Paul Flynn - Read My Day

Guilt by news coverage

 

Guilt by news coverage
The Hain saga takes a sickening new twist and his job looks at risk. This would be unjust and his parliamentary colleagues are rallying round.

It’s trial by media. Even if all the new allegations are true he should not resign or be sacked. Judg ments will be made by the Electoral Commission and the Standards Committee. He must hang on until then and not do a Peter Mandelson. In the case of the Hinduja brothers, Peter resigned in the face of a media crap storm and was afterwards exonerated of all blame. There had been no impropriety the subsequent report found.

Peter was obeying his own rules that if the media make the politician the subject for a sufficiently long time, they should go. This is guilt by news coverage. It’s not the seriousness of the offence; it’s the wide spread of the smears and innuendos. The lynch-mob hysteria turns every doubt into certain guilt. The Standards Commissioner has become the ‘sleaze boss’ in an osmosis of guilt by association. He and the Electoral Commissioner may well find Peter careless but subject to disproportionate press attacks.

I’ll try again. Please tell me who has been harmed, robbed, deceived, bribed, and corrupted by anything that Peter has done or not done? It is a hideous cock-up by others for which Peter must take the ultimate responsibility. But that does not include loss of the office that he has served brilliantly.

'The Argus crisis will get worse'.

Tonight their front page screams with quivering indignation with a splash story of 20 redundancies at a local firm. The company is insolvent. Earlier in the week the 21 redundancies in the solvent Argus was hidden in a few paragraphs in the middle pages. Only on this site, in the Press Gazette and BBC Wales is this story being covered. The Argus is silent.

An insider warns me that it is not just the 21 jobs that will be lost to give us yesterday’s stale news today, but the site in under threat from the greed gluttons of Newsquest.

My informant tells me that editorial colleagues are devastated. 'They've taken all the cutbacks, all the crap that has been hurled at them and now, in the long term, their jobs could be on the line.' Six were dumped in a cost-cutting binge in 2006.

One of the threats arises from Newport’s new prosperity. The booming city has inflating land values that excite the erogenous greed zones of Newsquest and their Gannett parents. The land on which the Argus stands is worth millions. That’s why they will be printing in Worcester and Oxford.

To do the job properly, I’m told, would need 24-hour shift patterns plus the extras expense of Reuters and another international agency or an upgrade Press Association contract. It seems unlikely that they will upgrade their editorial and cover overnight Newport jobs.

My correspondent concludes, “What a pity we lost our Chapel. The editor's power locally is no more; he is just another body to be pushed around by the mindless morons called management.”

What a lesson in the need for strong trade unions. Argus staff has been cheated in one-sided pensions deal, and either lost their jobs and have a future of insecurity. The redundancy that the company is offering appears to be the basics rock bottom statutory one with no enhancement that solvent companies now routinely give.

Ever night, the Argus flaunts their superior moral superiority and preaches their pompous nostrums. How about an editorial braying against prosperous employers dumping on their defenceless workers?

Finland

 

There was a great row before the decision was  made to build the new nuclear station in the far north of the Finland. The coalition in Government collapsed with the departure of a Green Party minister and his colleagues.

 

But they did secure an agreement for full-blooded investment in renewables to balance the nuclear decision. Now the plant is two years behind schedule and £1billion over budget. Tragically that £1billion is the money earmarked for renewables investments. It all sounds prophetically familiar. The worry on the future neglect of conservation and renewables here was the main anxiety of Labour and other  backbenchers expressed in the Commons this week. We must get organised.

Croeso

Yesterday, this site recorded its biggest ever number of hits. Welcome to those who dropped in for the first time. Please keep in touch. This is a 'Free website' unrestricted by suffocating parliamentary rules.

 

Worst since Iraq

Repetitive Folly
Today’s decision on nuclear power is the worst Government blunder since the decision to join Bush’s war in Iraq. It will have implications that will impoverish our children and grandchildren.

I had a brief chance to ventilate in the Commons after the Speaker had ‘named’ me for heckling. That’s the first time in 20 years. Later he called me, pointing out it was then my turn to speak.

Why repeat the nuclear folly? How can anyone believe the nuclear lobby than had vast cost-over-runs, up to 10 years delays, and a legacy of debt of £75 billion to clear up their waste- that’s £4,000 per family?

