Select committee report on response to pandemic: whitewash thicker than I realised

 On 12th October, I wrote: "A brief glance at the summary of the Commons inquiry suggests some watering-down in the interests of achieving unanimity." That criticism was too mild, as Phil Hammond in the current Private Eye points out:

Asking former health secretary Jeremy Hunt, now health committee chair, to investigate the UK's pandemic preparation is akin to asking Dido Harding to chair the public inquiry. Perhaps not quite as independent as required.

[...]

The report wrongly paints a picture of the UK only planning for a flu pandemic. " the anticipated future risk of pandemic disease focused too closely on influenza rather than diseases like SARS and MERS that had in recent years appeared in Asian countries. Previous exercises to test the national response capability, namely Exercises Cygnus and Winter Willow, did not squarely address a disease with the characteristics of covid-19."

These reports did model very clearly what we would need to do for a flu pandemic, but most preparations were not put in place by Hunt.

Hunt's report curiously fails to mention that there were at least seven other pandemic exercises, including Exercise Alice in 2016, which looked precisely at how the UK should respond to the deadly coronavirus causing [MERS].

Exercise Alice concluded: "There was a general consensus on the need to identify capacity and capability of assets within the health system. Assets in this context would be all resources that would be required to effectively respond to a MERS-CoV outbreak such as trained personnel, appropriate PPE in sufficient quantities and the requisite beds with suitable clinical equipment. It was considered that senior engagement to direct resources, including across boundaries, was necessary for effective management."

[...] Neither Hunt nor his successor Matt Hancock has ever acknowledged the existence of Operation Alice. And yet countries hit by MERS responded very well to SARS-CoV-2 using similar strategies outlined in Operation Alice. The UK assessed the risk accurately and then ignored it.

Equally troubling, these seven pandemic reports would have remained entirely secret until the public inquiry, were it not for a freedom of information request.

Bus services hit as HGV industry lures drivers

From the experience of a cousin and his wife, I know how tricky the test for a PSV licence can be. Retraining for and taking a HGV test must be a comparative doddle. Therefore, the headlines from the Independent and the i newspaper earlier this week came as no surprise. The loss of drivers seems to have reached even this corner of South Wales as a number of services from a timetable already restricted by Covid have been cancelled by First Cymru without warning.

The essence of Jacob Rees-Mogg

The Leader of the House was in fine form yesterday, from defending his decision to eschew social distancing and mask-wearing to praising a budget for working men which was little of the sort.

He has his own peculiar take on saving the planet:

The Government’s vision is one based on improving people’s standards of living. That is what the Budget was about yesterday and it is what the green policy is about. It is not about cave dwelling. It is not hair-shirt greenery. We are not becoming Adullamites. What we are in favour of is having higher standards of living based on the new technologies. All sorts of exciting things are happening, including with hydrogen, which will make that possible. There is not, I think, a market for going back to the stone age—some hon. Members may think I have never really emerged from the stone age—but we want to ensure that the standard of living of our constituents improves.

Never the stone age. For me, JR-M is of the period of the Restoration when the rigour of the Cromwell era was replaced by the dissolute King Charles and his louche courtiers returning from France and all its high church manners.

Childhood and maturity

I think that there is a point in adulthood when we can cast a bright light on the habits of personality that we developed in childhood, and accept them for the parts that are self-sustaining, instead of rejecting them as "things" we need to change in order to find happiness and balance as adults. We each have our own coping mechanisms, and we each have our own timeframe for putting childish things behind us, and moving on.

- Elaine Fine, composer and violist

Stray thoughts on the budget

First of all, I add my voice to that of the Speaker and of his deputy, the Chairman of Ways and Means for this occasion, in condemning the wholesale publication in advance of the main points of the budget. This demeans parliament and chips away at the democratic process.

It seemed to me that this was a crossed-fingers budget. All the glossy spending promises will only be redeemed eighteen months hence. In the meantime, Sunak must hope that inflation, both home-grown and international, will subside and that no other unexpected shocks will hit the UK economy before 2023. Mel Stride, the chairman of the Treasury Select Committee,  was not the only Tory MP to doubt that inflation and interest rate rises could be contained.

