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Bishop Hill Mar 19, 2009 Crime Criminals are not being prosecuted by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) or are being offered deals so that money can be saved and targets can be met, according to the Police Federation vice-chairman Simon Reed.
From here.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2009 Labour The civil service is a malignant conspiracy against the national interest.
How can you possibly be in the Labour party, which tries to expand the influence of the state and opposes privatisation, while at the same time believing the civil service to be a malignant conspiracy against the national interest?
Unless you are in favour of malignant conspiracies against the national interest...?
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2009 BBC There is a derogation from the Freedom of Information Act created specifically for the BBC. When the new bill was wending its way through Parliament, the BBC and Channel 4 complained to the Home Office that they would not be able to do their job properly if covered by the Act. They argued that, if for example their journalistic sources were compromised, they would no longer be able to collect important news stories. They didn't mention Robert Peston acting as a receptacle every time a minister wanted to make a diversionary leak, but that kind of activity would also presumably have been threatened were the corporation to fall under the Act.
In the event, a compromise was reached and the derogation was written into the act, exempting the BBC from its terms but only regarding "journalistic and artistic" activities. At the time it was agreed that this would cover all of the day-to-day activities of the BBC. See here.
With depressing predictability, the BBC, those lovers of freedom of information, have now set about expanding the scope of the derogation as far as they possibly can. The meaning of "journalistic purposes" has been expanded to cover editorial policy, reviews of editorial and journalistic performance and a host of other activities that can't possibly have been the original intention of Parliament. The Information Commissioner (ICO) has sat back and accepted all this.
Even where an activity is known not to be covered by the derogation, the BBC routinely claims that it is. The ICO has managed to show his teeth on the subject of the BBC's finances, which he has ruled are not covered by the derogation. And does the BBC care? Take a look at some of the decisions of the Information Commissioner.
I could go on, but I think you get the drift by now. You have to remember that decisions of the Information Commissioner carry the full force of law: they are equivalent to the decision of a judge. So for the BBC to continually argue that financial information it holds is not covered by the Act can only be described as contempt of court. The powers that be at the BBC clearly feel that the law can safely be flouted, and continually so, without the slightest fear of any comeback.
And meanwhile the Information Commissioner doesn't even raise a squeak of complaint. And why not, we might wonder? It's speculation, but perhaps the BBC and the ICO are both happy with the arrangement since both sides can keep themselves comfortably employed, bloated pensions fed by the poor unsuspecting licence fee payer and the poor unsuspecting taxpayer that they both wilfully ignore.
Bishop Hill Mar 18, 2009 Education Boris Johnson holds forth in the pages of the Telegraph, unveiling his latest bright idea. Headlined as
an education policy to gladden diehards, enrage trendies - and preserve the glory of English literature
it is, on closer inspection, just a call to have children learn poetry at school.
Boris! No!
Think about it. The sun is shining, Jonny and Jenny are bored and are staring out of the window wishing they could run around outside. What better way to put them off poetry for the rest of their lives than to order them to learn the first twenty stanzas of Grey's elegy, with the threat of dire punishment for non-compliance.
Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
I mean, who gives a stuff? The sun's shining! What person of any sensibility or love of nature would want to be inside reading a book?
My children love poetry. They pick up poetry books for fun (yes, for fun) and recite verses to unsuspecting visitors to our home. This is a particularly popular activity when it's raining or when there's nothing better to do.
The glories of English literature are being preserved, in homes all over the country. English literature is safe there, unmolested by the dead hand of the state.
Leave it alone.
Bishop Hill Mar 17, 2009 Climate An interesting post for climate watchers over at Freeborn John. It's the murky tale of how dodgy data finds its way into the surface temperature records and the duplicity of the University of Albany, New York in trying to whitewash the alleged fraud.
Word "alleged" added, 18/3 following a comment.
Bishop Hill Mar 17, 2009 BBC When the BBC refused to get involved with the DEC appeal for Gaza, I noted the possibility that this could be an arse-covering exercise ahead of their being forced to publish the Balen report into biased reporting of the Palestine conflict.
There's more of the same reported in the Graun, which carries the news that the corporation has now refused to broadcast a controversial play about the history of the state of Israel.
In an email seen by the Guardian, Radio 4's drama commissioning editor Jeremy Howe said that he and Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer thought Churchill's play was a "brilliant piece".
