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Some Scottish sheep are apparently getting smaller (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Climate change is causing a breed of wild sheep in Scotland to shrink, according to research.
Scientists say milder winters help smaller sheep to survive, resulting in this "paradoxical decrease in size".
Classic evolutionary theory would predict that wild sheep gradually get bigger, as the stronger, larger animals survive into adulthood and reproduce.
Reporting in Science journal, the team says this shows the "subtle interplay" between evolution and the environment.
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"In the past, only the big, healthy sheep and large lambs that had piled on weight in their first summer could survive the harsh winters on Hirta," said Professor Coulson.Because of climate change, he explained, grass for food is now available for more months of the year on the island.
"Survival conditions are not so challenging - even the slower growing sheep have a chance of making it, and this means smaller individuals are becoming increasingly prevalent in the population," he said.
The team also found that younger sheep tended to give birth to smaller lambs - a phenomenon they termed "the young mum effect".
This effect, said Professor Coulson, combined with environmental changes had "overriden what we would expect through natural selection".
To say that there is "subtle interplay between evolution and the environment" is rather misleading. It is not "subtle" at all. And environmental changes have not "overriden what we would expect through natural selection". The environment is one of the main drivers of evolution. Genes that might be useful in one environmental context might not be useful (or so useful) in another.
Rate of biodiversity loss is allegedly not decreasing (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
An unacceptable number of species are still being lost forever despite world leaders pledging action to reverse the trend, a report has warned.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says the commitment to reduce biodiversity loss by 2010 will not be met.
It warns that a third of amphibians, a quarter of mammals and one-in-eight birds are threatened with extinction.
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Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of the IUCN's Species Programme, warned that the scale of "wildlife crisis" was far worse than the current global economic crisis."It is time to recognise that nature is the largest company on Earth working for the benefit of 100% of humankind," he said.
Vie is completely wrong. Nature is not the "largest company on Earth". And Nature is not "working for the benefit of 100% of humankind". What Vie was really probably trying to say was that Nature happens to provide benefits for humans, such as water meadows which can help reduce flooding. But of course Nature also provides disbenefits for humans, such as viruses. The so-called conservationists just happen to always ignore the latter and focus on the former. In any case, the phrase "working for the benefit of 100% of humankind" is just completely misguided, no matter what side of the equation you are looking at. Nature just is.
On the question of extinction, there are more and more humans consuming more and more resources of the planet, and so it follows pretty trivially from that that there will be less and less of other species. So does the IUCN want there to be fewer humans or poorer humans or both? And by how much?
A new agricultural research centre opens in Norwich (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Britain's biotechnology research council the BBSRC will this week open a research centre to decode the DNA of plants and animals used in agriculture.
Among its aims is to help farmers boost food production.
Research will focus on economically and socially important plants such as wheat and ryegrass.
It's also hoped that the work will lead to breeding of livestock better able to resist emerging diseases, such as Bluetongue.
Scientists at The Genome Analysis Centre (TGAC) also hope to help develop crops with increased tolerance to drought and new antibiotics to fight 'superbugs'.
This reads just like a press release, and that is unfortunate, because this is a welcome development. The BBC, along with most of the rest of the academic middle class (led by the so-called environmentalists), have tried to do everything in their power the last decade to lower food production. In particular they have demonised GM food technology (helped along by some ridiculous posturing by Monsanto). Unbelievably the BBC does not mention GM at all in this article (yet again showing it must be a press release). Do they have a clue what all this "genome analysis" is for?
The government should be building houses where people want to live (permanent blog link)
The University of Cambridge says:
The Government”s policy of concentrating new housing in existing urban areas and on “brownfield sites” is not working and could build up problems for the future, according to new research into urban growth.
The £1.5m 'SOLUTIONS' study by five universities shows that high density urban housing developments could be incubators for a raft of social and economic problems. In the South East, it calculates that the policy could increase production and housing costs by £30 billion a year by 2031.
The researchers, lead by Professor Marcial Echenique in the Department of Architecture, instead propose a policy of 'sustainable suburbs' which, although they would inevitably encroach on green belt land, would reduce living costs and provide housing in which people wanted to live.
Most housing planners do not believe this. Most housing planners want the peasants to be stuffed into high-density housing, i.e. the slums of tomorrow built today. So it is refreshing when the odd group comes up with a far more sane proposition. But heaven forbid that the government has a housing policy that actually provides for what people want, whatever next.
The Royal Society thinks the peasants should eat cake (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Britain's energy systems are no longer fit for purpose, according to leading members of the UK's best-known scientific academy, the Royal Society.
A meeting of experts at the society said the government must invest hugely to create a new low-carbon economy.
And it must take on the big generating companies who dominate energy policy, participants said.
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The group's vice-chairman, Lord Redesdale, said the UK would never reach its climate change targets unless it radically improved policies on existing homes.He said: "A billion tonnes will have failed to be saved from domestic carbon emissions and this is equivalent to the CO2 pollution from Britain's aviation sector over the next 25 years.
