Who Decides What Public Inquiries Should Take Place?

 General, Politics  No Responses »
Sep 292013
 

Who decides whether or not to hold a public inquiry? The government of course, and they usually make their decision on the cost of a public inquiry.

But it is rather convenient when a public inquiry delves into embarrassing subjects such as :-

Never mind the fact there has been no public inquiry into political corruption after the MPs expenses scandal. Which all goes to show that we cannot trust the government to investigate themselves. Or the police: Look at how hard people have had to work at getting at the truth behind the Hillsborough disaster.

Or in other words, we cannot trust the government to determine whether public inquiries should be held, nor the scope of those inquires. Whilst the government usually does reasonable work in setting up public inquiries, and the reason for refusing to establish public inquiries is down to cost, it is not unreasonable to plan for the worst case scenario where a future government may refuse to establish an inquiry to conceal their own bad deeds.

As such the decision of what public inquiries should proceed should be in hands of a third party. An independent third party with no past or present politicians, senior policepersons, etc. Essentially a panel of the powerless.

Shouting At The Fashion Police

 General  No Responses »
Sep 252013
 

Tonight I caught a bit of a TV programme about the fashion choices of a celebrity (Kate Winslet); not my normal kind of TV which is why I very quickly turned over to something more interesting (to me) like the test card!

But before I did, I was treated to some self-important fashion gurus flaming some of the fashion choices of a younger version of the celebrity in question. In particular a 20-year old celebrity.

My initial reaction was: Of course a 20-year old celebrity makes some fashion mistakes. At that age we all make stupid choices; in fact without those stupid choices we don’t learn what is sensible and what is not.

But then I thought: Actually they weren’t mistakes at all. Young people should be experimenting, and sometimes experiments don’t work out. But they are not mistakes.

If we discourage young people from experimenting – especially with something as harmless as fashion experiments – we risk ruining what makes young people young. Not their age, but their sense of adventure and willingness to experiment.

Don’t Write Off British Manufacturing and Engineering …

 General  No Responses »
Jul 212013
 

It sometimes seems fashionable to put down British manufacturing and engineering such as when the well known idiot Jeremy Clarkson announced: “We don’t manufacture anything any more”.

Whilst it is true that Britain no longer makes more goods than the rest of the world combined, if you take the trouble to look you will find a surprisingly big industry. The trouble is that we all too often look backwards and compare today with the 19th century. Time to stop doing that, and actually look at today’s industry.

To quote the Wikipedia article (which has some other quite dated figures): “manufacturing output has increased in 35 of the 50 years between 1958 and 2007” and “output in 2007 was at record levels, approximately double that in 1958”. And: “In 2008, the UK was the sixth-largest manufacturer in the world measured by value of output.”

We may not make as much stuff as we used to, but what we do make is a lot more valuable.

A few points that illustrate just how well Britain is doing :-

  1. Of 11 constructors within Formula-1, 8 are based in the UK. Including teams such as Mercedes which you would quite reasonably assume were based in another country.
  2. Despite a series of governments that believe that spending money on space is a waste of time, the UK space industry is still worth £9 billion a year.
  3. BAE Systems is the third largest defence company in the world.
  4. GlaxoSmithKline is the fourth largest pharmaceutical company in the world.
  5. Of the 100 companies in the FTSE-100, around 33 can be regarded as manufacturing companies of one kind or another.
  6. A lesser known company (ARM) designs what is probably the most successful family of computer processors ever – ARM-based processors are found in 95% of all smartphones.

 

Should We Allow Ian Brady To Commit Suicide?

 General  No Responses »
Jun 292013
 

To ordinary people, the odious Ian Brady is as mad as a hatter. Nobody who commits the kind of crimes he is responsible for can be “all there”. Whether he is mentally ill, or legally insane is only relevant as far as deciding whether he should be kept in prison or in a secure hospital.

According to the reports on his mental health hearing, he wanted to be declared sane so he could return to prison where he would not face enforced feeding. He claims to be on hunger strike as he no longer wishes to live. For whatever reason, secure mental hospitals will force someone refusing to eat whereas prisons will not.

In terms of deciding whether he was well enough to be returned to prison, it is probable that the right decision was made. Whilst we should not blindly trust mental health care professionals, when they say he is too ill to be returned to prison, we need a very good reason to disagree.

However if Ian Brady had asked a different question; to be allowed to starve himself to death without being force fed, we would have a very different question to answer.

Normally there are very good reasons to force feed someone who is mentally ill and attempting to starve themselves. Some mental illnesses result in depression so severe that suicide seems like the only way out. But after appropriate treatment, the patient can be quite different.

Is Ian Brady suffering from this sort of mental illness? Apparently he is diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, so the answer without additional information is perhaps. If he is not subject to episodes of clinical depression then there may be grounds for stopping the force feeding.

Now of course there is another question to answer here: Should we allow him to commit suicide before he has owned up to his crimes and detailed where the last undiscovered body of known victims is buried?

If we decide that Ian Brady should not be allowed to starve himself to death, it seems reasonable that we let him know the reason why and how he can work towards changing our minds.

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