It appears that tax receipts have proved more buoyant than predicted. They have been enough to cancel the scheduled rises in fuel and beer duty, and to ease the pain for some people of the failure to consolidate the uplift in Universal Credit, but not enough to make the Chancellor change his mind about breaking the triple lock on state pensions.

Finally, I wondered why the Chancellor was so keen to give out solar panels. A quick search reveals that a company in which his wife and father-in-law have an interest produces a robot cleaner for them. I am sure that this is just a coincidence.

Labour should listen to our First Minister

Mark Drakeford has made the strongest statement yet in favour of fair votes of any leading Labour politician.  It is probable that his stock is higher among Labour members than not only their former national leader but also the present one. This must give the best chance yet of reversing Labour's age-old support for our primitive first-past-the-post system for electing parliament. It should not be ducked, as Tony Blair ducked it in 1997. Reneging on his agreement with Paddy Ashdown and Roy Jenkins led eventually in 2019 to giving the keys to No. 10 to a destructive charlatan of whom even our friends abroad make fun.

Drink Welsh milk and save the planet

 According to a Welsh dairy farmer on Radio Wales' Country Focus last Sunday, a dairy cow in Wales is two-and-a-half times more efficient than the rest of the world.

[later] An Internet interruption prevented me from filling out what was meant to be merely a headline-grabber and left that first paragraph on its own looking like a troll. So it should be stressed that the above, illustrating the efficiency of farming in England and Wales, was only one of the points that Abi Reader made.

In the programme dedicated to an examination of the effects of agriculture on climate change, Dr Prysor Williams set the scene by explaining that production of carbon dioxide itself, the longest-lived contributor to the greenhouse effect, was negligible. The larger concerns were about methane (all those belching cows and sheep) and nitrous oxide. These two can contribute as much as 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions from farms. The nitrous oxide, which I must admit I had not realised was part of the problem, stems from both artificial fertiliser and natural waste from animals. 

Abi Reader pointed out that methane lives for about 10 or 11 years in the atmosphere before being reabsorbed in a natural cycle. If dairy cattle numbers stayed the same, methane from milk production would remain static. She placed her hopes on the quality of research in Wales. Such things as changing the content of cattle feed and generally reducing the amount of input for the same input. The NFU target of being carbon neutral by 2040 was achievable. Agriculture had the unique offer of being a carbon sink, for instance using trees and hedgerows. Farmers can also make use of the space they have to create energy which can be exported in the renewable energy market.

Rory Stewart's Private Passions

 Yesterday's Radio 3 broadcast reminded us of the loss to British politics of the man who could have been a great Foreign Secretary and was, for all too brief a time, a Prisons Minister who could have made a dramatic difference to the treatment of prisoners and therefore the level of recidivism. To Michael Berkeley he expressed no regrets at leaving the political scene, though one suspects that this is mainly because of the depths to which Johnson and his cronies have dragged it. Stewart is still interested enough in politics in general to have been teaching the subject at Yale. 

At the same time, he has been actively supporting the charity he and his wife set up in Afghanistan with the Prince of Wales and whose future they are negotiating with the Taliban administration. He and his family are now on the way to a new challenge, a rebuilding project in Jordan which will give much-needed employment to some displaced Palestinians. This could put him in more danger than any of his previous adventures, given the determination of some extremists to deny Palestinians any chance of making a living.

Glamorgan CCC renewal

 My one big remaining indulgence, membership of the county cricket club, has become easier this year. The complicated system of memberships and tickets has been streamlined and the forms (postal and online) more straightforward. Congratulations to the people responsible for the redesign of the system.

Let us hope it enables more people to contribute to Wales' only championship club, and the club itself to add more trophies to this year's Royal London Cup.

A fortnightly injection to ease formerly intractable asthma

 When I read this asthma.org.uk blogpost, I thought of those friends in public life with asthma which standard treatments could not alleviate and who have died in recent years. The newly NICE-approved Dupilumab, which appears to have a gene-suppressing effect, might have saved them. Gene silencing is a "hot" line of research at present and has already produced a couple of treatments for congenital diseases, with promise of much more to come. It should be stressed that these treatments are different from gene editing in that they do not alter a person's physical legacy and can be unwound. There is more on Radio 4's Inside Health. 

