Last Christmas

So Wham!'s catchy song has finally topped the year-end poll. It is of course a song about the break-up of a relationship and not anything more serious, though some have taken it as a portent. More serious is the diagnosis of a terminal medical condition - but this is as assessment, admittedly based on knowledge and  years of experience, but still an assessment, not a death sentence. The human spirit can do surprising things and my Christmas wish to all those in the situation, particularly in my extended family, is to apply Winston Churchill's personal mantra: keep on buggering on.

"It's OK, lads, I'm with the AA"

 Standing on a wet grassy slope behind a crash barrier on the M4 for ninety minutes on the evening of the eighteenth while the rain steadily fell and we were steadily splashed by the usual mix of personal and commercial traffic, I did wonder whether we would have done better if we were bank robbers. (For those who do not get the reference, have a look here.) The soaking I received led indirectly to the indisposition of the last few days and thence this five-day pause in blogging for which I apologise.

Seriously, I understand the difficulties the emergency services were under that night. There must have been loads of emergency calls that night. Indeed we were probably lucky to be attended to when we were -we could have been waiting twice as long according to the emergency operator's first estimate. When Viv of the AA arrived (I don't believe my daughter, who had been driving, caught his surname) he expeditiously applied, under difficult conditions, a temporary support (a "stepney"?) for the blown tire and guided us to a garage where the correct replacement could be provided. 

The whole procedure was efficient  and as fast as could be expected, living up to the AA's claims.  I just wish the TV ad did not imply virtually instantaneous service.

Solar panels on canals

 When I first read the headline, I thought: what a splendid way to combine two green issues, but how would it work? Then it dawned on me: "canal" in America implies irrigation rather than navigation. So turning the Neath and Tennant canals into a cheap energy source was clearly not on. However, the idea is clearly a goer in the appropriate areas, as this article explains. 

It has the beneficial side-effect of reducing water loss due to evaporation from direct sunlight. This was carried to the extreme by the ancient Persian qanat (a useful word for Scrabble-players because it does not need a U). Several of these underground aqueducts are still in use today. 

Less ecological is the Libyan Great Man-made River, a project begun by Gaddafi and completed by 2007. The infrastructure was attacked by NATO in 2011 and has since been prey to campaigns by warlords and neglect, but is still delivering some water. The source of the water, piped to reservoirs in the north of the country is a fossil aquifer which is not being replenished and may be exhausted by the end of the century, though other estimates give lifespans of up to one thousand years. 

Salty tea, anyone?

On this day in 1773 occurred the Boston Tea Party, after which a radical Republican group which is anti-tax among other things, takes its name. 

Sathnam Sanghera and William Dalrymple discussed the matter further in the recent Empire of Tea series on Radio 4.

Those rare metals the modern age depends on

 There is an outline of the importance of rare earth elements and the shift in power resulting from China's exploitation of them here. However, what the Bloomberg article fails to mention is that Afghanistan also sits on deposits of rare earths. There must be an opportunity for a nation which is not China (oppressor of the Muslim Uyghurs), Russia (hated occupiers) or America (imposer of corrupt government) to take advantage.

Restorative justice can mitigate racial abuse

 There was a reassuring story on BBC Sport this week. Derbyshire all-rounder, and VP of the PCA, Anuj Dal explained how he dealt with racial abuse on social media. He did not just lie back and take it, but took a course of action which through restorative justice led to a written apology from the abuser. I maintain that most casual racism in this country results from ignorance, not wickedness, and this story tends to confirm the view. 

I understand that Anuj Dal wants to encourage the wider application of the sort of action he took. He is clearly an adornment to the game in England and Wales, and one trusts that he will go on, when his playing days are over, to take an active part in administration of the game here. It is high time that some relics of our imperial past were shifted out of the Lords boardroom and into the museum where they belong.

Mosquitoes will extend their range through climate change

We have already had a warning that milder winters have enabled an increased threat from a disease-carrying insect. Bluetongue is a virus disease of cattle and sheep. It is spread by a midge which is common on the continent. The midge has not yet been reported as overwintering in the UK, but the fact that bluetongue has now been reported as late as November means that that is a likely scenario.

Now there are suggestions that a mosquito species, aedes albopictus, known as the tiger mosquito, could set up home here. It is particularly dangerous because it feeds during the day and is adapted to urban environments. In its home sub-tropical range it carries a whole slew of potentially fatal diseases. 

China's revenge for the opium wars?

 There was a report on BBC TV news yesterday of a significant rise in deaths from illegal drugs imported from China. 

Super-strength street drugs more powerful than heroin have been linked to at least 54 deaths in the UK in the last six months, the BBC has been told.

The deaths are all linked to synthetic opioids called nitazenes, which experts fear are being manufactured in labs and then imported into the UK from China.

However, the true total could be higher - the National Crime Agency (NCA) said 40 more cases awaited further testing.

The UK government plans to classify 15 new synthetic opioids as Class A drugs.

Nitazenes first made news in the UK in 2021, when an 18-year-old patient was treated for a non-fatal overdose.

Experts say the new drugs can be stronger than both heroin and fentanyl, another synthetic opioid, which is a leading killer in the US - contributing to 75,000 deaths last year.

The report comes on top of the fentanyl scandal in the US. It seems that the precursor compounds for fentanyl largely come from factories in China, for whom illegal drug-dealers in the US have replaced the previously legal pharmaceutical traders. Moreover, producing fentanyl from these precursors is a relatively simple process and there is a danger that fentanyl could hit the streets from illegal labs here.

According to the Empire of Tea series on Radio 4 (relevant programme on BBC Sounds here), what were named the Opium Wars should really have been known as the Tea Wars as (from the National Archives):

the British were smuggling opium from their Indian colonies into Chinese ports against the wishes of the Chinese government. This was to help pay for the large amounts of Chinese tea that they were importing – by the early 1800s, tea was a popular drink with the British public. Britain also wanted more control over their trade with China, as they could only trade with certain officials called Hong merchants.

Getting the Chinese hooked on opium helped other foreign powers - Russia, France and Portugal - to join the UK in setting up concessions in China. China has in recent years reversed the process. The commodities concerned are led by rare earth elements rather than addictive substances, but it must bring a wry smile to the lips of President Xi to know that illegal opioids from his country are helping to undermine civil society in the West.

Guyana a safer haven for migrants?

 Further to my brief post about Venezuela's coveting the oil-rich Guyana region of Essequibo, it seems that high-level talks are due to begin on Thursday. President Maduro seeks to gain the territory by legalistic means knowing that a military expedition is unlikely to succeed.

