Blogging will be light

 There has been a death in the family. Working on these entries will be difficult, but I shall do my best.

MoD must not fudge possible war crimes

 I believe that our fighting men and women conduct themselves better than most in conflict and in martial law situations. I also concur with the opinion of MPs with experience of policing by UK forces that there have been spurious and vexatious claims of brutality. However, soldiers are soldiers and there will always be pressure on discipline. So it behoves our defence chiefs to treat all claims objectively and transparently in order to maintain a reputation for fairness, and not to let off lightly those who abuse their positions.  WE must not allow UK forces to be bracketed with the IDF, as an organ of state terrorism.

A fifty year old CAT

 The Centre for Alternative Technology is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. There is an invitation to a celebration on Saturday 19th August here.

Remember what ULEZ is all about

Air pollution a cause of UK girl’s death, finds global landmark ruling

By Emma Reynolds, CNN

Updated 1:13 PM EST, Wed December 16, 2020

A 9-year-old girl who died after an asthma attack is thought to be the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as a cause of death in a landmark coroner’s ruling.

Ella Kissi-Debrah lived in Lewisham, southeast London, near one of the UK capital’s busiest roads, the South Circular. She died in hospital in February 2013 after suffering a cardiac arrest from which she could not be resuscitated, the coroner reported on Wednesday.

The girl suffered from severe asthma that caused episodes of cardiac and respiratory arrest, and frequent emergency hospital admissions over three years.

Her medical cause of death was listed as acute respiratory failure, severe asthma and air pollution exposure. The coroner’s conclusion was that Ella “died of asthma contributed to by exposure to excessive air pollution.

Political ideology cannot be taken out of the NHS

 Kevin Fong's Who cares?, an analysis of the NHS today, should be required listening for politicians both in London and Cardiff. The latest episode (on BBC Sounds here) hammers home the message that there is no single simple solution to its ills, and that the health service cannot be mended without also attending to social services. However, a subsidiary message from Dr Fong is that there have been too many top-down reorganisations (uniquely in the world of state health systems, according to an expert in the field) and not enough is devolved to local initiatives. 

Cameron's Conservative manifesto of 2010 embraced the first message. There would be no new top-down reforms under a Conservative government. The Liberal Democrat manifesto did not go that far, but promised to remove unnecessary bureaucracy and there was an element of increased localisation. The coalition agreement reached a compromise in the area. In the event, all three aims were swept aside in a reorganisation under Andrew Lansley which surely made things worse. (Welsh Labour is not immune to musstunismus*; there were two GIG restructurings within the first decade of devolution, the second occurring before the first had been completed.)

When Labour politicians say that the politics should be taken out of any issue, it usually means that things should be done Labour's way. In the case of the NHS, it means the way of both Conservatives and Labour. Both large parties believe in strong central management. I would suggest that the Liberal Democrat philosophy of devolving power to the most appropriate level is particularly relevant to the health and social services and is therefore at odds with the  two main parties' approach.

*Musstunismus: the belief that something - anything - must be done.

Tobias Elwood goes over the top ...

 ... but it will be necessary to open up communications with Afghanistan's leaders.

Corruption was rife in the Afghanistan under American "guardianship". The facts were kept hidden from Western governments and the media. Officials from the top to the bottom of the economy extracted bribes. It is no wonder that the Taliban was able to take over the country in a bloodless coup. The assertion in the MP's video that the de facto rulers of Afghanistan have eradicated corruption is therefore credible. Nor could they avoid tackling the production of opium poppy, considering that the use of narcotics is contrary to Islam. (Whether they have eliminated poppy growing entirely is a matter of speculation, since it is believed that illicit opium trading funded opposition to the Hamid Karzai government.) Those two successes, together with the increased security, should be given credit.

However, to give praise to the Taliban unalloyed with condemnation of its atavistic policy towards women was a mistake. The one great achievement of the Karzai government was to liberate Afghan women to fulfil their potential in civil society. The savage, lethal, reversal of this should have been condemned in Elwood's presentation. Those women professionals and parliamentarians who managed to escape the putsch as well as civil rights groups in the West are appalled.

It could have been different. The Taliban government was initially ready to allow agot least education of young women. In making this concession, they expected reciprocation from the West - certainly the unfreezing of Afghan state funds held in America, if not formal recognition. The US was obdurate, so the hard-liners in Kabul have had their way.

