UK to train more doctors, nurses - but no plans to retain current staff

 Long-time readers of these chunterings will know that I have consistently maintained that Labour under Blair and Brown missed a once-in-a-generation opportunity in 1997. Their landslide victory ensured them of at least two parliaments in government, long enough to establish the sort of NHS training strategy that the government has just announced. So many of the difficulties of managing waiting lists this century could have been avoided - and since health in Wales had not been devolved at that stage, the template could have been set for Wales, too.

It goes without saying that the Conservatives' initiative should have come earlier. Ideally, it should have been in the 2010 coalition agreement. The only clause in this relating to health promised no further major shake-ups in the NHS (a pledge which the Tory health minister Andrew Lansley promptly broke). Coming so late in the Sunak administration, which is highly unlikely to survive beyond 2024, the training plan is subject to revision by the next government.

The major failing, though, is that the health services in both England and Wales are losing staff faster than they can be replaced. The hard line taken by health ministers in London over pay and conditions has created a hostile environment for experienced doctors, nurses and ancillary staff. Wales minister Eluned Morgan has gone rather further to settle disputes, but those settlements which have been reached are not completely satisfactory and are unlikely staunch the outflow of senior staff, the people who are not only needed to keep GIG/NHS going until the new trainees come on board but also to mentor them on the job.

So what has been set up is a training scheme to provide doctors and nurses for Australia and New Zealand.

Royalty involves itself in British homelessness

There is indignation in many quarters about the very privileged Prince of Wales caring about the homeless in the kingdom. It is clearly a genuine concern, though, continuing that of his mother and he is involving people knowledgeable in the field. One trusts that he will also look at "zero homeless" strategies abroad, notably that of Finland. 

If nothing else, the royal involvement points up the fact that the Conservative government, led by a man richer even than Prince William, is more concerned with housing only those with above-average incomes. 

ICEC report on the state of first-class cricket in England and Wales

The press release on the report of the Independent Commission for Equality in Cricket is published as a pdf here.

The main summary is:

With one in two respondents experiencing discrimination in the game, the report, Holding Up A Mirror To Cricket, lays bare the extent of game-wide failings, to reveal: 
● Racism is entrenched in cricket. The game’s structures lead to racial disparities and discrimination, and the ICEC heard many examples of stereotyping, exclusion and racist behaviour. ● Women are marginalised and routinely experience sexism and misogyny. The women’s game is treated as subordinate to the men’s game, and women have little or no power, voice or influence within cricket’s decision-making structures. 
● There is little to no focus on addressing class barriers in cricket. Private schools dominate the talent pathway, there is scarce provision of cricket in state schools and there are substantial cost barriers faced by those from lower socio-economic backgrounds. 
● The complaints system is confusing, overly defensive and not fit for purpose. There is profound mistrust, victims and those accused of discrimination are not properly supported and people are simply not reporting, for fear of victimisation and concern that no action will be taken. All too often people are suffering in silence. 
● The systems in place to ensure equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) require significant improvement. There is game-wide confusion about how the regulatory system works, with a lack of rigorous EDI standards. The ECB’s dual role of promoter and regulator creates the potential for conflicts of interest.

Things have clearly got worse since I used to put on whites to make up the numbers in local cricket teams. Then there was an easy path from players of talent to move from club cricket to first-class, whatever their social origins. That in turn was enabled by cricket being fostered in state schools.

Racial prejudice has always been with us, but it was noticeable that when John Arlott discussed a touring ban of South Africa with county cricketers, he found majority support for Basil d'Oliveira and against Apartheid. One wonders whether the attitude in county dressing-rooms would be the same now.

Now rail is dividing the nation

 In February, this blog pointed out that the re-evaluation of road schemes disproportionately favoured the south. Now an article in railwatch magazine reveals that Transport for Wales (TfW) is seeking to patch the holes in its schedule caused by failures of ageing stock and late delivery of replacements by shifting Sprinters from the north to the south, leaving the Wrexham-Bidston line as a virtual bus replacement service.

The situation in North Wales has been caused solely by TfW's decision to pull our our already ancient class 150 Sprinter trains because South Wales needed them. [...]

TfW states that it needs the Sprinters because the class 175 trains, once so comfortable and reliable, are now breaking down and requiring long repairs. Sometimes, we are told, they catch fire.

In any case, they are soon to be dispatched to other companies as arranged by the Office of Rail and
Road (ORR) possibly before the necessary supplies of new trains arrive.

Elsewhere in North Wales, the picture is a little brighter. New CAF-built 197s (assembled in Newport) are now grinding round the sharp curves of the Blaenau Ffestiniog line, making their future there look a bit doubtful.

There are electrification projects down south but nothing is being considered in our area, not even electrification of the North Wales main line which has been crying out for modernisation for years.

"Levelling-up" just does not happen in Wales, certainly as far as the railways are concerned.

There is a belt of parliamentary seats stretching across England and into North Wales which used to be regarded as safe socialist seats, held by Labour of Plaid Cymru. They were captured by the Tories in 2019 as part of their "blue wall" strategy. The partners in the current Welsh government were hoping to recapture those "blue" North Wales seats, but apparent discrimination against the north in both road and rail will tarnish their appeal. The Conservatives may well hang on, or horror of horrors! Liberal Democrats (who have a good record on rail electrification) could ride home on the issue.

[Acknowledgements to TfW for the photos]

Art recognising Welsh miners

 It is good news that Josef Herman's work is to be displayed in the town with which the refugee artist had such a close affinity.

Let us also mark the work of a living artist, Swansea-born Valerie Ganz. Her studies of coal-miners, particularly the black-and-white ones, I found more engaging than Herman's. I see from her Web pages that she has since moved on to other themes, and that her work is displayed in several galleries, but one hopes that she will, in her own lifetime, be celebrated with a permanent exhibition space of her own, somewhere in the region of Swansea Bay,

Are Russian connections preventing Tories from stopping oil spill threat?

 i newspaper reported yesterday:

Foreign flagged vessels up to 23 years of age – far beyond the operating limit observed by Western shipping companies – are regularly transiting the Dover Straits carrying up to one million barrels of Russian oil at a time despite the West’s efforts to drastically slow the flow of petro-dollars into Moscow’s coffers.

Shipping sources have told i that the tankers – part of a burgeoning so-called “shadow fleet” assembled to transport Russian “Urals” crude to customers around the world, particularly India and China – represent a growing danger of a major oil spill or major mechanical failure as they traverse busy shipping lanes and perform “high-risk” ship-to-ship (STS) transfers in open seas.

Most nations' shipping registries require a high standard of seaworthiness and regular inspections - which cost a lot of money. So unscrupulous operators will turn to flags of convenience. 

