Free speech, fussbucketry and other things I won't shut up about in 2016 (sorry but a happy new year)

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The ineffective puritanism of modern public health

Perhaps, we will shift back to a more balanced approach to these issues. Less judging, less hectoring. Or maybe we'll sleepwalk into a ghastly, oppressive world where the New Puritans police our behaviour for its adherence to the received orthodoxy of believe about pleasures. I am not all that hopeful right now.

How lies - by pharma companies and tobacco businesses - are used to try and kill vaping

Biebert has identified Big Pharma, anti-smoking groups and government as the real forces at work to discourage electronic cigarettes and vaping. Biebert, who neither vapes nor smokes, was first drawn to the topic after reading about the famous ‘formaldehyde in ecigs’ claim. Beibert had friends that had switched from smoking to vaping and when he looked into the formaldehyde in ecigs study, the lie was obvious. That got him wondering.

Why free speech is really really important and the only winners in its removal are those with power

"In simple terms: one, I don't think we should be spending public money on finding out whether we can ban the EDL.

"Secondly, free speech and free assembly matters and if we can't have these things our society is worse for it."

How the lack of real accountability in the NHS kills any attempt to make it more efficient or more effective

The idea that the NHS is run by ‘the people’, as a joint endeavour, is a romantic fantasy. The NHS is an elite project, and this could not be otherwise. Collective choice is not a substitute for individual choice and ‘voice’ is not a substitute for ‘exit’. The illusory ‘accountability’ mediated through the political process cannot come anywhere near the accountability of a marketplace, or of a properly designed quasi-market setting, in which providers stand and fall with the choices consumers make, and depend on them for their very economic survival.

How free markets, free trade and capitalism are making the world - day after day - a healthier, wealthier, happier and more equal place

It was Schumpeter who pointed out that capitalism and the free market revolution didn’t mean all that much to Elizabeth I. She already had knitted stockings (in fact, we know the day she got her first pair). The great genius of capitalism is that it ended up with every factory girl possessing knitted stockings. That’s actually the defining feature of the system, that it ends up making everything just extraordinarily cheap–exactly the thing we want in order to be able to improve the lives of the poor. Just as it did our own forefathers of course. Because our forefathers were, almost all of them for almost all of history in exactly that $2 a day poverty that we now define as absolute poverty.

In between this stuff there'll be the usual bits about urbanism, the stupidity of planning, daft environmentalism, a bit of Bradford and - of course, of course - some mushrooms. I might even find a little time to say something about why we should leave the EU. Hopefully some of you will stay the course. Whatever you do, have a good 2016 if you possibly can.

It goes without saying that I'm grateful so many of you kept coming back here - prompted by a few great blogs including that commie fellow Chris Dillow's 'Stumbling & Mumbling', Dick Puddlecote and Chris Snowdon as well as the legion of folk who arrive from Twitter and Facebook.

So whatever you're doing this evening, do it in style and I pray it includes some binge drinking, over-eating, staying up too late, making a noise and enjoying the fabulous munificence of this great world we've got to live on. And I hope you don't let the nannies, the fussbuckets, the puritans, the health fascists and the greeny-greeny, back-to-the-mud huts brigade ruin your year. Above all please try to be polite while saying the things you want to say about the things that matter to you. Don't let the tyranny of those - like the Labour's leader on Bradford Council - who want to stifle your right to speak freely.

Happy New Year. And have a good one.

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Happy New Year!

Hewenden Reservoir and Viaduct, Cullingworth

Forget about predictions, favourite people, best music - another year has passed and another begins.

And it's in our hands to make 2014 a good one.

So let's start at least with a smile on our face, hope in our hearts and a beer in our hands!

Happy New Year - have the best 2014 you can.

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Pete's Mission: A New Year Thought

I was going to write a long, thoughtful, slightly meandering piece for New Year. Around the myths of Janus I would paint a relevant look at today’s issues – and tomorrow’s hopes. But then I thought; “you guys don’t want more dreary forecasting, more ill-informed futurology or another lump of maudlin remembrance of 2011.”

