Chris Whiteside's Blog

One of the greatest scientists of all time died peacefully in his sleep in the early hours of this morning at the age of 76. After developing Motor Neurone disease in his 20s Professor Stephen Hawking spent most of his life in a wheelchair yet from that wheelchair his mind roamed the Universe as that of few others could. He was the first to set out a theory of cosmology as a union of relativity and quantum mechanics. He also discovered that black holes leak energy and fade to nothing - a phenomenon that would later become known as Hawking radiation. In a statement his children, Lucy, Robert and Tim, said: "We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. "He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years." They praised his " courage and persistence " and said his " brilliance and humour " inspired people across the world. " He once said , ' It would not be much ...

There is a lot of truth in what Winston Churchill said about Russia in radio broadcast in October 1939. But perhaps today there is an even better key to understanding the actions of the Russian state - Vladimir Putin 's personal interests. Even when they differ from those of the Russian people.

I referred last night to the statement Theresa May gave in the Commons yesterday about the Salisbury poison attack but I think it is worth quoting in full. "With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to update the House on the incident in Salisbury - and the steps we are taking to investigate what happened and to respond to this reckless and despicable act. Last week my Rt Hon Friends, the Foreign and Home Secretaries, set out the details of events as they unfolded on Sunday the 4th of March. I am sure the whole House will want to once again pay tribute to the bravery and professionalism of our emergency services and armed forces in responding to this incident, as well as the doctors and nurses who are now treating those affected. Our thoughts, in particular, are with Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who remains in a serious but stable condition. In responding to this incident, he exemplified the duty and courage that define our emergency services; and in which our whole nati...

Theresa May told the House of Commons today that the Salisbury attack was carried out using a “military grade” nerve agent developed by the former Soviet Union. The PM said that Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned with one of a series of nerve agent known collectively as Novichock, and there were two possible explanations: either the attack was an act of the Russian state, or Russia has lost control of a deadly banned substance. She said that “ the government has concluded it was highly likely Russia was responsible ” for the attack. Russia’s ambassador in London has been summoned to the Foreign Office to explain whether the Salisbury attack was “ a direct action by the Russian state ” and if not how the Russian Government managed to lose control of its stock of nerve agents. Novichok is a series of nerve agents that were developed by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and 1980s and which are allegedly the most deadly nerve poisons ever made. In the 1990s trial for trea...

Knotty Ash's King of Comedy died yesterday at the age of 90. Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd was born on 8 November 1927 in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash, the son of a coal merchant. His birthplace had a central part in his later stage show as he wove surreal tales around Knotty Ash and its inhabitants the "Diddymen." Ken Dodd had a comedy career of amazing longevity and was the last of the Music Hall giants. He shared with some of the funniest people I ever saw perform that he could make a perfectly ordinary greeting like "Good Morning" or even just a lift of an eyebrow into a gag which would reduce an audience to fits of laughter. I can recall seeing him perform as a child and he could deliver lines like "Isn't it a wonderful day for going into Marks & Spencers and shouting 'Woolworths!'" in a way which made the words far funnier when you watched and heard him say them than they could ever appear on the page of a computer scree...

This article represents my own opinions and is not necessarily the policy of the Conservative party. A major investigation is still going on into the events in Salisbury on Monday. However, it is already clear that three people - the two targets and a police officer who went to help them - were made seriously ill, and in total more than 20 people required hospital treatment, because someone used a  sophisticated and rare nerve gas to attack them and thereby also endangered others in the vicinity. It is inconceivable that this was the action of a group of individuals. Only a government, and not many governments, could have done it. It is right that the government should seek to be as certain as possible who was actually responsible before taking action about it. But with hindsight it was a mistake that the government then in office did not take stronger action when Alexander Litvinenko was murdered in a similar manner in 2006. That mistake must not be repeated. I am not sugg...

Dan Hodges is a former Labour party and Trade Union activist and employee who left the party when Ed Miliband was leader. He disagreed strongly with his then leader's policy on how the West should respond to Syrian president Assad's use of poison gas against his own people and presentation of that policy: it would be fair to say he is even more unhappy with what is happening in the Labour party now. Dan has a piece on his former party in the Mail on Sunday today. (For those who follow such things, of the two Mail titles that's the one which is less likely use insults like "Enemies of the people" for people who annoy it such as judges who rule that the law doesn't say what the paper wants it to say.) I think we can reasonably assume that the Mail on Sunday's lawyers will have checked Dan's article very carefully and it would never have been published unless they were confident that they could substantiate the comments he makes in a court of law s...