It is probably too late to restart meaningful negotiations with Kabul. However, regional leaders still have significant power. Some provinces have even kept schools for girls open. The Taliban rule depends to some extent on the complaisance of provincial governors. One trusts that lines are kept open there. Commerce may be the key where diplomacy fails.

There are geopolitical considerations, too. Afghanistan has unexploited mineral wealth, including rare-earth elements critical to modern electronics. China is already expanding her mining interests in the country. Having ensured Russia's exit, the West should not leave the door open for China to take over.

The dishonesty continues, even after Johnson has ceased to lead the Tories

Further to my speculation about the Uxbridge result yesterday, I could hardly believe the breath-taking cynicism and hypocrisy of this revelation:

Gwynoro Jones

Politics, politics !!

About the #Uxbridge by-election result and #ULEZ

ULEZ was a policy introduced by Boris Johnson when Mayor of London

Then the Conservative government and Grant Shapps made expanding ULEZ a condition of providing financial support to TFL at the time of Covid.

Now Grant Shapps and the Tories blame Sadie Khan for the policy.

In addition the government have provided supporting funds to cities such as Birmingham (with a Conservative mayor), but not to London (with a Labour mayor).

So when David TC Davies accused the party of being "anti-motorist", as he did on BBC Wales News yesterday, he was not only inaccurate (there was no attack on drivers of low-emission vehicles) he should also have been referring to the Tories, not Labour.

By-election results: first thoughts

 Uxbridge was a warning to new New Labour. The ULEZ issue by itself should not  have been enough to hobble the campaign of a party seeking to replace an unpopular government, though no doubt the fossil-fuel lobby will claim it and clearly had a hand in the successful Conservative defence of the seat. The lobby will go on to press Sadiq Khan to abandon his plans to extend the emission-control zone and to persuade Sir Keir and Rachel Reeves to eliminate what is left of Labour's green policies from the party's general election manifesto.  No, the real reason is, as Conservative MP Johnny Mercer pointed out in the BBC panel discussion in this morning's results programme, that voters did not know what Starmer's :Labour stood for. In an ethnically and faith mixed London, which voted to stay in the EU in the second referendum, Starmer's anti-Islamic and pro-Brexit stance would have marked him as a pale Tory. So why turn out and vote for a candidate who offered no real change? One trusts that mayor Khan sticks to his guns over ULEZ expansion (and other city authorities take similar action) though it would only be fair to subsidise those small traders forced to change their transport as a result. 

Somerton and Frome marked the continuation of the process started in Tiverton, that of reclaiming the English west country for the Liberal Democrats. The size of the swing away from the Conservatives suggests that the effects of their dishonest, barely legal, general election campaign of 2018 will be largely, maybe wholly, reversed. It also introduces another strong woman LD to the House. 

What to make of Labour's outstanding success in Selby and Ainsty? Congratulations are clearly in order to their campaign there and their personable young candidate but I, for one, am keen to see the analysis of what factors were at play. The growth in Labour support was out of proportion to the party's poor performance in the other elections; they were even pushed into fourth place by the Greens in Somerton and Frome.

That Green performance, increasing their vote in all three votes, was the other notable outcome. Theirs will be the only unmixed joy at yesterday's results. 

Finally, congratulations to Munira Wilson who stayed the course of the BBC's election coverage programme and forcefully put the Liberal Democrat case in spite of being shouted down on occasions by the male representatives of the other parties. In particular, she established the key differences in housing policy from that of the conservatives, citing the building of low-carbon, affordable, social housing by Liberal Democrat-controlled councils.

Immoral weapons of war

 Today's news of attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure reinforces the conviction that Russia is using food as a weapon of war. Grain prices on the world market have already risen, though Simon Baptist of the Economist Intelligence Unit posits that the situation is not as serious as when Russia first struck, before the free passage agreement brokered by Turkey was reached. There have been bumper harvests in Canada and Australia. Besides, there has been a shift to rice in some countries previously dependent on Ukrainian wheat. So there has already been some replacement even in China, previously Ukraine's most important customer, who is taking wheat from Russia as well as expanding her own capacity.