You want to party. To celebrate something – maybe a good year, maybe the end of a bad year, perhaps just the fact of survival. And so you should, properly with food, wine, good company and the joys of music.

Tomorrow we start again on our search – Pete the cat’s search:

"...While still a kitten, all fluff and buzzes, Pete had worked out a simple philosophy. I was in charge of quarters, rations, and weather; he was in charge of everything else.  But he held me especially responsible for weather. Connecticut winters are good only for Christmas cards; regularly that winter Pete would check his own door, refuse to go out it because of that unpleasant white stuff beyond it (he was no fool), then badger me to open a people door.  He had a fixed conviction that at least one of them must lead into summer weather."

Tomorrow we will – again – set out looking for that doorway into summer. Some of us will find it and walk through the grass or curl our toes in the soft sand. Others will not find the right door.

But what makes us human is that we carry on the search. If we stop or worse, call for someone else to look for us or even make a new door, then we become a sheep – and we fail in Pete’s mission.

There is a doorway into summer but, unless you’re a cat, someone else can’t open it for you.

Happy New Year. Have a great 2012 looking for your doorway!

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A reflection on the party....

So the party's over. Some of us haven't quite realised this yet and are still pretending that the things we believed were true are still true - despite the evidence before us. We clutch vainly to those certainties - that central banks are something to do with free markets, that 'global warming' is somehow the biggest threat facing man and that social workers are somehow 'productive'.

I'm as guilty as the next man (or should that, in these non-gender-specific days, be 'person') of getting it wrong - of accepting the received wisdom that clever men in government could actually solve the world's problems. Without, of course, quite appreciating how those problems were the creation of clever men in government - often the same clever men who are selling us the solution.

I'm as guilty as many others of seeing all the world in terms of political tribes - to fall into the statist trap of seeing only groups and not people. I'm watching now as good people - possessed of active and enquiring brains - are sucked into the groupthink of political positioning. It remains a frightening truth that the conduct of our politics - mediated as it is by the institutionalised system of political parties - seldom rises above the standard of BBC Radio 4's News Quiz (where left-wing comics pretend to be funny while insulting everyone they disagree with). Our debate is a collection of carefully crafted positions designed not to secure a better world - or even an improved road system - but to secure popular support. And political achievement is measured not by having a wealthier, wiser and safer populace but through the opinion poll and focus group.

So - like others - I seek some inspiration and thoughtfulness in the New Year messages of party leaders. And in that search, I hoped to find a little bit of contrition. An acceptance and appreciation of the manner in which our political classes fail us - be it in pretending there's a money tree in a basement on Threadneedle Street or in playing some grandiloquent game of spin so as to obscure the truth that,as Liam Byrne so aptly put it, 'I'm afraid there is no money left'.

The party's over. Some, who perhaps imbibed a little less, have emerged blinking into the New Year muttering; 'oh grief, what a mess'. Others haven't yet sobered up and are shouting loudly about having another drink and keeping the party going - while knocking over mum's best vase and punching the bloke who asks them to quiet down a bit. Most of us are nursing a huge hangover - we know it's a mess put we're hoping that, if we stay curled up in the corner, perhaps with a small coffee, someone else will tidy and clean it all up.

And tomorrow, when our head's clearer, we'll frame ourselves, set out the diet, fitness and hard work plans and charge off dauntless into the shiny new year ahead. Until nothing seems to happen at which point we'll say to the party's organisers - in our whiniest voice - 'what are you doing about it. Why am I not slim, fit and rich? What are you doing about it? And how dare you make me pay for 'weightwatchers' and the gym. That's not fair'.

And so it starts again - the dread wheel of our sad dependence turns again. Until the next hangover after the next party.

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Well that about does it for 2010 (thank heavens) - here's to 2011. Now how does that song go?

Another year sputters to its end. Exhausted, fractious and, like the overtired toddler, definitely in need of a rest. So what do we do? We throw a party. Not just any old party but a big party - a party where everyone has to go out, drink, make a fool of themselves, be happy, sing crappy Scottish dirges while holding hands in an odd way and get all maudlin about what good, bad or tragic occurred in the preceding 365 days.

