Arise Citizen Wigley !

Scorched earth
Plaid Cymru have decided to join the sinking ship of the unelected House of Lords - on their  own terms.

They want no titles. I doubt whether their nominees can join without the Garter King of Arms insisting on titles, fake heraldry and at least a bit of prancing about in ermine. Good luck to them if they can separate the role of legislator and that of an unelected titled national chieftain. The Lords will not like it. In ten years Tony Blair failed to get rid of the 'Silver stick in waiting' and the rest of the pantomime flummery.

This decision is a pragmatic one. The anti-devolution fossils in the Lords are defeated but are adopting a scorched earth policy on the progress of Welsh legislation. Expect to see Lords-a-fuming when the Orders in Council hit them. The under worked Neil Kinnock, Ted Rowlands and the Gwent Papal Knights are out to avenge the hammering the Welsh Labour Party gave them on the coalition.

Dafydd Wigley is the obvious choice. He seems to have made a full recovery from his health problems and would be a formidable heavyweight who can frustrate the last ditch attempts by Westminster to stop power flowing down the M4 to Cardiff.

Jobsworths in
Hounding Chief Constables is a new blood sport.

Brunstrom in North Wales and Ian Blair in London shared a wonderful record in reducing crime in the past two years. Brunstrom has bravely faced down the ridicule of the tabloids  and cut road traffic deaths remarkably.

If he had been a Jeremy Clarkson rave-a-like who has presided over an increase in roads death, presumably that would have kept MPs off his back.

Ian Blair in London has had similar success with falling crime figures and changing the sleazy racial culture of the Met. He has been courageous, innovative and brilliantly successful. He has been sniped at police who have risen from the ranks. There is a corrosive tension between those and graduates like Blair who rose via the fast track. Some have been out to sabotage his career for years.

Of course both have made major mistakes. Who doesn't ? Changing two brave coppers for sychophantic jobsworths won't help.

Voodoo
To my astonishment more than 200 MPs signed up to an EDM demanding  more NHS money for homeopathy.
The splendidly sane doctor and journalist Ben Goldacre has consistently exposed the empty claims of this voodoo medicine. It's science-free and they routinely suppress evidence of trials that prove the uselessness of their drugs. At best they  are on a par with placebos.

The only good they do is to keep patients off powerful drugs that may have adverse side effects. No-one is harmed by sugar pills with a virtual nil atom content of active substances - just a memory.

Their best claim is that people get better with homeopathy. Of course they do. Most illnesses do not last for a lifetime. The human body is a miraculous healing organism. Many illnesses clear up  anyway.

We are fortunate to live in an era with a sumptuous scientific heritage. Why do so many of our MPs cling to superstitions unworthy of the Dark Ages ?

Comments

[valleylad]

Brunstrom I have some sympathy with, despite the rubbish attempt at a blog and his hounding of motorcyclists, he seems a straight honest copper. He also made the effort to learn welsh (more than I've managed!)

Blair on the other hand should have fell on his sword after his officers inexcusably murdered De Menzines, let alone the later "accidental" shooting, the cover up, etc. etc. etc. As bad as his namesake, letting a jury decide if his attempt to frustrate the IPCC was part of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice would be far better than having his political chums decide his fate.

[John]

Brunstrom advocated the universally media ridiculed idea of legalising all drugs.
Today we find that this idea actually works as regards heroin use.

I quote

Initial results from a London pilot scheme where addicts inject themselves with heroin in a clinic suggest it has reduced drug use and crime.

from here
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7101085.stm

This is a vindication of his Publically expressed ideas but something tells me it won't get the media attention it deserves.

The fact that crime has dropped that addicts can lead stable constructive community and family lives is a huge step forward.

It costs around £9.000 to £15,000 to provide pure heroin (most of that being the clinic support) which is so much "safer" if one can use that word in this instance than methodone and almost certainly cheaper than banging them away in prison or forcing them into crime because of the current state of Prohibtion.

This sort of news should be trumpeted from the rooftops its a humane moral approach to those of our citizens whose drug use moves into damaging abuse to themselves family and society as a whole.Lets hope this is eventually rolled out throughout the country.

[Paul Flynn]

Sure. There are enough serious reasons to sack Blair. But, as always nothing is simple.

The subplot is the Met establishment conspiracy against new broom Blair. They should not be allowed to get their scalp.

[Paul Flynn]

Thanks John.

I wrote today's blog without reading your posting. Great minds in harmony again!