Chris Whiteside's Blog

Confirmation bias is the propensity of most human beings who have a strong opinion about something to note and take on board evidence which supports that view while discounting evidence against it. In extreme cases, sometimes called the Backfire Effect , being presented with evidence against your beliefs can actually make those beliefs stronger. This is one of a large number of inbuilt biases, some of which are described here , which we need to guard against. The power of both confirmation bias and the backfire effect has been all too evident whenever I am unable to avoid discussing Brexit with a hardliner on either side - the sort who claims there is no valid argument whatsoever for the other position. I happen to think there were good arguments both for and against leaving the EU and, looking at it objectively, I must be right in at least one of those beliefs, but one thing that the more hardline protagonists of both viewpoints have in common is that they are completely imper...

It is helpful in all walks of life to be able to laugh at oneself and nowhere more than for those who are involved in local or national politics. I am not one of those who wants Jacob Rees-Mogg MP to be the next leader of the Conservative party - indeed, he says himself that he doesn't want that either -  but it does appear to be one of his strengths that he has the ability to apply his sense of humour to himself. I see that the young lady who won this year's "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here," Georgia Toffolo who has been nicknamed "Toff" and described as "Boris in a bikini" has described Jacob Rees-Moss (a married man about twice her age) as a "Sex God." Not the easiest thing for a politician to respond to when, inevitably, the press start phoning and asking for a reaction. Jacob's initial reply was " Very surprised, but flattered " and this morning he tweeted - I did check and the tweet does does appear to ...

Veteran economic journalist Hamish MacRae has an excellent piece in the Indy about Britain's long term relationships with the remaining EU and other countries of Europe, provocatively titled " By 2030 our relationship with Europe will be repaired - it will be as though Brexit never happened. " Taking the long view, MacRae argues that " it is impossible to see the detail, but not so difficult to pick out big themes. " He concludes that "Once the argy-bargy with Europe subsides, the pressure will be on politicians to find ways of cooperating better, not to grandstand to their respective domestic audiences. Remember too that between now and 2030 there will have been at least one major global recession. We don’t know the timing and we don’t know the magnitude but we can be pretty darned sure it will happen. That will put pressure on governments to mitigate the impact of recession and unless they are totally nuts they won’t try having a trade war....

"Let me put it like this, President Trump: fake news is not broadcasters criticising you, it's Russian bots and trolls targeting your democracy - pumping out untrue stories day after day, night after night. "When you misappropriate the term fake news, you are deflecting attention from real abuses." ( David Cameron , speaking at an anti-corruption conference yesterday)

I spent a large part of today attending a meeting in Kendal (including the trip there and back.) The journey there was significantly affected by ice and snow on the road: there had been two nasty accidents requiring the assistance of the emergency services on the stretch of the A66 between Embleton and Keswick alone. If you're travelling anywhere this weekend, take care: there is a Met office warning of further Ice and Snow in force in most of the North West including Cumbria this evening. On the plus side, the views of ice-topped mountains on the way home were absolutely breathtaking ...

"Modern demagogic movements have proven themselves exceptionally adept at transforming informed frustration at errors of omission into a paranoid belief in deliberate suppression." ( Nick Cohen , from a Spectator article, " Charlatans succeed by pretending the media always lies .")

(Hat tip to Andrew Rosindell MP via Twitter)

Nick Cohen has a good piece in the Spectator, Charlatans succeed by pretending the media always lies . He accepts that journalists make mistakes and sometimes "herd" in the direction of selecting stories based on a journalistic consensus, and therefore there are rational reasons to be sceptical about the mainstream media narrative. However he then points out how unscrupulous charlatans of  right and left alike, from Trump to the Corbyn supporters of Momentum, take advantage of genuine concerns that the media might not get everything right to create a "Take News" narrative that the media always lies, and thereby insulate their supporters against any possibility that an inconvenient truth might disturb their comfortable beliefs. Definitely worth a read, Not least because all of us are wise to ask ourselves whether we might be falling into the same trap.

European leaders have confirmed today that talks about Britain's departure from the EU can move to the next stage. Theresa May welcomed the move as an "important step on the road" to ensuring a "smooth and orderly" exit. Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, tweeted the news this morning that the 27 EU leaders were happy to move onto phase two after they met in Brussels. He congratulated the UK Prime Minister on reaching what has been described as a major milestone in the Brexit process. There is still a long way to go but at least we are moving forward to implement what the public voted for last year.

The Health Scrutiny Committee met today in Carlisle to consider a very major list of important items affecting healthcare in Cumbria. There was a pre-meeting scheduled for 9.30am and the meeting itself ran from about 10.30am to about 4pm with a 45 minute break for lunch. I'm not going to attempt to post a full record of the meeting this evening though I will try to put up some more details over the next few days but here are two or three particularly important points from the meeting. 1) Health Service provision for Deaf patients There were presentations to the committee from Healthwatch Cumbria, the Cumbria Deaf Association, and a number of Deaf service users about the experiences of patients with hearing loss who needed to use NHS services in Cumbria. Some of the stories we heard about the challenges faced by Deaf patients in Cumbria in communicating their needs and understanding what they were being told were extremely moving and raised a lot of important issues. The C...

A memorial service was held today for the 71 people who died in the tragedy at Grenfell Tower. Whenever there is a disaster like this terrible event, people always say "this must never happen again." What the investigations carried out after the tragedy appear to show is that there appear to have been systemic failures all over Britain, and on the watch of councillors and ministers from every political party and none, in making homes and other public buildings as safe as they need to be. We must not forget the victims of Grenfell and neither should we forget the need to do more to improve fire safety.