The fact that there is no need to yield to Russia's bullying should not distract from one of the items on Putin's agenda for ending his blockade, the blocking of Russia's access to the SWIFT financial transaction processing system. It seems to me that in this increasingly electronically-connected world of money transfers, there should be an international protocol, above individual national and commercial interests. SWIFT as the current de facto standard can be seen to be used as a weapon of war. 

No change under a Starmer government (continued)

 At the same time as the i reported on Sir Keir's refusal to remove the cap on child benefits, the journal also drew attention to an interview by LKuenssbergaura  in which he pledged to stick to Chancellor Hunt's public spending limits in the event of his becoming prime minister. Not even the NHS would receive an increase. This has its implications for Wales because no increase for the NHS in England means no change in the Welsh subvention as a result of the Barnett Formula. (Sir Keir is not moved to amend that formula, either, nor to make up for the Tory government's resistance to extra levelling-up grant to compensate for lack of HS2 connectivity. This set him on a collision course with the Welsh Labour government as well as other parties in Wales.)

True, the major fault with the NHS in England is structural. The Liberal Democrat manifesto of 2010 put forward a scheme to provide more money to front-line services by taking out a tier of management. In the event, bureaucracy was added  to monitor the privatisation which the Tories in coalition insisted on adding to that instituted under Gordon Brown, Removing non-performing privatisations and at the same time simplifying the management structure would improve the NHS no end. But something has to be done to staunch the haemorrhaging of professionals from the service and in the short term only funding a fair pay settlement will do that. Funding should also go to social care which has seen even more frightening loss of staff and therefore capacity, leading in turn to increased "bed-blocking". 

Labour apologists say that Sir Keir is only following the lead of Blair-brown in 1997 in following the budget plans of outgoing Conservative chancellor, Ken Clarke. However, as former director of policy for Labour Andrew Fisher points out, Clarke planned against a background of an improving economy, to which his budgets contributed. That certainly cannot be said about the present situation. The story is unlikely to be markedly different in 2024.

A separate minimum wage for carers

 I have consciously avoided Twitter since it began, nor do I listen any longer to Today (there was a danger of my throwing things at a radio which would be too costly to replace), so I am grateful to LD party president Mark Pack for a link to Sir Ed's call for a special minimum wage for carers.

Will Uxbridge voters see a change?

 The Labour candidate is tipped to win the by-election in Uxbridge and South Ruislip next Thursday, This is the seat vacated by the former prime minister, Boris Johnson. But it appears that a change of party representation will not result in a major change from Conservative policies. The latest departure from social democratic values is documented by the /Guardian (and several other papers):

Keir Starmer’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit cap if Labour wins power has exposed deep splits within the party, as he faces mounting calls to rethink the policy.

Facing the prospect of a battle at this week’s national policy forum (NPF) over the controversial decision, shadow cabinet ministers were sent out to defend his position. They argued that if Labour wanted to appear fiscally credible at the next election, it could not make any spending commitments without saying how they would be funded.

But at a bad-tempered meeting of the parliamentary Labour party on Monday, almost every question to the deputy leader, Angela Rayner, was about Starmer’s stance on the two-child benefit limit. Some frustrated MPs called it a mistake and urged party leaders to reconsider.

Senior party figures, including Anas Sarwar, the leader of the Labour party in Scotland, which sets its own policy, publicly broke ranks and suggested they would fight the policy, while several shadow cabinet ministers said they were “despairing” at the decision.

Sir Keir's stance is similar to that of Blair's before the 1997 general election. Blair was at pains to appeal to "Mondeo man" with his reversal of the more socialist policies of his predecessor, John Smith. He may also have been ingratiating himself with Wall Street in order to give Labour a soft landing when they achieved their expected election majority. A major difference between 30 years ago and now is that then the party expected a narrow majority (and were surprised by the landslide) whereas now a landslide is predicted by all the opinion-sounders. There clearly is no electoral reason for Sir Keir's stance, part of a conservative pattern which has emerged. 

It will be interesting to compare the percentage turnouts for Labour and the more socially progressive Liberal Democrats in all the three constituencies counting on Thursday. The other two are Somerton and Frome, which is a two-horse race between a Conservative and a Liberal Democrat, and Selby and Ainsty where Labour say they will overturn a 20,000 Conservative majority. If Conservatives hold on to Selby, then the questioning within the Labour party of Sir Keir's policy shifts will increase.