And here is another different rendition of "The Sound of Silence" this time for eight unaccompanied human voices sung by VOCES8.

I posted the Simon and Garfunkel original version of "The Sound of Silence" yesterday and in the comments Jim King drew my attention to the "Disturbed" version. Each is brilliantly done in its' own way and I think you get more by having listened to them both than if you are just familiar with one version. That's because it says something interesting about the nature of music how the same wonderful piece of music can be performed so differently and yet the same idea comes through. Hence I thought I would post this one too.

"How to give a car crash a bad name" ( Tom Harris , former Labour MP, title of the second chapter of his recent book " Ten years in the death of the Labour party ." The chapter covers Gordon Brown's leadership of the Labour party and the country from just after the decision not to call an early general election in October 2007 to the MPs expenses scandal in 2009,)

A saying often attributed to Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Thomas Jefferson and various other people is that " a lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots on" and various similar alternative versions. Actually, it is unlikely that any of them originated the phrase, and the first person to make an observation along these lines was probably Swift when he said, Very ironically, one of the things which impressed me about the commitment to accuracy of this report into the modern version of this is that they got the above quote right in the opening paragraph, quoting what Jonathan Swift actually did say and not what Twain and Churchill almost certainly didn't (except, possibly, quoting someone else.) If you are a regular reader of social media, how often have you seen someone print a screenshot of a false story with huge numbers of likes and retweets/shares, and another of a correction to it with the truth which does not have anyth...

Following a recommendation from the Electoral Commission that voters should be required to produce ID at polling stations in order to reduce electoral fraud (e.g. voting more than once by impersonating someone else,) the government is trialling a requirement for Voter ID at this year's local elections in five local authority areas. The intention is that if this is successful if will be rolled out everywhere at the next general election in 2022. A similar requirement is already in place in Northern Ireland, where ID has been required to vote for thirty years and prescribed forms of photographic ID since 2003 and there is no evidence whatsoever that it has materially reduced turnout. There are currently seven different forms of photo ID accepted in Northern Ireland, including an Electoral Identity Card. As you can read here , studies show that " The Northern Irish experience suggests voters quickly adapt to the requirement, with little or no negative impact on turnout. ...

In his first major speech to the teaching profession at the Association of School and College Leaders' conference in Birmingham, education secretary Damian Hinds promised to “ strip away ” pointless tasks to allow teachers to “ focus on what actually matters ”. He appeared on stage with the chief inspector of Ofsted, Amanda Spielman, and Geoff Barton, ASCL’s general secretary, in a discussion on how to tackle workload. Mr Hinds said that “ Right now, we have so many brilliant teachers in our schools… but, with rising pupil numbers, I recognise that recruitment and retention is difficult for schools. “And, clearly, one of the biggest threats to retention, and also to recruitment, is workload. “Too many of our teachers and our school leaders are working too long hours – and on non-teaching tasks that are not helping children to learn.” “We need to get back to the essence of successful teaching – strip away the workload that doesn’t add value and give teachers ...

Simon and Garfunkel's classic ...

"Russian propagandists now have their own Western radio and television stations, and work across the web to influence the results of elections and referendums. And it seems as if nothing has changed. Just as the old Soviet Union funded Communist propaganda, so Russia now funds Putin propaganda. Just as the old Soviet Union funded the Communist parties of Europe, so Putin’s Russia provides money for Europe’s new far-right parties. " "No foreigner would volunteer to fight for Putin’s Russia. By definition, the appeal of Russian nationalism is limited to Russians. Julian Assange and a few Western journalists have moved from opposing Western imperialism to supporting Russian imperialism. But although the journey is surprisingly easy to make, there is too much hypocrisy along the way for any decent person to stomach." "Russia uses RT and Sputnik to settle scores and blacken the name of reputable critics." "A child could understand the game Russia is ...

