dialysis costs the NHS 30,000 per year.
Magdi Yaqoob, professor of Renal Medicine at the Royal London, described the results as "amazing". "This study shows that baking soda can be useful for people with kidney failure ... as long as the dose is regulated and under supervision," he said. "This cheap and simple strategy also improves patients' nutritional wellbeing and has the potential to improve quality of life and of course a clinical outcome that can remove the need for dialysis. Baking soda is not classed as a drug so this study has never been tried before."
The scientists pointed out that their research was limited by not having a "placebo group" of patients receiving a "dummy" treatment. It was also not "blind" - the researchers knew which patients were receiving the baking soda. "Our results will need validation in a multi-centre study," Professor Yaqoob said.
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British 'green jobs' claim a sham
Government claims that Britain already supports nearly one million "green-collar" jobs have been exposed as a sham after the figures were found to include North Sea gas industry workers as well as some petrol station attendants and skylight manufacturers.
Britain's Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, outlined yesterday by Lord Mandelson, claimed that the economy already supported 880,000 "low-carbon jobs" - a figure that he said was poised to grow by up to 400,000 by 2015 to more than 1.28 million. But a detailed breakdown of the figures obtained by The Times shows that they include an extraordinarily loose definition of the term.
About a third of the jobs (266,000), comprises workers in "alternative fuels" - a category that includes the production and supply of natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as nuclear power and conventional "green" fuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol and hydrogen.
John Sharp, of Innovas, a consultancy in Winsford, Cheshire, which was paid by the Government to produce the figures earlier this year, confirmed that this included thousands of workers on gas production platforms in the North Sea as well as petrol station attendants on forecourts where liquefied petroleum is dispensed and employees at gas-fired power stations. The list also includes manufacturers of a bizarre array of products - from skylights to wooden pallets and noise insulation materials, on the basis that they use recycled materials. Figures supplied by Innovas showed that the total included 207 jobs in the supply and manufacture of animal bedding, 90 providing equestrian surfaces and 164 in the recycling of footwear, "slippers and other carpet wear". Mr Sharp acknowledged that there were some "weird and wonderful" categories. "We try to capture as much of the supply chain as possible," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change claimed that Innovas had defined the methodology used in the report. "They are looking at the whole low- carbon supply chain, not just at the end-energy production," she said.
Robin Oakley, climate change campaigner for Greenpeace, said that the definition used by the Government seemed unfeasibly broad and that there was "no need for the Government to massage the figures" because it was unquestionable that the economic future opportunity in the low-carbon sector would be huge.
Yesterday Lord Mandelson said: "The Government is determined to ensure the economic and employment opportunities that this transition [to a low-carbon economy] offers to us."
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that the low-carbon economy presented "big potential" for economic growth and job creation.
But The Times revealed yesterday that a factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, which is Britain's only significant manufacturer of wind turbines, will produce its last batch of seven-tonne blades this week. More than 600 people employed at the plant and a related facility in Southampton, will be made redundant at the end of the month. All 7,000 turbines that the Government committed itself yesterday to installing over the next decade will be manufactured overseas.
By 2020, renewable energy sources will provide 31 per cent of Britain's electricity, up from 6 per cent today, while nuclear's share will fall to 8 per cent from current levels of between15 per cent and nearly a quarter, depending on the variable output of nuclear plants.
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Dealing with Britain's debt: "Currently, the public sector is swelling far beyond its means. The UK is forecast to suffer a budget deficit of 170 billion later this year. This equates to every man, woman and child being in nearly 3,000 of debt. Every year, our government pays 200 billion to public sector employees and this is not sustainable. The problem with this is that the increasing deficit needs to be funded somehow. There are several ways that this can be done. One way would be to increase taxes; however an increase in tax rates reduces incentives and is therefore likely to have the adverse effect of reducing tax revenues. Alternatively, `quantative easing' (glorified printing money) could be used to pay off debt. But this is highly inflationary, as resources are no less scarce, so it would reduce the value of our currency, thus making the UK less attractive for investors. Surely the best way to deal with the deficit is to reduce government spending."
This makes the mere act of inititiating a prosecution a punishment for a crime of which you may be innocent. Costs will not be awarded in your favour if you use a private lawyer rather than a government one. And the government ones are so poorly paid that only the least competent ones would take on the work. And only the poor are eligible to use a government lawyer anyway. So this is yet another sly attack on the middle class by a hate-filled Leftist government
Plans to reform the legal aid system and cut almost 200 million from its budget have brought warnings of a two-tier justice system: one for the rich and another for the poor. For the first time, acquitted defendants in criminal trials will have to bear the bulk of their costs if they instruct someone other than a legal aid lawyer to defend them under the reforms. Defendants who are convicted in the Crown Court will be means-tested and forced to pay back some or all of their legal bills.
Details will be outlined next week of a new round of reforms to bring in fixed fees for legally aided family cases and "reverse auctions" for criminal legal aid contracts.
The measures, which have provoked fierce opposition from judges, lawyers and MPs, are part of an overhaul to save 193 million over three years from the 2 billion a year legal aid scheme. Some call it the biggest crisis in 60 years of legal aid.
Kim Hollis, QC, vice-chairwoman of equality and diversity on the Bar Council, said: "These proposed changes will set back the advances and benefits of access to justice brought by the legal aid scheme over decades. Overnight, a two-tier system will be created, whereby those who can afford to pay the best lawyers will be able to have their interests properly and fairly represented in court. But those who cannot will be left to the mercy of the spending cuts, the result of which is that high-quality advocates cannot afford to practise and are leaving in droves."
Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, told The Times that he also wanted to cut the 127 million a year in legal aid that is spent on expert witnesses in court, including interpreters. The costs of such experts in criminal and civil trials are included in solicitors' legal aid costs. Mr Straw said that family cases in particular had become much more complex and needed to be simplified. "Costs have shot up and this is now a very expensive system."
Critics say that plans for fixed fees in family cases, to be outlined next week by the Legal Services Commmission, which runs legal aid, will hit vulnerable children and families. They claim the new rates will lead to barristers earning up to 30 per cent less and drive the most experienced out of legal aid work, causing delays in children and family cases.
The commission intends to move ahead with controversial plans for "reverse auctions" of legal aid contracts for police station work. The contracts will go to bidders offering "best value", with low bids a key factor. More than 6,000 solicitors have signed up to protest on Downing Street's website. They say that the plans will be disastrous for legal aid, drive down standards and decimate the defence service. The Conservatives have promised to suspend the reforms if they win the general election.
In an attempt to defuse the row, Lord Bach, the Justice Minister, is expected to delay the timescale for testing the plans, The Times has learnt. "The timetable is not yet fixed," he said. He robustly defended the reform package, which is aimed at achieving value for money within a tight budget and ensuring that legal aid helps as many people as possible. "Spending on legal aid in the last 20 years has increased from 835 million in today's prices - an average annual real terms growth of about 5 per cent - one of the fastest-growing areas of public expenditure."
He said he was determined that criminal legal aid should not squeeze the funds available for other kinds of help, and that was behind the drive to cut costs. Convicted defendants should pay towards their own costs if they could afford it, he said. Defendants who chose not to use legal aid and were acquitted should no longer be able to claim back all their costs. But for civil cases, eligibility limits had been increased by 5 per cent to "help those most in need". He said: "Up to 750,000 extra people could become eligible for [legal aid] help and representation."
The Government has also boosted funding for advice centres and other "not for profit" agencies, which now stood at 80 million compared with 24 million in 2001-02.
Carolyn Regan, chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, said: "Our aim is to ensure access to justice for a greater number of people through advice, help and representation in court, from high-quality practitioners or the not-for-profit sector." Many more people were now being helped, she said. The total had doubled in five years to more than one million.
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Children's authors outraged at British "Big brother" scheme for schools
A prominent group of children's authors and illustrators have said that they will stop visiting schools in protest against a new vetting scheme which comes into place in the Autumn. Some of the top names in children's publishing - including Philip Pullman, Anthony Horowitz, Michael Morpurgo and Quentin Blake - have refused to register their names on a new government database.
Philip Pullman, the author of the His Dark Materials trilogy, described the Home Office policy as "corrosive and poisonous to every kind of healthy social interaction." He said: "I've been going into schools as an author for 20 years, and on no occasion have I ever been alone with a child. The idea that I have become more of a threat and I need to be vetted is both ludicrous and insulting. "Children have never been in any danger from visiting authors or illustrators, and the idea that they should be is preposterous."
The Vetting and Barring Scheme is being managed by the Independent Safeguarding Authority, which was set up following the murder of schoolgirls Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley, who was a janitor at their school at the time. All individuals working with children in schools will need to sign on to the database, at a cost of 64 per person, from October 12.
Michael Morpurgo, a former children's laureate and the author of War Horse, said that children would suffer as authors decided to stop visiting schools because of the regulations. "Writers don't go into schools for the money, they do it because they want to bring their stories to children and make readers of them. "The notion that I should somehow have got myself tested or passed in order to do this is absurd."
Quentin Blake, who has illustrated said: "You don't go to the trouble of being the Children's Laureate to pay 64 to have permission to talk to children. That is bizarre."
The Home Office said: "The UK already has one of the most advanced systems in the world for carrying out checks [That's a fact] on all those who work in positions of trust with children and vulnerable adults. From October this year the new Vetting and Barring Scheme will ensure these regulations are even more rigorous."
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Shoddy marking of British grade-school exams again
Head teachers angered by the poor quality of marking in this year's national curriculum tests are sending back thousands of test papers to be marked again. Hundreds of primary schools are expected to write to the government agency responsible for exams to protest about sloppy marking and inconsistent standards.
The most talented children at some schools were penalised because the formulaic marking did not recognise their flair. Other schools discovered that right answers had been given a zero, or that wrong answers were marked as correct. Some pupils were penalised for not dotting the letter i - others were not.
The tests, formerly known as SATs, are a source of contention in schools and many heads and teachers would like them to be abolished. Those taken by 14-year-old pupils were scrapped last year, after the results from millions of papers went missing or were delayed. ETS, the company responsible, had its 156 million, five-year contract terminated, and an investigation found a backlog of 10,000 unanswered e-mails from worried schools.
Ministers insisted that this year's tests for 11-year-olds would run more smoothly. Government agencies boasted last week that 99.9 per cent of pupils had their results on time. However, two teaching unions, representing the majority of primary school teachers and heads, are planning to boycott the tests for 11-year-olds next year if Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, refuses to get rid of them.
Yesterday one of those unions, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), which represents 85 per cent of primary heads, said that it was encouraging its members to write to Ofqual, the government agency responsible for exam standards. It said heads had complained of harsh and unfair marking, spellings being marked right when wrong and vice versa, little consistency in the marking of composition, clerical errors and mistakes in adding up marks. The marking scheme was time consuming and weighted to discourage schools from returning papers for review, the union said.
The importance of dotting every "i" was brought home to West Hill Primary in Cannock, Staffordshire, where some pupils were marked down for incorrect spelling if they failed to do so, but other children who had made the omission had dots added by the marker and were given a point. One 11-year-old pupil was given 0 out of a possible 2 marks for correctly spelling "stunning" but without dotting the i. Another child received 3 out of 12 in spelling for failing to dot the i in the words remain, various, scorching, distinctive, carrying and magical, all of which were spelt correctly.
Shaun Miles, the head teacher, has sent back eight papers out of 58. He said: "It's bizarre and petty. The marker had used a red pen and put dots over some letters, and given some children the mark, but not others. Those who were marked as wrong were graded Level 4 instead of Level 5."
Ian Foster, assistant secretary of the NAHT, said: "The bureaucracy and stress surrounding these outmoded tests, compounded by clear examples of inadequate marking, can be dispiriting for pupils and parents, and potentially put school leaders' careers on the line . . . There have been comments that maybe the quality has been usurped because of the tight marking deadline."
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Patient sues NHS after having terminal cancer wrongly diagnosed
When Philip Collins was told that he had cancer and had just six months to live, he quit his job, cashed in his pension and bought himself a powerful motorcycle. He was determined to enjoy the time left to him. When he was still alive a year later his doctors conducted a re-examination and admitted that there had been a mistake. The inoperable "tumour" on his gall bladder was a relatively harmless abscess.
Far from being delighted at his unexpected reprieve Mr Collins, 59, was devastated. He had spent his life savings and the powerful drugs that the doctors prescribed to keep him alive as long as possible had destroyed his health. Mr Collins, now 61, had even planned his own funeral. As well as buying the Triumph motorcycle, he had bought his wife Isabel a new car so that she would have transport after he had gone. The couple spent an emotional "last" Christmas together.
Two years later Mr Collins is seeking compensation from the NHS for his ordeal, which he said had left him "an absolute wreck" due to the quantity of drugs he had needlessly taken. Mr Collins, of Yetminster, Dorset, said: "When they told me I had cancer I knew I had a chance to do everything I wanted. I was a fit man and a keen motorcyclist. I still had a lot of working life left in me.
"When they told me I did not have cancer, it knocked me off balance. Now I cannot do anything. I'm an absolute wreck. If you have spent two years thinking you are going to die, then you are told you are not, it knocks you backwards."
Mrs Collins, 62, said that the couple were delighted that the original diagnosis was a mistake, but added that it had ruined her husband's life. She said: "We just don't understand how it could have happened. They obviously didn't look at the tests closely enough. I never used to believe in suing or compensation or anything like that."
Mr Collins's ordeal began when he lost his appetite suddenly and suffered weight loss and anaemia. He was given a scan at Dorset County Hospital in Dorchester that revealed he had an abnormal gall bladder and liver. Further tests led doctors to believe that he had cancer and they told the the couple that he had only six months to live.
Mrs Collins said: "He was bitter and tearful but he took the news that he was going to die calmly. We took 18,000 out of a pension and he bought the Triumph motorbike, which had always been his dream. He even told me he wanted his coffin to be carried on the back of it at his funeral, which he had arranged."
After a grim "last Christmas" his 60th birthday came and went. Three weeks after a second CT scan doctors told Mr Collins that although he still had cancer, it was not terminal. Two weeks later he was told that he was suffering not from cancer, but from an abscess.
Dorset County Hospital's chief executive, Jan Bergman, has written to Mr Collins disclosing that the initial diagnosis was made before all the test results had been examined. He said that practices had been reviewed to ensure that surgeons looked at all information before reaching a conclusion. Mr Collins is now being treated at Yeovil District Hospital. A spokesman for Dorset County Hospital said: "We have been in contact with Mr and Mrs Collins about the conclusions of our investigation."
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NHS: 286m to help terminally ill to die at home `lost in system'
Millions of pounds of extra funds pledged by the Government for the care of terminally ill patients are failing to reach frontline health services, The Times has discovered. Nine out of ten local health authorities cannot identify their share of the 286 million promised last year to help people who want to die in their own homes, rather than in hospital.
Alan Johnson, then Health Secretary, announced the spending over two years last July as part of the End of Life Care strategy, claiming that it would honour Labour's manifesto pledge to double investment in specialist palliative care by 2011. Hospice directors say, however, that the money is being lost on the NHS balance sheet or spent on other services because it has not been ring-fenced.
Research by the charity Help the Hospices, seen by The Times, shows that of a sample of 28 NHS primary care trusts, only three could provide evidence of extra investment in palliative care this year. At least six of the trusts surveyed - in Blackpool, Bury, Cumbria, Devon, North Lancashire and West Essex - said that there was no extra money for end-of-life care because of financial pressures and the need for savings. Others were unable to identify a specific sum for end-of-life care, or said that no new money had appeared in their annual baseline allocation.
Only one in five deaths in England - most of which follow chronic illness such as heart disease, cancer or dementia - occurs in the home, although two thirds of people say that is where they would prefer to die. By comparison, 58 per cent of people die in hospital. Families complain that a lack of support, local hospice beds or pain management services leaves them no alternative.
A review of end-of-life care published yesterday by the Department of Health painted a quite different picture, claiming that the 286 million programme had made a good start and was set to deliver real service improvements. Mike Richards, the department's national director for cancer, added that while some funds had gone directly to trusts, money was also being held by the department "for national work".
The ten-year strategy aims to shift public attitudes to death and dying, invest in local workforce training and create "rapid response" nursing teams to provide care and support to those who wish to die in a hospice or at home.
David Praill, chief executive of Help the Hospices said: "This is a tragic indictment of the system. PCTs have been given a substantial amount of money to improve end-of-life care, and it simply isn't good enough that, one year on, many don't know where it is."
The pressure on local hospices - three quarters of which are funded by local charities rather than by the NHS - is rising, with more than 100,000 patients using services last year.
Adult hospices in England receive on average only 31 per cent of their funding from the Government, and the gap between what they spend on NHS patients and what the NHS contributes to that care is estimated at 200 million a year, and widening. Help the Hospices is concerned that the extra funding will be diverted to hospital-based care rather than the voluntary sector.
Richard Cowie, chief executive of St Clare Hospice, in Harlow, Essex, said that many local charitable organisations had not seen money being passed on by local NHS managers. "We have a decent working relationship with our local PCT, but their key statement is that they have to make cost-savings on existing budgets and that there is no new money," he said.
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Daily dose of baking soda `can keep kidney patients off dialysis'
Hard to believe but great if a proper double-blind study confirms it. I sometimes take the stuff for indigestion so maybe I have been doing myself more good than I thought
Research by British scientists has found that sodium bicarbonate - otherwise known as baking soda - can dramatically slow the progress of the condition. About three million people in Britain suffer from chronic kidney disease, which can lead to complete kidney failure, requiring regular dialysis. Patients commonly suffer from low bicarbonate levels, a condition called metabolic acidosis.
The pilot study conducted at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, was the first controlled test of the treatment in a clinical setting. In the study, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, researchers studied 134 patients with advanced chronic kidney disease and metabolic acidosis.
One group was randomly allocated a small daily dose of sodium bicarbonate in tablet form in addition to their usual care. Over a period of one year, the kidney function of these patients declined about two thirds more slowly than that of individuals who were not given the tablets. Their rate of decline was little different from what would be expected with normal ageing. Rapid progression of kidney disease occurred in just 9 per cent of patients given baking soda, compared with 45 per cent of the non-treated group.
Patients taking sodium bicarbonate tablets were also less likely to develop end-stage renal disease requiring dialysis, which takes over the function of the kidneys. Although their sodium levels were increased, it did not lead to problems with raised blood pressure.
An estimated 37,800 patients in Britain receive renal replacement therapy, which may involve dialysis or a kidney transplant. The cost of looking after kidney failure patients accounts for 3 per cent of the entire NHS budget. On average, each patient on dialysis costs the NHS 30,000 per year.
Magdi Yaqoob, professor of Renal Medicine at the Royal London, described the results as "amazing". "This study shows that baking soda can be useful for people with kidney failure ... as long as the dose is regulated and under supervision," he said. "This cheap and simple strategy also improves patients' nutritional wellbeing and has the potential to improve quality of life and of course a clinical outcome that can remove the need for dialysis. Baking soda is not classed as a drug so this study has never been tried before."
The scientists pointed out that their research was limited by not having a "placebo group" of patients receiving a "dummy" treatment. It was also not "blind" - the researchers knew which patients were receiving the baking soda. "Our results will need validation in a multi-centre study," Professor Yaqoob said.
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British 'green jobs' claim a sham
Government claims that Britain already supports nearly one million "green-collar" jobs have been exposed as a sham after the figures were found to include North Sea gas industry workers as well as some petrol station attendants and skylight manufacturers.
Britain's Low Carbon Industrial Strategy, outlined yesterday by Lord Mandelson, claimed that the economy already supported 880,000 "low-carbon jobs" - a figure that he said was poised to grow by up to 400,000 by 2015 to more than 1.28 million. But a detailed breakdown of the figures obtained by The Times shows that they include an extraordinarily loose definition of the term.
About a third of the jobs (266,000), comprises workers in "alternative fuels" - a category that includes the production and supply of natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), as well as nuclear power and conventional "green" fuels such as biodiesel, bioethanol and hydrogen.
John Sharp, of Innovas, a consultancy in Winsford, Cheshire, which was paid by the Government to produce the figures earlier this year, confirmed that this included thousands of workers on gas production platforms in the North Sea as well as petrol station attendants on forecourts where liquefied petroleum is dispensed and employees at gas-fired power stations. The list also includes manufacturers of a bizarre array of products - from skylights to wooden pallets and noise insulation materials, on the basis that they use recycled materials. Figures supplied by Innovas showed that the total included 207 jobs in the supply and manufacture of animal bedding, 90 providing equestrian surfaces and 164 in the recycling of footwear, "slippers and other carpet wear". Mr Sharp acknowledged that there were some "weird and wonderful" categories. "We try to capture as much of the supply chain as possible," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change claimed that Innovas had defined the methodology used in the report. "They are looking at the whole low- carbon supply chain, not just at the end-energy production," she said.
Robin Oakley, climate change campaigner for Greenpeace, said that the definition used by the Government seemed unfeasibly broad and that there was "no need for the Government to massage the figures" because it was unquestionable that the economic future opportunity in the low-carbon sector would be huge.
Yesterday Lord Mandelson said: "The Government is determined to ensure the economic and employment opportunities that this transition [to a low-carbon economy] offers to us."
Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that the low-carbon economy presented "big potential" for economic growth and job creation.
But The Times revealed yesterday that a factory in Newport, Isle of Wight, which is Britain's only significant manufacturer of wind turbines, will produce its last batch of seven-tonne blades this week. More than 600 people employed at the plant and a related facility in Southampton, will be made redundant at the end of the month. All 7,000 turbines that the Government committed itself yesterday to installing over the next decade will be manufactured overseas.
By 2020, renewable energy sources will provide 31 per cent of Britain's electricity, up from 6 per cent today, while nuclear's share will fall to 8 per cent from current levels of between15 per cent and nearly a quarter, depending on the variable output of nuclear plants.
SOURCE
Dealing with Britain's debt: "Currently, the public sector is swelling far beyond its means. The UK is forecast to suffer a budget deficit of 170 billion later this year. This equates to every man, woman and child being in nearly 3,000 of debt. Every year, our government pays 200 billion to public sector employees and this is not sustainable. The problem with this is that the increasing deficit needs to be funded somehow. There are several ways that this can be done. One way would be to increase taxes; however an increase in tax rates reduces incentives and is therefore likely to have the adverse effect of reducing tax revenues. Alternatively, `quantative easing' (glorified printing money) could be used to pay off debt. But this is highly inflationary, as resources are no less scarce, so it would reduce the value of our currency, thus making the UK less attractive for investors. Surely the best way to deal with the deficit is to reduce government spending."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Former British magistrate cleared of rape sues his accuser for 300,000
False accusers deserve imprisonment, not monetary penalties but in this case a damages claim seems the only option. The matter should certainly be tried in court. Claiming non-consent after an interval of 7 years should never have led to a conviction in the first place
A former magistrate cleared of rape has launched a landmark legal claim for 300,000 damages against his accuser. Anthony Hunt, 66, was jailed in 2003 for after a jury found him guilty of raping a woman in her home after they both attended a flower show. He spent nearly two years on a prison sex offender's wing before his conviction was overturned. Now in a legal first, Mr Hunt wants to 'vindicate his reputation' by bringing a claim of malicious prosecution against the woman who alleged rape.
Critics say that if the bid succeeds, it could have far-reaching consequences as to whether rape gets reported to the police. They argue it will deter rape complainants from giving evidence - out of fear they may be sued if their alleged attackers are found not guilty. Mark Warby QC, representing Mr Hunt, however, said the move offered a vital legal remedy to those wrongly accused of rape. Mr Warby said: 'It is 14 years ago to the day that my client had sex with the defendant with her consent at her home at the age of 52.
'It was nearly seven years afterwards that he was arrested and first learned of her allegation of rape. 'He was prosecuted and, on a majority verdict, convicted, but his conviction was held unsafe by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division and was quashed.' 'He's brought this action to vindicate himself, not only because the conviction was unsafe. 'It was a miscarriage of justice and he is suing his accuser for damages.'
Mr Hunt - who was jailed for four years - did not face a retrial as he had served 23 months and 18 days of his sentence in prison - nearly the full amount required before release. His conviction was overturned after the Appeal Court ruled the trial judge had misdirected the jury.
Claims of malicious prosecution are normally brought against public bodies such as the Crown Prosecution Service which prosecute in the vast majority of cases. But Mr Hunt argued that, by giving a witness statement to Hampshire constabulary in May 2002, Mr Hunt's accuser was effectively responsible for the prosecution - and should stand trial in a civil court. The argument was rejected last year at the High Court, but now three Law Lords at the Appeal Court are deciding whether to give the go-ahead to a trial for malicious prosecution.
Mr Warby told Lords Justices Sedley, Wall and Moore-Bick that Mr Hunt was entitled to a fair trial of the issues - whether AB effectively brought the prosecution - and whether she lied. He argued that Mr Justice Blake in the High Court had wrongly ruled against Mr Hunt by taking into account 'public policy' issues - that the 'floodgates would open' if those cleared of rape could bring malicious prosecution cases against their accusers. Mr Justice Blake also wrong considered whether rape was actually committed which Mr Warby said was a matter for a jury rather than a High Court judge.
But Roger ter Haar, for AB, said: 'On the one hand if Mr Hunt's story is true, he has been subject to an enormous injustice. 'He's been to prision in circumstances where he should not have been. 'On the other hand, from my client's point of view, she's not only been the victim of rape, and had to deal with the psychological consequences of that, but she has also had to deal with the police investigation, which in the circumstances of this case cannot have been easy.'
Mr Ter Haar added that if the judges were to find in Mr Hunt's favour 'It would be a massive in road into the principle of witness immunity. 'In any case where it is one person's word against the other, witness immunity will be removed.'
At Mr Hunt's Winchester Crown Court trial for rape, jurors heard that the complainant, a special constable, had invited him into her home for a cup of tea after the Fordingbridge Show in 1995. Mr Hunt, whose civilian job was as a senior traffic warden, claimed he could not have raped his accuser as his manhood was 'abnormally small' and he could only have had sex with consent. But the jury convicted him by a majority of 10-2.
The court heard that Mr Hunt's wife, Lynn, had suffered acute embarrassment working at her antique shop near the couple's home in Blandford St Mary, Dorset. The case, listed for two days, will continue on Friday.
