Chris Whiteside's Blog

Giles Scott won the gold medal in sailing's Finn class to give Great Britain their fifth successive Olympic title in the event and Team GB's seventeenth Gold of Rio 2016.   The Weymouth-based 29-year-old succeeds Sir Ben Ainslie, who won three previous titles, and emulates Iain Percy in 2000. He will now join Ainslie's 2017 America's Cup team. "It's not sunk in yet," he told BBC Radio 5 live. "It's so hard to describe it. You work so hard for so long for just one week in your life." Congratulations to Giles Scott and good luck to all the other competitors competing today, especially several other British athletes who are chasing medals such as Cycling's golden couple. Laura Trott and her fiancé Jason Kenny both of whom are   one race away from Gold this evening. The rules of the points system for the Omnium race in which Laura Tross is competing are sufficiently complicated that J K Rowling tweeted "Don't you DA...

At the moment Britain is still number two in the Olympic Medals table behind only the USA and slightly ahead of China. But twenty years ago we were not even in the top ten. The rise of Team GB from 31st in Atlanta in 1996 to third in London 2012  and possible even better this time has been astonishing. Of course, the main credit for the success of all Team GB's athletes go to the competitors themselves for their years of work and effort. But the culture of sporting success does not arise from nothing, and includes inspiration from previous sporting heroes and - let's be honest - money and resources. Hence Paul Goodman ( here ) and Tim Montgomerie are right to give Sir John Major and the National Lottery some of the credit for the incredible turnaround in Britain's sporting performance. POSTSCRIPT added 16th August Hat tip to John Rentoul of the Independent and Janan Ganesh of the FT who have made the same point, about a classic example of a ...

The press have been having some fun with the idea that while the PM and Chancellor are on holiday the Foreign secretary is running the country. That might have been true in an earlier era but in this age of ipads, smartphones and satellite communications it is an overstatement of the case. In this day and age Downing Street could get hold of the PM almost anywhere in the world in seconds, and if there was something urgent and important, they would do. Today a Number Ten referred to Theresa May's view on the closure of a law firm. If she is in regular enough contact to be kept informed about things like that and to comment on them, you can bet your life they will keep her posted if there is anything which requires an urgent and vitally important decision. Basically Boris is the go-to minister for things which require an urgent decision but don't justify bothering the PM. Which is a very important responsibility but does not amount to "Boris is running the count...

I have been reading an interesting article by Nassim Nicholas Taleb called " The most intolerant wins: the dictatorship of the small minority ." It is a fairly substantial and wide-ranging examination of the ways in which in both a free market, and an open society, a very small but courageous and highly determined minority can survive, grow, and indeed cause much larger groups to dance to their tune. The basic mechanism described in the article is that if a highly committed group insists on making one particular choice - only eating Kosher food for instance - while the rest of society does not mind which way they chose - for example. very few non-Jews mind whether their food is Kosher or not - it may be simpler for suppliers and administrators or governments to provide everyone with what the highly committed group wants (It's not worth the bother of producing the non-Kosher version of some drinks or foodstuffs.) Sometimes the impacts of this can be good, sometimes...

BBC Radio four has just broadcast an unbelievably one-sided account of the industrial dispute at Grunwick in the late 1970s called " Grunwick changed me." If it had been one half of a programme and balanced by the other side of the story I would not have had a problem with what was said, but the lack of any such balance was an absolute disgrace. To listen to what thus effectively became taxpayer-funded left-wing propaganda, you might imagine that the people on the Grunwick picket lines were all heroes of the community fighting for gender and race equality and for a fairer society. Well, I dare say from the perspective of some of the people involved from the beginning that may have been their view, but that certainly isn't how I remember it and it was not the whole story. I think that, for example, the police officers who were injured while trying to do their job might have a different perspective. Once the likes of Arthur Scargill got involved, the Grunwick disput...

