Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer

Other than the snow, the main headlines seem to be that "Two glasses of wine a night triples risk of mouth cancer" and that the government is about to launch a TV advertising campaign to press home the message.
Note how statistics are manipulated to show the percentage increase in  the risk, but rarely show the basic risk from which this figure has been calculated.
Clearly something went wrong at the Telegraph as the actually gave some real data in stating that
"Mouth cancer is diagnosed in more than 5,000 people a year, leading to about 1,800 deaths, while about 12 million people have high blood pressure, increasing their chances of strokes and heart attacks."
So the risk of getting mouth cancer, assuming a population of 60 million is about 1 in 12,000 and of dying from it is about 1 in 33,000, a risk that I'm quite happy to take.
When it comes to high blood pressure, it is a well known fact that one's blood pressure increases with age, and with the present ageing population, why should anyone be surprised that the figure is increasing?
Of course, the government and all the various anti-alcohol organisations never point out the good that a moderate intake of alcohol can do, something which has been highlighted in numerous reports over the years and which is carefully ignored by the  medical profession.
So we are to have more government taxpayers' money spent on advertising to tell us half-truths. Surely it is their duty to give us all the facts so that we might weigh the advantages and disadvantages for ourselves?
Why don't they just shut up and leave us alone?
Do they really believe that a worthwhile number of people will take any notice of these adverts?
At least most of us know about the long term results of drinking alcohol, which is more than can be said about many of the drugs that our medical profession could end up prescribing as alternatives.

Useless Windmills

Today is the coldest we've had so far in this part of the country, according to my trusty (mercury filled) max/min thermometer is was down about -5 Celsius last night and it's still below freezing at midday.
But when I went for a short walk,  it didn't feel nearly as cold as it was a week or so ago because there is absolutely no wind.  Never mind, the house is nice and snug as long as there is electricity to drive the central heating!
Of course when we rely on windmills for 20% of our electricity, there would probably have to be power cuts, as there is no way that any commercial organisation would have plant with 20% spare capacity available "just in case". Indeed, according to my contacts, there is virtually no spare capacity at the moment with aged equipment being pressed into use to keep the country supplied at a time of maximum demand. I'm told that what could be a relatively minor breakdown under normal circumstances could cause blackouts over large parts of the country if it occurred during this cold weather.
Just let's hope that we have an outbreak of sanity in the Department of Energy and Climate Change with the appointment of Ed Davey as  the new Energy Secretary and that steps are taken to ensure that we would have electricity under the worst possible scenario.

Afghanistan needs £165 million a year from Britain after troops leave

According to the Daily Telegraph,

"Britain will have to provide Afghanistan with £165 million a year after troops leave to ensure the country does not collapse, according to a  report by the Royal United Services Institute."

Why? 
Why should we spend a brass farthing helping a corrupt regime stay in power?

We should withdraw our troops at once and shift a large number of them to the Falklands.We have no interests in Afghanistan, it has been the cause of a huge loss of British lives for more than 200 years and in all that period nothing has been achieved.
It is an American war.   We joined, I assume, in the belief that we had a "Special Relationship" with the United States and should give them support. Obama has recently made it clear that in his view, such a relationship does not exist, and moving our troops to the Falklands would make it clear both to Obama and to Argentina that we are henceforth putting our own interests first, and that includes a group of once uninhabited islands that we settled long before Argentine was even recognised as a state.
At least, based there, our troops wouldn't get killed on a daily basis by roadside bombs.

Surprise, Surprise - Committee announces that migration is causing unemployment amongst the British

The Mail reports today that an independent study has found that migration is killing off jobs.
Apparently this committee has discovered that 160,000 Britons have missed out on employment because work was taken by non-EU foreigners.
Do we really need a committee to tell us what is totally obvious to any one with the smallest amount of common sense?
OK, part of the problem is down to our idle youth and high unemployment pay (the bricklayer who recently did some work for me had been unable to find a British labourer), but again, do we need a committee to tell us the obvious?
I just wonder what it cost the taxpayer to be told something we knew already?
More to the point, will anything be done about it?

Scottish Independence

David Cameron has entered the debate about Scottish Independence, and as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, of which Scotland is currently a part, I believe that he is right to do so.
At present Alex Salmond is delaying any action on calling a Scottish referendum until quite close to the next Scottish elections, although he has a parliamentary majority and could ask for the legislation at any time. Reading comments from various sources on the subject, it seems clear that the general belief is that he is doing so in order to give him time to continue with the anti-English invective and hopefully increase his support within Scotland. Personally, I respect the Scottish people more that to believe that they will fall for this line.

But before he calls a referendum, I feel that there are a large number of questions which need to be answered, the first and foremost of which is "Who will be able to vote in the referendum?"
In that it was once said that here are far more Scots living outside Scotland than within, and large numbers profess that they would return home if they could, surely they are entitled to express their views on the  matter - do all the expatriate Scots want independence or are they to be totally ignored. My son-in-law and his sister were both born in Edinburgh and have a Scottish father, but all live outside Scotland in order to work in their chosen fields. My wife had a Scottish grandfather and has an indirect interest in the matter. Then what about the non-Scots living in Scotland; will they get a vote?

The next question is who will be able to have Scottish Nationality? Will all those Scots living outside Scotland be able to claim Scottish nationality and demand a Scottish passport? Or are they to have dual nationality? Will my grandson be able to apply for a Scottish passport when the time comes on the basis that although he was born in England, his father was born in Scotland?