****ed-up web-site hinders public scrutiny of council

Neath Port Talbot council has replaced its tried, if not completely trusted, web  presence with a beta version. Beta (also known in the software trade as "trying it on the dog") is a way of getting users to complete testing of software to eliminate bugs which the developers had not already trapped as well as to suggest features which the designers had not thought of. It is not unknown for public bodies to take this route to polish new versions of Web pages - UK Parliament and Companies House come to mind - but in my experience the beta version is, properly, offered as an alternative to the existing portal. NPT has not done this.

Nor is this beta as comprehensive as the pages it replaces. In particular, just as the council is in a phase of controversial decision-making, particularly over mass primary school closures, there is no access to council and committee agendas, supporting departmental submissions or minutes of meetings. 

To nobody's surprise, the pages for paying council tax are unaffected.

Online Safety: close this loophole!

 The draft Online Safety Bill is under consideration by a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament. On Monday the committee took evidence from, among others and most importantly, Rocio Concha of Which? and Martin Lewis, the money-saving expert. Both felt strongly (as can be seen in the Parliamentary video) that to legislate for user-generated content on social media but to leave untouched paid-for material maintained an open door for scammers. 

More than Willie Wonka and Doctor Doolittle

Thanks to Radio 3 and the Independent/i for reminding me that Leslie Bricusse first hit the big time in partnership with Anthony Newley. Fifty years ago, "What Kind of Fool am I?" was a hit for Newley and swiftly covered by Sammy Davis jr., to be followed by Andy Williams, Shirley Bassey, Lesley Gore, Robert Goulet and James Brown.  

It says a lot for Bricusse that he was able to work with a temperamental personality like Newley, and that even after the Newley/Collins divorce the Bricusses remained part of the Collins family circle.

Success of the Taliban - a footnote

 An earlier blog post included some hints as to how the Taliban were able to sweep aside the forces of US client government in Afghanistan with relatively little bloodshed. In an interview by Laurie Taylor last week, Sarah Chayes, a former adviser to US and international forces in Afghanistan, with years of experience of the country and its people, emphasised the extent of the disenchantment of Afghans with what was presented to them as democracy.

For US National Public Radio, Chayes covered the fall of  the Taliban in 2001 then stayed in Kandahar for most of the decade. Her books include The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban and On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake*.  So far from being a surprise, the fall of the Ashraf Ghani regime was predicted by Chayes soon after it became established. She told Taylor:

"My only question was, would it just fritter away or would it be a sudden collapse. [...] it's stunning to me that westerners who had been engaged so intimately and so long didn't really understand how Afghans fight. This was not industrial warfare - that's not what they're used to - they don't, you know, fight to the death in mass atrocities. War is really more like theatre in Afghanistan; it's a way of trying to make a convincing demonstration of the likely outcome and then pressuring the enemy to join us. So, let's take a look at the hand that the Taliban were playing.  You had a Doha Agreement whose terms effectively conferred sovereignty on the Taliban because it said 'don't deliver visas and passports to any international terrorists'. Well, only a government can deliver visas and passports. So effectively the Taliban had sovereignty. There was a date for the US withdrawal and there was an Afghan army that had been built in the mirror image of .our equipment-heavy technology-heavy army that would obviously not be able to do without that type of support. And then you had the Taliban who were happy to commit really gruesome atrocities designed for the maximum psychological effect.

"And then you had the corruption of the government of Afghanistan itself, and so the outcome wasn't just likely, it was certain."

Chayes detailed the daily humiliations which ordinary Afghans suffered at the hands of anybody employed by the government who wanted to extract bribe money. She confirmed that the Taliban had been nurtured in Pakistan under the aegis of the Pakistan intelligence services and introduced to Kandahar, not that the movement sprang up spontaneously in the villages surrounding the desert city.

On bringing democracy to Afghanistan:

"If you mean by democracy stolen elections, people treated the way you'd treat war booty to be humiliated and pillaged, public revenues that land in bigwigs' pockets and then they move it offshore as we're currently learning, decisions that are made on the basis of who's going to personally benefit from them, wouldn't you lose interest in democracy, if that's what it meant?