But Howe wrote: "It is a no, I am afraid. Both Mark [Damazer, Radio 4 controller] and I think it is a brilliant piece, but after discussing it with editorial policy we have decided we cannot run with it on the grounds of impartiality – I think it would be nearly impossible to run a drama that counters Caryl Churchill's view. Having debated long and hard we have decided we can't do Seven Jewish Children."
Bishop Hill Mar 16, 2009 Civil liberties There's an interesting article at the American site, Freedom Politics. It seems that in the state of Missouri at least, libertarians are seen as potential terrorists. There's a list of "red flags" that law enforcement officials should be on the look-out for. They're all based on the American situation, but translated into a UK context they are as follows:
I don't know about you, but I would sign up to the majority of these. I wonder if I'm on a terrorist watch list somewhere?
Bishop Hill Mar 16, 2009 Sui generis I've lifted this straight from the pages of Instapundit because it's far too good not to be repeated.
READ MY LIPS: No new waxes! “The painful Brazilian wax and its intimate derivatives are in danger of being stripped from salon and spa menus if a recent proposal to ban genital waxing is passed by the state’s Board of Cosmetology and Hairstyling.”
UPDATE: Reader Lou Minatti suggests an alternate headline: New Jersey Politicians Support Bush.
Bishop Hill Mar 15, 2009 Blogs Reaction to the redesign was, ahem, not universally favourable. That's OK though, it's been a good learning experience. Rather than throw my hands up in disgust, I've put through a number of tweaks to the template to address some of the criticisms. These seem to be sending me back towards the place I first started, but that's OK too.
Let's see how it goes. I can always pull the plug and go back to the old template.
Bishop Hill Mar 14, 2009 It happens to the best of us - and to me as well. NHS blog doc is highly unamused by Ed Balls response to the Laming report into the Baby P case. The language is fruity and entirely apposite.
Bishop Hill Bishop Hill Mar 12, 2009 Health Nanny state The Longrider is not impressed with the latest bout of bansturbation from the medical profession.
It seems barely a day passes without someone – frequently a medic – thinking that it is their place to tell us how to live our lives.
How right he is. They are a blight on society, are they not? Today's frenzy of bansturbatory frottage is all about chocolate and obesity and whether proles can make decisions about calorific intake without a team of doctors and nurse practitioners being on hand.
Why, I thought, do these grossly-overpaid people waste their time on ephemera like the diet of the general public. Haven't they got better things to do?
Well, here's what they should be doing, according to the General Medical Council. A few excerpts:
Treat patients as individuals and respect their dignity
It's hard to see how they square this with blanket bans on smoking, taxes on things they deem bad and so on. Perhaps these words mean something different to people earning £100k a year.
Listen to patients and respond to their concerns and preferences
So taxing chocolate counts as "responding to patients' preferences" does it? Or perhaps doctors just feel they can ignore the GMC?
Respect patients' right to reach decisions with you about their treatment and care
They seem to be ignoring this one too.
Support patients in caring for themselves to improve and maintain their health
But if they won't listen, just give 'em the treatment anyway eh? Make 'em do as they're told. After all, they're proles.
Never abuse your patients' trust in you or the public's trust in the profession.
What trust is that?
Bishop Hill Mar 12, 2009 Civil liberties Labour This is unbelievable. According to The Spectator, the state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is asking for customer's political affiliations as part of their account opening procedures.
Bishop Hill Mar 10, 2009 Education Fake charities Home education UKIP has called for the sacking of Vijay Patel, the NSPCC official who tried to link home education with child abuse.
UKIP is calling for the sacking of a child protection official following "dishonest" claims over home education.
The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children is backing a government investigation into home-schooling amid fears that teaching children at home can hide abuse.
"The NSPCC is trying to shift blame away from itself to the home education community," said UKIP MEP Godfrey Bloom.
He also picks up on the "Fake Charity" angle I've been pushing here.
It is no surprise that the NSPCC is a government toady given that it ceased to be an independent charity years ago and now is a branch of government. It is heavily funded by the government and does the government's bidding. Today that job is to vilify decent parents.
Excellent. Maybe all this slogging away at the keyboard is having an effect. UKIP have also been busy on the policy front, issuing a position paper on HE, stating that they are fully behind the principle of the existing law and opposing any attempts by the state to get in the way of the freedom to educate at home.
There are said to be something of the order of 50,000 home educating families in the UK. That could be a lot of votes just hoovered up by UKIP.
(Via Carlotta)