Those are a couple of practical questions which could directly effect individuals, but then there are the political ones. Would Scotland be in a position to take on its share of the national debt? I would suggest that a proportion of the UK's debt would need to be transferred to the Independent Scottish Government on the basis of the present funding arrangements, the Barnett formula. What about the military; there is the nuclear submarine base at Faslane and the RAF at Lossimouth. Will Scotland be contributing pro-rata to a common defence or will England need to relocate these facilities? Would Scotland maintain a reasonable defence capability or become a neutral like, say, Ireland or Sweden?
The list of such practical questions is endless, but so far none have been addressed. All we get from Salmond is how Scotland would be far better of if it was independent. I think the Scottish people deserve to be told far more and be able to have more than pious hopes.

I should make my position clear. I would like to see Scottish independence, mainly for two reasons
Firstly, I am fed up with the Scottish whingers, like Salmond, whom I don't believe are typical of the Scots as a whole
Secondly, it would appear to be the only way that England will get its independence. The situation where Scotland has its own parliament and can vote in favour of something in Scotland and then the Scottish MPs can appear and vote at Westminster against the very same thing for the English is totally intolerable. The situation whereby Scottish constituencies are also smaller than English constituencies may have been justifiable before Scotland had its own parliament, but can in no way be justified now.

Personally, I would prefer some sort of federal arrangement, similar to the US, with the four countries of the Union having a large measure of independence, and with the Westminster parliament just dealing with common issues.

Finally my personal prediction. Whenever a referendum is held, I do not believe that the Scottish people will vote for independence, and certainly not before a large number of questions have been answered.

Modern Nursing

Today the media reports that David Cameron has ordered that nurses should make hourly rounds of the hospital wards and ensure that all their patients were comfortable. (Telegraph report here).
I've just returned from an unwilling visit to Tesco, in my capacity as bag-carrier and driver, and as I'm not involved in the selection of fresh produce, I happened to notice that an employee was doing the rounds of the fresh fruit and vegetables, checking the produce and removing odds and ends to a box. At the end of the procedure he initialled a check sheet (headed "freshness check") at the end of the aisle, and wheeled away those items which didn't pass muster.
I had a vision of this happening in the modern David Cameron hospitals. A nurse wanders round the ward looking at patients, and after signing a check sheet at the end of the ward, wheels away on a trolley any patients that had failed the "freshness check".

OK, I've got a warped sense of humour, but I do wonder what happened to the good old fashioned Matron, and why Cameron feels that it necessary to instruct nurses to do what should be routine in any caring environment. Perhaps he would like to tell the police to patrol the streets and look for crime.

Thoughts on 2012

When I think about the year ahead, I fell terribly pessimistic.
In particular, on the political front, there seems few grounds for optimism with a total lack of real leadership anywhere in the western world, and reading John Redwood's Diary this morning simply confirmed my view.  He argues that politics, both here and in the US has been living through a long period of followership with policy being determined by focus groups and polls which are frequently both volatile and contradictory.
As John says,

Today we need leadership. The west needs leaders who will explain that we have to change our ways. The west is too debt soaked. The public sector needs to be transformed, to do what it needs to do for less, and to confine its actions to the those most needed. The Euro area needs to settle its intentions quickly – do they want to pay the massive bills needed to complete their union? Wouldn’t it be cheaper and wiser to cut the membership down now, before more economic damage is done?

Then I went on to read the Mail. Normally I take much of what it says with a large pinch of salt, but today, Dominic Sandbrook's comparison with what happened 80 years ago, in the thirties, rang only too true.

After the Wall Street Crash in 1929 — just as after the banking crisis of 2008 — some observers even thought that the worst was over.
But in the summer of 1931, a wave of banking panics swept across central Europe. As the German and Austrian financial houses tottered, Britain’s Labour government came under fierce market pressure to slash spending and cut benefits.

Isn't exactly the same happening now? The Euro crisis is spreading amongst all the countries involved and many informed observers believe that it will break up within the next year causing their banks to have similar problems to those of 1931.
There was weak government in this country under a coalition led by Ramsay MacDonald, and with the politicians seemingly unable to be able do do anything about the rising unemployment, many people lost faith in parliamentary democracy and looked towards Oswald Mosley's Union of British Fascists. In the United States, there were similar problems and President Herbert Hoover seemed impotent to deal with them, just as Obama is today.
One can draw numerous other parallels with the thirties, from the growing power of China (then it was Japan) to the way the dictators of the EU are trying to consolidate their power by appointing non-elected leaders in Greece and Italy.

Here in Britain we have, in my view, a similar weak coalition government to that of the thirties which is quite willing to appease the EU just as Chamberlain appeased Hitler. We are embarking on a similar pattern of disarmament (aka Defence cuts) and failing to stimulate growth. The coalition is constantly squabbling rather than looking for solutions and offers little in the way of real hope for the future.

There is however one big difference between now and the thirties. At that time both Britain and the US had potential future leaders standing in the wings. We had Churchill and the US had Roosevelt, neither of whom were universally liked. But when it came to the crunch, both were accepted as leaders capable of steering their countries to better times.  At this time I can see no such potential leaders in either of our countries.

As I quoted once before, Otto von Bismark, the German statesman said
“Fools learn from experience. I prefer to learn from the experience of others.”
I just wish our politicians would have a look at the thirties and see what lessons they might learn from the events of 80 years ago.

So with these rather pessimistic thoughts, we move into the New Year.

Happy New Year!