One leading expert on Russia and its energy markets told i that increasing numbers of these ageing tankers are plying a route from Russia’s Baltic ports through the English Channel and it is “far from clear” that such vessels – some of which have previously been identified as carrying sanctioned Iranian and Venezuelan oil – meet adequate safety certification and insurance standards. The issue is further complicated by opaque ownership structures with many vessels listed under shell companies in tax havens and commercial hubs such as Hong Kong. [...] the reality of the threat posed by dark ships had been grimly highlighted by events off the Malaysian coast on 1 May when the Pablo, a decrepit Gabon-registered oil tanker built in 1997, caught fire and a series of spectacular explosions blew its entire deck into the sea, killing three crew members.

Some 50 days after its demise, the gutted vessel remains where it was with no known insurer and the authorities struggling to locate its tax haven-registered owners. In the meantime, heavy fuel oil from the ship is washing up on Malaysian shores.

International shipping rules are liberal. However, it has been suggested that the UK could intervene under the United Nations treaty which gives coastal states some powers to prevent commercial vessels judged to be hazardous from approaching their shores. One wonders whether the Royal Navy currently has the resources to carry out this protection effectively. One also wonders how extensive are the links between the dark ship operators and Russian funders of the Tory organisation, which might inhibit the action which is clearly urgently necessary.

The Johnson voting figures

 With reference to yesterday's post and Monday's debate it is interesting that Labour, who made such a fuss about Sunak and some other front-benchers abstaining, had well short of 100% turnout. They were right to make that attack, but it is a pity that more of their parliamentary party did not see how important making a statement backing the Privileges committee was. "Cowardice" was not the charge I would have levelled against those who implicitly sided with Johnson; more concern for their political futures if there is a likelihood of Johnson returning. They could be afraid of the Daily Mail, of course. 

Some Labour MPs deprived of the whip, including local members Geraint Davies and Christina Rees, did not vote. 

 DUP motives are curious. Surely a party which sees itself as a participant in UK democracy ought to vote on an issue critical to parliamentary democracy? Or were they perversely showing their continued support for a PM who had badly let them down? 

The only two parties with 100% support for the motion were Liberal Democrats and the one-member Green party.

 

Johnson: large Commons majority agrees he is guilty

 But too many MPs decline to stand up for parliamentary democracy

Last Monday in the Commons, the House divided:

Ayes

354

Noes

7

Resolved,

That this House approves the Fifth Report from the Committee of Privileges (HC 564).

That report, 108 pages in total, found the former prime minister, Boris Johnson, guilty of lying to Parliament on several occasions and further of mendaciously attacking the committee on being made aware of its findings pre-publication. 

The vote crowned a debate of over six hours, which Liberal Democrats felt was excessive. All that was needed was a formal endorsement. In that spirit, the sole LD contribution was by Christine Jardine who said in one of the shortest speeches all that needed to be said and no more.

Christine Jardine
(Edinburgh West) (LD)

I rise to speak in support of the Committee’s report. I thank the Committee and its members for all the work they have done in protecting us and our privilege in the work that we do for our constituents, as the Leader of the House pointed out earlier.

Many of us, I am sure, hope that this will be the final act in one of the most disreputable episodes in British politics for many years. At that time, the country was looking to its premier elected politician—its Prime Minister—to lead us through the most difficult and traumatic of times, which I hope we never have to endure again. Lives were lost; lives were interrupted for two years; young people could not sit their exams, complete their education or start employment; people lost loved ones. The people of this country were looking to this place and the rules it was making, which were being announced from No. 10, and trusting that everything was being done in their best interests. They were following those rules and having faith in those who had set them.

I believe this is a day not for party politics, but for us all, wherever we may sit in this place, to recognise the significance of supporting the report, the moment for us and our constituents, and, as others have said, our democracy. In criticising the Committee and rejecting the validity of its conclusions, Mr Johnson attacks each of us and what we believe in. He shows contempt for the people whom we serve, and whom he purported to serve. He undermined perhaps the most intangible, and yet invaluable, foundation of our democracy: trust and confidence that our politicians, who have been voted for, tell us the truth in everything they do, and in everything they say that we, the public, must do in difficult times.

The Leader of the House talked about the real-life consequences of what we decide today and I believe that they cannot be underestimated. When we return to our constituencies from this place, our constituents will be looking to us to see how we have stood up for them, defended them and protested at the way in which they were let down by the incumbent of No. 10. They will look to us to recognise what they endured—the sacrifices that they willingly made.

Each one of us carries the title “honourable” or “right honourable”. If it is not to become a meaningless sobriquet in the 21st century, we have to live up to that today in what we decide and in what we do. The only way that we can do that is by supporting the Committee, the work that it did, the evidence that it considered and the conclusion that it came to. The honour of this House and of this democracy is at stake and we cannot risk that.

However, the debate did allow a few members (all on the Conservative side) to express some reservations about the report. 

Blair lied to the Commons and got away with it

This argument was most clearly put by Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) who, as a veteran of the Iraq invasion, was rightly aggrieved that the war had started on a false pretext. It has to be said that it was not clear at the time that, whatever the more cynical of us may have felt, Blair did not genuinely believe in the necessity for war. Besides, Blair did make a partial apology in response to the Chilcott Inquiry. Johnson has never shown remorse. Seely clearly did not think that two wrongs make a right and declared that he would vote to accept the committee's report.

The proposed punishment was too harsh

This was the reason given by Michael Gove (on TV - he did not show up for the debate) for abstaining. The speciousness of this argument was exposed in Penny Mordaunt's stern and sober introduction to the debate. She emphasised that the motion on the table was amendable, but no amendments had been submitted.

The committee was biased because the Labour chair had publicly criticised Johnson

But the committee had a Conservative majority, and Johnson expressed no reservations as to its composition or chairmanship when it was set up. Chairman Harriet Harman, qualified both as solicitor and barrister, would have observed the niceties of the situation throughout.

Johnson did not "knowingly" mislead the House

The committee found ample evidence to the contrary. To confirm Johnson's attitude to the truth, Sir Stephen Timms recounted an episode on employment figures in which the then prime minister continued to repeat a lie even after he had knowingly been corrected.

There was no need for the lockdowns because Covid-19 was not dangerous

This view was expressed by Andrew Bridgen, whose earlier stated belief that vaccination was a crime against the populace akin to the Holocaust caused him to lose the Conservative whip. There were some other mutterings against lockdown, but as the Speaker and his deputies reminded the House, the debate was about the conduct of Boris Johnson, not the rights and wrongs of lockdown.

Parliament was navel-gazing

From Andrew Bridgen: "I am not sure that the public in the real world care too much about this any more." That was not the experience of Sir Chris Bryant on the doorsteps, and he went on to point out that, between elections, only Parliament may hold her members to account:

The House has always claimed, as the Leader of the House said in her excellent speech, exclusive cognisance; that is to say, apart from the voters and the criminal law, the only body that can discipline, suspend or expel a duly elected Member of the House is the House of Commons in its entirety. I still hold to that principle. It is why any decision or recommendation to suspend or expel a Member that comes from the Standards Committee or the Independent Expert Panel has to be approved by the whole House. It is also why the only way to proceed when there is an allegation that a Member has committed a contempt of Parliament, for instance by misleading the House, is via a Committee of the House and a decision of the whole House. That is why we have to have the motion today and had to have the Committee on Privileges. It cannot, I believe, be a court of law. It has to be a Committee of the House. I do not think some commentators have fully understood that, including Lord Pannick and some former Leaders of the House.