SOURCE
A 9-month wait for NHS arthritis treatment: Delay can mean a lifetime of agony for victims
Thousands of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers face a lifetime of agony because they are not being treated quickly enough, a report says. Guidelines state that patients should receive treatment within three months of the first symptoms appearing. But the average wait is nine months - and GPs are not trained well enough to know what help to offer.
There is no cure, but experts say that if arthritis is diagnosed in the first three months, drugs can be given which limit its progression. This means the disease will not be as painful as it would have been if the condition was diagnosed later. The study by the National Audit Office found that patients do not know enough about the condition, and therefore delay going to see their GP. Between half and three-quarters of people with symptoms wait more than three months before seeking medical help, and about a fifth delay for a year or more.
GPs lack the specialist knowledge required to diagnose the condition quickly, and on average it takes four visits before a patient is referred to a specialist for diagnosis and treatment, the report adds. Its author, Chris Groom, said: 'This is a nasty disease, a progressive auto-immune disease, which attacks otherwise healthy joints. Early symptoms are joint pain and stiffness and it leads to inflammation and loss of strength. 'It also affects other parts of the body, such as the heart and lungs, and is also associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.'
br>
The report found that the average length of time from the onset of symptoms to treatment has not improved in the past five years. Mr Groom said that services needed to be better coordinated and designed around people's needs, including helping them remain in work.
Three-quarters of sufferers are of working age when diagnosed, meaning delays cost the economy almost 2billion a year - about 560million a year in NHS healthcare costs and 1.8billion in sick leave and work-related disability. 'Once people fall out of the job market with this disease, it is very hard to get back in', Mr Groom said.
The report also found that 50 per cent more people have rheumatoid arthritis than was previously thought. Mr Groom added: 'We estimate that 580,000 adults in England have the condition, which is higher than existing estimates of 400,000 for the UK, and that there are 26,000 new cases each year in England, compared to estimates of 12,000 for the UK.'
Neil Betteridge, chief executive of the charity Arthritis Care, said: 'The report echoes what people with rheumatoid arthritis have been telling Arthritis Care for years. 'Early diagnosis and referral for suitable treatment is crucial as it can stop this debilitating condition in its tracks. 'We applaud the audit's recommendations that the Department of Health and Primary Care Trusts replace their often scattergun delivery with joined-up services.'
Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said the NHS needed to improve support services for people with arthritis.
Health minister Ann Keen said: 'We welcome this report and will consider it carefully before responding.'
SOURCE
Pathetic science examinations in British High Schools: Some exam questions require no scientific knowledge!
Teenagers need only a grasp of grammar and no scientific knowledge to answer GCSE science questions correctly, a report suggests today. It says that the right answers to multiple-choice questions are obvious because they are often the only ones that make grammatical sense. The report is by Science Community Representing Education (Score), which speaks on behalf of organisations including the Royal Society, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Science Council.
A panel of experts reviewed recent changes to GCSE science examinations. It analysed 79 exam papers. The report said that some of the range of answers deemed allowable in marking schemes were not correct. It noted the widespread use of multiple-choice questions, saying: "There were substantial variations between awarding bodies, with some specifications having as few as 2 per cent or 9 per cent of marks available through extended response questions on structured papers. "This is of importance, as extended response questions provide an opportunity for pupils to demonstrate the full extent of their understanding and ability in a deeper sense than is possible in multiple choice or short-response questions."
It added: "There were a few instances where knowledge of science was not needed to answer some parts of some questions. "Of particular concern were questions which appeared to be general knowledge. "A related finding was that some multiple-choice questions had poorly constructed, incorrect answers. In some cases, only the correct answer made grammatical sense and therefore the incorrect answers were unlikely to be selected by the student, simply on the basis of grammar."
Sir Alan Wilson, chairman of Score, said: "Science is a quantitative subject yet the amount of maths in the exams varied widely and was generally woefully inadequate. While these general knowledge questions were not widespread, it is astonishing that there are any examples. "The failings outlined in the report must now be addressed as we cannot afford to fail the young people who are working so hard to get their science qualifications."
Peter Main, director of education and science at the Institute of Physics, said: "Currently, it appears that there is insufficient use of mathematics, the language of science, and that some of the questions do not even require a knowledge of science at all.
SOURCE
Brighter people live longer, says Glasgow scientist David Batty
Yet more evidence that high IQ is usually a part of general biological fitness
Greater intelligence may in part partially explain why people from a high socio-economic background live longer than those of lower social status, researchers have suggested. A study of former soldiers in the United States has indicated that differences in IQ may explain almost a quarter of the differences in mortality between people of higher and lower social classes.
It has long been accepted that social status affects mortality, with a particular influence on death from cardiovascular events such as strokes and heart attacks. Many of these differences have been ascribed to stress, to income, and to behavioural factors such as smoking and diet - but these cannot explain the whole gap in longevity between the highest socio-economic groups and the lowest ones.
The new study, from a team led by David Batty, of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow, compared outcomes from a group of 4,289 former American soldiers drawn from diverse social backgrounds. It found that variations in IQ explain about 23 per cent of the survival differences between different social groups. Details of the study are published in European Heart Journal.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, of University College, London, who leads the Whitehall II study of civil servants, which has uncovered many of the effects of social class on mortality, and his colleague Mika Kivimaki, offered three possible explanations for the effect in a commentary for the journal. [The Marmot is associated with the dubious WCRF and some equally dubious dietary claims so his interpretations should be treated with caution]
"Intelligence might lead to greater knowledge about how to pursue healthy behaviours," he wrote. Intelligence may "cause" socio-economic position; that is, more intelligence leads to more education, and greater income and occupational prestige. "Intelligence may be a marker for something else, and it is that something else, early life exposures, for example, that leads to mortality," Dr Batty said.
"We already know that socio-economically disadvantaged people have worse health and tend to die earlier from conditions such as heart disease, cancer and accidents. Environmental exposures and health-related behaviours, such as smoking, diet and physical activity, can explain some of this difference, but not all of it. This raises the possibility that as-yet-unmeasured psychological factors need to be considered. One of these is intelligence or cognitive function, commonly referred to as IQ. This measures a person's ability to reason and problem-solve. IQ is strongly related to socio-economic status.
"IQ wasn't a magic bullet in this study, but this psychological variable had additional explanatory power on top of the classic variables such as smoking, high blood pressure, high blood glucose and obesity. It has partially explained the differences in death from heart disease and all causes."
SOURCE
Cut population by a third, say crowded Britons
One in four Britons would like to see the population reduced by up to a third to ease overcrowding. A survey has revealed deep anxiety about pressure on the environment and the impact of migrants on public services and social cohesion. Nearly seven out of ten adults believe the best way to curb population growth is to cut immigration, the poll showed.
The findings, gathered in a YouGov survey for the environmental pressure group Optimum Population Trust [a Greenie outfit], suggest there is widespread unhappiness over official projections that the population will rise to 70million in the next 20 years. The number of British citizens has grown by around two million in the past decade. The exact figure is unknown because of the difficulties in precisely measuring immigration. This has brought the population to around 61million.
Immigration minister Phil Woolas has promised that the Government will not allow numbers to reach 70million, a pledge that has provoked mockery from political opponents.
Yesterday's poll showed that the greatest support for cutting population levels was found in regions where immigration has been the highest. In London, where one in three of the population was born abroad, 54 per cent think there should be fewer people. In the East of England, 49 per cent support a lower population and 48 per cent support it in the South.
The survey, which questioned 2,000 people, found that 24 per cent want the population to be between 40million and 50million, and 51 per cent would like numbers brought below 60million.
In Scotland, where recent levels of immigration have been minimal, only 22 per cent want the population reduced.
According to the poll, three quarters thought over-population was responsible for transport congestion and two thirds blamed it for lack of affordable housing or environmental degradation. A total of 53 per cent thought that too many people meant a lower quality of life.
Reducing immigration was the most popular method of lowering numbers, and was supported by 69 per cent. Many of those questioned believed that people should take the environment into account when deciding family size. Some 34 per cent said couples should think about having no more than two children. Eight per cent favoured having only one child and 7 per cent said couples should consider having no children. A total of 49 per cent supported two children or fewer. A three-child maximum was favoured by 13 per cent, but 14 per cent said couples should have as many children as they liked.
Roger Martin, of the Optimum Population Trust, said: `The poll clearly demonstrates widespread concern about the environmental damage caused by population
growth and widespread support for measures to limit it. `The unequivocal nature of these findings makes the silence on population policy on the part of politicians and environmental groups even more astonishing. `The political parties and the green movement need to realise that the public can sustain a mature debate on population.'
Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch UK think-tank, said neither Labour nor the Conservatives would prevent the population increasing to 70million by 2029 with their present policies. `The main parties talk tough on immigration, but they are trying to con the British public,' he added. `According to Government figures, we can expect almost another ten million people in England in 20 years' time of which seven million will be due to immigration - equivalent to seven cities the size of Birmingham.'
SOURCE
False accusers deserve imprisonment, not monetary penalties but in this case a damages claim seems the only option. The matter should certainly be tried in court. Claiming non-consent after an interval of 7 years should never have led to a conviction in the first place
A former magistrate cleared of rape has launched a landmark legal claim for 300,000 damages against his accuser. Anthony Hunt, 66, was jailed in 2003 for after a jury found him guilty of raping a woman in her home after they both attended a flower show. He spent nearly two years on a prison sex offender's wing before his conviction was overturned. Now in a legal first, Mr Hunt wants to 'vindicate his reputation' by bringing a claim of malicious prosecution against the woman who alleged rape.
Critics say that if the bid succeeds, it could have far-reaching consequences as to whether rape gets reported to the police. They argue it will deter rape complainants from giving evidence - out of fear they may be sued if their alleged attackers are found not guilty. Mark Warby QC, representing Mr Hunt, however, said the move offered a vital legal remedy to those wrongly accused of rape. Mr Warby said: 'It is 14 years ago to the day that my client had sex with the defendant with her consent at her home at the age of 52.
'It was nearly seven years afterwards that he was arrested and first learned of her allegation of rape. 'He was prosecuted and, on a majority verdict, convicted, but his conviction was held unsafe by the Court of Appeal Criminal Division and was quashed.' 'He's brought this action to vindicate himself, not only because the conviction was unsafe. 'It was a miscarriage of justice and he is suing his accuser for damages.'
Mr Hunt - who was jailed for four years - did not face a retrial as he had served 23 months and 18 days of his sentence in prison - nearly the full amount required before release. His conviction was overturned after the Appeal Court ruled the trial judge had misdirected the jury.
Claims of malicious prosecution are normally brought against public bodies such as the Crown Prosecution Service which prosecute in the vast majority of cases. But Mr Hunt argued that, by giving a witness statement to Hampshire constabulary in May 2002, Mr Hunt's accuser was effectively responsible for the prosecution - and should stand trial in a civil court. The argument was rejected last year at the High Court, but now three Law Lords at the Appeal Court are deciding whether to give the go-ahead to a trial for malicious prosecution.
Mr Warby told Lords Justices Sedley, Wall and Moore-Bick that Mr Hunt was entitled to a fair trial of the issues - whether AB effectively brought the prosecution - and whether she lied. He argued that Mr Justice Blake in the High Court had wrongly ruled against Mr Hunt by taking into account 'public policy' issues - that the 'floodgates would open' if those cleared of rape could bring malicious prosecution cases against their accusers. Mr Justice Blake also wrong considered whether rape was actually committed which Mr Warby said was a matter for a jury rather than a High Court judge.
But Roger ter Haar, for AB, said: 'On the one hand if Mr Hunt's story is true, he has been subject to an enormous injustice. 'He's been to prision in circumstances where he should not have been. 'On the other hand, from my client's point of view, she's not only been the victim of rape, and had to deal with the psychological consequences of that, but she has also had to deal with the police investigation, which in the circumstances of this case cannot have been easy.'
Mr Ter Haar added that if the judges were to find in Mr Hunt's favour 'It would be a massive in road into the principle of witness immunity. 'In any case where it is one person's word against the other, witness immunity will be removed.'
At Mr Hunt's Winchester Crown Court trial for rape, jurors heard that the complainant, a special constable, had invited him into her home for a cup of tea after the Fordingbridge Show in 1995. Mr Hunt, whose civilian job was as a senior traffic warden, claimed he could not have raped his accuser as his manhood was 'abnormally small' and he could only have had sex with consent. But the jury convicted him by a majority of 10-2.
The court heard that Mr Hunt's wife, Lynn, had suffered acute embarrassment working at her antique shop near the couple's home in Blandford St Mary, Dorset. The case, listed for two days, will continue on Friday.
SOURCE
A 9-month wait for NHS arthritis treatment: Delay can mean a lifetime of agony for victims
Thousands of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers face a lifetime of agony because they are not being treated quickly enough, a report says. Guidelines state that patients should receive treatment within three months of the first symptoms appearing. But the average wait is nine months - and GPs are not trained well enough to know what help to offer.
There is no cure, but experts say that if arthritis is diagnosed in the first three months, drugs can be given which limit its progression. This means the disease will not be as painful as it would have been if the condition was diagnosed later. The study by the National Audit Office found that patients do not know enough about the condition, and therefore delay going to see their GP. Between half and three-quarters of people with symptoms wait more than three months before seeking medical help, and about a fifth delay for a year or more.
GPs lack the specialist knowledge required to diagnose the condition quickly, and on average it takes four visits before a patient is referred to a specialist for diagnosis and treatment, the report adds. Its author, Chris Groom, said: 'This is a nasty disease, a progressive auto-immune disease, which attacks otherwise healthy joints. Early symptoms are joint pain and stiffness and it leads to inflammation and loss of strength. 'It also affects other parts of the body, such as the heart and lungs, and is also associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease.'
br>
The report found that the average length of time from the onset of symptoms to treatment has not improved in the past five years. Mr Groom said that services needed to be better coordinated and designed around people's needs, including helping them remain in work.
Three-quarters of sufferers are of working age when diagnosed, meaning delays cost the economy almost 2billion a year - about 560million a year in NHS healthcare costs and 1.8billion in sick leave and work-related disability. 'Once people fall out of the job market with this disease, it is very hard to get back in', Mr Groom said.
The report also found that 50 per cent more people have rheumatoid arthritis than was previously thought. Mr Groom added: 'We estimate that 580,000 adults in England have the condition, which is higher than existing estimates of 400,000 for the UK, and that there are 26,000 new cases each year in England, compared to estimates of 12,000 for the UK.'
Neil Betteridge, chief executive of the charity Arthritis Care, said: 'The report echoes what people with rheumatoid arthritis have been telling Arthritis Care for years. 'Early diagnosis and referral for suitable treatment is crucial as it can stop this debilitating condition in its tracks. 'We applaud the audit's recommendations that the Department of Health and Primary Care Trusts replace their often scattergun delivery with joined-up services.'
Tory MP Edward Leigh, chairman of the Commons public accounts committee, said the NHS needed to improve support services for people with arthritis.
Health minister Ann Keen said: 'We welcome this report and will consider it carefully before responding.'
SOURCE
Pathetic science examinations in British High Schools: Some exam questions require no scientific knowledge!
Teenagers need only a grasp of grammar and no scientific knowledge to answer GCSE science questions correctly, a report suggests today. It says that the right answers to multiple-choice questions are obvious because they are often the only ones that make grammatical sense. The report is by Science Community Representing Education (Score), which speaks on behalf of organisations including the Royal Society, the Institute of Physics, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Science Council.
A panel of experts reviewed recent changes to GCSE science examinations. It analysed 79 exam papers. The report said that some of the range of answers deemed allowable in marking schemes were not correct. It noted the widespread use of multiple-choice questions, saying: "There were substantial variations between awarding bodies, with some specifications having as few as 2 per cent or 9 per cent of marks available through extended response questions on structured papers. "This is of importance, as extended response questions provide an opportunity for pupils to demonstrate the full extent of their understanding and ability in a deeper sense than is possible in multiple choice or short-response questions."
It added: "There were a few instances where knowledge of science was not needed to answer some parts of some questions. "Of particular concern were questions which appeared to be general knowledge. "A related finding was that some multiple-choice questions had poorly constructed, incorrect answers. In some cases, only the correct answer made grammatical sense and therefore the incorrect answers were unlikely to be selected by the student, simply on the basis of grammar."
Sir Alan Wilson, chairman of Score, said: "Science is a quantitative subject yet the amount of maths in the exams varied widely and was generally woefully inadequate. While these general knowledge questions were not widespread, it is astonishing that there are any examples. "The failings outlined in the report must now be addressed as we cannot afford to fail the young people who are working so hard to get their science qualifications."
Peter Main, director of education and science at the Institute of Physics, said: "Currently, it appears that there is insufficient use of mathematics, the language of science, and that some of the questions do not even require a knowledge of science at all.
SOURCE
Brighter people live longer, says Glasgow scientist David Batty
Yet more evidence that high IQ is usually a part of general biological fitness
Greater intelligence may in part partially explain why people from a high socio-economic background live longer than those of lower social status, researchers have suggested. A study of former soldiers in the United States has indicated that differences in IQ may explain almost a quarter of the differences in mortality between people of higher and lower social classes.
It has long been accepted that social status affects mortality, with a particular influence on death from cardiovascular events such as strokes and heart attacks. Many of these differences have been ascribed to stress, to income, and to behavioural factors such as smoking and diet - but these cannot explain the whole gap in longevity between the highest socio-economic groups and the lowest ones.
The new study, from a team led by David Batty, of the MRC Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow, compared outcomes from a group of 4,289 former American soldiers drawn from diverse social backgrounds. It found that variations in IQ explain about 23 per cent of the survival differences between different social groups. Details of the study are published in European Heart Journal.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, of University College, London, who leads the Whitehall II study of civil servants, which has uncovered many of the effects of social class on mortality, and his colleague Mika Kivimaki, offered three possible explanations for the effect in a commentary for the journal. [The Marmot is associated with the dubious WCRF and some equally dubious dietary claims so his interpretations should be treated with caution]
"Intelligence might lead to greater knowledge about how to pursue healthy behaviours," he wrote. Intelligence may "cause" socio-economic position; that is, more intelligence leads to more education, and greater income and occupational prestige. "Intelligence may be a marker for something else, and it is that something else, early life exposures, for example, that leads to mortality," Dr Batty said.
"We already know that socio-economically disadvantaged people have worse health and tend to die earlier from conditions such as heart disease, cancer and accidents. Environmental exposures and health-related behaviours, such as smoking, diet and physical activity, can explain some of this difference, but not all of it. This raises the possibility that as-yet-unmeasured psychological factors need to be considered. One of these is intelligence or cognitive function, commonly referred to as IQ. This measures a person's ability to reason and problem-solve. IQ is strongly related to socio-economic status.
"IQ wasn't a magic bullet in this study, but this psychological variable had additional explanatory power on top of the classic variables such as smoking, high blood pressure, high blood glucose and obesity. It has partially explained the differences in death from heart disease and all causes."
SOURCE
Cut population by a third, say crowded Britons
One in four Britons would like to see the population reduced by up to a third to ease overcrowding. A survey has revealed deep anxiety about pressure on the environment and the impact of migrants on public services and social cohesion. Nearly seven out of ten adults believe the best way to curb population growth is to cut immigration, the poll showed.
The findings, gathered in a YouGov survey for the environmental pressure group Optimum Population Trust [a Greenie outfit], suggest there is widespread unhappiness over official projections that the population will rise to 70million in the next 20 years. The number of British citizens has grown by around two million in the past decade. The exact figure is unknown because of the difficulties in precisely measuring immigration. This has brought the population to around 61million.
Immigration minister Phil Woolas has promised that the Government will not allow numbers to reach 70million, a pledge that has provoked mockery from political opponents.
Yesterday's poll showed that the greatest support for cutting population levels was found in regions where immigration has been the highest. In London, where one in three of the population was born abroad, 54 per cent think there should be fewer people. In the East of England, 49 per cent support a lower population and 48 per cent support it in the South.
The survey, which questioned 2,000 people, found that 24 per cent want the population to be between 40million and 50million, and 51 per cent would like numbers brought below 60million.
In Scotland, where recent levels of immigration have been minimal, only 22 per cent want the population reduced.
According to the poll, three quarters thought over-population was responsible for transport congestion and two thirds blamed it for lack of affordable housing or environmental degradation. A total of 53 per cent thought that too many people meant a lower quality of life.
Reducing immigration was the most popular method of lowering numbers, and was supported by 69 per cent. Many of those questioned believed that people should take the environment into account when deciding family size. Some 34 per cent said couples should think about having no more than two children. Eight per cent favoured having only one child and 7 per cent said couples should consider having no children. A total of 49 per cent supported two children or fewer. A three-child maximum was favoured by 13 per cent, but 14 per cent said couples should have as many children as they liked.
Roger Martin, of the Optimum Population Trust, said: `The poll clearly demonstrates widespread concern about the environmental damage caused by population
growth and widespread support for measures to limit it. `The unequivocal nature of these findings makes the silence on population policy on the part of politicians and environmental groups even more astonishing. `The political parties and the green movement need to realise that the public can sustain a mature debate on population.'
Sir Andrew Green, of the MigrationWatch UK think-tank, said neither Labour nor the Conservatives would prevent the population increasing to 70million by 2029 with their present policies. `The main parties talk tough on immigration, but they are trying to con the British public,' he added. `According to Government figures, we can expect almost another ten million people in England in 20 years' time of which seven million will be due to immigration - equivalent to seven cities the size of Birmingham.'
SOURCE
Thursday, July 16, 2009
British police harass the harmless again
While they ignore real crime like car theft and assault. A mother who left children playing in park is branded a criminal after being given no opportunity to defend herself in court
A Sunday school teacher was given a police record after she briefly left her own children playing together in a park while she popped to a nearby shop. The woman had left four of her children, the eldest of whom was nine, playing while she went into the shop with her fifth child. The unaccompanied youngsters were spotted by police officers who then spoke to the woman and logged the incident with the Criminal Records Bureau.
When she later applied for a voluntary job teaching in a Sunday school at her local church a criminal records check flagged her up as a risk to children. The woman, from Warminster, Wiltshire, who asked not to be named, said: "The police made a snap judgment on my parenting, that's all it is. I haven't committed any criminal offence. It's just a snap judgment after meeting me for a minute or two in the park. "They have logged this information on the database and I wouldn't even have known it was there if I hadn't applied for a voluntary job at the local church. "It just makes me wonder how many people out there are wandering around with information on them and they don't know anything about it."
The CRB, a Home Office agency, collects information on people who apply for jobs working with children or vulnerable adults. That includes so-called "soft information" such as police suspicions or incidents when someone has been questioned but released without charge. Teaching unions and civil rights groups claim that records of unproven claims disclosed by the CRB to employers can unfairly ruin people's careers or job prospects.
Anna Fairclough, legal officer for civil liberties group Liberty, said the Sunday school teacher had never even been told she was being placed on a criminal database. She said: "This woman was never given the opportunity to comment on the allegation that that makes her a risk to children. She's got virtually no ability to challenge it because the law at the moment doesn't provide safeguards for people in this position. "If we are allowing unproven allegations we need to make sure there are safeguards in place so people's careers aren't destroyed by unfounded gossip, rumour and speculation."
Over the past five years, according to figures obtained from the Home Office by the Conservatives, a total of 12,255 disputes over inaccurate CRB checks have been upheld. That includes people applying for jobs as teachers, nurses, child minders and countless volunteers.
Last year a report for Civitas, a think tank, said the increasing use of such checks had created an atmosphere of suspicion among parents, many of whom were volunteers at sports and social clubs, and who found themselves regarded as "potential child abusers".
From October this year a new body, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, will vet all individuals who work with children, even those just visiting a school such as an author or politician. It is estimated the new regime will result in more than 11 million adults being checked, one in four of the adult population.
The new body has been set up in response to the murders of 10 -year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002. Their killer, Ian Huntley, had been able to get a job as a school caretaker despite being known to police and social services.
SOURCE
NHS tries to avoid treating patients with swine flu
For one mother, the NHS's swine flu response is scarily unresponsive. Dealing with swine flu is confusing and - with the news of the deaths of apparently healthy people - scary. That was brought home by this message I got from a mother trying to negotiate the NHS for her family. She writes:
Yes, more children will probably die in the swine flu epidemic. And it may well be partly because senseless bureaucracy is stopping child victims getting urgent medical help...
It was Saturday morning. My children had been taking Tamiflu for a couple of days, after our GP had diagnosed swine flu on the phone. Now both my husband and my younger son were looking worse. My husband has asthma and my son suffers from recurrent croup (for which he has been hospitalised twice). So I rang Out of Hours Urgent Care, who transferred us to NHS Direct. Surely, I thought, as probable swine flu victims my husband and son would be treatment priorities?
An arrogant telephone operative at NHS Direct told my asthmatic husband he probably didn't have swine flu and had nothing to worry about. No treatment was offered. So I took my son to the NHS Walk-In Centre. There, when I mentioned Tamiflu, we were ushered into a separate room and then told we would not be seen by a doctor and must leave the building. Because we had swine flu. We should ring NHS Direct for help. I explained why that had failed, whilst my son's coughing grew more ominous.
I refused to leave, I pleaded, I lost my temper. My child is sick, he is getting croup, he needs to be seen. Children die of this. At length, a kindly nurse arranged a GP Home Visit. We returned home to wait, but within two hours my son was struggling to breathe. A 999 call, ambulance, blue lights, hospital, steroids, oxygen. An emergency that could well have been avoided with the right medical treatment quicker. Admittedly, we got help quickly because I broke the rules given at the time of diagnosis: I rang for an ambulance myself rather than joining the queue for NHS Direct, as I'd been told to do in emergency. I wonder how long I would have waited in a telephone queue whilst my son struggled to breathe.
And my husband? Oh, he ended up in hospital too, for a couple of hours, after the Home Visit GP looked at his condition and recommended I drive him straight to Casualty. He explained that it was breaking the rules, but that my husband needed a nebuliser quickly, and if he tried to arrange it the procedure would take hours, because there were so many protocols for dealing with swine flu patients.
I wish my story was unusual. But a friend in the same village - on the same day - broke the rules too. They'd been diagnosed in hospital that Friday, immediately quarantined and sent home with a helpline number to ring for medicine. They tried for twenty-four hours to get through. They spent thirty pounds on fruitless telephone calls. Then he took his rapidly worsening son back to Casualty.
