The BioNTech vaccine and ultra-nationalism

 I trust that A. Libdem Spokesman has publicly condemned the ludicrous chauvinism of the Westminster Education Secretary in asserting that an anti-SARS/Cov2 vaccine is approved for use in this country before anyone else because we are better than anyone else. One can imagine Williamson singing Flanders & Swann's anthem of Patriotic Prejudice with a straight face, unaware that it was a satire.

It has already been pointed out elsewhere that the design of what is known as the "Pfizer" vaccine was conceived by a dedicated Turkish husband-and-wife team welcomed into the German Federal Republic, and that the US pharma giant was brought on board because BioNTech did not have the scale of operation to manufacture and market the breakthrough vaccine. As I understand it, the innovation can be applied to the production of vaccines to combat other infectious diseases, known and as-yet unknown,  

As to the speed of our medicines regulator approving the use of the BioNTech vaccine, I have no doubts about its safety. If there were the slightest risk, news from the multi-thousand person, multi-national trials would have leaked out even if BioNTech and Pfizer wished to suppress it, which I do not believe they would. Witness the slight hiccup in the progress of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trials.

Where there has to be a slight suspicion is over the effectiveness of the vaccine. As Dr Fauci said in his original response to the news of the MHRA approval, the government agency seems to have taken completely on trust the trials data submitted by the companies. Normally, the MHRA would comb through the data in fine detail. In this case, they seem to have taken the view that the companies would, in view of the significance of this particular product, have triple-checked their own findings and not dared to fudge any of the figures. 

Medical devices and drugs regulation is not a devolved matter, by the way, not even to Scotland. Therefore, the MHRA decision automatically permits the vaccine to be used throughout the UK. Wales also has to abide by the rulings of NICE, for which Scotland has her own equivalent.

Rail expenditure cut exposes Johnson's greenwash for what it was

 It did not take long for a drenching (albeit not a much-publicised one) from chancellor Rishi Sunak to wash away the transient coating on Boris Johnson's programme announced at the start of the week. Almost ten per cent is to be cut from Network Rail's current five-year budget. Although it seems that the Northern Powerhouse and planned railway re-openings are thankfully to be protected, at the PM's insistence, there must now be a doubt about electrification. Even restoring the coalition's programme, so savagely cut when the Conservatives took sole power, with its benefit of reducing road traffic and therefore also greenhouse gas emissions plus urban pollution, looks doubtful. 

Meanwhile, the road programme goes ahead and the prime minister has not rowed back from his campaign to force through the M4 diversion across the Gwent Leverls.

FAW makes strange appointment

 BBC Wales is reporting that the nation's Football Association has appointed Angela van den Boigerd as "head of people". Quite apart from the nebulous job description (is it the same as a personnel director or head of HR?), there must be questions about installing a person who was at best heavily implicated in a programme at the Post Office which illegally destroyed the livings - in some cases the lives - of countless sub-postmasters and -mistresses. 

The news comes a day after ITV Wales revealed a lack of diversity throughout the administration of Welsh sport. If the FAW really did want a new people person on the board, they should have been looking to the likes of Nathan Blake.

Reminiscent of the plague years

 Just as those with the means to do so escaped the great plagues which ravaged European towns until the age of science by decamping to country estates, Italian "city slickers" are moving to less populated areas. However, it seems from this report that they are as keen to circumvent urban lock-downs as to avoid infectioous contacts.

We must not fall into the trap of opposition for opposition's sake

This is from one of my better leaflets, though I must give due acknowledgement to the then LD HQ for the Punch-and-Judy illustration. The slimline "Libby" at the head gives away its origin in the days of Paddy Ashdown, but merely substituting the visages of Johnson & Starmer for Major & Blair would make it relevant today. The irony is that there was little to choose in terms of practical philosophy between Thatcher-Major and Blair-Brown. Today, Starmer is closer to Johnson that he is to Corbyn.

My experience of those days was that, come election time, the average voter wanted to know what candidates and their parties stood for, what their real differences were. Between elections, he or she expected the best interests of the country to be served and that MPs should work together to achieve those aims. 

