Mr Blair dismissed accusations that he was seen as a liability to the Scottish Labour campaign. He said 10 years in government meant it was inevitable that he would become a controversial figure, but that he was able to look back on Labour's achievements with real pride.
BBC NEWS | Scotland | Blair backs McConnell's campaign
This is an interesting and thought provoking article looking at the state of Zimbabwe and how it is completely failing it's people.
It is worth remembering that literally one generation ago, this country was the bread basket of Africa. Today life expectancy at birth in Zimbabwe has declined from 60 to 37 since 1990, while the infant mortality rate has climbed from 53 to 81 deaths per 1,000 live births in the same period. 5.5 million Zimbabweans currently live with the HIV virus.
Rhodesia may not have been a paradise on earth for the majority of the people but what Mugabe has done to this country is beyond belief.
I'll highlight one paragraph from the article that show the pure stupidity of what is going on in Zimbabwe.
At night Harare exists in a confusing half-light. Many of the "robots", or traffic lights, have stopped working. The bulbs and aluminium parts, like the streetlights, have been looted and sold for scrap. The confusion is added to by the closure of the main avenue leading north out of the city. From 6pm until 6am, it is sealed off to stop traffic from disturbing the presidential residence.
Whilst I'm sure that Iran was not particularly happy about this attempt, more from the embarrassment it would have caused, I think it probably pails into insignificance compared to all the other actions being taken against Iran on the Global stage.
I would suggest the reason is a little bit more due to the corruption that is rife in Iran and smuggling of goods/arms etc.
The botched US raid that led to the hostage crisis
Previously we had the Elf Defence now we have the Brown Defence.
I have avoided comment on the Brown Pension story so far as I am still in a final pay scheme run by my company and as such am not directly affected by the problem, however now despite Mr Brown's best attempts at defusing the situation by managing to disappear at tough times, I will.
From what I now see in all the papers this story will run and run as it will affect so many people so hard in the future. It also shows up a number of the facets of Mr Brown's character that show he is unlikely ever to become Prime Minister.
Reading through the Independent article it becomes clear that Gordon Brown pushed through this little plan by himself against the advice of many people. He obviously thought of it as a neat little way of getting some extra money that would not affect people at that moment in time. However his little plan has now begun to fully unravel as we begin to understand all the affects, not just the closing of Final Pay Pensions.
This wonderful article on the BBC site will of course explain it all. Or maybe not. As far as I can see the defence for his destruction of pensions was that it was... necessary so that we could have the winter fuel allowance, the pensions credit and the planned relinking of the state pension to earnings. These are all add-ons to the state pension and would not be needed if he had not meddled with pensions. The only other defence is that it was... er.. neccesary and it was... right and it was... difficult.
So there we are Brown makes necessary and difficult decisions so he must be a good Prime Minister.
Special adviser warned Brown's raid on pensions was 'crackers' - Independent Online Edition > UK Politics
If Dizzy and Guido can change their blog addresses then I can too.
A new facility in Blogger lets you use your own domain name to publish to (If you have bought the domain name of course). I had a spare domain that was sitting doing nothing and thought it would be good to put it to some use.
The old address will still work fine as well.
Amazing what the thought of a slaughter at the coming elections does to a Politician.
It was only back in November 2006 that he said the following during a TV interview on the BBC's Sunday AM programme,
People north of the Border would "think twice" about independence given the option in a referendum. He also argued that holding any referendum on independence would be the wrong move for Scotland because it would create economic uncertainty.
I see my esteemed Lib Dem MSP Mike Rumbles has been using the vagaries of the publicly funded Edinburgh accommodation allowance (EAA), which helps MSPs to buy property in Edinburgh, to race up the property ladder purchasing three flats in eight years. He is the first MSP to achieve three Mortgages in this particular trough.