Niven's Laws (collected "laws" written by SF author Larry Niven about the universe works) 1)  Any damn fool can predict the past . 2) Never fire a laser at a mirror. 3) Mother Nature doesn't care if you're having fun . 4) F × S = k. The product of Freedom and Security is a constant. To gain more freedom of thought and/or action, you must give up some security, and vice versa. 5) Psi and/or magical powers, if real, are nearly useless. 6) It is easier to destroy than create . 7)  a) Never throw nasty stuff  at an armed man.      b) Never stand next to someone who is throwing nasty stuff at an armed man. * 8) History never repeats itself. 9) Ethics change with technology . 10) There Ain't No Justice. (often abbreviated to TANJ) 11) Anarchy is the least stable of social structures. It falls apart at a touch . 12) There is a time and place for tact. And there are times when tact is entirely misplaced. 13) The ways of being human are...

"I voted with the government tonight and wasn't persuaded by the arguments of my colleagues who rebelled. But I respect their position and deplore the accusations of treachery and calls for deselection. Nothing could be less British." ( Nick Boles MP via twitter) To coin a phrase, I agree with Nick.

" There will always be a conservative faction and it will always be powerful. In fact, except at times of revolution and great upheaval, it will usually tend to be dominant." "When I say 'conservative' I am not speaking of any particular political philosophy. I am using the term in lower case, so to speak. I am referring to the basic attitude of most people that unless conditions are intolerable it is usually best to err on the side of caution." "The essence of conservatism is not a political philosophy of any kind. It is a general attitude." (Every country has) "a plethora of saws expressing that attitude" " 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it .' That's my personal favourite, and by the way, a piece of wisdom I subscribe to myself. ' Better the devil you know than the devil you don't. ' That's another. A third - I'm quote fond of this one also, is ' Be careful what you wish for...

"Where's the Omelette?" ( George Orwell ) (Hat-tip to Dan Hannan MEP on Twitter)

One of my favourite sayings is " Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence ." I have seen this quote attributed to various people going back as far as Goethe and also including Napoleon and Bernard Ingham, but there seems to be most evidence for an almost identical form of words having been originated by Robert J Hanlon, and it is often known as Hanlon's Razor , The science fiction author Robert Heinlein also made a similar comment, and it has also been suggested, though this appears to be paraphrasing him wildly, that there might be a "Heinlein's Razor" as follows: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice."

Dear EU citizens, As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, I am proud that more than three million of you, EU citizens, have chosen to make your homes and livelihoods here in our country. I greatly value the depth of the contributions you make — enriching every part of our economy, our society, our culture and our national life. I know our country would be poorer if you left and I want you to stay.  So from the very beginning of the UK’s negotiations to leave the European Union I have consistently said that protecting your rights — together with the rights of UK nationals living in EU countries — has been my first priority.  You made your decision to live here without any expectation that the UK would leave th...

Back in mid October the Observer published this article by Gaby Hinsliff which I welcomed here about ten MPs and peers who had friends in an opposing political party. It ought to be obvious that such friendships are a good thing. Unfortunately whenever someone puts their head above the parapet and admits to such a friendship there will be those who apply words like "traitor" to one or both of the individuals concerned. Last Friday there was a charming Tweet showing two young women, Sophie the author of the tweet and her friend Rose, which referred to the fact that one of them votes Conservative and the other Labour but they had been friends for sixteen years. It is important to recognise the positive as well as the negative, and note that many, many people, including myself, posted about over the weekend about what a nice tweet this was. What I thought was rather sad. however was that this clearly upset a lot of people, and the responses to Sophie included a signifi...

A quote which seems rather apposite today from George R. R. Martin's book "Game of Thrones" and the rest of the "Song of Ice and Fire" books (and the TV series "Game of Thrones" based on them) And a commentary which fits today's weather ... (For anyone who hasn't read any of the "Song of Ice and Fire" books or seen any of the "Game of Thrones" TV episodes, "Winter is Coming" is the motto of one of the noble houses who are protagonists in the power struggles in the story, House Stark. It refers to more than just seasonal bad weather. Jon Snow, portrayed by Kit Harington and photoshopped in the upper picture to wield a shovel, is an illegitimate scion of House Stark who finds himself in the front line of defence against what is meant by "Winter." The lower picture is Lord Ned Stark, played by Sean Bean, who was one of the few people to take the warning in his House motto seriously ...)

"As democracy and liberty come under attack, from Poland to the US, the salient point to remember about Leninists who stayed with communism after the fall of the Soviet Union is that they switched from embracing one form of totalitarianism to embracing every form of totalitarianism. Their grim journey took them from the decrepit Brezhnevian regime in Cuba to the religious reactionaries in Iran and Gaza via the national socialism of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq and Bashar al-Assad’s Syria " ( Nick Cohen , from an excellent Guardian article, What would it take for Labour moderates to revolt? For the avoidance of doubt, he is talking about the leadership of Momentum, and about Jeremy Corbyn's inner circle. The last paragraph of the article reads as follows: " As I said, I am talking about the worst of the left. But here is Britain’s bind: the worst of the left controls the left. One day, it may control the country too .")

If you only read one piece in the press this weekend about Theresa May's deal with the EU, I recommend that it should be John Rentoul's article in the Independent, " Michael Gove is waving the white flag over Brexit - but it's not for the reason you would think ." A lot of really good points in the article but here is the key quote. " This is a big moment for both ends of the Brexit spectrum. For hard Remainers, this week’s agreement is a disaster, because it means the small chance of stopping Brexit has just got smaller. And for the cavalier Leavers it was the moment they could no longer avoid meeting reality. "