An interesting fact arose during a BBC World Service discussion on the issue. The population of Guyana is only just over 800,000. Thanks to recent petroleum developments, GDP per head has grown over the century from less than $4,000 to $19,000 currently and is predicted to rise to $45,000. It seems to me that those people suffering from poverty and oppression in certain Central American states should not be heading north through Mexico to the US, but across the Caribbean to Guyana.

Important art-deco building saved

 The historic Littlewoods building, formerly the HQ of the football pools and department store empire, in Wavertree, Liverpool has been saved from decay and vandalism. It will be transformed into a suite of film studios, shaped after Pinewood. There may be those who see this as unnecessary competition for the likes of Bay Studios in Neath Port Talbot, but it seems to me that not only will films continue to be made, for streaming if not necessarily for theatrical viewing, there seems to be a vast market for daytime TV viewing as well as increasingly sophisticated computer games.

Agency workers in the public service

 I have long argued that underpaying teachers and nurses is a false economy. As trained professionals leave to take better-paid jobs in supermarkets, one has to fill the resulting gaps with workers from contract agencies who are not only more expensive in terms of their hourly rate but also have little invested in the establishment they are recruited for, since they are only there on a short-term basis. 

So I was surprised by a story in today's Evening Post, quoting a local authority's HR representative to the effect that it was more expensive for schools to employ staff directly because of things like pension costs, which she said were "spiralling". She had been responding to an enquiry by reporter Richard Yuile who was following up a Carmarthenshire council committee report that the total agency spend by primary and secondary schools in the authority's area was £9.6m in 2022-23, nearly double that of three years previously.

Given that the pension contribution has to be paid by someone and therefore must be factored into the agency worker's price, and that a fee has to be charged to give the agency its profit, it is difficult to see how a contractor can be cheaper. I am clearly missing something. Perhaps an insider could put me wise.

UK government silent over Maduro land grab

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-67610200 refers.

Impending Senedd bloat

 Rather late in the day (the key decision in the Senedd was made earlier this year), people are waking up to the enormous increase in the size of Wales' parliament which Labour and Plaid Cymru are set on. Conservatives have started to campaign on the increased cost of a larger assembly - and they are on firm ground in doing so. But the nature of election is at issue also. A former member of PC, and of the last commission to look at Wales' electoral system, objected on Sunday Supplement (just over 33 minutes in to this) to the reduction in democratic control inherent in the list system.

There is a summary of the various constitutional committees and commissions here.

The great Iranian crisis

The expert contributor* to yesterday's Great Lives programme was of the opinion that one cannot draw a straight line between the events of 1951-1953 in Iran and the Islamic revolution of 1979. However, 1953 was surely the year in which Iran might have settled to a future of stable constitutional monarchy (alla UK) but instead tipped into monarchic dictatorship shepherded by the USA and all the instability that that engendered.

The great movie sound-sculptor and editor Walter Murch had chosen Muhammad Mossadegh as his Great Lives subject. Murch had been attracted to the subject by his background reading to conflict in the Middle East in preparation for work on Sam Mendes's Jarhead. He went on to work with Iranian exile Taghi Amirani on a documentary about the 1953 insurrection, Coup 53. It no doubt helped that both Amirani and Murch are now British residents.

I am gratified that I got so much right in my earlier post on the subject - and, of course, that such a major figure as Walter Murch is championing Mossadegh's cause. Having access to much more original material and people who knew the players in 1953 enabled Murch to produce a richer and more rounded picture. For instance, the switch from the Democrat Truman, who was sympathetic to the democratic aspirations of Mossadegh and against the effective colonialism of the Anglo-Iranian Oil company, to the Republican Eisenhower in the White House was significant. Eisenhower, himself an anti-Communist brought the cold-warriors, John Foster Dulles and his brother Allen to the State Department and the CIA respectively. Thus the scales were weighted against Mossadegh, but the revolution was not inevitable if some other key events had turned out differently. The whole programme is well worth hearing. Sadly, there is little chance of our government listening to it and even less chance of issuing a long-overdue apology. 

Only a couple of minor details were missed: the fact that the signal for the decisive riots was given by a coded message on the BBC Overseas Service** (now the World Service) revealed if I recall correctly by this analysis programme from 1980; and Mossadegh's hypochondria (from Christopher de Bellaigue's biography), which may or may not have affected his political judgment.

* Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University, presenter on Radio 4 of Through Persian Eyes

**A very rare example of the BBC's breaching its ethos of impartiality, even more marked in the World Service than in terrestrial broadcasting. Of course, the management may not have been aware of (presumably) MI6'ht s initiative.

Wales 0-0 Germany

 Congratulations to the Welsh women footballers on holding the mighty German team to a draw at the Hafod stadium tonight. Wales did not merely defend well, they were the more positive side for most of the match and were unlucky not to score. At last they have found a formation and personnel to suit, too late in the day for the Nations League, but promising for the future. All they need to do now is work on their ball retention.

 

Tories blaming the pensioners again

 From Friday's inews:

The co-authors of the 2019 Tory manifesto said the state pension triple lock should be scrapped – but warned both Labour and the Conservatives are too concerned about the electoral damage to do so.

Rachel Wolf and Robert Colvile, who helped to write Boris Johnson’s landslide-winning manifesto, said the Tories should not maintain the triple lock pension pledge into the next election.

They argued it is unsustainable and would need reforming in some way to ease the rising cost on the taxpayer and growing generational divide.

So a former political adviser and a think-tank chief, both no doubt having built up a reasonable private pension pot, believe that the UK economy cannot sustain a decent state pension while virtually all our nation's continental rivals can. Last year's suspension of the lock put a great strain, at a time of inflation, on those people whose only regular source of income in the state pension. Scrapping the triple-lock, or even a suspension, after the general election is going to increase the hardship for old people. One notes that neither the Tory leadership not that of the Labour party will commit to retaining this progressive measure. I trust that the manifesto of the Liberal Democrats, who introduced the triple-lock in 2010, will contain that guarantee.

Starmer's love of the headline may deny Labour absolute power

 The big domestic news this morning is that, in a Sunday Telegraph article, Sir Keir Starmer has praised for their "sense of mission" Clement Attlee, Tony Blair … and Margaret Thatcher*. What a disparate crew! There may be some similarities of world view between Thatcher and Blair, but the fact that Blair chose the Labour party as the vehicle for his ambition, when he clearly could have made a Conservative front bench, shows that there were differences of philosophy. Both, of course, were leagues away from Attlee. One has to conclude that Starmer wants to be more associated with people who have made headlines, rather than any particular political belief. He has already been accused of trying to woo Conservatives, but for every soft Tory vote he attracts, he is likely to lose both socialists and social democrats, the nod to Attlee notwithstanding.

