Chris Whiteside's Blog

Christopher Tin's "Baba Yetu," which is a setting of the Christian Lord's prayer sung in Swahili, was composed as the theme tune for the fourth iteration of the computer strategy game "Civilisation" and won a whole raft of awards. It's one of only two game introductions in the past twenty years that I would always listen to in full after the first couple of times the game rather than cutting short. The original game intro displayed various stylised scenes from history while this was playing: the author of this Youtube clip recreated the same effect using short video sequences from various classic films, often depicting the same or similar events.

I am very relieved that an agreement has been reached which, subject to approval by a vote of BMA members, will settle the long-running dispute about Junior Doctor's terms and conditions. The dispute has been good for nobody - not good for doctors, not good for the government and, far and away the most important, not good for patients. This deal appears to be an honourable compromise which has been described as a " score draw ." Let's hope that the deal proves acceptable to Junior Doctors in the ballot,  which will be held in June, and we can all go back to building a better NHS.

The venue at Mirehouse Labour Club was full to capacity at the public meeting organised by the Mayor of Copeland last night to discuss various issues in Whitehaven More detailed report to follow but about 100 people heard presentations on Health - including very welcome steps being taken to develop medical teaching and research at WCH and Westlakes which will help our local hospital move toward becoming a teaching hospital - a new coal mining proposal, and car parking. The latter sparked off the most vigorous debate.

"She dealt with everything but a plague of locusts, which I will predict in my next speech on Europe." ( David Cameron in the Commons making a joke about the way the debate on Europe has developed)

For an indication of the lengths some Americans will contemplate going to avoid having to choose between voting Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton - or more likely that the deceased in her last wishes or her next of kin displayed a unique sense of humour - see this obit notice ... (I will partially suspend the usual rules of this blog on obit posts to allow comments about this notice.)

Subject: A One Nation Queen's Speech Today the Queen delivered a One Nation Queen’s Speech from a One Nation Government. When we came to office in 2010, our urgent task was to get the British economy going again. With the strengthening economy moving in the right direction, we can be ambitious in our plans to deliver for the hardworking people of Britain.   Security for working people is the next step in our long-term economic plan for our country. Whether it is continuing to bring the public finances under control so that Britain lives within its means or delivering the infrastructure that British business needs to carry on creating jobs. To help create jobs, we will make our country a world leader in the digital economy, with new obligations on broadband providers to make sure everyone in Britain has access to an affordable high speed internet connection. To back business, we will make sure Britain has first-class infrastructure, especially when it comes to the t...

The Mayor of Copeland, Mike Starkie, has also set up a meeting at 6pm this evening (May 18th 2016) to discuss a number of local issues including the parking problems in Whitehaven. The meeting will be held in Mirehouse Labour Club, and representatives of Sellafield Ltd, Cumbria County Council and Whitehaven Town Council have been invited to attend to answer residents' questions. A number of issues are up for discussion at the meeting, but Mr Starkie said parking is likely to be high on people's agenda. He said: "I am fully aware of the high level of public discord on this issue and will invite along to the meeting a number of key stakeholders who are working with Copeland Council to address this." Also on Mr Starkie's agenda will be other Whitehaven-related matters, including the Moorside nuclear power station development - and its associated accommodation and transport links - and West Cumberland Hospital.

"You know you’ve not necessarily added a great deal to your argument when Ken Livingstone is telling you off for invoking Hitler." ( Isabel Hardman writes in the Speccie here about the bizarre spectacle of one former London Mayor who recently got in hot water with a most unfortunate public reference to Hitler attacking the other former London Mayor for also raising the subject of Hitler ...)

Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a very interesting speech earlier this week in which he said that many of the criticisms made by the British of the European Union are accurate. "On much of their criticism, the British are right," Sarkozy told Le Monde in an interview. "The peoples' estrangement from Europe is a major worry for all countries," he said, while underlining that he strongly opposed Britain quitting the EU. "But Brexit or not, we'll need, in all scenarios, to deeply relaunch the European project, and that will have to be done through a treaty that France must initiate, from the summer of 2017," Sarkozy said. More details from Reuters here . In terms of the referendum, Sarkozy's comments can be argued two ways and undoubtedly will be. I have no doubt that those who already want to leave will present the fact that a statesman who has been as intimately involved with the EU as Sarkozy says many of the British crit...