Leaving him in the car to prevent infection, he went inside and demanded to see a doctor. His treatment was worse than mine. When I lost my temper the Walk-In Centre took me seriously. When he raised his voice, they called the police. He was kept in a private room whilst his sick son was left alone in the car outside. "It's the lack of compassion that gets me," he said. "It was like they didn't care about a sick child."
He got the medicine, eventually. After breaking the rules and kicking up a fuss. But Tamiflu is only effective if taken at the very beginning of an illness. That twenty-four hour delay in getting medication could have killed my friend's child. So could untreated croup.
Of course no one wants to spread infection unnecessarily. It is sensible to self-quarantine and ask for home visits. But at the moment Britain's panic about swine flu has created senseless barriers that are stopping very ill young children getting the treatment they need.
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Another foolish woman who believed the feminist drivel about "having it all" -- and lived to regret it bitterly
Every now and then I feel a pang of loss and longing that takes me completely by surprise. I might be sitting in a cafe talking to friends, or wandering around the supermarket. Then I see a mother with her child and the realisation hits me, as if for the first time - that's never going to be me. If someone had told my 25-year-old self that I would end up here - aged 45, newly married and, sadly for us both, without a hope of ever getting pregnant - I wouldn't have believed them.
It would have seemed incredible that love would take so long to find me; that becoming a mother would ever matter so much; or that my fertility - a gift that, at the time, seemed more like an inconvenience - would plummet far beyond the point at which doctors could work their magic. Yet, it is a fact my husband David and I have spent the past year learning to accept....
I had spent the whole of my adult life as a London career girl, married to my advertising agency job, with no time or inclination to settle down. Yet as soon as David, who has his own events marketing company, and I started trying for a baby, my whole perspective changed. I held my belly protectively and imagined myself walking down the Finchley Road heavily pregnant. I looked at baby food in the supermarket aisles and noticed women with their children. I imagined the warming smell of my baby's head, the tiny fingers and perfect fingernails. I imagined having a small hand to hold as I walked down the street. My world opened up with possibility.
I suppose it is little wonder that it took me until the age of 41 to find the right man and tap into these unfamiliar feelings. I'd spent most of my life dedicated to building my career. As a nine-year-old, I was never happier than when I was playing secretary; answering calls, shuffling papers and wearing an appropriately smart outfit from my mother's wardrobe. By 24, I was a strategist at a leading ad agency. I drove a Golf convertible, wore red wool suits with gilt buttons, and thought I was Paula Hamilton from the iconic TV advert. I remained very single, but I told myself - and my concerned mum - that the mews house and engagement ring would come later.
My life didn't revolve around marriage and children. My friends and I were taking our time. We were big kids in shoulder pads, and life was about working, shopping, drinking and having fun....
Busy chasing financial independence, I let my most fertile years slip by, never allowing myself to doubt that the love and babies bit would take care of itself. And so I lost the chance to have a baby I didn't even know I wanted until it was too late...
When I was 36, my ever-thoughtful stepmother suggested I freeze my eggs to give myself the chance of 'an ice baby'. But I didn't - something I bitterly regret. Not only is it a rather expensive procedure to go through for the sake of an insurance policy, but it involves confronting the possibility that you might not meet the man of your dreams before your eggs 'run out'. Few young, single women can contemplate that thought. But take it from me: if you're young, single and not in a position to have a child, you should consider it. Those eggs will remain as young as you are today, and one day they might be your only hope....
The more time I spent in the country, the more I wanted a child - and the further away it seemed to be getting. We sought help at the Lister Hospital in London, where David gave a sample and I underwent a gynaecological MOT. When the results came in, all looked well. David's sperm was good, and my hormone levels normal.
'And yet you are not getting pregnant,' the doctor said, just as I was preparing to celebrate. 'The most likely explanation is age. When a woman reaches her 40s, we have to recognise that we're working with older eggs, and I am afraid their quality declines over time. The question is what we do next.'
What she said next shook me. A woman of 43 or 44 has a 13 per cent chance of getting pregnant through IVF and a 70 per cent chance of miscarriage. 'So Lucy, your net chance of delivering a baby with IVF is around four per cent. I'm really sorry.'
But all that was academic when it came to finding an IVF clinic. A second round of tests revealed that, in just six months, my hormone levels had changed, my fertility had dropped, meaning no clinic was prepared to take me on. The odds of success were so slim that it was, they claimed, unethical to take my money. 'Have a think about it and if you're interested in egg donation, we can do that up to the age of 50.' I didn't understand. What about all those fabulous, famous fortysomethings whose 'baby joy' stories were so often in magazines.
The actress Jane Seymour and model Iman both had children at 44, actress Mimi Rogers was 45, Susan Sarandon 46, Holly Hunter 47. Each headline seemed to confirm that, yes, it was possible to put having a family at the bottom of your priority list until you were good and ready. But here's the rub - a very high proportion of babies born to women in their 40s are conceived using donated eggs from younger women. It's a secret that many will never let you in on.
I had just assumed that because I was healthy - I exercised regularly, I didn't smoke (or at least, not since my 20s) or, in the main, drink too much - that my chances were as good as anyone's. But while you can look and feel as young as you like, you can't put anti-ageing creams on your ovaries. Your eggs are the age that they are, and when they run out, there's nothing you can do about it.
I was angry - with anyone who had fallen pregnant accidentally, anyone who didn't realise how lucky they were to have a child. I was angry at the ad agency for keeping me in the office throughout my childbearing years, and at the tobacco companies who had sold me the cigarettes I'd smoked throughout my 20s, and at the government for never having had a public health campaign on the subject of increasing age and decreasing fertility.
But, deep down, I knew I had no one to blame but myself. I had never stopped to think about the bigger picture. I had never had a life plan, or even a plan beyond what my secretary scheduled in my diary. I'd stuck my head in the sand, and this was the result...
My chance to experience the profound joy of motherhood has come and gone. But to the generation of career girls who are a decade or two behind me, I would say this: don't wait for a bigger house, a better job or a more expensive car, because if you do, you're a lot more likely to miss out on the most precious prize of all - a child.
More HERE
THE NEW RIGHT, ER, LEFT
Mark Steyn on Britain and Europe
Are you getting just a teensy bit tired of the ol' "Whither The Right?" navel-gazing? Even with our good friends at The New York Times, The Washington Post et al so eager to offer helpful advice, there's a limit to how much pondering of conservatism's future a chap can take. So how about, just for a change, "Whither the left?"
Exhibit A: The European parliamentary elections. The Continent's economy has taken a far bigger clobbering than America's: Capitalism is dead, declared Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. In France, President Sarkozy agrees, while being careful to identify the deceased as "Anglo-American capitalism". And woe betide any Continental foolish enough to have got into bed with it: In Spain, the unemployment rate is 17 per cent and rising.
In theory, this ought to be boom time for lefties. As their jobs, homes and savings vanish, the downtrodden masses should be stampeding back to the embrace of the Big Government nanny's apron strings. Instead, the Euro-left got hammered at the polls, the center-right survived, and a significant chunk of the electorate switched to the "far right" - the various neo-nationalist and quasi-fascist parties cleaning up everywhere from Northern England to the Balkans. My favorite of these new and mostly unlovely groupings is Bulgaria's Attack party, mainly because of its name. I would suggest the Republican Party adopt it, but no doubt within a month or two the latest Bush scion would be claiming to stand for a Compassionate Attack movement, and governors of coastal states would be declaring themselves fiscally attacking but socially surrendering, and the whole brand would go to hell.
Perhaps it's just as well. On closer inspection, Europe's "far right" doesn't seem to go very far at all. The British National Party's parliamentary victories are a very belated breakthrough for Fascism, for which in Britain there were few takers back in the Thirties. So what do they stand for? Well, they won't accept blacks or Asians as members. Typical right-wing racists, eh? Also, they want protectionist laws limiting the import of foreign goods. And they favor giving workers shares in their bosses' companies. And they want to nationalize the public utilities, railroad companies and so forth. Economic protectionism. Worker cooperatives. State ownership. Boy, these right-wing nuts with their crazy ideas on free market capitalism.
If the British elections are beginning to sound like the dinner-theatre production of Jonah Goldberg's book, you're right - if by dinner you had in mind tripe, pork scratchings and mushy peas washed down with 14 pints of brown ale and a knife fight. Economically, the BNP is the Labour Party before the Blairite metrosexual makeover, and its voting base comes all but entirely from the old white working-class abandoned by "New Labour" in its pursuit of more fashionable identity groups. Of course, economic protectionism is not its principal appeal. But yoke economic protectionism to cultural protectionism, and you've got an electorally viable combination. These are bad times, but they're not just bad economically. According to a YouGov poll, the average BNP voter is a manual worker with an annual household income of 27,000 pounds - or about 2,000 pounds less than the national median. Two thousand quid isn't to be sniffed at, but it doesn't explain why these voters were willing to take a flyer on an openly racist party universally reviled by the media and political class and banished from public discourse.
England has (or had) a three-party system: Labour, Liberals, Tories. But on any number of issues - the European Union, immigration, crime, the remorseless one-way multiculturalism under which what were homogenous white working-class communities 40 years ago Islamize ever more rapidly with each passing day - on all these issues, the big three parties plus the BBC and the rest of the elites are in complete agreement: We don't want to talk about it. Since the election, the grand panjandrums of the Palace of Westminster have been competing to out-Lady Bracknell each other in professing how "horrified" they are by the BNP's success. Such protestations are invariably accompanied by ostentatious recital of their own multiculti bona fides, nicely parodied by Ed West in The Daily Telegraph: "I was just saying how awful the BNP were to my Polish cleaner yesterday. She agreed, as did my Chinese nanny, Wen or Yen, or whatever her name is. My Brazilian catamite wasn't that bothered."
If 15 per cent of the US electorate had voted for the American Fatherland Front or some such, you'd never hear the end of it from Le Monde and The Guardian and all the rest. But the Euro-elites have adjusted to the knuckledraggers' lese-majeste, and are already congratulating themselves on holding the "far right"'s vote down to the low double-digits. It won't be that low next time, but they'll adjust to that, too. You can't blame `em: It's easier to do that than re-thinking your entire worldview, never mind trying to figure out anything you could actually do about these issues. I doubt the new kids on the block will be able to do anything, either. But, for a while, there will be votes in impotent rage, and the economic-&-cultural protectionism twofer will eat deep into the mainstream left's base. They in turn will not change - for, in Britain and elsewhere, they have determined to celebrate diversity even unto societal death.
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Gore lies about British court case
A leading UK lawyer, who represented the parent that sued Al Gore in the British High Court, has laughed off claims by the former vice-president that the judge ruled in his favour.
Speaking from London John Day, a senior partner in Malletts Solicitors, said Mr Gore was misrepresenting what the judge had found. Mr Day represented a British parent who sued the UK Ministry of Education when they wanted to distribute and show Mr Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth to every British school child.
In the 2006 documentary Mr Gore claimed humanity is in danger because of man made Global Warming. He also claimed flooding and disease would increase with the destruction of most of the world's major cities including New York, London and Shanghai. As a result Mr Gore was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and the documentary won an Oscar.
However, after a lengthy hearing a High Court Judge, Mr Justice Burton, found that An Inconvenient Truth contained significant scientific errors in nine key areas.
But questioned about the embarasing High Court decision during a current trip to Australia Mr Gore stated on ABC Australia "Well, the ruling was in my favour".
However, this has been rejected by Mr Day who said Mr Gore's latest claims are "difficult to square with the reality of the judgement". "The judge found there were nine serious scientific errors in the film." He said the court ordered that the film was "not suitable to be shown in British schools without a health warning".
"Mr Justice Burton said an Inconvenient Truth wasn't fit to be shown in British schools without suitably corrected guidance which drew attention to the errors in the film and its political partisanship."
Among the errors listed by Mr Justice Burton were Mr Gore claims that rising sea levels would destroy cities in the near future, that the polar bear was endangered and that the snows of Kilimanjaro were melting all because of Global Warming. The judge found these to be scientific errors. He also dismissed Mr Gore's claims that Hurricane Katrina was caused by Global Warming.
SOURCE (See the original for links)
Wind farms will be a monument to an age when Britain's leaders collectively went off their heads
Let us be clear: Britain is facing an unprecedented crisis. Before long, we will lose 40 per cent of our generating capacity. And unless we come up quickly with an alternative, the lights WILL go out. Not before time, the Confederation of British Industry yesterday waded in, warning the Government it must abandon its crazy fixation with wind turbines as a way of plugging this forthcoming shortfall and instead urgently focus on far more efficient ways to meet the threat of a permanent, nationwide black-out.
There are a few contenders for the title of the maddest thing that has happened in our lifetime. But a front-runner must be the way in which politicians of all parties have been seduced by the La-La Land promises of the wind power lobby. If you still haven't made your mind up about wind power, just consider some of the inescapable facts - facts which the Government and the wind industry do their best to hide from us all. So far we have spent billions of pounds on building just over 2,000 wind turbines - and yet they contribute barely one per cent of all the electricity that we need. The combined output of all those 2,000 turbines put together, averaging 700 megawatts, is less than that of a single, medium-sized conventional power station.
What's more, far from being 'free', this pitiful dribble of electricity is twice as expensive as the power we get from the nuclear, gas or coal-fired power stations which currently supply well over 90 per cent of our needs - and we all pay the difference, without knowing it, through our electricity bills.
But despite its best efforts to conceal the fact that wind turbines expensively and unreliably generate only a derisory amount of electricity, the Government keeps on telling us of its megalomaniac plans to build thousands more of them - at a cost of up to 100billion.
The prime reason for this is that we are legally obliged by the European Union to generate 32 per cent of our electricity from 'renewable' sources by 2020. And with just 11 years to go until that deadline, we hope to meet the target by building highly-subsidised wind turbines. But this is a farce. In fact, as the Government is privately well aware, there is not the faintest hope that we can do anything of the kind - even if we wanted to.
Gordon Brown talks airily of building 4,000 offshore turbines by our target date - plus another 3,000 onshore. But this would mean sticking two of these 2,000-ton monsters, each the height of Blackpool Tower, into the seabed every day for the next 11 years. Nowhere in the world has it proved possible to install more than one of them a week. The infrastructure simply isn't there to build more than a fraction of that figure. Furthermore, such are the weather conditions around Britain's coasts that it is only possible to work on these projects for a few months every summer.
Then there are the 3,000 promised onshore turbines - many of which are to be erected in the most beautiful stretches of Britain's countryside. These are meeting with so much local hostility that the Government has continually had to bend the planning rules in order to force them through over the wishes of local communities and the democratic opposition of local councils.
But wind power is not just the pipedream of deluded politicians. As the CBI was trying to warn yesterday, the real disaster of this great wind fantasy is that it has diverted attention from the genuine energy crisis now hurtling towards us at breakneck speed. For while the Government is trying to force a scattering of useless wind turbines through the planning offices, the truth is that the rest of us will lose 40 per cent of our power stations within as little as seven years.
If this happens, and we don't have an alternative, our kettles won't boil, our computers won't work and our country will face economic meltdown. There is little hope now of an 11th hour reprieve. Eight of our nine nuclear power stations - which presently supply 20 per cent of our electricity needs - are so old they will have to close. Nine more large coal and oil-fired power plants will also be forced to shut down under an EU anti-pollution directive.
But more alarming still is the astonishing naivete of almost all our politicians when it comes to working out how we are going to fill the 40 per cent shortfall left in their wake. Very belatedly, the Government has said that it wants to see a new generation of nuclear reactors. Yet there is little hope that any of them can be up and running earlier than 2020. What's more, they will have to be built by foreign-owned companies because, as recently as October 2006, the Government sold off our last world-class nuclear construction company, Westinghouse, to the Japanese at a knockdown price.
At the same time, our Energy And Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, now says he will not allow any new coal-fired power stations to be built unless they have 'carbon capture' - piping off CO2 to bury it in holes in the ground. This technology not only doubles the price of electricity but hasn't even yet been properly developed. And so the only hope of keeping the lights on will be to build dozens more gas-fired power stations - at a time when North Sea gas is fast running out. And then we will be forced to rely on imports from politically unreliable countries such as Russia, at a time when gas prices are likely to be soaring.
In any event, over the past 20 years, our politicians have made an even more unholy shambles of Britain's energy policy than they have of our economy - and the cost, when the chickens come to roost in a few years' time, will be almost unimaginable.
The causes of Britain's impending energy crisis are manifold. Michael Heseltine's 1992 'dash for gas', when he closed down most of our remaining coal mines because North Sea gas was still cheap and abundant, and because its CO2 emissions were only half those of coal, was one of them. But nothing has done more to take the politicians' eye off the ball, egged on by environmentalist groups such as Friends Of The Earth and Greenpeace, than their quite incomprehensible obsession with windmills. For these white elephants can never produce more than a fraction of the electricity we need, and by no means always when we need it - as we saw last winter when, for weeks on end, they were scarcely turning at all. Do politicians never look outside the windows of their centrally-heated offices to see how often the wind is not blowing?
The Government has now shovelled so much money in hidden subsidies into the pockets of the turbine companies that the 'wind bonanza', promoted on a host of fraudulent claims, has become one of the greatest scams of our age. But if and when our lights do go out, it will be important to remember just why we got carried away by such a massive blunder.
Left with a land blighted with useless towers of metal, we shall look on those windmills as a monument to the age when the politicians of Britain and Europe collectively went completely off their heads.
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Britain is a soft touch for people smuggling, say traffickers
People-traffickers view Britain as a "soft touch" for smuggling illegal immigrants, with big profits and a low risk of being caught, according to Home Office research published yesterday. Traffickers also allege that officials in the Identity and Passport Service are willing to take bribes to help illegal immigrants to enter the country.
The research said that a number of factors encouraged illegal immigration, including the benefits system, a healthy illegal economy, the universality of the English language and the advocacy of illegal migration by some minority ethnic communities.
Other factors included the ready availability of work in the construction industry, high demand for prostitution, a comparatively relaxed immigration policy, the way that migrants and asylum seekers can use the Human Rights Act to remain in Britain, the ease of getting a passport via marriage to a British citizen and the absence of identity cards.
"The picture presented by the perpetrators was of a market that conferred healthy profits with a low risk of detection," the report said. "The UK is perceived as an attractive destination for a number of reasons and illicit entry across UK borders is perceived to be relatively easy."
Victims of trafficking are often women brought to work as sex slaves. Many pay thousands of pounds to get into Britain with the promise of work, only to find themselves trapped and their passports taken away.
The research on organised immigration crime involved interviews with 45 prisoners convicted of people smuggling or trafficking crimes in 2005. Migrants paid from 500 to 5,000 to be smuggled from France, 10,000 to gain entry from India, up to 12,000 from Turkey and 25,000 to 50,000 from China.
The Chinese figures included 10,000 for a false passport and 15,000 for the journey. An intermediary could be paid 4,000 for arranging a seat on a boat across the Channel.
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UK: Ireland passport proposal shelved: "The government has climbed down over plans to make people show passports for travel between Britain and Ireland. There are currently no passport controls for Irish and UK citizens travelling in the Common Travel Area (CTA) between the two islandsImmigration Minister Phil Woolas had said controls should be in place to tighten security. But the House of Lords voted to remove the clause during the passage of a borders bill."
While they ignore real crime like car theft and assault. A mother who left children playing in park is branded a criminal after being given no opportunity to defend herself in court
A Sunday school teacher was given a police record after she briefly left her own children playing together in a park while she popped to a nearby shop. The woman had left four of her children, the eldest of whom was nine, playing while she went into the shop with her fifth child. The unaccompanied youngsters were spotted by police officers who then spoke to the woman and logged the incident with the Criminal Records Bureau.
When she later applied for a voluntary job teaching in a Sunday school at her local church a criminal records check flagged her up as a risk to children. The woman, from Warminster, Wiltshire, who asked not to be named, said: "The police made a snap judgment on my parenting, that's all it is. I haven't committed any criminal offence. It's just a snap judgment after meeting me for a minute or two in the park. "They have logged this information on the database and I wouldn't even have known it was there if I hadn't applied for a voluntary job at the local church. "It just makes me wonder how many people out there are wandering around with information on them and they don't know anything about it."
The CRB, a Home Office agency, collects information on people who apply for jobs working with children or vulnerable adults. That includes so-called "soft information" such as police suspicions or incidents when someone has been questioned but released without charge. Teaching unions and civil rights groups claim that records of unproven claims disclosed by the CRB to employers can unfairly ruin people's careers or job prospects.
Anna Fairclough, legal officer for civil liberties group Liberty, said the Sunday school teacher had never even been told she was being placed on a criminal database. She said: "This woman was never given the opportunity to comment on the allegation that that makes her a risk to children. She's got virtually no ability to challenge it because the law at the moment doesn't provide safeguards for people in this position. "If we are allowing unproven allegations we need to make sure there are safeguards in place so people's careers aren't destroyed by unfounded gossip, rumour and speculation."
Over the past five years, according to figures obtained from the Home Office by the Conservatives, a total of 12,255 disputes over inaccurate CRB checks have been upheld. That includes people applying for jobs as teachers, nurses, child minders and countless volunteers.
Last year a report for Civitas, a think tank, said the increasing use of such checks had created an atmosphere of suspicion among parents, many of whom were volunteers at sports and social clubs, and who found themselves regarded as "potential child abusers".
From October this year a new body, the Independent Safeguarding Authority, will vet all individuals who work with children, even those just visiting a school such as an author or politician. It is estimated the new regime will result in more than 11 million adults being checked, one in four of the adult population.
The new body has been set up in response to the murders of 10 -year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in Soham, Cambridgeshire in 2002. Their killer, Ian Huntley, had been able to get a job as a school caretaker despite being known to police and social services.
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NHS tries to avoid treating patients with swine flu
For one mother, the NHS's swine flu response is scarily unresponsive. Dealing with swine flu is confusing and - with the news of the deaths of apparently healthy people - scary. That was brought home by this message I got from a mother trying to negotiate the NHS for her family. She writes:
Yes, more children will probably die in the swine flu epidemic. And it may well be partly because senseless bureaucracy is stopping child victims getting urgent medical help...
It was Saturday morning. My children had been taking Tamiflu for a couple of days, after our GP had diagnosed swine flu on the phone. Now both my husband and my younger son were looking worse. My husband has asthma and my son suffers from recurrent croup (for which he has been hospitalised twice). So I rang Out of Hours Urgent Care, who transferred us to NHS Direct. Surely, I thought, as probable swine flu victims my husband and son would be treatment priorities?
An arrogant telephone operative at NHS Direct told my asthmatic husband he probably didn't have swine flu and had nothing to worry about. No treatment was offered. So I took my son to the NHS Walk-In Centre. There, when I mentioned Tamiflu, we were ushered into a separate room and then told we would not be seen by a doctor and must leave the building. Because we had swine flu. We should ring NHS Direct for help. I explained why that had failed, whilst my son's coughing grew more ominous.
I refused to leave, I pleaded, I lost my temper. My child is sick, he is getting croup, he needs to be seen. Children die of this. At length, a kindly nurse arranged a GP Home Visit. We returned home to wait, but within two hours my son was struggling to breathe. A 999 call, ambulance, blue lights, hospital, steroids, oxygen. An emergency that could well have been avoided with the right medical treatment quicker. Admittedly, we got help quickly because I broke the rules given at the time of diagnosis: I rang for an ambulance myself rather than joining the queue for NHS Direct, as I'd been told to do in emergency. I wonder how long I would have waited in a telephone queue whilst my son struggled to breathe.
And my husband? Oh, he ended up in hospital too, for a couple of hours, after the Home Visit GP looked at his condition and recommended I drive him straight to Casualty. He explained that it was breaking the rules, but that my husband needed a nebuliser quickly, and if he tried to arrange it the procedure would take hours, because there were so many protocols for dealing with swine flu patients.
I wish my story was unusual. But a friend in the same village - on the same day - broke the rules too. They'd been diagnosed in hospital that Friday, immediately quarantined and sent home with a helpline number to ring for medicine. They tried for twenty-four hours to get through. They spent thirty pounds on fruitless telephone calls. Then he took his rapidly worsening son back to Casualty.
Leaving him in the car to prevent infection, he went inside and demanded to see a doctor. His treatment was worse than mine. When I lost my temper the Walk-In Centre took me seriously. When he raised his voice, they called the police. He was kept in a private room whilst his sick son was left alone in the car outside. "It's the lack of compassion that gets me," he said. "It was like they didn't care about a sick child."
He got the medicine, eventually. After breaking the rules and kicking up a fuss. But Tamiflu is only effective if taken at the very beginning of an illness. That twenty-four hour delay in getting medication could have killed my friend's child. So could untreated croup.
Of course no one wants to spread infection unnecessarily. It is sensible to self-quarantine and ask for home visits. But at the moment Britain's panic about swine flu has created senseless barriers that are stopping very ill young children getting the treatment they need.
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Another foolish woman who believed the feminist drivel about "having it all" -- and lived to regret it bitterly
Every now and then I feel a pang of loss and longing that takes me completely by surprise. I might be sitting in a cafe talking to friends, or wandering around the supermarket. Then I see a mother with her child and the realisation hits me, as if for the first time - that's never going to be me. If someone had told my 25-year-old self that I would end up here - aged 45, newly married and, sadly for us both, without a hope of ever getting pregnant - I wouldn't have believed them.
It would have seemed incredible that love would take so long to find me; that becoming a mother would ever matter so much; or that my fertility - a gift that, at the time, seemed more like an inconvenience - would plummet far beyond the point at which doctors could work their magic. Yet, it is a fact my husband David and I have spent the past year learning to accept....
I had spent the whole of my adult life as a London career girl, married to my advertising agency job, with no time or inclination to settle down. Yet as soon as David, who has his own events marketing company, and I started trying for a baby, my whole perspective changed. I held my belly protectively and imagined myself walking down the Finchley Road heavily pregnant. I looked at baby food in the supermarket aisles and noticed women with their children. I imagined the warming smell of my baby's head, the tiny fingers and perfect fingernails. I imagined having a small hand to hold as I walked down the street. My world opened up with possibility.
