Tony Hatfield's Retired Ramblings

Why no EU flag?

I'm the first to admit, I'm no expert in diplomatic protocol. This morning  US Secretary of State Clinton flew to the UK for a whistle-stop  visit. She met Prime Minister  Gordon Brown and Foreign Secretary, David Milliband. 

This is from the FCO Flickr site. The UK is a member of the European Union, but there is no sign of the European flag anywhere. I thought this may just be a mistake, so I started Googling, and it soon became clear that the UK seems a bit reluctant to display the EU flag anywhere near these diplomatic occasions

Here is another example

 This time Brown with Sarkozy in 2008.

I'm pretty sure if I continued, I'd be hard pressed to find a EU flag behind any UK politician in the UK .

I then began to wonder whether the other EU members were as ashamed of the flag as we were.

I think you know where this is going!

This is the reverse of the Brown Sarko visit in July 2009.

and this the visit of President Obama to Dresden with Angela Merkel

and  Obama with Sarko

and Obama at the G8 with Berlusconi and President Napolitano

And this is Slovenian Prime Minister Borut Pahor( right) with Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski in Ljubljana in January 2009

Why?

Tory Education Policy is really Uncooked

Michael Gove

The centrepiece of Michael Gove's speech at yesterday's Tory conference was  the idea of private institutions  establishing schools.

The Tories had clearly spent much time in Sweden looking at Kunskapsskolen- roughly translated "knowledge schools". Gove had announced this policy at last year's conference, so I was surprised that it still seemed  not fully thought through.

Sweden's Kunskapsskolen, rely on a voucher system. Parents are given a voucher with a cash value they exchange for education. The architect of this system is Anders Hultin who, not unsurprisingly, was in the audience listening to Gove.

I suspect he was disappointed in what he heard.

In  the October 9th issue of the Spectator, Hultin wrote a piece headed, ' Profit is the key to success in "Swedish Schools" '. It was still there on the Spectator's website this morning.

After his speech, Gove was interviewed by Andrew Neil on the "Daily Politics". You can see the interview here.  Neil's question can be heard just over 6 minutes in. Gove unequivocally  rejects the idea that those who run these schools can "make a few bob". Without the profit motive, Hultin believes the schools' transplant to the UK is unlikely to succeed.  Notice how Gove smartly moves the subject off  Hultin on  to American Charter schools.

It's a pity that Neil didn't have time to challenge Gove on the Charter Schools.

The most authoritative study on those schools was  conducted by the Center Research on Education Outcomes (CREDO) at Stanford University in 2009.

It analysed 70% of the nation's students attending charter schools and compared those students with demographically matched students in nearby public schools. The report found that 17% of charter schools reported academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools; 46% showed no difference from public schools; and 37% were significantly worse than their traditional public school counterparts. The authors of the report consider this a "sobering" finding about the quality of charter schools in the US.

The  executive summary of CREDO report is here (pdf). Interestingly enough, Gove uses the Charter schools in Texas as an example. A poor one as it turns out. Texas Charter schools are at the bottom of the class.

Back to the Remove Michael!

Clifford Longley's Cherry Picking

I don't normally manage to catch "Thought for the Day" but this morning I was awake listening to  "Today" at ten to eight.  Clifford Longley, sounds gentle and soft spoken. You can read the transcript here 

Clifford Longley

He used his slot to inform his audience how the  Bible tells us deal with widows and orphans. He supported his piece with a few biblical quotes both from the old and new Testaments. As if somehow the antiquity of that book alone means something.

It was of course a classic piece of cherry picking. I've no doubt that the Bible has some good advice about widows and orphans. I suspect that Mr Longley believes, as do  most Christians, that the Bible represents the written word of God. That the scriptures are our source of morals.

Richard Dawkins' description of the Bible is beautifully concise.

' To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil but just plain weird, as you would expect of a chaotically cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated,distorted and "improved" by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors and copyists, unknown to us and mostly unknown to each other, spanning nine centuries.'

Back to Longley's cherry picking.

Let's take a couple of examples of Dawkins' weird bits. And they don't get much more weird than the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah.

Before God was to rain fire and brimstone on the poor inhabitants of Gomorrah, he sent two  male angels to tell Lot to leave the city. The men of the town demanded that Lot should hand them over so that they could sodomise them.