An interesting and powerful six minute clip from a speech by DC about the economic arguments for Leave. While I don't necessarily agree with every word he says, most of the things I would challenge are essentially quibbles and minor points, and the essence of all the PM's main arguments here strike me as deserving very serious consideration.

The British Geological Survey has announced that a Micro-Earthquake took place deep underground in Cumbria yesterday. The earthquake was centred near to Millhouse, about 1.7 miles from Hesket Newmarket. It was recorded by seismograph and measured 1.3 on the Richter Scale. The event is believed to have occurred about three kilometres underground and happened just after 3.21pm. Experts say it is unlikely that it would have been felt at ground level.

“We are bound to further every honest and practical step to which the nations of Europe may make to reduce barriers which divide them and to nourish their common interests and their common welfare. “We rejoice at every diminution of the internal tariffs and the martial armaments of Europe. We see nothing but good and hope in a richer, freer, more contented European commonality.  “But we have our own dream and our own task. We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked, but not comprised. We are interested and associated, but not absorbed.” This is a quote by Sir Winston Churchill, from a 1930 article in America's Saturday Evening post. The last sentence of the quote above has sometimes been misrepresented as having been said in Parliament in 1953 and combined with a comment made to General De Gaulle during a wartime argument. As you can read here Churchill supported European unity and thought that what in the latter part of his lifetime was called the European Econom...

ICM have two polls out today on the EU referendum and these two polls from the same polling company say two different things Their phone poll has Remain eight points ahead, 10% after removing Don't knows. Their online poll is the other way round, Leave four points ahead of Remain. Worth remembering that the phone polls performed better than the online ones in predicting the 2015 general election result - most of the phone polls correctly predicted a Conservative lead, most of the online ones wrongly had Labour ahead. But we can't take either as gospel - people may yet change their minds. I still think a Remain vote looks more likely but this could yet go either way.

I was astonished at the weekend to hear a report on one of Radio 4's financial advice programmes about a campaign group for women who say they have been badly informed about changes to their pensions. I have the greatest sympathy for anyone, male or female, who is having difficulty adjusting to the changes to pensions, especially if they were not given much notice. I initially reacted with complete disbelief to the suggestion that some women were only given a couple of year's notice of the changes which have been made in the state pension age. One of the two changes concerned stems from a European Court judgement in the early nineties, and an act of parliament passed in 1995, which I remember being announced at the time and giving at least fifteen years' notice of the change, The other act concerned, which also affects men (as I know very well being about the age when it transitions in) was the Pensions Act 2011, which slightly a...

"ZOMBIE MYTHS" WHICH REFUSE TO DIE The British people are entitled to have their intelligence respected by both sides in the EU referendum, and by the press, and to be provided with full and balanced information to make a decision on how to vote. With a few honourable exceptions in all three cases, this is not happening. Some people are bending over backwards to be fair, but the amount of misinformation which has been circulated is deeply depressing. What is even more depressing is that some myths which most intelligent people on both sides who have been following the campaign with anything remotely resembling an open mind know to have been exploded refuse to die and keep getting circulated. OPINION OR FACT? Many of the issues in the EU referendum which are fiercely contested boil down to matters of opinion and nobody can be absolutely certain who is right. We do not know what would have happened to our economy, or to peace and security, were Britain not in the EU. ...

Can we please add a " Godwin's law " clause to the EU Referendum rules? To be specific I refer to the best known corollary of the original law. Mike Godwin initially suggested that, the longer a debate goes on, the closer the probability that someone will make a comparison to Hitler or the Nazis gets to certainty. It is often added that  unless the subject of the original discussion was World War II, totalitarian dictatorships, genocide and mass murder, or some other subject to which would make such a comparison proportionate and legitimate, when this happens the argument is finished and, whoever first raised the comparison to Hitler or the Nazis has automatically lost. Clearly the terms of the EU referendum act should not be retrospectively changed, but if it were possible it would be so tempting to try to amend them so that the next time a prominent spokesman for the Leave or Remain campaign introduces the subject of Hitler, that side lose...

