The Rugby World Cup 2011 and Melanie's birthday

Having had such a great time in the RWC in 2007, and influenced by the fact that the event is staged in New Zealand, I am trying hard to rally the faithful to go over for 2-3 weeks in September October.

In the meantime its Melanie's birthday today..... it feels like it was not to long ago that she was running around in circles as a 2 year old. And now... well.... she is not 2 any more.

Its Christmas - where is Toby?

And here we are, in frosty Shopshire where its darn cold. Global warming my backside. And I am writing this to allow me to post some quite excellent pitcures of Tony Gray's family (near and extended) on the basis that he is most deserving.

That'll be the LtCol Gray who managed to get his letter in The Telegraph today.

Toby - I am sitting in Steve & Nikki's reception listening to your family singing Karaoke next door. I think its Michael Jackson but to be honest its not obvious.

Maddy excelled in driving open range earlier today - unlike her grandfather who managed to stall the car even when assured "you cant stall this car".

We all support the troops over here..... Merry Christmas!

Government in crisis - there is no more money

In December 07 I put the hypothesis forward that by early in the New Year we would see signs of economic distress a lot more clearly and that pundits predicting that the UK would sail through 2008 were mistaken. I also put forward the proposition that the Labour Government would begin to take the political flak and that their budgetary response would be seen to be hugely constrained by the failure to manage spending.

Then in April 08 I put forward the prediction that the downward trend in house prices, looming inflation and recession signs were all dreadfully under-estimated by the economic pundits and that we were moving into a true housing crash and the recurrence of mainstream inflation.

In case the latest indicators have been missed…..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7443501.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7442650.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7437132.stm

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Now, continuing the theme it is time for the next piece.

I don’t see any evidence that the dreadful state of the public finances has really settled into the media or publics consciousness. Here are some pointers….
In 1989 going into the last slowdown, we were running a budget surplus of 2.1% of GDP. By 1992 we were running a deficit of 5.9% of GDP leading to massive tax rises (remember the increase of VAT on energy etc), a fiscal collapse to the tune of 8% of GDP.

Now we are in a position of 3%+ deficit – which to be honest is a lot more if you were to properly account for (a) PFI finance (b) Public Sector Pensions (c) Northern Rock and the various other minor financial slights of hand beloved of this government. Given a deficit of much more than 4-5% takes us into “banana republic” land of the Italy’s and Greece’s of this world, and given that a fiscal collapse is now upon us, what does the Government do given its already up against its own “golden rule” limits?

The painful symptoms of fiscal challenge (Nurses discontent, Police work to rule, Post Office closure programme, Teachers strikes etc) are but the first waves of a fiscal tsunami bearing down on the Brown Government and the hapless Labour MPs that make up the governing party. The FX markets are showing the early signs of nerves, marking down Sterling – as so often before the early warning indicator of Labour Government mortality.

This is like a slow motion disaster movie. The end of the great public sector “experiment” by New Labour is nearing its conclusion – and will end in a run on the pound / crisis management of the public finances and huge recriminations in the Labour movement reminiscent of the 1970’s.

By the onset of winter it will be possible to see most or all of the above more clearly.

Global Warming - stops

See this article published in December 2007 on a similar vein to my own ramblings - but this time from the distinguished source of an ex-science editor of the BBC. Spookily you have to have left the BBC to be able to say this kind of thing..... and certainly I cannot find hair nor hide of this editorial line at the BBC. Now there's a thing.

I help by taking a snapshot below....

..... but as we digest these apocalyptic comments, read the recent IPCC’s Synthesis report that says climate change could become irreversible. Witness the drama at Bali as news emerges that something is not quite right in the global warming camp.....

..... here it starts getting messy and, perhaps, a little inconvenient for some. Looking at the global temperatures as used by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the UK’s Met Office and the IPCC (and indeed Al Gore) it’s apparent that there has been a sharp rise since about 1980.

The period 1980-98 was one of rapid warming – a temperature increase of about 0.5 degrees C (CO2 rose from 340ppm to 370ppm). But since then the global temperature has been flat (whilst the CO2 has relentlessly risen from 370ppm to 380ppm). This means that the global temperature today is about 0.3 deg less than it would have been had the rapid increase continued.

For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

The explanation for the standstill has been attributed to aerosols in the atmosphere produced as a by-product of greenhouse gas emission and volcanic activity. They would have the effect of reflecting some of the incidental sunlight into space thereby reducing the greenhouse effect. Such an explanation was proposed to account for the global cooling observed between 1940 and 1978.

But things cannot be that simple......

David Whitehosue was BBC Science Correspondent 1988–1998, Science Editor BBC News Online 1998–2006 and the 2004 European Internet Journalist of the Year. He has a doctorate in astrophysics

Employment and Immigration (again)

For those still awake on the subject, you may remember a question was asked of the Labour Government. A simple question. Of the new 2m+ jobs quoted since 1997, how many have been taken by incumbent citizens?

Of which the first answer was a material majority, the remaining 800,000 taken by immigrants. However, red faces all round when Jackie Smith had to apologise on 30th October when 800,000 was revised to 1.1m.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7068291.stm

But the slightly non-mainstream "daily politics" didnt think this was the end of the story...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/the_daily_politics/7069140.stm

who pointed out quite rightly that 1.5m+ may well be defined as immigrants as the Labour figures suggested that someone who enterered the country in, say, 2002 and was given citizenship was not an immigrant (!)

Since then, the newly set-up UK statistics comission has quietly gone about dismantling most of the New Labour new figures. To no great fanfare in the pre-Christmas rush they said this;


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The government previously claimed that just 800,000 of 2.7 million jobs available to all ages had gone to foreign citizens. Employment minister Caroline Flint then apologised for this and revised the 800,000 figure to 1.1 million - still less than half the total number of jobs.

By using conflicting methods of estimating employment and population levels, only counting foreign citizens as migrants, and including jobs taken by retired people, the government gave a clouded view of the picture.

http://www.statscom.org.uk/uploads/files/other/foreign%20workers%20briefing%20note%20Dec%202007.pdf

Let me summarise their findings which take into account all people arriving after 1997;

The figures... tell a clear story. Of a total increase in employment between 1997 and 2007 of about 2.1 million (counting all over 16s)... the actual proportion of the employment increase accounted for by foreigners/migrants is over 80%.


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So there we have it. When New Labour tell the general public that they have created 2m+ jobs during their 10-year tenure, bet your mortgage that the average listener doesnt expect that between 8-9 out of 10 were taken by people new to the country. And remember that this government, with the full weight of the public service behind them, managed to get the question wrong. Twice.

Incompetence? Maybe, but perhaps the real answer wasnt all that pleasant and Labour - as often in the past - hoped to get away with a convenient lie and avoid an inconvenient truth. The truth that through a sustained decade of global economic growth we have managed to entrench more than 5m british nationals in a situation of welfare-supported unemployment and the only material way we have grown employment is via immigration.

New Deal? Not flash, just Gordon? British jobs for British workers?

And now that the going is getting tough. What now then Gordon?