No nuclear power station in the world has been economic. All have been subsidised by taxpayers. The new heralded modern design in Finland is already 2 years late and £1billion. overspent. It was a controversial decision sold on the basis that investment would be made in renewables. The Green resigned from the coalition. Sadly the nuclear overspend has robbed the renewables investment of cash. Exactly what is likely to happen here.

Today’s White paper openly admits the government will have to provide extra money if cost estimates are wrong. They always have been in the past. Nuclear companies will be able to cap their liabilities, leaving the taxpayer exposed if estimates for dealing with waste change. As they certainly will.

How can intelligent people fall for this hard sell from the vested interests? Scotland is remaining nuclear free and heading for 50%% generation from renewables. We could do the same if we concentrate our enthusiasms on marine renewables.

Most backbenchers called today opposed the white paper and championed renewables. Some who spoke for nuclear vested interests. Some MPs are employed by companies expecting big contacts from the nuclear bonanza.

The minister today could not name a single nuclear venture that had ever made money. He talked about the ‘new science’ and how the Government favour the geological solution for waste. That means digging a hole and dumping the waste in it. Exactly the same solution as ‘old science’ 40 years ago.

Hidden treasure

Ian Liddell Grainger MP is an unrecognised Parliamentary treasure who brought joy to a soporific committee this morning.

He is a cartoon-book Tory and 234th in line for the throne. The Public Administration Committee was interviewing the new Chair of the Committee on Public Standards, Sir Christopher Kelly.

He has had a 30-year career as a top civil servant and was headhunted to beef up standards. He was asked some lively questions which he answered with suffocating banalities.

Ian’s riveting question was a kiss of life. He asked, ‘I get the impression that you are a very boring man. Are you?’ All of us had that thought that.   No one else dared say it.

Sir Christopher cheerfully half-agreed. Kelvin Hopkins MP  rush to his aid. He said, “Charismatic, conviction people are responsible for all the great crimes and disasters in the world. I advise you to stay boring. You will do less harm.”

Sir Christopher was grateful that his prime talent had been recognised.

Lynch-mob

Radio Cymru rang me up for an interview at 8.00 a.m tomorrow. I agreed in the certainty that it was about the biggest news of the day.

Wrong. They are not leading on nuclear power. No It’s Hain-gate. Why? Apart from employing people who made a mess of his accounts, I still do not know what dreadful crime he has committed.

The money was from friends and supporters to pay for an internal Labour Party campaign. No one was cheated, robbed, bribed or deceived. Nor was there any intention to do  wrong. There have been at least a dozen other scandals recently where politicians mis-used money - one was Plaid-gate. None has had a fraction of the publicity endured by Peter.

We will not have the decision of the Electoral Commission for a week. So stand down the lynch mob and  damp down the manic hysteria for a day or two. Hain the Politician has not become Hain the mad axe slayer.

Profit gluttons rampant

There was hint that it was the economic situation is pushing the Argus to dump 21 of their loyal workers.

Balderdash! Gannett’s revenues in the most recent published year rose to a record $8.02 billion – up a healthy 5.7% on the previous year. The Chief Executive says, "These results are among the best in the business".

Local ad revenue was up 5% as a whole - it rose both in the UK and US. Newsquest’s profits leapt from £91, million to £102 million.Plenty of slack there to provide a reasonable redundancy package for their workers.

Details are thin at the moment, but I hear that one worker is being offered a miserable £7,000 after 15 years service. His wage is just over twice that. Relocation and relocation expenses are vague and uncertain. The pension has already been devalued.

Workers are looking for a package similar to those other Newport workers had in similar circumstances in the past – principally Corus. That closure was a mistake; Weeks after the coke ovens were bull-dozed the UK was importing coke at top dollar from China.

In that case the company behaved reasonably and responsibly. They did all that they could to soften the blow. That’s the difference between a British –Dutch company with a conscience and a Welsh branch factory of a cut-throat avaricious bunch of American profits gluttons.

Assault

Fascinating that the Western Mail today has a deranged main headline on Gordon Brown’s ‘assault’ on workers. To sane people that’s his guaranteeing pay rises over three years. They report the Argus jobs theft without a whisper of criticism even though the Argus is guilty of assault, battery, robbery and insult.