The impression that he wants to be all things to all voters had already been given a boost by his foreign affairs spokesman, David Lammy, on Friday.  The i headline proclaimed: "Labour: EU will be our number one priority for foreign policy". Examination of the small print, however, reveals that there is no change from Labour's avowed policy of "making Brexit work", only a promise to hold regular (every four months) talks with EU leaders. There is a suggestion of closer military cooperation, but nothing about restoring our former favourable trading relationship or common social and environmental standards. Participation in Europe's political processes of course is right out of the window. 

Not being a Tory is insufficient. Voters, come the general election, will want to know what Sir Keir really stands for. I pity the Labour candidates who will have to reconcile the conflicting messages on the doorstep and at the hustings - if they dare to attend any.

* I have also been known to applaud Margaret Thatcher, but only for chipping away at the glass ceiling by becoming the first British female prime minister.

Anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine

 From the US National Archive:

The Monroe Doctrine was articulated in President James Monroe's seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823. The European powers, according to Monroe, were obligated to respect the Western Hemisphere as the United States' sphere of interest.

It has been argued over, nationally and internationally, ever since.

Hancock wants less devolution of health

 Given the lying and contempt for the advice of experts at the top level of government exposed in the Covid-19 Inquiry, surely more devolution of public health matters would improve things? Yet Matt Hancock in his evidence of the last few days opined that when an epidemic strikes all decisions should be taken in Westminster. 

When a community recognises what needs to be done, puts aside party and other politics, and coordinates in a common cause, great things can be achieved. Ceredigion's successful fight against the SARS-Cove2 virus was only vitiated when outside authority stepped in and forced the county to accept returning university students, bringing fresh battalions of virus with them.

One rule for spin doctors, another for real doctors

 It seems that a pay settlement for senior doctors is close, though the outcome is going to be short of the full uprating to take account of inflation. Contrast that with what was set in motion three years ago,  to increase election spending limits in line with inflation. There is a case for doing this, though as The Constitution Unit blog pointed out: 

raising limits is one thing; how you raise them is another. One approach would be to raise them immediately in line with the value of money in time for the next election. This would set the new limit at nearly £38 million at 2022 prices – even higher at 2023 ones. The danger of doing this would be (at least) twofold.

First, it would be very likely to widen the spending gap between the two largest parties and their competitors. While the Liberal Democrats actually outspent Labour in 2019 (having received a donation of some £8 million just prior to the campaign), the typical pattern has been that the Liberal Democrats have spent between 24% and 37% of the Conservatives’ campaign expenditure. Given the Liberal Democrats’ lack of a natural pool of large donors, the gap between higher and lower-spending parties would be likely to widen quite significantly.

Second, while parties’ income typically reflects the general election cycle, party popularity at any one time is influential in their ability to raise income. In 2019, the Conservatives raised over £19 million in declared donations in the short period between dissolution and polling day. Labour, by way of contrast, raised only £5.4 million, 61% of which came from one source – Unite. So, a significantly larger spending limit would almost certainly benefit those parties that were most able to raise money – typically, the most popular ones. The concern here is not which party benefits, but that parties that are most popular at the time of the spending limits uplift would be most able to exploit this higher limit and would be disproportionately advantaged.

The government has, however, gone ahead with the full uprating, at the same time moving to increase the threshold at which donations to political parties have to be declared from £7,500 to £11,180. The Electoral Commission is not happy:

The Commission's research shows a long-term decline in public confidence in the political finance system.

Any changes to spending or reporting thresholds must be supported by rigorous analysis, including on the likely impact on public confidence and transparency.

The Commission has not seen evidence to support these changes. It is concerned that the proposals risk damaging the transparency of political donations, and gives significantly more scope for higher spending parties to campaign.

Moreover, there seems to have been no move to increase the size of penalties in line with inflation, let alone raising them to a level at which they would present a real deterrent, as the EC has long wished.

A neutered Newsnight

 BBC announces:

BBC Two's Newsnight is to be cut back and have its format overhauled as part of a plan to save money in the corporation's news department.

The long-running show will lose its dedicated reporters, be shortened by 10 minutes and drop its investigative films to focus on studio-based debates.

 

Surely we do not need more discussion programmes. If Auntie wanted to save money, she could take off air some of those we already have, fronted by prominent, contentious and no doubt expensive journalists. What we need is more reportage (such as tonight's on a failing NHS trust in England) not less.

Local taxation review

 A consultation on restructuring council tax bands began on 14th November. But, as an economics expert said on ITV Wales news tonight said, it is a regressive tax. It is unfortunate that the  Welsh government does not seem to have even considered the possibility of replacing the Conservatives' council tax with a fairer local income tax.

Those TV Christmas ads

 So far, this year's seasonal commercials by the big retailers show no great advances on previous years' Indeed, M&S uses the same animated tree-top fairy inspired by Dawn French as graced our screens last year. Tesco has been slightly more innovative, but must have left many of my generation with a queasy feeling, echoing as it does the first Quatermass Experiment in which a returning astronaut crew morph into a terrifying human/cactus chimera. Points to ASDA for using Michael Bublé who has done so much to keep the big band tradition going. My favourite, though, is Morrisons' if only for using Starship's big hit as the backing track.

Al-Aqsa attacks fuelled Hamas's slaughter

 Patrick Cockburn yesterday confirmed my impression that the violation of one of Islam's holy sites was a major factor in rousing the Muslim population of Gaza to violence. The oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture in the world, the seventh-century al-Aqsa mosque has been subject to increasing desecration by the Israeli authorities and by un-policed religious zealots. The regular harassment of worshippers has escalated into acts of violence such as this one last April. The Hamas incursion of October 7th may have been well-planned, but it would not have been so ferocious without the resentment which has built up over the last few years.

Cockburn writes: 

A survey of Palestinian opinion in Gaza and the West Bank conducted in the first week of November by the Arab World Research and Development group shows that some 60 per cent of the Palestinians polled backed the Hamas attack on 7 October and 16 per cent give it moderate support.

Before that date some 44 per cent of Gazans polled expressed total and 23 per cent partial distrust of Hamas, but today 76 per cent say that it is playing a positive role. The survey sample is small – 277 respondents in Gaza and 391 on the West Bank – but the largest number (35 per cent) say that the main reason for the Hamas attack was the perceived Israeli threat to Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, the third holiest shrine in Islam, with freeing Palestine and breaking the siege of Gaza next most important.

Israelis and foreigners alike tend to underestimate the importance of Al-Aqsa as the ultimate symbol of Palestinian national and religious identity. A danger here is that Israeli ethno-religious fundamentalists and settlers on the West Bank are welcoming the present crisis as an ideal moment for them to move against the three million Palestinians there. Villages and towns are cut off by settler checkpoints and some 191 Palestinians were killed before and 201 killed after 7 October, according to the UN.