All in Bali as the temperature Falls

Well, the tax-funded jamboree that was the climate conference in Bali inevitably drew the required scare stories all coincidentally launched just as the conference hit. We have the artic icecaps to melt away enitrely, this time by 2013 (which isn't far away chaps), various species exctinction and general doom-laden stuff all capped off with "its getting warmer even faster than we expected" - a statement we can now generally wheel out every time the IPPC mulit-multi-million dollar event runs into town. The new graphs point upwards, you have to strain the neck to see the peaks - mostly kicking around the +5 to +7 degrees centigrade by the far off 2100. Certainly no room for pauses in these graphs, its up, up, up and away. A quite noticeable 0.05 to 0.07 degrees per year. Every year. Year after year.

And now in 2008. So that will be up, up, up and away then? Up by 0.07? No. Up by 0.05? No. Up at all?

Err. No.

Up on last year? No
Up on 2006? 2005? 2004? 2003? 2002? No.

In fact lower than the last 6 years.

And the decadal average increase continues to mosy along at the pace it has been doing since the switch in temperature direction in the 1970's. Of course, that increase wont kill half the planet and doesnt justify the $2bn spend per annum that is now at stake for those at the IPCC, setting aside the literal trillion dollar stakes at play in the lobbyists for grants in new age fuels (see ethanol effect on worldwide grain prices - some people are making a lot of money).

Obviously undeterred by this somewhat contradictory and irritating fact;

The Hadley Centre's head of climate prediction, Vicky Pope, who is at the Bali talks, said the data

"confirmed the need for swift action to combat further rises in global temperatures because of human behaviour."

"What we are seeing is a confirmation of the warming trend seen by the IPCC reports,"

said Micael Jarraud overseer of the 'landmark' IPCC assessment.

And, well they would, would't they? Not exactly a career-enhancing approach to say much else really. Not when you are surrounded by an audience that erupts into cheering and standing ovations when Al Gore makes a speech. That'll be all the hard-headed fact-based scientists then?

I will leave this subject at the start of 2008 with wise words from professor Patrick J. Michaels, much reviled head of environmental science at the University of Virginia.

"... the resultant exaggerations become tiresome, and life goes on. Decades of doom-saying about Global Warming collide with decades of prosperity. People notice and increasingly disregard science and scientists, a process that has already invaded several aspects of our lives. This is the ultimate tragedy that this predictable distortion of global warming causes: a society that can no longer rely on the wisdom of science can only be governed by irrationality and fear."

Education decline exposed again

Back in 2005 I said this....

The most recent comparison of international achievement, called the ‘world education league’ by the press, was the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) [ http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/63/34002454.pdf ] which gives figures for 41 countries in 2000 and 2003. Between those years, the UK dropped from fourth in science to 11th, from seventh in reading to 11th and from eighth in maths to 18th. However.....

..... scandalously the UK did not send enough data for the study. It was THE ONLY OECD country to fail in this regard and the ONLY Country (out of 41) to do so. As a result of which the UK Government has been able to deny the drop has any validity. This is even when suspicion is clear that it was the best schools that sent in their results and so the UK performance in comparison to our international competitors is probably even worse. It is also suspicious that the government made no attempt to rectify this situation, odd when the report would have been published just before the election to no doubt inform the electorate of the Labour governments educational achievements.

Roll on to 2007 (had to dig a bit for this as obviously not a "top story" for the BBC (instead we have a small pilot scheme on dsylexia - news management from the New Labour PR aided by the BBC machine) but I did find it at last....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7115692.stm

We were 8th in Maths in 2000. We were 18th in the 2003 survey although the government denied the validity of that survey (see above). We are now 24th. In literacy down to 17th and so it goes on.

Of course, the New Labour ministers went into desperate spin overdrive, having presided over a near tripling of the educational budget - primarily over the 2000-2006 period in question. However, questioning the survey and claiming that the government will "intervene more when pupils are struggling" hardly fill one with confidence. The last thing I would want for my children is this government "intervening" more often.

Not only did we drop in relative terms, we dropped in absolute terms. Take Maths - down from a absolute score of 529 to 495. Then maybe someone from our educational establishment was on hand to explain the substantial increase in GCSE results over the same period? Nope, thought not. Maybe later.

www.oecd.org

With all this data available some interesting research is possible. If you get into the detail of the outcome, there is fascinating information on the factors statistically most important when looking at improvement in performance.

Top Factor - Headmaster perceives availability of high quality teaching staff
2nd Factor - Local competition between schools
3rd Factor - Schools autonomy when choosing spending

All of these have a clear link - more of these factors drives up performance of schools. All this seems straightforward - its about teacher quality, local freedoms and competition/choice.

Then we have the only 2 factors that when they occur, performance tends to go (slightly) down.

2nd Last - Additional public funding
Bottom - Headmaster perceives difficult to recruit good staff

And so, more funding from the center (as opposed to more funding privately), the results get marginally worse. And this certainly correlates with the UK findings where we have thrown public money at state schools only to find that, when objectively measured by a non-UK Department of Education body, results are getting worse.

Not just worse compared with other countries - just plain worse.

Our police and media leaders let us down again

In this country we have a proud tradition of avoiding extremism. In the 30's our fascist party was a joke, largely ridiculed and ignored by the people though somewhat indulged by elements of the wealthier classes.

The rise of the danegerous and unpleasant BNP as a sustainable and electorally succesful force is a relatively recent phenomenon. We are still able to be proud of our countries tolerance - we dont have Le Pen nor do we have a society that would put Le Pen in 2nd place in presedential elections. But we have seen the rise of the BNP in a British society that has never before given material support to such a fringe entity.

What we see below is an illustration of why this is happening.

The BBC Story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7092401.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7092711.stm

This was a real puzzle. Here we had 12-year old girls being assaulted in the most disgraceful manner and the police response was, to say the least, odd.

The real story.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/05/21/ngroom21.xml

When will the politically correct classes figure this out? The way to defeat racism in our country is to have laws that are absolutely blind to a persons enthnicity. When average people in this county discover - as they always do - that the forces of law and the powers in the media conspire to hide facts purely on race grounds, how can this not feed resentment and give legitimacy to the claims of the odious BNP?

Of course, if the ethnicity of the people involved in this case were reversed, I have no doubt that our leaders response would equally be reversed and the full weight of the media and law would bear down on any guilty parties. A response we would all applaud. It beggars belief that we have reached a stage where children are left with less protection for reasons of political correctness.

RJ

Shame on New Labour

When I first read the contents of the section below - many months ago - I actually thought it was probably wrong. To my great disgust and anger I now believe what is written below is factually accurate;

The story of Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, a British Paratrooper who lost both of his legs fighting on behalf of the British Government in Afghanistan. And you remember - Afghanistan is the war that the great John Reid announced with the statement "no bullets will be fired".


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What they found at Selly Oak hospital– which is part of the University Hospital Birmingham NHS foundation trust but also houses the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine – was profoundly shocking.