"We can either heat our homes and have hot baths, or fly but not both. There really does need to be much tougher policies on reducing carbon emissions from the homes."
You have to be pretty dumb to say "we can either heat our homes and have hot baths, or fly but not both". Is Lord Redesdale (a Lib Dem) going to give up one or the other, now or in the future? Of course not, he just wants the peasants to do so. The Royal Society ought to put people in charge who are not so ridiculous in their world view. Unfortunately, most of the British ruling elite have this attitude, and at some point some populist leader (hopefully not some extremist nutter) is going to take advantage of the ruling elite's contempt for the ordinary people of Britain.
Orchard Park (Arbury Park) is not very well designed (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Residents of an unfinished housing estate are living on a building site and are cut off by busy roads that act as "barriers", according to a council report.
A Cambridge City Council review of Orchard Park highlights "lessons to be learned" on the 900-home development, where only half the homes are occupied after building work stalled during the credit crunch.
Although Orchard Park is the responsibility of South Cambridgeshire District Council (SCDC), the city council wants to avoid making the same mistakes on developments in Cambridge. And boundary changes could see Orchard Park transferred to the city.
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City councillors have also criticised moves to build residential units next to the A14 on the margin of the site.Cllr Sian Reid, executive councillor for climate change and growth, said: "It is wrong to force people to live on the edge of huge dual carriageway, because physical and mental well-being suffer from noise and poor air quality."
Well, it is very easy for one set of bureaucrats to criticise another, it would be far more meaningful if South Cambs had their own report.
The criticism about "barriers" is a bit ridiculous because the A14 and King's Hedges Road were there long before Orchard Park (Arbury Park) was even imagined. And the masterplanners, John Thompson and Partners, specifically mentioned the issue of the King's Hedges Road being a barrier at a meeting on 31 August 2002, at which bureaucrats and politicians from both South Cambs and the city attended.
At that meeting it was also suggested by a member of the public that it would be good to have a line of office buildings along the A14 to shield the residents from the noise and pollution, and in theory that was taken on board. But there are currently no offices on site and it's hard to see any being built in the next N years. There is now a Premier Inn at one end, but it doesn't do much by itself. And unfortunately on the easternmost third of the site they have built housing far too close to the A14 (and the Guided Bus route). Especially since the A14 is supposed to be widened (if the government ever gets around to it).
As it happens, the developers, Gallagher, put up a fence along the A14, and that shields the noise reasonably well. In fact the A14 noise can be heard far from the Orchard Park estate, so a good half a km or more away, especially at night, but it's not a big issue unless you are sensitive to noise. The pollution is another matter.
And the phrase "lessons to be learned" is a bit obnoxious. Will anyone take responsibility and resign or be sacked? Of course not.
The UK government fights for the citizens of China over emissions (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The prime minister is to pledge UK leadership in the international battle against climate change.
He is due to launch a document showing what the UK will offer to the Copenhagen conference tasked with forging a new global climate agreement.
Climate Secretary Ed Miliband described the conference as "make or break time for the climate".
The Road to Copenhagen document will outline plans for ongoing emissions cuts in the UK.
It will also contain practical advice to people on how they can cut emissions and often save money too.
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The climate department DECC says, for instance, that although China's total emissions are immense, the average European is responsible for emitting twice as much greenhouse gases as the average person in Chinese.But the official tally of emissions does not include aviation and shipping, and it takes no account of emissions embedded in imported goods.
When these are taken into account, the institute calculates that the average UK resident pollutes 15 tonnes a year - almost five times more than the average Chinese person at 3.1 tonnes a year.
This implies that the UK should be making much deeper cuts in emissions than are already planned.
It is good that people are finally worrying about "emissions embedded in imported goods", because it makes a complete mockery of the EU (and Kyoto treaty) emission targets, which completely ignore this inconvient fact. On the other hand, the purpose of the UK government should not be to ensure that UK citizens become as poor as Chinese ones, which is what Miliband is proposing.
In a related story, the BBC says:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown wants to set up a £60bn annual fund to help poor countries deal with climate change.
Well, Brown doesn't say how much he expects the UK to fork over, but given the size of the UK economy relative to the other "rich" countries, perhaps 6 billion per year. This is equivalent to a couple of pence on income tax. The politicians (and the media) should be honest with the British public and say this loud and clear. No doubt instead they will pretend it is all cost free to the British public, because they know full well the British public would oppose it if they knew the real amount. And inevitably, this kind of slush fund would mostly end up in the hands of bankers and lawyers (to broker the deals) and corrupt politicians. And it's not exactly the case that the British government can afford to throw around yet more billions of pounds that it doesn't have.
A Brief History of Time will allegedly be remembered in 150 years (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time is the contemporary publication most likely to have the same impact for future generations as Darwin's On the Origin of Species, according to a Cambridge poll.
