Paul Flynn - Read My Day

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From Today's Morning Star.

Back-bench power in the Bercow era

Thursday 26 January 2012

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Speaker John Bercow has set his own high standards for his role free of the tyranny of the stultifying traditions that have blocked past reformers.

Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said that Bercow is "supporting the legislature against the executive." This is the job of the Speaker - to represent Parliament and to challenge government when necessary.

Bercow has more pioneering courage than all of his three predecessors. He has promoted the feeble rights of backbenchers against the overweening powers of the executive. Contriving to call a record number of urgent, oral and topical questions has liberated backbenchers and multiplied our chances of holding the executive to account. He has reduced the verbose garbage that clogs the parliamentary word machine.

Bercow has been the scourge of the self-regarding, boring time gluttons who spew endless verbal Polyfilla. He has been the friend of those whose contributions are brief, pithy and substantial.

One oafish MP said that Bercow is not "effing royalty." No he is not. Unlike them, he was elected on merit by his peers. No Speaker can increase parliamentary time, but John Bercow, by repeated imprecations, body language and occasional light mockery, has reduced the time-wasting.

It was a rarity in the past for all questions, oral, business or topical, to be called during PM's questions. Now it's routine.

In the debate on the English riots all MPs who wished to question David Cameron did so. The PM was at the Dispatch Box for a record two and a half hours.

Bercow granted the SO24 request for the Hackgate debate that allowed full parliamentary scrutiny. A happy juxtaposition of Bercow, the Commons reforms drawn up under the stewardship of Labour MP Tony Wright, leader of the House George Young, and a large proportion of stroppy independent backbenchers has inspired a parliamentary revolution in our business methods.

Overarching all parliamentary life is the screaming nightmare of the expenses scandal. It will take many years to rebuild trust in politics. Many judge all MPs to be lying thieves. The details are forgotten, but the mud still sticks.

The sins of predecessors are visited on present MPs. The tentacles of corrupting corporate lobbyists are sunk deeply into the body politic. Removing them requires all-party microsurgery.

Cameron has correctly warned that "corporate lobbying goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics.

"It arouses people's worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works."

More MPs than ever are former lobbyists. Many hope to be future lobbyists. The Werritty scandal shocked the government into refreshing its reform notions. Ominously, the first debate following the scandal was crowded with former lobbyists lobbying on behalf of lobbying.

The nature of politics is to exaggerate success, to oversell, to deny failure, to spin - or, as the public interpret it, to lie. Even the giants of the past, Roosevelt and Churchill, lied.

On occasions they had no choice in order to serve their nations' interests.

Optimistic manifesto promises that are not honoured are also pilloried as "lies," whatever the reasons for failure.

While party leaders must bear the brunt for future disappointments, individual MPs need an alternative strategy for service and survival.

Only very foolish MPs lie. Every word we say is chronicled in Hansard or recorded and is instantly available to be Googled now and in the future.

Stephen Pound submitted himself to a lie detector test in 2011. He emerged triumphant as a teller of the truth.

The questions were ones where spin or subterfuge were expected. Stephen answered with the unvarnished truth. The age of spin has gone.

To maintain or create trust, MPs should abide by the Backbenchers' Ten Commandments and actively build trust.

Post-expenses scandal new precepts are also necessary.

Understate promises, never exaggerate successes.

Reply within 48 hours to all messages.

Be transparent and puritanical with allowances and expenses. Avoid serving commercial or partial interests. Generously give time and enthusiasm to local causes. Never accept personal favours or advantages.

Always pay for substantial meals. Put all excess income above salary in a charity trust fund.

Never lie, tell half-truths or mislead. Keep constituents informed on key issues. Deflect criticism with truth and humour. Admit failures.

Oppose commitments to war made without MPs' consent.

Redirect complaints that are beyond responsibility or competence. Match behaviour to ethical self-image. Refresh and reinvigorate ideals. Resist immediate political gratification - seek permanent reforms.

Advance the shift of power from the executive to the legislature.

Strive to give unambiguous answers to questions.

And always choose simplicity and utility over luxury and extravagance.

Paul Flynn is Labour MP for Newport West. His new book How To Be An MP is out now published by Biteback.

MPs' 10 Commandments

1.Value the role of backbencher as a high calling

2.Serve the constituents, the weak and neglected

3.Seek novel remedies and challenge accepted wisdom!

4.Attack opponents only when they are wrong

5.Never covet a second income, honours or retirement job

6.Value courage and innovation above popularity

7.Honour your party and extend its horizons

8.Use humour and colour to convey serious ideas

9.Fortify the independence of backbenchers against the executive

10.Neglect the rich, the obsessed, and the tabloids and seek out the silent voices.

 

 

and the other £2.5 million RBS?

Total number of UK soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 397

 

It not just the £million bonus. The bailed-out RBS bank has spent over £2.5m of British taxpayers' money to influence politicians reforming US financial law. They handed over this fortune to American lobbyists.

Both in-house and commercial lobbyists have been paid to influence American senators and congressmen reforming US finance law since the bank's collapse and government bail-out in October 2008.

The money has been handed over despite calls from ministers for RBS and other banks that have received taxpayers' handouts to refrain from hiring public affairs firms.

According to the documents, the bank spent $4.13m from October 2008 to December 2011 on lobbyists as it tried to influence three different areas of legislation.

The Guardian report that :

'RBS sought influence over consumer protection, with proposed legislation such as the Consumer Overdraft Protection Fair Practices Act and the US Credit Card Act.

These proposed laws wanted to make it harder for young people to be given credit cards, have their credit limits extended and over the imposition of limits on interest rates. They also suggested a possible limit on hidden overdraft charges and penalty fees.

In 2009 and 2010, the RBS subsidiaries also lobbied on a range of banking reforms including the Dodds-Frank Wall Street Act, the largest of the US banking reform acts.

This act covers the amount capital banks must hold as well as demands that banks publish the ratio of the highest paid bankers to average wages."

Parliament is about to probe lobbying. Unlike American lobbying regulations, Cameron's reforms will not list in-house lobbyists, nor will they show amounts spent or subjects involved.

RBS has spent most of their effort this year lobbying on attempts to reform "swipe" card fees. US politicians want to help small businesses by limiting the amount banks can charge for card transactions made with swipe machines.

Lobbying records state that "Royal Bank of Scotland, a parent company to the registrant, is interested in the issues listed".

In Britain, RBS paid six lobbying firms last year. It also employs its own team of internal corporate lobbyists to influence ministers.

The communities secretary, Eric Pickles, told the Guardian in 2010: "Taxpayer-funded campaigns conducted by private lobbying firms mean … public policy is weakened and public discourse becomes a soundbite battle."

Why have all these lobbyists not protected the 'good name' of RBS? The Select Committee inquiry into lobbying have been thrown a chunk of raw meat by RBS. Should be a satisfying meal. 

 

 

 

Honours dishonoured

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 396

 

Chance of debate on our discredited Honours system. Plans to use honours to push political schemes are about to be hatched. The Telegraph reports:

The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday for the first time the official list of everyone who rejected an honour between 1949 and 1999, and has since died.

Pressure is mounting on ministers to release the identities of other people who have rejected an honour in the past decade.

New figures from the Cabinet Office show that over the past three years 116 people have rejected honours, but they are not identified.

They show that 30 people turned down honours in last year’s Queen’s Birthday and New Year’s honours lists. That compared with 46 in 2010 and 40 in 2009.

Authors JB Priestley and Roald Dahl and the painters Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon and LS Lowry were among 277 people on the list, which was disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act after a 15 month battle with the Cabinet Office

• 03 Jan 2012

The list also included honours rejected by Trevor Howard, the actor, Alfred Hitchcock, the Hollywood director, Aldous Huxley, the author, and Henry Moore, the sculptor.

Paul Flynn MP, a Labour member of the Public Administration Select Committee which has scrutinised the honours’ process, said that the Government should release the names of others who have turned down an honour.

He said that they should be dubbed ‘HRH’ – which stood for “Has Rejected Honour” – because in his view turning down a Knighthood, an OBE or an MBE was “the highest honour of all”.

The list, published on the Cabinet Office’s website on Wednesday, also included the physicist Paul Dirac and DNA pioneer Francis Crick.

Campaigners said the disclosure of the list was a further example of the value of the FOI legislation.

Maurice Frankel, who runs the Campaign for Freedom of Information, said: "This decision illustrates a key aspect of the FOI Act. The requester did not have to show why disclosure of this information about honours was important.

"The onus was on the Government to show why disclosure would be harmful – and it couldn’t do that. The starting point under FOI is that openness about public affairs is itself in the public interest, something that many public authorities haven't yet accepted."

The Cabinet Office said it had no plans to publish more information about so called ‘honours refuseniks’. A spokesman said: “We answered a specific FOI requesting information on deceased people who have refused honours.

“It is up to individuals whether they wish to accept or refuse an honour. We have no plans to routinely publish a list of those people who refuse honours.”

Previous authoritative leaks suggest actress Honor Blackman, jazz musician George Melly, artist David Hockney and novelist John le Carre have all turned down honours.

Other names include the pop star David Bowie, the celebrity cook Nigella Lawson, playwright Michael Frayn and the comedy act Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.

The actor Albert Finney is also understood to have rejected a knighthood in 2000, and a CBE two decades earlier in 1980.

 

How to be an MP

I recently spoke at the book launch for Paul Flynn’s latest book How to be an MP. It was, people think, the first book launch held in the Speaker’s House, and was introduced by the Speaker, John Bercow.  I think I was invited to speak because, a few months ago, when Paul Flynn was getting lots of stick for offending someone or other (and those who know him know that doesn’t help narrow the time frame down very much) I tweeted that people should leave him alone because he’d written what I described as ‘the single best thing ever written about being an MP, full of humour, insights, wisdom’.

That quote was about his earlier book Commons Knowledge, which came out in 1997, but with publisher’s typical chutzpah that quote has found its way onto the jacket of the revised and updated book.  But no complaints: if the new book is half as good as the old book, then it’ll be a cracker.  For those of us who have to teach parliament to undergraduates, an up-to-date Flynn publication is a Godsend.  There are lots of good books out there about Parliament, but many of them are – bluntly – a little dull (I may even have written some of the duller ones), and it’s useful to have something with a bit more punch to get students interested in the topic.

I dug out my old copy of Commons Knowledge to prepare for the launch and almost every page has some underlining or marginalia.  Every page is quotable.

 For example:

Those who are slightly mad, eccentric or possessed by demons are magnetically attracted to MPs. The obsessive, the weirdos and devotees of religious cults ventilate their irrationality at great length and frequency to Members (p. 63).

All MPs know exactly what he means.

Or this, from p. 27, his advice for aspirant ministers:

Cultivate the virtues of dullness and safety. Be attuned to the nation’s lowest common denominator of conscience, idealism and cowardice. At all costs avoid any appearance of humour, originality or interest in your speeches.

Whatever, whoever, can he mean?

Or this, p.93:

The expectation is growing of the omnipotence of MPs as a point of help of last resort… A woman rang me from a hotel in Milan to say her husband had died ten minutes ago and asked what should she do next. I was paged in the Chamber by a man who complained that the dustmen had left his emptied bin in the middle of the drive. He had been forced to stop his car and move the bin to the side. I asked why he was ringing me. He said he had already run 10 Downing Street and they told him to contact me.

One point that I made during the speech was that what MPs do does matter.  The public do notice what goes on in the Commons.  In September last year there was wall-to-wall media coverage of the latest report by the Committee On Standards In Public Life showing the extent to which MPs expenses had damaged the standing of Parliament and MPs.  The next day, however, some of my colleagues at Nottingham reported some more up-to-date figures, which showed that the way Parliament had responded to the phone hacking scandal had led to a noticeable increase in trust in MPs.  The latter survey also revealed that hacking had damaged the reputation of journalists, both broadsheet and tabloid, which may explain why, with the honourable exception of Bloomberg, not a single national media outlet covered the second story. 

How To Be An MP is dedicated by Paul to David Taylor, MP for North West Leicestershire until his death in late-2009. David was always incredibly helpful and kind to me in my work, – and I say that despite the fact that he caused me lots of problems.  Because when you’re studying the way MPs vote, the last thing you want is people who vote in both division lobbies at the same time. David Taylor wasn’t the first person to do this as a means of recording an abstention, but he raised the art of double voting to an art form.  Back in 1997, the Modernisation Committee said that it would be in favour of an Abstention option in the Commons, but nothing happened, and once he’d realised he could do it de facto, David was soon abstaining all over the place.  I once got into an argument with a Labour MP who told me that the act of voting in both lobbies was known as a Skinner Abstention.  That was rubbish, not least because Dennis Skinner has never abstained on anything in his life, ever. 

Previous Speakers are on record as deprecating the act of double voting, but I’m hoping that the current reforming Speaker, in his infinite wisdom, will somehow get it on record that they’re a perfectly acceptable thing to do, and they should hereafter be known as Taylor Abstentions. 

And there I was following the advice on p. 50 of Commons Knowledge, where it says:

Flatter the Speaker, subtly.

Philip Cowley

 

Book booming

 

8 January 2012, US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, said: “Are they ( Iranians) trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.” Why warmonger?

1 hour ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@ 

@alunmichaelmp Facts are there in abundance- Portugal depenalised in 2001. Drugs deaths down 50%.€billions saved in costs of courts/prisons

5 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@ 

@alunmichaelmp INTELLIGENT remedies not the so-called TOUGH policies that have given UK worst outcomes in Europe. 15 years jail for mule?

5 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Bless Jamie and Louise on BBC Wales this morning. They had actually read HOW TO BE AN MP. Chance to proclaim virtues of peacemonger MPs

6 hours ago       

TheCrachach The Crachach 

.@Paulflynnmp Thank you for your prompt & candid reply Mr. Flynn. We agree, prohibition doesn't work. We look forward to reading your book.

7 hours ago       

 Retweeted by Paulflynnmp

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@TheCrachach Reclassifying cannabis by Labour REDUCED use/ harm. Prohibition doesn't work. UK Cannabis use here is MORE than in Netherlands.

7 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Many thanks for comments from those who have read HOW TO BE AN MP. I'll be talking about the book on BBC Wales at 9.00 and Radio Ulster 9.45

8 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Inevitably mangled by the Telegraph signs of intelligent reform on our drugs law should be welcomed. One drugs mule sentenced to 15 years.