The National Health Service care was extremely good but the soldiers had no dedicated ward. Colleagues were not allowed to visit wearing uniform for fear of upsetting Muslim visitors and staff. Once their emergency treatment ended, even those as badly injured as Parkinson would have to join the NHS waiting list for the physiotherapy they needed, along with everyone else, despite having fought for their country.

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When I was in America, there is one thing that strikes you - the clear support for their troops. The American people are clearly able to distinguish between their support for the army and support for the political decisions behind the war.

However, in our country, it appears that the sensitivities of muslims are more important than support for our injured soldiers.

There is a great well spring of largely untapped support for our troops in the general population. It rises up spontaneously whenever it has the opportunity - and with no support at all from our political leaders. The anger that people feel about the way this government and its state agents treat our soldiers bubbles under the surface. This Labour Government is a disgrace.

A seminal period for British Politics

I believe we are at the beginning of a seminal period in British Politics.

For 15 years we have been living in good times - the fruits of the Thatcher reforms of the 80's and sensible macro-economic management post-ERM by the Tory administration of Clark and late 90's Brown. All of this combined with very benign worldwide conditions as the BRIC countries embraced market economics. In such happy times, the public are rarely responsive to "tough choices" and their support will happily provided to those political parties that tell them what they want to hear. And what people, quite reasonably, want to hear is that they can have fairness, equality, good health and education services and all with a strong economy based on higher (but not too high) taxes.

And so, slowly but surely, we have had 20st Century Welfarism taken to its logical conclusion. We have had the surge of "investment" in public services. We have had political correctness become the language of political discourse. And we have Brown vs. Cameron making a good impression of Tweedledum and Tweedledee.


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For those that can recall, in the mid-70's nobody in the public was asking for substantial free-market reforms, monetarism, employment legislation to tame the unions, privatisation, floating the currency and massive direct tax cuts. And yet, it was the intellectual debate on these very topics - taken into the public arena - that set the scene for the political success of these ideas when socialist economics collapsed and the public awoke to give the matter serious attention.

Today its not about economics. Its about the Welfare State. And in this sense Ray is absolutely right. Where is the debate on the failure of 20th Century Welfarism? Where are the radical alternatives being explored? And remember - in its day, nearly all of what Thatcher become known for was "radical". A metaphor of course for "people will not wear it - it won't happen".

To defend Mrs. Thatcher on her role in the 80's, it comes back to a leader for the challenge of the time. The challenge of the time was economic and what we got was 10 years of significant change on economic policy - change that moved the center of gravity of the debate to the right and change that has - by and large - been accepted. What she did not do was tackle the Welfare orthodoxy that has been in place certainly since the 60's and large parts of it since the War. To have tried to tackle this at the same time as economic reform would have broken her administration.


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Today I do see positive signs, but only signs. Most worrying is a distinct lack of courage in the conservative leadership. Perhaps they fear the relentless negative barrage that would arrive courtesy of the tax-funded BBC.

And yet here I have optimism.

I think in the coming crisis the left wing welfare orthodoxy, as championed by new Labour and its ideological allies in the BBC and the Guardian-reading classes, will be exposed as bankrupt. Those who studied the Labour Government of the late 70's will see the similarities - the intellectual exhaustion, confusion, lack of original thinking and over-riding sense of defeat - that a tide has changed. This is what we are seeing in the Brown Government. This is why when Brown talks about "sharing his vision" nothing actually comes out. When he talked about "the first 100-days" nothing actually happened. When he talks about new solutions for todays problems - they all look like the same old solutions but re-heated and re-packaged and quite often re-announced.

And I think the British people will see this, just as they are seeing through so much of the previous orthodoxy - such as multiculturalism and the benefits of immigration.

All that is now left is for the Conservative Party to get ahead of this sea change and not follow it. A good first step would be to work closely on new policy with Labour MP Frank Field and others on the left who are concerned about society. If Cameron fails to take advantage of the best opportunity in a generation to change the country to meet the real challenges of the 21st century, Cameron and his friends will not be forgiven.

All Eyes on January

The chance of Labour remaining in power now rests squarely on the economy, and here the last vestiges of support for new-Labours economic record will be blown away. I have believed for a year or so that there is a downturn coming and that the downturn will expose Labour economic and social philosophy as bankrupt.

The fact that there will be a recession is not particularly the fault of the Labour Government. Business cycles happen, and macro economic policy has at least benefited from the independence of the BoE (for which Labour should get credit). The fault lies squarely with Labour however when it comes to public spending and the underlying state of public finances.

When the last recession hit, the Major Government was able to respond with huge increases in spending - as it entered the recession having built up government surplus during the good years. This allowed the Major administration to win the 1992 election despite the downturn. However, in contrast, New Labour has raised spending (now higher than Germany's) and borrowing to an extent that leaves it horribly exposed when the economy turns down. And the resulting government squeeze on spending during a time of falling revenues will subsequently shine a harsh light on the dreadful nature of our Labour Welfare State. With 5.3m people of working age on benefits, with hugely inefficient public sector monolithic public services swallowing money and asking for more, with rising numbers of teenages leaving school without the ability to properly read/write - there will be no money to respond. And then the intellectuall bankrupcy of the welfarism of Brown and the left cannot be hidden. No longer will they be able to say with any coherence that "under-investment" is the issue, no longer will they be able to hide the crises in our welfare state by throwing more tax-payers money at the problem. It will be terribly messy, and will bear comparison with the Winter of Discontent that did for economic socialism in the late 70s. Expect this time, it will be the welfare socialism that gets exposed as broken.

We can already feel the tremours of the approaching downturn. We are now in our traditional pre-christmas rush and expect the UK consumer to have one last hurrah as Christmas is often seen as an obligation to spend not an option. Then watch what happens in the gloom of January and February - house price falls, rising unemployment, collapsing government revenues, spending "cuts", fractious public sector unions and so on. The last 2 years of Brown government will not be happy ones.

On the bright side, the Conservative Party has a clear opportunity to lay out a vision for something different, and to catch the public mood for a serious change in direction. They have 2 years to do it. If Thatcher was able to do this from 1977-1979 then we can but hope that Cameron and Co. can do the same thirty years and a generation later.

We were there

Who would have believed it. Friends and Family at the Rugby World Cup in Marseilles, to watch England beat Australia in a complete upset. Great weather, great food, good location and the right result. And Les Blues beat the All Blacks. Awesome.

And whats more, we get home to find a week later that England are in the final. Fantastic!

All we really needed was Wales to have beaten Fiji (and then to have helpfully put paid to the Boks) and all would have been perfect.

Oh well, this will have to do.

The money is running out

In the last Sunday Times, the economic analysis of the great New Labour Comprehensive Spending Review (5 year plan et al) nailed the essential point - the grim state of public finances.

Where there is cause for concern is over the public finances. When critics say Britain has the biggest cyclically-adjusted budget deficit of any EU member (preenlargement) they are right. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Ireland, Spain, Luxembourg and Belgium have structural surpluses. Britain has a bigger deficit than Italy or Greece.

