Politicians Have Little Effect
I found an article, by Matthew Paris in The Times on Saturday, entitled What have politicians done for them? Zilch.
He was referring to Malawi and Zimbabwe and it is a profound article by someone who writes with thought and also knows that part of Africa.
What with the farcical non-binding agreement at Copenhagen and Prudence’s efforts to try to help the economy, I would suspect that it doesn’t just apply to Africa.
Hot Air in Copenhagen
So today, the big climate change conference starts in Copenhagen. Yawn! Yawn!
I’m cynical anything of any substance will emerge.
Prudence bashes on about how he is at the forefront of reducing our energy use, but this article in the Telegraph says otherwise.
These are two paragraphs from the article.
His former chief scientist Professor Sir David King said he frequently urged Downing Street to spend money on energy saving measures in order to create jobs and cut carbon – but was repeatedly ignored.
And in a separate interview with the Daily Telegraph, the world’s top environmental watchdog Achim Steiner, the head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), also said the Labour Government failed to “pick the low hanging fruit” of insulating homes and investing in renewable energy.
Typical Prudence, all waffle and bluster, and absolutely no substance. He doesn’t even have any style.
But I’m totally against this sort of junket. It should be done remotely by electronic means, with perhaps two or three important people from each country in Copenhagen to dot i’s and cross t’s.
Ed Miliband and Disposable Nappies
Ed Miliband is getting a lot of criticism over using disposable nappies on his six-year-old son. Here’s the Independent.
This is absolutely right!
We used proper nappies for all our three sons. I know it was around 1970, but the pressure to use disposable ones was even then great from the manufacturers. I must admit, that we did use a disposable liner in the nappies, but this meant that you saved on the washing as the nappies weren’t so dirty. Tricks like this make proper nappies much cheaper and more environmentally friendly than disposables, which make up four percent of all household waste and end up in landfill.
The real luxury though was for the last baby, where we used a nappy service. You just put the dirty nappies in a bucket and a cheery guy collected them as he returned the freshly laundered ones. Much easier than anything else!
I think that I’ve heard that some councils are subsidising nappy services to cut the disposable ones going into landfill. If they aren’t, they should look at it.
Shame on you Miliband!
Lowering the Drink Drive Limit
The government has asked a legal expert to examine whether the drink drive limit should be lowered.
I’m not bothered for myself, as I usually only drink a reasonable amount each night in the privacy of my own home. Strangely, over the past few months, when I have gone out for a drink, it’s usually been for a meal as well and the amount I’ve drunk has been usually in the order of a glass of wine. Or I’ve been on a bicycle or driven by one of my children, none of whom drink alcohol.
But I am bothered for the pubs I visit locally. Will they still survive if patrons don’t drink? I suspect that as we never see a policeman in this part of Suffolk, that no-one would get caught unless they crashed.
But the whole episode shows the stupidity of Prudence and his government. He would never get the law on the statute book before the next election, so he would surely lose enough votes in the run-up to make it absolutely sure that Labour was voted out by a landslide.
The other parties must be laughing their heads off.
But anyway it’s all right for our national politicians. They live a lot of the time in London with tubes, buses and taxis. Many of them too have chauffeurs.
If like me you live in deepest Suffolk, we have no buses and tubes, and taxis to get home will often cost more than a meal for one with wine.
Brown Uses the D-Word
As I drove back home today, I was listening to Prudence’s speech to businessmen.
He then used the D-word – dynamism. I can remember Peter Ryrie using that many times as he tried to dominate student politics in the 1960s at Liverpool University.
I laughed, as we all used to mock Peter for the word.
Sadly though, I’ve found that Peter died in 2007.
I Back the Judges
Senior judges are at odds with David Milliband over documents concerning interrogations in the US.
Here’s the first two paragraphs of the BBC report.
Senior judges say the foreign secretary is stopping them releasing details of CIA interrogation techniques – even though the US has published them.
The High Court says it wants to refer to previously classified documents as part of its judgement on the alleged mistreatment of Binyam Mohamed.
Interestingly, it would appear that the BBC’s web page links to the documents on the American Civil Liberties Union.
So if we can all read them on the web, why can’t the judges use them?
But then we are never given the truth by government when it suits them. Chevaline was the codename of the project by the Callaghan Government to update the Polaris missiles in the 1970s. It was kept secret for years and only a few years ago, the only full reference to it on the Internet was on the Federation of American Scientists.
We need a lot more information to be published. And not about MPs expenses, which is just peanuts compared to the dark and terrible secrets of things that governments do in our name.
Gordon Brown
I won’t comment on the policies of the main parties, as they were debated in Parliament after the Queen’s Speech today. To me they are irrelevant, as we must get on with the task of sorting the mess out, rather than scoring points.
But I’ve never heard Prudence sound so tired and almost shot to pieces. He’s not a good or jaunty speaker, but he was as uninspiring as you can get. There didn’t seem to be any conviction in his words, no passion, just the repeating of tired phrases.
He should go! And in the manner suggested by The Moody Blues.
Scientifically-Correct
Some years ago, I had a letter published in The Times, criticising Greenpeace for measuring exhaust emissions in a very unscientific way. They were trying to make a point, but their methods were very wrong. I used the term scientifically-correct in the letter. A few months later I was phoned by the OED and asked where I’d got the phrase. I said that it’s use was obvious and I’d used it for years. So I don’t really claim any first usage on the term, although it may be the case. But I very much doubt it.
But it illustrates how I think. You must get your facts right, even if they end up with a set of thinking that is politically incorrect.
My reasons for being so strong on this, is that sometimes a researcher finds something that is totally against the general view and his peers stop publication and rubbish the research. There was a Horizon program some years ago about how the body works and how a Glasgow professor of veterinary science proved everybody wrong. But it took him years to get his research accepted.
So when Alan Johnson fired Professor David Nutt for speaking the truth, you can have no doubts as to who I think is right.
I also applaud his colleagues who are now saying they have resigned or will do so.
But this row means that what scientist, doctor, engineer or computer scientist would advise Prudence and his rabble, when they know that their good advice will be totally ignored.
Just a Minute
There is a Radio 4 program called Just a Minute.
I think some of the rules of this program should be applied to Prime Minister’s Question Time.
For instance the Repetition Rule. Prudence is a great man for repeating lists of things and it would leave him without his debating style.
The Anonymous Widower 