One recalls that the Second Intifada was sparked mainly by then Israeli leader Ariel Sharon dancing on the Temple Mount. Over this century, both the Israeli and Palestinian populations, Jews, Christians, Muslim and others alike, have been steadily brutalised.  Just over forty years ago, the massacres in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps brought a tenth of the Israeli population out on the streets to protest. That would be unlikely to happen today. A recent opinion survey in Israel reports 85% support for the actions of the IDF in Gaza. Cockburn is surely correct when he signs off his article: "The day is a long way off when Israelis and Palestinians recognise that, unless both enjoy security, neither will be safe."

Electoral paralysis in The Hague

 My first thought on seeing reports of Geert Wilders' "monster victory" in the Netherlands general election this week was how good Brexit was for the EU. The Union could well do without another xenophobic right-wing government alongside Hungary and Italy to welcome the latest addition to their number.

More rational thinking prevailed. Wilders' populist party may be the largest in parliament after the election, but it does not have an overall majority. It looks as if Wilders will find no partners for the coalition which would be necessary for him to become prime minister. Not even the formerly liberal VVD, whose campaign also attacked refugees, much to the disgust of D66, the LibDems' sister party in The Netherlands, has come to Wilders' aid. So it looks as if The Hague is in for a lengthy period of horse-trading before a government can be formed, though probably not as long as Belgium is used to.

Critics of PR will point to this paralysis, saying that first-past-the-post leads to strong government. If strong government means that a fascistic demagogue like Wilders gets overall power (has any psephologist run the Dutch figures to see if that would be the case under FPTP?), then I will continue to press for PR, thank you!

Cook County, L13

  The Liverpool Echo has published details of the trial just ended of the murderers of Ashley Dale. A talented and aspirational young council officer was undeservedly killed, her only mistake being that of a poor choice of boy-friend.

It seems that a great city is now riddled with violent crime, perpetrated by gangs armed with sub-machine guns fighting for their share of the illegal drugs trade. It even spilled over into my old home town, once boringly peaceful Wallasey.

Liverpool has clearly not recovered from the loss of sea trade resulting from UK's joining the European Common Market nor the blow delivered to the football pool industry by the National Lottery. The Heseltine regeneration looks good but it can only be a surface attraction until the crime gangs have been eliminated and the gratuitous killings cease.

Exolete

Appropriate to today's Autumn Statement is Anu Garg's word of the day: exolete.  It means stale, failed, obsolete, all adjectives one may apply to this government's economic thinking. For that matter, the Opposition's reply did not depart from orthodoxy much. 

Two familiar messages: growth is God and anyone claiming benefit rather than working is a scrounger. 

Chancellor Hunt promised many incentives to business, especially small business, some of which are welcome. But there is no point in encouraging businesses to take on workers if those workers cannot afford to travel. There was no suggestion in today's Statement that the cuts in bus subsidy are to be reversed. The increase in the minimum wage is hardly enough to provide an electric car, which will soon be de rigueur. And where is the incentive for the necessary fast recharging stations?

Sickness would be better tackled by restoring the NHS and public health systems to what they should be, as Rachel Reeves stated in her Opposition response, rather than forcing people to work in unsuitable conditions. For that reason, the unplanned rise in tax income due to inflation would be better ploughed back into the health service, staunching the flow out of the NHS in all the home countries. Chancellor Hunt made much of the increase in trained medics, but unless government stops the flight of experienced doctors and nurses to where facilities and pay are better, our health will continue to suffer.

Finally, he was right to criticise the two occasions when the health budget was cut in Wales. For some reason, he did not lay the blame on Plaid Cymru who were instrumental on both occasions.

Germany keeps faith with Ukraine

 France24 reports that, on the 10th anniversary of the Maidan occupation that signalled the beginning of the end of the corrupt Russia-friendly government, Germany has come forward with a further military aid package. 

The German package – worth 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) and including four further IRIS T-SLM air defence systems as well as artillery ammunition – was unveiled by Defence Minister Boris Pistorius after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umerov, in Kyiv.

"I am here again, firstly to pledge further support but also to express our solidarity and deep bond and also our admiration for the courageous, brave and costly fight that is being waged here," Pistorius said earlier when he laid flowers at Maidan square in central Kyiv.

Michel, the president of the European Council, announced his arrival in Kyiv by posting on social media a picture of himself getting off a train.

"Good to be back in Kyiv among friends," he wrote ahead of expected meetings, including with President Volodymyr Zelensky.

 

Who ordered the evacuation of al Shifa?

 Michael Lerner, the smooth-talking spokesman for the Israel Defence Force, denies that it was one of the IDF's commanders who told the director to evacuate the hospital complex. Instead, he said, the request for assistance to move the patients was initiated by the hospital and he told the BBC that he has a voice recording to prove it. Now, it is up to others to evaluate that recording, since I have no Hebrew and only know a few (irrelevant) words in Arabic. However, it stretches credulity that any doctor would volunteer to take seriously-ill patients and premature babies from the shelter of a building, damaged and short of materiel though it is, on to a road exposed to the elements, decaying corpses and possible sporadic gunfire, not knowing how far it was from the next medical facilities. As I understand the initial news reports, the director was contacted by telephone and told to evacuate within one hour, at which he pointed out that they had no safe means of moving the patients. Were the Israelis going to provide ambulances, he asked? Perhaps it was that query which was doctored to make it sound as if it was the initial request. Given Israel's expertise is cutting-edge software, it is also possible that the director's voice was faked.

The good news is that, although four of the premature babies perished in the period since essential power and supplies were cut off, the remaining twenty-eight are safe and bound for specialist facilities in Egypt. Their lives have been saved, though there is a danger of some long-term damage to their development as a result of their early trauma.

On the subject of babies, there is an infographic going the rounds comparing the rates of extermination under the Nazis and the results of the Israeli bombing of Gaza. It is a striking, simple criticism of Netanyahu but does not stand up to scrutiny. Firstly, although the average daily death toll is less than that quoted for the October 7th reprisals, the Nazi shoah was carried out over years. The Gaza war has lasted just over a month and the death toll was highest in the early days. The rate is now declining and there are whispers of a cease-fire, which the US is in a strong position to dictate. Thus the final total of children killed will be minuscule compared to the Nazis' "final solution".  Secondly, the Gaza figures come from the Hamas Ministry of Health, and as far as I know have not been independently verified. This is not to deny that the IDF has been guilty of unnecessary, excessive and virtually random killing of civilians, but introducing Hitler to the argument inevitable topples over into anti-Semitism.

