Chris Whiteside's Blog

Interesting to see that some people with absolutely impeccable Eurosceptic credentials, such as Christopher Booker, are not joining the " let's have a competition to see who can be most hardline " calls for a so-called "Hard Brexit." Incidentally I am not trying to score a "leave versus remain" point here, there is an equally unfortunate " let's see who can be most hardline " competition among some remain supporters. Britain is a very divided nation and the first thing we really have to recognise is that both the 52% of voters who supported "Leave" and the 48% of voters who backed "Remain" had valid and genuine concerns, as many as possible of which the government must try to respect. We really have to move on from the insults and prejudice which has too often characterised each side's reaction to the other. YouGov did a very interesting study published a couple of days ago called " Why the other half ...

Maddy Prior and the Carnival band strike again (without the terrible jokes this time!)

The "Success Regime" consultation about our local hospital and health services finishes tomorrow (Monday 19th December 2016). I will say yet again that the proposals in this consultation are of immense importance for our area.   If you have not already done so, please make sure you respond to the Success regime consultation before the consultation ends. YOU HAVE ONE DAY LEFT! You express your views online at   http://www.wnecumbria.nhs.uk/consultation-document/how-to-have-your-say/

The Economist's "The World in 2017" special issue has a prediction which is bad news for those who want our country to have a properly functioning democracy, which is supposed to include a strong opposition. Jeremy Cliffe, who is currently "Bagehot" in The Economist magazine, predicts in the special issue that following Jeremy Corbyn's first "abysmal" year as leader of the Labour party, he will continue to focus on internal battles, causing Labour to fade into irrelevance in 2017. There will be those (including some members, for the moment, of the Labour party, whose reaction will be along the lines of "I thought they already had." As Labour remains concerned mainly with the party's internal battles, Cliffe concludes that "The result will be something like a one-party state. The Conservative left, the Scottish Nationalists and the Liberal Democrats will try to hold Theresa May and her government to account. But with the m...

There have been times when Britain and Russia have been allied. There have been other times when our countries have, sadly, been mortal enemies. After decades of cold war, it appeared while Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were leading Russia that there was a genuine possibility that we could move from a relationship of hostility back to one of friendship. But sadly while Vladimir Putin is leading Russia in the county's present direction that is impossible. In a policy as foolish and far more ruthless as anything the West ever got wrong in Iraq, Putin has helped President Assad devastate Syria even further - not that Assad, DA'ESH and various other groups were not doing enough to wreck the place already - and helped flood Europe with refugees. Putin's Russia has deliberately attempted to destabilise and take territory from Ukraine, a country which gave up nuclear weapons on the basis of promises from the USA, Russia and other powers including Britain to respect...

The "Success Regime" consultation about our local hospital and health services finishes on Monday. The proposals in this consultation are of immense importance for our area.   If you have not already done so, please make sure you respond to the Success regime consultation before the consultation ends. YOU HAVE TWO DAYS LEFT! You express your views online at   http://www.wnecumbria.nhs.uk/consultation-document/how-to-have-your-say/

In April 2017 my son and I will be taking part in the Swimathon in aid of Marie Curie's work for people with Terminal Illness. I first took part in the Swimathon twenty-three years before in 1994 so this will be the 24th consecutive year I have swum the 5,000 metre challenge. My fifteen-year old son John is joining me and taking part in the Swimathon for the fourth time: he will be swimming the 2,500 metre challenge.   The Swimathon is Britain’s largest charity swim, and gives people of very varied swimming abilities an opportunity to raise money for charity by swimming distances of up to 5,000 metres.  The 2017 Swimathon event is in aid of Marie Curie, who look after thousands of  terminally ill people.   A big thank you to those who have already sponsored either me, or my son John, in previous years. It is possible to sponsor swimmers online: If you would be kind enough to sponsor me, and would like to use the online facility, you ca...

Earlier this Christmas season I referred to the search I had for a traditional version of "Ding Dong Merrily on high." Here's a version sung by Maddy Prior, who used to sing with Steeleye Span and has also sung with "The Carnival Band".  (I posted her versions of "The Boards Head Carol" with both groups earolier this week.) Here she sings "Ding Dong merrily on high"  with a very traditional accompaniment from the Carnival Band. Preceded by some truly terrible jokes ...