Not bad that and according to the Scotsman:
Mr Rumbles sold two properties and reinvested in larger ones with help from the public fund, eventually making a £40,000 profit. He now owns a £300,000 flat in an exclusive district of the capital, and claimed about £10,000 a year to help pay off his mortgage.They go on to report
Yesterday, Mr Rumbles defended his use of the allowance.So now he's complaining he had to pay Capital Gains Tax on money he got from us the taxpayers, what a bloody cheek.He said: "I have bought three flats in Edinburgh. I made a loss on the sale of the first flat. And on the sale of the second flat I paid a capital-gains tax of 40 per cent.
UPDATE: Telegraph appears to confirm story here:
Alan Crockard is an eminent neurosurgeon, and has been the national director of the Department of Health's programme, Modernising Medical Careers (MMC) and its online application service, the Medical Training and Application Service (MTAS), since 2004.
One paragraph from the letter is very interesting:
From my point of view, this project has lacked clear leadership from the top for a very long time. Moving to the last few weeks, I have become increasingly concerned that the well intentioned attempts to keep the recruitment and selection process running have been accompanied by mixed messages to the most important people in the whole process - the young doctor applicants.I assume that this is a dig at Patricia Hewitt. We can only hope that she has got the idea and will follow Alan Crockard's example. This is however unlikely bearing in mind Labour's normal mode of operation of promotion on failure.
"ultimately responsible" for the MMC and its implementation."I respectfully ask the GMC to examine the conduct of Prof Crockard in this matter and, if it is found wanting, to consider disciplinary action,"
Dear Liam,( Sir Liam Donaldson chief Medical Officer at the NHS)
I wish to resign from my position as National Director for Modernising Medical Careers with immediate effect. I am increasingly aware that I have responsibility but less and less authority.
I care deeply about medical education and training. In 2003 I moved from the College of Surgeons where I was Director of Education to join the MMC team. At the College we developed a competency based curriculum. These ideas rolled over into MMC where the team put together the Foundation Programme which was launched in 2005.
It also involved coordination of the stakeholders in curriculum development, training the trainers and carrying out numerous road shows to set the scene for consultants and trainees. It is now considered successful and fit for purpose.
In addition the doctors completing the Foundation Programme this year seem as if they will match well into the new Specialty Training Programmes. As a prelude to new Specialty Training, MMC worked closely with PMETB and all the stakeholders to facilitate the new competency based curricula and set the scene for such a radical change in training.
Manifestly, specialty training is an order of magnitude more complex than Foundation, but it became obvious that the MMC team's expertise was less used in planning of specialty rollout. MTAS was developed and procured by DH outside my influence.
An email (12 October 2005) to our team made it abundantly clear that "Debbie (Mellor) has been tasked with delivering a recruitment system to recruit junior doctor posts specifically FP's and ST's .......I am not clear how far you should (or want) to be involved in this. We don't want to tread on any toes, but equally we need to be clear about what level of autonomy this Programme has".
The MMC programme has been the subject of an OGC Gateway Review in September 2006 (DH331), they concluded "that the programme has made significant progress since the OGC health check in August 2005".
The report overall was supportive of MMC, but there was one serious red risk. This was to "identify a clear break point for the MTAS project beyond which the contingency arrangements should be activated". It also commented on the unclear leadership between DCMO and two senior responsible officers.
From my point of view, this project has lacked clear leadership from the top for a very long time. Moving to the last few weeks, I have become increasingly concerned that the well intentioned attempts to keep the recruitment and selection process running have been accompanied by mixed messages to the most important people in the whole process - the young doctor applicants.
I realise that the service must continue to allow patients to be treated and I know little of the law, but it seems to me basically unfair to advertise the possibility of four interviews and then suggest that these might not be honoured.
Equally devastating would be the suggestion of some stakeholders, that the completed interviews be discarded and the process be rerun.
I accept that in many areas and in many specialties, this round of recruitment and selection has been acceptable. But the overriding message coming back from the profession is that it has lost confidence in the current recruitment system.
With my very best wishes.
Alan
Now I wonder where they might want to use that?
Full details on the MOP bomb here.
The Mop Bomb a proposal by the US Air Force to develop a massive, precision-guided, 30,000 lb (13,600 kg) 'bunker buster' bomb. This is substantially larger than the deepest penetrating bunker buster presently available, the 5000 lb (2,270 kg) GBU-28.