Hero Hain

The Daily Express asked for a quote from a ‘Welsh MP’ on the Peter Hain ‘scandal’. I disappointed her. My comment was a long satisfying yawn.

Peter Hain was warmly praised by Welsh MPs today for his battle to settle the ASW pension’s shortfall which was wonderful justice for a group of low paid workers let down by their company. Even the Tory spokesman yesterday acknowledged Peter’s major role in achieving the golden deal.

Peter was also praised for getting renewables on to the dire energy policy that will be announced tomorrow. I am implacably opposed to wasting more £billions on the blind alley of nuclear folly. I suspect Peter is also very sceptical about tomorrow’s statement. He has elevated the Severn Barrage to be a serious bidder for big investment.

I asked the Express journalists if the space her paper was devoting to Peter’s problems were the same as they gave to the more serious scandals of Cameron-gate, Plaid- gate, Ashcroft-gate, Michael Brown-gate and Laid law-gate. She thought not. I declined to add to my ‘yawn’.

Comrade Bear

Redundancies for profits

There are a number of prized possessions, I will never throw away. None of them are of any intrinsic   value.

One is a teddy-bear wearing the badges of a journalists union and a print union. It was thank-you present for something I did in 1987. It could have wreaked my chances of a political career.

The local Newport paper the Argus announced a savage cut in the number of printing jobs. The journalists and the printers went on strike for six weeks. I was then the candidate for the Tory held seat of Newport West and working full time for Euro MEP Llew Smith. We handed over our office for use by the strike committee.

I was warned that it was political suicide to antagonise the local paper when a General Election was six months away. The strike was solid and proved the strength of the trade union movement. My support of the strikers did not win me any friends on the Argus Editorial staff – but lots among the journos. It was certainly the right thing to do. In spite of a hostile editorial, praising the sitting MP and rubbishing me, I still won. Furthermore I still have the teddy bear.

Alas, virtually all those unions have now gone. The Argus is taking advantage with yesterday’s news of ‘redundancies for profits' announcement.

Gutted blogs

This website has been liberated.

We are no longer censored by Commons’ officials with the petty-fogging rules that Parliament has adopted. For nine years, I have had a great uninhibited romp and exposed a few scandals and won a few prizes.

There have been new rules introduced with the Communications Allowance. It’s no longer permitted to say anything derogatory about other MPs. Indeed anything that gives spice, colour and humour to websites is forbidden.

Mind damagingly tedious guff explaining the virtues of the local MP are allowed. So are endless pictures of the MP, press releases and speeches. The problem is that no-one will read such a website in the same way that no one reads political propaganda..

I had the choice of gutting my website of everything of interest or go freelance and fund the site myself. This I will do. It will be interesting to watch the fading of officially blessed sites and the blooming of liberated ones.

Tony's Trip

A lucky colleague spent his Christmas break with a week in gloriously cold Canada and the second week  in gloriously warm Florida. He spotted this advert for an afternoon with Tony Blair in the city of Toronto.

No price for the tickets was advertised. But the event was heavily sponsored. Why does Tony think he is qualified to pontificate on this? It is his expert experience of bringing together the communities of Iraq? It could with justification be Northern Ireland, but others were involved there and it's hardly global. Sadly he was wrong as often as he was right. Nearly 300 British soldiers paid for his mistake in dragging the UK into Bush’s war in Iraq.

Letter to the Argus.

Gavin Stacey

Gerry Keighley

08 January 2008

Thank you for your e-mail yesterday. I had a phone call from a constituent who is likely to be made redundant. He tells me that he is believes he will receive only his statutory redundancy payments. If this is true this is an appalling situation.

What you propose is to rob Newport of a substantial numbers of jobs and skills and give your readers a poorer product. It’s not only the present staff that will be losing out but future employees and the city will be deprived of the newsprinting facilities that have been a feature of our industrial life for centuries.

The change is being made for one reason only – to increase the profits of Gannet and Newsquest. There has been under-investment in the Newport printing plant for many years with over-investment in Oxford and Worcester. Printing overnight means a poorer product with stale news. But your e-mail suggest that you will increase your income from sales in addition to cost saving by printing elsewhere.

