Chris Whiteside's Blog

My last duty of 2017: went down to have a look at Derwentwater Road on the Mirehouse estate, which is in my county division, and where a number of residents were concerned about the state of the road. I was horrified. The state of the road, and of Meadow Road in a number of places, particularly near the junction of the two roads, by McColls, is dangerous and quite unacceptable. I would like to thank the residents who flagged up the issue and spoke to me today for doing so and for their patience and courtesy. If there is anyone elsewhere in my division reading this who is thinking "OK, what about my road," please contact me and I will come to see you too. Will be taking the matter up with the relevant officers of the County Council as soon as they are back at their desks on Tuesday for the New Year.

The lyrics are of course, the poem " In Memoriam " by Alfred Lord Tennyson, (1809 - 1892) Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. R ing out the grief that saps the mind For those that here we see no more; Ring out the feud of rich and poor, Ring in redress to all mankind. Ring out a slowly dying cause, And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws. Ring out the want, the care, the sin, The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes But ring the fuller minstrel in. Ring out false pride in place and blood, The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring in the...

The BBC has been running reviews of 2017 which include a poignant sequence on the people who died during the year. They included the  creators of Morse and Paddington, the Commander of Moon Base in Space 1999 to James Bond/the Saint and Batman. The Alien's first victim is finally dead for real after playing "The War Doctor," the man whose stage and TV career seemed to go on forever but finally finished in 2017. An iconic trailblazer for women's cricket, the longest serving Blue Peter presenter, and a campaigner for the victims of sexual assault, the political gadfly whose name will ever be associated with what became known as the "West Lothian question" after his constituency, and independent minded and bloody minded MP who was a hero when you agreed with him and a madman when you didn't but without whom parliament would have been much poorer. Several legends of the music world also died, along with the giant of science fiction who created th...

And not a black horse in sight ...

"When a poll comes out that appears to show public support for Brexit it is excitely retweeted and shared by lots of pro-Brexit voices. When a poll comes out that appears to show public opposition to Brexit it is excited retweeted and shared by lots of anti-Brexit voices. Both of these create a deeply misleading picture." ( Anthony Wells of UK Polling Report points out to both sides the disadvantages of putting far too much credence in an opinion poll which tells you what to hear in an excellent article, On measuring public support for Brexit ")

I am humbled and appreciative to have been awarded the MBE in this year's New Year Honours list. And very impressed that so many of my friends picked up the fact so quickly! Thank you to all those who have sent such kind messages of congratulations. There were twelve awards in this year's New Year's Honours list for Cumbria, counting the award of Companion of Honour status to Lord (Melvin) Bragg of Wigton. Seven residents of Cumbria were awarded the MBE and four the British Empire Medal (BEM). Here is a link to a piece in Cumbria Crack with a statement from the Lord Lieutenant of Cumbria about the awards made in the County which also explains the honours nomination process.

In 2013 I posted on this blog  supporting the call for a referendum on EU membership. There is a link to that post with updates in 2016 and 2017, at the top of the "Where I stand" box on the right hand sidebar of this blog. Here are some further reflections on the referendum as the turbulent political year 2017 comes to a close. David Cameron persuaded me when he first announced his intention to call for a referendum if he was re-elected in 2015 that this was the right thing to do, and I still think that it was. It was an extremely important issue on which the British people had not been properly consulted for forty years, during which the nature of what was originally called the "European Economic Community" and had been sold to them as a "Common Market" had changed. Worse, a promise to give the British people a say on the most recent set of major changes - the EU constitutional treaty of which more than 90% was eventually enacted as the ...

There is only one possible choice of music for Boxing Day, 26th December, a.k.a. the Feast of Stephen ...

Warmest good wishes and seasonal greetings to everyone reading this To everyone reading this who is a Christian, may the spirit of the Christ child, the love of Mary, the faithfulness of Joseph, the joy of the Angels, the wonder of the Shepherds, the wisdom of the Magi, and the Peace of God be with you this Christmastide. To anyone reading this who follows a faith other than Christianity, may your God be with you at this time. To everyone reading this including anyone who does not have a religious faith, I wish you peace, health and happiness and hope you are refreshed by a wonderful holiday with the people you love. And to all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2018.

"A visit from St Nicholas" by Clement Clarke Moore

(The original quote for today on this post was published after an initial statement had been issued by London Zoo following a fire , but before the full consequences of the fire had been announced. When those consequences were announced I decided to change the quote.)

Yesterday's meeting of the Copeland Health & Wellbeing Forum was held at Westlakes and consisted of a series of presentations about positive things which are happening to develop the Health Service in West Cumbria followed by a short tour of the School of Medical Education facilities at Westlakes. Discussions about the development of Health services in the area have not always been uniformly positive in the past but this meeting was brimming with details of ideas to improve learning and development opportunities for staff and services for patients. I have written a short report on the meeting including a couple of useful links on my hospitals blog which concludes as follows: I don't want to sound like I'm having an attack of unrealistic optimism here, because I recognise that putting forward good ideas is the easy bit, now we have to make sure they are properly funded and implemented to make them work and this is going to be an enormous challenge. But at least...

I am not a fan of the "Impress" press regulator established under the Leveson rules. However, credit where credit is due. The left-wing website "The Canary" has been publishing articles attacking BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg which were sufficiently nasty that the New Statesman - which is hardly part of the "Tory Press" - wrote it up in the words, " The Canary is running a sexist hate campaign against Laura Kuenssberg. " (Diane Abbott, who I do not often agree with, and the Guardian, have made similar comments.) "The Canary" is one of the very few media organisations which has chosen to be regulated by Impress, unlike all the major mainstream newspapers and news websites which, instead of signing up to Impress, have opted instead to be regulated by the Independent Press Standards Organisation, or IPSO. This autumn there was a particularly egregious Canary article, which stated that the BBC's political editor...