With a full day's work to do today starting with an early call, I had to retire to bed before the finish of Andy Murray's thrilling Olympic Men's singles final. I was hoping to manage not to find out the result before I could watch the rest on iPlayer this evening but could not find a big enough rock to hide under while simultaneously getting on with my job. Never mind But what a result for Andy, for Scotland and for Team GB as he become the first man ever to successfully defend an Olympic Tennis singles title, and took Team GB's haul of Gold Medals in one day to FIVE at the conclusion of what has become known as Sensational Sunday. Murray said the final was one of the toughest he had played in and from what I have so far seen of it the hype about this win possibly being his greatest achievement may well be justified. Credit where credit is due, his opponent Juan Martin Del Potro had already beaten on his way to that final two players who are not just two of th...

Most people in the UK now have eleven digit telephone numbers counting the national dialling code. However, Ofcom (and it is the regulator Ofcom, NOT BT, which controls this) has left a small number of the previous ten digit numbers in place. I know this because I still have a ten digit landline myself. I cannot see that there is really any material problem with this if there is enough number capacity in the areas affected, which in Whitehaven there is, but it does occasionally cause minor inconvenience when some individuals, particularly computer programmers or delivery drivers, do not realise that ten-digit numbers can be correct. I have occasionally found online systems refusing to accept my telephone number (I can usually get away by putting in my mobile or my eleven digit office landline instead) and we had a delivery driver this morning who did not give us the anticipated call an hour before arriving because he looked at the ten digit number and assumed it w...

Congratulations to Max Whitlock, Jason Perry and Justin Rose who between them won four Gold medals in Rio, taking Team GB to second place behind the USA and ahead of China in the medal table. Gymnast Max Whitlock's historic double success, with gold on both the floor and the pommel horse mad him the first British gymnast to win Olympic Gold - and he did it twice. In between came  Justin Rose's two-shot victory in the golf. Then cyclist Jason Kenny beat team-mate Callum Skinner for GB's 14th gold. Louis Smith won silver in the pommel horse and Nick Dempsey did likewise in the windsurfing to keep Britain on track for their Rio medal target of 48. Congratulations to all of them. Meanwhile Andy Murray is taking part in the Tennis men's singles final. Murray won the first set but is currently serving to save the second ...

It was my turn to read the new testament lesson this morning, which in the Anglican lexicon for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity is taken from the Epistle to the Hebrew, beginning at Chapter 11 Versed 29 and closing at Chapter 123 verse two. About five minutes before I was due to read it, the Vicar of Whitehaven, the Revd Robert Jackson, asked the congregation if anyone had stayed up late or got up early to watch live as Mo Farrah competed. (Nobody had but they were all very pleased by the result - see previous post.) He then suggested to those present that there was something in today's New Testament lesson which was very relevant to Mo Farrah's performance. As I had previously realised, some vicars are not above the most nefarious tricks to get people to listen to the sermon and readings! As you may imagine, I was a little perturbed by this, for two reasons - first, when I read the passage concerned five minutes later, I had to make sure I read correctly the pas...

Mo Farah became the first British track and field athlete to win three Olympic gold medals as he retained his 10,000m title with a thrilling victory in the Rio Olympics, despite a mid-race fall. He opened up a clear lead over the rest of the field in the final 100m to win in 27 minutes five seconds.   Kenya's Paul Tanui took silver, with Ethiopia's Tamirat Tola in third. Farah returns to the track on Wednesday as he begins the defence of the 5,000m title he also won at London 2012. "I've won an Olympic gold for three of my children," he said. "Now I'd like to win the 5,000m gold for my little boy." His dedication is truly extraordinary and he really deserved the success for which he had worked so hard. Also in the Olympics news: Great Britain's Jessica Ennis-Hill narrowly failed to retain her Olympic heptathlon title but did win the silver medal behind Nafi Thiam from Belgium.   Ennis-Hill, 30, won 100 metres hurdles an...

(From a piece in the Independent by John Rentoul which you can read in full here .)

Kenny Baker, the British actor inside the R2-D2 "droid" in the Star Wars films has died at the age of 81 after a long illness. Kenny Baker, who was 3ft 8in tall, became famous in 1977 when he first played the robot character.                       He went on to play the character in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, as well as the Star Wars prequel trilogy from 1999 to 2005.This made him and Antony Daniels who played his fellow "droid" C3-PO the only actors to appear in all six of the original Star Wars series of films. The film company that made the movies, 20th Century Fox, posted a photograph of C3PO standing next to Baker’s Star Wars character, and wrote: “Rest in peace, Kenny Baker, the heart and soul of R2D2.” He also appeared in a number of other much loved films in the 1980s, such as The Elephant Man, Time Bandits and Flash Gordon. His niece, Abi...