The Labour opposition and the Lib Dems in Westminster were clearly right to abstain over the latest anti-virus measures in England, but the government needs to be challenged on the facts, not on personalities. In particular, the reasons for targeting the hospitality sector need to be dragged out of this government (this applies to Wales as well). People in the business need to be assured that there is sound scientific evidence, not just that they are an easy target. The apparent corruption of awarding Covid-19 contracts without tender also needs to be pursued. Otherwise, the opposition should be seen to be cooperating in bringing an end to the epidemic - not to mention ensuring that Brexit, inevitable as it now is,  proceeds with the least disruption to traders and travellers.

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The aims of the 1997 campaign still hold good. Post-devolution, the concerns about the NHS (GIG) now need to be directed to Cardiff, rather than Westminster,  but the suspicion continues that the strategy for hospital trusts benefits senior health service professionals rather than their users, or locally-recruited staffs. If anything, police presence is even lower in 2020 than it was in the late 1990s. This is something we can surely improve on it policing were also devolved.

 

It's not just halal meat: Dubai's thriving economy

Although as this article explains, the halal food businees is part of the success of the Islamic economy of the Emirates.

The UAE has been ranked amongst the top three Islamic economy countries in the world, according to the 2020 State of the Global Islamic Economy report. Malaysia continues to hold the lead, followed by Saudi Arabia. Put simply, the Islamic economy is a category for businesses, finances and investments that are compliant with Islamic principles and values.nbsp;

The Qu'ran forbids lending at interest, so Islamic banks find ingenious ways of making money from financing business which obey the letter of the law. They are clearly successful.

Tom Lubbock

 In clearing out old papers, I came across reminders of how great a newspaper the Independent used to be. They were a set of double-sided full-colour posters dedicated to great artists. One side consisted of a reproduction of a key work of art by the painter concerned and the other comprised what we would now call thumbnails illustrating a pen-portrait of the artist and his work. These were practically all by Tom Lubbock, the writer and illustrator, who died far too early in January 2011. He was often outspoken - for and against - but always informative and readable. His critique of van Gogh's Chair began: 

Self-portraits have adopted many guises. Duerer painted himself as Jesus. Rembrandt painted himself as the apostle Paul. Courbet painted himself as a madman jumping off a cliff. But no one before Van Gogh had painted a self-portrait as a chair.

If you were a chair, what kind of chair would you be> That's the playful question to which this picture is a serious answer. It's staged like a portrait, the chair by itself centred, filling the frame.

He did not hold back of Rembrandt:

If just one painter had to be beamed out into the universe, to advertise to the alien empires what a deeply admirable life-form we humans are, who should it be? Leonardo? Michelangelo? Van Gogh? Picasso? No, there can be only one candidate: Rembrandt  Harmenszoon van Rijn. It might have surprised him. But this moderately successful  17th-century Dutch painter has matured, over the centuries, into the artist who represents the very best of us. Supremely humane, but only human, Rembraddt  is pretty well M Humanity, a kind of mortal god.

Over ,the years, I should have refreshed my knowledge of this part of our civilisation. Instead, they were stashed away when I moved to Skewen and now they will all have to go to recycling. However, it was good to renew my acquaintance with this marvellous series and the man behind it.

Two thoughts on the Sunak financial statement

 Presumably to anticipate objections to the high level of borrowing that he proposes, chancellor Rishi Sunak has thrown red meat to his more isolationist colleagues on the government benches and to the "red wall" voters who turned against Labour as well as the EU in the form of a cut in the proportion of international aid mandated by law. What he did not point out was that our overseas development fund would automatically fall as our national income falls. So the 0.5% is a cut upon a cut. Perhaps he did not want to draw attention to the impact which Brexit will have on out national finances next yeas and for a few years to come.

Sunak did not as had been trailed announce a cut or a pause in the application of the pensions triple lock which is probably the last remaining bequest of the Liberal Democrats in coalition. However, he is proposing a reformulation of the RPI (the retail prices index, though it now covers much more than retails). Commentators predict that this will result in the annual up-rating of company and other institutional pensions resulting in lower outcomes. Mathematicians tell me that RPI is flawed - there is apparently a built-in bug which exaggerates slight rises - and that the CPI (consumer prices index) is more robust. However, the latter does not include house prices. So, some overhaul is clearly necessary but against an inflation rate which will surely climb steeply next year, whether or not there is to be a deal with the EU, many pensioners are going to cry "foul!".