The earliest types of these bombs were designed by Barnes-Wallis (of Dambuster fame). The two most famous versions of which were Tallboy and Grand Slam.
Ground Penetrating Monster Bomb
Now, as I blogged some weeks ago, they have been arguing about this for some 9-10 years now.
It does seem a bit fortuitous that the announcement is going to happen in the next week. Call me cynical!
Warship deal to secure Scots jobs
The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee called the handling of the new Single Payments Scheme an
"embarrassing failure".accoding to the BBC. They then went on to complain Mrs Beckett and senior officials had not been held
"personally accountable"for delays.
"A culture where ministers and senior officials can preside over failure of this magnitude and not be held personally accountable creates a serious risk of further failures in public service delivery."So let's see what's happened instead of sacking the idiots responsible for this. Oh yes that nice Mrs Beckett has towed her caravan across to the Foreign Office and been promoted to Foreign Secretary where she is now even deeper in the mire and dragging us with her.
PS Let's hope somebody more competent than the horse lady is working on extracting our marines from Iran. If it's left to her, they'll still be there this time next year. Maybe we could swap her for them.God but that's so true.
An interesting article in the Times that kind of backs up my opinion of what is happening in Scotland at the moment. It is not that Scotland wants the SNP and Independence, its just that we don't want Labour and in particular Blair and Brown. I must admit if anybody asks me I just say vote anyone but Labour and hopefully not Lib Dem as they have been the lackeys for Labour in Scotland, especially the arrogant, brainless and unprincipled Nicol Stepen. The quote below rings true in that Mr Blair is now as unpopular as Maggie was and look what that did to the Conservatives.
I suspect the SNP will do well in the local elections but that final Independence Vote will evade them again. Hopefully the Tories will then begin to benefit again and Labour will slowly decline to the current Tory levels. I can but dream...
This is, primarily, a stinging rebuff to Mr Blair, who has succeeded in winning for himself a level of unpopularity that has not been witnessed north of the Border since Margaret Thatcher introduced the poll tax; in this case it is Iraq that has been the aggravating factor. For Mr Brown, too, the poll is grim news, because it suggests that he may take over as Prime Minister just as his homeland is turning its back on a decade of steady if unspectacular economic growth under his chancellorship.
According to the BBC our esteemed Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said:
"On 1 April, we will reach the first milestone in our drive to provide choice - namely quicker access to computer-based self-help services to stop mild mental health problems becoming worse.Now what she knows about clinical evidence could be written on the back of a stamp. In fact what she knows about anything could be written in a large font on the back of stamp.
"Clinical evidence confirms that counselling and therapy are just as effective as medication in helping to treat most cases of depression."
"This method of delivery will not suit everyone.Dr Richard Vautrey, GP negotiator for the British Medical Association, said it was helpful to have a range of options for treating depression and computerised CBT had proven to be useful in some areas of the country.
"Some people will prefer face-to-face contact and this electronic therapy must not be a replacement for CBT."
"Many patients still struggle to get an appointment with a therapist and it is key that it doesn't replace the pressure to invest in trained therapists."Marjorie Wallace, chief executive of the mental health charity Sane, said:
"Evidence from several hundred thousand of our callers shows that of those reporting depression or anxiety, while 83% are being treated with medication, only 2% are receiving cognitive behavioural therapy.So whilst, it my be of some use, it is really just another case of Patricia trying to dumb down the NHS as usual. Medicine by Protocol, Medicine by numbers, Medicine by the untrained.
"While we applaud the secretary of state's announcement, we urge her to match it with a funding commitment to ensure that CBT can be a real choice, as she intends, for everyone who could benefit."
According to the Independent
"the BBC was in court yesterday fighting over the public's right to know. But the Corporation was not battling to bring information into the open. Instead it has paid an estimated £200,000 in legal fees to keep the report secret.So what looks like a report that perhaps critisices the BBC is as far as we know at the moment not to see the light of day. Not only that but about 1800 people's TV licence fee is being used to stop us from seeing the report. What a complete waste of our money.