9 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Headline in today's New York Times: "Bomb-'bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb Iran?" An academic Matthew Kroenig is a Stangelovian superhawk planning war

9 hours ago       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Cameron proves he is a pygmy politician. Wednesday will be an EASY hit on Abu Quada. No progress on DIFFICULT reforms.paulflynnmp.typepad.com

23 hours ago       

TransformDrugs TransformDrugPolicy 

It’s time to end the failed war on drugs: Branson: accept when you're wrong, work out why, change course dlvr.it/16jY01

23 Jan       

 Retweeted by Paulflynnmp

BitebackPub Biteback Publishing 

Monday morning blues? I have JUST the thing. Check out these extracts from @Paulflynnmp's 'How To Be An MP' bit.ly/xvD3YJ

23 Jan       

 Retweeted by Paulflynnmp

mndsc06 Miqdad Al-Nuaimi 

@ 

@Paulflynnmp I also thought David Cameron's reply to Dennis Skinner's legit question was disrespectful &ageist. Should be DISCIPLINED!!!!

23 Jan       

 Retweeted by Paulflynnmp

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Newport pummelled by Tories/Lib Dem juntas in Newport and London, they borrowed wildly, public sector jobs threat. cut MPs From 2 to 1.

23 Jan       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@ 

@AnstDJ By insisiting on UK's national interests on matter of no significance, invites oppressive regimes to continue to abuse prisoners

23 Jan       

joshworrad Joshua 

Spent weekend reading "How to be an MP" by @Paulflynnmp.... Laughed loads. It's brilliant

23 Jan       

 Retweeted by Paulflynnmp

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

CAMERON sabotages UK's chance to reform Human Rights Court by denying prison votes. Heigh, ho, We'll get next chance in 26 years time

22 Jan       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@ 

@eggynewydd Millions of cases prove the bad science of unreliable animal results. More details on blog soon.

22 Jan       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

@ 

@simon_watkins Only about 10 people have read HOW TO BE AN MP so far. I believe it will be available in shops soon, on Amazon kindle etc.

22 Jan       

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

3.7 million UK animal lives wasted to serve the myth that their bodies react to drugs as human bodies do.paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2012…

22 Jan       

 

Cameron goes for easy hit

David Cameron has thrown a rare opportunity away in order to make a cheap tabloid hit.

It happened last time in 1994. It will not happen again until 2037. We hold the Presidency for six months in the Council of Europe. It started in May and will be over in November. It was a great opportunity to spread some of the UK's best practises to the 46 member states with poor human rights records. We blew that. We concentrated on the issue of votes for prisoners - a matter of monumental insignificance compared with the summary arrests, torture and abuse that is traditional in many European prisons. Other countries have seen us talk about our national customs. They have national customs too. Cruel ones.

On Wednesday the Prime Minister will address the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. He will be seeking flattering headlines about the interference in UK laws by Europe - especially in the failure to expel Abu Qatada. There is universal outrage at this decision. He will be wildly acclaimed and his popularity will rise.

Good short term politics for him. Atrocious waste for those suffering in the hell holes of Europe's worst prisons.

 

Human cost of animal testing

Over fifty years ago the medicine thalidomide was withdrawn. Thousands of women who had taken the drug as a ‘safe’ treatment for morning sickness gave birth to babies with severe abnormalities.

Yesterday it was reported that a drug prescribed on a large scale for three decades to prevent miscarriage may be the cause of a rare form of cancer in some of the daughters and granddaughters of the women who took it.

This latest example of the potential of medicinal drugs to produce devastating adverse reactions highlights the need for a rigorous examination of our reliance on animal experiments to predict the safety of medicines for humans.

In 2010 over 3.7 million procedures involving over 3.6 million animals were instigated. Compared with 2009 the total rose by just over 3%. This was the eighth increase in the last ten years.

The upward trend has occurred alongside increasing opposition from scientists and clinicians to the use of animals as a means of accurately predicting reactions in patients, and a growing body of evidence in favour of human biology-based experimentation.

Advancements in science have proved empirically that animal testing can be scientifically unreliable, not least because the bodies of different species behave in such diverse ways.  While it is true that different individuals may not respond to a drug in the same manner, we are considerably more different from animals than we are from each other. Why then should we be surprised when animal data applied to humans produces inconsistent and unexpected results?

Extensive animal testing failed to predict the devastating consequences of thalidomide. Though the scandal did result in a number of reforms in drug safety testing, fifty years on animal-based methods are still heavily relied upon to establish the safety of prescription drugs for human use.

Last year the Safer Medicines Trust, with the support of 21 senior scientists, sent an open letter to the Prime Minister and Health Secretary calling for the effectiveness of animal experiments in predicting the safety of medicines to be compared with a set of human biology-based tests. The letter was published in the leading medical journal, The Lancet, and 156 Members of Parliament signed the following EDM:

That this House believes that the safety of medicines should be established by the most reliable methods available in order to reduce the large and increasing toll of serious adverse drug reactions; and calls on the Government to initiate a comparison of currently required animal tests with a set of human biology-based tests, as proposed in the Safety of Medicines (Evaluation) Bill 2009, to see which is the most effective means to predict the safety of medicines for patients.

Following yesterday’s disturbing revelations about the “silent thalidomide”, Diethylstilboestrol, should we not question how many other routinely prescribed drugs proven safe by animal experimentation are in fact surreptitiously causing harm not only to our own bodies but to those of future generations?

Our attention must be diverted from scientifically unreliable data derived from animal tests to the adoption of more advanced methods based on human biology if we are to improve our understanding of the safety of medicines and prevent fatal adverse effects for patients in the future.

 

Chilling fear of silent thalidomide

In spite of all the evidence of dreadful adverse effects of medicinal drugs, the public's faith remains unshaken.

In the Commons a Government Minister aired her ignorance about thalidomide. I had to remind her that it WAS tested on animals. It was tested on rabbits including pregnant rabbits. No birth abnormalities were found until it was used on human guinea pigs. Now news of another silent killer has been found. The Independent reports.

Tens of thousands of British families are to be asked if they are victims of a drug given to pregnant women which can cause fatal illness in the second, and possibly even third, generations. Some women given the drug in this country have already obtained compensation in America.

Diethylstilboestrol (DES), a drug given to women for 30 years up to 1973, has been found to cause a rare form of vaginal and cervical cancer in some of the daughters of the women who took it, as well as fertility problems. Compensation of an estimated $1.5bn has been paid out in the US. There is even a suspicion that DES – known as the "silent Thalidomide" – can affect the grandchildren of those who took it'.

There is a splendid organisation campaigning to reveal that the lives of the 3.7 million animals used in medical procedures last year in the UK were wasted. The medical evidence is unreliable at best and worthless in millions of instances. Human bodies do not behave in the same way as animal bodies. Animals are dying to serve a useless myth.

Back to sleaze with Tories

From HOW TO BE AN MP

It will take many years to rebuild trust in politics. Many judge all MPs to be lying thieves. The details are forgotten but the mud still sticks. The sins of predecessors are visited onpresent MPs. The tentacles of corrupting corporate lobbyists are sunk deeply into the body politic. Removing them requires all- party microsurgery. David Cameron has correctly warned that ‘corporate lobbying goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspi- cions about how our political system works.’ More MPs than ever are former lobbyists. Many hope to be future lobbyists. The Werritty scandal shocked the Government into refresh- ing their reform notions. Ominously, the first debate follow- ing the scandal was crowded with former lobbyists lobbying for lobbying.

 

In opposition David Cameron made this stunning declaration:

"It’s an issue that crosses party lines and has tainted our politics for too long...an issue that exposes the far-too-cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money. I’m talking about lobbying – and we all know how it works. The lunches, the hospitality, the quiet word in your ear, the ex-ministers and ex-advisors for hire, helping big business find the right way to get its way. In this party, we believe in competition, not cronyism. We believe in market economics, not crony capitalism. So we must be the party that sorts all this out. Today it is a £2 billion industry that has a huge presence in Parliament. The Hansard Society has estimated that some MPs are approached over one hundred times a week by lobbyists. I believe that secret corporate lobbying, like the expenses scandal, goes to the heart of why people are so fed up with politics. It arouses people’s worst fears and suspicions about how our political system works."

Now they have surrendered to their pals in the lobbying industry.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/anger-at-tories-over-lobbying-whitewash-6292678.html

 

A pro-lobbying website carried this account of a spat I HAD WITH THEM ON THE 19TH DECEMBER LAST YEAR:

"Paul Flynn has now given me permission to publish his comments on the draft Lobbyists’ Charter. This is the email I received, giving his permission. It is pure gold itself:

“Please do as you wish as long as you make clear that was an instant response made nano seconds after receiving your self-serving drivel.

Living for the joy of witnessing you presenting this to select committees. I’ll try not to laugh out loud.

Feel free to quote me at length. It will be the most intesting part of your epistles
Best
Paul”

So here are his annotated comments on the draft:

“· Lobbying is a fundamental democratic right of us all
· WHICH IS UNEVENLY AVAILABLE.

· Professional lobbying should be conducted at all times in a professional and ethical manner. REMINISCENT OF SINNING FOR VIRTUE or S*****ING FOR VIRGINITY

· Professional lobbyists assist the democratic process by helping to ensure that public policy is subject to rigorous examination and argument. They present information that allows the policy process to be better informed THEY SEEK TO FURTHER ADVANTAGE THE ALREADY ADVANTAGED IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY.

· It is entirely legitimate for an organisation to use the services of a professional lobbyist, whether by employing them directly or by hiring them through a lobbying company.THOSE TOO STUPID TO SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES WITH MONEY TO WASTE USE CHINESE WHISPERERS WHO OFTEN WEAKEN AND DISTORT THEIR MESSAGES>

· Professional lobbyists should be subject to a rigorous Code of Conduct, whether on a self-regulatory or statutory basis, designed to enshrine high professional and ethical standards to the benefit of all. SELF-REGULATION IS NO REGULATION. ARE ETHICS PART OF PARASITIC FEEDING OFF THE BOBY POLITIC?

· To ensure that professional lobbyists offer services of the highest standards, structured training and continuing professional development programmes should be developed. MADRASAS FOR TEACHING DECEPTION?”

I particularly love the last point. I most certainly look forward to appearing before the Committee Paul Flynn sits on."

 

Beware! God becomes Trinity

 

Discord and disruption is certain.

After some lively disagreement the Commons Public Administration Committee (PASC) have reached a unanimous view. We say the new arrangements implemented at the top of the Civil Service on the retirement of Sir Gus O’Donnell “could lead to weaker leadership and disperse power at a critical time of change in government” and that they will not succeed unless ministers, and particularly the Prime Minister, accords the two roles equal power and status.  They must both attend Cabinet on equal terms and both must have access to the Prime Minister and the authority “to speak truth unto power”.

There have been some hilarious reports from Sue Cameron on disputes over office space and desks. Jealousies are rampant. The risk of unequal status and differential access to the Prime Minister under the new arrangements has prompted the Committee to demand a full review of the new structure by July 2012.

Our report states:

“The Civil Service is one of the United Kingdom’s great institutions.  It is not merely the administrative function of government: it is one of the vital checks and balances in the UK’s largely unwritten constitution.  Its impartiality and objectivity are supposed to be its hallmark.  Senior civil servants are responsible for advising Ministers on appropriate procedures and legal and ethical practices.  They must be independent enough to speak truth to power….”

PASC identified “Leadership” as one of six key principles of good governance and change management in a report last year and now says that changes to the top structure of the Civil Service “raise fundamental question about the leadership of the Civil Service” upon which the whole government change programme depends. The report includes emphatic evidence from all four former surviving Cabinet Secretaries expressing deep reservations about splitting the role of the Cabinet Secretary.   The risk is that the Cabinet Secretary will be “top dog”, and the Head of the Civil service will be relegated to a subservient role rendering him ineffective.  PASC reports that the government is “on notice that this new arrangement may not be sustainable.”

The report makes public for the first time an organisation chart of the new arrangements, with tables setting out how reporting lines and responsibilities have been divided.  The key findings of the report are:

 

• PASC doubts whether the new Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob Kerslake, will be able to fulfil all the duties set out in his lengthy job description in the two days per week allocated to the post, while also acting as Permanent Secretary in a major department of state;
• as Head of the Civil Service, Sir Bob must have the seniority and the ear of the Prime Minister in order to fulfil his role and parity of status with the Cabinet Secretary; he must attend Cabinet regularly on the same basis as the Cabinet Secretary;
• PASC recommends a full-time Head of the Civil Service who should also be Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office, overseeing a stronger centre of government able to implement change across Whitehall;
• the Government should conduct a full of review these changes in July 2012 in the light of six months of experience, to consider whether a full-time Head of the Civil Service is required to provide the Civil Service with the necessary organisational leadership;
• one risk of the new arrangement is that divided reporting lines will lead to divided and weak leadership: an arrangement which relies too much for its effectiveness on the personal chemistry between the Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Civil Service  is inherently unstable;
• PASC reiterates its recommendation, hitherto rejected by the Government, that the Government’s change programme demands a stronger centre of government to drive change. 

Chair of PASC, Bernard Jenkin MP, said:

“A prime minister is entitled to reorganise the top of the Civil Service as he thinks best suits the nature of his administration and the challenges it faces, but civil servants are not merely servants of ministers.  There must be no impression that the most senior civil servants are becoming political courtiers.  They play a vital role in our national life.  Nor is this the time to divide or dilute Civil Service leadership.  The Head of the Civil Service cannot be reduced to cutting ribbons at job centres on Friday afternoons. 

“The government has to rely on its 440,000 staff to deliver its radical reform programme and savings programme.  The top of the Civil Service must lead a comprehensive change programme to tackle the tens of billions wasted every year and to equip Whitehall with the skills to implement change and to manage resources, contracts and major projects much more effectively.  It needs to tackle endemic barriers to cross departmental working, the risk averse culture that escalates costs, and the general lack of engagement of staff down the command chain.”

  

A range of responses?

As it's the most vital -but largely neglected-threat facing the country, I raise this every week.

Perhaps the Leader of the House had not thought through his answer this afternoon. He is surely not defending the murder of civilians.

Earlier this week, I had a very disturbing reply about Wikileaks reports on incidents involving Afghan civilians and NATO soldiers. There are no records of some incidents and inadequate action on others. There is no chance of a full investigation until the fighting is over.

 

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Will next week’s defence debate concentrate on the paramount need to reduce tension between the west and Iran in order to avoid this country stumbling into another avoidable war, and may we explain to those responsible that murdering Iranian scientists can have only one outcome: making war more likely?

