Tony Hatfield's Retired Ramblings

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jeremy hunt's retreat - cut off.

with the latest phone hacking disclosure in the guardian, i suspect last night  the lawyers in the department of culture media and sport (dcms) were burning the midnight. jeremy hunt, the minister is now  in a position that he can only wave through the news international bid for the remaining  shares in sky they do not own.

hunt's position is truly  horrible. he seems to have cut off any retreat by virtually ruling out re-examining whether the murdoch organisation is a 'fit and proper person' to own sky. it looks as though, unless the d.c.m.s. lawyers come up with something, he will be allowing news international to complete the share purchase in the next couple of months. 

his position is horrible because these hacking disclosures are just going to run and run. any criminal and civil  proceedings are months if not years away, and with each twist, turn and disclosure, it will become clearer and clearer just how unfit and improper news international were to be allowed to take over sky.

Boys and Girls come out to play

i'm grateful to Karen Watson for pointing me towards mara hvistendhahl's book ' Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls and the Consequences of a World Full of Men'. she points out uncontravertial fact that in many countries, and some states in the u.s., the gender ratio is becominig heavily skewed in favour of boys. in a province of china, there are 163 girls to every 100 boys under the age of four.

the world is becominig 'increasingly male' and this gender mismatch is likely to create, according to ms hvistendahl, 'profound social unheaval'.

identifying a probem is miles away from suggesting solutions. take the legal position in the uk. geneting manipulation for social reasons is banned, 

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