I suppose it is little wonder that it took me until the age of 41 to find the right man and tap into these unfamiliar feelings. I'd spent most of my life dedicated to building my career. As a nine-year-old, I was never happier than when I was playing secretary; answering calls, shuffling papers and wearing an appropriately smart outfit from my mother's wardrobe. By 24, I was a strategist at a leading ad agency. I drove a Golf convertible, wore red wool suits with gilt buttons, and thought I was Paula Hamilton from the iconic TV advert. I remained very single, but I told myself - and my concerned mum - that the mews house and engagement ring would come later.
My life didn't revolve around marriage and children. My friends and I were taking our time. We were big kids in shoulder pads, and life was about working, shopping, drinking and having fun....
Busy chasing financial independence, I let my most fertile years slip by, never allowing myself to doubt that the love and babies bit would take care of itself. And so I lost the chance to have a baby I didn't even know I wanted until it was too late...
When I was 36, my ever-thoughtful stepmother suggested I freeze my eggs to give myself the chance of 'an ice baby'. But I didn't - something I bitterly regret. Not only is it a rather expensive procedure to go through for the sake of an insurance policy, but it involves confronting the possibility that you might not meet the man of your dreams before your eggs 'run out'. Few young, single women can contemplate that thought. But take it from me: if you're young, single and not in a position to have a child, you should consider it. Those eggs will remain as young as you are today, and one day they might be your only hope....
The more time I spent in the country, the more I wanted a child - and the further away it seemed to be getting. We sought help at the Lister Hospital in London, where David gave a sample and I underwent a gynaecological MOT. When the results came in, all looked well. David's sperm was good, and my hormone levels normal.
'And yet you are not getting pregnant,' the doctor said, just as I was preparing to celebrate. 'The most likely explanation is age. When a woman reaches her 40s, we have to recognise that we're working with older eggs, and I am afraid their quality declines over time. The question is what we do next.'
What she said next shook me. A woman of 43 or 44 has a 13 per cent chance of getting pregnant through IVF and a 70 per cent chance of miscarriage. 'So Lucy, your net chance of delivering a baby with IVF is around four per cent. I'm really sorry.'
But all that was academic when it came to finding an IVF clinic. A second round of tests revealed that, in just six months, my hormone levels had changed, my fertility had dropped, meaning no clinic was prepared to take me on. The odds of success were so slim that it was, they claimed, unethical to take my money. 'Have a think about it and if you're interested in egg donation, we can do that up to the age of 50.' I didn't understand. What about all those fabulous, famous fortysomethings whose 'baby joy' stories were so often in magazines.
The actress Jane Seymour and model Iman both had children at 44, actress Mimi Rogers was 45, Susan Sarandon 46, Holly Hunter 47. Each headline seemed to confirm that, yes, it was possible to put having a family at the bottom of your priority list until you were good and ready. But here's the rub - a very high proportion of babies born to women in their 40s are conceived using donated eggs from younger women. It's a secret that many will never let you in on.
I had just assumed that because I was healthy - I exercised regularly, I didn't smoke (or at least, not since my 20s) or, in the main, drink too much - that my chances were as good as anyone's. But while you can look and feel as young as you like, you can't put anti-ageing creams on your ovaries. Your eggs are the age that they are, and when they run out, there's nothing you can do about it.
I was angry - with anyone who had fallen pregnant accidentally, anyone who didn't realise how lucky they were to have a child. I was angry at the ad agency for keeping me in the office throughout my childbearing years, and at the tobacco companies who had sold me the cigarettes I'd smoked throughout my 20s, and at the government for never having had a public health campaign on the subject of increasing age and decreasing fertility.
But, deep down, I knew I had no one to blame but myself. I had never stopped to think about the bigger picture. I had never had a life plan, or even a plan beyond what my secretary scheduled in my diary. I'd stuck my head in the sand, and this was the result...
My chance to experience the profound joy of motherhood has come and gone. But to the generation of career girls who are a decade or two behind me, I would say this: don't wait for a bigger house, a better job or a more expensive car, because if you do, you're a lot more likely to miss out on the most precious prize of all - a child.
More HERE
THE NEW RIGHT, ER, LEFT
Mark Steyn on Britain and Europe
Are you getting just a teensy bit tired of the ol' "Whither The Right?" navel-gazing? Even with our good friends at The New York Times, The Washington Post et al so eager to offer helpful advice, there's a limit to how much pondering of conservatism's future a chap can take. So how about, just for a change, "Whither the left?"
Exhibit A: The European parliamentary elections. The Continent's economy has taken a far bigger clobbering than America's: Capitalism is dead, declared Cardinal Murphy O'Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales. In France, President Sarkozy agrees, while being careful to identify the deceased as "Anglo-American capitalism". And woe betide any Continental foolish enough to have got into bed with it: In Spain, the unemployment rate is 17 per cent and rising.
In theory, this ought to be boom time for lefties. As their jobs, homes and savings vanish, the downtrodden masses should be stampeding back to the embrace of the Big Government nanny's apron strings. Instead, the Euro-left got hammered at the polls, the center-right survived, and a significant chunk of the electorate switched to the "far right" - the various neo-nationalist and quasi-fascist parties cleaning up everywhere from Northern England to the Balkans. My favorite of these new and mostly unlovely groupings is Bulgaria's Attack party, mainly because of its name. I would suggest the Republican Party adopt it, but no doubt within a month or two the latest Bush scion would be claiming to stand for a Compassionate Attack movement, and governors of coastal states would be declaring themselves fiscally attacking but socially surrendering, and the whole brand would go to hell.
Perhaps it's just as well. On closer inspection, Europe's "far right" doesn't seem to go very far at all. The British National Party's parliamentary victories are a very belated breakthrough for Fascism, for which in Britain there were few takers back in the Thirties. So what do they stand for? Well, they won't accept blacks or Asians as members. Typical right-wing racists, eh? Also, they want protectionist laws limiting the import of foreign goods. And they favor giving workers shares in their bosses' companies. And they want to nationalize the public utilities, railroad companies and so forth. Economic protectionism. Worker cooperatives. State ownership. Boy, these right-wing nuts with their crazy ideas on free market capitalism.
If the British elections are beginning to sound like the dinner-theatre production of Jonah Goldberg's book, you're right - if by dinner you had in mind tripe, pork scratchings and mushy peas washed down with 14 pints of brown ale and a knife fight. Economically, the BNP is the Labour Party before the Blairite metrosexual makeover, and its voting base comes all but entirely from the old white working-class abandoned by "New Labour" in its pursuit of more fashionable identity groups. Of course, economic protectionism is not its principal appeal. But yoke economic protectionism to cultural protectionism, and you've got an electorally viable combination. These are bad times, but they're not just bad economically. According to a YouGov poll, the average BNP voter is a manual worker with an annual household income of 27,000 pounds - or about 2,000 pounds less than the national median. Two thousand quid isn't to be sniffed at, but it doesn't explain why these voters were willing to take a flyer on an openly racist party universally reviled by the media and political class and banished from public discourse.
England has (or had) a three-party system: Labour, Liberals, Tories. But on any number of issues - the European Union, immigration, crime, the remorseless one-way multiculturalism under which what were homogenous white working-class communities 40 years ago Islamize ever more rapidly with each passing day - on all these issues, the big three parties plus the BBC and the rest of the elites are in complete agreement: We don't want to talk about it. Since the election, the grand panjandrums of the Palace of Westminster have been competing to out-Lady Bracknell each other in professing how "horrified" they are by the BNP's success. Such protestations are invariably accompanied by ostentatious recital of their own multiculti bona fides, nicely parodied by Ed West in The Daily Telegraph: "I was just saying how awful the BNP were to my Polish cleaner yesterday. She agreed, as did my Chinese nanny, Wen or Yen, or whatever her name is. My Brazilian catamite wasn't that bothered."
If 15 per cent of the US electorate had voted for the American Fatherland Front or some such, you'd never hear the end of it from Le Monde and The Guardian and all the rest. But the Euro-elites have adjusted to the knuckledraggers' lese-majeste, and are already congratulating themselves on holding the "far right"'s vote down to the low double-digits. It won't be that low next time, but they'll adjust to that, too. You can't blame `em: It's easier to do that than re-thinking your entire worldview, never mind trying to figure out anything you could actually do about these issues. I doubt the new kids on the block will be able to do anything, either. But, for a while, there will be votes in impotent rage, and the economic-&-cultural protectionism twofer will eat deep into the mainstream left's base. They in turn will not change - for, in Britain and elsewhere, they have determined to celebrate diversity even unto societal death.
SOURCE
Gore lies about British court case
A leading UK lawyer, who represented the parent that sued Al Gore in the British High Court, has laughed off claims by the former vice-president that the judge ruled in his favour.
Speaking from London John Day, a senior partner in Malletts Solicitors, said Mr Gore was misrepresenting what the judge had found. Mr Day represented a British parent who sued the UK Ministry of Education when they wanted to distribute and show Mr Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth to every British school child.
In the 2006 documentary Mr Gore claimed humanity is in danger because of man made Global Warming. He also claimed flooding and disease would increase with the destruction of most of the world's major cities including New York, London and Shanghai. As a result Mr Gore was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize and the documentary won an Oscar.
However, after a lengthy hearing a High Court Judge, Mr Justice Burton, found that An Inconvenient Truth contained significant scientific errors in nine key areas.
But questioned about the embarasing High Court decision during a current trip to Australia Mr Gore stated on ABC Australia "Well, the ruling was in my favour".
However, this has been rejected by Mr Day who said Mr Gore's latest claims are "difficult to square with the reality of the judgement". "The judge found there were nine serious scientific errors in the film." He said the court ordered that the film was "not suitable to be shown in British schools without a health warning".
"Mr Justice Burton said an Inconvenient Truth wasn't fit to be shown in British schools without suitably corrected guidance which drew attention to the errors in the film and its political partisanship."
Among the errors listed by Mr Justice Burton were Mr Gore claims that rising sea levels would destroy cities in the near future, that the polar bear was endangered and that the snows of Kilimanjaro were melting all because of Global Warming. The judge found these to be scientific errors. He also dismissed Mr Gore's claims that Hurricane Katrina was caused by Global Warming.
SOURCE (See the original for links)
Wind farms will be a monument to an age when Britain's leaders collectively went off their heads
Let us be clear: Britain is facing an unprecedented crisis. Before long, we will lose 40 per cent of our generating capacity. And unless we come up quickly with an alternative, the lights WILL go out. Not before time, the Confederation of British Industry yesterday waded in, warning the Government it must abandon its crazy fixation with wind turbines as a way of plugging this forthcoming shortfall and instead urgently focus on far more efficient ways to meet the threat of a permanent, nationwide black-out.
There are a few contenders for the title of the maddest thing that has happened in our lifetime. But a front-runner must be the way in which politicians of all parties have been seduced by the La-La Land promises of the wind power lobby. If you still haven't made your mind up about wind power, just consider some of the inescapable facts - facts which the Government and the wind industry do their best to hide from us all. So far we have spent billions of pounds on building just over 2,000 wind turbines - and yet they contribute barely one per cent of all the electricity that we need. The combined output of all those 2,000 turbines put together, averaging 700 megawatts, is less than that of a single, medium-sized conventional power station.
What's more, far from being 'free', this pitiful dribble of electricity is twice as expensive as the power we get from the nuclear, gas or coal-fired power stations which currently supply well over 90 per cent of our needs - and we all pay the difference, without knowing it, through our electricity bills.
But despite its best efforts to conceal the fact that wind turbines expensively and unreliably generate only a derisory amount of electricity, the Government keeps on telling us of its megalomaniac plans to build thousands more of them - at a cost of up to 100billion.
The prime reason for this is that we are legally obliged by the European Union to generate 32 per cent of our electricity from 'renewable' sources by 2020. And with just 11 years to go until that deadline, we hope to meet the target by building highly-subsidised wind turbines. But this is a farce. In fact, as the Government is privately well aware, there is not the faintest hope that we can do anything of the kind - even if we wanted to.
Gordon Brown talks airily of building 4,000 offshore turbines by our target date - plus another 3,000 onshore. But this would mean sticking two of these 2,000-ton monsters, each the height of Blackpool Tower, into the seabed every day for the next 11 years. Nowhere in the world has it proved possible to install more than one of them a week. The infrastructure simply isn't there to build more than a fraction of that figure. Furthermore, such are the weather conditions around Britain's coasts that it is only possible to work on these projects for a few months every summer.
Then there are the 3,000 promised onshore turbines - many of which are to be erected in the most beautiful stretches of Britain's countryside. These are meeting with so much local hostility that the Government has continually had to bend the planning rules in order to force them through over the wishes of local communities and the democratic opposition of local councils.
But wind power is not just the pipedream of deluded politicians. As the CBI was trying to warn yesterday, the real disaster of this great wind fantasy is that it has diverted attention from the genuine energy crisis now hurtling towards us at breakneck speed. For while the Government is trying to force a scattering of useless wind turbines through the planning offices, the truth is that the rest of us will lose 40 per cent of our power stations within as little as seven years.
If this happens, and we don't have an alternative, our kettles won't boil, our computers won't work and our country will face economic meltdown. There is little hope now of an 11th hour reprieve. Eight of our nine nuclear power stations - which presently supply 20 per cent of our electricity needs - are so old they will have to close. Nine more large coal and oil-fired power plants will also be forced to shut down under an EU anti-pollution directive.
But more alarming still is the astonishing naivete of almost all our politicians when it comes to working out how we are going to fill the 40 per cent shortfall left in their wake. Very belatedly, the Government has said that it wants to see a new generation of nuclear reactors. Yet there is little hope that any of them can be up and running earlier than 2020. What's more, they will have to be built by foreign-owned companies because, as recently as October 2006, the Government sold off our last world-class nuclear construction company, Westinghouse, to the Japanese at a knockdown price.
At the same time, our Energy And Climate Change Secretary, Ed Miliband, now says he will not allow any new coal-fired power stations to be built unless they have 'carbon capture' - piping off CO2 to bury it in holes in the ground. This technology not only doubles the price of electricity but hasn't even yet been properly developed. And so the only hope of keeping the lights on will be to build dozens more gas-fired power stations - at a time when North Sea gas is fast running out. And then we will be forced to rely on imports from politically unreliable countries such as Russia, at a time when gas prices are likely to be soaring.
In any event, over the past 20 years, our politicians have made an even more unholy shambles of Britain's energy policy than they have of our economy - and the cost, when the chickens come to roost in a few years' time, will be almost unimaginable.
The causes of Britain's impending energy crisis are manifold. Michael Heseltine's 1992 'dash for gas', when he closed down most of our remaining coal mines because North Sea gas was still cheap and abundant, and because its CO2 emissions were only half those of coal, was one of them. But nothing has done more to take the politicians' eye off the ball, egged on by environmentalist groups such as Friends Of The Earth and Greenpeace, than their quite incomprehensible obsession with windmills. For these white elephants can never produce more than a fraction of the electricity we need, and by no means always when we need it - as we saw last winter when, for weeks on end, they were scarcely turning at all. Do politicians never look outside the windows of their centrally-heated offices to see how often the wind is not blowing?
The Government has now shovelled so much money in hidden subsidies into the pockets of the turbine companies that the 'wind bonanza', promoted on a host of fraudulent claims, has become one of the greatest scams of our age. But if and when our lights do go out, it will be important to remember just why we got carried away by such a massive blunder.
Left with a land blighted with useless towers of metal, we shall look on those windmills as a monument to the age when the politicians of Britain and Europe collectively went completely off their heads.
SOURCE
Britain is a soft touch for people smuggling, say traffickers
People-traffickers view Britain as a "soft touch" for smuggling illegal immigrants, with big profits and a low risk of being caught, according to Home Office research published yesterday. Traffickers also allege that officials in the Identity and Passport Service are willing to take bribes to help illegal immigrants to enter the country.
The research said that a number of factors encouraged illegal immigration, including the benefits system, a healthy illegal economy, the universality of the English language and the advocacy of illegal migration by some minority ethnic communities.
Other factors included the ready availability of work in the construction industry, high demand for prostitution, a comparatively relaxed immigration policy, the way that migrants and asylum seekers can use the Human Rights Act to remain in Britain, the ease of getting a passport via marriage to a British citizen and the absence of identity cards.
"The picture presented by the perpetrators was of a market that conferred healthy profits with a low risk of detection," the report said. "The UK is perceived as an attractive destination for a number of reasons and illicit entry across UK borders is perceived to be relatively easy."
Victims of trafficking are often women brought to work as sex slaves. Many pay thousands of pounds to get into Britain with the promise of work, only to find themselves trapped and their passports taken away.
The research on organised immigration crime involved interviews with 45 prisoners convicted of people smuggling or trafficking crimes in 2005. Migrants paid from 500 to 5,000 to be smuggled from France, 10,000 to gain entry from India, up to 12,000 from Turkey and 25,000 to 50,000 from China.
The Chinese figures included 10,000 for a false passport and 15,000 for the journey. An intermediary could be paid 4,000 for arranging a seat on a boat across the Channel.
SOURCE
UK: Ireland passport proposal shelved: "The government has climbed down over plans to make people show passports for travel between Britain and Ireland. There are currently no passport controls for Irish and UK citizens travelling in the Common Travel Area (CTA) between the two islandsImmigration Minister Phil Woolas had said controls should be in place to tighten security. But the House of Lords voted to remove the clause during the passage of a borders bill."
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
British antisemites go to jail
They would have been protected by the 1st Amendment in the USA. The BBC story below covers up the shallow grounds for the prosecution but I myself saw a lot of their material at the time it went up and it certainly denied the holocaust in no uncertain terms and was certainly extremely derogatory but it did not call for attacks on Jews. I saw no incitement to violence and none is quoted in the article below. What they said was very similar to what Muslims routinely say, except that Muslims DO sometimes incite to violence. They were convicted because they were white working class and because what they said was abusive and insulting, nothing else. White working class non-Muslims are entitled "to hold racist and extreme views" in Britain only if they tell nobody about it, apparently. It is a sad day for free speech and justice in biased Britain.
Note that the case does NOT indicate rejection of antisemitism in Britain. Antisemitism is in fact rife among the British intelligentsia (See here and here) but they express it so much more nicely in those circles. Had the men referred to above been upper middle class and used a more educated vocabulary and accent, their views could have been expressed at most good dinner parties and been regarded as a little extreme but understandable. And that antisemitism is now beginning to show officially. Britain has just blocked the export of gun parts to Israel
Note again that British police are "advised to turn a blind eye on crimes such as incitement to religious hatred" when Muslims do it. No equality before the law in Leftist Britain. It's not what you say but who says it that counts.
British government forcing up the costs of private schooling
Hundreds of independent schools could lose their charitable status unless they increase fees for middle-class parents to fund more bursaries, a landmark ruling indicates today. Two of the first five schools to be investigated by the Charity Commission have failed the tough new requirement of providing "public benefit". The long-awaited decision has ramifications for fee-charging schools with charitable status, which make up the majority of the independent sector. The tax breaks that they receive are worth a collective 100 million.
The independent sector reacted with anger and said it could take legal action against the commission. It said that parents, already struggling in the recession, were likely to end up paying higher school fees to subsidise poorer families. The commission had focused on the financial benefits, it said, while placing little weight on whether less wealthy schools shared their facilities with the community or had forged links with state schools.
The two schools that did not pass the charitable test are relatively small prep schools. Both failed because they did not offer enough bursaries, even though they were praised for running initiatives which helped local children and organisations. One, Highfield Priory School in Fulwood, Lancashire, does not provide bursaries because it keeps fees as low as possible, and does not accrue a surplus. The other, Saint Anselm's School in Bakewell, Derbyshire, does offer bursaries worth up to 100 per cent of fees to poorer families, but the number was not deemed sufficient by the commission.
Simon Northcott, the head teacher, said: "As a stand-alone prep school, we just don't have the pot that other schools have. We failed only because we're not producing enough bursaries. But nowhere in the course of this process has the commission given us a clear idea of what we need to achieve. "It's like being told you've failed a maths exam but without being told what the passmark is."
A spokesman for Highfield Priory said: "The governors of Highfield Priory are disappointed at the Charity Commission's conclusion on public benefit. However, the continued success and sustainability of the school is not in doubt. Highfield Priory has served the local community well for nearly 70 years and our aim remains to continue to provide a high-quality education for public benefit, affording pupils many opportunities to succeed academically, creatively, artistically, musically and in a wide range of sports both at local and regional level. "The governors will now consider fully the implications of the Charity Commission report and respond to it after taking professional advice."
The 2006 Charities Act puts a new onus on charities to prove their public benefit, and the commission has assessed a dozen organisations, including the five schools. Independent schools have been waiting with trepidation for clarification on what constitutes "public benefit", and were assured that schools would be judged individually.
David Lyscom, head of the Independent Schools Council, said that he was deeply disappointed by the commission's findings and its focus on the amount of means-tested bursaries provided by each school. He said: "The implication of the commission's findings appears to be that many schools must now aim to provide a significant - but still unspecified - proportion of their turnover in full bursaries. "This will inevitably lead to fee increases for the vast majority of parents, putting the benefits of an independent education beyond the reach of a greater number of children. "We will be expressing our concerns very loudly and will have to look very carefully at the legal basis of the Charity Commission judgments, and consider whether we need to take further action." When asked if this could include legal action, Mr Lyscom said: "It is one of a range of options we could take."
He added that, in focusing on bursaries, the commission had played down the significance of partnerships with state schools and ignored the 3 billion a year that the independent sector saved the public purse in educating children.
Schools which were concerned that they would be judged purely on the money spent on bursaries have been assured that this will not be the case. Dame Suzi Leather, chairwoman of the commission, had previously acknowledged that bursaries may not be an option for some smaller schools. However, the findings are likely to send shivers through low-cost schools that operate near the margins and may be struggling. The recession has already taken its toll on the independent sector, with several small independent schools closing or merging in the past year. The governors of Highfield and Saitn Anselm's have three months to confirm their intention to address the issues raised by the commission, and a further nine months to provide a plan of how this will happen.
A spokesman for the commission said: "It is not correct to state that the Charity Commission's initial public benefit assessments of charitable independent schools focused only on the provision of means-tested bursaries. "We have been very clear throughout this process that, although fee reductions are an obvious way of making the services of a fee-charging charity more widely accessible, that is not the only means of achieving this."
SOURCE
Why Britain should fear American health care reform
Tucked away in a piece about possible end runs around NICE, the health care rationing body, is something of a scary paragraph:
No, not that one sentence, although it helps explain why this next one is scary:
What all too few seem to understand is that medical innovation is hugely driven by what happens in the US market. The only market that is largely free from price controls. We can see from the first sentence that price controls do indeed retard innovation but of course there is no outcry about this for we don't normally see it. Who does take note of cures that aren't invented, aren't launched, because price controls mean there is no profit in their being so?
The great release from this problem for European health care systems has been that the US market, by far the largest in the world, is not subject to such price controls. Thus 300 million of the richest people on the planet underwrite, through the prices they pay for new treatments, the developments that we get years later as prices drop.
If the US does indeed bring in some form of NICE equivalent, some form of price rationing, then medical innovation will fall....no, not cease completely, simply there will be less of it than there would otherwise have been. Thus people who could or might have been cured will not be and they will die.
Reform of the US system might still be worthwhile, something like NICE might even still make sense: but don't anyone believe that such changes will be costless, they will indeed cost lives.
SOURCE
NHS 'obsession with breastfeeding is putting bottle-fed babies at risk'
Thousands of mothers who bottle feed are accidentally putting their babies' health at risk, says a study. They were found to be using too much formula milk powder and timing feeds wrongly. Frequent overfeeding can put babies at risk of long-term obesity and conditions associated with it, such as heart disease.
The problem is blamed on the Health Service's obsession with breastfeeding. It is accused of failing to provide enough information to new mothers on the alternatives. Cambridge University experts reviewed studies involving more than 13,000 mothers. They found that many mothers felt guilty or thought they were a failure for bottle feeding, while many were angry about not being able to breastfeed.
Others thought midwives were more interested in helping breastfeeding mothers than those who used bottles. Ministers are keen to get more mothers to breastfeed because of mounting evidence that it improves children's immunity to disease and helps brain development. It is also thought to reduce a mother's chance of heart attack.
The research, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, involved 23 studies. The authors found that some NHS midwives mistakenly thought they were forbidden from giving advice to bottle-feeding mothers, even after the baby was born. 'When women do not get information from healthcare professionals, they are reliant on friends and family, and incorrect practices are likely to be handed down from one generation to the next,' the researchers said.
They found that many mothers mistakenly put too much formula powder with the water. 'In addition to the short-term issues of hygiene and safety, it is possible that errors in the measurement and over concentration of bottle feeds may contribute to overfeeding, rapid infancy weight gain and later obesity,' they said.
The World Health Organisation code on infant feeding says only limited information on bottle feeding should be given before the baby is born - and after birth, instruction on bottle feeding should be given only after the mother has decided against breastfeeding. The study also noted that parents often changed the brand of formula they used if their baby was regurgitating it, in the belief the child might have a food intolerance. However 'it was possible that the reason for this symptom may not have been intolerance but overfeeding', the researchers said. 'There was a risk that infants would wrongly be labelled as having an intrinsic abnormality with longterm consequences to their health.'
An Infant Feeding Survey from 2005 showed that while 78 per cent of mothers in England initiate breastfeeding, only 45 per cent of babies were exclusively breastfed aged one week, dropping to less than 1 per cent when they were six months. The authors said that while it was known that breast milk is best for baby, mothers who choose to bottle-feed or who have failed with breastfeeding should be supported. They added: 'Inadequate information and support for mothers who decide to bottle feed may put the health of their babies at risk.'
SOURCE
Creeping Fascism
Below is an excerpt from an article in a Scottish Leftist magazine which points out large similarities between historic Fascism and society today. I have also written to that effect
It is the subtle aspects of Fascist ideology that remain standing and develop their forms and continue their onward march despite all the military defeats suffered by Fascism's historic regimes.
The corporate monopolisation of markets is the symptom and outcome of this onward march, but not the cause, which is the monopolisation of public reason. For Benito Mussolini this depended on stealthily "plucking the chicken one feather at a time."2 His preferred name for the system was corporativism and a fuller understanding of this so-called `friendly Fascism' and its pre-history provides a vital means to oppose the whole Fascist phenomenon.