The online survey, run by Cambridge University, asked staff, students and alumni which contemporary scientist most deserves to be honoured in 200 years, and which science publication of the past half-century should be remembered in 150 years.
How embarrassing can it get? The Cambridge News does not say how the survey was conducted, and in particular how this question was asked, but anyone who thinks that A Brief History of Time will even be remembered in 50 years, never mind 150, is sadly deluded. A Brief History of Time had no new science in it, and it did not change anyone's world view. It was just a "popular" science book, where "popular" means "lots of people bought it" rather than "it explained science to non-scientists" (since it was notoriously one of those books that nobody read, it was so incomprehensible). To rank it with On the Origin of Species is ridiculous.
Cambridge stops a hotel from being built on Newmarket Road (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Plans for a 220-bed hotel, thought to be a Travelodge, in Cambridge have been withdrawn after public opposition.
Developers Eastern Gate Properties had put forward proposals for the hotel on the south side of Newmarket Road.
But after Cambridge City Council officers recommended refusal of the plans, they were withdrawn before the planning committee met on Wednesday.
The scheme, opposed by the Riverside Area Residents' Association, was seen as too big for the site.
Residents felt the planned hotel was too big and would cause traffic problems.
The Cambridge News should have said that "the usual academic middle class NIMBYs felt the planned hotel was too big because they oppose all change". The bit about "traffic problems" is just a catch all phrase that anybody who opposes anything in Cambridge uses as a convient excuse. (Since of course traffic is evil, at least that caused by anyone except for the usual academic middle class suspects themselves. Not surprisingly the residents of Riverside own plenty of cars.)
Unfortunately all developers know that the NIMBYs will always complain no matter what. So all developers ask for more than they want. If they are lucky it gets through, if they are unlucky then they go away and come back with a smaller plan and say they have "compromised" and everyone is supposed to be happy. But nobody ever worries about whether the design is any good or not, only whether there is allegedly too much traffic, and whether the academic middle class can emotionally cope with the proposed change. It's why British urban design is so bad.
As it happens, that part of Newmarket Road is a complete dump, and the residents of Riverside deserve to continue having to look at that eyesore every day for the forseeable future. The same thing happened with Mitcham's Corner N years ago. The academic middle class objected to the plans there, and as a result the Staples eyesore (well, except for the cute parking ramp) is still around, years later. And the proposed Cambridge railway station development has gotten worse and worse the more and more that the academic middle class have managed to skewer the planning.
The government should invest in roads more than rail (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The government is wrongly prioritising investment in rail over roads, despite 92% of all passenger journeys in the UK being made by car, the RAC has said.
According to the motoring body, "the road network is the true provider of public transport".
It said focusing on roads, not rail, would bring much higher rates of return for every £1 of public money spent.
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More than £5bn of public money was invested in rail in 2006/07 compared with £4.8bn on roads.Some £15bn has been earmarked for rail over the next five years, compared with £6bn to improve the strategic road network in England.
The DfT's public service agreement requires it to prioritise spending in order to get the highest rate of return for every £1 of public money spent.
The RAC Foundation said it wanted to know "why this clear procedure is being ignored by ministers".
It quoted figures from the 2006 government-commissioned Eddington Transport Study, which showed the average benefit-cost ratios (BCR) for transport schemes.
Highways Agency roads had a much higher BCR of 4.66, compared with 2.83 for heavy rail schemes and 2.14 for light rail schemes.
The RAC said that of 35 rail expansion schemes suggested last week by the Association of Train Operating Companies, just two had a BCR above 2.0.
It is about time that the RAC made more of a fuss about the blatant anti-car ideology of UK transport planners. The AA should do the same. Unfortunately cycling organisations, for example, with the odd thousand members, get much more attention than do the car organisations, with millions of members. And this is not just because of the academic middle class bias of the media, the civil service and politicians. It is also because the RAC and AA are pretty useless at representing the interests of their members.
The article does not even make the point that car drivers pay many times over into the government what they get out, whereas it is the exact opposite for train customers. That is a far more important issue than the BCR figure.
Manchester Against Road Tolls exhorts Cambridge to drop its scheme (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Campaigners trying to kill off the idea of a congestion charge for Cambridge have been warned they face a tough fight.
Sean Corker, co-ordinator of Manchester Against Road Tolls, said opponents would have to fight hard "to overcome intransigent politicians allied with highly vocal minority interest groups".
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Since the vote in Greater Manchester, a new scheme has been worked out for the area, involving £1.4 billion of investment - but no congestion charge.Mr Corker said council officials and cycling groups in Cambridgeshire had made inaccurate statements about what had happened in Manchester.
He said: "It has been suggested the £1.4 billion does not contain new money, but in fact it does - there is £165 million for a new bypass for Stockport.
"The original £2.75 billion plan included £650 million to put in the congestion- charging infrastructure and £600 million contingency in case of revenue shortfall or cost over-runs.
"Only £1.5 billion was earmarked for public transport investment.