Sir George Young: I am sure that if the hon. Gentleman couched his remarks in a suitable way they would be perfectly in order in next Thursday’s debate. I have noted his views. There is a real threat to the rest of the world from Iran possessing nuclear weapons, and I think that it is right that a range of responses is available.

 

Are Cameron's Apprenticeships a con?

Yesterday the two heads of the Coalition's Apprenticeship plan resigned.

Also yesterday I was critical of the apprenticeships in the Commons.

Paul Flynn(Newport West) (Lab): Although I greatly I admire the work of my close comrade, the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), is not there a danger that apprenticeships that are essentially relabelled job creation, job experience schemes or internships, without a job, skill or indentures at the end, are likely to increase the cynicism and disillusionment among young people?

The chief executives leading the Government's multi-billion pound apprenticeship schemes have both announced they are to step down.

Geoff Russell will leave his position heading up the Skills Funding Agency (SFA) in the summer.

The SFA has faced accusations of misuse of public money by training providers and an inquiry is to start next month.

Mr Russell's departure coincides with the resignation of Simon Waugh, head of the National Apprenticeship Service.

Both men in charge of the Government's multi-billion pound apprenticeship schemes announced their departures on the same day.

FIVE LIVE REPORTS

How wisely is taxpayers' money being spent on government-backed apprenticeships? This week the programme investigates one scheme set up by ex-Welsh football international Mark Aizlewood which was meant to train teenagers to become sports coaches. The company - Luis Michael Training - was awarded around £6 million by eight further education colleges to deliver the scheme at football clubs up and down the country. Two thousand young people signed up - but no-one got their qualification. Hundreds of trainees have been left out of pocket and the company is now in liquidation. Was the scheme properly scrutinised by the colleges and the government's Skills Funding Agency? We ask who's to blame for the failure and what happened to all the money.

The last taboo?

Bully Cameron fouls up.

There are two rules about parliamentary insults. Pick on someone your own size and be funny.  Cameron did neither today when he attacked Dennis Skinner. 

The House felt upset on behalf of the greatly loved and respected Dennis who will be eighty next month. Cameron ends most of his oral answers with a pre-crafted insult. The question that Dennis asked was fair and deserved a proper response.  The Tories have repeatedly mocked Dennis because of his age. Osborne has told him to retire to save public money. If Dennis retired it would INCREASE public spending. His replacement would have a full MP's wage and Dennis would be paid his pension. By continuing to work Dennis and the other MPs over 75 are saving the country money.

 

Paul Flynn(Newport West) (Lab): Although I greatly I admire the work of my close comrade, the hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), is not there a danger that apprenticeships that are essentially relabelled job creation and job experience schemes or internships, without a job, skill or indentures at the end, are likely to increase the cynicism and disillusionment among young people?

Mrs Gillan:I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased to know that, for example, all the apprentices at the Welsh Government undertake business administration NVQs and are recruited through fair and open competition via their website, with support from Careers Wales and Jobcentre Plus. That shows that the apprentice programmes are equipping young people to take up jobs in the future.

 [Interruption.] Mr Dennis Skinner(Bolsover) (Lab): When does the Prime Minister expect to be cross-examined by the Leveson inquiry? Does he not agree that the British people deserve an answer to the question of why he appointed one of Murdoch’s top lieutenants, Andy Coulson, to the heart of the British Government?

The Prime Minister:I shall be delighted to appear before the Leveson inquiry whenever I am invited, and I am sure that other politicians will have exactly the same view. I shall answer all the questions when that happens.

It is good to see the hon. Gentleman on such good form. I often say to my children, “There is no need to go to the National History museum to see a dinosaur; come to the House of Commons at about half past twelve.”

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab) rose—

Mr Speaker:I will come to the hon. Gentleman. I am saving him up. He is too precious. I do not want to waste him too early. I call Mr Chuka Umunna.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. One of the areas of parliamentary life—the manners of this Chamber—that has improved in recent years is that it is now completely unacceptable for one Member to criticise another Member on the basis of gender, race, ethnicity or disability. The most under-represented group in this Parliament is the septuagenarians. Today we heard what I believe many of us thought was a gratuitous and entirely offensive insult to a greatly respected hon. Member, made entirely because of his age. Is it not right that ageist discriminatory remarks should be outlawed in the same way that other discriminatory remarks are?

Mr Brian H. Donohoe(Central Ayrshire) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not also the case that “Erskine May” makes it very clear that no Member of Parliament should criticise another and call them a name that relates to an animal? In those circumstances, is it not only right that the Prime Minister should come back to the House and apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr Skinner)?

Mr David Winnick(Walsall North) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is it not important that those of us of a certain age group should not be seen as the new persecuted minority?

Mark Pritchard(The Wrekin) (Con) rose—

Mr Speaker: Is it on the same matter? Gosh, a vintage quartet indeed, and a very high quality vintage.

Mark Pritchard: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. You have seen the grey hairs as well—on my head, of course. I seek your guidance on whether this Parliament and this House of Commons would be better with more or less humour.

Mr Speaker: I am always in favour of humour, but just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, humour is a matter of subjective judgment. Sometimes people are funny, sometimes they think they are funny, sometimes they think they are funny deliberately when they are not, sometimes they do not realise they are funny when they are. There are all sorts of different permutations. It would be unwise for me to offer a view as to the category into which the matter of current discussion happens to fall, but I have never had any doubt about the hon. Gentleman’s well-developed and furnished sense of humour.

I agree with the hon. Member for Walsall North (Mr Winnick) that septuagenarians should not become a persecuted minority. The hon. Gentleman is sometimes in a minority, and a principled minority, on a range of matters, and has been throughout his long parliamentary career. All I would say is that I do not think that the hon. Gentleman himself is persecuted, certainly not by me, and anybody trying to persecute the hon. Gentleman should frankly give up the unequal struggle, because that person will not get anywhere with the hon. Gentleman.

With regard to the point of order from the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr Donohoe), I think that I am right in saying that “Erskine May” no longer contains the prohibition to which the hon. Gentleman refers. I think that, certainly at one time or another, there has been a prohibition on, or presumption against, reference to an existing animal.

With regard to point of order of the hon. Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), it is very difficult for me to interpret the mindset of another hon. or right hon. Member, be that a newly arrived Member, or a very senior Member, or the most senior Member of the Government. Sometimes an observation might be made with reference to perhaps a past attitude, style or conduct, and I do not think that I want to get into the issue of what was said today. I might want to reflect on it. All I would say is that I share the hon. Gentleman’s absolute disapproval of sexism, racism, ageism and other forms of discrimination. The hon. Gentleman’s track record on that matter speaks for itself over a very long period.

How to get an honour

Yesterday's blog about a group offering to provide honours for cash brings the whole rotten system into further disrepute.

I can tell you how to get a gong. If you are rich it's simple. Give £millions to charities and don't be shy about letting everyone know about it. The best value is giving to royal charities like The Prince's Trust. A £1 given to them is worth £50 given to a non-royal charity. Soon honours will be for sale for any association with Cameron's dying Big Society wheeze. Get involved with some doomed Big Society scheme soon. The scheme will flop but the gong will arrive anyway.

If you are a billionaire, you can get any honours you want including knighthoods and a place in the Lords. It may cost anything from £10 million to £100,000. But the honour is guaranteed. Smaller amounts will guarantee an OBE or an MBE under the Government’s new sale of gongs for philanthropy. As the Government is starving public services out of cash they are hoping that private giving will fill the gap. It's corrupt - no difference to selling honours in the style of Lloyd George.

It would be more honest to just sell the awards to the highest bidder. More profitable too.

 

'The haves and the have yachts'

Why apologise?

The LibDem leader joins the Hallelujah chorus of derision at Gove's deluded suggestion.  This is probably the most perceptive thing that Nick Clegg has ever said.

He joked that it was a case of "the haves and the have yachts" - before apologising for the poor quality of his quip.

Honours slip deeper into disrepute

From Sunday Times

A peer is being paid by a company that helps clients to secretly win honours, including OBEs and knighthoods, and offers to secure seats in the House of Lords. Baron Mackenzie of Framwellgate is the chairman of Awards Intelligence, a firm that charges individuals £3,900 to help them gain an honour or a peerage. For a fee of £2,500 the firm will also help clients to land a position on the board of a public body or government advisory committee.

 

Mackenzie, a retired senior policeman and a former government adviser on law and order, has said the company could "significantly increase" an individual's chances of success. This weekend, however, he stood accused by critics of damaging the reputation of the House of Lords and tarnishing the honours system. Awards Intelligence appointed Mackenzie as nonexecutive chairman and special adviser last year. It describes him as a "highly skilled media operator". According to its website, the company offers a "discreet" and "bespoke" service to help clients "receive the recognition you deserve". For those hoping to become a so-called "people's peer", it offers to fill in an application form, produce a CV and draft at least two letters of support for referees, which are all supplied to the House of Lords appointments commission. For those seeking a Queen's honour, including an OBE, CBE, MBE or knighthood, it will draft a nomination form, to be signed by an individual or organisation, and up to five letters of support for third parties. These will then be sent to the honours and appointments secretariat at the Cabinet Office. The firm's website claims: "We have probably drafted and won more Queen's honours, House of Lords and business awards nominations than anyone else in the world." The company also claims to be able to help clients obtain jobs with regulators, advisory bodies and on the boards of National Health Service trusts and national museums Mackenzie, 68, who was a senior officer in the Durham police, is a former president of the Police Superintendents'' Association and a graduate of the FBI academy in Virginia. He became a Labour peer in 1998, and has had his judgment questioned before. In March 2003, he apologised after it was revealed in the tabloid press that he had invited an Algerian prostitute back to his flat after taking her on a tour of the Lords. Six years later it was reported that he had failed to declare properly links with a firm owned by a Russian oligarch, which earned him more than £600,000.

 

Commons first for book launch



How to be an MP

Published by BiteBack

 

Tomorrow evening my new book will be launched in the sumptuous state rooms of Speaker's House, in the House of Commons. This is a break with tradition and believed to be the first book launch in these marvellous rooms, by kind permission of Mr Speaker, Rt. Hon. John Bercow MP

The book is a greatly enlarged and updated version of 'Commons Knowledge: How to be a backbencher' covering the parliamentary transformation of the Wright reforms, expenses scandal and the Bercow Speakership.

 

'The single best thing ever written about being an MP, full of humour, insights, wisdom' 

said Professor Phillip Cowley who will speak at the launch.

 

Speaker Bercow will also speak. He said in his foreword to the book, 'Paul Flynn  tackles many of the challenging issues head on such as his sections on How to Restore Trust, How to Switch on Young Voters and How to Deal with Disaster. But perhaps his greatest skill is to convey the complex, infuriating, exhausting but ultimately compelling life that is that of an MP. I thoroughly recommend this book bar one small section because a Speaker cannot possibly commend a chapter entitled: “How to be a hooligan”! I trust you will enjoy what should be a stimulating and rewarding read'.  

 

Paul Flynn will say 'This is revolutionary moment in parliamentary history.  Great reforms are emerging from the work of the Speaker, the Leader of the House and most rebellious MPs for a generation. The power of the executive is being stormed by the legislature which is determined to be, in Jacob Rees Mogg's words a Tiger not a Bagpuss'

The book is dedicated to the memory of the late David Taylor MP. 'The best of us'. His widow and 2 of his daughters will be present.

 

* The event is at nil cost to the public purse and all the author's royalties are paid to charities.

 

 

 

Exhilarating new experience

Thursday was a big day for me. It challenged my views on Select Committees, which will be in my new book that will be published next week.

The Chairman of Parliament’s new Select Committee said he wanted conversational questions to witnesses. Graham Allen is largely responsible for the creation of the Political and Constitutional Reform Committee. I am its new member. My cross-examinations are usually brief and adversarial. I tried to adapt to the new atmosphere as the uncorrected minutes reveal. The experience was refreshing and exhilarating. 

 

Q<164> <Paul Flynn:> There is a description of the creation of the British constitution as a process of evolutionary gradualism. The Occupy demonstrators, if they chant, don’t chant, “What do we want? Evolutionary gradualism. When do we want it? In a century’s time.” They are more likely to say, “What do we want? Revolution. When do we want it? Yesterday.” Don’t you feel that that extraordinary demonstration, which had echoes in 70 countries around the world—a tiny number of people who have provoked a world conversation on the processes of government—means that we are likely to see sudden changes in constitutions and the way we look at our problems?

<Professor Colley:> The constitutional history that used to be taught in this country—and no longer—was something like a confection. It made it seem more gradual than it often was. There have been revolutions in these islands. There have been very dramatic changes, like the treaty of Union of 1707 and the Act of Union with Ireland in 1800, which got rid of one Parliament and changed the nature and the composition of the Westminster Parliament. This was all glossed over under this slow, evolutionary model. But yes, there are all sorts of—not a crisis, but challenges and shifts. Perhaps one that we have not mentioned, which is important, is this. Up to the second world war, the British political elite was fairly homogenous. It was overwhelmingly white; it was overwhelmingly male. Most of these chaps went to certain schools, certain universities; they all studied the same kind of constitutional history. They all had, ideally—and often in fact—a common corpus of knowledge to work from. If you have that elite culture, then you can get away much more easily with things being unwritten—with a constitution of conventions—because there is a sense that we all know each other and we all know the unwritten rules.

 

Q<165> <Paul Flynn:> We are just about to go into a period where this institution—Parliament, the Lords—will become infantilised in an extraordinary way and behave in ways that most intelligent people would find ridiculous in our relationship to the Crown. We will behave as servile subjects, rather than intelligent, self-respecting citizens. Jamaica is the first of the Caribbean islands—and, probably, certainly not be the last—to say that it wishes to set up a republic. Where those constitutions that are based on ours take out this fundamental building block of the constitution—the Crown—how do you think that can happen? What model will they have to replace the Crown? What system do you think they should introduce, and is it possible to graft it on to those other countries that have their constitutions modelled on the British one?

<Professor Colley:> I am not remotely an expert on the Jamaican constitution. What I would say is that, in regard to written constitutions, historically they have sat comfortably with monarchies as well as with republics. These things can be done. One of the most successful, long-lived constitutions was the Swedish constitution, which was a written constitution created in the early 19th century by a monarchy, so the idea that these are all republican, revolutionary devices, historically, is not the case. But it would be interesting to see what happens in Jamaica and—perhaps even more, I suspect—what happens in Australia and New Zealand, both of which, I suspect, when there is a change of monarch, may well become republics.