I say to those who have attacked the process that they should be very careful of what they seek. There are those who would prefer lying to Parliament to be a criminal offence, justiciable and punishable by the courts, but that would drive a coach and horses through the Bill of Rights principle that

“freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament.”

So I am left feeling that those who attack the process simply do not believe that there should be any process for determining whether a Member has lied to the House. As I have said before, I kind of admire the personal loyalty, but I dislike the attitude because it is in effect an excuse for appalling behaviour.

Johnson did nothing wrong, even inadvertently

and it was his officials who broke the law. Only one member took this extreme view, and Lia Nici did not carry her convictions into the No lobby.

The proposed punishment was far too soft

This was expressed by Martin Docherty-Hughes (SNP) who felt that Parliament looked ridiculous if the only sanction they could impose on a member who had resigned was to take away his pass. Docherty-Hughes called for Johnson's honours list to be quashed in its entirety. He also agreed with party colleague David Linden that Johnson's membership of the Privy Council be rescinded, a call that was repeated at Thursday's Business Questions. 

Who stayed home?

On such an important matter of principle, one hoped that all honourable and right honourable members would have stood by the rights and privileges of Parliament by voting for the motion on the table. If ill, they should have used the proxy vote which was available to them, as Diane Abbott, Amy Callaghan, Anne McLaughlin, Feryal Clark, John Nicolson, Tony Lloyd and Theo Clarke did. Those who have a question to answer were:

Adam Afriye (Con, Windsor)

Afzal Khan (Lab, Manchester Gorton)

Alan Mak (Con, Havant)

Alberto Costa (Con, South Leicestershire)

Alex Burghart (Con, Brentwood and Ongar)

Alex Cunningham (Lab, Stockton North)

Alexander Stafford (Con, Rother Valley)

Alison Thewliss (SNP, Glasgow Central)

Alister Jack (Con, Dumfries and Galloway)

Alok Sharma (Con, Reading West)

Alun Cairns (Con, Vale of Glamorgan)

Amanda Milling (Con, Cannock Chase)

Amanda Solloway (Con, Derby North)

Andrea Jenkyns (Con, Morley and Outwood)

Andrew Griffith (Con, Arundel and South Downs)

Andrew Percy (Con, Brigg and Goole)

Andrew Rosindell (Con, Romford) 

Andrew Stephenson (Con, Pendle)

Angela Crawley (SNP, Lanark and Hamilton East)

Angus MacNeil (SNP, Na h-Eileanan an Iar)

Anna Firth (Con, Southend West)

Anne Marie Morris (Con, Newton Abbot)

Anne-Marie Trevelyan (Con, Berwick-upon-Tweed)

Antony Higginbotham (Con, Burnley)

Bambos Charalambos (Lab, Enfield Southgate)

Ben Bradley (Con, Mansfield)

Ben Everitt (Con, Milton Keynes North)

Ben Wallace (Con, Wyre and Preston North)

Beth Winter (Lab, Cynon Valley)

Bill Wiggin (Con, North Herefordshire)

Bob Blackman (Con, Harrow East)

Bob Stewart (Con, Beckenham)
Brandon Lewis (Con, Great Yarmouth)

Brendan Clarke-Smith (Con, Bassetlaw)

Carla Lockhart (DUP, Upper Bann)

Caroline Dinenage (Con, Gosport)

Caroline Johnson (Con, Sleaford and North Hykeham)

Cherilyn Mackrory (Con, Truro and Falmouth)

Chris Clarkson (Con, Heywood and Middleton)

Chris Grayling (Con, Epsom and Ewell)

Chris Green (Con, Bolton West)

Chris Heaton-Harris (Con, Daventry)

Chris Law (SNP, Dundee West)

Chris Loder (Con, West Dorset)

Christina Rees (Ind, Neath)

Christopher Chope (Con, Christchurch)

Christopher Pincher (Ind, Tamworth)

Claire Coutinho (Con, East Surrey)

Claire Hanna (SDLP, Belfast South)

Claudia Webbe (Ind, Leicester East)

Conor Burns (Con, Bournemouth West)

Conor McGinn (Lab, St Helens North)

Craig Mackinlay (Con, South Thanet)

Craig Tracey (Con, North Warwickshire)

Craig Whittaker (Con, Calder Valley)

Craig Williams (Con, Montgomeryshire)

Damian Collins (Con, Folkestone and Hythe)

Damien Moore (Con, Southport)

Danny Kruger (Con, Devizes)

Darren Henry (Con, Broxtowe)

David Evennett (Con. Bexleyheath and Crayford)

David Johnston (Con, Wantage)

David Jones (Con, Clwyd West)

David Morris (Con, Morecambe and Lunesdale)

David Simmonds (Con, Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner)

Dean Russell (Con, Watford)

Dehenna Davison (Con. Bishop Auckland)

Derek Thomas (Con, St Ives)

Dominic Raab (Con, Esher and Walton)

Douglas Chapman (SNP, Dunfermline and West Fife)

Eddie Hughes (Con, Walsall North)

Edward Leigh (Con, Gainsborough)

Edward Timpson (Con, Eddisbury)

Esther McVey (Con, Tatton)

Gagan Mohindra (Con, South West Hertfordshire)

Gareth Bacon (Con, Orpington)

Gareth Johnson (Con, Dartford)

Gareth Thomas (Lab, Harrow West) 

Gavin Robinson (DUP, Belfast East)

Gavin Williamson (Con, South Staffordshire)

George Eustice (Con, Camborne and Redruth)

Geraint Davies (Ind, Swansea West)

Giles Watling (Con, Clacton)

Gordon Henderson (Con, Sittingbourne and Sheppey)

Graham Stuart (Con, Beverley and Holderness)

Grant Shapps (Con, Welwyn Hatfield)

Greg Knight (Con, East Yorkshire)

Greg Smith (Con, Buckingham)

Gregory Campbell (DUP, East Londonderry)

Helen Grant (Con, Maidstone and The Weald)

Helen Whately (Con, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Henry Smith (Con, Crawley)

Huw Merriman (Con, Bexhill and Battle)

Iain Duncan Smith (Con, Chingford and Woodford)

Iain Stewart (Con. Milton Keynes South)

Ian Levy (Con, Blyth Valley)

Ian Liddell-Grainger (Con, Bridgwater and West Somerset)

Ian Paisley (DUP, North Antrim)

Jack Brereton (Con, Stoke-on-Trent South)

Jack Lopresti (Con. Filton and Bradley Stoke)

Jacob Rees-Mogg (Con, North East Somerset)

Jacob Young (Con, Redcar)

Jake Berry (Con, Rossendale and Darwen)