"Instead of drivers paying up to £5 per day, everybody will now contribute an extra £2 per person per year in council tax."
It is not just a matter of "intransigent politicians allied with highly vocal minority interest groups", although they play a big role. It is also that many of the politicians who support the "congestion charge" (i.e. access tax) don't live anywhere near Cambridge and just see this as a way of milking the people who live in and near Cambridge for some money for their own towns. And the transport bureaucrats in the county council are also "intransigent" and a big part of the problem (they seem incapable of transport planning, for one thing). The county council did not help its case when it could not even spell out exactly how it would spend, or why it needed, the alleged windfall it was expecting from central government. All in all it is a classic example of the academic middle class people who run Cambridge(shire) sticking two fingers up to the peasants and assuming they will get away with it.
The latest climate projection for the UK (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The UK needs to plan now for a future that will be hotter and bring greater extremes of flood and drought, says Environment Secretary Hilary Benn.
Launching the UK Climate Projections 2009 report (UKCP09), Mr Benn told MPs that the UK climate will change even with a global deal on emissions.
By 2080, London will be between 2C and 6C hotter than it is now, he said.
Every part of the UK is likely to be wetter in winter and drier in summer, according to the projections.
Summer rainfall could decrease by about 20% in the south of England and in Yorkshire and Humberside by the middle of the century.
Scotland and the north-west of England could see winter rainfall increase by a similar amount.
They have been saying for years and years that the UK will end up with a Mediterranean style climate. Although Benn and the BBC (and the rest of the academic middle class) paint this as the end of the world, for most British people this sounds good.
Brown launches another likely pointless Iraq inquiry (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
An independent inquiry into the Iraq war will be held in private, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told MPs.
Opposition parties - and many Labour MPs - have been calling for the probe since shortly after the 2003 invasion.
It will start next month and take at least a year, Mr Brown said. It will not aim to "apportion blame", he added.
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The government had been urged to hold the inquiry in public, but Mr Brown said he must take into account national security, and avoid damaging Britain's military capability.It was designed on a similar basis, he added, to the Franks inquiry into the 1982 Falklands War, and it would aim to identify "lessons learned".
He added it would hear evidence in private so witnesses could be "as candid as possible".
The telling phrase is "as candid as possible". So in a private inquiry it is only "decent chaps" who will be involved, so witnesses can be as sloppy or as "economical" with the truth as desired, without much fear of being called out on it. In a public inquiry everyone can point out fallacies and distortions in the evidence. Needless to say, civil servants and politicians do not like the thought of that. On the other hand, everyone already knows that the country became embroiled in this illegal war based on evidence that was at best misleading and at worst downright lies and propaganda. The only possible point of any inquiry is if the establishment is finally ready to admit this, and that seems unlikely, so this inquiry is likely to be pointless. Brown didn't have the guts not to back Blair in this misadventure, so Brown is not much freer from guilt than Blair himself. But neither are the Tories, who at the time were happy to wave flags and not provide any critical analysis of this disasterous policy decision.
Men are allegedly more likely to die of cancer than women (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The reluctance of men to adopt a healthy lifestyle and visit the doctor may be fuelling a gender gap in cancer cases and deaths, experts say.
Among cancers which affect both sexes, men are 60% more likely to develop the disease and 70% more likely to die from it, Cancer Research UK said.
There is no known biological reason for this but it may be because women take better care of themselves, they said.
Amazing, eh. Whenever there is a "gender gap" that means men have better outcomes than women, then the academic middle class (e.g. the BBC) jumps to the conclusion that it must be sexism that is driving the result. But whenever the outcome favours women, then it must be that men are dolts and it's their own fault. Here in particular, perhaps the NHS is biased against men and towards women when it comes to cancer detection and treatment, but the BBC completely ignores this possibility.
Of course the result could also be skewed because it ignores cancers that do not affect both sexes, and if women are more likely to die from those cancers before the cancers being studied here, then that would affect even the relevance, never mind the interpretation, of the results.
Baroque exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum (permanent blog link)
The Victoria and Albert Museum is having an exhibition with the title "Baroque 1620-1800: Style in the Age of Magnificence" (running from 4 April until 19 July 2009). This is a difficult exhibition to have put together, because the best of the baroque is the architecture, and you just can't bring most of that into a museum (except indirectly, via films, which is not the same thing).
They have put the exhibition on in their usual exhibition space but it is amazingly thinly occupied in comparison to most of their recent exhibitions. The stuff they have is fairly eclectic (including discussions of theatre design, as well as the more obvious points about architecture, furniture and sculpture), and, as to be expected, high quality (except for the couple of tapestries). But it's not going to excite most people, and it's not going to be a blockbuster exhibition.
On Fridays the V&A is open late, including the exhibition. But many, if not most, of the galleries closed at their usual times, so in some sense it's not really open late, and it is a bit of a pity that such a great museum has to penny pinch in this way.