[slight corrections applied 2023-07-19]

BBC compromised by deal with agrochemical company, says DeSmog

Sponsorship deals between corporations and media outlets are now commonplace. Skim through most major news websites and you’ll likely see a raft of adverts and sponsored articles from big business. However, you would reasonably assume, given its public funding, that the BBC would not be reliant on corporate cash. Sadly, this is not the case. A new DeSmog investigation – published in partnership with the Financial Times – has uncovered how the BBC produced 10 hours of documentary content sponsored by Corteva, one of the world’s largest pesticide companies. We know that the content was shaped by Corteva’s requirements – because the BBC’s commercial content studio Storyworks has said so – yet the documentaries (viewed by 65 million people) are still available to watch in the UK without any mention of the partnership. The content, which focused on the future of sustainable food, uncritically showcased some of the controversial technologies used and sold by Corteva.“A public service should not be in bed with a pesticide company to produce these kinds of films,” said Emile Frison, a leading sustainable food expert. Corteva has its roots in four multinationals: the chemical companies Dow and DuPont, the seed company Pioneer, and the agricultural interests of the pharmaceuticals giant, Eli Lilly. It is not clear how much the documentaries endorsed Corteva products and systems. However, the affair does suggest that Auntie has been compromised to some extent.

Poland's assault on judicial independence is costing them money

 Soon after the PIS (Law and Justice Party) gained an absolute majority in the Polish parliament, it has sought to influence the country's judiciary. The ostensible reason was to rid the court system of Soviet appointees and Russian influence. The undemocratic reform has, however, drawn heavy criticism from other free nations and the European Commission. Last month, the EU's court, the ECJ, ruled that "Poland's judicial reform infringes upon European law because it undermines the right to have access to an independent and impartial judiciary". Euronews explained:

The ruling is an unambiguous rejection of the reform introduced in 2019 by the hard-right government of the Law and Justice (PiS) party, which sparked an intense dispute between Warsaw and Brussels.

The contentious reform changed the rules that govern the relations between courts, preventing judges from assessing each other's compliance with EU legal standards and questioning a tribunal's composition.

It also empowered the disciplinary chamber of the Supreme Court to punish magistrates according to the content of their verdicts. Possible penalties included a reduction of salary, the temporary suspension of duties and the waiver of immunity to allow the initiation of criminal proceedings.

The chamber has been repeatedly criticised by the European Commission, the United Nations and civil society organisations as a political tool to exert control over the judiciary and weaken the separation of powers.

The Commission filed a legal case before the ECJ in March 2021 after its negotiations with the Polish government failed to deliver a satisfying result.

Warsaw struck a defiant tone and insisted the reform was necessary to purge the influence of the communist era, strengthen the apolitical character of the judiciary and crack down on corruption.

The European Court of Justice later ruled the chamber was incompatible with EU law and imposed a series of interim measures and ordered its dismantlement.

Poland's continued refusal to comply with the interim measures led the ECJ to slap a record-breaking €1 million fine per day on the country, which was reduced to €500,000 a day after the disciplinary body was replaced with a "chamber of professional responsibility."

The fine is being deducted from Poland's allocation of the EU budget and ceases to apply as of Monday.

Poland now owes €534 million, according to the European Commission, a sum accrued between October 2021, when the fine was established, and April 2023, when it was downsized.

Candide in six parts?

 Search for "making opera more accessible" and you will turn up dozens of possible solutions (such as this one) to the problem facing opera companies, that of attracting new audiences. As traditional audiences age, it is difficult to counteract the image of opera as stuffy. 

Perhaps the opera world should take a leaf from television's book (and that of the streamers). Multi-part drama series are perennially popular. Why not give longer operas the same treatment? I am not suggesting that they start with the Everest of the Ring Cycle, but the foothills of opera would provide a gentle introduction. Leonard Bernstein's Candide is an excellent candidate. It has good tunes and it is episodic, which makes it fairly easy to parcel up into 30 or 40 minute episodes.  Besides, there is much material discarded by Bernstein from the final stage version (much to the chagrin of his hard-working collaborators) which could be mined if the first TV serial offering proved popular.