James Cartlidge (Con, South Suffolk)

James Cleverly (Con, Braintree)

James Daly (Con, Bury North)

James Davies (Con, Vale of Clwyd)

James Duddridge (Con, Rochford and Southend East)

James Gray (Con, North Wiltshire)

James Grundy (Con, Leigh)

James Heappey (Con, Wells)

James Morris (Con, Halesowen and Rowley Regis)

James Wild (Con, North West Norfolk)

Jamie Wallis (Con, Bridgend)

Jane Hunt (Con, Loughborough)

Jane Stevenson (Con, Wolverhampton North East)

Jason McCartney (Con. Colne Valley)

Jeffrey Donaldson (DUP, Lagan Valley)

Jeremy Corbyn (Ind, Islington North)

Jeremy Hunt (Con, South West Surrey)

Jeremy Quin (Con, Horsham)

Jeremy Wright (Con, Kenilworth and Southam)

Jill Mortimer (Con, Hartlepool)

Jim Shannon (DUP, Strangford)

Joanna Cherry (SNP, Edinburgh South West)

John Glen (Con, Salisbury)

John Hayes (Con, South Holland and The Deepings)

John Howell (Con, Henley)

John Redwood (Con, Wokingham)

John Whittingdale (Con, Maldon)

Johnny McNally (SNP, Falkirk)

Johnny Mercer (Con, Plymouth Moor View)

Jonathan Gullis (Con, Stoke-on-Trent North)

Jonathan Lord (Con. Woking)

Judith Cummins (Lab, Bradford South)

Julia Lopez (Con, Hornchurch and Upminster)

Julian Knight (Ind, Solihull)

Julian Sturdy (Con, York Outer)

Justin Tomlinson (Con, North Swindon)

Kate Griffiths (Con, Burton)

Katherine Fletcher (Con. South Ribble)

Kelly Tolhurst (Con, Rochester and Stroud)

Kemi Badenoch (Con, Saffron Walden)

Kenny MacAskill (ALBA, East Lothian)

Kevin Foster (Con. Torbay)

Kevin Hollinrake (Con, Thirsk and Malton)

Kieran Mullan (Con, Crewe and Nantwich)

Kit Malthouse (Con, North West Hampshire)

Kwasi Kwarteng (Con, Spelthorne)

Laura Trott (Con, Sevenoaks)

Lee Anderson (Con. Ashfield)

Leo Docherty (Con, Aldershot)

Lia Nici (Con, Great Grimsby)

Liam Fox (Con, North Somerset)

Lisa Cameron (SNP, East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow)

Liz Truss (Con, South West Norfolk)

Louie French (Con, Old Bexley and Sidcup)

Louise Haigh (Lab, Sheffield Heeley)

Lucy Allan (Con, Telford)

Lucy Frazer (Con, South East Cambridgeshire)

Marco Longhi (Con, Dudley North)

Marcus Fysh (Con, Yeovil)

Marcus Jones (Con, Nuneaton)

Margaret Beckett (Lab, Derby South)

Margaret Ferrier (Ind, Rutherglen)

Maria Caulfield (Con. Lewes)

Mark Eastwood (Con, Dewsbury)

Mark Francois (Con, Rayleigh and Wickford)

Mark Garnier (Con, Wyre Forest)

Mark Harper (Con, Forest of Dean)

Mark Hendrick (Lab, Preston)

Mark Jenkinson (Con, Workington)

Mark Logan (Con, Bolton North East)

Mark Menzies (Con. Fylde)

Mark Pawsey (Con, Rugby)

Mark Pritchard (Con, The Wrekin)

Mark Spencer (Con, Sherwood)

Mary Robinson (Con, Cheadle)

Matt Vickers (Con, Stockton South)

Matt Warman (Con, Boston and Skegness)

Matthew Offord (Con. Hendon)

Mel Stride (Con, Central Devon)

Mhairi Black (SNP, Paisley and Renfrewshire South)

Michael Fabricant (Con, Lichfield)

Michael Gove (Con, Surrey Heath)

Michael Tomlinson (Con, Mid Dorset and North Poole)

Michele Donelan (Con, Chippenham)

Mick Whitley (Lab, Birkenhead)

Mike Freer (Con, Finchley and Golders Green)

Mike Penning (Con, Hemel Hempstead)

Mike Wood (Con, Dudley South)

Miriam Cates (Con, Penistone and Stocksbridge)

Nadhim Zahawi (Con. Stratford-on-Avon)

Nadine Dorries (Con, Mid Bedfordshire)

Natalie Elphicke (Con, Dover)

Naz Shah (Lab, Bradford West)

Neil Hudson (Con, Penrith and The Border)

Neil O'Brien (Con, Harborough)

Nigel Adams (Con, Selby and Ainsty)

Nigel Huddleston (Con, Mid Worcestershire)

Nus Ghani (Con, Wealden)

Oliver Dowden (Con, Hertsmere)

Oliver Heald (Con, North East Hertfordshire)

Owen Thompson (SNP, Midlothian)

Paul Beresford (Con. Mole Valley)

Paul Bristow (Con, Peterborough)

Paul Girvan (DUP, South Antrim)

Paul Howell (Con, Sedgefield)

Paul Maynard (Con, Blackpool North and Cleveleys)

Pauline Latham (Con, Mid Derbyshire)

Peter Bone (Con, Wellingborough)

Philip Davies (Con, Shipley)

Philip Hollobone (Con, Kettering)

Preet Gill (Lab, Birmingham Edgbaston)

Priti Patel (Con, Witham)

Rachel Maclean (Con, Redditch)

Ranil Jayawardena (Con, North East Hampshire)

Rebecca Harris (Con, Castle Point)

Richard Bacon (Con, South Norfolk)

Richard Drax (Con, South Dorset)

Rehman Chishti (Con, Gillingham and Rainham)

Richard Holden (Con, North West Durham)

Rishi Sunak (Con, Richmond (Yorks))

Rob Butler (Con, Aylesbury)

Robert Courts (Con, Witney)

Robert Goodwill (Con, Scarborough and Whitby)

Robert Halfon (Con. Harlow)

Robert Jenrick (Con, Newark)

Robin Millar (Con, Aberconwy)

Roger Gale (Con, North Thanet)

Rosie Duffield (Lab, Canterbury)

Royston Smith (Con, Southampton Itchen)

Ruth Jones (Lab, Newport West)

Sajid Javid (Con, Bromsgrove)

Sally Ann Hart (Con, Hastings and Rye)

Sammy Wilson (DUP, East Antrim)

Saqib Bhatti (Con, Meriden)

Sara Britcliffe (Con, Hyndburn)

Sarah Atherton (Con, Wrexham)

Sarah Dines (Con, Derbyshire Dales)

Scott Benton (Con, Blackpool South)

Scott Mann (Con, North Cornwall)

Shailesh Vara (Con, North West Cambridgeshire)

Shaun Bailey (Con, West Bromwich West)

Sheryll Murray (Con, South East Cornwall)