"On the contrary, the Afghans that I met had huge interest in what they thought democracy was, which is to say a voice in their collective destiny, equal justice and decisions that are made in the public interest and not for money.

"Does this sound at all familiar to you? As I was studying corruption in the United States, I mean, I've come to the conclusion that we really did make Afghanistan in our own image."

* featured in a 2020 edition of Thinking Allowed

Southend West should be contested, as Batley and Spen should have been

 It is too late now for Labour and Liberal Democrat party leaders now to go back on their word not to contest the by-election caused by the tragedy of Sir David Amess's assassination. (Were the constituency parties consulted, as a matter of interest?) However, it denies the electorate the opportunity of a choice in the matter and may strike many as a political stitch-up at a time when we should be trying to improve the reputation of politics. I am sure Sir David would have been appalled at this by-passing of the democratic process. It also tends to diminish the standing of whichever candidate is chosen by the Southend Conservatives as someone who was installed without clearly winning the confidence of the electorate as a whole. 

Liberals and Labour contested the seats vacated by the deaths by violence of Airey Neave, Sir Anthony Berry and Ian Gow. One suspects that there may have been a short-term grubby reason for the gesture in  Batley & Spen in that it was seen as a seat which we had virtually no chance of winning and that we might save money on campaigning, of which we are always short. Whether or not that was a consideration, I fear that a precedent has been set in Batley and now in Southend. 

Suppose that prime minister Johnson and the current leaders of the Conservative party in Westminster go over the heads of the constituency party and impose an incompetent solely on the basis of his or her reflection of Johnson's views. (Something similar has happened in the case of many cabinet appointments.) Local Conservative voters of a more liberal bent may feel that Sir David's legacy on human rights, especially those of women, is being betrayed. They would now have nowhere to go to to show their displeasure, other than by staying away from the poll. 

Northern Ireland

 David Jones, the hard-line Conservative MP, said on Sunday Supplement this morning that the EU in the course of negotiations were "always going to use Northern Ireland as a compression point". Like so many Brexiteers, he misses the point of the EU which was implicit in its roots as the European Coal and Steel Community: the elimination of armed conflict in Europe by means of ever-growing inter-connectedness. By joining the EU together, the UK and the Republic laid the foundation for peace on the island of Ireland. To the freedom of movement of people of the Common Travel Area was added the free movement of goods. Brexit has increased the separation between north and south as never before, and revived old suspicions and enmities within Northern Ireland. It was in conflict with the Belfast Agreement once the government set its face against the customs union. The province is more than a mere bargaining chip.

The voice of Essex has been stilled

 As I write this, no motive has come to light for the assassination of Sir David Amess. Sir David was attacked in the bluest of Conservative areas, the town of Leigh-on-Sea in his constituency.

As a keen watcher of Parliament TV I was alternately enraged and amused (sometimes at the same time) but always stimulated by Sir David's regular contributions, first as member for Basildon and then for Southend West. There was no doubt about his advocacy for his constituency and, as tributes broadcast by BBC and others have confirmed, he was an assiduous constituency member. An unrepentant Thatcherite, he was nonetheless respected across the aisle and contributed to many cross-party campaigns. He was what all back-bench MPs should aspire to be. Parliament has been robbed by a senseless act of violence.

With the murder of Jo Cox in mind, it may seem that violence against MPs has increased, but I recall the January 2000 samurai sword attack on Nigel Jones, which also took the life of a local councillor, and the attempt on the life of Stephen Timms in 2010. Both were clearly the actions of mentally-disturbed individuals and one suspects that will be the case in this latest incident.

What I am saying is that there should be no rush to respond with repressive measures, though our leaders and political activists should curb inflammatory language and generally reduce the climate of hostility towards our elected representative.  Nothing should be done which would prevent contact between a member of parliament and his constituents. 

Perhaps a lasting tribute to Sir David would be to finally grant city status to Southend, the campaign he was most associated with.

[Last two paragraphs updated 2021-10-16 05:30]

. 