I guess a bit of remembering is a good thing - taking a moment in time to survey the wreckage of 2010 and to peer into 2011's crystal ball. For my part, I shall look forward rather than back - mostly because 2010 was a pretty crap year for me, bad enough for me to believe that things really can only get better.

So here's some thoughts for 2011 - not predictions, I don't do predictions - just thoughts:


1. May sees an important set of elections - not just those in Scotland and Wales but across English local government. And the Coalition parties stand to do badly. For the Conservatives this is to be expected but for the Liberal Democrats it could prove something of a shock should their dire poll position continue.

In England, the Liberal Democrats will be defending 1,830 seats, Labour 1,600 and the Conservatives just over 5,000. In the equivalent elections in 2007, the Liberal Democrats polled 26% of the vote, about twice its current poll level. A third of the seats in Metropolitan councils and all the seats in the 30 unitary councils are up for election. A total of 124 district councils have all their seats up for election, and 70 have a third.

With Conservatives losing hundreds of seats (although I hope this won't be the case in Bingley Rural), it will be the performance of the Liberal Democrats that will get the focus - if they lost half the seats they are defending it will place further pressure on the deal with the Conservatives. We could see high profile defections to Labour from Liberal Democrat ranks - certainly at local level and possibly a national figure or two.

2. On the policy front, I expect to see the free schools movement accelerating - there are large places without proposals (there are none in Leeds, for example, compared to three in Bradford) and, as the first schools get closer to opening interest will rise. This is the most exciting - and I expect most change-making - of Coalition proposals and one that will benefit the lives of thousands of children many from poorer backgrounds. Coupled with the reassertion of didacticism and teacher authority, this is the most welcome change in education since 1944.

3. We will see further strikes, protests, sit-ins and such - all greated with frothing nonsense by both left and right. Two things will come of this - the police will be granted more power to deal with 'unrest' and those protesting will undermine their argument and their cause. The first is a crying shame (but always happens) and the second is the consequence of protests - 1968, 1981, 1990: remember those protests as the "people" took to the streets, were "mobilised" to fight for their rights. In each case, two years later saw the return of a Conservative Government. Most people don't like violent protest - it's as simple as that really.

4. On other fronts - the public health proposals will see the New Puritans on the rise again as the active campaign against working-class lifestyles takes on a new order. Local councils - and us councillors - will do what we do so well. Fuss, irritate, intervene and generally make a nuisance of our selves. This time in the interests of 'healthy living'. I shall be opposing all this - but will be a lonely voice.

Finally, I hope to find some more remunerative work, spend some quality time with my family and enjoy the company of those few friends I have left. Oh, and see West Ham stay in the Premiership (although this is looking a little unlikely right now). And I'll pen the odd word or two here - including a welcome return to the Friday Fungus.

I hope you all enjoy 2011 - after all 2010 has been and gone so all that rubbish is behind us. And the coming year will be a good one - I know so!

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Friday Fungus: Coming to a mushroom blog near you in 2010!

I do hope you’ve enjoyed the Friday Fungus over the past few months – it’s a little bit silly but I hope has provided a little smile, a bit of information and some great ways to eat the little darlings. For this New Year’s Day Friday Fungus I’m simply whetting you appetite for what is to come!

1. More on mushrooms in medicine – both the silly “mushrooms cure cancer” stuff and the more serious application of fungal origin drugs to treating diseases like Parkinson’s

2. An occasional exploration of the cultural significance of mushrooms – from Italian Feste and Native American drugs to why we eat mushrooms for breakfast

3. Assorted recipes – including, when the time is ripe, spring mushrooms, mushrooms in salads and possibly some experiments with mushroom desserts

Enjoy reading, love eating and if you’ve any desires or suggestions mushroom-wise please let me know and we’ll add them in. Got 52 Friday Fungus to do in 2010!

Happy New Year!

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