Simon Baynes (Con, Clwyd South)

Simon Clarke (Con, Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland)

Simon Hoare (Con, North Dorset)

Siobhan Baillie (Con, Stroud)

Stephen McPartland (Con, Stevenage)

Stephen Metcalfe (Con, South Basildon and East Thurrock)

Steve Barclay (Con, North East Cambridgeshire)

Steve Double (Con, St Austell and Newquay)

Stewart McDonald (SNP, Glasgow South)

Stuart Anderson (Con, Wolverhampton South West)

Stuart Andrew (Con, Pudsey)

Suella Braverman (Con. Fareham)

Suzanne Webb (Con, Stourbridge)

Theresa Villiers (Con, Chipping Barnet)

Therese Coffey (Con, Suffolk Coastal)

Tom Hunt (Con, Ipswich) 

Tom Pursglove (Con, Corby)

Tom Randall (Con, Gedling)

Tommy Sheppard (SNP, Edinburgh East)

Tonia Antoniazzi (Lab, Gower)

Tracey Crouch (Con, Chatham and Aylesford)

Trudy Harrison (Con, Copeland)

Victoria Atkins (Con, Louth and Horncastle)

Virginia Crosbie (Con, Ynys Mon)

Wendy Morton (Con, Aldridge-Brownhills)

Wes Streeting (Lab, Ilford North)

Will Quince (Con, Colchester)

Yasmin Qureshi (Lab, Bolton South East)

 

[Sinn Fein MPs never attend Westminster; the Speaker and his deputies do not vote]

Covid-19: at last a government admission of guilt ...

 ... if only a partial one.

Open Democracy reports:

Former health secretary Jeremy Hunt has faced the Covid-19 inquiry for the first time, answering questions on why the UK wasn’t adequately prepared for a pandemic that has so far killed more than 200,000 Brits.

The mood in the hearing room was sober as Hunt entered and began his evidence giving. He began by discussing a “traumatic” moment in a pandemic simulation where he was asked to make a hypothetical decision that would lead “to the death of numerous people”.

Hunt was grilled about how well the Department of Health – now the Department of Health and Social Care – was prepared for the coronavirus pandemic, particularly after years of austerity measures and an NHS budget that did not rise with inflation or expand to suit an ageing population.

“I don’t think any healthcare systems can plan to have as many doctors or nurses as you would need in an extreme pandemic situation just because of cost,” Hunt said.

Addressing the inquiry, Hunt – now the UK chancellor – explained that a “mistake” was made by focusing preparations on a flu pandemic, rather than a coronavirus pandemic, as well as not putting enough emphasis on prevention.

“We didn’t ask the searching questions as to whether we should be doing more preparations for one of those viruses becoming more contagious,” said Hunt. “We didn’t put anything like the time and effort energy into understanding those dangers [of a coronavirus pandemic].”

He added, however, the need to be “realistic”: “You can’t – as a government – prepare for every single scenario exhaustively, so you have to make choices as to which of those likely scenarios you’re going to have to deal with.”

Hunt was health secretary between 2012 and 2018. During his time in the post, patient experience and staff morale fell, waiting times increased, the waiting list for treatments grew by 1.4 million, and his decisions led to the first ever junior doctor strike.

Speaking about the early days of the pandemic, Hunt said there was “groupthink” that led to certain assumptions about how to manage the virus.

“I think there was a groupthink that we knew this stuff best,” he admitted. “There was a sense that – perhaps with the exception of the United States – there wasn’t an enormous amount to learn from other countries.

“There was a shared assumption that herd immunity was inevitably going to be the only way that you contain a virus that spreads like wildfire.”

The former health secretary also criticised the decision not to show him documents about a pandemic modelling exercise – Exercise Alice* – but did not say whose failure it was.

“Here was the one bit of all our pandemic preparations where we were closest to thinking about a Covid-style pandemic, and it got very little attention in the grander scheme of things,” he said.

Hunt was addressing the first module of the Covid-19 inquiry, hours after deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden was called to give evidence.

Dowden told the inquiry that it was “appropriate” for the UK to have deprioritised pandemic planning in order to focus on a no-deal Brexit.

That last paragraph is really telling. The Johnson government believed it was more important to keep Brexiteers on board than to protect the health of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable citizens.

Apart from that, the ignorance of the Johnsonites is staggering. They really believed that there was more knowledge about SARS-CoV2 in Trump's America than in the nations bordering China. Presumably they dismissed New Zealand, who also imposed entry restrictions in good time, as a bunch of colonials. 

All the evidence from other nations who took precautions early is that if the UK, having been given more warning than other European nations, started testing and applying strict border controls from  January 2020, a national lockdown and deaths throughout the care system could have been avoided. Elimination of imported virus could not have been 100%, but local flare-ups could have been contained, especially if powers and resources had been restored to local Directors of Public Health.

* The failure to act on exercise Alice is explored in more detail here.

More than a computer language and a unit of pressure

 Blaise Pascal was born 400 years ago today. He figures in the history of computing as the second person to produce a mechanical calculator (Schickard was the first). He made many mathematical and scientific discoveries, but is also well-known for his philosophical thoughts. 

"Pascal's most famous work in philosophy is Pensées Ⓣ, a collection of personal thoughts on human suffering and faith in God which he began in late 1656 and continued to work on during 1657 and 1658. This work contains 'Pascal's wager' which claims to prove that belief in God is rational with the following argument.

If God does not exist, one will lose nothing by believing in him, while if he does exist, one will lose everything by not believing.

"With 'Pascal's wager' he uses probabilistic and mathematical arguments but his main conclusion is that

...we are compelled to gamble...

"

 

"That's TV" ownership

 Researching the fate of Bay TV turned up some interesting facts. That's TV, the company that now owns the local TV licence, was co-founded by Esther Rantzen of That's Life fame - thus explaining the company name. Ms Rantzen has now given up all her directorships, including most recently the two charities she founded. 

As a private company, That's TV is fairly opaque to enquiries. Even more opaque (as far as the Web is concerned, anyway) is the origin of its sole proprietor, Daniel Cass. What is clear is that he believes in sweating assets as the experience of That's Solent demonstrates.

Cass can be criticised for making the most of the opportunity for profit with little concern for the spirit of local TV legislation. However, more blame should be attached to Ofcom and the Conservative politicians who have not forced operators to respect the original remit.

Interest rate hikes do not combat inflation

As Alpesh Patel pointed out on BBC Business News during the week. the use of lending rate to damp down inflation has failed. What is likely to be more effective is to reduce spending power by raising tax rates, but no politician dare do this.

It was good to hear a trained economist confirm what this non-economist had long suspected. I would go further and suggest that raising bank lending rate increases domestic price inflation in the short term as those entities having to pay more in interest will pass the cost on to consumers.

If the conventional economic theory of the Phillips Curve ever worked, it was by slugging an economy, stifling investment and throwing people out of work so that less money circulates. But it seems to me that each application of the interest rate shillelagh makes succeeding inflation incidence worse as indebted companies are driven out of business leaving fewer providers in the market.