The future of GPs

 The Westminster health minister Sajid Javid is raiding other NHS budgets in order to fund GP practices' providing locums. This is a response to widespread complaints that people cannot be sure of gaining  a prompt consultation. GP critics have responded that the need for face-to-face consultations is exaggerated and that in any case this subsidy to third-party providers is likely to accelerate a trend for GPs to leave the NHS in favour of free-lancing.

This week, First Minister Mark Drakeford opined that the traditional GP model was no longer appropriate. 

One can draw political conclusions from the two stances. Undermining GPs in England would accelerate a flight to the private sector which suit the post-Thatcher generation of Tories. Socialists would favour polyclinics on the Soviet or DDR lines, providing first contact for all NHS services, totally under state control. (GP surgeries are more like small businesses, contracted to the NHS.) 

I may be old-fashioned, but I believe there is still a place for personal contact with a named person over ones health, even if not always face-to-face, and for the GP as a respected person within a community in an era when trust in other leading citizens is in short supply. Rather than allowing GP practices to wither, it would be better to review what has happened to make them less attractive and eliminate it.

 

Writing: an apocryphal story

 This contribution to Anu Garg's weekly newsletter:

As the author of four books, I have a lot of experience “working” at writing. Many of my organizing ideas come to me at night, not when I fall asleep but when I wake at midnight and ponder. The worry is whether I’ll remember because I don’t take notes at night.
-Reiner Decher, Prof. Emeritus, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (reiner54 gmail.com)

reminded me of a story told by an old-time scriptwriter (possibly Bob Monkhouse, but certainly someone of that vintage). It seems that one of his fellow scribes was in that same situation of having ideas during the night but not recalling what they were in the morning. He was advised by his shrink to have a notepad and pencil always handy and before turning in for the night or relaxing at any time during the day to repeat to himself the mantra "write it down!" at least three times. Sure enough, after a few nights of uninterrupted dreamless sleep, a brilliant idea came to him in a half-awake state in the early hours and the instruction to write it down stirred his half-conscious brain to make him do just that. You've guessed it: blissfully turning to his notepad in the morning when he was fully awake he read back the text: write it down.

Inequality of women is a tribal, not an Islamic, belief

 One of the sticking points in the acceptance by the outside world of the Taliban administration in Afghanistan is the movement's attitude to women and, in particular, the education of girls. It is difficult for a Westerner to search the various translations and I must admit I have given up trying to find any passage in the Qur'an dealing with education, let alone women's education. Therefore it is gratifying to find in the various authoritative commentaries on the Web that there is no proscription of acquiring knowledge in Islam's foundation text. The prophet Muhammad was indeed, for his time, a feminist as this article stresses.

In Surah 33, the following appears (I am using the translation in Safi Kaskas and David Hungerford's The Qur'an with References to the Bible):

The men and women who have submitted to God, the believing men and women, the obedient men and women, the truthful men and women, the patient men and women, the humble men and women, the charitable men and women, the fasting men and women, the men and women who guard their private parts, and the men and women who remember God often, for them, God has prepared forgiveness and a great reward.

But Islamic teaching depends also on the Hadith, the sayings of the prophet. As I understand it, there is not one completely undisputed collection of these, but one key passage seems to be generally accepted: "Acquisition of knowledge is binding on all Muslims, male and female."

Therefore, the negotiators from the US and later the EU in recent talks with the Taliban had a strong card to play in their quest to maintain the women's rights achieved since the previous Taliban administration.

Confirmation for public unease about government epidemic handling

 In the absence of a full public inquiry into the impact of SARS/CoV-2 on the UK, various committees of parliament have been beavering away at the subject. The Lords have no less than 4 inquiries into aspects of the pandemic under the aegis of their Covid-19 committee, the first of which reported in July but has not yet received a government response. The Commons' joint inquiry by the Health And Social Care and Science And Technology committees, on the "lessons learned to date", has just reported. So far, the Senedd has not conducted an inquiry into the management of the epidemic in Wales, but has conducted surveys of the impact on health and social services and on culture. 