Fascism ought to be understood as an ideologically sophisticated and creeping set of political relations that undermine free contest and the full expression of different material and class interests within society at large. From this perspective, the general geopolitical failure of Fascism only marks the end of various formally authoritarian States and certainly not the end of authoritarian State politics at a number of levels. Fascism's more subtle progress is the true `clear and present danger' to the development of democratic society or to whatever integrity democracy might still possess. The danger arises partly because one of the historical preconditions of Fascism, as theorised by Mussolini, has now been achieved thanks to the adventurism of the U.S. empire. The war on terror has given us the state of permanent, unbounded war originally dreamt up by the Italian dictator to bring about a specific economic and ideological order at home and military expansionism abroad.
That the Italian Republic, supposedly founded on the defeat of Fascism, has re-embraced the ideology under the guise of "Post-Fascism" within a parliamentary democracy is alarming. But, perhaps more alarming is that elsewhere, with no mention of any sort of Fascism, we also see the triangulation of policy towards "single purpose government", as it is now called in Scotland. This widespread and neo-totalitarian sense of purpose favours corporations by gearing all policies towards existing markets or their creation where they do not already exist. In return, States are blessed with various stamps of approval from big business and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Despite their reputation for imposing deadly market orthodoxies across the world, the power of these controversial institutions appears to be unassailable.3 These developments are connected to the progress of Fascist ideas and opposition to them is a matter of great urgency.
Mussolini envisioned the corporative nation in biological terms as a body of non-competing and co-operative functions. In 1934, Fascists from different European countries agreed that this was the defining element of their international movement. As Francis Mulhern notes in `Culture/Metaculture', the functions of corporativism, or corporatism as it is now known, are all imagined to make "their necessary, mutually non-exchangeable contributions to the health of the whole. It is accordingly anti-individualist in temper (the notion of competition between parts of the body is absurd) and also anti-socialist (the notion of a struggle between the hands and the head is equally absurd - as are democracy and equality)."4 While this mythic idea of the nation as the body coincided with the racial policies pursued by the Nazis, the bodily doctrine cannot be reduced to its most murderous convulsions. In Nazi Germany, Gleichschaltung also aimed for the co-ordination of the life of the nation and it is the deep-seated ideology of enforced co-operation and managed national solidarity which provided the underlying logic of Fascism.
Although independent trade unions were politically disabled and outlawed in Italy, top-down organised labour and welfare policies were reborn in the image of Fascist corporatism, which, if nothing else, adhered to the aristocratic ideal of noblesse oblige. According to Gaetano Salvemini, an exile from the Italian system and one of its most sensitive critics, the impact of this policy to disorganise and manipulate the autonomy of labour was to effectively nationalise it, making labour into the State's bargaining chip in its dealings with capitalists. Imagine being threatened by your boss for using the word "ballot" in communicating with fellow trade unionists because that word alone was an incitement to industrial action. Sadly this is not an example of legalised bullying under 1930s Fascism but the experience of a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union in Britain today. One only has to think for a few moments about nation-States with their normalised anti-labour laws and activities and see these policies in the context of international capitalism to begin to see the triangular outlines of the renewed repression.
In Fascist Italy of the 1930s, public institutions called corporations were to support co-operation and consultation between different interest groups, between labour and capital and between various economic sectors. In reality they were unrepresentative talking shops, the real function of which was to dignify a range of coercive policies. Followers of the Marxist, Antonio Gramsci would call this passive revolution, whereby "in lieu of attaining support for what it is doing, a government instead decides to act as if it alone were the origin of social change."5 Yet the rhetorical element of co-operation and consultation remained central to Fascist practice. So attractive was the ideal of corporatist State to its proponents that they wrote admiringly of its company-like functions before the public corporations were even brought into dubious existence. Perhaps the reality is best summed up by Salvemini in his 1936 book `Under the Axe of Fascism'. For Salvemini, to find real co-operation and genuine consultation taking place through corporatist institutions was like "looking in a dark room for a black cat which is not there."6
With this history in mind the obvious question for trades unions and other pressure groups in civil society today is how far has advanced capitalism adapted itself to the same logic of disempowered, disabled yet highly symbolic communication? There is a growing body of research on international development which suggests that the outcomes of participatory processes and public deliberation about policy are in fact preordained by the wisdom of the international financial institutions such as the World Bank.7 It should be asked, therefore, how far do citizens become institutionally formed and incorporated by processes that allow us the pleasure of expressing our views, and sometimes taking action, but only in return for the finally demoralising experience of being overcome by the carefully structured imbalance of actual power?
But if such a bleak perspective is valid, it is too easy to lay the blame on big business or some overly abstract notion of "the system" when corporatism is a particular rot that can set in almost anywhere. It can be seen in the paternalistic ethos of politicians, and in the dealings of "sweetheart" trade unions that function more like an arm of management, or in any number of individuals and ad hoc groups that grasp opportunities to represent or to lead the course of policy without examining the issue of meaningful democratic accountability.8 However compelling one may find Naomi Klein's account of the `Shock Doctrine'9, shock tactics are not necessarily required to ignite the slow burning processes of corporatism. Trying to address these difficult issues here leads gradually towards a key distinction between freedoms of expression, on the one hand, and how the terms of communication may or may not be defined by the public interest, on the other. We live in an era that rather robotically celebrates individuals: individuals as spokespeople for the `voiceless'; inspired, creative and visionary individuals; individuals as over-achievers, enlightened benefactors, and celebrity of all kinds. But has an actual individualism, of the kind that historians and sociologists have found at the heart of Bourgeois revolutions against feudalism, been subtly replaced by mere persona in consumerist society? Are the beneficiaries and descendents of social and political flux in the 1960s now at one with an entrepreneurial ideology which downplays the new `feudalism' perpetrated by a remarkably like-minded corporate power elite?
For anyone who has been subjected to mind-numbing processes of fake consultation - in the workplace or in civic deliberation on matters like housing, health, urban planning or culture - Salvemini's metaphor of the darkened empty room minus cat has a certain poetic resonance in relation to the way the appearance of consensus is constructed in a political and ideological vacuum. Often, this is done with the aid of key unelected personnel who, we are endlessly told, have expertise although they often appear to have descended upon us from another lifeworld where everyone gets along and power goes unquestioned. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to immediately draw a line from the original Fascist ideology of co-operation to the dispiriting operations of technocrats and today's neo-corporatism. Moreover, the Fascist-spawned British National Party knows only too well how to exploit the void opened up by the legitimate and widespread public contempt for what passes for democratic process in Britain. The response from mainstream parties has been to co-ordinate their campaigning to exclude the BNP. If taken in good faith, this response from mainstream politicians, would be more convincing if they were able to demonstrate a genuine commitment to unfettered public reasoning.
Undoubtedly, public discussion has been substantially dumbed down by the adherence to neoliberal ideology by all the main parties and their favourite `opinion-formers'. The truth is that far-right populists have arguments that cannot be properly answered without raising the ghost of anti-capitalist counter arguments which, however unpopular they have become in consumer societies, remain extremely relevant. In the face of the ongoing financial crisis, witness the media silence about the continent-wide reforms to the financial system underway in Latin America.
Part of the problem of restricting public discussion along narrow ideological lines is the way that primitive xenophobia gets branded as Fascist and racist, sometimes as if those were quite simply one and the same. We should remember that Italian Fascism became officially racist, it did not start out that way. Moreover, Fascist identity politics were not quite as exclusivist as often painted. In keeping with the history of liberal imperialism they were, and remain, all about reinforcing a variegated, and historically variable, racial pecking-order.
More blindly xenophobic voices today are rather too hastily ostracised for their proto-Fascist tendencies when the crucial Fascist lineage is far more likely to be the ongoing development of coercive rationalism, certainly not confined to matters of `race'. Paradoxically, when brought to public discourse it is this branch of rationalism that would coercively exclude the BNP. And in doing so it implicitly reduces Fascism to its most primitive party-political manifestation and therefore misrepresents or ignores its true philosophical scope. It is also this branch of rationalism that can be seen adapting centrist politics to totalitarian-like policies such as torture, the derogation of key laws, support for undue or unaccountable police powers, and the attack on civil liberties in general. If all this is not enough to demand that we take the philosophical basis of coercive rationalism seriously, then polling evidence, suggesting that a majority of Britons agree with far-right policies when they are not known to be those of the BNP, should make us pause for thought.11
The coercive branch of rationalism celebrates the power of the mind and self-will. It neglects the social and historic complexity of the development of modern societies along with the most troubling aspects of everyday life in them. This ideological vanishing trick draws us back to the key philosophical split of the European Enlightenment: "on the one hand [there is] the Enlightenment's association of progress with autonomous and critical self-reflection within a society based on the principles of equality, liberty and the participation of independent and rational individuals, and on the other, the identification of progress with the development of scientific/technical reason and the subordination of society to the requirements of this process."12 This is no abstract philosophical matter. As Val Plumwood argues in her book, Environmental Culture, "reason has been captured by power and made an instrument of oppression, it must be remade as a tool for liberation."
More HERE
Episcopal bishop wants to have her cake and eat it too
You would never guess from her words that HER Bible-scorning church is the driving force behind the developing schism
The presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church warned the Church of England not to foment schism in America, responding to a threat made over the possibility that the U.S. church will start ordaining actively gay bishops.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Sunday, in response to questions from The Washington Times, that calls by conservatives in the Church of England for recognition of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) over gay-related issues would wound her church, already split by the secession of conservative dioceses and congregations to form the ACNA.
She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the "pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who have gone and people who have stayed." "Recognition of something like ACNA is unfortunately likely only to encourage" further secessions, she said, reminding the Church of England that "schism is not a Christian act."
Bishop Jefferts Schori's remarks come amid a fight at the triennial meeting of the General Convention, the Episcopal Church's top legislative body, which began moves over the weekend to overturn the church's 2006 ban on gay bishops. On Saturday night, the church's World Missions Committee consolidated 13 resolutions into a single bill that opens the door for gays "like any other baptized members, to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church."
The General Convention has a bicameral structure - divided into a House of Deputies and a House of Bishops - and resolutions require approval by both houses. The committee vote, however, was divided, with the panel's deputies - the clergy and lay members of the General Convention - voting 24-2 in favor of the bill, while the panel's bishops voted 3-2 to reject it.
The Rev. Charlie Holt, a conservative deputy from the Diocese of Central Florida, predicted the deputies would endorse the committee report, noting the numbers were not there to hold the ban. Passing the other hurdle may prove harder. Washington Bishop John B. Chane, though a longtime supporter of pro-gay causes in the church, told The Times on Sunday that rescinding the ban "will not be helpful," adding that he did not think the "effort to overturn it will be successful." Bishop Chane said he hoped the Convention would be "respectful of our differences, and that we don't leave" with the degree of rancor the church experienced in 2006 when the ban was enacted.
But pressure to block the bill has come from the church's overseas partners. On Thursday, Archbishop Williams urged the Convention not to rescind the ban, saying "I hope and pray that there won't be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart." Archbishop Williams declined to tell the Episcopal Church what the consequences might be if it repudiated the gay ban. But other leaders of the Church of England indicated that possible consequences would be a break with the Episcopal Church or the recognition of its rival, the ACNA.
On Friday, Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham told members of the Church of England's General Synod that their House of Bishops' Theological Committee would study the organizing documents of the ACNA. A resolution has also been proposed for debate in the next session of synod that would recognize the ACNA.
SOURCE
Britain penalizes Israel for retaliating against incessant Arab attacks
The British antisemitism genie is half out of the bottle now
In a move that threatens to strain diplomatic ties, Britain has blocked the sale of spare parts for Israel's fleet of missile gunships because they were used in the recent campaign in Gaza.
The first country to revoke an arms licence in response to the war in Gaza six months ago, Britain told the Israeli Embassy in London that five of the export requests for parts for the Sa'ar 4.5 gunships had been rejected because the vessels had fired on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Israel's controversial 23-day campaign against the militant group Hamas. The spare parts were intended for the ships' guns.
An Israeli defence official said that Britain's decision to revoke five of the 182 licences reviewed by the Government would not impair the navy's operational abilities - but admitted that there was concern within the military that other countries might follow suit.
Officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's office said the British ban was a "dangerous step for Israeli diplomatic relations".
More HERE
A wonderful and instructive heart transplant story
A BRITISH girl who had a donor heart grafted onto her own after suffering cardiac failure as a baby has had the transplant removed and is living a healthy life with her own heart. The case of Hannah Clark is thought to be the only one in the world where a child's failing heart recovered enough for the donor organ to be removed, the British surgeons told reporters ahead of their report in The Lancet journal.
"The possibility of recovery of the heart is just like magic,'' Professor Magdi Yacoub of Imperial College London, said. Prof Yacoub treated Hannah from the beginning and co-authored the journal paper.
Hannah, now 16, suffered as a baby from severe heart failure due to cardiomyopathy, a problem with the muscle of the heart, and in July 1995, when she was two years old, doctors transplanted a donor heart next to hers. The new organ soon took over much of the functioning of her own heart and Hannah began to recover.
However, she suffered from a type of cancer known as EBV PTLD, a common side-effect of the drugs given to transplant patients to stop their immune systems rejecting new organs. She was treated with chemotherapy and other drugs but the cancer kept returning. Doctors reduced her dosage of immunosuppression drugs to stem the disease, but as a result, her transplanted heart began to fail. In contrast however, her own heart recovered and began functioning normally.
In February 2006, the team decided to remove the donor organ so the immunosuppression could be stopped - something that had never been done before. Just over three years later, Hannah has completely recovered from the cancer and her heart is functioning normally.
Prof Yacoub and the team responsible for her remarkable treatment said her case offered vital clues to the study of transplantation, heart recovery and malignant disease. The report's co-author Victor Tsang said the research was also useful in the development of temporary artificial hearts for children suffering from cardiomyopathy. "This is an important piece of knowledge as we are now gaining more experience with mechanical support for the failing heart in children,'' he said.
Hannah had to take about seven tablets morning and night for the immunosuppression treatment, went through several rounds of cancer treatment, suffered kidney failure and at one point was left barely able to breathe. At one point her family were told she would not survive the next 12 hours.
Prof Yacoub praised her courage and that of her family, saying: "The lesson is don't give up.'' Hannah's mother Liz thanked the donor family whose five-month-old baby daughter provided the transplant heart, saying: "They lost a child, we've gained our child - how can I ever thank them?''
SOURCE
They would have been protected by the 1st Amendment in the USA. The BBC story below covers up the shallow grounds for the prosecution but I myself saw a lot of their material at the time it went up and it certainly denied the holocaust in no uncertain terms and was certainly extremely derogatory but it did not call for attacks on Jews. I saw no incitement to violence and none is quoted in the article below. What they said was very similar to what Muslims routinely say, except that Muslims DO sometimes incite to violence. They were convicted because they were white working class and because what they said was abusive and insulting, nothing else. White working class non-Muslims are entitled "to hold racist and extreme views" in Britain only if they tell nobody about it, apparently. It is a sad day for free speech and justice in biased Britain.
"Jurors at Leeds Crown Court decided neo-Nazis Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle were not just harmless oddballs, but dangerous propagandists dedicated to whipping up racism. On Friday, Sheppard was jailed for four years, 10 months and Whittle for two years, four months.
In a landmark case, they have become the first Britons to be convicted of inciting racial hatred via a foreign website, having printed leaflets and controlled websites in the US featuring racist material.
The court heard the investigation into the pair began when a complaint about an anti-Semitic comic book called Tales of the Holohoax was made to the police in 2004 after it was pushed through the door of a synagogue in Blackpool, Lancashire.
It was traced back to a post office box in Hull registered to Sheppard, 51, a former BNP organiser kicked out of the far-right party after he was jailed in 2000 for distributing a racially inflammatory election leaflet.
Although their vitriol was variously directed at black, Asian and other non-white people, most of the material shown to the jury was virulently anti-Semitic. The language and racial slurs used by the pair cannot be repeated here, but some of the excerpts presented to the court offered a flavour of their discourse.
Jonathan Sandiford, prosecuting, told the jury that it held up survivors of the Holocaust to "ridicule and contempt", accusing them of lying about the genocide of six million Jews. Another story was illustrated with photographs of dead Jews. Sheppard also wrote that Holocaust victim Anne Frank's diary was "evil".
Reviewing lawyer Mari Reid, of the Crown Prosecution Service's counter-terrorism division, said members of the public were entitled under the law to hold racist and extreme views. But she added: "What they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up."
Source
Note that the case does NOT indicate rejection of antisemitism in Britain. Antisemitism is in fact rife among the British intelligentsia (See here and here) but they express it so much more nicely in those circles. Had the men referred to above been upper middle class and used a more educated vocabulary and accent, their views could have been expressed at most good dinner parties and been regarded as a little extreme but understandable. And that antisemitism is now beginning to show officially. Britain has just blocked the export of gun parts to Israel
Note again that British police are "advised to turn a blind eye on crimes such as incitement to religious hatred" when Muslims do it. No equality before the law in Leftist Britain. It's not what you say but who says it that counts.
British government forcing up the costs of private schooling
Hundreds of independent schools could lose their charitable status unless they increase fees for middle-class parents to fund more bursaries, a landmark ruling indicates today. Two of the first five schools to be investigated by the Charity Commission have failed the tough new requirement of providing "public benefit". The long-awaited decision has ramifications for fee-charging schools with charitable status, which make up the majority of the independent sector. The tax breaks that they receive are worth a collective 100 million.
The independent sector reacted with anger and said it could take legal action against the commission. It said that parents, already struggling in the recession, were likely to end up paying higher school fees to subsidise poorer families. The commission had focused on the financial benefits, it said, while placing little weight on whether less wealthy schools shared their facilities with the community or had forged links with state schools.
The two schools that did not pass the charitable test are relatively small prep schools. Both failed because they did not offer enough bursaries, even though they were praised for running initiatives which helped local children and organisations. One, Highfield Priory School in Fulwood, Lancashire, does not provide bursaries because it keeps fees as low as possible, and does not accrue a surplus. The other, Saint Anselm's School in Bakewell, Derbyshire, does offer bursaries worth up to 100 per cent of fees to poorer families, but the number was not deemed sufficient by the commission.
Simon Northcott, the head teacher, said: "As a stand-alone prep school, we just don't have the pot that other schools have. We failed only because we're not producing enough bursaries. But nowhere in the course of this process has the commission given us a clear idea of what we need to achieve. "It's like being told you've failed a maths exam but without being told what the passmark is."
A spokesman for Highfield Priory said: "The governors of Highfield Priory are disappointed at the Charity Commission's conclusion on public benefit. However, the continued success and sustainability of the school is not in doubt. Highfield Priory has served the local community well for nearly 70 years and our aim remains to continue to provide a high-quality education for public benefit, affording pupils many opportunities to succeed academically, creatively, artistically, musically and in a wide range of sports both at local and regional level. "The governors will now consider fully the implications of the Charity Commission report and respond to it after taking professional advice."
The 2006 Charities Act puts a new onus on charities to prove their public benefit, and the commission has assessed a dozen organisations, including the five schools. Independent schools have been waiting with trepidation for clarification on what constitutes "public benefit", and were assured that schools would be judged individually.
David Lyscom, head of the Independent Schools Council, said that he was deeply disappointed by the commission's findings and its focus on the amount of means-tested bursaries provided by each school. He said: "The implication of the commission's findings appears to be that many schools must now aim to provide a significant - but still unspecified - proportion of their turnover in full bursaries. "This will inevitably lead to fee increases for the vast majority of parents, putting the benefits of an independent education beyond the reach of a greater number of children. "We will be expressing our concerns very loudly and will have to look very carefully at the legal basis of the Charity Commission judgments, and consider whether we need to take further action." When asked if this could include legal action, Mr Lyscom said: "It is one of a range of options we could take."
He added that, in focusing on bursaries, the commission had played down the significance of partnerships with state schools and ignored the 3 billion a year that the independent sector saved the public purse in educating children.
Schools which were concerned that they would be judged purely on the money spent on bursaries have been assured that this will not be the case. Dame Suzi Leather, chairwoman of the commission, had previously acknowledged that bursaries may not be an option for some smaller schools. However, the findings are likely to send shivers through low-cost schools that operate near the margins and may be struggling. The recession has already taken its toll on the independent sector, with several small independent schools closing or merging in the past year. The governors of Highfield and Saitn Anselm's have three months to confirm their intention to address the issues raised by the commission, and a further nine months to provide a plan of how this will happen.
A spokesman for the commission said: "It is not correct to state that the Charity Commission's initial public benefit assessments of charitable independent schools focused only on the provision of means-tested bursaries. "We have been very clear throughout this process that, although fee reductions are an obvious way of making the services of a fee-charging charity more widely accessible, that is not the only means of achieving this."
SOURCE
Why Britain should fear American health care reform
Tucked away in a piece about possible end runs around NICE, the health care rationing body, is something of a scary paragraph:
Pharmaceutical companies are reluctant to launch new drugs in the UK at low cost because 25% of the global market is influenced by the UK price.
No, not that one sentence, although it helps explain why this next one is scary:
It comes at a time when other countries are actively considering setting up equivalents to Nice. First among them, and most important for the pharmaceutical industry, is the US. President Obama is known to be interested in some sort of cost-effectiveness scrutiny of medicines, which is bitterly opposed by the industry.
What all too few seem to understand is that medical innovation is hugely driven by what happens in the US market. The only market that is largely free from price controls. We can see from the first sentence that price controls do indeed retard innovation but of course there is no outcry about this for we don't normally see it. Who does take note of cures that aren't invented, aren't launched, because price controls mean there is no profit in their being so?
The great release from this problem for European health care systems has been that the US market, by far the largest in the world, is not subject to such price controls. Thus 300 million of the richest people on the planet underwrite, through the prices they pay for new treatments, the developments that we get years later as prices drop.
If the US does indeed bring in some form of NICE equivalent, some form of price rationing, then medical innovation will fall....no, not cease completely, simply there will be less of it than there would otherwise have been. Thus people who could or might have been cured will not be and they will die.
Reform of the US system might still be worthwhile, something like NICE might even still make sense: but don't anyone believe that such changes will be costless, they will indeed cost lives.
SOURCE
NHS 'obsession with breastfeeding is putting bottle-fed babies at risk'
Thousands of mothers who bottle feed are accidentally putting their babies' health at risk, says a study. They were found to be using too much formula milk powder and timing feeds wrongly. Frequent overfeeding can put babies at risk of long-term obesity and conditions associated with it, such as heart disease.
The problem is blamed on the Health Service's obsession with breastfeeding. It is accused of failing to provide enough information to new mothers on the alternatives. Cambridge University experts reviewed studies involving more than 13,000 mothers. They found that many mothers felt guilty or thought they were a failure for bottle feeding, while many were angry about not being able to breastfeed.
Others thought midwives were more interested in helping breastfeeding mothers than those who used bottles. Ministers are keen to get more mothers to breastfeed because of mounting evidence that it improves children's immunity to disease and helps brain development. It is also thought to reduce a mother's chance of heart attack.
The research, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, involved 23 studies. The authors found that some NHS midwives mistakenly thought they were forbidden from giving advice to bottle-feeding mothers, even after the baby was born. 'When women do not get information from healthcare professionals, they are reliant on friends and family, and incorrect practices are likely to be handed down from one generation to the next,' the researchers said.
They found that many mothers mistakenly put too much formula powder with the water. 'In addition to the short-term issues of hygiene and safety, it is possible that errors in the measurement and over concentration of bottle feeds may contribute to overfeeding, rapid infancy weight gain and later obesity,' they said.
The World Health Organisation code on infant feeding says only limited information on bottle feeding should be given before the baby is born - and after birth, instruction on bottle feeding should be given only after the mother has decided against breastfeeding. The study also noted that parents often changed the brand of formula they used if their baby was regurgitating it, in the belief the child might have a food intolerance. However 'it was possible that the reason for this symptom may not have been intolerance but overfeeding', the researchers said. 'There was a risk that infants would wrongly be labelled as having an intrinsic abnormality with longterm consequences to their health.'
An Infant Feeding Survey from 2005 showed that while 78 per cent of mothers in England initiate breastfeeding, only 45 per cent of babies were exclusively breastfed aged one week, dropping to less than 1 per cent when they were six months. The authors said that while it was known that breast milk is best for baby, mothers who choose to bottle-feed or who have failed with breastfeeding should be supported. They added: 'Inadequate information and support for mothers who decide to bottle feed may put the health of their babies at risk.'
SOURCE
Creeping Fascism
Below is an excerpt from an article in a Scottish Leftist magazine which points out large similarities between historic Fascism and society today. I have also written to that effect
It is the subtle aspects of Fascist ideology that remain standing and develop their forms and continue their onward march despite all the military defeats suffered by Fascism's historic regimes.
The corporate monopolisation of markets is the symptom and outcome of this onward march, but not the cause, which is the monopolisation of public reason. For Benito Mussolini this depended on stealthily "plucking the chicken one feather at a time."2 His preferred name for the system was corporativism and a fuller understanding of this so-called `friendly Fascism' and its pre-history provides a vital means to oppose the whole Fascist phenomenon.
Fascism ought to be understood as an ideologically sophisticated and creeping set of political relations that undermine free contest and the full expression of different material and class interests within society at large. From this perspective, the general geopolitical failure of Fascism only marks the end of various formally authoritarian States and certainly not the end of authoritarian State politics at a number of levels. Fascism's more subtle progress is the true `clear and present danger' to the development of democratic society or to whatever integrity democracy might still possess. The danger arises partly because one of the historical preconditions of Fascism, as theorised by Mussolini, has now been achieved thanks to the adventurism of the U.S. empire. The war on terror has given us the state of permanent, unbounded war originally dreamt up by the Italian dictator to bring about a specific economic and ideological order at home and military expansionism abroad.
That the Italian Republic, supposedly founded on the defeat of Fascism, has re-embraced the ideology under the guise of "Post-Fascism" within a parliamentary democracy is alarming. But, perhaps more alarming is that elsewhere, with no mention of any sort of Fascism, we also see the triangulation of policy towards "single purpose government", as it is now called in Scotland. This widespread and neo-totalitarian sense of purpose favours corporations by gearing all policies towards existing markets or their creation where they do not already exist. In return, States are blessed with various stamps of approval from big business and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Despite their reputation for imposing deadly market orthodoxies across the world, the power of these controversial institutions appears to be unassailable.3 These developments are connected to the progress of Fascist ideas and opposition to them is a matter of great urgency.