Your workers, my constituents, are entitled to a major contribution from Gannet and Newsquest into their redundancy funds. It is now common practice for solvent prosperous companies to make such contributions in these circumstances. There have been several local and national examples.

The redundancies of six journalist in 2006 and the hike in the pension contributions indicates that the Argus as a rogue employer. I hope this heartless decision can be reconsidered.

Put profits in redundancy pot

Profits first

A sickening shock for 21 Argus print workers has been announced today. Although there is no mention   of the news on the Argus website, I had a phone call from one person whose job has disappeared. A message to MPs from the Argus says,

As a result of this review it is proposed to close the local press facility and migrate ….to other Newsquest print sites that can offer more colour and produce our titles more efficiently without the need for pre-printing and inserting, thereby reducing costs significantly for the Group. This proposal would mean that roles of the twenty-one staff currently working in the city’s press, engineering and computer to plate areas would become redundant.

The company is not in trouble and seeking to make savings to survive. Newsquest and their parent company are very prosperous. It’s about reducing costs. My caller tonight asked about his redundancy deal.

Whatever increased profits the company is likely to make out of this should be paid into the worker’s redundancy funds.

The message also suggest that sales would improve. More profit? Will that money go into the redundancy pot as well? The company got rid of about half a dozen journalist jobs in 2006. It was part of a cost cutting exercise by Newsquest. The staff left within a month. Some have returned because the paper could not manage without them. There was more bad news in the summer. Pension fund members at Newsquest were told in the summer that employee contributions would have to rise from six per cent at present to 10 per cent by 2011. For the average journalist this would push up the cost of keeping their final salary pension by between £40-£53 a month.

I believe the Argus still has no trade unions. Something their workforce must be bitterly regretting.

Cheating

Schools that have become Academies are cheating, an MP told me tonight. The claim was made that their exam results had improved.

My informant is a distinguished educationist and examines the results of one in detail. The Academy has set up a new information technology exam which it deemed was worth four passes in traditional subjects. Pupils with just one other pass were judged to have the equivalent of five. Students were described as successes even though they had not passed in English or Mathematics.

The Academy results were in fact worse than the average and worse than what they achieved as an ordinary school. The only real academic success they can claim is a refinement in the skills of cheating.

Divine intervention

I listened enthralled to a story about the final days of the last war as the retreat from the Polish capital was in its final stages.

One SS soldier had been dispatched to shoot as many local resistance people he could find and then beat a retreat from the city. He located one fighter and had in his gun sight.

As he was about to pull the trigger, a thunderous voice from the heavens boomed out, “STOP. If you kill this man, you will kill a future Pope.” Dumbfounded the soldier thanked God for avoiding the guilt of such a killing. The voice from heaven, thundered again “Don’t worry; you’ll be the one after.”

Tough but wrong

No choice on pay

The biggest event of Parliament’s first week back has hardly been mentioned. Yet history will mark 2008 as the year of pension’s reform in the same way that 1974 is recalled for the creation of SERPS.  It’s not mentioned because it’s not sexy or controversial and the tabloids cannot make knocking copy of a major reform supported by all parties.

Today’s biggest political news is MPs’ pay. It’s inconceivable that MPs would vote themselves a pay rise greater that the going rate of 1.9% -even though 2.6% was recommended to keep in line with inflation. The Police have cooked their goose by engaging lobbyists to organise their campaign.  They have inundated MPs with an identical lobbyist letter that serving police had been persuaded to sign. That is poor tactics. Only hand-written individual letters convince MPs that there is genuine unhappiness. The ministers responsible cannot change the 1.9% settlement without causing the whole anti-inflation House of Cards to topple.  Gordon Brown has steeled himself to taking tough decisions. He will not sabotage his own main economic weapon.

Nuclear mess
While it’s commendable to take firm tough stand regardless of public opinion when you are right, it’s a calamity to do the same things when you are wrong.

Already the Government has been humiliated by their first rushed decision on nuclear power. The courts insisted that the consultation be repeated. The second one is not much better.

Going nuclear is not a bold decision; it’s  a surrender to the powerful vested interests of the nuclear power establishment plus some trade unions.

* Nuclear power has never been competitive financially – even though the industry has dumped the eternal cost of its waste on to taxpayers.