Britain pays a lot of money to the EU and it is totally legitimate for supporters of a "leave" vote to make that point. It is not legitimate for them to do so in what the head of the UK's statistical service called a "potentially misleading" way - and he was putting it very politely. The top line in the table below, shows the gross payment Britain WOULD have had to make to the EU were it not for Margaret Thatcher. It is a notional accounting figure and NOT an actual payment. The rebate Maggie negotiated - and even after Tony Blair gave half of it away, it's still worth more than four billion pounds a year - is deducted BEFORE we pay anything. The second line, after the rebate, is the GROSS amount the UK actually pays to Europe before you consider what comes back. The fourth line is the NET amount we pay, e.g. what Britain pays to Europe less what they pay back to us. Depending on the exact context, the second, third and fourth lines on the ta...

I'm experimenting with doing a music spot on Saturdays as well as Sundays And where better to start with a chorus from Bach's Matthew Passion, one of the movements from that masterpiece which is particularly sublime ...

The fourth "Cardboard Boat Race" for charity is set to "Make a big splash" for charity on Windermere today. Racing starts at 10am at the Low Wood hotel This incredible family event, started in 2013, is held in aid of local charities and kindly sponsored by Progression Solicitors and Low Wood Bay Resort Hotel and Marina. In 2016 the event is supporting St Mary’s Hospice, Ulverston, and the Lake District Calvert Trust, Bassenthwaite. More details from the event website at http://www.cardboardboatrace.co.uk/

“There is no more efficient way to convince someone you are crazy than to tell them you are building a cardboard boat.” ( Quote from the organisers on the website of the Low Wood Cardboard boat race (being held at Windermere today - see next post!)

"Economists for Brexit" have produced an rival assessment, and critique of the Treasury calculations of the effects of leaving the EU, which you can read here . This is vastly more intersesting and credible than most of the rubbish pumped out by the official Leave campaign and many other Leave supporters because it is written by people who know what they are doing (the lead author is Professor Patrick Minford) and because they have avoided several of the mistakes which tend to wreck most of the Leave arguments as often presented. In particular 1) Most Brexit supporters suffer from the inconsistent beliefs that other EU members are determined to block any reforms suggested by Britain even when it is in their interests to support them, yet if we vote to leave the rest of the EU will suddenly start being guided by enlightened self-interest to fall over themselves to offer us good terms. The "Economists for Brexit" report is open about the fact that this...

Joe Pike's book "Project Fear" was apparently mentioned in Question Time this evening. I reviewed that book and commented on its' implications last year in a post called Project Fear: lessons from a referendum. With a bit less than two months to go until the EU membership referendum, it is striking how many of the concerns I expressed about how this current referendum might come to resemble the Scottish one have come to pass. This is an extract from what I wrote at the time "The first thing which horrified me about this book was how the divisive nature of the campaign, the lies told by the Nationalists and over-concentration on negative arguments by the unionists, have left a legacy of distrust and anger which will scar Scotland for years. The second thing which horrified me was the dawning realisation of how easy it would be for each side in the forthcoming European referendum to repeat the mistakes of one or both sides. It is painfully obvious from...

Mark Wallace has a very well argued piece putting the alternative viewpoint to my post about ITV's decision concerning the speakers who will represent Leave and Remain on their programme, and you can read his view here . He thinks that Vote Leave are entitled to be cross about the ITV decision and he may have a point, though I note that he also says that "I suspect even Vote Leave themselves would concede that the part of last night’s statement which threatened “consequences” for the broadcaster was ill-judged." In my humble opinion having Nigel Farage on to represent Leave is actually a mixed blessing for both sides. Farage does have debating skills and did better than many people expected in his debate with Nick Clegg. To many people he is toxic but to another section of the population he does have appeal.  Yes, those people are already in the Leave camp, but if he can motivate them to turn out that could be quite significant - and I am not one of...

Funnily enough, a quote of the day from Thomas Sowell which I used a couple of days ago - and which was instantly compared to the SNP in the comments - describes perfectly the reaction of the SNP to last week's Scottish election results. In a highly uncharacteristic display of pluralism, Blair's New Labour UK government set up the Scottish parliament and Welsh Assembly in a manner which would make it difficult for a dominant party in either country - which at the time meant their own party - to win an absolute majority in either body unless they had, or were very close to, an absolute majority of the votes. Perhaps unsurprisingly, neither the SNP not anybody else complained at the time. The Additional Member system in Scotland duly delivered the hung or "balanced" parliaments in Scotland which it was intended to produce in every election since except 2011, with no complains until this week, while First Past the Post for Westminster elections continued...