The Treasury adding billions of borrowing each time it revisits the numbers, as Darling did to the tune of £16 billion over five years last week. In normal circumstances we would be talking of tax rises to close the gap, not slipping the NHS an extra £2 billion in 2010 to make the numbers look better. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said there was now a 44% chance of government debt exceeding the 40% ceiling in 2010-11.

I am of the firm belief that there will be a significant revision of opinion on the Brown tenure (particularly 2000-present) predicated on a belated realisation that;

• Despite enjoying a period of exceptional worldwide growth, UK economic growth as seen by the public (average gdp/head not absolute gdp) is slowing to a crawl
• A large part of this growth has been a result of unsustainable public expenditure. Large scale Government borrowing is now structural.
• A significant aspect of headline GDP growth has resulted from unprecedented immigration, which even the government has admitted has unclear benefits in terms of income/head (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7047610.stm)
• Compensating benefits in public service delivery are noticeable by their absence

We are in the process of turning a corner, although it may still be many months or even a year or so before most people can look back and recognise that things changed in 2007. The Gordon Brown economic experiment is coming to an ignominious end. Its death will probably be drawn out and ugly as the wheels of the New Labour machine fall off.

A downturn of any material nature will horribly expose the Government finances which are now structurally in deep debt

• The public appetite for increased taxation has vanished
• The Brown Government tactic of shouting down opposition suggestions of tax cuts with the usual shroud waving and cries of "cuts" has lost its political force.
• The arguments of the left are losing ethical and moral potency as Government led monolithic services let down those most in need (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/7046442.stm)

All a Tory opposition now has to do is focus on the issues that matter to the public and articulate the financial and moral case for;

• Reduction in government spending through change in the way public services are provided
• Significant reduction in the role of the State across society, greater emphasis on family and private enterprise
• Significantly reducing the incentives that lead to 5 million people in the UK of working age that are economically inactive

The Left has run out of ideas and is having a crisis of confidence (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7042780.stm) as its core public service programmes have proven to be expensive white elephants (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/28/nlearn128.xml). Its time the Right had the confidence to move the debate onward.

Of course, whether Cameron & Co will do this is another matter. The battles of the 1980's were prepared by the intellectual debate led by Keith Joseph in the 1970's. The battles ahead relate to true and radical public service reform and a fundamental reassement of the role of the state. A conservative party will win on these issues. Not on global warming. Not on African poverty. Not on windmills on roofs, windfarms, taxes on large cars, taxing supermarket parking or taxing flights to Spain.

BBC bias recognised by - the BBC!

Things are looking up. Marginally.

There was a time when the bias in the BBC was never discussed by the corporation. Now, with the bias so evident and large sections of the public awake to the issue, the BBC is now seeking to defend its own position in its own news coverage. See today;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/08/red_tape_reporting.html

As Helen Boaden breaks for cover in the face of blog coverage of recent Conservative proposals to reduce red-tape. As interesting as the report is the comment on her article from the public which appears to run 9-1 against the BBC.

Meanwhile on the same day, the BBC is forced to cover the fact that one of its presenters went to a political rally for Ken Livingstone (despite the BBC asking her not to do so). Which really goes to show that what paltry safeguards the BBC tries to put in place are pretty much ignored by its senior media staff, confident in their own views and in their position in the BBC system.

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6947857.stm

What is not covered by the BBC is that its presenter's sister is a Labour parliamentary candidate for the next election. Obviously it runs in the family.

A few years ago none of this would have seen the light of day. Now, the BBC is somewhat rattled and it is increasingly difficult for the organisation to hide the evidence of the bias of both its staff and its output. I cannot see this getting any better for the BBC as long as the public and opinion formers in the non-governmental press continue to make the case against the corporation.

Floods and Global Warming

And wasnt this summer meant to be long, hot and really dry?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4269066.stm


ps. its cold. Its raining a lot. There are floods.

pps. I will buy a pint to the man who spots the first "floods - its global warming!" story

oooops.... too late.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6240594.stm

Cameron gets lost on the way to the obvious

In an amazing turn up Humphreys managed to ask a question from the right of center (well sort of).

Humphreys: Well, the problem with education is we've had 10 years of spending and it hasn't worked, what are you going to do?
Cameron: Well, the problem is that it hasn't been spent on the right things. We'd spend it better

Actually - in answer to Humphreys quesion;

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/3717744.stm

Not that our man Cameron can muster up the intellectual capacity to answer the question without the usual platitude.

Brown is prime minister. But the more interesting news for me is how Cameron's leadership is showing signs of brittleness. The loss of trust in the man rumbles on in Tory circles, we have a defection of a Tory MP (albeit an odd one) which would have been less of an issue had it not been that his criticism about Cameron standing for nothing but spin and PR was all very close to the truth. I still believe as I remarked at the time the announcement on grammar schools was a disaster. And so far, so it has proved.

Meanwhile, we have the Sutton Trust reminding us that social mobility has collapsed. So rather than ability being the gateway to educational opportunity we know clearly have wealth as the main arbitrator. This is increasingly recognised and will - over time - become accepted wisdom just as most of the Thatcher economic legacy has become accepted. But while we wait, our educational establishment fiddles and talks about better exam results....

http://education.guardian.co.uk/specialreports/grammarschools/story/0,,2110883,00.html

Sadly, the blindingly obvious reason for this improvement keeps on coming out....

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article1991393.ece

And Brown promises to introduce "streaming" into schools. Maybe its just me, but this smacks of phonics. Lets do the blindingly obvious thing that the inane educational establishment stopped doing a couple of decades ago and call it a major step forward. Why is this even a debate? How have we - as a society - let the educational "producers" make such a hash of education for so long? In a free society, the parents would never have put up with this nonsense, and the acceleration of private education (despite huge increases in costs) demonstrates that as soon as possible parents opt out of the broken comprehensive system. But still the educational neanderthals that make up the leaders in the teaching "profession" spend most of their time asking for league tables to be abolished (so we cant tell whats going on).

Global Warming is more Lobby than Science

And for those ho would like to know more and perhaps wonder why they are not aware of the counter arguments, the first link (below) explains why and here is a good snippet from the Lawson speach on the topic;

..... again, extreme weather events, such as major storms in the Gulf of Mexico, have come and gone, at irregular intervals, for as long as records exist. Katrina, which caused so much damage to New Orleans, is regularly trotted out as a consequence of man-made climate change; yet the region's worst recorded hurricane was that which devastated Galveston in 1900. Following Katrina, the world's authorities on tropical storms set up an international panel, which included the relevant expert from the Met Office here in the UK. The panel reported, earlier this year, as follows: "The main conclusion we came to was that none of these high-impact tropical cyclones could be specifically attributed to global warming."

This may not be all that surprising, given how little global warming has so far occurred; but I do not recall it featuring in Mr Gore's film. Why didnt we hear this reports conclusions on the BBC then (maybe we did and I just missed it). Its also worth noting that I am not aware that Lawson is funded by the Oil industry but then I guess you never know.