It is not known for certain whether Mark Twain really said this - although the first four words of the quote certainly do appear in a novel he co-wrote in 1874. When the Quote Investigator website investigated this saying in 2011, the earliest close written matches they found were both dated as recently as 1970, sixty years after Mark Twain died, although both sources did reference it to him. One of those references was, in fact a letter to the New York Times in 1970 from someone who had heard the quote and asked if it was true that Mark Twain had said it! Sadly there was no satisfactory answer. The other reference was in a poem by Canadian artist John Robert Colombo who is still alive, and Quote Investigator contacted him. He told them that he thought he had heard the quote, with the attribution to Mark Twain, in the 1960's perhaps in the columns of “ The Times Literary Supplement ” but had never seen a precise source. It is, howev...

Here is the second verse of Tennyson's Eponymous poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade at the Battle of Balaclava on 25th October 1864. "Forward, the Light Brigade!" Was there a man dismay'd? Not tho' the soldier knew     Someone had blunder'd: Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death     Rode the six hundred. There have been items in the press recently such as  this one in the Telegraph and a piece in the most recent issue of BBC History magazine by Professor Saul David of the University of Buckingham, about the question of who was to blame for sending about 670 men of the British army's Light Cavalry brigade on what amounted to a suicide mission. A letter has recently been found in the British Library's archives, written by a soldier called Frederick Maxse who took part in the battle, which casts further light on who the junior officers and the rank and f...

The "Success Regime" consultation about our local hospital and health services finishes on Monday. The proposals in this consultation are of immense importance for our area. As I explained on this blog and in a column in the Whitehaven News a fortnight ago, I took the opportunity in late November to lobby a government minister in the department of health about the "success regime" proposals for healthcare in Cumbria, and particularly about maternity at West Cumberland Hospital (WCH). He listened carefully, and then emphasized to me that the local NHS have not completed their deliberations yet and that ministers certainly have not made up their minds on any proposals which may come out of the present consultations and have not even been put to them. He stressed that anyone who has concerns and issues with the proposals should put them forward.   I stress this point because I know that many local residents are afraid that all the decisions may have alread...

The defence of Britain is far too important to be used as a football in petty party-political point scoring, but this does not stop people, and never has. When the people who design and build British military equipment really get their act together they have supplied our fighting men and women with superb world class kit equal to anything that they are likely to face in battle. But when they don't there has been a tragic catalogue from centuries ago right up to the present day of sending British soldiers, sailors and aircrew into harm's way to fight with guns that jam, radios that don't work, shells which fail to sink enemy ships and battlecruisers which blow up more easily than they should when hit by enemy shells, and indeed a whole array of inadequate protection, from poor body armour to insufficiently armoured vehicles. For that reason it is most important that those in our parliament who are tasked with scrutinising defence should never...

Same lead singer, different backing group

You may wonder what on earth serving a boar's head at a feast has to do with Christmas. I learn from the Oxford Book of Carols that there is an ancient tradition at Queen's College Oxford to serve a Boar's head at a feast at Christmas, which goes back to 1340. According to the legend -  well, Wikipedia, anyway - an Oxford student was studying a book on Aristotle while walking through the forest on his way to Midnight Mass . Suddenly, he was confronted by an angry wild boar. Having no other weapon, the resourceful Oxonian rammed his metal-bound philosophy book down the throat of the charging animal, whereupon the brute choked to death. That college - and quite a few others around the world where alumni of Queens Oxford have introduced the tradition - still keeps up the tradition of holding a boar's head themed event in the Christmas season. Here is the website for the annual Boar's Head Gaudy  which they will hold this coming Saturday. ...

From Hansard, here . The EU Justice Committee has publishes a report on Brexit "acquired rights." Report: Brexit: acquired rights (HTML) Report: Brexit: acquired rights (PDF) Inquiry: Brexit: acquired rights EU Justice Sub-Committee Key findings The Justice Sub-Committee's report, " Brexit: acquired rights " concerns EU citizenship rights. These are fundamental rights under EU law to live, work, study, and raise a family in an EU Member State of one’s own choosing. There was much talk before the referendum that these rights would somehow be protected as "acquired rights". This was misleading. If the UK wants to preserve certain EU rights on withdrawal, it will have to ensure they are safeguarded in the withdrawal agreement. The majority of the safeguarded rights are likely to be reciprocal with EU rights. The report recommends that a mechanism be established to ensure that UK law can take account of relevant...

"The Economist" reports that the CIA told US Senators that Russian hackers had intervened in the US election and is alarmed that US politicians reacted in a manner which divided on a party political basis. You can read their article here . My view is that the evidence that Russia is trying to interfere is a matter of grave concern, and we should try to work out, on as bipartisan a basis as possible, how Britain should react if a foreign power tries to interfere in one of our elections. My suggestion is that 1) all sides - both the side on behalf of whom the intervention was apparently taking place and anyone who the intervention was apparently designed to harm - should tell the foreign power concerned to mind their own business. 2) all sides should vote the same way they would have if the interference had not taken place. It would be equally unfair if someone was helped or damaged by an unsolicited attempt by a foreign power to interfere in their favour. ...