Doctors want to prevent older women from having children (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
An urgent public debate on the trend for women to delay motherhood is needed, leading doctors say.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists will publish evidence on Monday about the increased medical risks of pregnancy for older mothers.
Doctors are also concerned many women still do not understand how rapidly fertility declines after the age of 35.
But other experts said progress in the health service meant the NHS could cope with the trend.
Doctors are the worst control freaks of all. When they say there should be a "debate" they mean that they should have power over people to decide what is and is not allegedly best for them. Needless to say, they haven't a clue what is and is not best for people, and they should certainly have no power in this way. Although the patronising doctors might think otherwise, older women know full well there are "increased medical risks of pregnancy". On the other hand, older women are generally wiser and richer, which are two important compensating factors that make it not unlikely they are just as good if not better parents than younger women.
Labour tries to tie future governments to its poverty goals (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Ministers are making it a legal duty for the government, local authorities and other organisations to help to end child poverty across the UK.
The government looks set to miss its own targets on cutting the numbers of children living in poverty.
A new bill being published later will make it a duty to support families so that child poverty is eradicated by 2020, the goal set by Tony Blair.
Campaigners say this means future governments cannot easily drop the aim.
The latest figures available, for 2007/8, put the number of children living in poverty at 2.9 million.
Poverty in this case is measured relatively - those who live in households with an income of less than 60% of the average.
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Under the Child Poverty Bill, a legal duty to work together to support families to end child poverty will be placed on central government, councils and services including the police, NHS primary care trusts and youth offending agencies.
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It sets out four targets to be met by 2020 across the UK, which the government says will "define the eradication of poverty".These include having fewer than 10% of children living in relative low income poverty (i.e. in households with less than 60% of average).
The poverty definition is relative, so it's extremely unlikely it will ever be eliminated. So the "campaigners" have a job for life. But the "campaigners" are extremely naive if they believe that "future governments cannot easily drop the aim". Labour is about to get kicked out of office (in a big way) and the idea that these last minute bills will force future parliaments to do what they want is fantasy (and just wrong, and undemocratic, constitutionally). And an organisation (like this, or any, government) is obviously up to no good if it defines "10% of children living in relative low income poverty" as being "the eradication of poverty". "Eradication" normally means "0". And what are the police supposed to do to help "end child poverty"? Steal money from the workers without children and give it to the non-workers with children? Well, that's effectively what the government does already, but what does it have to do with the police, are they going to do it at the point of a gun instead of via the tax system?
Tim Berners-Lee wants UK government data opened up (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Sir Tim Berners-Lee has told the BBC that the job he has been given by Gordon Brown is an important one that goes beyond party politics.
The inventor of the world wide web has been asked by the prime minister to help open up access to government data.
"I think there's a public demand for transparency. This is way beyond party politics and beyond global borders," Sir Tim said.
He said taxpayers' money paid for the data so it should be available to them.
Well, good luck to him, but it will be amazing if he gets anything substantive to happen on this front. For example, the Ordnance Survey has completely digitised their maps of the UK. Will that data be made public (for free)? Or only the inconsequential data that some civil servant can dredge up from some filing cabinet somewhere? The OS has for years charged exorbitant amounts for their mapping data, which is why google rules the world on maps, even for the UK.
Policymakers have their transport energy usage sums wrong (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Policymakers must consider more than just "tailpipe" emissions when assessing the impacts of different modes of transport, say researchers.
Many analyses overlook greenhouse gases emitted in constructing and maintaining travel infrastructures, they added.
The team found that, based on passenger kilometres travelled, off-peak urban bus services were more carbon-intensive than flights by commercial aircraft.
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The researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, said the importance of tackling emissions from transport meant that decisions should not be based on partial data."Governmental policy has historically relied on energy and emission analysis of automobiles, buses, trains and aircraft at their tailpipe," they wrote.
"[This ignores] vehicle production and maintenance, infrastructure provision and fuel production requirements to support these modes.
"To date, a comprehensive life-cycle assessment (LCA) of passenger transportation in the US has not been completed."
It is amazing how often the academic middle class people who run the country completely ignore life cycle analysis and instead focus on one narrow component of energy usage (which just happens to shore up their anti-car and anti-plane mentality). At least here this is one study which tries to go further. But this study itself is not complete because they ignore the indirect energy usage (and so emissions) due to labour.
Hilary Benn thinks dates on food should be removed (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
The days of sell-by and best-before dates could be numbered as ministers look at ways of reducing the amount of food needlessly thrown away.
Ministers are considering phasing out some guidelines and re-phrasing others but face opposition from retailers who say it will not reduce food waste.
The idea is part of a new UK-wide strategy on packaging and recycling.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said people must "re-think" their attitudes and report cases of excess packaging.
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On food, Mr Benn said many people were confused by the various guidelines and were disposing of perfectly edible items in huge quantities.Instructions could be improved, he said, by focusing on whether food was still safe to eat by a certain date.