'Where are the men that came into thee this night? Bring them out to us so that we may know them'.

And it gets worse. Lot refuses, and then-

' I prey you, brethren, do not so wickedly. Behold now my two daughters which have not known man; let me, I prey you, bring them out unto you, and do ye with them as is good in your eyes: only unto these man do nothing; for therefore came under the shadow of my roof '

(Genesis 19:7-8)

And if you are starting to think, unlike Longley, that  the Bible is not much of a moral guide, flick through to the Book of Numbers.

Here we read  that Moses is told by God to have a go at the Midianites. All the Midianite men were slaughtered and their cities burned. But the Midianite women and children were not killed. I can hear a sigh of relief. But no, Moses gave orders that all the boy children and all the women who were not virgins, should be killed . And what happened to the virgins? Well, they didn't escape Moses' wrath.

' But all the women children, that  have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves'

(Numbers 31:18)

So there we have genocide and  child abuse on an industrial scale.

This is the problem with the Longley argument. I think we should look after widows and orphans, but not because on anything in scripture. After all, I don't suppose he would be recommending we hand over our daughters to strangers to be raped.

Cameron's Dismal Performance with Andrew Marr!

I'm sure one person watching David Cameron's dismal performance with Andrew Marr this morning  was Peter Mandelson. New Labour's election play book will have been largely written.

Lord Snooty, got himself into real trouble on two important policy issues.

First there was that old Tory neuralgic problem with the EU. You don't have to read many of the Tory blogs and discussion groups to realise that their default position is to withdraw from the Union. Fine, but that cannot be Cameron's position. But for the time being, the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is a substitute. Most Tories, and this number will certainly be bolstered by the 2010 Prospective Parliamentary Candidates, want a referendum. But the problem is that if the Treaty has been ratified by the time of the election, that's it. End of story. It would be difficult to see how that process could be reversed without the UK becoming, once again, the wrecking ball of the EU. The idea of then "repatriating powers" requiring agreement of  the 26 states  who have walked over hot coals to get the Treaty is, I'm afraid, fanciful. If the treaty is ratified, as it almost certainly will be, the Tory flock, will not get their referendum. Cameron knows, even if there is a 90% no vote in a post ratification referendum, it will not affect the Treaty. I suspect he's keeping his fingers crossed for a delay in the Czech Republic's Constitutional court's hearing. A delay that is unlikely to occur. The other  26 states will simply not allow it. The pressure on Czech president Vaclav Klaus will be immense. The Czech parliament has already ratified the Treaty and the Constitutional Court in Prague has already rejected previous  similar complaints. If there  were to be no post-ratification referendum the effect on the Tory party would be seismic!

Number two problem.

Marr asked about the effect of the Tory public spending cuts would have on unemployment. How many will lose their jobs? Now I suspect that most Tory voters think that the public service is too bloated. Too many pen pushers.They should be taken off the payroll. OK, but this will add to the dole queues. There will be a cost. Yet Cameron, seeing the trap open up, danced around the question.  And this is a party who propose to take many of the really well off out of Inheritance Tax. This links to Cameron's other problem. Not strictly a policy one. More a difficulty in Tory tone.

 Marr  asked about the Cameron family wealth. You are really out of touch, he suggested. How can you understand those who  your policies will put our of work? Nothing wrong with a thin layer of class politics is there?

And the same wealth question is going to be asked of Lord Snooty's Bullingdon Club pals.

Bullingdon Club

Don't get me wrong, I still think Labour are going to be defeated next year. But there is now a real question. Will the Tories win by enough to be able to form a government? That is what is now in play.

Bacon and Sausages off the Today Menu?

This morning, Today Programme allowed the World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) to peddle the link between processed meat, sausages, bacon, salami and ham, and colorectal cancer. You can listen to the interview here.

The link was made in the 2007 report of the World Cancer Research Fund and American Institute for Cancer Research, with the title ‘Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective‘. It is a 537 page report with over 4,400 references. Its panel was chaired by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, UCL’s professor of Epidemiology and Public Health.

Over a year ago, the Daily Telegraph reported   it with this  a scary headline " sausage a day can increase bowel cancer risk"

This morning, Lisa Cooney, the head of education at the WCRF, asserted " there is convincing  scientific evidence linking the consumption of processed meat with an increased risk of bowel cancer". The hapless Evan Davis accepted this assertion and moved on.