A brief glance at the summary of the Commons inquiry suggests some watering-down in the interests of achieving unanimity. It fails to indict previous governments (including the coalition) for allowing the UK's admirable contact tracing system to wither away or for failing to maintain PPE in England. The maintenance of these would combat any epidemic disease. It also implies that what pandemic planning was in place would have coped with a novel influenza outbreak, which is not what many medical practitioners seem to believe.

However, what remains is damning enough. Relying initially on inadequate advice from scientists who took little account of experience and practice outside Britain, the government failed to lockdown early, failed to re-institute a tracing system at the first sign of trouble and abandoned testing at an early stage. While acknowledging the effectiveness of the vaccine programme, the committee members also point to continuing flaws in the government's management of the pandemic.

The inquiry does not seem to have addressed the failure of Westminster to listen to the representations from national governments. The problems of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are clearly different from those in metropolitan England. Wales has had some success in applying stricter measures where we have had competence and the First Minister has repeatedly asked for more control over international travel, which has clearly been a weak link in managing the epidemic.

Politicians underestimate young people's critical faculties

 Peter Black draws attention to an appalling attempt by a Tory MP to skew the political climate of English education. One hopes this proves to be an isolated example of extreme prejudice, like the call in the 1960s for all civil servants who administered the transition to membership of the European Common Market to be tried as traitors, and will be ignored. However, under Johnson, who more and more resembles Mussolini as the days go by, one cannot be sure.

Apart from seeing a quite objective description of "white privilege" as an extremist view, Gullis also displays an exaggerated belief in the ability of teachers to indoctrinate their pupils. With rare exceptions, ones world view, including any political views, is formed at home and hearth. I recall that at the grammar school I attended, we had a pretty good idea of the leanings of those masters who were politically driven and were not particularly influenced by them. The senior history master was so conservative that he was part of the Wimbledon establishment, but he did not spawn generations of anti-Semites. Nor did the senior German master create loads of young Marxists, even though we knew he had communist views. (Perhaps he did try to groom me by lending me a Telefunken cast recording of Dreigroschenoper, but the only permanent result of that was a partiality to the word-setting of Kurt Weill.) The English master made clear his visceral loathing of Alexander Pope (one of the set texts in my sixth form years) as a person but, though he may not rank as one of the greats, Sunday's BBC4 presentation notwithstanding, Pope is still one of my favourite poets.

What has troubled me more over the years is what is not taught. I believe Margaret Thatcher first as education minister and later as prime minister attempted to influence the history curriculum to reverse the trend to more social history and to revert to the traditional kings and queens, dates and battles. In those pre-devolution days, that would have affected the teaching in Wales as well as England. Certainly, the debate leading up to the 2016 referendum betrayed a general ignorance of twentieth century history.  If my memory is at fault, and if the Welsh education curriculum is now more liberal, I am ready to be corrected.

Labour and global warming

 It is not surprising that a party which is kept afloat by money from trade unions, many in old polluting industries, is conservative in its views on the environment. To emphasise the point, here (belatedly) is DeSmog's take on Labour's 2021 conference:

It’s fair to say a lot of our stories at DeSmog focus on the actions of those on the right-wing of politics.

That’s no surprise, given the willingness of many on that side of the aisle to get in bed with big polluters or oppose carbon-cutting policies - if not to deny climate change is even, well, a thing.

This week, much of our coverage put the Labour Party under the spotlight - and not everything came out looking rosy.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves may have pledged to spend £28 billion a year on tackling climate change if elected - a big step-up from the government’s current plans - and shadow business secretary Ed Miliband may have hinted at an upcoming “net zero transition plan” for every sector of the economy.

But there were still moments at the party conference in Brighton that won’t have cheered the hearts of the climate-concerned.

On Monday, the party’s energy spokesperson, Alan Whitehead, said he backed the activities of biomass giant Drax “completely” at an event organised by the company.

The panel discussion was on how to build a zero carbon energy system, which is slightly awkward given Drax emitted almost 20 million tonnes of CO2 last year (which won’t be sucked up by all the trees it’s planting any time soon.)

And the next day, Labour’s transport guy rejected a call to hit pause on the UK’s multiple airport expansions currently going ahead - despite a recommendation from the Climate Change Committee for no further “net” airport expansion in the country. Which happened to be the same day a huge new research project was published showing just how emitting the UK's aviation sector is.