Sell-by and display-until labels - used by retailers for stock control - could be phased out completely if stores agree.
Benn is kidding. The best-before (or use-by) dates are there (surprise) to provide an estimate of when the food should be used by. So is he claiming that these dates are wrong (so he knows better than the supermarkets) or is he saying that he wants less food waste and so is willing to put up with more food poisoning as a consequence (for which the supermarkets and the NHS, not Defra, will pick up the bill)? Of course most people themselves make judgements about whether food is edible, and just use the dates as a guideline. But the academic middle class control freaks who run the country evidently think the peasants are fools. And the idea that people "must re-think their attitudes and report cases of excess packaging" is just another patronising indication of the same thing.
Cambridge businesses do not support a "congestion" charge (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Hundreds of Cambridge businesses fear road jams in the city have reached a "critical" level but they do not want a congestion charge, says a new report.
Many believe the charge would drive up business costs - and force companies to move out of the city.
The report, drawn up by consultants hired by Cambridgeshire County Council, was spearheaded by a survey of 800 companies in and around Cambridge.
Four out of 10 said that traffic congestion at peak times was "very bad" or "at a critical level" - and that action must be taken to tackle the crisis for the sake of the future prosperity of the area.
The current gridlock is making it hard for customers and clients to get in and out of the city, and for firms to make business journeys and deliveries.
Only 4 per cent of those questioned rated public transport in Cambridge as very good, and among the solutions demanded were more reliable and more frequent buses - including earlier and later timetables and more capacity at park and ride sites.
Bus fares should also be made "competitive to travel by car".
Asked whether they supported the congestion charge scheme, only one in 10 Cambridge businesses said they were strongly in favour of it, with a further 17 per cent saying they "tend to support it."
But around one in three, 35 per cent, said they "strongly oppose it", with an additional 18 per cent saying they "tend to oppose it".
This adds up to 27 per cent in favour - and 53 per cent against.
A big majority, 76 per cent, believed the transport proposals would increase their costs.
And 41 per cent reckoned they would "encourage businesses to move out of Cambridge."
More bad news for the bureaucrats and politicians who run Cambridgeshire County Council. Even their own (no doubt slanted) survey could not produce the result they wanted.
A lot of the "gridlock" is down to the incompetence and anti-car mentality of the council transport "planners". They are more part of the problem than part of the solution.
Transport issues in general, and the so-called congestion charge in particular, will definitely "encourage businesses to move out of Cambridge".
The winner of the EU Parliamentary elections was apathy (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
Centre-right parties have done well in elections to the European Parliament at the expense of the left.
Far-right and anti-immigrant parties also made gains, as turnout figures plunged to 43% - the lowest since direct elections began 30 years ago.
The UK Labour Party, Germany's Social Democrats and France's Socialist Party were heading for historic defeats.
The centre-right European People's Party (EPP) looks set to continue to hold power in the parliament.
Jose Manuel Barroso, who seems set for a second term as European Commission president following the centre-right success, thanked voters and assured them their voices would be heard.
Barroso cares about as much about what the voters think as David Cameron does. It seems to be the cheap slogan of the day for the ruling elite to allegedly care about what the peasants think. The rise of the extremists on both the left and the right, and the low turnout, are not good signs for the EU.
And the BBC also says:
The Greens say they are "disappointed" not to have won more seats in the European elections despite seeing some "spectacular" increases in their vote.
With results from Northern Ireland and one area of Scotland due, the party has won 8.7% of the vote, up from 6.2% in 2004, and retained its two seats.
...
Its leader Caroline Lucas said the outcome boded well for the future.However, she said the voting system had not properly rewarded her party for the jump in support it had seen.
Another election and another gripe from the Greens, one of the extremist parties on the left, that they were not "properly rewarded". Although they allegedly support PR, it seems they don't support any PR system which doesn't give them as many seats as they think they deserve. The EU parliamentary elections in the UK are based on 12 regions, and a party has to get at least 10% in a region to get a seat. That is fair enough. Currently the Greens, a party by and for the academic middle class, have just gotten above that threshold in the two richest, and so most academic middle class, parts of England, i.e. London and the South East. Some day they may be able to bluster their way further afield, like UKIP, another extremist party, seems to have managed.
Faith-based school admissions allegedly divisive (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
A majority of people in the UK believe offering school places on grounds of religion is likely to undermine "community cohesion", claims a survey.
The Accord group, which campaigns against faith-based admissions, found 57% agreed with its suggestion that choosing by religion could be divisive.
The group accuses some faith schools of "exclusivity and insularity".
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said all English schools had a legal duty to promote cohesion.
And the department says that in practice faith schools have a higher proportion of ethnic minority pupils than other types of state school.
The survey from Accord asked a representative sample of adults whether they agreed that "state funded schools that select students by their religion undermine community cohesion".
It found that 57% either agreed or strongly agreed. And 72% said schools should not have employment policies that "discriminate on grounds of religion or belief".
