Restorative justice can mitigate racial abuse

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

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

Mosquitoes will extend their range through climate change

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

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

China's revenge for the opium wars?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guyana a safer haven for migrants?

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

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

Important art-deco building saved

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

Agency workers in the public service

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

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

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

UK government silent over Maduro land grab

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

Impending Senedd bloat

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

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