Netanyahu is swift to raise the bogey of anti-Semitism whenever he is criticised. The fact is that he is less concerned about defending the Jewish people than he is avoiding embarrassment. He has criminal charges hanging over him and while he may yet be convicted, thus being forced to resign, the Gaza emergency has turned him into a war leader whom few will want to remove. (NB I am not stating that he is a criminal; there is a presumption of innocence under Israeli law.)  Hence a cease-fire is not in his interests. Different considerations apply to President Biden. It is received wisdom that the "Jewish vote" goes to the Democrats. It is assumed that all the US Jewish community would support Israel right or wrong. However, the rise in pro-Palestine demonstrations across the Union in recent days has shown that traditional Democrat voters, especially the young, and including progressive Jews, are not happy with the presidency's initial stance. Biden is coming up for re-election next year. There is no way that the doubters  will switch to Trump - the Donald is even more pro-Netanyahu than senior Democrats are - but if enough of them lose faith in the Democrats to the extent of staying at home on polling day, the White House will fall to the Republicans. On the other hand, if Biden is seen to have engineered a peace deal in the region, he will receive a boost to his popularity. And he has economic levers at his disposal which he can threaten to pull. 

Expect a cease-fire within a fortnight. It will be followed by the recriminations.

Starmer's Labour to follow New Labour down the privatisation road

 In an i podcast, shadow Health Minister Wes Streeting has said he would “hold the door wide open” to the NHS for the private sector after Labour wins the coming general election. This fits in with the wooing of Sir Keir by one or two prominent private health groups as reported in some media and relayed here. It is worryingly similar to the attitude of Blair, Brown and Mandelson and the Labour government of 1997-2010 which saw short-term savings and long-term losses. Hospitals were built under PFI contracts for which some trusts will have to pay for years to come. Other outsourcings were shown to be more costly than if the functions had been retained in-house. 

Rail money going to roads, and not very much of it

 Today's government press release confirms that some of the money from the cancelled HS2 rail project will be diverted to the roads. However, £8.3bn spread over 11 years for the whole of England comes to around £750m per year which does not seem very much when one considers the backlog of potholes and cracks in England's minor roads.

Moreover, there is no mention in the government statement of consequential money for Scotland and Wales, where the need for road repairs is probably even greater.

Father of the blues

 William Christopher Handy was born on this day 150 years ago in Florence, Alabama. Wikipedia says; "Handy did not create the blues genre but was the first to publish music in the blues form, thereby taking the blues from a regional music style (Delta blues) with a limited audience to a new level of popularity. "

Braking point ... overshot?

 In March 1999, BBC Wales TV mounted a mixed programme of discussion and documentary about public transport in Wales. Glyn Mathias hosted "Braking Point" in a transport museum with Peter Hain, then transport minister in a pre-devolution Welsh Office, putting the New Labour government point of view. There were also contributions from an invited audience comprising representatives of transport users and providers.

Unless the corporation has kept a video, no copy of the programme exists in any collection or online. What follows is from a viewing of a DVD which was in turn converted from a domestic VHS cassette. (We are looking at ways of further converting to a YouTube-friendly format.)

Much is unchanged twenty-five years later: Train services were poor, but there was promise of better to come when new train sets were to be delivered. Government anti-pollution taxes on road vehicle  fuel were hitting small businesses. There was no integrated ticketing such as shown in an inserted report from the Netherlands. One thing has actually got worse: the availability of any form of public transport in large parts of rural Wales.

CAT appeal

 Sadly, the Centre for Alternative Technology is no longer open to casual visitors, though arrangements for group visits remain. The official release stated: 

With a heavy heart, we are closing our visitor centre to day visitors from today (9 November). It will, however, remain open for students, group visits, events, and courses.     Sadly, 14 positions are at risk at CAT and a full consultation will take place across at least 14 days. Staff wellbeing is of course our utmost priority, and we are providing specialist support to staff during this difficult time.   This decision has been made due to a number of factors, during a challenging time for the charity sector in the UK. The combination of rising running costs, reduced visitor numbers to Wales post-pandemic and funding delays have made it economically inviable to continue operating the visitor centre in its current model — despite our best efforts to mitigate these factors. However, our proposals to rejuvenate our eco centre are still progressing, and have been earmarked for significant funding. Once this funding is secured, it will allow us to re-open fully and raise more funds in future — inspiring many more people to take action on the climate and nature emergency through attracting more visitors, providing additional courses and learning opportunities, and expanding our accommodation so more people can stay at CAT when they visit from afar.   The Graduate School of the Environment and short course delivery are unaffected, as is our work with schools and other groups, and our Zero Carbon Britain Hub and Innovation Lab. In these ways we will continue our vital work sharing the skills, knowledge and tools required to tackle the climate and nature crisis.  As a supporter, your kindness and generosity makes such an incredible difference. Please donate today to help us continue creating and sharing practical solutions for a safer, healthier and fairer future.

Donate now

It seems to me that there is now all the more need to reach out to the local community, which was not the case in the past as shown by earlier comments on this blog. There would also seem to be a natural synergy between CAT and the National Botanic Gardens which could be more exploited. I write as one who has enjoyed visiting both several times. 

Well, nobody expected that

 The immediate thought when the news came through of David Cameron's being made a life peer (one trusts that the appointments committee has cleared this) and foreign secretary is that the prime minister has need of his predecessor's PR and networking skills. A less charitable explanation is that appointing a MP with th same level of experience is bound to upset one or another faction in the Conservative party when Sunak badly needs friends 

Cameron may not be subject to the regular FO question time in the Commons, but he may expect rather more forensic examination in the Lords, which bristles with foreign policy experts and retired defence chefs.

 

Government wants to micro-manage the wrong councils

 One would think that the government would praise councils which adopted money-saving measures and let them get on with it. South Cambridgeshire started a trial four-day week for its employees last January and has seen the benefits exceed expectations. The council leader states that half-a-million pounds in savings are already guaranteed, as recruitment has become easier and the necessity for expensive agency staff has gone down. However, the government has ordered the council to desist immediately. Could the fault be that South Cambridgeshire is run by Liberal Democrats? Or perhaps the government has an interest in contract agencies.

Government ministers were more laissez-faire when it came tp Conservative-run councils. It was not until Birmingham, Northamptonshire, Thurrock and Woking had to declare, or threaten to declare, the local government equivalent of bankruptcy that attention was paid. The last-named is now under Liberal Democrat control and progress is being made.

Another of Sunak's promises struggles to be fulfilled

 In January, prime minister Sunak promised five things: to halve inflation, grow the economy, reduce the national debt, cut NHS waiting lists and stop undocumented immigration.