Evidence that the Global Warming lobby is not interested in the science of global warming and is exactly what it is - a lobby. This is exactly what some of us have been saying all along - and we now have evidence that a publically funded research institute is advising its GW advocates to lie..... (see below)

http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/global%20warming%204.asp

Serious critique from a serious person. Nigel Lawsons speech on the subject below;

http://www.grumpyoldsod.com/lawson%20speech%20text.asp


RJ

Is Gordon a Hypocrite

A great challenge now presents itself to Gordon, and not of the type that most people expect. And it pertains to a subject close to Gordons heart - at least based on previous behaviour and announcements. Its Education.

Now Gordon has pushed back on all of the most recent educational reforms put forward by Blair. In the early years of the Labour Government, having rolled back tentative reforms started by the Tories, Blair went on to do very little except manage British Educations decline. Of course we had targets, but these now measured the outputs of an increasingly bankrupt exam system. The Blairs, faced with the realities of this system promptly put their own families interests before principals and bussed their children across London to one of the few selective schools available.

But now back to Gordon. Having stood in the way of all recent reforms, he has been the epitomy of the kind of class-based egalitariansm that has plagued British education since the war. Remember the case of Laura Spence - a comprehensive school pupil who was rejected by Oxford despite predicting 5 A* at A-level. Rather than asking the question why is it today that so many pupils get 5 A* that Oxbridge cannot easily find the very best - Gordon made this an issue of priviledge and bias.

And so, why is this an interesting issue for Gordon now - and why does it touch on the subject of Gordon as Hypocrite?

Because, Gordons son John is reaching an age where he has to be sent to school. In inner London.

So, now Gordon has the chance to prove he is a man who walks the walk and does not just talk the talk. Here is a man who - no son of privaledge - flourished in his local Grammer school only to preside over a system that banished this school to replace it by a comprehensive. And so, in his son's catchment area there is a wealth of mulit-cultural, multi-lingual comprehensive schools so beloved (apparently) of the left.

I will watch with interest where Gordon and Sarah send John Brown.

Sitting next to Lady Thatcher at the Queens 80th Birthday parade

That fellow on the horse is my brother-in-law, LtCol Toby Gray, commander of the Guards. Fine chap that he is, he gave me front-seat tickets to the Queens 80th - apparently the Foreign Secretary's (he couldn't go). Seats next to Lady Thatcher was the offer. Sadly, the greatest Prime Minister since Churchill was a few rows back - though I said hello as she walked by. She may be old and frail, but she looked pretty lucid to me despite some of the nonsense in the press.

Melanies Godparents

A sunny day earlier this year when we had a chance to get together with Richard and Bridget. These chances don't get come around often enough.

New Zealand 2006 approaches

With our regular bi-annual Christmas and New Year trip to Australia and New Zealand approaching, here is Melanie at her Aunt Nikki's last Christmas.

You know its Christmas because of the christmas lights in the background!

And so it goes on.... immigration and Alice in Wonderland....

And so it goes on.

1. The government has recently admitted that the number of asylum seekers of unknown whereabouts is now 400,000+ as opposed to the 200,000 stated previously which itself was an increase of suggestions that it was less than 100,000. So we can probably say that its likely to be north of 1m when we are finished estimations.

2. Figures just snuck out of the Treasury identify that last year 660,000 (yes 2/3 million) of new NI numbers were given to foreign nationals. This is 2.3% of the working population of this country in one year. That equals THE ENTIRE GROWTH IN GDP.

3. While unemployment count is now steadily increasing, the Treasury (currently) denies that this is anything to do with immigration (although at last the question is actually being asked). Why, one asks, when the economy is growing so well is unemployment rising at all? Perhaps actually the underlying economic performance is actually flat but all we are seeing is the effect of a surge in foreign workers. Gordon Browns economy is actually now like stagnant Germany + immigration.

4. Well, can you believe it. In a leaked document, Junior Labour minister identifies that immigration is depressing low-income wages and that this may lead to "social problems". Who would have thought that! Can the laws of supply and demand really be true! When did the low-income voters vote for a clearly expressed policy of 2/3m new workers per annum. Err - they didn’t. And now Gordon is stuck. He can't turn the immigration tap off because his economic growth would collapse so that even the economically illiterate British Media would spot that we have a problem. He will struggle to contain public spending because 2.3% increase in (largely low income) workers drives huge leveraged increases in social spending (housing, education, policing etc).

And so this great social experiment continues - with some similarity to the now bankrupt experiment of throwing huge funds at the public NHS and Education systems.

RJ

Immigration facts

The great and the good in Britain prefer we dont have facts on this subject. However every so often they leak out. Here are some....

Britain takes more than its share of asylum seekers. We have 15% of the EUs population yet we take 29% of asylum seekers.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers recognised this when he said on the Today programme 0n 30 Dec 2002 that the UK was getting more than its proportional share of immigrants. He added, "lets share the burden so we have less in the UK and more spread
across the EU".

A key issue is not population but population density. Three-quarters of migrants to Britain go to London and the South East, already one of the most crowded areas of Europe . Indeed, England as a whole is one of the most densely populated areas of Europe (383 people per square
kilometre). This is nearly twice the level of Germany (227), four times the level of France (105) and twelve times the level of the US (29.5). Ethnic minorities now make up 29% of the population of the London region. That percentage is increasing rapidly.

Taking asylum seekers per square kilometre England was the highest in Europe. In those few countries which have a higher asylum application rate than Britain ; such as Belgium , Denmark and The Netherlands, voters have turned to extreme political parties to express their dis-pleasure at the level of immigration.

Is Immigration a good or bad thing? That is a worthy subject of debate. What should not be hidden is the fact that the current immigration numbers are historically unprecedented in their size, duration and the fact that they are not linked to a single specific global event (like the Jewish immigration of the 30's.

Some in the Labour Party get that the great multi-cultural experiment has not worked out the way the cheerleaders of immigration thought it might.... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5119892.stm

The Great NHS Experiment wobbles to an end

I remember fondly many decades ago the then Liberal politician Shirley Williams stated with certainty on Question Time that "another 2 billion pounds would solve the under-funding problems of the NHS". How time flies.

Here we are, at the fag end of the New Labour great experiment with public services. This experiment was to throw large amount of public funds at monolithic public institutions on the basis that money would cure all ills.

Well, after around 6 years of tax-funded plenty, we approach record NHS deficits and a looming strike among NHS staff protesting against feeble government attempts at reform and cost effectiveness. We are spending the same or more on health than our European partners (although a much greater proportion of our money is Government provided). Why is it then that the outcome is so much worse? Maybe it wasn't the money after all?

For the first time in living memory, a brave right-of-centre government could actually challenge the conventional wisdom that the NHS itself is not part of the solution but the main problem in delivering a 21st century healthcare system to the British people. Sadly that does not appear to be an opportunity that is being taken.

The coming era of low health spending increases will be a fascinating but painful process to observe. Succesful politicians will be those who have something new to say......

Africa: do we not have eyes that can see

Well, its been a little while now since the jamboree of the G8 has finished. Rarely has such a lot of time and money been spent on such ridiculous subjects.

