Cool Makeover for Senior

Trendy Gel

My seven-year-old grandson believes I need a makeover in time for the next election.

He recommends a cool hairstyle to counteract the effect of my deteriorating limp. As an experienced gel artist, he tried three styles on me, then photographed his work.

 When I entered the Commons in 1987, I became teetotal in the House.  My unsteady gait meant I knocked over furniture occasionally and ricocheted from one side of corridors to the other. It’s only the boring arthritis that I have had since I was a child.

When I was a candidate in 1986, my family dubbed me the PPC. Usually that means Prospective Parliamentary Candidate. In my case it meant Poor Pathetic Cripple. The sensible voters of Newport West have remained stoically un-alarmed by my meandering gait.

 Now I’ve forsaken marathons and Morris dancing, I need something else to rejuvenate my Peter Pan image. Another climb to the top of the Transporter Bridge is one idea but a trendy gel assisted hairstyle may do the trick.

Impressed, eh? I welcome comments on which style is the most statesmanlike.

Targets targeted

They were a plausible good idea but Government targets have more often been a measure of failure rather than success.

John Seddon publishes a devastating account of damage caused by targets in a new book. He gave evidence to my Select Committee recently.

He recalls that minister Nick Raynsford was puzzled that while all targets were being met the measures of public satisfaction with services were dropping. Nick thought it might be that clients’ expectations were rising.

Almost certainly it was because meeting the targets made the services worse. In “Systems Thinking in the Public Sector’, Seddon says that politicians have often complained the ‘four star ‘ services in their areas did not reduce the queues of complainants. The truth is that chasing targets often creates poor quality services and increases costs.

The targets are usually measuring the wrong outcomes. They are often a substitute to efficiency and customer satisfaction. Seddon makes a disturbing and convincing case.

A-Dored

The magnificent journalist Ben Goldacre delivers a weekly dose of Science Sense weekly in the Guardian.

His column ‘Bad Science’ exposes those who deploy PR as a substitute for scientific evidence.  There is a growing trend to hype ‘miracle cures’ on leisure broadcasts when the promoters can get away with half-truths and no-truths  without any rigorous challenges. Ben writes: -

You might have noticed the Dore "miracle cure" for dyslexia, invented by millionaire paint entrepreneur Wynford Dore. It's hard to ignore. In fact just recently you may have seen "Strictly Come Dancing" star Kenny Logan - a rugby superhero, with 70 caps in 13 years - promoting the Dore Dyslexia Program with his own personal testimonials on the Jeremy Vine Show, Channel Five News, Radio Five Live, BBC London, ITV Central, ITV Yorkshire, in the Daily Mail, the Daily Record, Scotland on Sunday, and many, many more.

One earlier round of "miracle cure" publicity was so bizarre that Nasa, which is quite busy making spacecraft, was forced to issue a press release refuting claims in the Independent and New Scientist that Dore used special Nasa space technology and exercises in the treatment (Dore denies involvement in these claims). And we should remember that the published scientific evidence for Dore consists of an infamous research study on the "miracle cure", filled with fascinating methodological holes so serious that there were five resignations from the editorial board of the journal Dyslexia in protest at its publication, and an unprecedented nine critical commentaries from academics.

Quote

Men go crazy in congregations But they only get better one by one . ... The Sting

Comments

[barber of seville]

Strange time for Labour MPs to be concerned with hairstyles when they are likely to lose their scalps at the next election.

[Paul Flynn]

Tsk! Tsk! Bit premature with your triumphalism...Two years is an eternity in politics. You did not say which spike is the best

[Kari]

I like the two spikes, reminiscent of wembley's towers before the new stadium..

[Kari]

I like the two spikes, reminiscent of wembley's towers before the new stadium..

[Paul Flynn]

Thank Kari. That confirms it. I'll adopt that style for my 2010 election photo. Perhaps I can patent it and Old Wembley