 

Which is more humane, the gas chamber or the Work Capability Assessment?

 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001mck1 refers

Inspired by the "science" of eugenics, Nazi Germany sterilised or put to death the long-term disabled, particularly the mentally-troubled, in the interests of creating the supermen and -women of the master race. This was before they got round to the homosexuals, Slavs and Jews.

We do not believe in such crude stuff. Instead, we label such people as "shirkers" and deny them benefits. Is it any wonder that so many have taken their own lives? From the time that the cold-blooded Peter Lilley set the programme of discrimination in motion, no government or political party has been free of blame.

Now the WCA is to be abolished. In the last programme of his series, Jolyon Jenkins asks whether its replacement is going to be any better.

Covid-19 Inquiry timetable favours Conservatives' general election chances

 Private Eye reckons

it's good news for government that the inquiry has said it won't look at events in chronological order. Thus the successful vaccine roll-out will be scrutinised before the election, but how the virus spread through care homes isn't scheduled until summer 2024. With an election likely in autumn 2024, the inquiry won't be able to hold hearings during an election campaign, so the care home deaths module will likely be delayed until afterwards.

The inquiry could still publish its interim analysis of pandemic preparedness and the government's initial response before the election - but only if it receives the evidence it needs in time. 

That timeframe will also be a relief to the Welsh ministers in post at the time the epidemic was taking hold here. First Minister Mark Drakeford and Health Minister Vaughan Gething were the men in charge. Gething has since been replaced by Eluned Morgan and Drakeford may well have sent in his promised resignation letter by the time the inquiry takes evidence from Wales. They must feel that denying a Wales-only Inquiry, which may well have been able to report more swiftly than Hallett, was justified in keeping out of the line of fire until it did not matter. 

There was a further item in Private Eye about the Inquiry which is difficult to believe until you see the official confirmation:

Renowned art curator Ekow Eshun has been appointed to oversee the co-creation of a modern tapestry for the UK Covid-19 Inquiry that will capture the experiences and emotions of people across the UK during the pandemic. Ekow is Chairman of the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group, overseeing one of the UK’s foremost public art programmes.

Ekow will curate the tapestry, which will feature panels produced by different artists over the coming months. The Inquiry is working with a range of organisations and individuals across the UK to identify stories to inspire each panel.

This is an egregious waste of public money when one considers that such a tapestry already exists. It is shortly to find a permanent home with the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Trust after a tour of the UK:

The Covid Chronicle was set up by artist Wendy Bliss during the February UK Lockdown, 2021. The completed project is made up of 142 submissions from around the world, and the panels have been curated and stitched together into metre square blocks of four, making a total of 36 metres of work. The installation has been described as a ‘Bayeux Tapestry’ for the 21st century pandemic, and records personal experience in words as well as pictures: each artist has been invited to add words to support their panel for this extraordinary collection; these are often poetic or moving, and always interesting.

 

Who is standing up for traditional British values?

 In last Sunday's World This Weekend radio programme, presenter James Naughtie introduced a discussion on the implications of the latest Johnson episode.

It raises questions about parliamentary behaviour, honours lists and their place in our democracy and maybe the whole system of checks and balances that are effectively our alternative to a written constitution. 

The veteran (born 1953) Conservative MP, Sir Geoffrey Clinton-Brown, agreed with Naughtie that:

It demeans and reduces the status of parliament and members of parliament. It is clearly a very bad thing. 

Naughtie turned to Dame Margaret Beckett, the woman MP with the longest overall service in the Commons, for a description of the saga's effect on parliament and public debate. 

Funnily enough, I was having a conversation with a colleague about it in a different context the other day and we were talking about, in the future, how do you get a better balance of responsibilities and where blame is shared, if any, and so on. Part-way through the conversation we suddenly realised that actually the easiest and best way to do it would be this way, relatively light touch and then we realised the only reason we are not discussing doing it that way is because of Boris Johnson and the way he's behaved ever since he became prime minister, because no longer can people kind of say "well, of course, nobody would do that, you know it would be unprecedented, it would be outrageous", and then you realise that Boris has destroyed all those comfortable assumptions. 

Studio guest Gus O'Donnell (70), former head of the civil service, was asked by Naughtie to speak on behalf of the Establishment, which Johnson had railed against in his resignation message. Lord O'Donnell was more sanguine about our system:

When you look at the US, Congress and the Republican party are really struggling with how to handle Donald Trump. In the UK, we've had a situation where we have a prime minister, who hasn't behaved well, but the checks and balances in our system for prime ministers, you know, it's their party. So it's Tory MPs that decided they didn't want Boris Johnson as their leader. As Mr Johnson the MP has behaved badly in parliament, it's parliament that's done this. .... Conservatives have to ask themselves, constitutionally do you want to put something above our sovereign parliament to second-guess it when it doesn't give you the answers you want?

Asked about Johnson's characterisation of the civil service as The Blob, Lord O'Donnell said:

Effective government is all about civil service and government working together which works at its best when government is very clear what it wants to do, and the civil service is there in its role to test that and ask challenging questions, but once government has decided what to do, to get on and deliver it.

In the last few years, he admitted, that view of the world:

has struggled, to be perfectly honest, because you've had prime ministers, you've had special advisers, who've abused the system and that's becoming more and more obvious ... I think the current prime minister is beginning to rebuild that trust in our government, in our institutions ... it is sad, because I see my former civil service losing a lot of talent - people are somewhat disillusioned and we need to attract them back.

[...]

The only time you find parliament struggling is when you get an executive - the government - saying to parliament "please do things which are not in line with the law". Parliament's job - and this is what the House of Lords has been doing a lot of - is to say "if you want to do that, go ahead by all means, but change the law first and get that through parliament but you can't do it under the law as it exists" 

Naughtie and O'Donnell agreed that the deal which enabled our system of government to function without a written constitution, an understanding across party political boundaries, labelled the "good chaps" theory by Peter Hennessy , is under unprecedented strain. Lord O'Donnell however remained optimistic, the checks and balances of party and parliamentary committee having worked in the case of Boris Johnson.

A later guest, the decade-younger Danny Finkelstein, was not so sure. He saw Johnson and his allies taking the fight outside parliament and was not certain that it would be unsuccessful. 

Clifton-Brown, Beckett, O'Donnell and Hennessy are roughly all of the generation which, growing up, saw the reestablishment of the rule of law in nations devastated by the actions of dictators who had overridden it - not to mention the removal in |Britain of the restrictions on civil liberties imposed by a wartime government. Where are the younger people prepared to defend publicly our system of government? I exempt the millennials from criticism. Young adults have always been more exercised about specific causes before developing more of a world view. I am more concerned about the generation between us, "Thatcher's children" if you like. Adam Smith, Walter Bagehot and John Stuart Mill were in their late forties or early fifties when they wrote the books for which they are most famous. Where are the middle-aged defenders of liberal government today?

