The Corby Scandal
The word scandal is rather mild for the issues surrounding the cleaning up of the steelworks in Corby.
With echoes of Thalidomide and the toxin problems in California exposed by Erin Brockovich, the Borough Council has fought every inch of the way and they have now lost a battle in the Court of Appeal. Incidentally, the News page on the Corby web site is blank. Could this be because they are still in denial over their role in the scandal.
I’ll now put my statistical hat on.
The geographic cluster of the birth defects would appear to be obvious. So why did the council try and find what the problem is, rather than bring up a whole battery of legal defences?
If I lived in the town, I’d make sure that all the councillors responsible would be voted out.
I’ve also worked on chemical works for a company, ICI, that cared a lot about health and safety. From what I’ve read, the precautions taken as the works was dismantled were not of the highest standard. Why? And have the workers suffered any ill effects?
I suspect that we will hear a lot more in all sorts of directions about this scandal.
Is Publishing Statistics a Good Idea?
Statistics published today about heart operations show a very strong increase in success. This is despite warnings from the medical profession, that publishing statistics on success rates, would lead to conservative procedures.
This is a real result for openness.
I believe strongly that publishing information responsibly is always for the better. I think too that politicians are finally getting round to this belief, with David Cameron wanting all government and political expenses to be published on the Internet. He’s right, but he doesn’t go far enough.
What would I do?
The Health and Safety Executive has set a small precedent by publishing reasonably detailed lists of fatal incidents on their web site. But they don’t go far enough and the data is not published in a form that can easily be downloaded from the web site. This would enable analyses to be made to see if there are ways of increasing safety.
Obviously, databases of this type should be desensitised before they are put on line. For instance, I might be described as male, white, between 55 and 65 and living in St. Edmundsbury.
But suppose the following databases were available on-line and in a form such as Excel that was easily downloaded.
- Births by sex, post code, multiple birth etc.
- Deaths by sex, age, cause, smoker etc.
- Serious road accident by vehicle involved, post code, road type etc.
- Crime by type, post code, victim, clear up, sentence etc.
- Prisoner by sex, offence, age, prison etc.
- Illegal immigrant by country, sex etc.
This would remove much of the speculation beloved of the tabloid newspapers, who publish a statistic that proves their bigoted point of view.
The government and industry might like to try to keep hold of this data. They will cite confidentiality, security and other spurious reasons. However, as precedents are set, it will be extremely difficult to keep things confidential.
We will all benefit through access to these databases.
Is it Usury?
I was rather surprised that Provident Financial, who reported good results this week, charge some of its customers an interest rate of up to 545% on loans. Martin Narey of Barnardos is not amused. And neither am I!
But to criticise the company is wrong, as they are merely filling a gap in the financial services market, that should be catered for by micro-finance companies and credit unions. As to the latter it has always puzzled me why they have such a low profile in this country, compared to the United States. They seem to be ideal for the times and also for lending small amounts of money in more stretched communities. Especially, as any profits stay in that community.
Could it be that the regulations are framed to protect the banks? After all, no credit union has ever taken the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the British Grand Prix or other major sporting event. And they probably don’t pay anything to the government, except perhaps VAT and Income Tax for employees.
At least though, the spam I used to get from doorstep lenders like Providential has stopped. (They didn’t send any incidentally! Or not to me at any rate!) This offered me loans at high rate and it came from spam companies in the United States. However, a letter to my MP, who talked to the government, stopped the process in days.
There’s another moral in that tale. Don’t underestimate the power of your MP! If you have a problem write to them!
Nasty to Esther
Esther Rantzen is standing for election in the next Parliament.
I wish her luck.
But the celebrity ex-MPs on BBC Breakfast Time were not very welcoming of her actions. Humm! Perhaps they are jealous of her energy and guts!
The Advantages of European Time
I was at Newmarket Races last night and got chatting to a friend about one of my beefs with the UK; the fact that we don’t have the same time as most of the UK.