 

 

<Dr Allison:> I am not au fait with the debates about Jamaica at all, or that development, but clearly it has been done elsewhere—having to introduce a President to fulfil some of the tasks of Her Majesty the Queen; on the other hand, the concept of the Crown, the concept of Government or the state—without too much difficulty. It has certainly been done before. It would not involve insurmountable difficulties. It would involve a change, but not a change that has not been encountered before.

 

 

Q<178> <Paul Flynn:> Can I follow up Stephen’s point about Churches? Is there not a lesson in what happened with the disestablishment of the Church in Wales, where F.E. Smith, as the leader of antidisestablishmentarianism, gave us not only the longest word in the English language, but a good lesson to follow? He said that the disestablishment of the Church in Wales is a Bill that will shock the conscience of every Christian community in Europe. There was hyperbole about in politics—we have not invented it in our generation—and as G.K. Chesterton said in a poem, talk about the Church and steeples, “And the cash that goes therewith: But the souls of Christian peoples… Chuck it, Smith.” Is there not a lesson in there? We have part of our constitution now, where the Prime Minister may not believe in God or be a Christian, but actually is responsible for appointing the head of the Church of England and the whole Anglican community. When there is an absurdity and an indefensible situation like that, public opinion will go along with it, and change and reforms are possible and probably popular.

<Professor Colley:> I think all things are possible with new initiatives. I come back to the point that it is probably wise not to overload the donkey and not to put too much in a new written text or texts, but it might be good to seize the opportunity to let certain things go that have survived from earlier times. That would have to be worked out. That would be what a constitutional convention would have to debate. The consensus to make the document has to be hammered out. It is not just the drafting; it is reaching sufficient agreement among a group of what should be largely elected people as to what they will wear, what they will accept and what is going to work. How those discussions would evolve, I do not know. It would be interesting and it would take a certain amount of time.

 

Q<179> <Paul Flynn:> Dr Allison, you made a point in one of your answers about the fragility of the monarchy in terms of personalities. There was a fascinating lecture given by Robert Rhodes James, who was a Member of this House and a serious historian. He said that when the skids were under Mrs Thatcher, there was great fear in the Conservative party that she was going to call a general election. The Conservative party, the Cabinet and Parliament could not have stopped her. The only person who could have stopped her was the monarch. Knowing the personality of the monarch, who has been involved with a whole series of Prime Ministers, very likely the monarch would have had the strength of character to ensure that a Prime Minister did not act in her own interests, but acted in the country’s interests. The difficulty there is that, almost certainly, successors of the present monarch, like her predecessors, will not have that strength of personality. Do you think there is a fundamental weakness there? We have depended on the Queen, who has been around for most of our lives, and there will be problems in future—in Australia, as you mentioned, but also elsewhere.

<Dr Allison:> Yes, there are certain limited functions that are fulfilled by the monarch, particularly in regard to the calling of elections in unusual circumstances: when an election is called for party political advantage, and when perhaps there is a national crisis or something happening where an election should not be held. The present monarch is obviously very experienced in dealing with her own advisers and would probably reach a very good decision, one could say, but that would not necessarily be assured in the future. The classic argument would be to think of an alternative, in view of the fact that the situation might not be the same at some point in the future. I think that is purely logical.

There is no particular reason why the solution that is currently available is going to be available in future for those limited functions. I do not want to use the word “crisis” too easily, but in the case of a hung Parliament and certain situations, the monarch could play a greater role. Someone sorted this out last time, but it would not necessarily always be the case, in which case the monarch might play a greater role than Her Majesty apparently played this time round. I am not quite sure what that role is. Part of the problem is that one does not really know what happens. If Her Majesty were to rely on her advisers, I am not quite sure what role they would play. That would also make me slightly concerned—what sort of advice was coming to Her Majesty.

<Professor Colley:> I think that conscientious and fully committed constitutional monarchs often find a written constitution helpful, so that they do not find themselves in an embarrassing, unclear situation where the initiative seems to be with them and they do not want it. There was a recent case in Luxembourg where the Grand Duke, who still technically has considerable powers, came to the legislature and said, “Technically, I have the power of veto over these laws. I do not want these powers. Make the change. I want it clear that this is nothing to do with me.” I think that having greater clarity might not be just convenient for citizens. It may also be useful and more comfortable for crowned heads. They know where they are.

 

Q<180> <Paul Flynn:> Professor Colley, you have referred to ill-digested constitutional change enacted by the previous Government. The devolution changes have come in piecemeal and painfully with LCOs and so on. It is a very untidy system, which seemed to indicate the reluctance of central power to release any power down the M4 or up to Scotland. I believe that the opposition to devolution in Wales was from people who said that it was a slippery slope. The support came from people who were also convinced that it was a slippery slope, because that is what they wanted: a slippery slope to independence. Perhaps you can tell us why you are critical of what the previous Government did and how we can do it in an improved way in the future to ensure a smooth run, if independence is going to come to Scotland and Wales.

<Professor Colley:> It is this kind of piecemeal tinkering tradition. Vernon Bogdanor has written about this far more learnedly than I am able to discuss it. There is always a temptation in a crowded parliamentary schedule, with the Executive never wishing to concede more power than it has to, to think of small piecemeal alterations, which can seem to be the easy way to do it or the only way to do it, but you do build more trouble. In this case, introducing devolution—which I favoured at the time, like so many others—without working out a federal structure at the same point and without having some kind of more comprehensive written text, while it seemed good at the time, was storing up issues, because devolution is not a one-off act. It was always going to be a developing phenomenon. Therefore, by not systematising it, you lost control, or any possibility of having any kind of control, of how this process was going to evolve. In fact, you did not save time. It was not the most convenient thing to do; it just seemed so at the time. That would be my instinct.

 

 

 

MHRA about to be exposed?

  There are signs that the media are recognising  the lack of protection we have had from ou regulatory body that is controlled by the drugs industry.

 

MHRA probe of adverse reactions of the drug SEROXAT was dropped for 6 months. More than half of investigators had cash interests in drugs 

Drugs companies controlled MHRA must be replaced by fully independent body on the model of the FARMACIA body in Italy.

MHRA once reported deaths from paracetamol poisoning dropping from 53 to 47. Coroners reported deaths of 500 to 600. Self interest rules.

Breast implant scandal result of lack of regulation by the MHRA here. They always understate adverse reactions/failures of drugs/devices. 

MHRA are totally funded by drugs industry who are the piper who call the tune in their commercial interests. Self regulation = no regulation

 

Blundering towards war

Murdering scientists does not help to reduce tensions between nations. 

The fourth Iranian scientist was killed yesterday. Teheran has been rocked by unexplained explosions. A cyber attack was conducted against Iran. War beckons. The nobility of purpose of the West's crusades for justice ends in the sordid abuse of laughing soldiers urinating on the bodies of dead warriors.  Healthy brave young soldiers suffer fatal words or monstrous injuries to their bodies or minds.

A Welsh soldier's funeral takes place today. He was shot twice, blown up by IEDs in two further incidents. He witnessed the nightmare death of his best friend. Tormented by his memories, he took his own life. 

The duty of politicians is to avoid wars that will have no convincing purposes. In Iraq and probably Afghanistan the immense sacrifices of blood and treasure will have lamentable outcomes. Rotten regimes will be replaced by new rotten regimes.

Stupidly we do not learn from the lessons of history - including the history of the past ten years. We are blundering and stumbling into a new war in Iran. The UK are distracted and disinterested in the only task that matters - reducing the threat of war. The Cassandras who warn of disaster are ignored or abused. 

A war between the West and Iran would have unimaginable consequences. The client  forces Iran,of Hamas and Hezbollah, will be involved. Our Foreign Secretary is silent on the murders. The result will not be to encourage openness on Iranian nuclear plans. It will inflame their anger and encourage them to ban IAEA inspectors from their country in the same way they are banned in Israel.

Britain must not be dragged into another avoidable war in which none of our national interests are under threat. Our brave soldiers deserve our protection from the horrors of mangled bodies and minds.

 

Self regulation probe begins

Today in Parliament

 

Mr Lansley: I am grateful to the shadow Health Secretary for his welcome of my statement and the principles behind what we are setting out to do to look after the women affected by these implants

The chief medical officer spoke to a clinical counterpart in the Welsh Assembly Government before the publication of the expert group’s work. I have made sure that they are informed, but I have to say that the Welsh Government made an announcement yesterday without previously informing us.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): It’s called devolution.

Mr Lansley: It may be called devolution. I respect the devolved Administrations and always inform them of what I am doing, where it is relevant to them. We do not recognise the advice that Wales received. Sir Bruce Keogh’s expert group, which included some of the foremost experts in plastic surgery, made clear recommendations last week for patients in England and concluded that there was no significant increased clinical risk in cases where implants are not replaced.

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Does the Secretary of State not regret failing to react to the call made last May for British patients to have the same protection against failures of all medical devices as that enjoyed in the United States? Is the real scandal here not, again, the chronic under-reporting by the industry and the MHRA of failures of devices and drugs? Is not the answer for this probe to look into the possibility of having a genuinely independent regulatory authority, instead of one that is entirely funded by the industry, because self-regulation is often no regulation?

Mr Lansley: The hon. Gentleman says that this body is entirely funded by the industry. It is true that in relation to pharmaceuticals the MHRA is funded by levies on the pharmaceutical industry, but much of the cost of the regulation of medical devices is actually met by the taxpayer. I regard the MHRA as operating in an independent fashion and its expert and scientific advice as independent from Ministers. None the less, as he says, the review that Earl Howe will lead will examine the lessons to be learned, including those about the effectiveness of regulatory surveillance and enforcement in this country, albeit that the regulatory failure occurred, in essence, in Germany, in the first instance, and in France.

 

Tories cut Five Labour seats

The new boundaries in Wales  will cut 5 Labour seats, 3 Tory seats, 1 Lib Dem and 1 Plaid. 

That's a likely analysis of the surprise new boundaries. In Gwent, the Monmouth Tory has gained Caldicot and lost Croesyceiliog. That is likely to be neutral. The new Newport Central seat contains 51% of Newport West and 49% of Newport East. Next year a party made up from this totally urban seat will have to choose between Jessica Morden and me. A third seat which combines 17,000 Newport West voters with Islwyn is named Newport West and Sirhowy Valley. It stretches from Marshfield to Nelson and Abercarn. Labour will thus lose one of its Newport seats.

Another extraordinary seat  is Caerphilly and Cardiff North which joins the valley town to Lisvane, Llanishen and Whitchurch. It should still be Labour with a reduced majority. Ann Clwyd's Cynon Valley has disappeared. Its wards have been re-distributed to three neighbouring seats. The likey Tory casualties are Guto Bebb, Jonathan Evans, and former Countryside Alliance CE Simon Hart. 

Of course, it might never happen. Parliament has to decide next year.  This was intended to gerrymander seats for the Tories. They are likely to lose a larger % of their seats in Wales than any other party. They cannot even gerrymander competantly.

 

Major crisis ignored

 

Even though it was health questions today, there was no mention of the UK's ramshackle rules to protect patients from faulty medical devices. The information on failures in the public sector was either inadequate, non-existent or designed to mis-lead. I was not called today but the process of standing up and down was splendid exercise and topical questions continued for an additional ten minutes. I have now tabled this new Early Day Motion.

Failure of Breast Implants

That this House is alarmed at the inadequate protection of patients against faulty medical devices by Government and the industry-funded MHRA: notes that evidence of failure in breast implants in the UK greatly understated the dangers revealed in the rest of Europe and the USA; draws attention to reports that recalls of devices are rising but manufacturers continue to suppress information on device failures; and calls for a review that will ensure that UK patients have guarantees on the safety and efficacy of devices equivalent to that of patients in the USA.

FROM TODAY'S DAILY MAIL. 

Just over two years ago consultant plastic surgeon Azhar Aslam became deeply worried — he’d had to remove eight silicone breast implants from women within a few months of each other because they had ruptured prematurely.

It struck him as highly unusual.

‘If implants do rupture, it is normally after seven to ten years, and it is usually caused by an impact, such as the wearer falling over or having a car accident,’ he says.

 

Last week, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) admitted the safety of breast implants was actually impossible for it to judge

‘But these implants had failed after only two to three years, and the patients had not been involved in any impact.’

All the implants were made by the French firm Poly Implant Prothese (PIP).

Mr Aslam, previously an adviser to the European Academy for Cosmetic Surgery, sent some of the ruptured implants back to the manufacturer but was not satisfied with their explanation.

So on July 9, 2010, he wrote to Britain’s medical safety watchdog, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which regulates and had approved the use of PIP implants.

 He alerted Dr Susanne Ludgate, the medical director of devices, to the problem, offering to supply samples of the faulty implants.

Five days later, he received an email saying she’d passed his warning to the agency’s Adverse Incident Centre and they would be in touch.

But he heard not a squeak. ‘No one from the Adverse Incident Centre has ever contacted me. Perhaps they were busy or something,’ he says.

Or perhaps the watchdog was asleep.

For as we now know, more than 40,000 British women have been given these faulty implants.

Behind the furore over whether they should now have their implants removed — and who should pay for it — there is disquiet about the MHRA’s role.

 

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley criticised clinics for providing 'poor quality' data

Officially the agency is ‘responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe’. It not only approves these devices and drugs, but regulates them.

The agency’s initial response to fears over the implants was to say the failure rate was only 1 per cent.

Then, last week, the MHRA admitted the safety of breast implants was actually impossible for it to judge, because an accurate record of the number of procedures has not been kept.

Clinics were blamed for this failing, with Health Secretary Andrew Lansley criticising them for providing ‘poor quality’ data.

Mr Aslam lays the blame elsewhere.

‘We rely on the regulatory authorities to ensure our implants are OK,’ he says.

‘And when we try to tell them that something is wrong with the safety-approved implants, these authorities do not seem to take any proper notice. It leaves me asking, “Who can I trust?” ’

Sadly, this is not the first time the agency has been criticised for acting slowly and ineffectually.

In September 2010, for instance, the diabetes drug Avandia was finally banned in Britain after the European Medicines Agency ruled there was a serious risk it could lead to heart attacks or stroke.

Evidence against Avandia had been building since 2007.

And, while denying it had failed to reveal the risks when they showed up, in July 2010 the drug’s maker, GlaxoSmithKline, reportedly paid out £304 million in damages to settle about 10,000 patient lawsuits in the U.S.