Mussolini envisioned the corporative nation in biological terms as a body of non-competing and co-operative functions. In 1934, Fascists from different European countries agreed that this was the defining element of their international movement. As Francis Mulhern notes in `Culture/Metaculture', the functions of corporativism, or corporatism as it is now known, are all imagined to make "their necessary, mutually non-exchangeable contributions to the health of the whole. It is accordingly anti-individualist in temper (the notion of competition between parts of the body is absurd) and also anti-socialist (the notion of a struggle between the hands and the head is equally absurd - as are democracy and equality)."4 While this mythic idea of the nation as the body coincided with the racial policies pursued by the Nazis, the bodily doctrine cannot be reduced to its most murderous convulsions. In Nazi Germany, Gleichschaltung also aimed for the co-ordination of the life of the nation and it is the deep-seated ideology of enforced co-operation and managed national solidarity which provided the underlying logic of Fascism.
Although independent trade unions were politically disabled and outlawed in Italy, top-down organised labour and welfare policies were reborn in the image of Fascist corporatism, which, if nothing else, adhered to the aristocratic ideal of noblesse oblige. According to Gaetano Salvemini, an exile from the Italian system and one of its most sensitive critics, the impact of this policy to disorganise and manipulate the autonomy of labour was to effectively nationalise it, making labour into the State's bargaining chip in its dealings with capitalists. Imagine being threatened by your boss for using the word "ballot" in communicating with fellow trade unionists because that word alone was an incitement to industrial action. Sadly this is not an example of legalised bullying under 1930s Fascism but the experience of a member of the Public and Commercial Services Union in Britain today. One only has to think for a few moments about nation-States with their normalised anti-labour laws and activities and see these policies in the context of international capitalism to begin to see the triangular outlines of the renewed repression.
In Fascist Italy of the 1930s, public institutions called corporations were to support co-operation and consultation between different interest groups, between labour and capital and between various economic sectors. In reality they were unrepresentative talking shops, the real function of which was to dignify a range of coercive policies. Followers of the Marxist, Antonio Gramsci would call this passive revolution, whereby "in lieu of attaining support for what it is doing, a government instead decides to act as if it alone were the origin of social change."5 Yet the rhetorical element of co-operation and consultation remained central to Fascist practice. So attractive was the ideal of corporatist State to its proponents that they wrote admiringly of its company-like functions before the public corporations were even brought into dubious existence. Perhaps the reality is best summed up by Salvemini in his 1936 book `Under the Axe of Fascism'. For Salvemini, to find real co-operation and genuine consultation taking place through corporatist institutions was like "looking in a dark room for a black cat which is not there."6
With this history in mind the obvious question for trades unions and other pressure groups in civil society today is how far has advanced capitalism adapted itself to the same logic of disempowered, disabled yet highly symbolic communication? There is a growing body of research on international development which suggests that the outcomes of participatory processes and public deliberation about policy are in fact preordained by the wisdom of the international financial institutions such as the World Bank.7 It should be asked, therefore, how far do citizens become institutionally formed and incorporated by processes that allow us the pleasure of expressing our views, and sometimes taking action, but only in return for the finally demoralising experience of being overcome by the carefully structured imbalance of actual power?
But if such a bleak perspective is valid, it is too easy to lay the blame on big business or some overly abstract notion of "the system" when corporatism is a particular rot that can set in almost anywhere. It can be seen in the paternalistic ethos of politicians, and in the dealings of "sweetheart" trade unions that function more like an arm of management, or in any number of individuals and ad hoc groups that grasp opportunities to represent or to lead the course of policy without examining the issue of meaningful democratic accountability.8 However compelling one may find Naomi Klein's account of the `Shock Doctrine'9, shock tactics are not necessarily required to ignite the slow burning processes of corporatism. Trying to address these difficult issues here leads gradually towards a key distinction between freedoms of expression, on the one hand, and how the terms of communication may or may not be defined by the public interest, on the other. We live in an era that rather robotically celebrates individuals: individuals as spokespeople for the `voiceless'; inspired, creative and visionary individuals; individuals as over-achievers, enlightened benefactors, and celebrity of all kinds. But has an actual individualism, of the kind that historians and sociologists have found at the heart of Bourgeois revolutions against feudalism, been subtly replaced by mere persona in consumerist society? Are the beneficiaries and descendents of social and political flux in the 1960s now at one with an entrepreneurial ideology which downplays the new `feudalism' perpetrated by a remarkably like-minded corporate power elite?
For anyone who has been subjected to mind-numbing processes of fake consultation - in the workplace or in civic deliberation on matters like housing, health, urban planning or culture - Salvemini's metaphor of the darkened empty room minus cat has a certain poetic resonance in relation to the way the appearance of consensus is constructed in a political and ideological vacuum. Often, this is done with the aid of key unelected personnel who, we are endlessly told, have expertise although they often appear to have descended upon us from another lifeworld where everyone gets along and power goes unquestioned. Nevertheless, it would be misleading to immediately draw a line from the original Fascist ideology of co-operation to the dispiriting operations of technocrats and today's neo-corporatism. Moreover, the Fascist-spawned British National Party knows only too well how to exploit the void opened up by the legitimate and widespread public contempt for what passes for democratic process in Britain. The response from mainstream parties has been to co-ordinate their campaigning to exclude the BNP. If taken in good faith, this response from mainstream politicians, would be more convincing if they were able to demonstrate a genuine commitment to unfettered public reasoning.
Undoubtedly, public discussion has been substantially dumbed down by the adherence to neoliberal ideology by all the main parties and their favourite `opinion-formers'. The truth is that far-right populists have arguments that cannot be properly answered without raising the ghost of anti-capitalist counter arguments which, however unpopular they have become in consumer societies, remain extremely relevant. In the face of the ongoing financial crisis, witness the media silence about the continent-wide reforms to the financial system underway in Latin America.
Part of the problem of restricting public discussion along narrow ideological lines is the way that primitive xenophobia gets branded as Fascist and racist, sometimes as if those were quite simply one and the same. We should remember that Italian Fascism became officially racist, it did not start out that way. Moreover, Fascist identity politics were not quite as exclusivist as often painted. In keeping with the history of liberal imperialism they were, and remain, all about reinforcing a variegated, and historically variable, racial pecking-order.
More blindly xenophobic voices today are rather too hastily ostracised for their proto-Fascist tendencies when the crucial Fascist lineage is far more likely to be the ongoing development of coercive rationalism, certainly not confined to matters of `race'. Paradoxically, when brought to public discourse it is this branch of rationalism that would coercively exclude the BNP. And in doing so it implicitly reduces Fascism to its most primitive party-political manifestation and therefore misrepresents or ignores its true philosophical scope. It is also this branch of rationalism that can be seen adapting centrist politics to totalitarian-like policies such as torture, the derogation of key laws, support for undue or unaccountable police powers, and the attack on civil liberties in general. If all this is not enough to demand that we take the philosophical basis of coercive rationalism seriously, then polling evidence, suggesting that a majority of Britons agree with far-right policies when they are not known to be those of the BNP, should make us pause for thought.11
The coercive branch of rationalism celebrates the power of the mind and self-will. It neglects the social and historic complexity of the development of modern societies along with the most troubling aspects of everyday life in them. This ideological vanishing trick draws us back to the key philosophical split of the European Enlightenment: "on the one hand [there is] the Enlightenment's association of progress with autonomous and critical self-reflection within a society based on the principles of equality, liberty and the participation of independent and rational individuals, and on the other, the identification of progress with the development of scientific/technical reason and the subordination of society to the requirements of this process."12 This is no abstract philosophical matter. As Val Plumwood argues in her book, Environmental Culture, "reason has been captured by power and made an instrument of oppression, it must be remade as a tool for liberation."
More HERE
Episcopal bishop wants to have her cake and eat it too
You would never guess from her words that HER Bible-scorning church is the driving force behind the developing schism
The presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church warned the Church of England not to foment schism in America, responding to a threat made over the possibility that the U.S. church will start ordaining actively gay bishops.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said Sunday, in response to questions from The Washington Times, that calls by conservatives in the Church of England for recognition of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA) over gay-related issues would wound her church, already split by the secession of conservative dioceses and congregations to form the ACNA.
She urged Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams to remember the "pain of many Episcopalians in several places of being shut out of their traditional worship spaces, and the broken relationships, the damaged relationships between people who have gone and people who have stayed." "Recognition of something like ACNA is unfortunately likely only to encourage" further secessions, she said, reminding the Church of England that "schism is not a Christian act."
Bishop Jefferts Schori's remarks come amid a fight at the triennial meeting of the General Convention, the Episcopal Church's top legislative body, which began moves over the weekend to overturn the church's 2006 ban on gay bishops. On Saturday night, the church's World Missions Committee consolidated 13 resolutions into a single bill that opens the door for gays "like any other baptized members, to any ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church."
The General Convention has a bicameral structure - divided into a House of Deputies and a House of Bishops - and resolutions require approval by both houses. The committee vote, however, was divided, with the panel's deputies - the clergy and lay members of the General Convention - voting 24-2 in favor of the bill, while the panel's bishops voted 3-2 to reject it.
The Rev. Charlie Holt, a conservative deputy from the Diocese of Central Florida, predicted the deputies would endorse the committee report, noting the numbers were not there to hold the ban. Passing the other hurdle may prove harder. Washington Bishop John B. Chane, though a longtime supporter of pro-gay causes in the church, told The Times on Sunday that rescinding the ban "will not be helpful," adding that he did not think the "effort to overturn it will be successful." Bishop Chane said he hoped the Convention would be "respectful of our differences, and that we don't leave" with the degree of rancor the church experienced in 2006 when the ban was enacted.
But pressure to block the bill has come from the church's overseas partners. On Thursday, Archbishop Williams urged the Convention not to rescind the ban, saying "I hope and pray that there won't be decisions in the coming days that could push us further apart." Archbishop Williams declined to tell the Episcopal Church what the consequences might be if it repudiated the gay ban. But other leaders of the Church of England indicated that possible consequences would be a break with the Episcopal Church or the recognition of its rival, the ACNA.
On Friday, Bishop N.T. Wright of Durham told members of the Church of England's General Synod that their House of Bishops' Theological Committee would study the organizing documents of the ACNA. A resolution has also been proposed for debate in the next session of synod that would recognize the ACNA.
SOURCE
Britain penalizes Israel for retaliating against incessant Arab attacks
The British antisemitism genie is half out of the bottle now
In a move that threatens to strain diplomatic ties, Britain has blocked the sale of spare parts for Israel's fleet of missile gunships because they were used in the recent campaign in Gaza.
The first country to revoke an arms licence in response to the war in Gaza six months ago, Britain told the Israeli Embassy in London that five of the export requests for parts for the Sa'ar 4.5 gunships had been rejected because the vessels had fired on Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, Israel's controversial 23-day campaign against the militant group Hamas. The spare parts were intended for the ships' guns.
An Israeli defence official said that Britain's decision to revoke five of the 182 licences reviewed by the Government would not impair the navy's operational abilities - but admitted that there was concern within the military that other countries might follow suit.
Officials in the Israeli Prime Minister's office said the British ban was a "dangerous step for Israeli diplomatic relations".
More HERE
A wonderful and instructive heart transplant story
A BRITISH girl who had a donor heart grafted onto her own after suffering cardiac failure as a baby has had the transplant removed and is living a healthy life with her own heart. The case of Hannah Clark is thought to be the only one in the world where a child's failing heart recovered enough for the donor organ to be removed, the British surgeons told reporters ahead of their report in The Lancet journal.
"The possibility of recovery of the heart is just like magic,'' Professor Magdi Yacoub of Imperial College London, said. Prof Yacoub treated Hannah from the beginning and co-authored the journal paper.
Hannah, now 16, suffered as a baby from severe heart failure due to cardiomyopathy, a problem with the muscle of the heart, and in July 1995, when she was two years old, doctors transplanted a donor heart next to hers. The new organ soon took over much of the functioning of her own heart and Hannah began to recover.
However, she suffered from a type of cancer known as EBV PTLD, a common side-effect of the drugs given to transplant patients to stop their immune systems rejecting new organs. She was treated with chemotherapy and other drugs but the cancer kept returning. Doctors reduced her dosage of immunosuppression drugs to stem the disease, but as a result, her transplanted heart began to fail. In contrast however, her own heart recovered and began functioning normally.
In February 2006, the team decided to remove the donor organ so the immunosuppression could be stopped - something that had never been done before. Just over three years later, Hannah has completely recovered from the cancer and her heart is functioning normally.
Prof Yacoub and the team responsible for her remarkable treatment said her case offered vital clues to the study of transplantation, heart recovery and malignant disease. The report's co-author Victor Tsang said the research was also useful in the development of temporary artificial hearts for children suffering from cardiomyopathy. "This is an important piece of knowledge as we are now gaining more experience with mechanical support for the failing heart in children,'' he said.
Hannah had to take about seven tablets morning and night for the immunosuppression treatment, went through several rounds of cancer treatment, suffered kidney failure and at one point was left barely able to breathe. At one point her family were told she would not survive the next 12 hours.
Prof Yacoub praised her courage and that of her family, saying: "The lesson is don't give up.'' Hannah's mother Liz thanked the donor family whose five-month-old baby daughter provided the transplant heart, saying: "They lost a child, we've gained our child - how can I ever thank them?''
SOURCE
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
BBC standards are falling - and bosses are too scared to do anything about it
Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader who announced his retirement last month, has launched a withering attack on the BBC - claiming standards have fallen and accusing producers of being too mired in political correctness to do anything about it.
Writing in The Mail on Sunday today, he says: 'At today's BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them.'
Mr Sissons, 66, who has worked for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, says there was 'great attention' to the text of news bulletins when he joined the Corporation 20 years ago, but that now appeared to be lacking.
In a wide-ranging attack, he also claims it is now 'effectively BBC policy' to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming. He says: 'I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change. 'The Corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that "the science is settled", when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't. 'But it is effectively BBC policy... that those views should not be heard.'
He also takes a swipe at BBC executives for failing to defend him when he was criticised for wearing a burgundy tie on the day the Queen Mother died in 2002. He says a senior executive urged him to wear the burgundy tie, but that the BBC then said it had been his own choice.
The reaction of BBC 'top brass' to coverage of the death of Princess Diana also rankles. 'We did a lot to be proud of that day,' he says. 'Some weeks afterwards, the top brass took themselves off to a Cambridge hotel to congratulate each other. None of the footsoldiers who actually made the programmes was invited.'
Mr Sissons once accused the BBC of ageism, saying he had attended 'too many' leaving parties for people over 50.
SOURCE
British Labour Party fails working class on education
The social mobility czar is to accuse ministers of doing too little to get poor pupils into top universities. Favours aptitude tests (like the American SAT?) as an alternative route to admission! Utter heresy to the modern British Left but it was advocated by the British Left of yesteryear
Gordon Brown's social mobility czar is set to brand Labour's attempts to bring more working-class pupils into top universities a failure. In a report to be released next week, Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health secretary, is expected to warn that too few bright teenagers from poor families are winning places at leading universities.
The main reason he is likely to identify is the sub-standard education provided by too many state schools, meaning bright pupils are held back from winning good enough A-level grades. Others are deterred by negative advice from staff who guide pupils into low-skilled jobs, assuming they are unsuited to higher education. In addition, much of the 400m spent by the government on schemes to attract more students from deprived backgrounds has been wasted.
Milburn, who has announced he will retire from parliament at the next election, was commissioned by the prime minister in January to report on ways in which more young working-class adults could win jobs in professions such as the law, medicine and teaching. The panel he chairs is likely to conclude that one of the main brakes on social mobility into the professions is slow progress in increasing the number of students from deprived families. Figures released last month showed a slight fall in the proportion from these groups studying at university. The government spends hundreds of millions of pounds on university schemes to attract such candidates and help them through the admissions process. This costs about 10,000 per person, but it is thought many of those who apply would do so regardless of special initiatives.
The report is expected to condemn "positive discrimination" whereby some universities give preferential treatment to any applicant from a poorly performing school. At the same time, however, Milburn is understood to praise more targeted methods. One his panel favours is used by some medical schools - talented pupils from deprived backgrounds can be offered degree places if they achieve lower grades than other candidates, but only if they pass aptitude tests.
Lee Elliot Major, research director of the Sutton Trust, a charity promoting social mobility, said Britain was in the grip of an "education freeze". "Even when the economy is doing well, children from poorer backgrounds are still only half as likely to attend university as those from more privileged families and even this could understate the problem," he said.
Milburn's panel - whose members range from Baroness Shephard, the former Tory education secretary, to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society - is expected to cite evidence that state school pupils perform at least as well at university as those from independent schools who have scored two grades higher at A-level. This implies that they have been held back by their schools from achieving their full potential.
The findings, which will be seen as an indictment of Labour's education policies, are likely to anger senior figures such as Ed Balls, the schools secretary. Many in the Labour party have blamed ingrained snobbery at universities for shutting out working-class pupils.
Geoffrey Vos, chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a member of Milburn's panel, said: "Raising the aspirations of pupils ought to be utterly uncontroversial, but it is not always happening."
Milburn's report, which has not yet been completed, will focus largely on what the professions themselves can do to widen the social mix of new recruits. It is likely to include steps to pick apart the networking advantages enjoyed by middle-class children. Posts for unpaid work experience and internships, for example, should be filled by formal selection processes rather than word of mouth.
Meanwhile, undergraduates studying for professional degrees should be recruited to a national mentoring network for comprehensive pupils. This would make them more likely to consider going into the professions in a way that those at private and grammar schools instinctively do.
One source said Milburn wants his recommendations to have cross-party support so they have a chance of surviving if the Tories come to power. He is anxious not to alienate middle-class parents worried that children at private and grammar schools will be edged out of leading universities. "Universities have to be carefully nuanced and not attack private schools," said the source.
SOURCE
British Pupils need lessons in how to speak properly
Children should be taught to speak more formally in class to improve their written work, according to new research. Teachers need to do more work to improve children's vocabulary and make it clear when the use of slang and colloquialisms are not acceptable, academics have found.
The study from Exeter University, which analysed pupils' writing, discovered that whilst more able writers composed sentences in standard English, weaker writers tended to replicate patterns found in speech.
Researchers concluded that the more opportunities children had in class for developing their speech and distinguishing between styles of language, the better their writing would become. "This is less about correcting their English than making sure that they are aware of what they are saying and giving them access to different repertoires," said Professor Debra Myhill, author of the study. "They need to be aware of what they are saying and when, and be able to make choices about their speech, otherwise they will lose out in areas such as the job market."
The study comes in the wake of growing recognition that the school curriculum has neglected the development of children's speech. The Government's Rose Review, published in May, stressed the "central importance" of speaking and listening as part of literacy. Critics claim that in some schools very young children are being taught to read and write before they can string a sentence together. With older children, chief examiners have revealed a growing tendency for pupils to lapse into the vernacular in exams scripts, using slang and inappropriate expressions.
Pieces of writing from children aged 12 to 15 were analysed as part of the Exeter study, published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. It found that children understood that writing was not simply "talk written down". However, weaker writers used patterns familiar in speech, for instance consistently putting the subject first instead of varying their sentence structure. They also had a more restricted vocabulary reminiscent of the more limited selection of words used in speech.
"In order to develop children's writing more, we need to develop children's talking more," said Prof Myhill. "It is not just about using standard English, it is about having more opportunities in class for children to elaborate, justify their decisions, discuss their ideas and give them access to a broader and richer vocabulary, though reading widely and word searches. "We know that in classrooms that continually provide children with talk opportunities, there will almost certainly be a positive influence on their writing."
The professor said there was a general trend to be less formal in speech and writing. "If you look at the television or newspapers over the past 50 years, the language is less formal. Children's speech and writing is mirroring a much bigger cultural trend. "It is not so much about right and wrong, it is about children having repertoires and judgement. Children need to be able to consciously decide to speak or write in a particular way or not."
SOURCE
British youngsters view Bible 'as old fashioned'
KNOWLEDGE of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian holy book as "old fashioned", a survey said today.
Forty per cent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 per cent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found.
Youngsters were particularly disillusioned, telling researchers that the Bible was "old fashioned", "irrelevant" and for "Dot Cottons" - a reference to the church-going EastEnders' character, the National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed. "It is the first recognition of something which we all knew in our gut. We knew it was there but we weren't exactly willing to face up to it," said Rev Brian D. Brown, a visiting fellow at St.John's College in Durham University.
One respondent to the survey said David and Goliath was the name of a ship while another thought Daniel, who survived being thrown into the lions' den, was "The Lion King".
Rev Brown said the survey showed the need to push for greater religious education among young people as knowledge of the Bible among the under-45 age group was in decline. "We have got to recognise that it (the Bible) is the foundation of our society, upon which our whole culture has been based," he said. "To understand it and to live in it you do need an understanding of the Bible."
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible's popularity. "It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people," said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association. "The fact that people have little knowledge of the Bible perhaps suggests that it's becoming less and less relevant to people in the 21st century," she said.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the Bible among the 900 respondents, three-quarters said they owned one and almost a third said it was significant in their lives.
SOURCE
British officialdom snipes at Prince Charles's `misguided' green thinking
Senior government figures have revealed serious concerns about the Prince of Wales's "misguided" green philosophy, which advocates dramatic changes in lifestyle and attitudes as the key to saving the world. One senior Whitehall source dismissed Prince Charles's green vision as "fatuous", and others were equally dismissive. The rift illustrates just how politically charged the environmental issues on which Charles has campaigned for decades have now become.
He has long called on people and politicians to rethink their attitudes to the planet, economic growth and consumption. Recently, however, government policy has become based on the notion that problems such as climate change are best addressed through science and technology - without compromising economic growth or consumerism. This difference is becoming a source of tension, and some of Charles's aides are planning for him to continue to make public his opinions when he eventually becomes king.
Charles, who gave the Richard Dimbleby lecture last week, took care to endorse the climate-change report of the former Downing Street adviser Lord Stern, who, he said, had "set out the case as to why, even in traditional economic terms, it is quite irrational to continue as we are".
But he went much further, saying our consumerist society had brought the world to the brink of collapse, and warning that "nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust".
A senior Whitehall source, while not directly criticising the prince, said a "misconceived" ideology lay at the heart of the green position on tackling climate change, wrongly seeking to change our whole way of life. "We are aiming to cut emissions by a third in the next 10 years and then by 80% in the next four decades. These things are not happening because the population has had a green psychological transformation," he said. "If that were true, we'd never get anywhere, we'd never have got rid of slavery or brought in seatbelts or abolished hanging. No social change is force-driven by mass psychological change. It is about government leading and people changing accordingly.
"Within its core, represented strongly in organisations such as Friends of the Earth andGreenpeace, environmentalism still has an ideological greenness that does not like the way we live and does not believe this is what creates fundamentally decent society. That continues to infect the way they think about the changes that we need, so in that sense it is fundamentally wrong."
Charles has selected two former directors of Friends of the Earth (FoE) to advise him: Jonathon Porritt, who ran FoE from 1984-90, and Tony Juniper, who quit last year for the Prince's Rainforest Project. Craig Bennett, a former FoE campaigner, co-directs the Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change. Last year the prince also recruited Benet Northcote, former chief policy adviser for Greenpeace UK, as his deputy private secretary. Charles's green advisers contributed to the speech, which contained pointed references to the management of the economy. He said the Earth could no longer afford consumerism, and that the "age of convenience" was over.
A senior Whitehall source sought to avoid criticising the prince personally, and said: "We would never say that Prince Charles is wrong. It all helps. I would not say that it is of no use, but that it is not enough and we are going to get on with it anyway." However, he also said lifestyle and thinking changes - which have been advocated by Charles - were "third-order issues" in terms of the impact they have in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. They included making personal decisions, such as to cycle or walk to work rather than drive, or to take holidays within Britain, or to eat meat only once a week.
SOURCE
Swearing can help reduce pain
Even the most mild-mannered of individuals have been known to utter the odd expletive in moments of intense pain. Now it seems they have the perfect excuse. Swearing helps reduce pain, according to new research.
A study of responses to pain found that people who cursed in response to pain could cope with being hurt for nearly 50 per cent longer than their clean-speaking peers.
When they started their research, experts at Keele University's School of Psychology thought that cursing would lower pain tolerance. But after monitoring the reactions of 64 volunteers, stunned research leader Dr Richard Stephens and colleagues John Atkins and Andrew Kingston found that swearing actually had a beneficial effect. Last night Dr Stephens told how he came up with the idea for the study after blurting out a swear word when he accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer as he built a shed in his garden.
The 64 undergraduates were subjected to a gruelling ice water test to see how the cursing affected their pain tolerance. First they had to submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swearword of their choice. Then they repeated the exercise - but using a word they would choose to describe a table. Despite initial expectations, researchers found volunteers could keep their hands in ice for longer when repeating the swear word. On average, the students could put up with the pain for nearly two minutes when swearing. By contrast when they refrained from using expletives they could only endure the ice for one minute and 15 seconds.
Researchers believe swearing has a pain-reducing effect because it triggers the body's natural fight-or-flight response. They suggest that the accelerated heart rates of the volunteers repeating the swearword indicates an increase in aggression, in a classic fight-or-flight response of downplaying being hurt in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.
Dr Stephens said it was clear the swearing triggered both an emotional and a physical response. 'We are not sure why swearing works like this, but when it happens it's accompanied by an increase in heart rate,' he said. 'It could be the aggression of swearing, the machismo, makes you more pain resistant.'
While surprised by the results he added: 'It might explain why the centuries-old practice of cursing developed and still persists today.' For those who think that the results may give a green card to turning the air blue, Dr Stephens did, however, have a word of warning. 'If they want to use this pain-lessening effect to their advantage they need to do less casual swearing and only do it when they really need it.'