To take a narrow view, horse racing would benefit enormously, in that with longer evenings, there would be a much longer time, when evening meetings would be viable. As they would generally be an hour later, there would be much more time to finish work and come racing, so it would be likely that current evening meetings would benefit. Not that last night wasn’t a large crowd!
Now if racing would benefit, so would lots of other outdoor activities and sports, from just walking in the park to playing a game of golf. I also think that some sports like football, where they use floodlights would benefit financially as they wouldn’t need to be used so much. Aren’t we supposed to be saving energy?
There is always the argument that more children would get injured going to school in the dark. This is wrong, as when we didn’t put the clocks forward in the winter of 1968-69, the number actually went down, as most accidents occur after school and then it was light. Incidentally, I worked at ICI at the time, and the worst thing that happened was that people left their lights on when they parked after driving to work. Cars warn you now!
And there is the argument about farmers not wanting to get up in the dark. I have kept horses for years and you do a lot of the work according to the sun and not the clock. All my farmer friends are the same and don’t care at all what the clock says.
So is the real reason, we don’t have European time, the fact that if we did, the tabloids would say that we are cow-towing to the wishes of the EU. Bollocks!
You will note I have not said anything about the international advantages of being on the same time as Europe. They are so overwhelming, I’ve not bothered.
Swine Flu Finds an Appropriate Victim
I did think of calling this post, “God Doesn’t Vote Labour”, but then that would be against my principles as I don’t do god.
But it appears that the Labour candidate in the Norwich North by-election has got swine-flu. Is it some sort of poetic justice or an insult to pigs?
Ronnie Biggs
It is wrong that Ronnie Biggs is being kept in jail. He has had several strokes, he can’t speak and what else does he suffer from. He is no threat and would be cheaper to keep in a hospital than a prison. So why not let him out on grounds of costs alone?
In his excellent book, Prison Gate, David Ramsbotham talks of lifers with severe mental disorders and Alzheimer’s who are cluttering up prisons. Like Biggs, they are no threat.
We must be humane in our treatment of prisoners as we will only lower the whole of society to their level.
Cloud-Cuckoo Spending
Every economic commentator says that Gordon Brown needs to cut government spending, but he still persists in saying that capital spending is increasing.
Now, I watch the news just as much as the next person and I get the impression that in an area like education cuts are being made. For instance, here in East Anglia all capital spending in Further Education Colleges appears to have stopped. A friend in a University, says that they have been told to cut costs and sees draconian measures every week.
But Brown says education spending is being increased.
Bollux!
Do We Need New Aircraft Carriers?
I was in India once with my late wife and somebody asked a guide, why India needed to keep such a large army. He replied in one word – Pride.
I have a feeling that we don’t need two massive ships, with their expensive aircraft. In fact, with the exception of the Falklands, have we needed the three smaller ones we’ve got already? Or does Gordon Brown, want to leave a legacy for all times. So perhaps they should be called Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.
If you want to read about the carriers and their costs and politics, go to Robert Peston’s blog.
But then if we cut out the carriers, we can cut out the Joint Strike Fighters and why not add Trident, which is up for renewal anyway. We could then give the troops in Afghanistan equipment better suited to that sort of task. After all I can just see Trident being used on the Taliban!
Brown only wants it for you’ve guessed it – Pride.
Scotland and East Anglia
Radio Five Live was in Scotland today, as it is the tenth anniversary of the Scottish Parliament.
No problem there, but this government has widened the divide in public support between Scotland and many of the English regions. Here in East Anglia, we have the same GDP as Scotland, but have many fewer government jobs, export a lot more, have better health etc.
So we’re doing a lot better except in one respect.
Various projects such as the dualling of the A11 are never completed. We get everybody else’s cast off trains. The government doesn’t want to protect us from the sea. And we now have the farce of the downgrading of Ipswich Hospital with respect to heart patients.
The latter doesn’t actually bother me, as my nearest hospital is Addenbrookes in Cambridge, but the distance from say where I used to live at Felixstowe to Norwich is about two hours. It’s just too far!
The Anonymous Widower 