Firstly we have Africa. Against all logic and evidence the West has once again determined that the solution to Africa's problems lie in throwing money at the continent. Good lord. Have we no eyes? Can we not see? If aid was the answer, would Africa not now be a superpower? Lets look at China and Nigeria. Similar economic performance in the 1970's. Since then Nigeria's wealth per capita has halved at the same time as having found huge oil wealth and receiving no less than 20% of its money from aid. China meanwhile, languished until the economic liberalisation of the 1990's. It has now an economy seven times the size in the 70's and has removed 400m people from below the poverty line. Oh, and what aid did the West send to China?

There is a lot of economic and anecdotal evidence that aid hurts. I am not talking about one-off famine relief in response to a single event. I am talking about the constant flow of western money into the hands of governments and NGO's. Take education in the poorest communities. Private schools spring up in the slums of Nigeria. Local desparately poor people scrape and save to send their offspring to get an education that by all accounts is of the highest calibre given the resource available and run by dedicated staff. Along comes the Government to set up "free schools" using Western aid. Gordon Brown visited a new one on one of his recent jaunts. Set up in a blaze of publicity, teachers are hired based on government contacts. Many teachers are not actually teachers at all - many are seen falling asleep in class. Local government ministers arrive and complain about the private schools - commenting that ignorant parents think that schools are better when you pay. An interesting comment as the minister stands beside her Mercedes. Private schools begin to fail through a fall in school attendance as the very poor are not unreasonably tempted to the "free" alternative. Although amazingly a few private schools do survive.

So, here we have a tiny example of local African business squashed in favour of Government owned aid-backed initiatives where we now create a huge inter-dependence between the political class and western aid donors. And so it goes on. Africans have been taught that the route to success is not through wealth creation but through a sophisticated aid lobby. In fact, who would want to build a agricultural business when food is dumped on the market "free". Who would want to build a retail business when local corruption is endemic and the government can come and take it away at will.

Until we stop treating Africa and Africans as a Charity case and start getting angry with its corrupt leaders Africa will remain a bsaket case. We should stop giving aid except in the case of unforseen one-off disasters. We should prevent our countries supporting the tiny elite of wealthy leaders and their families and hangers-on. We should agressively support good governance and the small number of brave democratic governments who currently observe that if you fail your people, you get more aid and the leaders get rich. And when in doubt, we should leave things alone. As Reagon once said "the most terrifyingwords in the English language are 'I'm from the Government and I'm here to help'".

Labour deception on immigration

Setting aside the rights and wrongs of immigration, what is clear is that there remains a deliberate policy by Labour to preside over a massive increase in immigration on the one hand while deceiving the people of Britain on the other.

The deception takes the form of official pronouncements that the scale of immigration is not abnormal and denouncing those who say it is as scaremongerors. It also tries to present the immigration that takes place as beneficial to the nation.

Over the past few weeks two more pieces of evidence have come to light to demonstrate this fact. Firstly you may not recall but the Home Office under the direction of its political masters tried to suggest that the entry of Eastern European countries into the EU would make only a minor impact on our net entry figures. When early concerns about long lines of "Polish plumbers" did not materialise the Governments PR machine sprang into action and claimed its estimates of no more than ten to twenty thousand were proven correct. Of course, some year on the actual figures are sneaked out. Nearly 200,000 are now expected each year for the foreseeable future. So we are some 15x more than forecast - we can either believe that the Home Office is utterly incompetent or we can believe something else. I believe it was deliberate. The Government knew exactly what it was doing when it tried to make this a non-issue before the last election. Deliberate deception by the Government on this matter is endemic and a disgrace.

The second line of attack by Labour is that mass immigration is beneficial.

Today we get detailed analysis by Cambridge University which concludes that "the economic consequences of large-scale immigration are mostly trivial, negative or transient; that the interests of vulnerable sections of the domestic population may be damaged and any small fiscal benefits are unlikely to bear comparison with immigrations substantial demographic and environmental impact". Pretty clear.

There are also some fairly uncomfortable numbers in here for those who think immigration is good for the country. It is quite clear that immigration is not homogeneous - 90% of New Zealanders and Australians are in a job while 80% of those born in Canada and the Phillipines are in work. This compares with 12% of Somalis, 30% of Angolans and 42% of the huge Bangladeshi population. The report concludes that "some immigration is very beneficial but this benefit is cancelled by the influx of low-skill migrants". As a total proportion immigrants are 50% more likely to be inactive or unemployed. Immigration may increase total GDP (and economic growth) but it does so while REDUCING the most important indicator - GDP PER HEAD.

When "The Business" Sunday paper is able to point out that average disposable income in the UK is BELOW that of Louisiana and that (prior to the Hurricane) New Orleans would have been the richest city in the UK - this is what they are talking about. The reason is that per head we are not wealthy enough. And that perhaps the biggest threat to our wealth today is the gradual climb in taxes to sustain a growing welfare state. A welfare state that is looking after a growing number of poor and unskilled.

And finally to yet again hammer the Labour myth that our current immigration is somehow the same as always, the number born and settled in the UK has DOUBLED in the last 10 years. The proportion of people born in the UK has risen from 5.75% to 7.53% with London's population now comprising 25% foreign born. And that is part of the problem - immigrants do not come here to go and live in the Shetlands. They come here to live in the South East. We are not America with ample land. The South East is now the 2nd most densely populated area in Europe (after Holland) and will soon be the the most dense. You don't have to live here to see the effect on the local infrastructure.

We need to be clear. A deliberate policy of the British Government is in action. It implies a substantial increase in our population, mostly in London and the Home Counties. It implies a level of immigration that cannot be absorbed by the host nation in a way that avoids the worst aspects of "multi-culturalism". And it is put into effect through a policy of deceipt, spin and lies.

BBC as cheerleader for Global Warming

OK, perhaps its just me. I just checked the dictionary and "evidence" is described as follows: "To render evident. To prove".

OK, the BBC website which today ran its usual pro-Global Warming agenda helpfully supported by a link to Climate Change - EVIDENCE. So with due excitement I approached the "Evidence" upon which we are being told to spend Trillions of dollars.

• Its getting warmer.
  
  A helpful graph which shows it is warmer now than in the last 200 years. Rather unfortunately it does not point out that in about 300 years ago, the Earth was experiencing the ''Little Ice Age.'' It had descended into this relatively cool period from a warm interval about 1,000 years ago known as the ''Medieval Climate Optimum.'' During the Medieval Climate Optimum, temperatures were warm enough to allow the colonization of Greenland. These colonies were abandoned after the onset of colder temperatures. For the past 300 years, global temperatures have been recovering. They are still a little below the average for the past 3,000 years. The human historical record does not report ''global warming'' catastrophes, even though temperatures have been far higher during much of the last three millennia.
  
  
• Long Term Temperate Changes.
  
  OK, here we have the word "estimated". Forgive me if estimates ARE NOT EVIDENCE.
  
  
• Rising Sea Water.
  
  And here again we have estimates to 2100. Since when were estimates evidence?
  
  
• The artic ice cap is smaller.
  