Stopping the boats was always going to be a fantasy and cutting waiting lists wishful thinking, but halving inflation and  increasing GDP should each have been a walk-over. The first target should have easily been met because of the exceptionally high levels the CPI had reached; what goes up has to come down. The second was even more achievable because successive Tory administrations had reduced economic activity below that of our international competitors, so that any return to normal would have looked sparkling. 

Well, inflation is still well above the Bank of England's target of 2%. And today's release of GDP data for the previous quarter shows stagnation, not recovery. Admittedly, some of the data are not yet finalised and later corrections tend to add a percentage point to the growth figure, but that would still leave a washed-out image of the UK economy

For comparison, initial estimates of GDP in the same quarter in USA and in our nearest competitor France show growth of 4.9% and 0.1% respectively.

2023 on course to break records

 So this year could be the warmest on record? That is hard to believe, considering how few long spells of hot weather we have had here. But I bet this has been the wettest, even for Wales, for many a year.

Ceasefire or pause

 The Commons has had a good day. After a thorough examination of the future of the steel industry in England and Wales, during which the Minister rowed back on an earlier commitment to producing primary steel as a national strategy, honourable and right honourable members tackled the humanitarian implications of the war in Gaza and Israel. Mercifully, most MPs heeded the request of the deputy Speaker to keep contributions brief, though some succumbed to the temptation to lay on the suffering with a trowel.

There was much argument about the need for a ceasefire, incidentally laying bare differences on the opposition benches and to some extent the government's. The  trouble is, it seems to me, that the word means different things to different people. To many right-thinking people in the West it means an end to Israel's area bombing of residential areas and targeting ambulances and aid facilities because there might be fighters hidden there. To the Israelis, it means giving up on eradicating Hamas. Surely there is a middle ground. Israel is justified in armed police action against known terrorist leaders. (I nearly wrote "entitled" but that would imply approval under international law.) Hamas would of course have to give up weaponry in return. There are two difficulties. The ultimate leadership of Hamas is safe in Qatar and insulated from the daily suffering in Gaza and Israel; and there are splinter groups in Palestine and Lebanon firing rockets who will not follow a lead from Hamas. It needs a strong intermediary - Qatar looks favourite - to obtain a necessary pause at least.

Andrew Mitchell, for the government, did at least commit to a call for "pauses". Nor, dramatically, did he associate himself with Ms Braverman's depiction of pro-Palestinian sentiment as "nasty". Are the Home Secretary's days numbered?

Pushed from the headlines (4 of 4): Sudan

 The conflict in Sudan continues to inflict death and displacement on citizens. The war, basically between two military men vying for power, has killed almost as many as Israel and Hamas between them.

After six months and several attempts at peace talks, it shows no sign of abating. Yesterday brought news of an atrocity in Omdurman. 

Pushed out of the headlines: Nagorno-Karabakh

 The repossession of the Armenian enclave by the Azeri government in the autumn has not resolved all tensions. There had been bloody battles, exacerbated by the differences in religion between the Christian Armenians and Muslim Azeris, while Russia, supposedly a friend of both nations, stood on the side-lines.

Germany appears to have stepped into the breach with a visit to Armenia by the foreign minister at the weekend.  Clearly Germany would like to see both nations drawn under the EU ambit, though Ms Baerbock seems not to have visited Baku on her trip. Moreover, by laying a wreath at the monument to the Armenian genocide, she may have lost Turkish support in any negotiations.

Pushed out of the headlines: earthquakes

 I had already planned to highlight the devastating earthquakes in Afghanistan of last month when news of another in Nepal came through. I trust that anyone who can spare it donates to  the Gurkha Welfare Trust or another accredited agency.

Pushed out of the headlines: Ukraine

 Both the war in Ukraine and the suffering of her people at the hands of the Russians still receive the occasional mention on UK's broadcast media, but there has been nothing like the coverage before the Hamas atrocities and the Israeli reaction. In a way, that is a good thing because the slowing-down of the Ukrainian counter-offensive has been dispiriting. On the other hand, Western leaders may be tempted into withdrawing military and other aid believing the conflict has reached stalemate. This is dangerous thinking. Ukraine needs to keep up her aggression using current resources merely in able to hold the current positions. Withdrawing supplies will enable Russia to come back again. Giving just a little more help, and a mild winter, may enable Ukraine to regain momentum.

If you need detail on progress, go to the Guardian's day-by-day account , or Aljazeera's equivalent, currently day 617. 

Six weeks in 2020

 It was with gratification mixed with renewed anger that I read Ian Dunt's account in today's i of the evidence to the Covid-19 Inquiry given by former deputy cabinet secretary, Helen MacNamara. I had posted a couple of times (this was typical) about the six weeks wasted before neglect turned to panic in Downing Street in March 2020. Ms MacNamara's evidence gave independent confirmation. 

It was a thorough, judicious, objective description of a failure of governance on a near-biblical level. And it did not come from someone with an axe to grind It was damning in a way that Cummings never could be because she had minimised any sense of personal animosity and strategic calculation.

MacNamara was measured, calm, even remorseful. It goes without saying that Cummings despised her and spoke of her in heavily misogynistic tones when he was in government. He was always "dodging stilettos rom that c**t," he told Johnson on WhatsApp. 

He wanted to "handcuff her". But now it was her time in the witness box. And she laid it out step by step, every failure, every superficial thought. every irresponsibility, every unforced error, every personal and organisational inadequacy.

On 13 March 2020, MacNamara had walked into the prime minister's study. "I have come through here to the prime minister's office to tell you that I think we are absolutely f**ked," she said. "I think this country is heading for a disaster. I think we are going to kill thousands of people." Her testimony was the story of how that situation was allowed to develop.

She outlined how Johnson's response to the early months of the Covid outbreak was typified by machismo, ignorance and baseless confidence. During those key weeks between January and March 2020 the evidence from overseas became overwhelming.

It was increasingly clear we were facing a profound threat to British people's lives. But Johnson's private behaviour seems to have been identical to his public persona - the "cake and eat it" prime minister, the man who engaged in jolly old England self-satisfaction over evidence and sustained thought.

"Mr Johnson was very confident the UK would sail through," MacNamara said. He spent much of the time "laughing at the Italians", despite that country providing an early test-case for what was about to hit Britain. 

Dunt then details the sexism, the limiting of debate and discussion, the talking over of junior people. Everything was contaminated by ego. My guess is, though, even if the deputy cabinet secretary had been a man and that there had been more open discussion, the closed minds of those in charge would have led to the same outcome. And hundreds of thousands of UK residents died before their time.