There is a brilliant piece on precisely this topic on  Professor David Colquhoun's blog, DC's Improbable Science

Ok, there's a lot of statistics in there, but my O level maths didn't let me down.

Colquhoun's piece starts with this challenge to the WCRF report.

..... there has never been a randomised trial to test the carcinogenicity of bacon, so it seems reasonable to ask how strong is the evidence that you shouldn’t eat it?  It turns out to be surprisingly flimsy.

He then asks the relevant question. Is there a causal link between the consumption of processed meat and colorectal cancer? If there is no such link, then why are the WCRF telling us not to eat bacon and sausages? 

In the case of sausages and bacon, suppose that there is a correlation between eating them and developing colorectal cancer. How do we know that it was eating the bacon that caused the cancer – that the relationship is causal?  The answer is that there is no way to be sure if we have simply observed the association.  It could always be that the sort of people who eat bacon are also the sort of people who get colorectal cancer.  But the question of causality is absolutely crucial, because if it is not causal, then stopping eating bacon won’t reduce your risk of cancer.  The recommendation to avoid all processed meat in the WCRF report (2007) is sensible only if the relationship is causal. Barker Bausell said

[Page39] “But why should non scientists care one iota about something as esoteric as causal inference? I believe that the answer to this question is because the making of causal inferences is part of our job description as Homo Sapiens.”

That should be the mantra of every health journalist, and every newspaper reader.

Colquhoun then goes on to examine in detail the studies relied on by the WCRF paper and concludes.

After all this, we can return to the original question. Do sausages or bacon give you colorectal cancer? The answer, sadly, is that nobody really knows. I do know that, on the basis of the evidence, it seems to me to be an exaggeration to assert that “The evidence is convincing that processed meat is a cause of bowel cancer”.

and finally

Sometimes I think we should say “I don’t know” rather more often.

Hear, hear to that.

Universal healthcare is terrorist recruitment tool

hat tip Bad Science

What Sir John Scarlett didn't deny!

The media has decided that Sir John Scarlett's interview with BBC correspondent Gordon Corera  represents a flat denial. The Independent shouts  that there was "No collusion in torture, says M16 chief"; the Guardian "MI6 chief denies torture complicity". Even the Associated press goes with " MI6 not complicit in torture, says chief"

Only the BBC's website, though not its News Channel, quotes what Sir John actually said. You can listen to  the interview here.

The relevant excerpt starts at 2:14 into the interview. Corera asks the question, and after a couple of seconds thought, out comes Scarlett's  answer " No torture and there IS no complicity in the torture".

The use of the present tense IS is important here.

I could be wrong, but I don't think anyone has suggested that M16 has been involved in the actual torture of prisoners. They have not applied the thumbscrews, Even Binyam Mohamed is not suggesting that M16 tortured him. What Scarlett is denying is that at present there is no complicity in torture. He is not denying that M16 have not been complicit in the past.

The Madeleine Fund- an update

It's some time since I've posted anything about  Team McCann, but in the last few days the hunt for Madeleine got even  more bizarre.

The Team,  fortified by a couple of ex-detectives, David Edgar and Arthur Cowley, are on the trail of a Posh Spice lookalike. The mention of Mrs Beckham and Madeleine McCann was certain to reach the headlines.  What I'm pretty certain about is that both these policemen are familiar with the problems of identification.  It's difficult enough to be certain about who you saw in good daylight when you've had a long  look, but to recall a face you saw over two years ago  when in drink would have been rejected, as unreliable, by most coppers I knew.

 But both these police officers  must be aware of the identification rules they would have used before they retired. And this Barcelona identification breaks just about all of them. It's hardly surprising that it leads to what appears to be   another dead end.

What is clear is that the Madeleine Fund is financing the  operation.

I've  been able  look at the first year's accounts of the Madeleine Fund. For a couple of quid you can download them from Companies House.

The full title is- Madeleine's Fund: Leaving No Stone Unturned Limited.