Great Britain won an eighth gold medal in the Rio Olympics as the rowers began day eight in sparkling form in Rio.   The men's eight led from the start to repeat their London 2012 triumph in the second final of the day. Just minutes earlier Britain's women's eight won the silver medal which kept Britain firmly in third place in the medal table with a total of 24 at that stage. (It's gone up to 25 including nine golds while I have been writing this post - see below. Meanwhile, champion Jessica Ennis-Hill and GB team-mate Katarina Johnson-Thompson are in strong positions in the heptathlon . Defending Olympic tennis champion Andy Murray has booked his place in the Olympic tennis final by defeating Japanese fourth seed Kei Nishikori in the semi-finals of the men's singles.won 6-1 6-4 and will play Juan Martin del Potro of Argentina in the gold-medal match on Sunday. (While I was writing this post del Potro beat Rafael Nadal in the other semi final) Murra...

Khaled  Omar Harrah, who was briefly famous in 2014 when a video clip went viral showing him rescuing a two-month-old baby from the rubble of a Syrian regime airstrike, has himself been killed in another such strike. This is not unusual. It is common for the Assad regime's aircraft to circle round and hit the same target again in the hope of killing rescue workers. Khaled Omar Harrah became one of the "White Helmets" who are the volunteer search and rescue team in Aleppo, in 2014. He was one of about 3,000 volunteers in opposition-held areas of Syria who, working to a handbook for ARP wardens in Britain drawn up during the Blitz, are estimated to have saved more than 56,000 lives. "For me this is the real Jihad" Mr Harrah said after saving the baby boy. "If I die saving lives, I think God would definitely consider me a martyr." "Khaled was an ordinary man, a painter and decorator, who made the choice that his contribution to the...

There have been some pretty daft things happening in British politics over the last few weeks. But the most ridiculous thing to happen this week was the constituency Labour party for Barrow and Furness - Barrow, where the dominant employer is the BAE facility and where thousands of jobs depend on Britain's nuclear deterrent - nominating the hopelessly anti-Trident Jeremy Corbyn for re-election as Labour leader. Apparently 70% of the local party voted for this lunacy. I am not in a position to know how many of the people who are likely to stand as Labour candidates in Barrow in next year's elections to Cumbria County Council supported Mr Corbyn. But irrespective of the position of any individual Labour activist, it means that wearing a red rosette while canvassing in Barrow during next year's local elections, or indeed any election in Barrow in the next few years, is equivalent to knocking on doors while sporting a T-Shirt which says in ...

Aristotle on anger management:

I wrote a piece on possible reform of the House of Lords on this blog here , and posted a shorter version to Facebook where it sparked a debate which you can read by following this link: Following on from this it was interesting to read today on the Reactions blog a piece by the present Marquis of Salisbury -  who I knew when he was Lord Cranbourne - called " After Brexit Britain needs to sort out its referendum-rules ." He's written about the balance between direct democracy and parliamentary sovereignty, noting the paradox that one of the main motives of many of those who supported a "leave" vote was to restore the supremacy of the British parliament yet they had to use a mechanism which over-rode that supremacy. He suggests that * we need to get a clearer set of rules about who can call a referendum and when - * points out that a post-legislation referendum is generally far better than a pre-legislation one (because you know what e...

P olice and partner agencies have confirmed that the incident in respect of an ordnance device found early this afternoon, in Bongate, Appleby, is now over. A 400m cordon which was put in place as a precautionary measure has now been removed. Public Health England advises there is no risk to health. If anyone is concerned they should call NHS 111 for advice. The incident followed the recovery of a World War II ordnance relic. A bomb disposal team from Catterick attended, assessed the situation and have taken the ordnance device away. Cumbria Constabulary have said that they nwould like to thank the public for their co-operation and patience.