From a "Commons Sketch" article in the Telegraph by Michael Deacon, " Labour want to speak for both sides on Brexit, but right now they speak for neither ."  “L abour don’t seem to be supporting Brexit. Yet they don’t seem to be opposing it, either. In the circumstances, it would be easy to run away with the idea that they don’t know what they’re doing . On the contrary, explained Sir Keir Starmer today, during a speech in London. Labour’s refusal to commit themselves either way is 'a huge strength.' ” Michael Deacon imagined how they might express their support for both sides as follows: You can read the whole sketch here ."

Last night (Tuesday) the Russians claimed that the fighting in Aleppo was over. Today it burst out again and the agony of the people of the city continued. Very late tonight (Wednesday) rebels said a truce to allow evacuation of the city was back on again . The United Nations said that raids by the Syrian government and its allies on an area "packed with civilians" most likely violated international law. Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said that "While the reasons for the breakdown in the ceasefire are disputed, the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes." I note that the disgusting rag calling itself the "Morning Star" has been condemned by people over a large part of the political spectrum, including moderate Labour MPs and former Corb...

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) released the latest UK employment figures today which show a further modest improvement in Britain's employment position. UK unemployment fell slightly to 1.62 million in the three months to October It meant the unemployment rate held steady at 4.8% in the period, remaining at an 11-year low. This was helped by more women in work - rising to a record high of nearly 15 million - and the addition of 129,000 self-employed workers taking their total to 4.75 million, according to the ONS figures. The figures are based on the Labour Force Survey, in which the ONS speaks to about 40,000 households every quarter. That is a very large survey, but it still means the figures are not precise. The ONS is 95% confident that the unemployment figures they released today are accurate within a margin of error of 77,000 either way. In statistician's language, the best estimate of the number of people unemployed in Britain in July to September...

"Let's be clear now, if you don't shape the world, you will be shaped by it." (George Osborne)

Both when the world powers act, and when they decide not  to do anything, there are consequences. In either case the result can go horribly, terribly wrong. As Burke said, Thirteen years ago Blair and Bush made the decision to invade Iraq. Most people - and I'm one of them - would now see that decision as a terrible mistake, the harmful consequences of which were greatly exacerbated by dire planning and implementation, though not everything which came out of that decision was evil. (The present elected government of Iraq may be far from perfect but it is nonetheless the product of genuine elections and greatly preferable to that of Saddam Hussein, for instance.) Three years ago the House of Commons made the opposite decision in respect of Syria, and Congress followed suit. We will never know for certain what would have happened had the West intervened actively after Assad dropped poison gas on civilians. It might have gone equally wrong. But I hope that all the MPs who ...

Chancellor Phillip Hammond, asked about the possibility of a phased transition, or moving in stages,  while Britain completes the process of leaving the EU (As the more intelligent leavers might put it, seeing Brexit as a process rather than an immediate jump to a set destination) Select Committee Chairman Andrew Tyrie asked him, "Can I take it that the answer is ' Yes '?" The Chancellor replied, "That's another way of putting it, Yes."

I do not always share the views of Private Eye editor Ian Hislop, but the edited version of his 2016 Orwell lecture which has been published in the New Statesman  here , a robust defence of free speech and genuine debate, is the best article on any subject I have read in 2016. It is interesting, and more than a little frightening, to note the extremely strong parallels which Hislop draws between modern willingness to believe the most preposterous lies and shout down those who express differing opinions and the perils which George Orwell warned against in "1984" and "Animal Farm" - books written at t,he time of the rise of totalitarianism, of a world war against fascism, and then a cold war against communism. The article version is illustrated by some covers and cartoons which originally appeared in Private Eye and descriptions of the reaction to them. This was an example: Private Eye's concerns about free speech in Universities were " dismissed as...

In yesterday's Sunday Times the Earl of Caithness is quoted as saying "I have a friend who changed from the Conservative party to the SDP Liberal party. He was promised a peerage. "He didn't get it so he changed to the Labour party. He was promised a peerage but didn't get it. He is now disillusioned with politics." The Sunday Times not unreasonably asked whether it is any wonder that many other people are also disillusioned with politics. From the fact that the first party Lord Caithness described the gentleman concerned as having jumped ship to was referred to as the "SDP Liberal party" I suspect these defections may have taken place a long time ago. I doubt if the individual concerned will be offered a peerage to return to the Conservative fold. I certainly hope not anyway!