So a mixed bag, to say the least.

Johnson speech: it's not the lack of policy that troubles

 - it's the lack of truth

Why did the media not climb all over the plethora of fabrications and wild promises made in Manchester? Instead they gave Johnson a slap on the wrist for a "policy-free" leader's speech. 

Parliament is the proper place for presentation of government policy. Conservative conferences are no more than rallies, modelled by Thatcher's PR guru Sir Tim Bell on Nuremberg. Actual forming of party policy in public vanished long ago.

Who will lead the fight against Orban's illiberal regime?

 Hungary's parliamentary election system has elements of proportionality in it, but is even more weighted towards the party wining first-past-the-post seats than the Welsh one. In those circumstances, the parties opposing Viktor Orban's avowedly non-liberal government have felt compelled to concentrate on a single challenger in next spring's general election. 

First signs were that the newly-elected mayor of Budapest, Gergely Karacsony, would be that person. However, in the first round of voting to choose a joint candidate, the 44-year-old joint leader of the liberal/Green Dialogue party has been edged out by MEP Klára Dobrev, a vice-president of the European Parliament. A run-off round of voting is currently under way and it will be interesting to see where the votes of the third-placed conservative candidate will go.

If Dobrey wins, it is likely that Orban will (in addition to his continuing anti-LGBT and dog-whistle racist and anti-Semitic messages) fight on the ground of plucky little Hungary against the overweening European Union. The Commission has blocked funds to the nation because of Hungary's insufficient fight against corruption and the lack of independence of the judiciary. But it's not just the EU which is unhappy with Hungary's authoritarian turn: three of our old friends in the Free Trade Area have withdrawn funds.

 If Karacsony is the "Spitzenkandidat" then it will no doubt be the country against the Big City - Orban has put it on record that he hates Budapest. 

One would like to think that the combined opposition will win in 2022 and bring Hungary back in line with EU norms, but the success of populism over economic reality in our own country must give  us pause.

Nobel peace prize-winner campaigned against "virus of lies"

Congratulations to Maria Ressa and to Dmitry Muratov, joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize this year. 

Maria warned years ago of the "atom bomb which has exploded in our information ecosystem". It seems that she feels that the situation has got worse since then. Indeed, the most headline-grabbing response from Facebook, one of the social media in Ressa's line of fire, was to appoint a more plausible public apologist in the form of Nick Clegg.

Muratov was one of the former Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists who founded Novaya Gazeta under the aegis of Gorbachev, who still owns ten per cent of the stock, in 1993. Since then, six of his journalists critical of the Putin regime have been assassinated.

Re-wilding?

 I contributed to our party's comments on PM Johnson's speech on Wednesday. Expanding on that, one must have grave doubts about Johnson's conversion to green politics. His endorsement of re-wilding will surely frighten his erstwhile supporters. Beavers are one thing - and even they must worry many Conservatives - but the prospect of wolves and lynx once again stalking the shires? Surely not.

Johnson outdoes himself in fabrications

 

Thanks to Labour-inclined campaigning journalist Jon Danzig for the graphic. One does not have to be a socialist or even a non-Conservative to see through our prime minister's fog of exaggeration, deliberate misunderstandings and downright lies. Having sat through yesterday's speech, I can add to more to the Danzig list: that we did not have control of our borders before Brexit and that we organised a perfect airlift out of Kabul.

Russia's role in gas shortage

 Euronews reports that the controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline has been completed but Russia has not yet turned on the taps.

The 1,230-kilometre conduct running under the Baltic Sea and directly linking Russia and Germany is now complete but hasn't begun operations due to bureaucratic hurdles. The project has been heavily criticised inside and outside the EU for perpetuating the bloc's dependence on fossil fuels and extending President Putin's geopolitical influence. Gazprom, the pipeline's main backer, and the Russian government have denied any involvement in the energy crunch but insist the pipeline should be put to work "as soon as possible". Critics, however, think the timing of the crisis seems too favourable for the Kremlin's agenda.