"Protectionism is a scythe that slices through core conservative principles, including opposition to government industrial policy, and to government picking winners and losers, and to crony capitalism elevated to an ethic (“A Few Americans First”). Big, bossy government does not get bigger or bossier than when it embraces protectionism — government dictating what goods Americans can choose, and in what quantities, and at what prices. Down the decades, Trump has shown an impressive versatility of conviction, but the one constant in the jumble of quarter-baked and discordant prejudices that pass for his ideas has been hostility to free trade. It perfectly expresses his adolescent delight in executive swagger, the objectives of which are of negligible importance to him; all that is important is that the spotlight follows where his impulses propel him." ( George Will in the National Review, explaining why Donald Trump's proposed import taxes on foreign steel and al...

Those people who voted for Trump and lose their jobs as a result of today's insanity have nobody but themselves to blame, because he never made any secret of his protectionist views. But implementing his threat to put tariffs on imported steel and aluminium is nevertheless a disaster for the world, including America. I didn't agree with everything that EU President Donald Tusk said this week, but in the war of the Donalds, when Donald Trump said "T rade wars are good and easy to win " and Donald Tusk said " Trade wars are bad and easy to lose " in my opinion Donald Tusk is 100% right and Donald Trump is 100% wrong. And it's true even if there is no retaliation. There are a lot more jobs in the US industries which use steel and for whom the Donald has just put up their costs than there are in the steel industry for whom he has just reduced the competition they face. I agree with the arguments of Ryan Bourne here that the EU should not reta...

I wrote a few days ago in a post called The right and wrong way to respond to Labour" about the dilemma which Jeremy Corbyn poses to members of other parties. There is a popular perception - which in usual times is right more often than not - that politicians agree with one another more often than they make out and have to magnify their differences to make elections interesting. With Jeremy Corbyn, his opponents have the opposite problem. For most of us, if we say exactly what we really think about the leader of Her Majesty's opposition it is likely to come over as a hysterical personal attack at best or a smear at worst. One of the reasons Brandon Lewis was wise to introduce the "respect" pledge for Conservative candidates is that, particularly after one or two people very foolishly attacked the Labour leader without getting their facts quite right, criticism which is seen by the electorate as over the top is more likely to help than hinder the person critici...

A YouGov survey for "Red Box" which asked people in February and March how clear they found the policies of both main parties on the EU is not good news for either party. Clearly we need to explain our position better and so does Labour. Ouch! However, at least the proportions of people who are "fairly clear" or "very clear" on where the Conservatives stand is higher and rising. For Labour that proportion is lower and falling.

I was invested with the MBE this morning by Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, in a ceremony at Buckingham Palace. About another sixty people were invested with various honours at the same ceremony today and I had an opportunity to talk to quite a few of them. They were all very interesting people who had done remarkable things for their country and their communities and I was very humbled and flattered to be among their number.

I support the government's decision not to order a new "Son of Leveson" inquiry, not because I think Britain's press is perfect but because the one thing worse than the press we have now would be a press accountable to the government. I think it is worth publishing here some extracts from Matt Hancock's statement on how the government proposes to proceed on regulation and why which was made in the House of Commons and can be read in full in Hansard or on the government website here . A more detailed government response is available here . Matt Hancock, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport addressed the Commons as follows: "Mr Speaker, With your permission, I wish to make a statement on the Leveson Inquiry and its implementation, and the freedom of the press. Over many centuries in Britain, our press has held the powerful to account and been free to report and investigate without fear or favour. These principles underpin our democracy and...

To mark its 70 th anniversary the NHS is organising a series of awards for NHS heroes, for which nominations can be put forward through local MPs until 23 rd March. We are incredibly fortunate to  have many fantastic people in Cumbria’s NHS doing great work on behalf of patients. Whether they are doctors, nurses, ambulance drivers and paramedics, midwives, dentists or the unsung heroes in other roles, our hospitals and GP and dental practices and other services are full of caring, hard-working people who often make incredible efforts to care for the sick and vulnerable, sometimes in very difficult circumstances.   Just to give one of the many, many examples of people in Cumbria’s health service who go way beyond the call of duty, Lisa Cairns, a matron in theatres and anaesthetics, walked for three hours through the snow on Saturday to get to work.   There are many other wonderful people like Lisa in our NHS. We should be grateful ...