Proms: nothing to frighten the horses

 The First Night of BBC's Promenade Concerts included a new composition but for once it did nothing to attract controversy Bohdana Frolyak's Let there be light was less challenging than a Sibelius rarity, Snöfrid. It looks as if this is part of the pattern of the rest of the series, old favourites, works favouring Ukraine and several tonal rediscoveries. I am particularly looking forward to one of these, Grace Williams' violin concerto, which features in Prom 32 on 8th August. Unless I am missing something, there is no representative of the Second Viennese School for which I personally am glad but which some musical high priests may see as "dumbing down".

Threat to antibiotic resistance counter-measures

 The DeSmog pressure group reports:

Proposed laws to curb antibiotic use on UK farms drafted after closed-door meetings with industry contain loopholes that could undermine the fight against deadly drug resistant bacteria, campaigners have warned.

The government published the draft legislation, designed to replace European Union rules post-Brexit, following consultations with pharmaceutical, veterinary medicine and farming lobby groups, according to Freedom of Information requests filed by DeSmog. 

Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics, a coalition of health, sustainable farming and civil society organisations, said it had written repeatedly to the government to request meetings on the legislation, but had not received a response.

“It’s clear the consultation was biased in favour of certain industry interests that have quite consistently opposed stronger regulations on antibiotic use,” said Cóilín Nunan, scientific adviser to the coalition.

Excessive use of farm antibiotics is a major driver of antibiotic resistance worldwide, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). Without stronger policies to counter the emergence of new superbugs, the 700,000 annual deaths caused by antimicrobial resistance could reach 10 million by 2050 – more than currently die from cancer, according to a 2016 report.

The UK’s Veterinary Medicines Directorate held a series of workshops with representatives of the pharmaceutical, veterinary medicine industries, and other “regulatory partners” to discuss the proposed legislation from December 2021 to July 2022, according to the Freedom of Information requests. Civil society groups were not invited. 

HS2

 Plaid's Hywel Williams once again spoke for many when he questioned the deputy prime minister in the Commons yesterday about the distortion in rail funding as a result of the HS2 project.  Deputy Oliver Dowden was unable to give a straight answer. Meanwhile, the project's chief executive announced his resignation in the wake of confusion as to whether there will be a central London terminus as originally planned. 

John Redwood reminded us that there was opposition to this grand projet from the Tory backbenches and not just from constituencies along the line of construction. 

Huw Edwards

 So the perpetrator is the face of the BBC and of the Establishment? I guessed at someone rather more louche. Most people were surely as surprised as I was at the identity of the man who solicited indecent photographs of young men and who bullied them into not revealing their relationship. However, a number of radio presenters, before today's revelation, stated that it was an open secret in Broadcasting House and that the man fingered but not named by the Sun newspaper should come forward.

The evidence presented to the police did not warrant criminal proceedings, nor has anyone accused Edwards of paedophilia. His behaviour has, though, brought the BBC into disrepute. BBC News accepts that he was responsible for threatening and "abusive, expletive-filled messages" sent to a young man who had provided sexually-explicit pictures and was in dispute with Edwards about payment for them. It would not be surprising if other young men, hitherto cowed by Edwards' status and threats, now were emboldened to come forward. It has to be admitted that there will  be false accusations also, but it should be easy to separate the true from the false.

There is a BBC internal investigation. Is it too much to hope that it will not be conducted by those who knew about Edwards' proclivities and protected him? Given that many in the corporation were quickly able to put a name to the subject of the Sun's scoop, how long have people known about Edwards' extra-marital activities, and why was nothing done earlier? How many other presenters have carried on in a way which has clearly been regarded as normal? It seems that the BBC had learned nothing from the Jonathan King and Jimmy Savile affairs.

Two wrongs do not make a right

 Behind the bland public media release covering the Biden-Sunak forty-minute meeting, one trusts that in private our prime minister expressed disapproval of the US decision to send cluster bombs to Ukraine. Biden's rationale is that, like the US, neither Ukraine nor Russian subscribe to the international convention on cluster munitions, and that Russia is already using cluster bombs against Ukraine. But when the war is over, Ukrainian agriculture and people will pay a price as a result of unexploded bomblets which may remain  in the soil for a generation or more.

Blogging willl be light

because of the coincidence of Wimbledon and the insane timetable of back-to-back Tests against Australia.