For political anoraks, there is a short history of the posts of Deputy Prime Minister and First Secretary of State - two roughly congruent and relatively recent titles which were first used in 1942 and 1951 respectively - by  Stephen Thornton and Jonathan Kirkup on the LSE website,  here .

A long time ago, but in this galaxy, a friend said to me that " It's not often the original mistake that does for you, what usually gets you is the cover-up ." He may have been talking about Watergate but it applies to a lot of other scandals. And now, by the looks of things, to Damian Green. While I now think, with great regret, that in the light of the revelations which came out in the past 48 hours the Prime Minister was right to sack Mr Green, I stand by what I wrote here expressing concern about the role of two rogue ex-police officers - and not, it is important to emphasise, "the police" - in disclosing confidential police information about something which was neither a crime nor relevant to the original investigation to make a complaint against Damian Green. It remains deeply alarming that one of those office rs has admitted keeping a copy of information which his superior officers at the Metropolitan police told him to delete . It sho...

A chauvinist thinks that 'Whither thou goest, I will go' was said by a woman to a man." ( Marcella Markham , from the book " A Chauvinist Is ... ") "A male chauvinist, or someone who knows Roman history better than he knows the bible, thinks that 'Whither thou goest, I will go' was said by a woman to a man. A female chauvinist, or someone who knows the bible better than she knows Roman history, thinks that ' Whither thou goest, I will go' was said by a woman to another woman. A well informed person knows that both are correct." ( Chris Whiteside )

"If you despise those who hold different and opposing opinions, you are harming yourself as much as them. You're robbing your life of the company of others and denying yourself the test of considering things you do not like to hear." ( Mark Wallace , Executive Editor of Conservative Home, column in "i"which you can read here .)

I have lost count of the number of Labour U-Turns since the referendum about whether, when and how Britain should leave the European Union. Jeremy Corbyn has been a lifelong Eurosceptic and often gives the impression of wanted a "hard Brexit." Earlier this year he issued a "whip" ordering Labour MPs to vote against membership of the EU single market and sacked Labour front-benchers who voted for it. However, most of the parliamentary Labour party including some on the left are pro-Remain or at least supporters of a "softer" Brexit and Labour's shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer gives the impression that Labour policy is to stay in the single market and customs union. The result has been utter confusion - on week Labour is ruling out a second referendum, another week they are not ruling it out, one week they want to Britain to stay in the sinvle market and customs union, then they don't. Of course, most parties are divided about Britain...

HMS Queen Elizabeth, the navy's new carrier, has been undergoing her sea trials. The purpose of sea trials is to deliberately put the hull and sailing systems of a new ship under extreme pressure to try to find faults so you can fix them before putting the ship into normal service.  It is most unusual not to find any minor faults at this stage. Sure enough, there have been one or two comparatively minor issues. According to a Royal Navy spokesman, “An issue with a shaft seal has been identified during HMS Queen Elizabeth’s sea trials; this is scheduled for repair while she is alongside at Portsmouth. It does not prevent her from sailing again and her sea trials programme will not be affected.” Needless to say the assorted hacks of various British newspapers have had a field day with this. According to The Sun newspaper, “A faulty seal around one of the vast warship’s propeller shafts means 200 litres of sea water pour in every hour.” Let's put that into cont...

The Christmas carol " While shepherds watched their flocks by night " is sung to an amazing variety of tunes. It is most often sung in the UK to a tune known as "Winchester" or "Winchester Old" which is based on a tune by Christopher Tye. In the USA " While shepherds watched " is most often sung to an arrangement by Lowell Mason of a tune from Handel's opera Siroe . Another of the many other tunes to which this carol is sung in Britain are Lyngham, also known as "Nativity" and which is also used to sing " O For a thousand tongues to sing " and a third is "The Yorkshire Tune" a.k.a. Cranbrook, which is also the tune of " On Ilka Moor baht 'at !" Here the Port Isaac Fisherman's Friends sing "While Shepherds Watch" in Wells Cathedral to Lyngham.

This is what the  Managing Director for People and Infrastructure at the Confederation of British Industry had to say about the results of a survey into what their members expect in 2018:

Cumbria Police made the following announcement a short time ago today (19 December 2017): "Today (19th December), at 11am, there will be a planned closure to the M6 southbound, junctions 36-35. The closure is for a police survey, following a collision that occurred in the early hours of this morning. The incident occurred at 00:30am, and involved a pedestrian and a HGV. The female pedestrian was taken to hospital, but later died. The HGV driver is helping police with their enquiries. There will be diversions in place via the A590 and A6, the junction will be closed until investigations are completed, this could be a number of hours" POSTSCRIPT The M6 duly re-opened after this tragic incident. Police have confirmed the identity of the victim, a 51-year-old woman from Millom, who died after being hit by a heavy goods vehicle on the M6. She has been named by police as Tatiana Grieve. She died at the scene after getting out of her Toyota Rav 4.

Both Leavers and Remainers will find things of interest in a lecture given by Sir Ivan Rogers, former senior British diplomatic representative to the EU, at Hartford college on 24th November and now available as an article on the Prospect magazine website here . More to the point, perhaps, so will anyone with an open mind and an interest in learning what happened: Sir Ivan does not claim to be describing the whole story or dispute that there are other important perspectives beside the "insider" one, but he does describe how events in the EU pushed David Cameron from the "time to stop banging on about Europe" position he held when he became Conservative leader to promising the referendum which will take Britain out of the EU. In his words "I want, in this lecture, to attempt a serious examination of David Cameron’s approach to the question which has bedevilled British politics for two generations. And, in so doing, to attempt to gain some distance from th...