Perhaps the Russians are waiting on German MPs' choice of coalition and who is to lead it. They may also hope to use the supply of much-needed gas to the Germans as a lever for German support for removal of UN/US sanctions.

(The Euronews article in full gives a detailed background to the gas situation.)

So easy to forget

From time to time, I fantasise about confronting ageing climate change deniers (such as Nigel Lawson (89), Peter Lilley (78) or Ann Widdecombe (74)). If you do not trust the graphs and tables from the scientists, I would say, just use your own experience. When you were young, can you recall a year when it did not snow; can you think of a recent year when it did?

That day-dream came back to me when listening to Hannah Cloke this morning. Jim Al-Khalili asked his hydrologist and climate scientist guest why, when the mathematical models were now so good, people did not act when the European Flood Alert System which she helped set up gave reliable warnings that floods were on their way. People forget quickly, she replied.

The powers that be forget that old coal tips are unstable, even after Aberfan. Hence Tylorstown. Houses are still being built in flood plains. And how long will the flood in Skewen be remembered, except by the people who live here?

"Pandora Papers" highlight Johnson government foot-dragging over beneficial ownership lists

 It has taken ICIJ's publication of the "Pandora Papers" to reveal that dictators, hereditary rulers and elected politicians from around the world own swathes of prime London property. We are promised further details of how rich donors to Tory politicians take advantage of anonymity of ownership of property, which should have been ended by now.

Journalists from the Guardian newspaper and BBC's Panorama have trawled through the wealth of documents unearthed by the ICIJ. Both they and those subjects of the investigation who have deigned to comment stress that no laws have been broken. However, that is only because the law is deficient in this area. King Abdullah of Jordan may well have legally bought millions of pounds worth of mews homes in the West End using family wealth, but his subjects might well query why they are in need of international financial support to survive. More serious to my mind are the politicians elected on a "transparency" ticket, including our own Tony Blair, who also shelter in the ambit of anonymity. 

This government is, like the Blair administration, fond of gesture politics, making law where there are already remedies under common law if not previous statutes. A prime example is their recent knee-jerk in response to the Insulate Britain demonstrations. They are not so ready to fill a gap in the law whose need has been highlighted not only by campaigners for political transparency but also tenants who have been victimised by faceless entities with addresses in tax shelters.

As NATO shrinks, could OSCE come into its own?

 As the US becomes (rightly) more preoccupied with threats across the Pacific, particularly from the dictatorships in China and North Korea, she is turning her back on Europe. President Biden has not repeated his predecessor's threat to withdraw from NATO, but will no doubt expect, as Trump did, larger contributions to NATO from continental Europe. But there is another player which may come into its own. The European Parliament Research Service reports:

 The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE): 

The OSCE describes itself as the world’s largest regional security organisation, extending from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Uniquely, it brings together NATO countries in Europe and North America, and the former Soviet Union. 

 The OSCE’s origins go back to 1975, when the countries in the two opposing blocs in the Cold War signed the Helsinki Final Act, enshrining principles such as territorial integrity and respect for human rights. The act was followed by a series of follow-up meetings to monitor implementation, in a process known as the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE). Following the adoption of the 1990 Paris Charter envisaging a new post-Cold War European order, in 1995 the CSCE was put on a more permanent, institutional basis and renamed the OSCE. The OSCE, like the CSCE before it, is based on a vision of ‘comprehensive security’ that encompasses human rights and economic cooperation, as well as traditional ‘hard’ security. 

However, hopes that the OSCE could become the central pillar of a new post-Cold War order faded as divisions re-emerged, between an enlarged EU and NATO on the one hand, and Russia on the other. The OSCE lacks the legal powers and the resources needed to live up to its ambition of becoming a platform for pan-European/trans-Atlantic cooperation. With decisions taken by consensus, disagreements between participating states hamper decision-making and prevent the organisation from becoming more effective. 

 The OSCE plays a useful though limited role in several areas. The organisation has been powerless to resolve conflicts in the post-Soviet region, but its observers are the main source of detailed and reliable information on the situation in eastern Ukraine. OSCE agreements, such as the Vienna Document, help to promote military transparency, and election observation missions have advanced democratic reforms in several countries.