However, in the same month an advisory body to the MHRA warned it that the ‘risks (of Avandia) outweigh its benefits, that it no longer has a place on the UK market’ and called for prompt action.

The MHRA did not reveal this warning to the public; it simply passed its information on to European authorities.

A few years earlier, media pressure was required to force the MHRA to act over another prescribed-drug danger. Again, it was a GlaxoSmithKline medicine — the antidepressant Seroxat.

Specialists had been warning for years of the raised risk of suicide in children. But the MHRA, relying on evidence from the manufacturer, issued assurances that there was no suicide link.

 

Vioxx was withdrawn from the market in the UK four years ago, but only after a 2004 U.S. study found it doubled the risk of heart disease

Then, in 2003, following two BBC Panorama programmes, the drug watchdog mounted its own investigation and discovered the manufacturer had hidden information about the suicide link.

After this, the MHRA said it wanted to require drug makers to share more information about clinical trials — but admitted that, without stronger legislation in place, there was no chance of prosecuting the company for what it called an ‘ethical lapse’.

The watchdog was not only asleep, it was toothless.

Similar problems arose with the arthritis painkiller Vioxx. This was withdrawn from the market in the UK four years ago, but only after a 2004 U.S. study found it doubled the risk of heart disease. Leading cardiologists had been flagging up the risks for years.

After Vioxx’s withdrawal it emerged that data from clinical trials had been ‘fudged’.

The MHRA launched an investigation into whether its maker, Merck, had correctly reported the side-effects of Vioxx to the authorities.

But government prosecutors decided that there was no realistic prospect of a conviction in this case.

The MHRA says the UK laws requiring disclosure of negative drug trial results have since been tightened. No companies have been prosecuted since then.

Yet it’s not just the agency’s supervision of drugs that raises concerns, but medical devices, too.

These include crucial items such as heart pacemakers.

Last May, the British Medical Journal (BMJ) said not enough was being done to check the safety of medical implants.

It says that in 2009 the MHRA received more than 9,000 reports of ‘adverse incidents’ involving medical devices.

More than 1,880 of these involved serious injury and 202 resulted in death. In one case, a patient’s combined pacemaker/defibrillator misfired more than 30 times in one day, delivering huge jolts of 750 volts direct to his heart.

The BMJ has said our regulators are not ‘fit for purpose’ because of their failure to act in patients’ interests.

It is these sorts of problems that have led experts such as Andrew Herxheimer to call for the MHRA to be subjected to ‘root and branch reform’.

Dr Herxheimer is an emeritus fellow of the UK Cochrane Centre and a world leader in examining clinical trials to see how well therapies work.

One problem, says Herxheimer, is that the agency’s role is shrouded in confusion.

‘Its job description has not been defined,’ he says.

‘In fact, it seems to be acting as a rather secretive negotiating agency between the government and the pharmaceutical industry.

‘It is certainly too close to the pharmaceutical industry,’ adds Herxheimer.

‘There appears to be a revolving door with people who have previously worked in the pharmaceutical industry coming to work inside the MHRA. ’

Accusations have long been made that the watchdog is too close to industrial interests, notably when Ian Hudson, who was worldwide safety director of GlaxoSmithKline until 2001, became director of licensing at the MHRA.

Nor have the agency’s actions helped assuage these kinds of concerns.

Six years ago it had to apologise for misleading the public over the results of a consultation exercise with the medical royal colleges.

It claimed they were in favour of letting a powerful heart drug be sold by High Street chemists without a prescription.

In fact, an investigation by medical journal Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin found the drug, a statin which can help lower cholesterol, had effectively been rejected by two-thirds of the expert bodies consulted because of fears over side-effects. 

The MHRA apologised and said it had made an ‘administrative error’.

‘This has got to be the killer argument for a massive overhaul of the MHRA,’ said Dr Ike Iheanacho, the journal’s editor.

‘This latest episode totally undermines faith in their decision-making process.’

MPs have also been worried by the agency’s behaviour. In 2005, a highly critical report by the Commons health select committee objected to a lack of openness and the MHRA’s closeness to the pharmaceutical industry.

It warned that scandals on the scale of Vioxx would happen again because the regulators were not sufficiently independent.

In response, the agency said: ‘Since November 2005 all staff and immediate members of their families are not allowed to have any financial or other interests in the pharmaceutical industry.’

But for Paul Flynn, Labour MP for Newport West, this does not go far enough. The problem, he suggests, is that the MHRA is ‘an organisation whose activities are entirely financed by a levy from the pharmaceutical industry’.

A key figure on the health select committee, he remains adamant the MHRA must be reformed or replaced with a more robust body.

As the arguments rage over this issue, breast implant surgeons such as Azhar Aslam and their patients are left stuck in the middle — unsure of who to trust for independent advice.

‘I would like to see the regulations tightened up,’ he says. ‘Otherwise how can I guarantee to women that the implants I am giving them are safe?’

The MHRA says it did respond to Mr Aslam. Mr Aslam and his clinic, the Linia Cosmetic Surgery in London, are adamant that they never received any such response.

 

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2084492/Faulty-breast-implants-dodgy-drugs-watchdog-thats-failing-patients.html#ixzz1j502u2nP

 

40 minus 10

Mid-day tomorrow, Welsh MPs will know their fate.

Either a continuing job in 2015 or a P45. Reducing the total of 40 MPs to 30 cannot be done without some blood on the carpet. It will be a fascinating process. In Gwent the three seats of Monmouth, Newport West and Newport East are likely to be reduced to two. If the forecasts are right, two seats will emerge. A greater Monmouth to include Caldicot and some urban parts of east Newport. That should be a marginal, safe for Labour in 2015 which should be a good year for the party. The other City of Newport seat should be a mainly urban relatively safe Labour seat.

Sorting out who will be the candidates in 2015 will be interesting. Then again, it may never happen.

MHRA ignored warning?

The UK's regulatory body MHRA has long limped along providing inadequate protection for patients. 

It's run by the industry in the interests of the industry. The breast implant scandal could be a blessing in disguise by prompting a reform of a creaking institution. The Mail adds weight to the worries:

'ONE of Scotland’s top plastic surgeons warned health watchdogs about dangerous breast implants FIVE YEARS AGO, we can reveal today.

Awf Quaba told medical authorities of the abnormally high failure rates in the French-made implants in 2006 – shortly before his hospital stopped using them completely.

The globally-respected surgeon says he told the Medical and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) of mounting concerns about the implants rupturing and leaking silicone into his patients’ bodies.

The implants made by Poly Implant Prothese are now at the centre of a worldwide alert.The French government say PIP used industrial silicone meant for mattresses in the implants and five per cent of them have leaked.

The revelation that British watchdogs were alerted to the problem five years ago but failed to act was condemned by women with PIP implants yesterday.

The Government last week insisted research among the 40,000 women with the implants in Britain suggested only one per cent had ruptured.

Quaba wrote to both the MHRA and the French manufacturer in 2006 before banning the implants at Edinburgh’s private Spire Murrayfield hospital, where he carries out most of his work, in 2007.'

 

Cameron to be forced into vote.

 

Permissive UK rules on medical devices may force a EU referendum on Cameron - reports the Independent.

I have been banging on about the need for stronger regulation throughout the EU. Our rules are lax compared with the USA. The Indy say, 'Led by calls from Nicolas Sarkozy's government, a new EU directive on medical devices would tighten inspection regimes for silicone implant manufacturing companies and ensure each faulty implant could be traced back to production – two of the major factors behind the current French implants scandal."

This would partly answer the campaign I have been running with an EDM in the Commons and a proposal in Strasbourg. The UK has a dreadful record in allowing the industry to regulate itself. That's how they end up with unbelievable information from private companies that understate the dangers of implants.

The Independent on Sunday report:

But as the Government faced anger over its "loopholes" in the measures to help up to 40,000 British women affected, the Prime Minister was presented with a fresh dilemma over his tough stance on the power of Brussels to dictate UK national policy.

The European Commission has confirmed it is considering updating existing controls to ensure that every EU country applies the same tough measures to production and surgery.

The French health minister, Xavier Bertrand, said on Friday that tougher regulation "must be done at European level", adding: "Unlike drugs, where there is an authorisation on the market, there is not one today for medical devices."

A new EU directive would involve a transfer of national powers to Brussels, European experts said last night, which would technically mean the Prime Minister was obliged to hold a referendum on the issue in the UK. The Government has a get-out clause under which it could insist that the powers were not "significant" and would not need a national vote. But such a move, particularly one spearheaded by the French government, could provide fresh ammunition for Tory Eurosceptics.

 

Euro-scandal of medical devices

There is little protection for patients in the use of medical devices. As the Guardian rightly memtions today, dangers from plastic toys are regulated to a greater extent than vital devices that are placed in the bodies of patients. The present breast implant scandal is a single symptom of a massive problem. I have circulated the paper below to fellow members of the Council of Europe Health sub-committe. It calls for fundamental action.

I put down this EDM 1819 in May last year.

That this House thanks Channel Four Dispatches and the British Medical Journal for revealing that defective UK regulations in the use of medical devices are exposing patients to suffering serious injury or worse; is concerned to learn that Suzanne Ludgate of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency says she was appalled at how many devices are brought to market with a lack of appropriate clinical data; notes that recalls of devices are rising but manufacturers are not willing to publish information on device failures; and calls for a review that will ensure that UK patients have guarantees on the safety and efficacy of devices equivalent to that of patients in the US.

 

 

Reform of regulation of medical devices

 

Motion for a resolution

 

1. Many medical devices are brought to market with a lack of appropriate clinical data; recalls of devices are rising but manufacturers are not willing to publish information on device failures; calls for a review that will ensure that patients in Europe have guarantees on the safety and efficacy of devices equivalent to that of patients in the US.

 

2. The British Medical Journal revealed that defective UK regulations in the use of medical devices are exposing patients to suffering serious injury or worse; is concerned to learn that a spokesperson of the UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency says she was "appalled at how many devices are brought to market with a lack of appropriate clinical data." 

 

3. Commercial interests are a powerful influence on a market that is worldwide worth £200bn per year with over 200,000 medical devices available in Europe. 

 

4. Device recalls are rising dramatically, in the UK from 62 in 2006 to 757 in 2010: a 1,220% increase.  It is likely as a result that thousands of patients each year are suffering serious injury or worse. It has been alleged by a spokesperson for US Food and Drug Administration that European patients may be acting as guinea pigs for poorly-tested devices. 

 

5. There is a need for a publicly transparent system for approval of medical devices operated by a body that is independent of commercial interests and requiring that innovation requires evidence of improvements in clinical outcomes.

 

 

Proposition by P Flynn Chair of the COE Health sub-Committee

 

Here is some background information.

The European Commission announced in 2008 that a fundamental revision of the medical device directives is being considered in order to clarify and strengthen the current legal framework. The system for testing and approving devices in Europe was established .20 years ago as a ‘New Approach’ to a previously little-regulated industry. It is recognized by many that the regulatory system has not kept pace with tech-nological advances and changing patterns of medical practice. New legislation is being prepared but experts have not been involved in this important process. This context makes it an opportune time for a professional association to advise from both clinical and academic perspectives about changes which should be made to improve the safety and efficacy of devices used in clinical practice and to develop more appropriate systems for their clinical evaluation and post-marketing surveillance.

 

This report summarizes how medical devices are regulated and it reviews some serious clinical problems that have occurred with cardiovascular devices. Finally, it presents the main recommendations from a Policy Conference on the Clinical Evaluation of Cardiovascular Devices that was held at the EuropeanHeart House in January 2011

 The regulation of medical devices is the responsibility of the 27 Member States of the EU, each of which has its own national ‘com- in 2009 by an amendment concerning common technical specifica- tions for in vitro diagnostic medical devices.9 This main legal frame- work is complemented by non-binding guidance (called MEDDEV documents)10 – 12                  including                  consensus                  statements                  and                  interpret- ative documents which aim to ensure uniform application of the relevant provisions of the directives within the EU. The system is shared by another five countries in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) withcompetent authority’. Many national authorities have combined                  which the EC has signed a free trade agreement.responsibilities for overseeing both drugs and devices, but there is no single, common European agency for assessing devices; the main role of the EC is advisory. For approval, manufacturers must satisfy the relevant ‘essential requirements’ of safety and per- formance but they do not always need to establish that their medical device has an impact on clinical outcomes, even if it is a completely new technology. If an equivalent device does exist, then a new device once approved can be marketed as an alterna-Devices are assigned to four groups according to risk13 and these relate to different levels of testing and evidence that are needed before they are approved. For low-risk cardiovascular devices in Class I, ranging from stethoscopes to cooling jackets for patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest, generally little evaluation is needed before the device is placed on the market; the manufacturer is allowed to self-declare conformity with the essential requirements, affix a CE mark, and register its producttive without the manufacturer being required to prove in                  with a competent authority. Class IIa includes devices for monitor-head-to-head comparisons that its clinical effectiveness is similar.

The system for testing and approving devices in Europe was                  ance imaging, ultrasounscanning, and nuclear studies using established .20 years ago as a ‘New Approach’ to a previously                  gamma cameras or positron emission tomography. Class IIb little-regulated industry. It is recognized by many that the regulat- ory system has not kept pace with technological advances and changing patterns of medical practice. In 2008, the EC announced that a fundamental revision is being considered,4 in order to clarify includes other diagnostic radiology equipment such as X-ray machines. Class III, the highest risk group, includes invasive or implantable devices such as coronary stents, prosthetic heart valves, pacemakers, implantable defibrillators, and devices andand strengthen the current legal framework. Producing one common document from many existing texts will also simplify the legislation and meet a commitment of the Treaty of Lisbon which came into force in December 2009. The recast will be a joint decision for the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.

2012 : Cameron's year of danger.

The Mail on Sunday are scavenging for criticism of Ed Miliband from Labour Party MPs. The attack dogs are doing their worse. The questions are the obvious one. Will Ed Miliband be the next PM? Is he weird? How is he doing at PMQs. They had nothing but soothing praise from me. I hope my other colleagues with send the Mail hack on his way with a blank notebook.

Alun Michael's bid for the job of Police Commissioner is worrying move for the Tories.  Alun is superbly well qualified for the task. If he wins the Labour Party's selection he is an odds-on bet for election from the Labour majority.