Rohan Byrt, spokesman for the Casual Swearing Appreciation Society, said he thought the study was the first time swearing's benefits had been proved. He said:'"I've always thought that swearing does have some real therapeutic merit. 'Even for those who consider themselves clean spoken, the odd swear word will just slip out. For me, it's almost a natural instinct, a gut reaction'
SOURCE
Peter Sissons, the veteran newsreader who announced his retirement last month, has launched a withering attack on the BBC - claiming standards have fallen and accusing producers of being too mired in political correctness to do anything about it.
Writing in The Mail on Sunday today, he says: 'At today's BBC, a complaint I often heard from senior producers was that they dared not reprimand their subordinates for basic journalistic mistakes - such as getting ages, dates, titles and even football scores wrong - it being politically incorrect to risk offending them.'
Mr Sissons, 66, who has worked for the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, says there was 'great attention' to the text of news bulletins when he joined the Corporation 20 years ago, but that now appeared to be lacking.
In a wide-ranging attack, he also claims it is now 'effectively BBC policy' to stifle critics of the consensus view on global warming. He says: 'I believe I am one of a tiny number of BBC interviewers who have so much as raised the possibility that there is another side to the debate on climate change. 'The Corporation's most famous interrogators invariably begin by accepting that "the science is settled", when there are countless reputable scientists and climatologists producing work that says it isn't. 'But it is effectively BBC policy... that those views should not be heard.'
He also takes a swipe at BBC executives for failing to defend him when he was criticised for wearing a burgundy tie on the day the Queen Mother died in 2002. He says a senior executive urged him to wear the burgundy tie, but that the BBC then said it had been his own choice.
The reaction of BBC 'top brass' to coverage of the death of Princess Diana also rankles. 'We did a lot to be proud of that day,' he says. 'Some weeks afterwards, the top brass took themselves off to a Cambridge hotel to congratulate each other. None of the footsoldiers who actually made the programmes was invited.'
Mr Sissons once accused the BBC of ageism, saying he had attended 'too many' leaving parties for people over 50.
SOURCE
British Labour Party fails working class on education
The social mobility czar is to accuse ministers of doing too little to get poor pupils into top universities. Favours aptitude tests (like the American SAT?) as an alternative route to admission! Utter heresy to the modern British Left but it was advocated by the British Left of yesteryear
Gordon Brown's social mobility czar is set to brand Labour's attempts to bring more working-class pupils into top universities a failure. In a report to be released next week, Alan Milburn, the Blairite former health secretary, is expected to warn that too few bright teenagers from poor families are winning places at leading universities.
The main reason he is likely to identify is the sub-standard education provided by too many state schools, meaning bright pupils are held back from winning good enough A-level grades. Others are deterred by negative advice from staff who guide pupils into low-skilled jobs, assuming they are unsuited to higher education. In addition, much of the 400m spent by the government on schemes to attract more students from deprived backgrounds has been wasted.
Milburn, who has announced he will retire from parliament at the next election, was commissioned by the prime minister in January to report on ways in which more young working-class adults could win jobs in professions such as the law, medicine and teaching. The panel he chairs is likely to conclude that one of the main brakes on social mobility into the professions is slow progress in increasing the number of students from deprived families. Figures released last month showed a slight fall in the proportion from these groups studying at university. The government spends hundreds of millions of pounds on university schemes to attract such candidates and help them through the admissions process. This costs about 10,000 per person, but it is thought many of those who apply would do so regardless of special initiatives.
The report is expected to condemn "positive discrimination" whereby some universities give preferential treatment to any applicant from a poorly performing school. At the same time, however, Milburn is understood to praise more targeted methods. One his panel favours is used by some medical schools - talented pupils from deprived backgrounds can be offered degree places if they achieve lower grades than other candidates, but only if they pass aptitude tests.
Lee Elliot Major, research director of the Sutton Trust, a charity promoting social mobility, said Britain was in the grip of an "education freeze". "Even when the economy is doing well, children from poorer backgrounds are still only half as likely to attend university as those from more privileged families and even this could understate the problem," he said.
Milburn's panel - whose members range from Baroness Shephard, the former Tory education secretary, to Lord Rees, president of the Royal Society - is expected to cite evidence that state school pupils perform at least as well at university as those from independent schools who have scored two grades higher at A-level. This implies that they have been held back by their schools from achieving their full potential.
The findings, which will be seen as an indictment of Labour's education policies, are likely to anger senior figures such as Ed Balls, the schools secretary. Many in the Labour party have blamed ingrained snobbery at universities for shutting out working-class pupils.
Geoffrey Vos, chairman of the Social Mobility Foundation and a member of Milburn's panel, said: "Raising the aspirations of pupils ought to be utterly uncontroversial, but it is not always happening."
Milburn's report, which has not yet been completed, will focus largely on what the professions themselves can do to widen the social mix of new recruits. It is likely to include steps to pick apart the networking advantages enjoyed by middle-class children. Posts for unpaid work experience and internships, for example, should be filled by formal selection processes rather than word of mouth.
Meanwhile, undergraduates studying for professional degrees should be recruited to a national mentoring network for comprehensive pupils. This would make them more likely to consider going into the professions in a way that those at private and grammar schools instinctively do.
One source said Milburn wants his recommendations to have cross-party support so they have a chance of surviving if the Tories come to power. He is anxious not to alienate middle-class parents worried that children at private and grammar schools will be edged out of leading universities. "Universities have to be carefully nuanced and not attack private schools," said the source.
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British Pupils need lessons in how to speak properly
Children should be taught to speak more formally in class to improve their written work, according to new research. Teachers need to do more work to improve children's vocabulary and make it clear when the use of slang and colloquialisms are not acceptable, academics have found.
The study from Exeter University, which analysed pupils' writing, discovered that whilst more able writers composed sentences in standard English, weaker writers tended to replicate patterns found in speech.
Researchers concluded that the more opportunities children had in class for developing their speech and distinguishing between styles of language, the better their writing would become. "This is less about correcting their English than making sure that they are aware of what they are saying and giving them access to different repertoires," said Professor Debra Myhill, author of the study. "They need to be aware of what they are saying and when, and be able to make choices about their speech, otherwise they will lose out in areas such as the job market."
The study comes in the wake of growing recognition that the school curriculum has neglected the development of children's speech. The Government's Rose Review, published in May, stressed the "central importance" of speaking and listening as part of literacy. Critics claim that in some schools very young children are being taught to read and write before they can string a sentence together. With older children, chief examiners have revealed a growing tendency for pupils to lapse into the vernacular in exams scripts, using slang and inappropriate expressions.
Pieces of writing from children aged 12 to 15 were analysed as part of the Exeter study, published in the British Journal of Educational Psychology. It found that children understood that writing was not simply "talk written down". However, weaker writers used patterns familiar in speech, for instance consistently putting the subject first instead of varying their sentence structure. They also had a more restricted vocabulary reminiscent of the more limited selection of words used in speech.
"In order to develop children's writing more, we need to develop children's talking more," said Prof Myhill. "It is not just about using standard English, it is about having more opportunities in class for children to elaborate, justify their decisions, discuss their ideas and give them access to a broader and richer vocabulary, though reading widely and word searches. "We know that in classrooms that continually provide children with talk opportunities, there will almost certainly be a positive influence on their writing."
The professor said there was a general trend to be less formal in speech and writing. "If you look at the television or newspapers over the past 50 years, the language is less formal. Children's speech and writing is mirroring a much bigger cultural trend. "It is not so much about right and wrong, it is about children having repertoires and judgement. Children need to be able to consciously decide to speak or write in a particular way or not."
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British youngsters view Bible 'as old fashioned'
KNOWLEDGE of the Bible is in decline in Britain, with fewer than one in 20 people able to name all Ten Commandments and youngsters viewing the Christian holy book as "old fashioned", a survey said today.
Forty per cent did not know that the tradition of exchanging Christmas presents originated from the story of the Wise Men bringing gifts for the infant Jesus, while 60 per cent could not name anything about the Good Samaritan, the Durham University study found.
Youngsters were particularly disillusioned, telling researchers that the Bible was "old fashioned", "irrelevant" and for "Dot Cottons" - a reference to the church-going EastEnders' character, the National Biblical Literacy Survey 2009 showed. "It is the first recognition of something which we all knew in our gut. We knew it was there but we weren't exactly willing to face up to it," said Rev Brian D. Brown, a visiting fellow at St.John's College in Durham University.
One respondent to the survey said David and Goliath was the name of a ship while another thought Daniel, who survived being thrown into the lions' den, was "The Lion King".
Rev Brown said the survey showed the need to push for greater religious education among young people as knowledge of the Bible among the under-45 age group was in decline. "We have got to recognise that it (the Bible) is the foundation of our society, upon which our whole culture has been based," he said. "To understand it and to live in it you do need an understanding of the Bible."
Atheists, however, were not unduly worried about the decline in the Bible's popularity. "It shows really that religion is becoming less important to people," said Pepper Harow, campaigns officer at the British Humanist Association. "The fact that people have little knowledge of the Bible perhaps suggests that it's becoming less and less relevant to people in the 21st century," she said.
Despite the lack of enthusiasm about the Bible among the 900 respondents, three-quarters said they owned one and almost a third said it was significant in their lives.
SOURCE
British officialdom snipes at Prince Charles's `misguided' green thinking
Senior government figures have revealed serious concerns about the Prince of Wales's "misguided" green philosophy, which advocates dramatic changes in lifestyle and attitudes as the key to saving the world. One senior Whitehall source dismissed Prince Charles's green vision as "fatuous", and others were equally dismissive. The rift illustrates just how politically charged the environmental issues on which Charles has campaigned for decades have now become.
He has long called on people and politicians to rethink their attitudes to the planet, economic growth and consumption. Recently, however, government policy has become based on the notion that problems such as climate change are best addressed through science and technology - without compromising economic growth or consumerism. This difference is becoming a source of tension, and some of Charles's aides are planning for him to continue to make public his opinions when he eventually becomes king.
Charles, who gave the Richard Dimbleby lecture last week, took care to endorse the climate-change report of the former Downing Street adviser Lord Stern, who, he said, had "set out the case as to why, even in traditional economic terms, it is quite irrational to continue as we are".
But he went much further, saying our consumerist society had brought the world to the brink of collapse, and warning that "nature, the biggest bank of all, could go bust".
A senior Whitehall source, while not directly criticising the prince, said a "misconceived" ideology lay at the heart of the green position on tackling climate change, wrongly seeking to change our whole way of life. "We are aiming to cut emissions by a third in the next 10 years and then by 80% in the next four decades. These things are not happening because the population has had a green psychological transformation," he said. "If that were true, we'd never get anywhere, we'd never have got rid of slavery or brought in seatbelts or abolished hanging. No social change is force-driven by mass psychological change. It is about government leading and people changing accordingly.
"Within its core, represented strongly in organisations such as Friends of the Earth andGreenpeace, environmentalism still has an ideological greenness that does not like the way we live and does not believe this is what creates fundamentally decent society. That continues to infect the way they think about the changes that we need, so in that sense it is fundamentally wrong."
Charles has selected two former directors of Friends of the Earth (FoE) to advise him: Jonathon Porritt, who ran FoE from 1984-90, and Tony Juniper, who quit last year for the Prince's Rainforest Project. Craig Bennett, a former FoE campaigner, co-directs the Prince of Wales's Corporate Leaders Group on Climate Change. Last year the prince also recruited Benet Northcote, former chief policy adviser for Greenpeace UK, as his deputy private secretary. Charles's green advisers contributed to the speech, which contained pointed references to the management of the economy. He said the Earth could no longer afford consumerism, and that the "age of convenience" was over.
A senior Whitehall source sought to avoid criticising the prince personally, and said: "We would never say that Prince Charles is wrong. It all helps. I would not say that it is of no use, but that it is not enough and we are going to get on with it anyway." However, he also said lifestyle and thinking changes - which have been advocated by Charles - were "third-order issues" in terms of the impact they have in reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. They included making personal decisions, such as to cycle or walk to work rather than drive, or to take holidays within Britain, or to eat meat only once a week.
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Swearing can help reduce pain
Even the most mild-mannered of individuals have been known to utter the odd expletive in moments of intense pain. Now it seems they have the perfect excuse. Swearing helps reduce pain, according to new research.
A study of responses to pain found that people who cursed in response to pain could cope with being hurt for nearly 50 per cent longer than their clean-speaking peers.
When they started their research, experts at Keele University's School of Psychology thought that cursing would lower pain tolerance. But after monitoring the reactions of 64 volunteers, stunned research leader Dr Richard Stephens and colleagues John Atkins and Andrew Kingston found that swearing actually had a beneficial effect. Last night Dr Stephens told how he came up with the idea for the study after blurting out a swear word when he accidentally hit his thumb with a hammer as he built a shed in his garden.
The 64 undergraduates were subjected to a gruelling ice water test to see how the cursing affected their pain tolerance. First they had to submerge their hand in a tub of ice water for as long as possible while repeating a swearword of their choice. Then they repeated the exercise - but using a word they would choose to describe a table. Despite initial expectations, researchers found volunteers could keep their hands in ice for longer when repeating the swear word. On average, the students could put up with the pain for nearly two minutes when swearing. By contrast when they refrained from using expletives they could only endure the ice for one minute and 15 seconds.
Researchers believe swearing has a pain-reducing effect because it triggers the body's natural fight-or-flight response. They suggest that the accelerated heart rates of the volunteers repeating the swearword indicates an increase in aggression, in a classic fight-or-flight response of downplaying being hurt in favour of a more pain-tolerant machismo.
Dr Stephens said it was clear the swearing triggered both an emotional and a physical response. 'We are not sure why swearing works like this, but when it happens it's accompanied by an increase in heart rate,' he said. 'It could be the aggression of swearing, the machismo, makes you more pain resistant.'
While surprised by the results he added: 'It might explain why the centuries-old practice of cursing developed and still persists today.' For those who think that the results may give a green card to turning the air blue, Dr Stephens did, however, have a word of warning. 'If they want to use this pain-lessening effect to their advantage they need to do less casual swearing and only do it when they really need it.'
Rohan Byrt, spokesman for the Casual Swearing Appreciation Society, said he thought the study was the first time swearing's benefits had been proved. He said:'"I've always thought that swearing does have some real therapeutic merit. 'Even for those who consider themselves clean spoken, the odd swear word will just slip out. For me, it's almost a natural instinct, a gut reaction'
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Monday, July 13, 2009
Perverse British justice again
Teenage rapist charged with new sex attack just eight days after judge let him walk free. One often gets the impression that the only serious offence in Leftist Britain is being middle class
The Attorney General has been asked to investigate the case of a rapist who was allowed to walk free from court with a community sentence - and allegedly struck again just days later. The 16-year-old, who admitted raping a minor and a series of other sexual offences, is accused of committing a further rape just eight days after his release. The teenager - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - received a three-year community rehabilitation order instead of the custodial sentence which the police and families of the victims had expected.
Immediately after the case, Crown Prosecution Service lawyers wrote to the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, in an attempt to use the Unduly Lenient Sentence procedure to have the case considered for referral to the Court of Appeal. The rarely used measure allows the CPS to request a review of any sentence it believes falls below guidelines.
According to police sources, senior detectives involved in the case were dismayed and frustrated that the teenager was allowed to return to his home on the council estate where the first rape took place. The original case was dealt with at a Crown Court earlier this year. Following the latest alleged attack, the teenager has appeared at a youth court charged with raping a boy and causing a boy to engage in sexual activity. This time the teenager was remanded in custody for committal proceedings.
Meanwhile, his close-knit local community has been left in a state of disbelief by the chain of events, with friends and family of the victims incensed he was let out to allegedly attack again. The teenager was allegedly known by police for his sexual interest in young boys. Last night, one mother who lives locally said: 'This youth is a danger to children. It is beyond belief that he was not locked away to protect kiddies in the area. This latest incident has left everyone sickened because he has been a real threat in this area for some time. 'It is inconceivable that he was allowed to return home and back to this neighbourhood. The courts should have done something about him and we feel that we've been let down.'
As part of the three-year community rehabilitation order, the youth, who is now 16, would have received counselling sessions to address his behaviour and supervision from probation officers. The judge, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would also have ruled that the teenager be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and must attend meetings with social services. But a legal source said last night: 'What he received was the soft option and it allowed him to be released back to the area where his victims lived. 'As a result of him being freed he was arrested again, but this time he was placed in custody. The system failed because he should have been imprisoned for his initial offences. This was not a one-off offence, it was a catalogue of sexual offending.'
The accused boy's family - he lived with his mother after his parents separated - have since left the area and moved into a safe house following threats.
A neighbour claims that the boy's mother had pleaded with social services to take him into care, but was ignored. During the original Crown Court case, the judge heard that the victim had been lured to the boy's bedroom, where he was assaulted. The alarm was raised after the victim later told his parents about the incident. The court was asked to take a further three sexual assaults of minors into consideration when sentencing.
The Ministry of Justice said last night that the maximum sentence for rape is life, whatever the ages of the perpetrator or victim. If the victim is under 13, the starting point is 10 years' imprisonment. Normally a sentence falls between eight and 13 years, but a judge can waver from these guidelines if there are aggravating or mitigating circumstances. The spokesman said: 'Normally there would be a custodial sentence of some degree. Six years if possible or even four years. But to go from an eight-year minimum sentence to a community order is a huge leap. 'Our official line is that this is a matter for the courts and the Attorney General to consider a sentence which may be unduly lenient.'
The CPS confirmed that the sentence has been referred to the Attorney General for consideration under the Unduly Lenient Sentence procedure. 'It is for the Attorney General to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal,' the spokesman added.
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British school pupils told: Sex every day keeps the GP away
And they wonder why Britain has a huge problem of teenage pregnancy and abortion
A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a "right" to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.
The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for "safe sex" and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.
The document, called Pleasure, has been drawn up by NHS Sheffield, although it is also being circulated outside the city.
Alongside the slogan "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away", it says: "Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?"
Steve Slack, director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield, who is one of the authors, argues that, far from promoting teenage sex, it could encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience.
Slack believes that as long as teenagers are fully informed about sex and are making their decisions free of peer pressure and as part of a caring relationship, they have as much right as an adult to a good sex life.
Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, Berkshire, who introduced classes in emotional wellbeing, said the approach was "deplorable".
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Britain's young generation can now not add up
Huge decline in numeracy
When the Bamberger family opened a haberdashery 65 years ago, they insisted their staff use mental arithmetic to price up customers' purchases. Despite the arrival of calculators, that attitude has remained unchanged over the intervening years. But now the family finds itself facing an unexpected maths problem - most youngsters it would like to employ are incapable of working out sums in their heads.
Colin Bamberger, 82, whose parents founded the Remnant Shop in 1944, said that less than one in ten applicants are now able to solve basic maths problems without turning to a calculator or till. In the past, around eight in ten made the grade. Mr Bamberger, who stills runs one of the family's two stores, yesterday blamed the decline on falling education standards and over-reliance on the pocket calculator. He said: 'Most of the youngsters who come to us for jobs are unemployable because they are not numerate.
'It is a sorry situation and a poor reflection on the academic qualities of young people these days. I think it shows modern teaching methods are sadly lacking. 'It is all very well using calculators but if you have not got some idea what the answer is, how do you know if you have pushed the right button? It's so easy to make a mistake. Around eight out of ten people who came to us for work were capable of doing it in the 1950s and 1960s - but now it is less than one in ten. 'You ask them how much they would charge for nine metres of material at 9.90 a metre and they fiddle about for ages.'
He said that mental arithmetic was essential in his shops because, if customers queried the final bill, staff could scribble their calculations on a piece of paper to show them how they arrived at the sum. With calculators, all customers are presented with is the final figure. 'The problem is people are not taught multiplication tables in school any more,' Mr Bamberger added. 'Paper qualifications these days are just not important to us. 'It is reflected in the fact that many of our staff are a lot older. The modern generation just don't seem to have the skill.'
The Remnant Shop was founded in 1944 by Colin's mother Betty, who sold material and haberdashery from her first-floor flat in Felixstowe, Suffolk. It proved so successful that her husband Sydney soon gave up his job as a commercial traveller to help with the business. A year later, Mr Bamberger joined the family business after studying mathematics and chemistry at Bristol University. The business expanded when his son Robert opened a second shop in Colchester in 1996. The business, which employs 28 staff, stocks 5,500 items of haberdashery, including pins, needles, ribbons and wool as well as 5,000 rolls of fabric used for curtains, crafts and dressmaking.
Robert said that even if applicants were 'massive at marketing, super at sales or even Alan Sugar's next apprentice - if they can't add up quickly in their head we won't have them'. 'My grandfather could add up a column of 50 figures in old pounds, shillings and pennies - including ha'pennies and farthings - in a matter of seconds,' he added. 'He used to insist that any staff we took on could do the same and we have carried on that practice.'
Last year, it emerged more than half of trainee teachers needed multiple attempts to pass a basic numeracy test. Although the exam was originally introduced to drive up standards, it emerged that trainees could take it as many times as they like. One reportedly took the test 28 times before passing.
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Official British police policy: Incitement to violence is OK if Muslims do it
We read:
Abject surrender. No equality before the law. How far can the Leftist destruction of British society go? Britain has been run by the Left for 12 years. What would 12 years of Democrat government do to America? Just the first 7 months have seen ominous changes. Fortunately, Americans get to vote every two years. The Brits have to wait five years.
Meet The Man Who Has Exposed The Great Climate Change Con Trick
An excerpt below from The Spectator, mainstream journal of British conservatism
James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that `anthropogenic global warming' is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a `first-world luxury' with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book
Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore's imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill - the largest tax in American history - which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.
Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change.
`The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,' says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you're unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history.
To find out why, let's meet the good professor. He's a tanned, rugged, white-haired sixtysomething - courteous and jolly but combative when he needs to be - glowing with the health of a man who spends half his life on field expeditions to Iran, Turkey and his beloved Outback. And he's sitting in my garden drinking tea on exactly the kind of day the likes of the Guardian's George Monbiot would probably like to ban. A lovely warm sunny one.
So go on then, Prof. What makes you sure that you're right and all those scientists out there saying the opposite are wrong? `I'm a geologist. We geologists have always recognised that climate changes over time. Where we differ from a lot of people pushing AGW is in our understanding of scale. They're only interested in the last 150 years. Our time frame is 4,567 million years. So what they're doing is the equivalent of trying to extrapolate the plot of Casablanca from one tiny bit of the love scene. And you can't. It doesn't work.'
What Heaven And Earth sets out to do is restore a sense of scientific perspective to a debate which has been hijacked by `politicians, environmental activists and opportunists'. It points out, for example, that polar ice has been present on earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time; that extinctions of life are normal; that climate changes are cyclical and random; that the CO2 in the atmosphere - to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction - is only 0.001 per cent of the total CO2 held in the oceans, surface rocks, air, soils and life; that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant food; that the earth's warmer periods - such as when the Romans grew grapes and citrus trees as far north as Hadrian's Wall - were times of wealth and plenty.
All this is scientific fact - which is more than you can say for any of the computer models turning out doomsday scenarios about inexorably rising temperatures, sinking islands and collapsing ice shelves. Plimer doesn't trust them because they seem to have little if any basis in observed reality.
`I'm a natural scientist. I'm out there every day, buried up to my neck in sh**, collecting raw data. And that's why I'm so sceptical of these models, which have nothing to do with science or empiricism but are about torturing the data till it finally confesses. None of them predicted this current period we're in of global cooling. There is no problem with global warming. It stopped in 1998. The last two years of global cooling have erased nearly 30 years of temperature increase.'
Plimer's uncompromising position has not made him popular. `They say I rape cows, eat babies, that I know nothing about anything. My favourite letter was the one that said: "Dear sir, drop dead". I've also had a demo in Sydney outside one of my book launches, and I've had mothers coming up to me with two-year-old children in their arms saying: "Don't you have any kind of morality? This child's future is being destroyed.''' Plimer's response to the last one is typically robust. `If you're so concerned, why did you breed?'
This no-nonsense approach may owe something to the young Ian's straitened Sydney upbringing. His father was crippled with MS, leaving his mother to raise three children on a schoolteacher's wage. `We couldn't afford a TV - not that TV even arrived in Australia till 1956. We'd use the same brown paper bag over and over again for our school lunches, always turn off the lights, not because of some moral imperative but out of sheer bloody necessity.'
One of the things that so irks him about modern environmentalism is that it is driven by people who are `too wealthy'. `When I try explaining "global warming" to people in Iran or Turkey they have no idea what I'm talking about. Their life is about getting through to the next day, finding their next meal. Eco-guilt is a first-world luxury. It's the new religion for urban populations which have lost their faith in Christianity. The IPCC report is their Bible. Al Gore and Lord Stern are their prophets.'
More HERE
Everyone in Britain will soon get untested vaccine against swine flu
This seems amazingly precipitous. The reasoning is clearly that MOST people will be OK and damn the minority. I think I would rather take my chances with the flu rather than risk Guillain-Barr syndrome
The NHS is preparing to vaccinate the entire population against swine flu after the disease claimed the life of its first healthy British patient. A new vaccine is expected to arrive in Britain in the next few weeks and could be fast-tracked through regulatory approval in five days. As many as 20m people could be inoculated this year. Ministers have secured up to 90m doses, and the rest of the population is likely to be offered vaccinations next year.
A man from Essex was confirmed on Friday as the first person without underlying health problems to have died from the virus. The health department said most people with the virus had only mild symptoms.
Peter Holden, the British Medical Association's lead negotiator on swine flu, said GPs' surgeries were ready for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. "If this virus does [mutate], it can get a lot more nasty, and the idea is to give people immunity. But the sheer logistics of dealing with 60m people can't be underestimated," he said. The health department said a vaccination programme would be drawn up based on expert advice.
The path of a popular medicine from the laboratory to the chemist or doctor's surgery can involve years of clinical trials on a select group of patients. When the new vaccine for swine flu arrives in Britain, regulators said this weekend, it could be approved for use in just five days.
Regulators at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a "mock-up" vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.
The first patients in the queue for the jab - being supplied to the UK by GSK and Baxter Healthcare - may understandably be a little nervous at any possible side effects. A mass vaccination campaign against swine flu in America was halted in the 1970s after some people suffered Guillain-Barr syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system.
However, regulators said fast-tracking would not be at the expense of patient safety. "The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan," the EMEA said. "There is quite a body of evidence regarding safety on the trials of the mock-up, and the actual vaccine could be assessed in five days."