  OK, another great graph where the timescale is everything. So what actual evidence do we have?
  
  "A landmark survey published in November 1997 concluded that although this warming has likely been influenced by natural forces, including decreased volcanic activity, increased solar irradiance and natural variability in the climate system itself, the best explanation for most of the warming after 1920 is increasing levels of greenhouse gases" -- which means we have many explanations.
  
  
• Fossil Fuel emmissions are up.
  
  So are the number of TV Channels. I can plot a graph demonstrating quite clearly that the number of TV channels available to the global population have risen sharply and continue to rise. It has happened over the same period as warming! Clearly evidence that global warming is caused by people watching too many TV channels.
  
  Yup.
  
  Is it me, or do people not understand the difference between correlation and causation?
  
  
• What if carbon emmissions were reduced?
  
  Now I am completely lost. In this section on "evidence for Global Warming" we have a set of graphs based on another set of computer projections.
  

So in summary, as we proceed down the path of spending huge sums of money, castigating politicans (e.g. Bush) who do not fall into line with conventional wisdom, the BBC with all of its resources available presents the "Evidence" for man made global warming as follows:

1. Its getting warmer. Though it was warmer still 500 years ago.
2. The ice cap is smaller (yawn)
3. Man creates CO2.
4. Man is capable of creating complex computer models.

Well, there we have it. Hold on to your wallets.

Words of Wisdom

Today a quote from Milton Friedman (which I recall from his book "Free to Choose).

" There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.

Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.

Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!

Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income. "

Five reasons why the French are lost

The French are a great people and France is a great Nation. In the early 19th Century they ruled a continent and Napoleon is one of the worlds significant historical figures. Yet you can't help but think that by the end of the 20th Century they are a nation that has truly lost its way.

For a period they were able to use the muscle of the European Union as a vehicle for achieving their own ends. But that time has come and gone. They are now uncertain of Europe, they fear globalisation, their economy remains stuck in the mire and their President has lost the confidence of his people.

And in case there was any doubt, five reasons why the French are lost;

• They don't speak English
• They are hopelessly anti-American
• They often vote for Le Pen in large numbers
• They believe in the power of a large State
• De Villepin

If it wasn't for their food, they would have no redeeming features.

Sheryl and I at Christmas in New Zealand. Melanie took the photograph which perhaps explains why you can't see the tops of our heads. We brought her a camera for her 8th birthday this year so we are hoping for better things next time round.... 

Labour education policy.... the mess gets even worse....

Bright pupils let down by State Schools

Position;

Reseach commissioned by the Government shows that the brightest pupils at primary school go on to under-achieve in the comprehensive system. According to the research the most politically explosive finding was the direct relationship between the number of bright children in a school and individual achievement.

The abolition of grammar schools, the Labour Governments withdrawal of the assisted places scheme and the general disapproval of "streaming" within the education establishment has left bright primary school pupils to substantially under-achieve in secondary education.

OK, so get this;

• How is it that in 2005 the Government can be surprised at this finding when any bloody idiot knows this.
• How is it that it is "politically explosive"?
• Can it be that only the myopic education establishment, one of the first and last bastions of the left-wing "equality agenda", can possibly be challenged by this finding?
• Can it be that the education establishment, allowed only to flourish as a result of being in the government controlled, producer monopoly has allowed GENERATIONS of school kids to be let down.
• Can it be that this system, rotten to the core, has particularly let down the bright sons and daughters of poor families who would, in previous generations (like my father as it happens) have climbed out of poverty as a result of a search for academic excellence fostered by the meritocratic grammar schools? How likely is it that I would still be in a council estate in South Wales if my father had been born 20 years later?
• Did I do well also because I was in a comprehensive school that "streamed" its pupils. Was my school unique in largely abandoning "streaming" not long after I left (late 1970's).
• Can it be that this is a reason why the UK's social mobility ranking has collapsed over the past 25 years according to a recent survey? It is now far more likely that wealth of parents bring success as compared with our parents generation.
• Can it be that the governments response to this will be to continue to bully the Universities into accepting poorer results thereby creating a perverse incentive to have kids in bad schools in the latest part of their secondary schoolingl life?

While I can buy my daughter out of this disgraceful system, most people cannot. At the same time our schools are generating teenage girls whose under-age pregnancy figures are the worst in Europe. Is this the government who targeted a 50% reduction by 2010 and who saw yet another increase this year?

• Can this be the education system whose legions of "special advisors" send by the education establishment to combat this matter (another example of where our tax funded increases in education actually goes) has found that those areas with the greatest amount spent on special advisors had the greatest INCREASE in teenage pregnancy?
• Is this the year that three sisters aged 12, 14 and 16 all had babies?
• Did our "special advisor" who is paid for by our taxes say in response; "The age is not what is relevant, it's the quality of the parenting and the support given to enable them to be effective parents."

Are we Alice? Are we in Wonderland?

Can I have my taxes back please.

Melanie and I in New Zealand - Christmas 2005 

The BBC is biased

There has been some debate about whether the BBC bias is provable.

It is.

There is an excellent report from the Centre of Policy Studies from which I draw out several items starting with the introduction to Gordon Brown (Labour conference 2004) on Today. It was quick and punchy;

***

John Humphrys: When Gordon Brown rises to his feet here in Brighton, to make his big conference speech today, he will do so as the longest serving chancellor for nearly two centuries. And, as the most successful chancellor the Labour Party has ever had. You’d have trouble finding a delegate here or an economist anywhere who would argue with that.

****

Setting aside the extraordinary implication that every economist in the world links Gordon Brown with success this compares with the introduction to Oliver Letwin after the Tory conference (2004) on Today. It was a long ramble of which elements below....

.... you don’t get away with that any more. The media, think tanks like the Institute for Fiscal Studies – they’ll expose unaffordable plans. So the first question for any party is – do the sums add up.... So on Friday, the Conservatives promised to quote to spend 2.7 billion pounds more than Labour on defence. This sounded implausible as the Conservatives are planning to restrain defence spending.... ....It brings to mind an old war joke – that Hitler asked his key scientists to find a way of making margarine out of manure. The scientists went away with this impossible task and after a long delay Hitler demanded to know what progress they had made.....

*****

And in the interviews themselves....

The longest that Oliver Letwin was allowed to speak for uninterrupted was 112 words, compared to 342 words for Gordon Brown. Michael Howard’s longest uninterrupted passage was 211 words and David Davis’ only 153.8 Yet Tony Blair was able to speak for 375 words unchecked, closely followed by Gordon Brown with 342 words and John Prescott 286.
It does make you think that even John Prescott can get away with 286 words uninterupted without falling over.

*****

Monitoring the output of the Today programme from that day until the end of the first week of formal campaigning (15 April) shows a remarkable disparity in the studio interview airtime allocated to Labour compared to the Conservatives: in these two weeks of the campaign, Labour spokesmen had a total of 37 minutes 49 seconds to make their economic case, compared to just 16 minutes 30 seconds for the Conservatives. This was patently unfair. The Labour spokesmen had far longer to make their case and more opportunities to attack the Conservatives. The following analysis suggests that the disparities in editorial approach and treatment were marked – and all in favour of Labour...... (cont.)