Callous Johnson beyond satire

 Around three years ago, I posted - rather tongue-in-cheek - in another place the following imagined scenario in 10 Downing Street as Covid-19 hit these shores:

Picture the scene. The chair of the then scientific advisory committee
offers the advice that the disease was most lethal to the elderly and
those with existing health conditions, and that there was evidence that
the BAME community was disproportionately affected. Boris: "So it kills
off crusties, cripples and nig-nogs? Bring it on!"

Yesterday, the Covid-19 Inquiry heard that, according to Sir Patrick Vallance's diaries, the prime minister was at one with too many Conservative MPs who believed that Covid-19 was nature's way of dealing with the old. 

In August 2020, Sir Patrick wrote that Mr Johnson was "obsessed with older people accepting their fate and letting the young get on with life and the economy going".

So my imagined conversation was not as exaggerated as my readers thought. 

Russia and China making mischief using Gaza invasion

 A nation led by a Jewish president foments anti-Semitic riots in a neighbouring state. An incredible scenario, one would think, but that is what Russia is expecting us to believe. Putin is clearly exploiting divisions in the US Congress over President Biden's support for both Israel and Ukraine. Mike Johnson, the new hard-line Speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is seeking to support Israel's military effort separately to the detriment of the Ukraine. Clearly the powerful Jewish lobby in the States would welcome this and any indication that Kyiv is on the side of Hamas would encourage it. Russia has already spread the rumour that NATO weapons sent to Ukraine have finished up in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the same time, China, which has so far affected a neutral stance over both Ukraine and Gaza, sees the latter as a chance to distract the US from her protection of Taiwan and islands in the South China Sea. The latter are claimed by China, a claim not supported by the United Nations. However, as Michael Burleigh explains, China needs some sophisticated diplomacy to maintain good relations with both Israel (whose technical expertise she covets) and the Islamic world (including states which supply oil to China) while exploiting the Gaza conflict.

Gaza delenda est

 The desire for overkill, revenge masquerading as defence, is not new. The Roman empire obliterated Carthage prompted by the orator Cato who would drag the exhortation Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to Carthago delenda est or delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be destroyed"), into all his speeches. One hears similar sentiments from extremists in the Knesset today.

Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently stated that Hamas will be destroyed as ISIS (Daesh) was in Syria. This always seemed problematic as it is clear that Daesh is still operating, in parts of Africa for instance. Confirmation came from Patrick Cockburn last Saturday:

During the siege of Raqqa by the US-led coalition, the then US defence secretary James Matttis promised a "war of annihilation" against IS, but it turned out that the ones who got annihilated were the civilian population which numbered about 300,000. I was in Raqqa soon after it had been captured and 80 per cent of the city was in ruins. American artillery fired 30,000 shells and its aircraft dropped 10,000 bombs into its close-packed housing. Nobody knew how many died or were buried under the rubble. 

Anyone wanting to find out more about the calamity facing the 2.1 million people in Gaza, who have no means of escape should read a report by Amnesty International called "War of Annihilation: Devastating Toll on Civilians, Raqqa - Syria" that details how "from 6 June to 17 October 2017, the US-led Coalition operation to oust IS from its so-called 'capital' Raqqa killed and injured thousands of  civilians and destroyed much of the city. Homes, private and public buildings and infrastructure were reduced to rubble or damaged beyond repair."

A final telling twist to the story of the siege of Raqqa helps put in perspective the Israeli claim that mass bombing is an unfortunate necessity in order to defeat Hamas. In Raqqa, the bombardment killed great  numbers, but not enough IS fighters to break their resistance. Instead, a deal was done between IS and the US-led coalition along with their mostly Kurdish allies whereby the IS fighters were bussed out of the city to territory they still controlled further south while civilians were left behind in the wreckage of their city. 

Happy birthday, Turkey

 The Republic of Turkey (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) was proclaimed on this day in 1923.

The people behind GB News

 GB News has been in the news for recruiting former prime minister Boris Johnson on a reported six-figure salary. He may not know or care about the beliefs of his new employers, but those concerned at the amount of fake news put out by the fossil-fuel lobby do, on top of the influence they have within government. 

DeSmog deputy editor Sam Bright reports that cabinet ministers Michael Ghost – sorry, Gove – and Kemi Badenoch will be attending a special Halloween Ball, also known as the launch conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. 

ARC is the latest project of the Legatum Group, the Dubai-based investment firm that co-owns GB News, a major platform for climate science denial. As DeSmog has reported previously, ARC is packed with climate science deniers and politicians with links to fossil fuel interests, including former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a director of the UK’s main climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 

With the pumpkin king himself, ARC frontman Jordan Peterson, set to promote the group at the O2 arena in London next week, the dark forces of climate denial are truly descending on the UK – and have their claws firmly in the government. Where’s an exorcist when you need one?

 

Roy Lichtenstein would have been 100 today

Whaam! 

Today is also the 150th anniversary of Joseph Glidden's application for a patent on his improved design for barbed wire, incorporating a double strand which held the barbed spurs firmly in place. 

Belarus test for the Conservative government

 Mark Wallace's article in the i on Tuesday explains how our government should help those Belarussian exiles who are fighting for democracy in their home country. During the Cold War ...

...Back when exiled oppositions and expatriate dissidents from a score of nations took refuge in the West, often in London, such tactics to deny papers and disrupt citizenship were commonplace.

In reply, governments in exile began to issue their own passports, which the West then recognised, denying tyrants a veto over the lives of their critics.

Tsikhanouskaya [the wife of the leader of the opposition who is in detention] intends to do the same, and it can be just as effective. But it needs Western governments to agree to recognise the papers.

Given any opportunity to tip the scales in favour of decent people and good causes, and against the enemies of our most precious values, surely we should do so?

Prime minister Johnson was seen by many of us to be in thrall to Russian plutocrats and the finances of the Conservative party too dependent on Russian money funnelled in via a loophole in electoral legislation. Belarus is too all intents and purposes a puppet state of Putin's Russia. It will be a test of how much of a clean break is the Sunak administration with Johnson's and Truss's. One may expect president Biden to do the decent thing.

Argentine electoral stand-off

 There was no clear winner in Argentina's presidential election on Sunday. So there will be a run-off on 19th December between a rabble-rouser and a representative of the Establishment. It is unlikely that either will solve Argentina's problems of corruption and low international standing. The nation with its wealth of natural and mineral resources should be self-sufficient with some agricultural surplus to make life easier. Yet she is one of the IMF's most regular solicitor of loans.