What does Labour stand for?

I am grateful to Lord Bonkers for the link to an article by the always-perceptive Michael Crick. Crick shows that, far from the weak and vacillating post-holder that the media make him out to be, Sir Keir Starmer is a ruthless operator. The article lists examples of Starmer and a few key executives able to eliminate candidates with any taint of socialism from selection contests, irrespective of the Labour Party's committees' views. (Welsh Labour has not gone quite that far, but presumably nudged by London has allegedly rigged ballots in favour of conservative candidates. The forthcoming merger of the Merthyr Tydfil and Cynon Valley seats, eliminating one of the two current Labour MPs, provides a case in point.)

What worries me is that Starmer also seems to want to replace anti-Semitism in the party (a laudable aim in itself) with Islamophobia. Not only the socialist tradition within the party is being discriminated against, but also many loyal, mainstream Muslim activists and those who protest Israeli prime minister Netanyahu's attack on civil rights.

It is known that openly-divided parties suffer in the polls. Starmer seems to have gone to the opposite extreme. But, as Crick points out:

Past Labour governments, by contrast, have always thrived on being a “broad church”. Attlee’s cabinet counted Nye Bevan and Stafford Cripps among its towering figures, yet both had suffered periods of expulsion from the party only a few years before. Wilson’s benefited from the presence of Dick Crossman and Barbara Castle; Callaghan had Tony Benn and Michael Foot (another former expellee), while Blair’s deputy John Prescott had been one of the “tightly knit group of politically motivated men” denounced by Wilson during the 1966 seamen’s strike.

As the experiences of both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss demonstrated, it’s a mistake to confine ones government to a narrow band of loyal yes-men and women. Cabinet government needs the odd maverick, people who are willing to come up with alternative ideas and scrutinise and challenge existing policy. “Keir is blocking off his exits,” a former Corbyn aide recently told him. “You need some people who are creating space, and who enable the party to be a bit bolder.”

There is always a danger of people at the top of a party hierarchy acting as dictators, even in such a liberal organisation as the Liberal Democrats. The quarantines of the last few years have tended to produce an in-group effect at the top. Before the next general election, efforts must be made to return to our open and tolerant tradition. We must follow Labour down a bland and featureless path. 

Lords reform has become more urgent

 Boris Johnson's delayed prime ministerial resignation honours list briefly made headline news on Friday. It was soon swept off TV news reports by the double resignations as MPs of Nadine Dorries and Johnson himself. This has inhibited discussion of the implications of the honours list which blatantly comprises only those who have done favours for Johnson. The devaluation of orders of chivalry is bad enough,  but not as dangerous as the awarding of peerages to those who are unlikely to make a positive contribution to the upper house of the UK parliament.

In 2012, an unholy alliance of the Labour opposition and Conservative back-benchers, by blocking a timetable motion, ensured that the Lords Reform Bill initiated by the Liberal Democrats would not make progress in the Commons. It was therefore shelved.

Labour has since recognised that Lords reform is popular. A commission chaired by former PM Gordon Brown has drawn up a complex scheme for an elected upper House based upon the regions and nations of the UK. 

The Brown scheme addresses one flaw which the 2012 Bill did not, the London and home counties bias of the current chamber. It does place too much emphasis on party when one of the few benefits of the current Lords is the large number of cross-benchers. Peers who are not burdened by party allegiance can and do make valuable contributions because of their very independence. On balance, though, Brown represents progress.

The question is: could a Labour government be trusted to carry reform through? In 1998, a commission chaired by a former Labour grandee came forward with a proposal for Commons electoral reform. Then, as now, Labour was led by a man from the conservative wing of the party. Tony Blair, buoyed by an unexpectedly large majority from the 1997 election decided that reform was not in Labour's interests and did not proceed with the Jenkins proposals. 

Current public opinion ratings notwithstanding, it is unlikely that Labour will have an overwhelming majority at the next election.  They will  thus have to take third party opinion into account and we may at last have the Lords reform we need.

Our "local" TV station

 Bay TV was set up in 2013 with the best of intentions to fulfil Conservative culture minister Jeremy Hunt's stated aim of 

providing truly local content that is more relevant to local people and leading the way for a multitude of local TV stations across the UK. My vision for local TV is one which contributes to future economic growth and social wellbeing in the UK. Local TV will be a driver of growth in the media and creative industries; helping to increase local employment and skills and boosting local businesses. It will also have a vital role in contributing to local democracy. With Royal Assent being given to the Localism Bill last month and the planned referenda on new locally elected Mayors and Police and Crime Commissioners, local TV will have an important role in holding local politicians to account through coverage of local news and current affairs. 

It has to be admitted that the technical and presentation standards of the new station were not as polished as the established national broadcasters. However, these would surely have improved with time - time that the new station was not given. Deaths of key personnel seemed to drain the energy of the enterprise, whose model became financially unsustainable. Bay TV was wound up and the licence sold. The licence is now held, along with 15 other services, by a private company, That's TV.

On Wednesday last, it was announced that "after a period of consultation", 

Local television services across the country will remain on air until 2034, under new proposals set out by the Government. All 34 of the UK’s local TV stations will have their licenses renewed, subject to a review of individual future plans.

Plans set out by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) will allow media regulator Ofcom to review each station’s plans to continue meeting the needs of local audiences.

The current licenses are currently due to expire in 2025.

Launched in 2013, local TV services are accessible to 15 million people and are required to show a number of hours of local programming each day.

“While recognising the challenges they have faced, particularly during the pandemic, the Government believes that local TV services continue to play a role in the wider broadcasting ecosystem,” the DCMS said.

“Many services, such as Notts TV in Nottingham and KMTV in Kent, also boost local journalism through training programmes provided in production, news reporting and technical roles, which enable students to gain hands-on experience.”

Minister John Whittingdale said: “Local TV stations from Belfast to Birmingham help to support local journalism, drive the creative economy and foster pride in communities.

“We want to see this continue, so we’ve set out plans for Ofcom to review all services to ensure they’re well positioned to continue serving local audiences with trusted and distinctive content for years to come.”

The DCMS statement is disingenuous. Notts TV and KMTV are the exception, rather than the rule. Only a handful of truly local services remain, as this wikipedia article shows. That's TV owns nearly half the licences, streaming repeats of past TV programmes to its satellite stations from its Manchester HQ. Nine of the other licences are held by Local TV Ltd. 

Minister Whittingdale, a long-time opponent of non-commercial broadcasting, has refused to admit that Local TV has, apart from a half-dozen of localities, been a failure. It is to be hoped that an incoming DCMS minister after the next election sticks to the original timetable and revokes the licences of TV stations which are local in name only.

A serious AI threat

There has been unnecessary panic about a supposed threat to humankind from developments in artificial intelligence (AI). AI has been with us for a long time, from the philosophical discussions between Alan Turing and Donald Michie at Bletchley Park in wartime and the later ability to put their ideas into practice as second- and third-generation computers caught up with them. Turing died young, tragically and unnecessarily but Michie was able to capitalise on the transistor revolution. He founded at least one AI research unit and his regular column in Computer Weekly introduced his ideas to those of us who were making a living in commercial and administrative information technology.  (His centenary comes up in September this year. One trusts that he will be celebrated appropriately then.) 