****

Similar discrepancies appear when examining the lead stories in the national press with those that the programme decided to run with. Of two front page stories in The Times over these two weeks that were directly critical of the Government, the Today programme pursued neither. On 11 April, the lead story, “Labour to halt postal vote fraud but only after election” did not feature anywhere in Today’s political or election coverage – despite the scandals in Labour constituencies in Birmingham and Blackburn. On 13 April, the day of the Labour Manifesto launch, the front page of The Times read, “Doctors who backed Blair desert Labour”. Today did not run this story. Nor was it raised in a long interview that day with the former Health Secretary, Alan Milburn. In contrast, at the start of the second week of the campaign, “Howard faces flak as Labour stretches poll lead” was the front page article in The Times. To this, Today reacted. It was the subject of the 6.32 am political two-way interview, of a stringent interview with Liam Fox, and of amused gossip by an election panel peopled by two left-of-centre journalists (Harold Evans and Piers Morgan), along with the once Labour Party card-carrying holder and now Liberal Democrat defector former Director-General of the BBC Greg Dyke.

Why I just don't yet buy Global Warming

"Many people have the impression that there is significant scientific disagreement about global climate change. It's time to lay that misapprehension to rest. There is a scientific consensus on the fact that Earth's climate is heating up and human activities are part of the reason. We need to stop repeating nonsense about the uncertainty of global warming and start talking seriously about the right approach to address it. "

The writer is an associate professor of history and director of the Program in Science Studies at the University of California.

******************* Now, you should read all of this article.

http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html

It summarises my own views brilliantly. One should read it all, but I have to paste this bit as it is just so spot on...... (and look back at the first paragraph at the top of this e-mail as you read this). At the conference in Washington, during the question period, Ehrlich was reminded that after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, scientists were quoted as saying nothing would grow there for 75 years, but in fact melons were growing the next year. So, he was asked, how accurate were these findings now? Ehrlich answered by saying "I think they are extremely robust. Scientists may have made statements like that, although I cannot imagine what their basis would have been, even with the state of science at that time, but scientists are always making absurd statements, individually, in various places. What we are doing here, however, is presenting a consensus of a very large group of scientists…" I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

Labour education policy.... the mess gets worse....

Things the BBC has not reported.....

Over a period when education spending has rocketed in an unprecedented fashion and where average spend per pupil now exceeds £5,000.....

THE number of secondary schools being failed by Ofsted is continuing to rise, according to new figures published by the inspection service yesterday. There were 96 on Ofsted’s “special measures” list at the end of the Easter term, up two compared with the end of December.
Record numbers of UK parents are putting their children into private school. And this in spite of the substantial additional sums thrown at the public sector. The failure of London schools is highlighted by the fact that in London around 20 per cent of parents send their children to private school, nearly three times the national average.

LIBERAL Democrat leader Charles Kennedy said in April that he hopes to avoid the grief of finding a state school in London by educating his son in Scotland. This is one of the few sensible things Kennedy said during the UK election campaign.

Tony Blairs children attend the London Oratory (a Catholic only school). Luckily for the Blair children. On the standard measure of five or more grade A-C GCSEs passes, the Oratory scores 93%. Superb results. However, no worries if they aren't Catholic. There are lots of other schools in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham...... only minor snag is that the remaining schools score between 21% and 28%. Imagine if you were a parent.
So what's wrong with state education in England? Here is an example. A recent Commons MPs' report attacked the standard of reading. At age 11, it said, far far too many children do not achieve the reading and writing expected of their age. The MPs called for investigation into the use of phonics - the sounding out of individual letters to blend into words. Any sensible parent - and surely teacher - knows this is how you teach reading. Not so, says the grand National Literacy Strategy, set up in 1997. It prescribes memorising words by their shape and guessing at words by their context or the pictures with them - along with an element of phonics.

What can parents do? Err.... not a lot. Except those of us who go private (and get taught using a method that works - in my case the delightfully titled "Jolly Phonics").

The most recent comparison of international achievement, called the ‘world education league’ by the press, was the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) [ http://www.pisa.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/63/34002454.pdf ] which gives figures for 41 countries in 2000 and 2003. Between those years, the UK dropped from fourth in science to 11th, from seventh in reading to 11th and from eighth in maths to 18th. However.....

..... scandalously the UK did not send enough data for the study. It was THE ONLY OECD country to fail in this regard and the ONLY Country (out of 41) to do so. As a result of which the UK Government has been able to deny the drop has any validity. This is even when suspicion is clear that it was the best schools that sent in their results and so the UK performance in comparison to our international competitors is probably even worse. It is also suspicious that the government made no attempt to rectify this situation, odd when the report would have been published just before the election to no doubt inform the electorate of the Labour governments educational achievements.

Why I think this Labour Government is corrupt

I have come to this conclusion over the past couple of years as the government has gone from bad to worse to appalling. The abuse of power that had become widespread in the Tory government after 18 years in power has gripped Labour in a deeper way at a much quicker pace. I also believe it is more malign as it extends to deliberate corruption of our political system.

We had the Mandy affair(s), the Formula1 scandal, the linking of donations to contracts in immunisation, steel, the petty abuse of power (a la Blunkett) more obvious abuses (massive increases in government expenditure on "advisors", the hounding out of civil servants who do not want to be Labour PR stooges and the general polticisation of the civil service) and the constant providing of jobs to Labour members/donors (say, Chairman AND the DG of the BBC - even if that did backfire on them), the abuse of the so-called Freedom of Information Act now being used as a Labour campaigning tool (see earlier this year the 'Black Monday' papers and the "accidental" sending of info to the BBC). The "testing" of questions on the European Constitution by government paid pollsters to see which question generated the more favourable response (we know this because the question has been asked and the government has refused to answer it - thats another example of the freedom of information bit by the way).

The most recent example to surface in the mainstream media is the use of Postal ballots.

In Britain, throughout modern times, we have never questioned the integity of our elections. The ability for the people of this country to trust the results as "free and fair" is of such extraordinary value that no party should do anything that would put this at risk.

No so Labour.

Clearly aware that the greater the turnout the greater the number of votes it gets, the Labour government has cast aside all warnings from the Electoral Matters Panel, its own advisors, its civil servants and commentators far and wide. It has pressed ahead with Postal Ballots and we are now in this country on the receiving end of several scandals nearly all of which involve Labour party activists forging votes. Despite this, the party presses ahead.

This is the same party that continues to on the one hand allow mass immigration on a scale that it knows will help it politically while on the other hand "talking tough" to appease a distrustful populace.

Let there be no doubt, if Labour ever thought it might lose, it would introduce PR. Mitterand (that bastion of virtue and integrity) did the same when he was alive and well and in the Elysees. The thought that changing the system by which we choose our government should be one of the most serious and sombre decisions that any political class could make would not enter their heads. Remember, this is the lot that "reformed" the House of Lords on the back of an envelope.