Al-Ahli hospital: please show your working, Mr Sunak

 There was a useful statement by the PM about  the Israel-Gaza war and a debate thereon in the Commons yesterday. While it all too clearly included statements that came from Israeli Defence Force briefings, it did recover some of the ground lost to world opinion in the UK government's early response to the war that we would support Israel without qualification. 

In his statement, he said:

I also want to say a word about the tone of the debate. When things are so delicate, we all have a responsibility to take additional care in the language we use, and to operate on the basis of facts alone. The reaction to the horrific explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was a case in point. As I indicated last week, we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available, and I can now share our assessment with the House. On the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts, the British Government judge that the explosion was likely caused by a missile, or part of one, that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel. The misreporting of that incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort, and on tensions here at home. We need to learn the lessons and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment.

There was just a suggestion of the slur that it was the BBC correspondent's initial speculation about the source of the explosion which caused a breakdown in diplomacy. Much as the quality of BBC news reporting is respected around the globe, I hardly think that the King of Jordan and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia were hanging on to hear what Auntie believed before acting. They would have had their own reports of the explosion from several sources and drawn an immediate obvious, but almost certainly erroneous, conclusion. In any case, the BBC put the record straight and it was other news outlets that persisted in blaming the explosion on an air strike.

I would like to know the basis for the prime minister's confidence that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from somewhere in Gaza. If there was hard intelligence from US surveillance, why not say so? US use of satellites and drones is common knowledge, so there would hardly be any breach of confidentiality. Without that, and in the absence of physical evidence, we are still dealing with probabilities.

Double standards on transport costs

 Economy minister Vaughan Gething was given a hard time over the weekend about an increase in the amount paid to Transport for Wales (TfW) to preserve services and jobs in a post-Covid world. The exact amount is not stated in the Wales Online article, but simple arithmetic suggests it was just north of £42m.

Pre-Covid, the cost of 8km of dual carriageway rose to £321m, over £100m more than the original estimate. Beyond an investigation last year by Hannah Thomas of ITV Wales, I do not recall much of a fuss. Is the Heads-of-the-Valleys dualling not also a "money pit" judged by the standards of the TfW critics?

Don't feel sorry for me ..

... I can do that perfectly well for myself.

 

Conservatives are still misrepresenting the facts

Some would call it "lying", but let us be generous. After all, it has not been quite on the same scale as their previous leader but one. The impression they create is misleading, though, possibly dangerously so in some cases.

They were at it at Welsh Questions yesterday.  In his final reply, Secretary of State David TC Davies accused the Welsh government of a ban on new roads. What has in fact happened is that the criteria for new schemes have been tightened. If a proposal passes four tests which take increasing concerns into account, then the scheme can go ahead. As cyclingUK's Duncan Dollimore puts it:

Increasing road capacity, for so long the stated goal of so many schemes, will no longer be a justification in itself for building a new road; minimising carbon emissions, both from construction and use, will be a key focus.

Earlier, "Top Cat" had asserted that the money spent on reducing the default traffic speed limit from 30 mph would have been better spent on the NHS in Wales. He glossed over the probable reduction in the pressure on Accident & Emergency units as a result of reducing the severity of road accidents, a point that must have been made by Welsh Conservatives in September 2018 when they initiated a debate in Senedd on a motion to "introduce legislation so that a 20mph speed limit becomes the standard speed limit in Welsh residential areas". 

The real downright misstatement came from Dame Andrea Leadsom when she claimed that nobody had voted for the 20 mph limit in Wales. A few minutes perusal of the history would have shown her that not only did two Welsh Conservatives go to speak in favour of the proposal at a special conference in Cardiff, but also the party assented to the setting up of a task force to examine the proposal. The Senedd endorsed the task force's recommendation with an overwhelming majority. Both Labour and Plaid Cymru included a default 20 mph limit in their manifestos for the 2021 Welsh general election. If Tories had second thoughts about the reduction, that was surely the time to make a song and dance about it. 

Gaza double-think

At Business Questions yesterday, Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt agreed with Theresa Villiers in a clearly planted question that there was a rush to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy without a sound evidential basis. She went on:

It is also critical that reporters, sometimes stationed in very stressful environments, report facts as facts and that those things that are not facts—things that have not been verified or are lines to take from terrorist organisations—should not be treated as facts. The BBC does focus on these things to a very large degree, but we know that sometimes it does not get things right, as we saw recently with its code of conduct surrounding the Gary Lineker situation. I am sure that it will want to kick the tyres on this and ensure that anyone listening to a BBC outlet is being given the best possible information.

As this blog pointed out yesterday, the BBC was guiltless on the matter and has reported objectively on the al-Ahli explosion. If an early BBC bulletin jumped to the wrong conclusion, this was swiftly corrected. Other news outlets were not so scrupulous. 

Later, Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) asked a question which shows where his sympathies lie:

It is understandable that, after suffering the worst terrorist atrocity in its history and the largest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust, the state of Israel will now seek to eliminate the threat of Hamas and all the other terrorist organisations. Mr Speaker enabled a statement on Monday and then an urgent question. Rather than a statement, would it not be better for the House to have a debate, in Government time and on a Government motion, so that it can express its support for the state of Israel and we can come to a ready conclusion to send a strong signal? Does the Leader of the House agree that there can be no equivalence between the Hamas terrorists, who kill, maim and torture civilians and try to eliminate as many Jews as they possibly can, and the Israel Defence Forces, which seeks to target terrorists and minimise civilian casualties?

Penny Mordaunt

I think that many Members of this House would want further opportunities to discuss this very important matter, so I suggest to my hon. Friend that he pursues the idea of a debate.

There has been discussion over the last week of proportionality, and the term “collective punishment” has been used on the Floor of the House. It is incredibly important that we recognise that the International Committee of the Red Cross principle of proportionality does not mean an eye for an eye, as some have suggested. That would be perverse. We do not suggest via that very important principle that, if the Israel Defence Forces raided Gaza and beheaded a precise number of infants or burned a precise number of families or raped a precise number of women and girls, that would be okay—of course not. That is not what proportionality means. The principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.

What Israel is trying to do is end Hamas, a terror organisation that is a block to peace. The IDF is a trained military force that is subject to the rules of armed conflict and international law. Its soldiers are trained in these ethical matters. Its targeting doctrine and analysis of it is in the public domain and subject to scrutiny.

That ethical training would presumably have been given to the Israeli soldier, the sole source  of the story of the decapitated babies, told to a TV interviewer, an untruth which went half-way round the world before it was exposed and disowned by the Israeli authorities. 

As to lex talionis, America's PBS reports that since the war began 3,478 Palestinians have been killed (Hamas Ministry of Health figures; it is not clear whether the figure includes casualties in the West Bank enclave) and over 1,400 in Israel. Draw your own conclusions.