By 1985, there were already real-world examples of the application of AI in the form of expert systems. Medical diagnoses and fault-finding in complex systems benefited from linking AI to faster and larger databases. Machine learning and artificial neural networks also became part of the mix. What has happened since then has been steady development in techniques and game-changing improvements in processing speed and memory capacity. It now looks like magic, as Arthur C Clarke observed.

But fast or slow, these systems lack the vital spark, the thing that distinguishes real life from artificial. They can never be self-aware or act on an initiative which is not implicit in their program. Even machines that learn can only do so within the parameters set down by their designers and coders. And, as one wag pointed out on the radio recently, if one does act dangerously due to a program bug or a hardware fault, all you need to do is pull the plug out.

The great new danger it seems to me is of evil people taking advantage of state-of-the-art simulation on broadcast media and the Web. (Fortunately, we are a long way from real-life robots indistinguishable from humans alla Westworld.) Already, as this Galaxy commercial featuring "Audrey Hepburn" showed, well-known figures can be made to appear in videos and movies long after they are dead. Text-to-speech systems have been with us for some time.  Linked to a program which can analyse speech patterns using surprisingly little material, there are applications which can appear to make (e.g.) politicians spout views diametrically opposed to their public stance. 

The possibilities are endless. Is that really Sir Keir Starmer praising private medicine? Is it really Sir Ed Davey having a conversation with John Redwood about a post-election coalition? Or Nigel Farage admitting he was wrong all along and that the UK's future is in Europe? Caroline Lucas praising the Aston Martin Bulldog and pressing for it to be put into production? 

Those were all extreme examples and easily detectable as fakes (except maybe the first). But more subtle fakes could easily take voters in and destroy what confidence remains in our electoral system. Perhaps politicians will be forced back to physical hustings ("this is really me, in the flesh"), which would be no bad thing.

Finally, there is an imminent threat to actors. In a notoriously insecure profession, many who have not made it on the stage or in feature film have been able to use their training to voice TV commercials or documentaries. Some like Christopher Tester, pen-pictured in the i recently,  have been very successful. Others may be just scraping a living. But all could be swept away by simulators. The bottom line has no scruples.

Bill Lee

 When I bought my Bob Dylan "Bringing it all back home" LP there was no way I could know that the father of a future world-renowned film-maker was involved. Bassist and composer Bill Lee was a key member of Dylan's backing group for the studio sessions. He went on to compose the sound-tracks for son Spike's early films, as well as folk operas. He died at the end of last month. The New York Times obituary is here.

Those women conductors keep coming

Royal Opera has named Speranza Scappucci as principal guest conductor. Italian-born and Juilliard-trained, she has declared in the Guardian that she hopes to help demystify opera for British audiences.

In her native Italy, conductor Speranza Scappucci stars in a national television show in which she sits at the piano explaining symphonies and operas to viewers, before performing them with an orchestra, to help bring classical works to new audiences.

Until last year, she was music director of Opéra Royal de Wallonie-Liège in Belgium. In January last year, Scappucci – who has also conducted at the Met in New York, Staatsoper in Berlin and the Opéra National de Paris – became the first Italian woman ever to conduct at Teatro alla Scala in Milan.

John Morris, Lord Morris of Aberavon

 

John Morris, former MP for Aberavon and government minister both as attorney-general and secretary of state for Wales, has just died. It would be fair to say that he divided opinion locally. His major contribution to the infrastructure of Port Talbot was the M4 urban motorway, which has proved a mixed blessing. 

However, friends and political opponents alike have acknowledged his unwavering support for devolution. His voice may well have been critical in the counsels of the national Labour party, which has traditionally been loth to devolve power from Westminster. 

The picture shows Lord Morris, the Mayor of Neath Port Talbot, the Mayor of Neath and Lord Livsey after a 2009 ceremony celebrating the memory of another former local M.P., Sir Samuel Thomas Evans..

Adam Smith tercentenary

 Claimed as an inspiration by many Conservatives, Smith was rather more liberal than they care to admit publicly.

Johnstone and Anger

 The film world lost two significant writer/directors last month. Iain Johnstone died on 4th May, followed a week later by Kenneth Anger. Johnstone received - rightly - an extensive obituary on Radio 4's Last Word.  There was no way any Establishment outlet would memorialise Anger, who made his name with homoerotic short films before revealing the feet (and other body parts) of clay of such movie idols as James Dean in his book Hollywood Babylon. 

That in turn inspired Matthew Sweet to write Shepperton Babylon - thankfully not quite as racy as the Anger and very readable.

Updated 2023-06-07

Of hedgehogs and wrens - and monoglot English

 I was thinking about Brahms and his favourite hostelry, Zum roten Igel ((at the sign) of the red hedgehog),
as I drank a small coffee from one of my favourite cups. One of a set from scion living it features a cartoon hedgehog on a red ground. Why do Germans have such a short word for a hedgehog, but a longer one, where we have a shorter one, for wren? Zaunkönig, or king of the hedge, is certainly descriptive of the little bird which makes the loudest noise from the shrubbery. (Some lovely pictures here.)

Anyway, such trivia was soon swept aside by the worrying revelation on today's PM programme that only 2,200 students throughout England are to sit A-level German papers this year. (Last year's figures for 17-year-olds in Wales are equally depressing. Just 35 were recorded, in a nation which more than most should esteem polylingualism.) The figures for French and Spanish, spoken in more countries than where they originated, are slightly better, but the overall picture is one of the student population turning inward. Traditionally, German has been the language of science, clearly overtaken by English in the twentieth century, but surely still an important medium. That is on top of its continuing importance in literature, not to mention chess. It is all very sad.

Uganda's homophobia goes beyond colonial-era law

Politico reports:

Uganda’s president has signed into law tough new anti-gay legislation supported by many in this East African country but widely condemned by rights activists and others abroad.

The version of the bill signed by President Yoweri Museveni doesn’t criminalize those who identify as LGBTQ, a key concern for campaigners who condemned an earlier draft of the legislation as an egregious attack on human rights. 

[...]

Homosexuality was already illegal in Uganda under a colonial-era law criminalizing sexual activity “against the order of nature.” The punishment for that offense is life imprisonment.

The new law goes further. It

prescribes the death penalty for “aggravated homosexuality,” which is defined as cases of sexual relations involving people infected with HIV as well as with minors and other categories of vulnerable people. A suspect convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” can be imprisoned for up to 14 years, according to the legislation.

Apart from the death penalty which has largely been abandoned in the civilised world, the Act takes no account of the fact that HIV in sub-Saharan Africa has been very much a heterosexual disease. 

Prospects for improved trade with Uganda are now remote, after promising beginnings.