* No nuclear station can be on-line in Britain before 2020 – long after our energy shortage will hit us.

* Nuclear is more vulnerable to sabotage and terrorism that any other energy source.

* The clean energy renewables, especially tidal and marine power, are practical, cheap and rely on power that is immense, British and eternal.

If a commitment is to be made in the Commons on Tuesday, sparks will fly. The Tories a year ago said they would support nuclear only if no other option was available. What will they do now?  Oppose or gutlessly prevaricate?

My bet is the second. Cowardice is more common political attribute than courage.

Why?

An e-mailer has offered to sell me a numberplate that he owns. It's F11 YNN. I'm baffled. Why does anyone need their name on their numberplate? Insecurity? Flaunting wealth? I'm at an age when people forget names. Nevertheless, I have a firm memory of my own. It's no thanks.

The silent three

It gets murkier.

Omerta is the tactic of the three leaders of Cardiff Chamber of commerce. A newspaper left messages with chief executive Russell Goodway, head of policy Claire Saralis and president Paul Gardner. No one returned the calls.

The claim is that the money problems are twice as bad as expected – up to £2 million. How can such a body run up these mega debts that appear unprecedented?

There is a hint of a confession on their website. The Chamber write that they have been paid significant payments to which they ‘were not entitled.' And nobody noticed?  What’s worse is “At the same time an element of unsupported claims were submitted which has increased that liability.” Unsupported by what? Evidence? The Truth? False Accounting? Who knows?

The silence of the three responsible cannot continue. The Chief Executive Russell Goodway has been invisible. He is not usually at a loss for words. As chief executive, he should have a few ideas on what has been going on.

Prosperity and dereliction are both contagious. The collapse of trust in the Cardiff body is a body blow to all of south Wales. The call for a mega-Chamber covering the three Welsh cities is a sensible one.

Let’s hear some warm support from Cardiff A bit of humility would not be amiss either. That’s after the three have recovered their power of speech.

Thought laws
A group of unexpected allies are marshalled to kill a ‘gay-hate law’ next Wednesday.
It’s part of the new Criminal Justice bill, which has bitterly divided gay individuals and organisations.

Stonewall give an example of a rap that they want to ban. The lyric reads: ‘Roll deep motherf***a, kill pussy-s***er [lesbians]’; and ‘Tek a Bazzoka and kill batty-f***ers [homosexual men].’ All very offensive violent threats that outrage us. But will legislation change it?

No, says Matthew Parris, Peter Tatchell and Iain Dale and a host of others supporters of Stonewall. The Christian Institute – a body not renown for their liberal views, has sent copies of the columnists objections to all MPs.

Comedian Rowan Atkinson has argued passionately that tolerance of an opinion is not the same as accepting it. Laws telling us what we should think should not be part of the criminal justice system.

As Matthew Parris concludes that we have a precedent in a law that set out to criminalise undesirable beliefs. It was Section 28.

When will politicians realise that not all of life’s irritations can  be solved by legislation and prohibition?

Sanity strikes back

 
What a bracing champagne start to the day.

America has emphatically recovered from its wretched warmongering Bush-induced psychosis. The bumper stickers in 2003 read “Kick Saddam’s ass and grab the gas.”

The divide between Hilary Clinton and Barak Obama was Iraq. Her support for Bush’s war cannot be erased. Obama can justifiably flaunt his opposition to a disaster that killed a million people and achieved little – if anything.

Obama’s handsome majority from a conservative state defied prejudice, error and massive patronage from dodgy commercial interests. The result is as heartening as the vote that I witnessed last year in Massachusetts The black Democrat candidate Deval Patick was attacked by a now notorious negative commercial. It showed a dark threatening garage and a sinister figure of a black man. The commentary said that Deval Patick defends rapists. (It’s his job – he is a defence lawyer). The juxtaposition of threatening music, a black man and rape was intended to scupper the Democrat.

It rebounded on the Republican woman candidate Kerry Healey. Patick became the first democrat Governor of Massachusetts for decades and only the second black Governor in the United States history.

After the oppressive misery of news from Kenya and Pakistan, the possibility of a tough, non-corrupt black United States President offers hope of a return to sanity.