It is amazing how often the BBC and the rest of the media run stories about allegedly bona fide polls run by special interest pressure groups which just happen to produce results allegedly consistent with the special interest. Polls can easily be slanted, and the results can easily be cherry picked, all for the sake of a juicy press release.
Summer Show at the Royal Academy (permanent blog link)
The Royal Academy's 2009 summer exhibition officially starts on 8 June, with the preview days for Academy "Friends" and "serious" collectors already happening.
Unfortunately, the years do not improve the art on display, and this year seems to have hit a new low. Not surprisingly, the taste is typical upper class English taste, and in art the English upper class have long since lost the plot. The work by the academicians is particularly trite and mostly seriously over-priced. Of course, there was the odd good bit of art, mostly by non-academicians (e.g. a bronze of a raven by Dido Crosby).
On the academician front, Bryan Kneale probably made the best effort, in particular with a large stainless steel sculpture in the forecourt. David Mach had four of his now standard postcard art works (the best one of a lion). At 25k each they are not for the ordinary punter, but three had already sold.
A lot of the academicians stick with the same subject year in and year out, some of them literally. Jennifer Dickson does prints that have evidently been heavily manipulated in Photoshop, and every year it is of formal country gardens. This year she branched out into having one of a church wall. Craigie Aitchison does crucifixion scenes over and over again (not particularly interesting when it is the Nth time in a row), and the main difference from before he was an academician is that the canvases have just gotten bigger.
In recent years the architecture room has been far and away the best, because architects still have to produce models (in 2D or in 3D) that have to resemble what they want to build. Unfortunately this year Will Alsop arranged the architecture room. Alsop seems to be one of those architects who really wanted to be an artist but didn't make it. The room is hung to make it as difficult as possible to see any architecture. Instead presumably we are supposed to be impressed with Alsop's vision of the world. As in most recent years, the best effort is by Eva Jiricna, for a gallery she did for the V&A (in particular, as usual, the staircase).
There was a lot of photography on display in the exhibition this year. But the selection was incredibly weak, with hardly an interesting image in sight. And, in a new departure for the RA, the entire last room was dedicated to videos.
Labour does poorly in local elections (permanent blog link)
The Cambridge News says:
Labour is all but wiped out at Shire Hall - and the Conservative spearheading the controversial guided bus scheme has been kicked out.
Mirroring its woe nationwide, Labour saw its four seats on Cambridgeshire County Council cut to just two, with one of its seats being captured by the Green Party.
And there was a major shock in the Cottenham, Histon and Impington ward, where high profile Conservative Matt Bradney, who has been steering the party”s transport policy and the guided bus scheme, sensationally lost his seat to the Lib Dems.
The county council also has its first Green Party representative - ex-Labour leader of the city council, Simon Sedgwick-Jell, now Green, beat Labour”s leader on the county council, Paul Sales, in Abbey ward.
Labour also lost in Cambridge”s King”s Hedges ward.
Not exactly surprising results. Labour took a hammering everywhere. The defeat of Bradney might mean the end of the (so-called) congestion charge, but only time will tell. The congestion charge would have been one of the top issues in the election for all seats in and around Cambridge were it not for the national scandal to do with MP expenses diverting attention away from local to national issues.
The Lib Dems won the seat lost by Bradney, and they themselves are two faced on the issue of the congestion charge. So the Lib Dems are academic middle class, and so hate cars (at least those driven by the peasants). So they are natural congestion charge supporters. But they know that most voters oppose it (at least in and around Cambridge) so try to have it both ways by claiming that they love it in principle only want special rates for Cambridge drivers, which would make the financial case for the charge much less believable than it is already.
Anyway, ultimately it will be up to the Tories, who control the county council, to decide what will happen with the congestion charge. Many of them represent areas far from Cambridge and of course those councillors think it is a jolly good idea that the people in and around Cambridge should fork over millions of pounds in a new tax all so that (allegedly) lots of central government money can be given to their own areas.
Needless to say, the Green Party is super keen on the congestion charge, since they really, really hate car drivers (being if anything more academic middle class than the Lib Dems). The Abbey ward is not exactly one of the richest parts of Cambridge, and it would be interesting to know how many of the people who voted for the Greens realise that the Greens are going to try and make their lives miserable on the car front (more than the county council has already with their disasterous transport "planning" of Newmarket Road). Heck, the Greens would even close down every Sainsburys and Tescos in the city if they had half a chance. They do not serve the interests of the ordinary people of Abbey ward or Cambridge.
Cambridge Lib Dems claim they love trees, really (permanent blog link)
The local and European elections of course bring out electioneering by the political parties. In Arbury, at least, the Lib Dems deliver far more leaflets than the other political parties combined. Evidently they want to bludgeon the voters into submission.
Their latest "Cambridge Herald" newsletter claims that the "Lib Dems fight for more city trees":
Trees are being felled across Cambridge but the Lib Dems are fighting to preserve them.