Whoever is the Labour candidate for the job is an almost certain winner.  Must be galling for P.C. David Davies the Tory part-time MP for Monmouth. His chances of winning in 2015 are slim. His dream is reincarnation  as a Police Commissioner. But the arithmetic is not good. The vote in 2010 was overwhelming Labour. In 2012 with Cameron crumbling, it will be even better for the Labour candidate.

Police Commissioners are a seriously bad surrender to the moronocracy of tabloid politics. But they are here and Labour must take advantage  of the Tories sliding popularity to ensure people of reason win the Commissioners' jobs.

 

Lethal invisible wounds

 

BBC Wales have broadcast devastating interviews on the tragedy of brave L/Sgt Dan Collins death. He  is not numbered in 395 UK fallen in Afghanistan.  bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-…

They reported. Welsh Guardsman L/Sgt Dan Collins, 29, was found dead on New Year's Day in a quarry. His girl friend Vicky Roach said he faced a "constant battle" after being shot twice and losing two close friends in Afghanistan. "With PTSD you don't know why you act like you do and you feel alienated from people," she added.

Kevin Richards, co-founder of the charity Healing the Wounds, said he believed the legacy of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars would be more soldiers suffering from PTSD, describing it as a "ticking time bomb".

Vicky Roach continued, "If you lose a leg or an arm - don't get me wrong, that's horrendous - but you deal with it and you move on," she added. He couldn't move on, there was no way of him moving on. it was a constant battle in his mind every day, and he was fighting this battle. L/Sgt Collins, from Tiers Cross, near Haverfordwest, had served in Helmand Province in Afghanistan where he had lost two of his best friends. He had also narrowly escaped death, being shot twice and being involved in two bomb blasts.

A journalist said he had four "absolutely miraculous escapes" from death.

Coincidentally I met an ex-soldier today who knew six other former soldiers who had taken their own lives. We must do more to help. This is a good place to start. healingthewounds.co.uk/index.php/

 

In May I tweeted and said in parliament that the 'First line of military covenant should read : 'Parliament will not put soldiers in peril by engaging in avoidable wars.'  Iraq? Helmand?

 

 

 

 

'OBEs are for toilet cleaners'

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 395 

What a strange man Michael Winner is. But he has some redeeming features.

I am still writing the biography of the late David Taylor MP. He was the kindest and most inoffensive of human beings. I have been seeking out some human weaknesses that would reveal him as a human being and not a saint. It's hard work but it must be done because no one reads a hagiography.

A memorial stone was about to be unveiled in his constituency to commemorate two police officers who had been killed on duty. David Taylor was eager to honour the memories of Bryan Moore and Andrew Munn who had died, hit by a car that was being chased by police car. David was upset by the tragedy and went to great lengths to attend the unveiling at a motorway service station to show his respects.

Michael Winner was mainly responsible for funding and running a charity for erecting memorials to policemen killed on duty.  He became convinced that David had left him out of the loop on some minor features of the arrangements. He became abusive to David's staff. He then sent a fax to David. saying that  David 'had behaved with the manners of the great pig'. Very odd turn of phrase. Very curious. Entirely mistaken.

More recently he redeemed himself by refusing an honour. Again with little grace.  He explained, 'A letter arrived from 10 Downing Street signed by William Chapman 'Secretary for Appointments' offering me an OBE in the forthcoming Queen's birthday honours list. I said: 'Stuff it!'

Not in those words, of course, because I'm very polite. I actually wrote back saying: 'Thank you. I do not want this particular award. I will continue my good work as before.' 

An OBE is what they give people who've cleaned the toilets diligently at King's Cross railway station for 50 years. I'm good at cleaning. I do toilets rather well. So it's nice that my efforts towards hygiene and cleanliness are known and respected".

Thank you Mr Winner. That's so revealing.

 

MHRA Self-regulation = no-regulation.

 

MHRA gets it wrong again. In 2004 they told me there were 47 deaths in one year from paracetamol. The coroners courts proved they were between 500 and 600. They now woefully under-estimated the damage caused by leaking breast implants.  Who are they serving-the public or the medical devices industry?

Our UK regulatory body on drugs and medical devices is not a Government organisation. The MHRA is funded entirely by the Pharmaceutical industry and a recent chairman had worked for years for Glaxo Smith Kline. 

Breast implants are regulated as medical devices. The MHRA is responsible for ensuring that breast implants meet appropriate standards of safety, quality and performance, and that they comply with the Medical Devices Directive. They did not but UK users were not protected.

Confidence is  collapsing  in trials of medicinal drugs by pharmaceutical companies. There is  mounting evidence that companies' trials are overwhelmingly biased in their conclusions compared with independent trials. They have concealed adverse effects that have killed tens of thousands of patients.  

Sir Iain Chalmers' in evidence to the Health Select Committee said that one anti-arrhythmic drug in the 1980s killed more U.S. people than all the Americans killed in the Vietnam war. That was in  spite of evidence of its fatal consequences that had been  suppressed for 13 years.

The painkiller Vioxx was blamed for 144,000 heart attacks and strokes in the USA alone. 

There are claims that Merck suppressed information on Vioxx's dangers in the same way that GlaxoSmithKline denied access to evidence of adverse reactions to Seroxat. When our MHRA set up a committee to examine the dangers of Seroxat, it was disbanded after 6 months. The majority of its members had interests  in the Pharma that makes it.

The Italians no longer allow the Pharmas to be prosecutor, judge and jury on drug safety. They have established an independent drugs testing agency funded by a levy on pharmaceutical companies. It's called the Italian Agenzia Italiana del Farmaco. 

Time for us to go Italian.

5th December 2011

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): As the policy rests on the trust in the regulatory body that was tardy in protecting patients against the adverse side effects of Vioxx and Seroxat, is it not time that we had a fully independent MHRA and not one that is funded entirely by the pharmaceutical industry? As big pharma pays the piper, is it not possible that it will call the tune for its own commercial interests?

Mr Lansley: I think that the hon. Gentleman is wrong about that. The MHRA operates, in scientific and expert terms, in an independent fashion. In so far as it is accountable, it is accountable to me as Secretary of State and to this House. It is not accountable to the pharmaceutical industry. If he is proposing a major transfer of costs from the pharmaceutical industry to the taxpayer, I am afraid that I do not agree with him.

 

Comrade Robert Halfon and I

The PM's odious rabble-rousing stomach-churning message this morning about forgetting our misery to concentrate on circuses provoked this exchange of tweets between me and fellow member of PASC Comrade Robert Halfon

 

Big Society dead; PM pins hope on Olympics of fear-racked siege city, rigged results, 4,000 BMWs, record traffic jams, gunship, missiles,,.

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Will present Public Administration Select Committee revive splendid 2004 report on still-disgraced honours system? parliament.uk/business/commi…

 

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 Does Cameron acknowledge debt to Juvenal: Give them bread and circuses to distract them from Coalition created ineptocracy?

 

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halfon4harlowMP 

 more to Rudyard Kipling: "If you can keep your head about you when everyone is losing theirs...." #fb

 

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 On Big Society Kipling writes..."And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss.'

 

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alfon4harlowMP Robert Halfon MP

that is a bit hard with you about! Happy New Year!

 

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 I'd wish you a Happy New Year too but I cannot do so with any optimism as I still have a firm grip on reality.

 

Daffodils at Allt-yr-yn

Proof that the weather patterns have gone mad.

On the Newport town side of the Allt-yr-yn Ridgeway daffoidils are in full flower. 

Rain closed in from Mynydd Machen during my daily brisk walk. It provided a consolatory rainbow.

 

 

Price of Obama's victory

Total of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 394

The war between the West and Iran has probably already started.   Who is responsible for cyber attacks on Iran's nuclear industry, the murder of scientists in Teheran and the unexplained loud explosions heard in the capital? There is only one real suspect. That's the only local nuclear state whose undeclared nuclear capacity is beyond the inspection of the IAEA.  We are still in the dark on Liam Fox and Adam Werritty's links with Israel. I will keep up the probing to discover if the Defence Secretary was pursuing a private agenda in the middle east in addition to his other private American influenced agendas. America is obsessed with its world role. William Hague believes in our grand strategy of 'wider still and wider' in interfering in world crises where our national interests are not under threat. For electoral reasons only Obama no longer accurately describes Iraq as a 'dumb war'. All the fresh evidence is that his 2003 description was correct and courageous.  In politics there are hypocritical decisions that are considered essential for re-election. Will the pressures from the deranged right and evangelicals be so strong that the price to be paid for Obama's re-election will be a war in Iran with unimaginable costs in blood and treasure?    Recent tweets Great Observer revelation of murky lobbying subterfuge to push addictive cancer causing drugs with eager collaboration of a Tory minister In select committee cash for peerages probe, I suggested that H.R.H. is most prestigious award - Has Refused Honour. Cameron endorses that. When even the Mail notices that honours for cash is corrupt vanity, it's time to give up or just sell them to the highest bidders   How the Iron Lady bent to the pressure of a threat when Gwynfor Evans protested against a broken Tory promise.paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011… Rampant inflation since the days when David Lloyd-George sold honours. Today it's a £500,000 to buy a knighthood. Honours discredited by gongs for cash, medals for party cronies and jailbirds. Does C.B.E. stand for Crooks Benefit Enormously?   Ernest Saunders honoured for services to incurable diseases? Still the most prestigious honour is H.R.H. -Has Refused Honour. Sumptuous night of thrilling music created by the skills of Gwent young musicians' brass bands in final event at County Hall Cwmbran. Diolch On depression, reliable MIND is not influenced by Big Pharma cash. Unreliable DEPRESSION ALLIANCE was founded and funded by Big Pharma. Is UK failure to notice implants side effects because of under-reporting of UK regulatory body MHRA which is funded entirely by Big Pharma? Nuclear disasters result from human errors, kit failures, freak natural events. Likely future causes are terrorism or state-sponsored attack A tsunami in 1607 killed all human and animal life in low-lying Bristol Channel areas where nukes now located. Freak weather now the rule.   Good question from John Redwood: Why did public spending go up by £29bn in the Coalition's first year, and by £23bn more in the second? What Cameron will NOT say in 2012 'The Big Society' ' Tension between West and Iran must be reduced' '400 is the final UK Afghan death toll' UK's Weightman Fukushima probe ignored 'increased costs' of 50%. Weightman says he is not qualified to deal with costs. Report is empty spin 2012 - year when costs of nuclear power will rocket by unaffordable 50%. UK refuses to probe increased costs.marketwatch.com/story/experts-… Pre-Fukushima 54 reactors generated 30% of Japan's electricity. Now only 11 are operating. By April it will be none. UK in denial of fear.    Surface to air missiles war zone, traffic chaos of elite lanes, suffocating security. The cry will be 'The Olympics? Get us out of here!" Hunts attempted publicity stunt on Boxing Day rebounds on them with fresh revulsion against sadistic killing for fun. Strengthen the ban. Derision, contempt and controlled abuse should greet today's fox hunters demand to bring back the barbarism of tormenting animals for fun. Cameron to rat on Coalition pledge for a free vote on hunting. Majority of MPs will back present law and probably insist on full enforcement Slaughter badgers needlessly, deny prisoners votes, bring cruelty back to hunting, be foul to foreigners-the major obsessions of NASTY party 'Keep clergy out of politics' cry from Tories whose Leader said that their core policy of the Big Society began with Jesus 2,000 years ago. "Give us back the right to be cruel' is the fox hunters demand today. All that's missing from their 'sport' is gratuitous animal torment.    Anti-Preeza accusations are screamed in media-fest of giant headlines in autumn. News that he is not guilty is whispered on Christmas Eve. Occupy protest has brilliantly proclaimed big message. Time now to fold tents and move before fragmentation of unstable community fouls nest Shapps sqeaks again at Prezza even though Shapps/Pickles' snide jibes are proved false. Silence on Pickles undeclared feast with lobbyist   Shapps/Pickles face probe by statistics watchdog into accuracy of housing statistics released by them this month bit.ly/tSEZBI New Civil Service head Bob Kerslake dodges question on whether Ministers Pickes/ Fox can eat/meet privately or ministerially. Two stomachs? Does Cameron recall his silence in 2006 at the hope that not a shot would be fired in Helmand? That was 385 deaths agopaulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011… Areva looking for new partner and new design for nuclear power stations following technical and financial failuresft.com/cms/s/0/5990b8…       Doubt over future of Hinkley reactor after multi-£billion losses at two other EPR new nukes. Only a lunatic would invest in nuclear power How the Iron Lady bent to the pressure of a threat when Gwynfor Evans protested against a broken Tory promise.paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011…

 

Thatcher surrendered to threat

 

Today the full truth is revealed on how the Iron Lady  bent to the threat of  the creation of a Welsh martyr. 

I played a walk-on part in  one of the most momentous decision in the history of Wales. For five years from 1974 to 1979  I was a member of the Broadcasting Council for Wales-the ruling body of the BBC in Wales The historian John Davies had access to minutes of the Council and published details that I thought would always remain confidential.

The demand for the new channel united the people of Wales. In February 1977 Davies records that I welcomed the publicity for a Cymdeithas yr Iaith demonstration at the BBC World Service Centre. I said that it would draw attention to the absurdity of the BBC broadcasting more radio programmes in many obscure foreign languages than it broadcast for the indigenous Welsh-speaking population.

In June that year Chairman Glyn Tegai Hughes, disappointed with government timidity, urged the council to consider a fall-back position. Future chairman Alwyn Roberts argued in favour of considering new approaches because a Welsh Channel Four seemed unlikely now. I remember my own anger at this apparent weakness and betrayal. My recollections are dim now but Davies reports that I argued that the Channel Four campaign was very much alive.

In September 1979, when I was acting chairman of the body, Home Secretary Willie Whitelaw announced that there would be no fourth channel for Wales. Could the long years of campaigning, the sacrifices and prison sentences endured by our brave young people be all in vain? All destroyed by a few sentences uttered by a man who knew little of Wales and nothing of Welsh broadcasting? 

I rang the BBC Wales controller Owen Edwards and told him that I would make the only possible effective protest. My period as acting-chairman is almost certainly a record that will never be beaten. It lasted fifteen minutes. I announced my resignation in protest at Whitelaw’s decision. The Council expressed their sympathy but understood. The protest was heartfelt but was quickly brushed aside by Secretary of State for Wales, Nicholas Edwards. My resignation had an ephemeral and slight influence. But Plaid Cymru’s leader Gwynfor Evans’s threat to fast to death terrified Thatcher. She was then studying Irish history. Her fear was that Wales would have a similar martyr to those of the Easter Rising in Dublin.