Atrophied
By an odd coincidence, my day started at BBC Wales with an 8.00 A.M interview with the wonderful Assembly Environment Minister Jane Davidson.

We met flying out of Boston airport after Patick’s election. Jane was speaking at an education conference. I was there with my select committee. Today was all sweetness and light between us.

We agreed on the similarities between Obama and Patick. Although it probably made boring radio, we also agreed on the historic role that the Welsh blogosphere played in the formation of the One Wales coalition.

Interviewer Oliver Hyde did his best to set a few sparks flying on blogging. Jane had abandoned her blog. I am a near daily blogger. But yawn making as it was, we agreed that ministers have many other avenues for advancing their views. Jane’s blog was an attempt at reaching young people in the election.

The blogs of Peter Hain and many other ministers have also atrophied. Blogging is not sensible for them – especially as some ministers have allowed their civil servants to write their blogs – in unreadable civilservicese.
America has many powerfully influential blogs that attract millions of hits a day. They are the best hope for challenging the country’s corrupted democracy. No one has threatened to sue the Washington’s Citizens Group that has published a book on the ’22 most corrupt congressmen.’ No one will, because corruption is endemic. The blogs destabilise the comfortable murky alliances of politicians, lobbyists and big business.

Wales will follow the USA. The future of politics will be determined by a burgeoning blogosphere.

Overtreated

Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker.

A publishing sensation of the above title is likely to become America’s book of the year. Respected journalist Shannon Brownlee has sharp lessons for us all. Going beyond the simple conclusions of Michael Moore's Sicko, this serious study produces startling conclusions from hard facts.

* A 2003 study of one million Medicare recipients, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that patients in hospitals that spent the most were 2% to 6% more likely to die than patients in hospitals that spent the least.

* $Billions per year are spent on unnecessary tests and drugs and on specialists who are rewarded more for some procedures than for more appropriate ones.

* A pharmaceutical salesperson confesses to financing a physician's swimming pool to get the doc to write more prescriptions.

* Americans spend between one-fifth and one-third of health-care dollars on unnecessary treatments, medications, devices, and tests. What's worse, there are an estimated 30,000 deaths per annum caused by this unnecessary care.

Understandably the book Overtreated is enjoying rave reviews: -

“Finally, someone willing to expose the dirty little secret of US health care. If you have insurance you will certainly get too much health care, and in this situation more is definitely not better—Susan Love, M.D

The Conde Nast Portfolio commends Brownlee for showing  “why Americans spend so much on health care yet are in measurably poorer shape than the residents of just about every other developed nation."

Shannon Brownlee explains how well-insured Americans get much more high-tech medical care -- CT scans, angiograms, and the like -- than they need, enriching the hospitals and doctors who provide it, but driving up the overall costs of health care and often endangering patients' lives. Brownlee clearly shows in this important book that overtreatment, like undertreatment, is very bad medicine.”—Marcia Angell Harvard Medical School

Brownlee’s solution is to replicate the best medical treatment enjoyed by Army Veterans. This can only be done by breaking down the conspiracy of greed of America’s pharmaceutical companies, hospitals and insurances companies.

Slammer beckons
Billy Bunter look-alike and Prince Charles groupie Nicholas Soames MP is under investigation by the fuzz.

In 2001 I put down an Early Day Motion on the way the Dyfed-Powys Police had imprioned some of my innocent constituents for feeding ducks.

That this House notes the arrest by Dyfed-Powys Police of 12 ramblers caught in the act of feeding ducks and their subsequent imprisonment for five hours; notes the comment of the group's solicitor that the police are 'keen to arrest people if there is a fox hunt nearby' even when those concerned are not involved in any protest; is delighted that the ramblers have been compensated for wrongful arrest; and looks forward for similar diligence from the police in apprehending hunters when their activity becomes unlawful.

As reported on yesterday’s blog, Soames was filmed riding a quad bike on a public road a child is seen behind Mid Sussex MP Mr Soames as he towed two more children in a trailer in Slaugham, West Sussex, while following a New Year's Day hunt.

None of the children are seen to be strapped in or wearing crash helmets in the footage which was shot by hunt monitors. A spokeswoman for Mr Soames said today he was away and had no comment.