Following Addenbrooke's decision to take the axe to a line of cherry trees and the County Council's sudden removal of trees at the railway station, Cambridge Lib Dems are trying to stop or slow down the removal of healthy trees.
The Lib Dems have launched a protocol which the City Council will follow, which will ensure that local residents get plenty of time to object to any proposed tree felling.
This is about as dishonest an article as could be written, and it is amazing that the Lib Dems are not embarrassed to be seen publishing such blatantly misleading information. Yes, the removal of trees at Addenbrooke's and the railway station was bad. But by far and away the biggest killer of trees in Cambridge is the city council, run by (surprise) the Lib Dems. So in the past year the city council has massacred trees at Byron's Pool, Hobson's Conduit, Parker's Piece, and elsewhere.
The article mentions a "protocol", by which presumably they mean the proposed council tree works consultation. One thing the city bureaucrats are good at is producing Word documents, and this latest consultation (about consultation) is quite typical.
First of all, this "protocol" completely misses the issue at hand. What the city really needs is a tree department which has some interest in looking after the trees of Cambridge. Unfortunately the current tree department, given their recent action, is not to be trusted with the trees of Cambridge. That is the real issue. Having consultations in which members of the public can waste hours and days trying to force the city bureaucrats to behave is not a substitute for having city bureaucrats behaving sensibly in the first place.
The Lib Dems run the city. They seem to be either unwilling or incapable of controlling the actions of the tree department. If it is the former then the Lib Dems should not be claiming they are "fighting to preserve" trees. If it is the latter then there is something deficient in Cambridge city democracy. Ultimately the bureaucrats should be held accountable to the politicians, and hence to the voters.
The second problem with the "protocol" is that it seems intended to bypass most of the citizens of Cambridge. So what the city should do is set up an email list which anybody can sign up to, and if and when a tree consultation needs to take place, then everyone on that list is sent an email with further information (e.g. pointing to a webpage with details of the proposal). Instead what we get is a suggestion that the city send letters (more dead trees) to interested parties, but the definition of interested party is extremely narrow. So someone is deemed to be an interested party only if they happen to live next to where the trees are going to be destroyed, or if they happen to belong to one of a select list of special interest pressure groups (e.g. Friends of the Earth), as if everybody else in Cambridge has no interest in trees in public places.
It is rather ironic that the city council gets completely over the top hysterical at the thought that some school kids playing under a not significant tree might damage the tree, but meanwhile kills hundreds of trees for no great reason.
David Cameron claims he will hand over power to the powerless (permanent blog link)
The BBC says:
David Cameron has pledged to bring "big change" to politics, including looking at introducing fixed term Parliaments.
A Tory government would restore "real people power" through a "radical" redistribution of power from Westminster, he said in a speech.
But he ruled out a switch from the current first-past-the-post electoral system to proportional representation.
...
"I believe there is only one way out of the national crisis that we face, we need a massive, sweeping, radical redistribution of power," he said in a speech in Milton Keynes."I'm making clear that big change and a new politics is exactly what people can expect from a Conservative government.
"We will begin a massive redistribution of power in our country, from the powerful to the powerless, from the political elite to the man and the woman in the street."
...
A Conservative government would ask the Boundary Commission to look at reducing the House of Commons by, initially 10% and make sure constituencies were the same size, he said.He also suggested legislation was published online in a more digestible way, Parliamentary proceedings put on YouTube - and said people could get "text alerts" when issues they are interested in are debated in the Commons.
The expenses of all public servants paid more than £150,000 a year would be put online - as would all public spending over £25,000.
...
Other issues the party will look at include possible curbs on the whipping of votes - when MPs come under pressure to toe the party line - in considering bills line-by-line at the committee stage.MPs would also be handed the power of deciding the timetabling of bills and backbenchers would get powers to choose the chairmen and members of select committees.
The use of the royal prerogative which allows the prime minister, in the name of the monarch, to make major decisions without the backing of Parliament, would be limited.
Cameron is just the latest politician to try and divert attention away from the parliamentary expenses scandal to allegedly look at the larger picture. But the expenses scandal has nothing to do with the larger picture. It is just that an expenses system was set in place which encouraged corruption.
At least most of the proposals given by Cameron make some sense, but they are not exactly revolutionary, and it will also be interesting to see how much Cameron actually does once he's in power (talk, as usual, being cheap).
On the other hand, what is ridiculous about the Cameron speech is the claim that his proposals in any way "begin a massive redistribution of power in our country, from the powerful to the powerless, from the political elite to the man and the woman in the street". His proposals just involve shuffling power amongst the political elite. Under the Tories the powerless will continue to remain where the powerless always have been, i.e. powerless. The Eton/Oxbridge composition of the Tory cabinet is the reality, not Cameron's rhetoric. Privilege trumps all in Britain, as it always has, and this is especially true under the Tories, the ultimate party of privilege.
For more articles (older ones) see archive.
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