Congratulations to the Team GB rowers who won two Olympic gold medals within the space of 30 minutes this afternoon putting Britain fourth in the medal table on day seven of Rio 2016.   Heather Stanning and Helen Glover retained their Olympic title from London 2012 in the women's pair final. George Nash, Alex Gregory, Constantine Louloudis and Mohamed Sbihi won the men's four. Meanwhile defending tennis champion Andy Murray reached the tennis semi-finals after winning a final set tie-break, while Katarina Johnson-Thompson leads the heptathlon. Johnson-Thompson cleared 1.98m - a new British high jump record - to top the leaderboard after two events in the heptathlon, with five remaining. This puts her 22 points ahead of fellow Briton and defending champion Jessica Ennis-Hill who is currently in third place and who won the first event of the two-day competition, the 100m hurdles.

Nobody, whatever their race or creed, should interfere with the ability of each voter to decide how to case his or her vote and do so in secret. Every voter, regardless of their sex, age, their beliefs or the colour of their skin, should be able to make up their own mind how to vote and avail themselves of the secret ballot if they so wish. Everyone must abide by the same electoral law. Sir Eric Pickles was asked by the last Prime minister to lead a review into whether we have a problem with electoral fraud, and his review has now reported . The Pickles review has made over 50 different recommendations to strengthen British democracy and stop election fraud. It recommends that * We should ban the handling of postal ballot papers by political activists to stop “vote harvesting”. * We should require some form of ID to vote at polling stations – it is ridiculous that it is harder to take out a council library book than to pick up a council ballot paper. * There ...

Cumbria police have issued a warning this afternoon (12th August) about what appears to be an unexploded piece of ordnance, and have put a 400m cordon in place as a precaution. Cumbria police advised a short time ago ( teatime on 12th August 2016 ) that anyone within the pink circle on this map of the Bongate area Appleby, Cumbria should stay indoors with windows closed until further notice. Police can confirm that they are continuing to work with partners agencies and the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit to assess the piece of Ordnance found at Bongate, Appleby. More details on the Cumbria Crack site at http://www.cumbriacrack.com/2016/08/12/bomb-disposal-called-to-appleby/ POSTSCRIPT - The bomb squad has now removed the item of WWII ordnance which caused the alert and the all clear has now been given. Details here .

Yesterday Katherine Granger won a silver medal with Victoria Thornley in the rowing double sculls which means she has now won five Olympic medals - four silvers and a gold - across five different Games. This extraordinary record of consistent success over such a period makes her Britain's most succeesful female Olympic athlete. Kitty Godfree (nee Kathleen McKane) also won five medals, in tennis at the 1920 and 1924 Games, but her medals were one gold, two silvers and two bronze. After winning gold in London with Anna Watkins, Grainger had a two-year sabbatical before returning with the aim of defending her Olympic title in Rio. Five-time Olympic champion Sir Steve Redgrave paid tribute to Grainger's achievement, saying: "It was amazing. This is the best medal Kath has won, because of the hard road she had to get there." "What she has done for the sport, for women's sport, is incredible. I am immensely proud of her." Another incredible achiev...

Let me start with the obligatory disclaimer that I take everything which comes out of an opinion poll with a pinch of salt. But I was interested in the recent Yougov poll on what people think of the last five ex-prime ministers .    There is no doubt whatsoever who stands out as the most respected - Margaret Thatcher, who is the only one with an overall positive net rating, the only one who more than a small proportion regarded as "great" and the only one who had positive ratings net ratings not just from her own party but from those who in 2015 voted for another party (Mrs T had positive net ratings from 2015 Lib/Dems and Kippers as well as Tories.) Nor is there any doubt at all who is regarded as the worst Prime Minister since 1979 - Gordon Brown by a landslide. Will, pollsters may not get everything right but the views of the people sampled in this poll certainly line up with mine. Based on net approval ratings (e.g. percentage rating the PM concerne...

Nobody can even take the result of an election for granted. It is always a challenge to come over as confident without being arrogant. But whoever put up the "Choose Labour's next Prime Minister" sign at this evening's debates appears to have a special kind of optimism - which verges on the delusional. Or perhaps they just have a very good sense of humour ...