He told the Mirror: "I hold my hands up, I was on a public road. I didn't realise I was breaking the law but ignorance is no defence. I'm sorry."

This is one case, where the courts must be merciless.

Brunstrom or Bryant?

Drug-pushers
Telling the truth is dangerous. The North Wales Chief Constable was ridiculed by the Daily Mail. Rhondda MP Chris Bryant followed up with an opportunist echo complaining that expressing the truth is dangerous. He wants Brunstrom to resign for being caught in possession of an intelligent idea.

The infantile case put by Chris is that drugs are dangerous, therefore they should be prohibited. In Commons debates the superficiality of Bryant’s case has been exposed. It’s not difficult to understand. Let me try again to explain, Chris.

Prohibiting drugs does not reduce their use.
Prohibition multiplies drug use, crime and deaths.

There was no illegal drug use in Eastern Europe before 1990 when the Iron Curtain came down. The former communist countries fought the influx of drugs by aping Western prohibition. They now have 5 million addicts. In Moscow there is a vast hospital filled with children born with Aids. Nearly all them children of drug addicts. They are the victims of prohibition.

Twenty years ago I wrote an article in the Rhondda Leader making this point. Opposing it was an article by a local policeman saying that youth clubs and harsh laws were the answer. Those who refuse to listen to the reformers should shoulder the blame for scourge of drugs on the lives of the young people of the Rhondda.

In 2001 the Portuguese in face of opposition from the prohibitionists de-penalised all drugs. The numbers of deaths has been reduced by 50%.  Rhondda’s drug use has ballooned disgracefully. Prohibitionists, take responsibility for the consequences of your stupidity.

Truth
What Brunstrom said was unremarkable, until it was tabloidised into an absurdity by the Daily Mail headline. He said

"If you look at the government's own research into deaths you'll find that ecstasy, by comparison to many other substances - legal and illegal - is comparably a safe substance."

The scientific ranking of drugs (The Lancet -March 2007) from the most to the least dangerous is

   1. Heroin
   2. Cocaine
   3. Barbiturates
   4. Street Methadone
   5. Alcohol
   6. Ketamine
   7. Benzodiazepines
   8. Amphetamines
   9. Tobacco
   10. Buprenorphine.
   11. Cannabis -
   12. Solvents
   13. 4-MTA
   14. LSD
   15. Methylphenidate Ritalin.
   16. Anabolic steroids
   17. GHB - short for Gamma hydroxybutyrate,
   18. Ecstasy
   19. Alkyl nitrates
   20. Khat

It is estimated that tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is involved in more than 50 percent of all visits to hospital emergency rooms. The bottom line: alcohol and tobacco are two of the most dangerous substances that you can expose yourself to on a regular basis. In terms of overall potential to cause harm, if used regularly, alcohol and tobacco belong in the same category as other recreational drugs like cocaine and heroin.

Chris Bryant would serve his constituents better if he tried to gain an intelligent grasp of the subject before seeking his own publicity rush.

Chamber-fade

Russell Goodway, the former leader of Cardiff Council and current chief executive of the city's Chamber of Commerce, was not on the television tonight announcing the extraordinary news that the Chamber appears to be bankrupt. Is he still in charge?

Last year he announced that he intended to market Newport's Ryder Cup in 2010 as a Cardiff event.  Now Newport and Swansea Chambers are rushing in to rescue the ruined Cardiff outfit.

What is going on?

Law breaking MP

Pictured : Tory MP Nicholas Soames, who The Sunday Times famously dubbed Fat Boy Dim, filmed driving the quad bike and trailer bearing no registration plate contrary to the Road Traffic Act and illegally loaded with five adults and several unrestrained children.

A spokesman for West Sussex Wildlife Protection, which monitors the Crawley and Horsham hunt for offences under the Hunting Act, said: "Initially we heard Nicholas Soames was on a quad bike that was overloaded. We thought nothing of it, because with his considerable bulk this was quite likely. However we were astonished to see him on a public road just north of his home at Bells Farm, Slaugham, West Sussex, with several unrestrained young children and adults racing along on a quad bike with no registration plate. He was desperate to keep up with the hunt and seemed unworried if the children lost their teeth on the metal rim of his quad bike trailer."

He also appears to be driving on the wrong side of the road.