Company Number: 06248215

The accounts were ruled off at the end of March last year. Then the fund had a surplus of just over 1 million pounds-£1,052,027.00 to be exact. It's not clear from the accounts, but I suspect that figure might well include the damages paid by the Express Group to the McCanns as the result of their libel settlement. The total fund income from the date it was established was £1,846,178.00. In other words in the first year the directors have authorised nearly a million pound of expenditure. That includes the fruitless payment to Metodo 3, the Spanish private investigators, who made absolutely no progress.

 Page 2 of the accounts, The Director's Report , dated 11th November 2008, and signed by John J McCann, contained this

" As expected, the level of donations [to the fund] has fallen over time, although we have a number of loyal donors continuing their support. Income in the new financial year is currently significantly lower than at the same time last year. However our expenses are ongoing  are likely to increase."

And this report suggests that the financial situation is now  perhaps more difficult than in November 2008.

The next accounts will be filed in about ten months time.

It will be interesting to see just how challenging the financial situation will be then.  I suspect that unlike  between March 2007 and 2008,  they will not contain these items.

Campaign Management       £123, 573.00

Awareness                                 £81,504.00

Legal Fees and Expenses        £111,522.00

Search Fees                                £250,000.00

Fund Legal Fees                       £68,799.00

Fund Professional Fees          £36,070.00 

I'm surprised no one has asked the McCann's spokesman, Clarence Mitchell, just what these expenses paid for. Over a third of a million quid spent on professional and management fees!

Archbishop Nichols and Facebook- the leader of a church that systematically covers up child abuse

 

I read this morning that the Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols,  leader of the millions of Roman Catholics in England, seemed to be concerned that young people were in danger using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

He warned that

   "Among young people often a key factor in them committing suicide is the trauma of transient relationships.
They throw themselves into a friendship or network of friendships, then it collapses and they're desolate."

There is  not a shred of evidence to support the link between suicide and the use of social networking sites. But there is evidence  he  is the leader of a church in  which large numbers of God's chosen priests have,  until recently,  been involved in physical and sexual child abuse on an industrial scale. And a church that is still in denial about how the leaders of that church deliberately covered  up this abuse. 

I've looked on the Archbishop's website, and can find no reference to his comments following the Ryan Commission Report into the systemic abuse in Ireland by  catholic organisations, The Sisters of Mercy and The Christian Brothers.
In an interview after the publication of the report, he defended the priestly perpetrators of the abuse.

“I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at. That takes courage, and also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did.”

Why of earth did  this man  not unequivocally condemn  this abuse? I suspect  it had something to do with his predecessor, Cormac Murphy -O'Connor's cover up of  the child abuse by  Father Michael Hill who was convicted in 1997 of sexual abuse of nine children. A cover up that allowed this man to abuse even more children.  It is clear that Murphy-O'Connor had been aware that concerns had been raised about Hill's behaviour, but had moved him to another parish.

Support Nadine Dorries' Freedom to Blog!

Nadine Dorries

The first time I heard of  Nadine Dorries M.P. for Mid Bedfordshire was when she was involved in promoting very odd pre term survival rates before the Science and Technology Select  Committee enquiry. She than accused Ben Goldacre of "bad behaviour".
I then saw the Dorries with Andrea Williams, a dumb Christian, barrister and leading light in the Lawyers Christian Fellowship.  In May 2008,they were attempting to reduce the upper limit for abortion from 24 to 20 weeks.
A couple of weeks ago, having been named in  the Damien McBride "dirty tricks" e-mails  and having been,  advised presumably  by the nutty Williams, she threatened to sue. I would be staggered if this action got off the ground.
Then last week the Telegraph suggested that the parliamentary expenses she had claimed were, to saty the least, a trifle confused.
Bloggerheads has got the fibbing Dorries well and truly hung out here and here and here.

I've no sympathy with this clown......until late yesterday,when  the owners of the Telegraph, the Barclay brothers, instructed  Withers  "Leading law firm for successful people"   to bully Dorries' webhosts to take down her blog. They collapsed before their learned friends.
Craig Murray, who suffered from the same bully boy tactics from law firm Shillings, was the first to support the  Dorries' right to  blog.
Most stuff on the internet is usually caught in Google's wonderful cache. And Dorries blog can be seen here.
A lesson.  Get your blogs hosted outside the the UK. It's  inconcievable that my own host, Typepad, would give in so meekly against such pathetic threats.