The Corporation is trying to persuade the High Court to overrule a decision by the Information Tribunal that an internal report into the BBC's Middle East coverage should be made public."
Sir Alistair Graham has been forced to step down from his job as chairman of the "Sleaze Watchdog" after disagreements with the Labour Sleaze chief Tony Blair.
Launching his final report as chairman, Sir Alistair said Mr Blair should never have promised to be "purer than pure" unless he was going to "follow through" with action.
Mr Blair is keen to escape the cloud hanging over him because of the police inquiry into loans for peerages allegations when he steps down at the end of June.
He is also still under public scrutiny for his role in the Iraq Dossier that helped take us into the invasion of Iraq.
This was also the subject of a question at PMQ's today when Conservative MP Stuart Jackson asked about parliamentary standards commissioner Sir Alistair Graham, who said Mr Blair had damaged trust in politics, asking if Mr Blair was "qualified" to advise his successor on drawing up a new ministerial code.
Mr Blair said: "I completely disagree with Sir Alistair Graham. He is entitled to his opinion and I am entitled to mine".
So again Mr Blair rides roughshod over anyone who dares argue with him and believes himself above criticism.
Sleaze watchdog says Blair 'failed to live up to promises' - Independent Online Edition > UK Politics
A thief, who had just evaded jail, was later caught stealing a police worker's handbag in Aberdeen.Fraser Cheyne, 21, admitted stealing the bag just hours after being placed on probation for a previous theft. Cheyne took it from a Grampian Police employee on a Christmas night out with colleagues but was caught.Time for a rethink of occupation, perhaps being a Labour Cabinet Minister might suit him, most of them have been promoted beyond their abilities.
From this story I can only conclude that the government has already decided that Scotland is a lost cause or that the just don't care anymore and can't be bothered to look at the consequences of their actions. I suspect it's a combination of both.
SCOTLAND'S most powerful fish producers' organisation accused the UK government yesterday of "breathtaking arrogance" over the controversial decision to swap almost £2 million of the North Sea's lucrative prawn catch to prevent trawlermen in the south of England being driven out of business.
The deal, brokered last week by the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and backed by Ross Finnie, Scotland's environment minister, has resulted in German prawn fishermen receiving 375 tonnes of the UK's share of the North Sea langoustine catch in return for 150 tonnes of sole which will be used to aid 160 English boats operating in the southern North Sea.
Mr MacRae,the secretary of the Scottish White Fish Producers' Association whose organisation represents most Scottish prawn boats, said:
"You have to ask if the government has lost the plot completely."A spokesman for DEFRA said:
"Without urgent action, 160 fishing boats stood to directly lose their livelihoods and go out of business because the restrictions were giving them such problems. We had move very quickly.So that's the real reason, they had to move quickly, and didn't really think it all through, marvelous reasoning! Unfortunately this is joined up government under Labour.
"Due to the urgency of the situation, there wasn't the time to consult the industry as we would normally do."
The Independent reports that British government officials have backed the methods used by scientists who concluded that more than 600,000 Iraqis have been killed since the invasion, the BBC reported yesterday.
The Government publicly rejected the findings, published in The Lancet in October. But the BBC said documents obtained under freedom of information legislation showed advisers concluded that the much-criticised study had used sound methods.
The researchers, reflecting the inherent uncertainties in such extrapolations, said they were 95 per cent certain that the real number of deaths lay somewhere between 392,979 and 942,636.
The conclusion, based on interviews and not a body count, was disputed by some experts, and rejected by the US and British governments. But the chief scientific adviser to the Ministry of Defence, Roy Anderson, described the methods used in the study as "robust" and "close to best practice". Another official said it was "a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones".
So the government after trashing the report with no reason, apart from it was not what they wanted reported, have been advised by their top officials that the death toll is more than likely correct.
This is a shocking figure and will forever be the legacy of Bush and Blair who have dragged us into this conflict with no thought to the likely outcome.
British backtrack on Iraq death toll - Independent Online Edition > Middle East
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