My part in the campaign was long but minor. Victory was sweet. At last, Wales had won a significant battle. The reality of S4C’s spectacular later success was beyond the most extravagant dreams of those of us who planned it a decade earlier. S4C secured the future of Welsh as one of the world’s most thriving minority languages. There is modest satisfaction that I have played a small role as a Welshman in securing the future of Welsh as a living vibrant tongue.

To give the impression that she was not surrendering to blackmail, a stunt was set. Three wise men were invited to meet Thatcher and convince her of the value of a decision she had already made.

Today's news confirms that she capitulated to Gwynfor Evans' threat. According to the account all but one of the Welsh Conservative MPs favoured going back to the manifesto position of a promise to set up a fourth channel..

But it was the warning by Lord Gibson-Watt – who as an MP and opposition spokesman for Wales represented Tory leader Edward Heath during the aftermath of the Aberfan disaster – that was the “decisive moment” for the Welsh Secretary.

Lord Gibson-Watt warned he would find it “very difficult” to back the Government in the Lords. The Home Secretary was also convinced that a change of policy was vital.

The Cabinet ministers were aware that “if the Government were defeated in the Lords, they would be faced with trying to restore the position in the Commons after Mr Evans had begun his fast”.

The minutes state: “The Home Secretary said that he had now made up his mind that the policy must be changed. He could not recommend to colleagues the continuation of the present approach. “The Prime Minister commented that the last thing the Government needed was to inflame nationalism again.”

Mr Whitelaw proposed that the Welsh channel should be launched under a three-year trial scheme, despite there being no chance of it being scrapped. According to the minutes: “He proposed to accept this, even though he believed that this would be bogus as a trial. The die would be cast after three years.”

The politicians discussed how to handle the U-turn: “Mr Whitelaw said that all his political experience had taught him that, if one made a mistake, it was important to get out of it as quickly as possible. He accepted that the problem had been entirely his own responsibility.”

It goes on: “Mr Nicholas Edwards argued that it would be a great mistake for the Home Secretary to be allowed to present the change as the result of an Englishman’s mistake in handling Welsh affairs. It should be presented as the Government collectively bowing to the strength of public feeling on the issue.”

Today’s release of papers also features a letter sent by Plaid Cymru MP Dafydd Wigley in which he urges the Prime Minister to prevent the hunger strike and asks her to meet him and fellow Plaid MP Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

The papers also include an account of a private meeting between the Welsh Secretary and Mr Evans on July 21 at St Fagans.

It states Mr Edwards made clear he “admired Mr Evans as a person and he found it difficult to believe he would contemplate a destructive and violent act which would stir emotion and violence in Wales”. “Mr Evans said that this was the last fight that he could make and it was the government who were being perverse. It was they who had changed tack.

“His own fast was not intended to stir up violence. His movement had always opposed violence. If there were people who were bent on violence they would behave that way anyhow whether he fasted or not.”

Two days after the September 15 Downing Street meeting, Chancellor Geoffrey Howe – now Lord Howe of Aberavon – wrote to the Home Secretary suggesting that a channel might not prove popular during a trial period and that people might back a return to Welsh broadcasts on BBC and ITV.

He wrote: “My strong personal hunch is that most Welsh people will wish to revert.”

However, S4C was launched on November 1, 1982 and continues to broadcast. Mr Evans died in 2005.

 

 

 

What will Cameron not say in 2012

 

'The Big Society is working' 

Tension between West and Iran must be reduced

400 is the final total of the UK death toll in Afghanistan

The NHS is safe in my hands

Badgers and foxes must not be killed for fun

The drug laws are not working

We will investigate additional post-Fukushima costs of nuclear power

All school pupils will share the privileges of Eton.

CPI inflation changes are a cheat. We are returning to RPI

Farmers subsidies will not be increased

The Jubilee celebrations are cancelled to save cash

 

Itch to brawl

The big decision next year will be what will  U.S., Israeli, and European leaders do about Iran.

The choice is either a military attack with unknown consequences or the risk of another nuclear armed state to add to North Korea, Israel, Pakistan, China, USA, France, UK and India.

The message coming from the US/UK/Israeli military is that the costs of allowing Iran to become a nuclear weapon state far outweigh the costs of using a military attack to prevent it from becoming one.

Simon Jenkins is more convincing. In November he wrote about America's 'itch to brawl.' Today he persuasively describes the UK's futile wars in which none of our interests were threatened. He has been the most consistently sane voice against our pointless involvement in Iraq and Helmand. The bravery of our solders is beyond question. They are as valiant as any in our history. But, for what?

I have asked several defence ministers to provide example of plausible future situation when the UK could use our nuclear weapons independently. None have come up with any example. Nor can I can foresee any situation when Iran could do the same.  

 

Now there are eleven

 

Pre-Fukushima nearly all 54 of Japan's nuclear power stations were operating. They produced 30% of Japan's  electricity.  Now only 11 are operating. By April it will probably be none. 

 

This is not a decision by the Japanese Government or the industry. It's the municipal authorities that are refusing to allow reactors to generate after they have been shut down for maintenance. 

A new nuclear disaster somewhere in the world is virtually certain within the next ten years. The UK could then be littered with half-built reactors. They are always years late and vastly over-budget. An expensive mega-spin operation by Government and industry has blacked out the awful truth about Fukushima in the British media. Another disaster would kill the world's faith in the false nuclear god.

 Within just a few weeks of Fukushima, the German government announced that all eight of the nation's reactors that were built prior to 1981  were to be temporarily shut down as a precaution and to allow time for safety checks. On 26 March, Germany witnessed its largest ever anti-nuclear demonstration when 250,000 people marched demanding that the government "heed Fukushima". By the end of May, Chancellor Angela Merkel had confirmed that Germany would speed up its retreat from nuclear and by 2022, would have shut down the last of its reactors. To compensate, it would instead ramp up its supply of renewables from 17% to 35%.

The UK had no such reaction. The Pied Piper of nuclear power has bewitched both politicians and press.

 

Hunt stunt punted

 

Poll showing 69% support the Hunting with Dogs ban and that only 6% see it as a gov priority was nationwide by YouGov 14/16 Dec this year!

Hunts attempted publicity stunt on Boxing Day rebounds on them with fresh revulsion against sadistic killing for fun. Strengthen the ban.

Derision, contempt and controlled abuse should greet today's fox hunters demand to bring back the barbarism of tormenting animals for fun.

Cameron to rat on Coalition pledge for a free vote on hunting. Majority of MPs will back present law and probably insist on full enforcement

 Exploiting hatred of foreigners is a popular rallying cry for piffle artist politicians seeking instant gratification.

  

'

 

 

Nasty party's priorities

Slaughter badgers needlessly, deny prisoners votes, bring cruelty back to hunting, be foul to foreigners-the major obsessions of NASTY party

'Keep clergy out of politics' cry from Tories whose Leader said that their core policy of the Big Society began with Jesus 2,000 years ago.

"Give us back the right to be cruel' is the fox hunters demand today. All that's missing from their 'sport' is gratuitous animal torment.

Time to fold tents

Total of British deaths in Afghanistan = 393

Occupy protest has brilliantly proclaimed big message. Time now to fold tents and move before fragmentation of unstable community fouls nest.

Anti-Preeza accusations are screamed in media-fest of giant headlines in autumn. News that he is not guilty is whispered on Christmas Eve.

Shapps sqeaks again at Prezza even though Shapps/Pickles' snide jibes are proved false. Silence on Pickles undeclared feast with lobbyist.

Shapps/Pickles face probe by statistics watchdog into accuracy of housing statistics released by them this month bit.ly/tSEZBI

State terrorism?

If today's alleged acts of terrorism are the work of the Government of Syria, they would not be the first by a state. 

They are out of character for the Arab Awakening but they fit neatly into the fictional narrative that Syria is spinning for international observers. 

The Russian Federation are suspected of doing the same by exploding lorries filled with explosives near Russian apartment blocks and blaming it on Chechens. It gave them a pretext for the vicious repression that followed.

The Dublin and Monaghan bombings of 1974, that killed 33, were admitted to be the work of the Ulster Volunteer Force in 1993. However the collusion of the SAS has long been suspected.

The loathsome Government of Syria are capable of any barbaric act. 

 

 

 

385 British deaths ago

Total of British Soldiers killed in Afghanistan = 392

 

There is q quickening of the pulses among the political Neo-Con zealots.. Where will the next war be? Iran, Somalia, Falklands?  Liam Fox bigged up the tension with Iran backed by his Neo-Con  funded  chum Adam Werritty. Somalia and the Falklands are both 'doable' as new military adventures for the glory-seeking admirals and generals. 

Parliament will not meet again until the 4th January. We could swiftly drift into war. We know that to Thatcher and Blair war was an exhilarating viagra. Nothing has changed. Cameron would rejoice in an escape route from the wreckage of his ruined Big Society and his crumbling NHS plans. Posturing as a war leader would appeal to him.

Today's carnage in Iraq should give Cameron a pause for thought. Does he recall his enthusiasm in 2003 to back Blair's disastrous deception and send 179 British troops to  die in Bush's war? Does he recall his silence in 2006 when the Helmand incursion hoped that 'not a shot would be fired." That was 385 British deaths ago.

History will judge that our involvement in Iraq and Helmand replaced rotten Governments with other rotten Governments at a tragic cost in blood and treasure.

We must not stumble into another war with unimaginable consequences.

 

Councillor Les Knight  1930 -2011

Les had been a councillor in Newport for 42 years.  Kind and courteous he was a devoted servant to his constituents in Allt-yr-yn and the rest of the City of Newport. 

He was one of the few surviving councillors who were serving on the old Newport Borough Council when I was elected in 1972. I had been elected in a by-election in Malpas after I had been soundly beaten
in Allt-yr-yn by the Tories - probably Les. For a politician he was a spare communicator. So rarely did he speak at council, he became known as 'silent knight'. But he was not inactive. He was constantly but quietly involved in the micro-surgery of the thousands of acts of service that make up a councillor's life.

I recall meeting him in 1981 on Newport Bridge in surreal circumastances. He was the mayor and we watched in amazemant at the hugh ice and frozen snow masses that flowed down the Usk in that dreadful winter. A vast fall of snow had kept me in London for two days because snow had blocked the main railwayline.

His special interests on the Council included promoting Newport's stately home of Tredegar House. He was energetically working there until recently to ensure that a new generation appreciated this treasure in the same way that he did.

Few others have devoted so many years of loving service to the people of Newport. Les deserves to be remembered with pride and gratitude.

 

No sign of legitimate Liam Fox probe

The investigation into the Fox Werritty affair conducted speedily by the Head of the Civil Service was unsatisfactory and illegimate because the sole enforcer of the code is Sir Phillip Mawer.

It is known that Fox was conducting a policy on Sri Lanka that was independent of Government policy. Was he doing the same on Israel? Those groups who funded Werritty to the sum of £150,000 a year have a far-right agenda that could push the UK into a war with Iran. The same groups were influential in leading the UK into the disastrous war in Iraq.  Bob Kerslake will soon take over his new role as Head of the Civil Service.

Q503  <Paul Flynn:> Who is the enforcer of the Ministerial Code?

Sir Bob Kerslake: The enforcer in terms of Ministers will be the Cabinet Secretary.  My role would be in relation to the Civil Service Code.

Q504  <Paul Flynn:> What does Sir Philip Mawer do then?

Sir Bob Kerslake: As you know, there is a change being made there.  In terms of who is the guardian of the code, it lies with the Cabinet Secretary, and clearly the successor to Sir Philip Mawer will play a key part in the case of where there are issues to be investigated.

 

Q505  <Paul Flynn:> It seems to say in the Ministerial Code that the sole enforcer is the holder of the office that Sir Philip Mawer holds now.  No?

Sir Bob Kerslake: He clearly has a key role in terms of enforcing the code, but I thought your question was about who, between myself and the Cabinet Secretary, took that lead role.  I am quite clear that, on ministerial matters, the Cabinet Secretary would be undertaking the investigation.

Q506  <Paul Flynn:> In the Fox/Werritty affair, there was evidence that civil servants from his Department had expressed their unhappiness to Liam Fox about his conduct, but did not pass that on outside the Department.  Is this how they should behave?

Sir Bob Kerslake: In his review of the issues, Sir Gus made it clear that effective communication of issues arising in Departments through to the Cabinet Secretary is an important part of the system here. 

Q507  <Paul Flynn:> In that particular case, and in another issue that was less important involving your Department, it was suggested that Ministers can divide themselves in two.  On some occasions, they can behave privately; on other occasions, they can behave ministerially.  The occasion with your Department involved the Secretary of State, who had a meal provided by Bell Pottinger, which could have been thought to be a lobbyist.  The firm at the meal was seeking some favour with his Department, but he claimed that he was eating privately that night and not ministerially.  There is a rather serious issue involved in the Fox/Werritty affair, where the Secretary of State, Werritty and one British official spoke to a group of Israelis who, according to The Daily Telegraph political correspondent, were Mossad, which is a matter of some interest, I would have thought, given the fact that we might be moving to a war with Iran.

<Chair:> Can we just get to a substantive question?

<Paul Flynn:> I have to give that background, I am afraid, to make sense of this.  Do you think that, in the circumstances, there should not be a division between somebody eating or having meetings privately or ministerially?

Sir Bob Kerslake: There are two or three points to make on this.  The first point to make is there is a distinction between an event that somebody is going to in a private capacity or in their capacity as an MP, which is different from their capacity as a Minister.  As you know, the judgement on that issue ultimately lies with the Minister to make, but they very often do so with advice and discussion with their private office.  There are clearly different ways in which such meetings are handled.  If it is a meeting as a Minister, they will get a briefing and, very often, in most cases, someone from the private office will attend that meeting. 

What I think we found in the Werritty case, if you look at the recommendations from Sir Gus, he said that, if there are meetings where substantive issues of departmental business are discussed, clearly someone from the private office should be there.  At the very least, the meeting should be reported back.  So I think there is a difference between the two types of meeting.  What I think emerged in the Werritty review was that where a meeting occurs that palpably may have started as, or was thought to be, a private meeting but moves into departmental business, there has to be a reference back.  I do not think you can drop the distinction between the two, but it needs handling with care.  If you move into a different situation, you need to be aware of it.  

 

Rage against the cheats

 

People will tolerate woeful levels of deprivation, poverty and shortages. They did during the war with cheerfulness and acceptance. There are hard times ahead. They could be accepted without resentment against government. 