The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign. Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association's lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs' surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years.
He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus. "The high-risk groups will be done at GPs' surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent."
Holden said it was likely the elderly would be given their seasonal flu jab as well as the swine flu vaccination. The new vaccine is likely to require two doses.
Details of the inoculation plans emerged after the death of a patient, reportedly a middle-aged man, at a hospital in the Basildon area of Essex. The victim had no underlying health problems, but officials say there is no evidence the swine flu virus had mutated into a more dangerous strain.
Holden said it would be the biggest campaign in response to an outbreak since mass vaccination against smallpox in 1962. He said surgeries would be aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a "military-style operation". The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority.
The European Commission is also identifying population groups which it believes should get priority. It is keen to ensure that countries such as the UK, which had ordered supplies of the vaccine in advance, do not cause inequities in treatment elsewhere in Europe. It warned health ministers in a note circulated last month that if the vaccines were more readily available in some countries it could cause "vaccine tourism/shopping in other member states".
About 15 people have died of swine flu in Britain, but most of those infected get only mild symptoms. According to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, the UK has had 9,718 confirmed cases of the disease.
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More Britons are emigrating to Australia
More Britons are emigrating, and they don't have to be young and carefree to join the exodus. Consider the choices of Britons joining the 2.26 million jobless queue, with rain outside and peeling paint within. If they are of a generation that enjoyed the sun-kissed, carefree bliss of the backpacker trail, this increasingly is the moment to swap recession-hit Britain for balmy and relatively buoyant Australia. British unemployment has reached 7.2 per cent, a 12-year high, and thousands of people are preparing to follow the masses of Australians going home to an economy which has largely avoided recession.
There is nothing new about British immigration, of course. Tens of thousands arrived under the postwar 10 Poms scheme, encouraged by a labour-hungry Australia willing to subsidise their passage and determined to preserve Australian whiteness. But money frequently is no longer the guiding principle for today's crop of often comfortable departees from the old dart. Quality of life is the new holy grail; many can fall back on sizeable cash reserves accumulated during boom times.
Not everyone is invited to the party though. In a world where sophisticated immigration policies have been tailored to the needs of individual labour markets, the door is open only to a "migrant elite" with specified skills. Unlike earlier generations, large numbers have no intention of returning to Britain.
Typical are members of the Mercer family from the Wirral, north-western England, who are set to move to Australia this year. "My expectation is that Australia is a land of opportunities where hard work will be recognised in a way that I think is taken for granted here," says Tony Mercer, 31, whose property business went bust in the economic storm last year.
An aircraft engineer by trade, his skills did not meet the qualifying criteria because he had not used them for years. Instead, the Mercers secured the points needed to move to Australia because his hairdresser wife Jane's skills are in demand. With Samuel, 7, and Jessica, 4, the Mercers have chosen Adelaide. Aside from air fares, a family of four is likely to pay about $10,000 in the visa application process, a system the Mercers describe as "a minefield".
Unsurprisingly, inquiries have shot up at the Emigration Group, a British company employing former Australian immigration staff who help with visa applications. "More people are having serious concerns about the future of this country," says an Emigration Group director, Paul Arthur. Increasingly his customers are young, middle-class professionals citing high taxes, poor weather and poor services as reasons for emigrating. The vast majority are homeowners, although the stagnant property market has meant some are biding their time before they raise the capital needed.
Another option for those wanting to emigrate is to study overseas. One British company, Study Options, has taken on extra staff to place Britons in Australian and New Zealand universities. Co-founder Stefan Watts reports a surge in business from professionals wanting to ride out the recession by taking time to study. Mr Watts sees more clients who are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and time poor. Many look forward to returning to a country they once backpacked around and are unfazed at getting little or no support to pay fees such as the typical $17,000 for undergraduate degree courses.
Will Morrin, a 38-year-old from Glasgow who was made redundant last year from his job as a broker, is about to embark on a three-year radiography degree at Newcastle in NSW, even though he was accepted for a similar degree in Britain with no fees to pay. "I have savings and had been doing a bit of thinking so I sold the car and the house. Weighing it up, what's important is the quality of life," he says. "Weather is the No.1 draw and getting away from the rat race. Things in the UK will only get worse once interest rates kick in." Once qualified in a sought-after profession, he may stay for four years to qualify for Australian citizenship or move to Canada, another economic lifeboat of choice for many...
Traditionally Britons emigrated in good years and stayed put in uncertain economic times. The sign from this recession, however, is a bucking of those traditions. Immigration peaked in 2007 and began to decline early last year, but picked up again in the second half of 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 165,000 British nationals had emigrated in the first seven months of last year.
This year's yet-to-be published Brits Abroad report by the Institute for Public Policy Research will show most British migrants are highly skilled, although the net loss of such workers seems to be decreasing. Work, lifestyle and adventure are listed as the three main reasons for leaving. The big surprise, however, is in the flexibility afforded by technologies that promote and facilitate remote working. More people are having their cake and eating it, emigrating while retaining jobs back in Britain.
SOURCE
More British bungling: "New vehicles purchased to protect British troops in Afghanistan have already been rejected as unsafe by the US military. The vehicles failed basic 'survivability' tests, which showed soldiers would be left vulnerable to roadside bombs, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. But although the Pentagon rejected them, the Ministry of Defence has ordered 262 to replace the controversial Snatch Land Rovers. In contrast, the Americans have now ordered a more robust model - at half the 600,000 cost of the vehicle the British have dubbed the 'Husky'. The disclosure, at the end of the blackest week for British forces in Afghanistan, came as Gordon Brown responded to growing anger over the death toll by promising to improve troops' equipment.
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.
Teenage rapist charged with new sex attack just eight days after judge let him walk free. One often gets the impression that the only serious offence in Leftist Britain is being middle class
The Attorney General has been asked to investigate the case of a rapist who was allowed to walk free from court with a community sentence - and allegedly struck again just days later. The 16-year-old, who admitted raping a minor and a series of other sexual offences, is accused of committing a further rape just eight days after his release. The teenager - who cannot be identified for legal reasons - received a three-year community rehabilitation order instead of the custodial sentence which the police and families of the victims had expected.
Immediately after the case, Crown Prosecution Service lawyers wrote to the Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, in an attempt to use the Unduly Lenient Sentence procedure to have the case considered for referral to the Court of Appeal. The rarely used measure allows the CPS to request a review of any sentence it believes falls below guidelines.
According to police sources, senior detectives involved in the case were dismayed and frustrated that the teenager was allowed to return to his home on the council estate where the first rape took place. The original case was dealt with at a Crown Court earlier this year. Following the latest alleged attack, the teenager has appeared at a youth court charged with raping a boy and causing a boy to engage in sexual activity. This time the teenager was remanded in custody for committal proceedings.
Meanwhile, his close-knit local community has been left in a state of disbelief by the chain of events, with friends and family of the victims incensed he was let out to allegedly attack again. The teenager was allegedly known by police for his sexual interest in young boys. Last night, one mother who lives locally said: 'This youth is a danger to children. It is beyond belief that he was not locked away to protect kiddies in the area. This latest incident has left everyone sickened because he has been a real threat in this area for some time. 'It is inconceivable that he was allowed to return home and back to this neighbourhood. The courts should have done something about him and we feel that we've been let down.'
As part of the three-year community rehabilitation order, the youth, who is now 16, would have received counselling sessions to address his behaviour and supervision from probation officers. The judge, who cannot be named for legal reasons, would also have ruled that the teenager be placed on the Sex Offenders Register and must attend meetings with social services. But a legal source said last night: 'What he received was the soft option and it allowed him to be released back to the area where his victims lived. 'As a result of him being freed he was arrested again, but this time he was placed in custody. The system failed because he should have been imprisoned for his initial offences. This was not a one-off offence, it was a catalogue of sexual offending.'
The accused boy's family - he lived with his mother after his parents separated - have since left the area and moved into a safe house following threats.
A neighbour claims that the boy's mother had pleaded with social services to take him into care, but was ignored. During the original Crown Court case, the judge heard that the victim had been lured to the boy's bedroom, where he was assaulted. The alarm was raised after the victim later told his parents about the incident. The court was asked to take a further three sexual assaults of minors into consideration when sentencing.
The Ministry of Justice said last night that the maximum sentence for rape is life, whatever the ages of the perpetrator or victim. If the victim is under 13, the starting point is 10 years' imprisonment. Normally a sentence falls between eight and 13 years, but a judge can waver from these guidelines if there are aggravating or mitigating circumstances. The spokesman said: 'Normally there would be a custodial sentence of some degree. Six years if possible or even four years. But to go from an eight-year minimum sentence to a community order is a huge leap. 'Our official line is that this is a matter for the courts and the Attorney General to consider a sentence which may be unduly lenient.'
The CPS confirmed that the sentence has been referred to the Attorney General for consideration under the Unduly Lenient Sentence procedure. 'It is for the Attorney General to decide whether to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal,' the spokesman added.
SOURCE
British school pupils told: Sex every day keeps the GP away
And they wonder why Britain has a huge problem of teenage pregnancy and abortion
A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a "right" to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.
The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for "safe sex" and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.
The document, called Pleasure, has been drawn up by NHS Sheffield, although it is also being circulated outside the city.
Alongside the slogan "an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away", it says: "Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes' physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?"
Steve Slack, director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield, who is one of the authors, argues that, far from promoting teenage sex, it could encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience.
Slack believes that as long as teenagers are fully informed about sex and are making their decisions free of peer pressure and as part of a caring relationship, they have as much right as an adult to a good sex life.
Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, Berkshire, who introduced classes in emotional wellbeing, said the approach was "deplorable".
SOURCE
Britain's young generation can now not add up
Huge decline in numeracy
When the Bamberger family opened a haberdashery 65 years ago, they insisted their staff use mental arithmetic to price up customers' purchases. Despite the arrival of calculators, that attitude has remained unchanged over the intervening years. But now the family finds itself facing an unexpected maths problem - most youngsters it would like to employ are incapable of working out sums in their heads.
Colin Bamberger, 82, whose parents founded the Remnant Shop in 1944, said that less than one in ten applicants are now able to solve basic maths problems without turning to a calculator or till. In the past, around eight in ten made the grade. Mr Bamberger, who stills runs one of the family's two stores, yesterday blamed the decline on falling education standards and over-reliance on the pocket calculator. He said: 'Most of the youngsters who come to us for jobs are unemployable because they are not numerate.
'It is a sorry situation and a poor reflection on the academic qualities of young people these days. I think it shows modern teaching methods are sadly lacking. 'It is all very well using calculators but if you have not got some idea what the answer is, how do you know if you have pushed the right button? It's so easy to make a mistake. Around eight out of ten people who came to us for work were capable of doing it in the 1950s and 1960s - but now it is less than one in ten. 'You ask them how much they would charge for nine metres of material at 9.90 a metre and they fiddle about for ages.'
He said that mental arithmetic was essential in his shops because, if customers queried the final bill, staff could scribble their calculations on a piece of paper to show them how they arrived at the sum. With calculators, all customers are presented with is the final figure. 'The problem is people are not taught multiplication tables in school any more,' Mr Bamberger added. 'Paper qualifications these days are just not important to us. 'It is reflected in the fact that many of our staff are a lot older. The modern generation just don't seem to have the skill.'
The Remnant Shop was founded in 1944 by Colin's mother Betty, who sold material and haberdashery from her first-floor flat in Felixstowe, Suffolk. It proved so successful that her husband Sydney soon gave up his job as a commercial traveller to help with the business. A year later, Mr Bamberger joined the family business after studying mathematics and chemistry at Bristol University. The business expanded when his son Robert opened a second shop in Colchester in 1996. The business, which employs 28 staff, stocks 5,500 items of haberdashery, including pins, needles, ribbons and wool as well as 5,000 rolls of fabric used for curtains, crafts and dressmaking.
Robert said that even if applicants were 'massive at marketing, super at sales or even Alan Sugar's next apprentice - if they can't add up quickly in their head we won't have them'. 'My grandfather could add up a column of 50 figures in old pounds, shillings and pennies - including ha'pennies and farthings - in a matter of seconds,' he added. 'He used to insist that any staff we took on could do the same and we have carried on that practice.'
Last year, it emerged more than half of trainee teachers needed multiple attempts to pass a basic numeracy test. Although the exam was originally introduced to drive up standards, it emerged that trainees could take it as many times as they like. One reportedly took the test 28 times before passing.
SOURCE
Official British police policy: Incitement to violence is OK if Muslims do it
We read:
"In a bid to stop Muslim extremists from becoming more militant, the UK Government is set to issue a guideline for police, directing them not to charge them in many hate crime cases, a move that has created outrage amongst critics.
Guidelines will tell forces to press for conviction only in cases of clear-cut criminal acts, and refrain from proceeding when evidence of lawbreaking is "borderline."
Officers will be advised to turn a blind eye on crimes such as incitement to religious hatred or viewing extremist material on the Internet.
"For instance, where there has been incitement or someone has been on the internet there can be a grey area where there is some discretion and it would be more sensible to avoid going down the criminal route," the Daily Express quoted a White Hall source, as saying.
Critics, however, saw the move as a politically correct attempt to appease extremists who hate Britain, and warned that the move could mean Islamic radicals being give the freedom to encourage violence.
Source
Abject surrender. No equality before the law. How far can the Leftist destruction of British society go? Britain has been run by the Left for 12 years. What would 12 years of Democrat government do to America? Just the first 7 months have seen ominous changes. Fortunately, Americans get to vote every two years. The Brits have to wait five years.
Meet The Man Who Has Exposed The Great Climate Change Con Trick
An excerpt below from The Spectator, mainstream journal of British conservatism
James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that `anthropogenic global warming' is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a `first-world luxury' with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book
Imagine how wonderful the world would be if man-made global warming were just a figment of Al Gore's imagination. No more ugly wind farms to darken our sunlit uplands. No more whopping electricity bills, artificially inflated by EU-imposed carbon taxes. No longer any need to treat each warm, sunny day as though it were some terrible harbinger of ecological doom. And definitely no need for the $7.4 trillion cap and trade (carbon-trading) bill - the largest tax in American history - which President Obama and his cohorts are so assiduously trying to impose on the US economy.
Imagine no more, for your fairy godmother is here. His name is Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at Adelaide University, and he has recently published the landmark book Heaven And Earth, which is going to change forever the way we think about climate change.
`The hypothesis that human activity can create global warming is extraordinary because it is contrary to validated knowledge from solar physics, astronomy, history, archaeology and geology,' says Plimer, and while his thesis is not new, you're unlikely to have heard it expressed with quite such vigour, certitude or wide-ranging scientific authority. Where fellow sceptics like Bjorn Lomborg or Lord Lawson of Blaby are prepared cautiously to endorse the International Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) more modest predictions, Plimer will cede no ground whatsoever. Anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory, he argues, is the biggest, most dangerous and ruinously expensive con trick in history.
To find out why, let's meet the good professor. He's a tanned, rugged, white-haired sixtysomething - courteous and jolly but combative when he needs to be - glowing with the health of a man who spends half his life on field expeditions to Iran, Turkey and his beloved Outback. And he's sitting in my garden drinking tea on exactly the kind of day the likes of the Guardian's George Monbiot would probably like to ban. A lovely warm sunny one.
So go on then, Prof. What makes you sure that you're right and all those scientists out there saying the opposite are wrong? `I'm a geologist. We geologists have always recognised that climate changes over time. Where we differ from a lot of people pushing AGW is in our understanding of scale. They're only interested in the last 150 years. Our time frame is 4,567 million years. So what they're doing is the equivalent of trying to extrapolate the plot of Casablanca from one tiny bit of the love scene. And you can't. It doesn't work.'
What Heaven And Earth sets out to do is restore a sense of scientific perspective to a debate which has been hijacked by `politicians, environmental activists and opportunists'. It points out, for example, that polar ice has been present on earth for less than 20 per cent of geological time; that extinctions of life are normal; that climate changes are cyclical and random; that the CO2 in the atmosphere - to which human activity contributes the tiniest fraction - is only 0.001 per cent of the total CO2 held in the oceans, surface rocks, air, soils and life; that CO2 is not a pollutant but a plant food; that the earth's warmer periods - such as when the Romans grew grapes and citrus trees as far north as Hadrian's Wall - were times of wealth and plenty.
All this is scientific fact - which is more than you can say for any of the computer models turning out doomsday scenarios about inexorably rising temperatures, sinking islands and collapsing ice shelves. Plimer doesn't trust them because they seem to have little if any basis in observed reality.
`I'm a natural scientist. I'm out there every day, buried up to my neck in sh**, collecting raw data. And that's why I'm so sceptical of these models, which have nothing to do with science or empiricism but are about torturing the data till it finally confesses. None of them predicted this current period we're in of global cooling. There is no problem with global warming. It stopped in 1998. The last two years of global cooling have erased nearly 30 years of temperature increase.'
Plimer's uncompromising position has not made him popular. `They say I rape cows, eat babies, that I know nothing about anything. My favourite letter was the one that said: "Dear sir, drop dead". I've also had a demo in Sydney outside one of my book launches, and I've had mothers coming up to me with two-year-old children in their arms saying: "Don't you have any kind of morality? This child's future is being destroyed.''' Plimer's response to the last one is typically robust. `If you're so concerned, why did you breed?'
This no-nonsense approach may owe something to the young Ian's straitened Sydney upbringing. His father was crippled with MS, leaving his mother to raise three children on a schoolteacher's wage. `We couldn't afford a TV - not that TV even arrived in Australia till 1956. We'd use the same brown paper bag over and over again for our school lunches, always turn off the lights, not because of some moral imperative but out of sheer bloody necessity.'
One of the things that so irks him about modern environmentalism is that it is driven by people who are `too wealthy'. `When I try explaining "global warming" to people in Iran or Turkey they have no idea what I'm talking about. Their life is about getting through to the next day, finding their next meal. Eco-guilt is a first-world luxury. It's the new religion for urban populations which have lost their faith in Christianity. The IPCC report is their Bible. Al Gore and Lord Stern are their prophets.'
More HERE
Everyone in Britain will soon get untested vaccine against swine flu
This seems amazingly precipitous. The reasoning is clearly that MOST people will be OK and damn the minority. I think I would rather take my chances with the flu rather than risk Guillain-Barr syndrome
The NHS is preparing to vaccinate the entire population against swine flu after the disease claimed the life of its first healthy British patient. A new vaccine is expected to arrive in Britain in the next few weeks and could be fast-tracked through regulatory approval in five days. As many as 20m people could be inoculated this year. Ministers have secured up to 90m doses, and the rest of the population is likely to be offered vaccinations next year.
A man from Essex was confirmed on Friday as the first person without underlying health problems to have died from the virus. The health department said most people with the virus had only mild symptoms.
Peter Holden, the British Medical Association's lead negotiator on swine flu, said GPs' surgeries were ready for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years. "If this virus does [mutate], it can get a lot more nasty, and the idea is to give people immunity. But the sheer logistics of dealing with 60m people can't be underestimated," he said. The health department said a vaccination programme would be drawn up based on expert advice.
The path of a popular medicine from the laboratory to the chemist or doctor's surgery can involve years of clinical trials on a select group of patients. When the new vaccine for swine flu arrives in Britain, regulators said this weekend, it could be approved for use in just five days.
Regulators at the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) said the fast-tracked procedure has involved clinical trials of a "mock-up" vaccine similar to the one that will be used for the biggest mass vaccination programme in generations. It will be introduced into the general population while regulators continue to carry out simultaneous clinical trials.
The first patients in the queue for the jab - being supplied to the UK by GSK and Baxter Healthcare - may understandably be a little nervous at any possible side effects. A mass vaccination campaign against swine flu in America was halted in the 1970s after some people suffered Guillain-Barr syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system.
However, regulators said fast-tracking would not be at the expense of patient safety. "The vaccines are authorised with a detailed risk management plan," the EMEA said. "There is quite a body of evidence regarding safety on the trials of the mock-up, and the actual vaccine could be assessed in five days."
The UK government has ordered enough vaccine to cover the entire population. GPs are being told to prepare for a nationwide vaccination campaign. Dr Peter Holden, the British Medical Association's lead negotiator on swine flu, who has been attending Department of Health meetings on the outbreak, said GPs' surgeries were prepared for one of the biggest vaccination campaigns in almost 50 years.
He said although swine flu was not causing serious illness in patients, health officials were eager to start a mass vaccination campaign, starting first on priority groups. First, the jabs would reduce the chances of a shortage of hospital beds because of people suffering from swine flu. Second, it would reduce the effect on the economy by ensuring workers were protected from the virus. "The high-risk groups will be done at GPs' surgeries. People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent."
Holden said it was likely the elderly would be given their seasonal flu jab as well as the swine flu vaccination. The new vaccine is likely to require two doses.
Details of the inoculation plans emerged after the death of a patient, reportedly a middle-aged man, at a hospital in the Basildon area of Essex. The victim had no underlying health problems, but officials say there is no evidence the swine flu virus had mutated into a more dangerous strain.
Holden said it would be the biggest campaign in response to an outbreak since mass vaccination against smallpox in 1962. He said surgeries would be aiming to inoculate about 30 people an hour in a "military-style operation". The Department of Health said it had still not finalised which groups would be vaccinated first, but children, frontline health workers, people with underlying illnesses and the elderly are likely to take priority.
The European Commission is also identifying population groups which it believes should get priority. It is keen to ensure that countries such as the UK, which had ordered supplies of the vaccine in advance, do not cause inequities in treatment elsewhere in Europe. It warned health ministers in a note circulated last month that if the vaccines were more readily available in some countries it could cause "vaccine tourism/shopping in other member states".
About 15 people have died of swine flu in Britain, but most of those infected get only mild symptoms. According to the latest figures from the Health Protection Agency, the UK has had 9,718 confirmed cases of the disease.
SOURCE
More Britons are emigrating to Australia
More Britons are emigrating, and they don't have to be young and carefree to join the exodus. Consider the choices of Britons joining the 2.26 million jobless queue, with rain outside and peeling paint within. If they are of a generation that enjoyed the sun-kissed, carefree bliss of the backpacker trail, this increasingly is the moment to swap recession-hit Britain for balmy and relatively buoyant Australia. British unemployment has reached 7.2 per cent, a 12-year high, and thousands of people are preparing to follow the masses of Australians going home to an economy which has largely avoided recession.
There is nothing new about British immigration, of course. Tens of thousands arrived under the postwar 10 Poms scheme, encouraged by a labour-hungry Australia willing to subsidise their passage and determined to preserve Australian whiteness. But money frequently is no longer the guiding principle for today's crop of often comfortable departees from the old dart. Quality of life is the new holy grail; many can fall back on sizeable cash reserves accumulated during boom times.
Not everyone is invited to the party though. In a world where sophisticated immigration policies have been tailored to the needs of individual labour markets, the door is open only to a "migrant elite" with specified skills. Unlike earlier generations, large numbers have no intention of returning to Britain.
Typical are members of the Mercer family from the Wirral, north-western England, who are set to move to Australia this year. "My expectation is that Australia is a land of opportunities where hard work will be recognised in a way that I think is taken for granted here," says Tony Mercer, 31, whose property business went bust in the economic storm last year.
An aircraft engineer by trade, his skills did not meet the qualifying criteria because he had not used them for years. Instead, the Mercers secured the points needed to move to Australia because his hairdresser wife Jane's skills are in demand. With Samuel, 7, and Jessica, 4, the Mercers have chosen Adelaide. Aside from air fares, a family of four is likely to pay about $10,000 in the visa application process, a system the Mercers describe as "a minefield".
Unsurprisingly, inquiries have shot up at the Emigration Group, a British company employing former Australian immigration staff who help with visa applications. "More people are having serious concerns about the future of this country," says an Emigration Group director, Paul Arthur. Increasingly his customers are young, middle-class professionals citing high taxes, poor weather and poor services as reasons for emigrating. The vast majority are homeowners, although the stagnant property market has meant some are biding their time before they raise the capital needed.
Another option for those wanting to emigrate is to study overseas. One British company, Study Options, has taken on extra staff to place Britons in Australian and New Zealand universities. Co-founder Stefan Watts reports a surge in business from professionals wanting to ride out the recession by taking time to study. Mr Watts sees more clients who are older, in their late 20s or 30s, and time poor. Many look forward to returning to a country they once backpacked around and are unfazed at getting little or no support to pay fees such as the typical $17,000 for undergraduate degree courses.
Will Morrin, a 38-year-old from Glasgow who was made redundant last year from his job as a broker, is about to embark on a three-year radiography degree at Newcastle in NSW, even though he was accepted for a similar degree in Britain with no fees to pay. "I have savings and had been doing a bit of thinking so I sold the car and the house. Weighing it up, what's important is the quality of life," he says. "Weather is the No.1 draw and getting away from the rat race. Things in the UK will only get worse once interest rates kick in." Once qualified in a sought-after profession, he may stay for four years to qualify for Australian citizenship or move to Canada, another economic lifeboat of choice for many...
Traditionally Britons emigrated in good years and stayed put in uncertain economic times. The sign from this recession, however, is a bucking of those traditions. Immigration peaked in 2007 and began to decline early last year, but picked up again in the second half of 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. More than 165,000 British nationals had emigrated in the first seven months of last year.
This year's yet-to-be published Brits Abroad report by the Institute for Public Policy Research will show most British migrants are highly skilled, although the net loss of such workers seems to be decreasing. Work, lifestyle and adventure are listed as the three main reasons for leaving. The big surprise, however, is in the flexibility afforded by technologies that promote and facilitate remote working. More people are having their cake and eating it, emigrating while retaining jobs back in Britain.
SOURCE
More British bungling: "New vehicles purchased to protect British troops in Afghanistan have already been rejected as unsafe by the US military. The vehicles failed basic 'survivability' tests, which showed soldiers would be left vulnerable to roadside bombs, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. But although the Pentagon rejected them, the Ministry of Defence has ordered 262 to replace the controversial Snatch Land Rovers. In contrast, the Americans have now ordered a more robust model - at half the 600,000 cost of the vehicle the British have dubbed the 'Husky'. The disclosure, at the end of the blackest week for British forces in Afghanistan, came as Gordon Brown responded to growing anger over the death toll by promising to improve troops' equipment.
There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.