But the public will rage against unfairness. The equality of poverty is preferable to the unfairness of privilege. The misery must be shared. 

Today's Select Committee report of cheating tax deals reveals an outrage. The Daily Mail warns "While families, shopkeepers and small businesses are forced to pay their bills in full, big businesses are striking favourable deals and have a 'far too cosy' relationship with HM Revenue and Customs." 

38 degrees comments "As lots of us prepare for winter on a tight budget, it’s not hard to imagine that those billions of pounds could have been spent on something better than stuffing the wallets of the most powerful companies in the country. We could have spent it on schools, on hospitals, or making sure everyone can have a safe, warm home this Christmas time.

We know that tax dodging is a big issue. That's why last month we decided that it should be something we should make an urgent priority."

Tax-dodgers bribing the taxman with fine food and wine is a provocation that will stir justified anger. Beware Cameron.

 

Nuclear renaissance still-born

 

There is growing nuclear nightmare for EDF

 

As the voice of sanity I took part in a conference about nuclear power last week.   Sitting next to me was a representative of Electricite de France. They have just been fined   €1.5 million for spying on Greenpeace. It was mean trick. EDF have all the aces in their rich hands anyway without spying in order to further advance their greed motivated deception.

There is  some more bad news for the nuclear juggernaut. This week the Office for Nuclear Regulation gave interim approval for the design of the first two nuclear reactors due to be built in Britain for two decades. And the very same day, Areva – the state-owned French firm that developed them – announced that it was facing a $2.1 billion loss this year, incurred partly by problems with its reactors in Finland and France.

This is passionately heralded 'New" nuclear that has bewitched the Coalition Government. 

Areva’s first European Pressurised Reactor – of which it plans to build two with the electricity generator EDF at Hinckley Point, Somerset – is now five years behind schedule at Olkiluoto on the Finnish coast and is costing an extra two billion euros. The second – which it is constructing with EDF at Flamanville, Normandy – has been delayed by two years, while its cost has almost doubled. 

That's just the start. Areva has also taken a big hit from a bad buy of a uranium mining firm. It is also suffering from the world anti-nuclear loss of credibility  after The Fukushima disaster. Germany, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy have gone cold on the atom. Things even look dodgy in France, the pre-eminent nuclear state.  Francois Hollande, the Socialist presidential candidate, has agreed with the Greens to shut 24 reactors if he gains power.

Britain is the sole gullible hope for  EDF. But there is trouble here. EDF  has already put back the start date of the first Somerset reactor and has warned that poor union-management relations on the construction side threaten to raise costs. 

The hapless but affable Weightman was at last week's conference. He has been cynically used by the Government to provide cover for their nuclear folly. He confesses that he is not qualified to advise on the increased costs of nuclear power post Fukushima. Those costs are crippling as the industry is uninsurable. 

The most likely British catastrophe is from terrorism, a freak natural event, technical failure or human error. Bad news there. The Government are incredibly cutting the numbers of MoD police at Faslane and Coulport,
 
Labour spokesman Jim Murphy said, "The Prime Minister's assurances have proved worryingly empty.
 
"At the UK’s most sensitive nuclear sites the Government are cutting MoD Police. People up and down the country will be deeply concerned. Unless Ministers can tell us that the threat level has changed this looks like complacency if not carelessness.
 
"Rather than these damaging behind the scenes decisions we must have urgent public assurances that national security is not being jeopardised."

The nuclear retreat has begun.

Today in Parliament

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): What steps is the Secretary of State taking to reduce tension between the west and Iran, as there is a possibility of a war between our two countries, the consequences of which would be unimaginable?

Mr Hammond: The Government’s policy remains one of both applying pressure and maintaining engagement with Iran in the sincere hope that the crisis can be resolved peacefully.

 

 

Advantaging the advantaged

 

 

A 'Lobbyist reformer' sent me his points for changing the system. My comments are in capital letters.

 

• · Lobbying is a fundamental democratic right of us all
• · WHICH IS UNEVENLY AVAILABLE.
• Professional lobbying should be conducted at all times in a professional and ethical manner. REMINISCENT OF SINNING FOR VIRTUE or S****ING FOR VIRGINITY
  
  
• Professional lobbyists assist the democratic process by helping to ensure that public policy is subject to rigorous examination and argument. They present information that allows the policy process to be better informed THEY SEEK TO FURTHER ADVANTAGE THE ALREADY ADVANTAGED IN EXCHANGE FOR MONEY.

 

• It is entirely legitimate for an organisation to use the services of a professional lobbyist, whether by employing them directly or by hiring them through a lobbying company.THOSE TOO STUPID TO SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES AND  WITH MONEY TO WASTE  USE CHINESE WHISPERERS WHO OFTEN WEAKEN AND DISTORT THEIR MESSAGES.

 

• Professional lobbyists should be subject to a rigorous Code of Conduct, whether on a self-regulatory or statutory basis, designed to enshrine high professional and ethical standards to the benefit of all. SELF-REGULATION IS NO REGULATION. ARE ETHICS PART OF PARASITIC FEEDING OFF THE BODY POLITIC?
• 
  
• To ensure that professional lobbyists offer services of the highest standards, structured training and continuing professional development programmes should be developed. 
• MADRASAS FOR TEACHING DECEPTION?

 

Mega-greed PLC to sponsor

Recent Tweets

Paulflynnmp Paul Flynn 

Parliament to display a banner from Big Ben to the Victoria Tower reading 'Sponsored by Mega Greed PLC'? - commercial wheeze in Sunday Times

4 hours ago       

Fukushima still leaks radiation out of control, baby food is year's 'safe' radiation dose in days, clean up will take 40 years. Good news?

No new Minister required for Big Society - just a funeral pyre party to bury the corpse of a stupid idea

  

No jingoistic anti-Europe Feltham swing for Cameron in spite of tabloid hysteria-fine new MP adds further strength to Labour backbench team.

  

Encouraging Feltham result for Labour on a wet cold day, swing would give handsome General Election result. Tory campaign flopped hopelessly

 

 

@chrispevans1 @RogerstoneLab Christmas begins-beautiful familiar words of carols, fine unfamiliar words of prayer, local band, mince pies.

 

Sobs from Spelman on farmers' distress at sending animals for culling. Does she believe farms animals end up in geriatric retirement homes?

Minister of State Charles Hendry is a nuclear power groupie. Probably needs a new nuclear station just to keep the lights on in his castles.

15 Dec       

 

Energy Minister Hendry omitted to mention today at RUSI his new effort at energy conservation- his purchase of new 44 bedroom castle.

nn 

13,500 troops, thousands of police. surface to air missiles. Olympic zone or War zone? Time to desert the Capital make for the hills

@halfon4harlowMP Untrue. Iran are at least 2years away from their own nuclear weapon. How could they use it without committing suicide?

War with Iran would have unimaginable consequences possibly involving Hamas and Hizbollah. We are stumbling blindly into conflict.

Threats from UK/USA against Iran might persuade them to expel IAEA nuclear inspectors and deny us the knowledge of their nuclear progress

The only passion all Iranians share is their contempt for foreigners seeking to run their country. Threat by UK/USA deepen gulf of tension.

n 

Public Administration Committee is dying slowly. Today repeating stategy study completed a year ago. Who cares? Media and Government don't

13 Dec       

 

Big Society Report report out soon. Titles rejected: Dead Wheeze Walking: An idea who time has gone; 2000 years of failure. Divided Society.

Fukushima - spinning a nightmare.



The media in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Switzerland have reported truthfully on Fukushima. The British media has allowed itself to be used by the nuclear lobby. Ten months after the disaster radiation is still leaking. Yet that news is presented today as positive! 

Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) had the effrontery to claim that their leaked radiation that carpets surrounding land is now the property of the landowners. Possession in nine tenths of the law. The most disturbing contamination was baby powdered milk. One feeding gave infants 8%  of the annual dose of radiation permitted. After a few days the babies passed their annual safe limits. 

Today's 'good news' has the footnote that dismantling the reactors and the 260-tonne lethal cargo of nuclear fuel will take up to 40 years.

The Independent reports today : 'Much of the fuel in three of Fukushima Daiichi plant's six reactors has melted through the base of the containment vessels. Engineers are still pumping 4,000 tonnes of water a week on to the fuel to keep it cool, leaving 200,000 tonnes of heavily contaminated water on site. Despite the efforts, the rush to bring the plant under control is storing up complex problems, according to Tomohiko Suzuki, who spent a month working at the plant during the summer and has released a book this week about his experiences. "The question is, can they maintain this temperature for years and years?" he told reporters in Tokyo yesterday. "I believe the problems there are just starting."

Mr Suzuki, for his part, paints an appalling picture of managerial callousness at the plant, claiming that after the first explosion on 12 March Tepco sent out a message to labour-dispatch companies saying: "Send us people who don't mind dying."

In the first few days of panic, workers were not issued radiation-measuring equipment and were not properly logged in, he said. "There's no way to track down the people who were at the site in March and April."

Workers are under pressure to extend their time working in radioactive conditions and have learned to cheat exposure-measuring dosimeters by putting them back to front and wearing them in their socks, he said. "Tepco does not instruct us to take these measures, but it sets tasks that force people to cheat with these dosimeters. Everyone understands this."

 

'Frustrate cruelty'

Yesterday in Parliament

 

Badger CULL

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): Should not the clarion call go out from this House today to all the right-thinking, compassionate people in this country to frustrate this cruel and unnecessary slaughter of animals? Is it not right that this has been founded on greed and bad science by the nasty party?

Mrs Spelman: I hope that an hon. Member is not calling on the public to break the law; that would be very unwise.

 

Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab):  There is nothing in this statement about dealing with the problem of cattle-to-cattle transmission. All the evidence shows that that is a significant factor in spreading bovine TB. What does the Secretary of State plan to do about that? It seems that the only solution on offer is shooting badgers.

Paul Flynn: But the alternative would upset the farmers.

Kerry McCarthy: Exactly.

Mrs Spelman: I refer the hon. Lady to the statement that I made in July, setting out the other important elements of the bovine TB package, of which controlled reduction of the badger population is just one part. We have strengthened measures on controlling the movement of cattle and expanded the areas for the testing of cattle. I know that that was very much wanted by the industry. As a west midlands MP, my farmers came to me and said that they would prefer to be part of the annual testing because they want to know more frequently whether their cattle are clear. In my July statement, all those strict measures were cited.

 Israel debate

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): I was delighted to hear the hon. Gentleman refer, I believe, to a poem by Saunders Lewis, in which he urges Wales to follow the example of Israel, particularly in terms of reviving its language—it is a poem of great optimism. However, does he not agree that there is a world of difference between the Israel of Yitzhak Rabin and the Israel of Netanyahu?

Guto Bebb: I am grateful for that intervention, and I will come to that issue in due course, because I want to talk about the attitudes of the world press and of other Governments towards the current Israeli Prime Minister. I think his actions do not justify the way he is often attacked and portrayed badly in the media.

 

Paul Flynn: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Guto Bebb: I will take a final intervention.

Paul Flynn: We all condemn the incessant use of rockets by Hezbollah and Hamas, but is there not another danger, given what is happening in Tehran, with the explosions, assassination of scientists and cyber-attacks, that we are in a perilous situation that could lead to war? I believe that the hand of other countries can be seen in what is happening in Tehran, and that is likely to provoke it into a shooting war.

Guto Bebb: I am sure that all Members of the House agree that the situation in Iran is dangerous and are concerned about that regime having access to nuclear weapons. Again, negotiation would be a much better option than direct action, and I am sure all hon. Members would agree on that too.

Paul Flynn: The political editor of The Daily Telegraph has alleged that a meeting that took place in February this year between the previous Defence Secretary, Adam Werritty and others was attended by Mossad. As the report that we have on the matter decided that that was a private meeting, is it not time that we looked at the policy followed by Mr Adam Werritty as possibly something that would lead to a conflict with Iran and had a legitimate report into the Adam Werritty-former Defence Secretary affair, because the only enforcer of the ministerial code is Philip Mawer

 

Dead Wheeze Walking

2 Date tabled: 24.11.2011 Primary sponsor: Flynn, Paul Sponsors: That this House notes that not one Government Minister gave a full answer to the parliamentary written question on when they undertook their Big Society One Day Challenge and the nature and date of their volunteer work; and believes this is further proof that the giant concept of the Big Society has shrivelled into a protozoan nothingness.

Today's Morning Star

Britain

Tory Big Society 'a dead wheeze walking'

Tuesday 13 December 2011

by Roger Bagley in Parliament

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A leading member of a Commons committee which has puzzled for months over David Cameron's Big Society suggested today that it should be renamed "Dead Wheeze Walking."

Newport West Labour MP Paul Flynn said the Prime Minister's idea was akin to other failed big wheezes, including the Cones Hot Line, Back to Basics and The Third Way.

"The Big Society idea is similarly doomed," said Mr Flynn.

"After all these months, we are still searching everywhere for it. It is one of those great mysteries. It is like the God particle."

After months of hearings and discussions, the cross-party public administration committee finally managed today to publish its report entitled simply The Big Society.

The report suggests that the public is "confused" by the Big Society because the government lacks a clear implementation plan.

It expresses concerns over the financial health of charities and the effects of cuts in grant funding by local authorities.

It admits that "the ambition to open up public services to new providers has prompted concerns about the role of private companies."

And it warns of a danger that big private contractors and the largest charities will continue to dominate.

Tory committee chairman Bernard Jenkin confessed: "The government has not been clear enough about what the Big Society means in practical terms."

He urged the appointment of a Big Society minister.

But Mr Flynn said he was disappointed that the committee would not agree to any of his alternative title suggestions, such as Big Society: Divided Society or Dead Wheeze Walking.

Another suggestion was a response to Mr Cameron's claim that the Big Society idea was actually founded by Jesus Christ.

"Entitling the report 2,000 Years of Failure would have summed up this approach," ventured Mr Flynn.

Labour MP Dennis Skinner advanced his own theory today as to how Oxford University toffs David Cameron and Gideon George Osborne hit on the Big Society idea.

Said Mr Skinner: "Cameron and his Bullingdon Club mates were sitting amid the wrecked foyer of a hotel they had trashed one Saturday night when Cameron said: 'Do you know what we really need? We need an army of volunteers each weekend to follow us around and clean up the mess that we have made.

"'Hey Gideon, I have another idea. We could call it the Big Society'."

rogerbagley@peoples-press.com