Monday 23 December 2013

Bad Behaviour in the Commons

The House of Commons recently held a debate on the rise in the number of Foodbanks. The debate was provoked by a Change.org petition calling on the House of Commons to debate hunger and the rise in Foodbanks. Incredibly, the petition managed to get over 100,000 signatures (the number required to get debated in Parliament) in just two days.

This was not a debate on some arcane aspect of law. This was a debate demanded by the British public, on a topic of urgent humanitarian concern.

It was, in short, important - and people were watching.

So one would expect MP's to:
a) be present and
b) be on their best behaviour.

Neither of these things happened.

The Government side of the House in particular was very sparsely populated and some measure the behaviour of the MP's can be gained by the fact that Eleanor Laing the Deputy Speaker of the House, had to intervene some 14 times in the first hour of the debate alone, as shown below :

1) Order. I must warn hon. Members that if everybody takes four minutes, plus the time allowed for interventions, only about a third of those who wish to speak will be able to do so. One would hope that Members, out of consideration for others, might take less than four minutes where at all possible.

2) Order.

3) Order. The hon. Gentleman should make a brief intervention, but it must be heard by the House. He may now make his intervention, but briefly.

4) Order. I cannot hear the shadow Minister, but she is speaking perfectly clearly. There is too much noise in the Chamber. Members should have the courtesy to listen to the hon. Lady moving the motion

5) Order. I do not understand why there are conversations going on all around the Chamber. [Interruption.] I can see where they are taking place. If Members are here to take part in the debate, they must listen to the hon. Lady who is proposing the motion.

6) Order. This is not a football match. Do not shout at the Minister. She will give way when she is ready.

7) Order. There is no point in having a debate if nobody listens to the person who is speaking. Be quiet.

8) Order. There are too many people standing up. The Minister is not taking interventions at this point. Allow her to make her speech.

9) Order. We cannot hear the Minister.

10) Order. [Interruption.] Order. The House should pause for a moment, calm down and listen to the Minister. Everyone will have a turn to make their point in due course. [Interruption.] Order. I call the Minister.

11) Order. If hon. Members do not keep quiet and listen to the Minister, she will have to repeat her speech over and over again—[Interruption.] Order. If the House keeps interrupting me, I will call order again and again, and very few hon. Members will have the chance to make the speeches they have prepared. Let us have silence. I call the Minister.

12) Order. Members must not shout at the Minister. It is clear that she does not intend to give way, and she is not going to give way if you shout at her. Please be quiet, allow the Minister to finish her speech and then everyone will have a chance to make their contribution.

13) Order. The hon. Lady must be brief, but she must be heard.

14) Order. Hon. Members will allow the Minister to conclude her speech.

Interventions by the Deputy Speaker during
the first hour of the Foodbank Debate 18 Dec 2013

BFTF asked No3 Son (10yrs old) what he thought of the behaviour of the MP's and his comments were:

"Not a good example...worse than children...they should show respect to each other...Say "If I may" instead of shouting...Shouting is rude...by the look of their behaviour they shouldn't be running the country...they shouldn't say anything about children's behaviour until they have sorted out their own behaviour."
BFTF wonders whether MP's ever feel, frankly, ashamed at their behaviour in Parliament and poor impression it gives of their ability to run the country.

Commons attendance during the Foodbank Debate 18 Dec 2013


Links updated Jan 2019.

Friday 6 December 2013

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is a trade agreement that is currently being negotiated between the European Union and the United States. The negotiations aim at removing trade barriers (tariffs, unnecessary regulations, restrictions on investment etc.) in a wide range of economic sectors so as to make it easier to buy and sell goods and services between the EU and the US.

There are many areas of concern regarding this trade agreement, most notably that it may allow companies to sue governments who try to protect areas of social policy from commercialisation (e.g. Heathcare). Some of these issues are described in more detail below.

1) Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)
2) Lack of Protection of Social Policies such as Healthcare
3) Cautionary tales from other Free Trade Agreements
4) NAFTA - Framing, legalese and adverse effects
5) Petitions etc and feedback from politicians
6) Further Links

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1) Investor to State Dispute Settlement (ISDS)
ISDS procedures are a component of many Free-Trade agreements and allow companies to challenge governments if they believe their rights to free investment have been curtailed, even if this has been as a result of government action for environmental, health or other social good reasons.

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2) Lack of Protection of Social Policies such as Healthcare
The Health and Social Care Act 2012 mandates that compulsory competitive tendering for NHS services.

This, of itself raises issues relating to the lack of evidence that private operators are more efficient than the NHS, the administrative burden tendering imposes, the risks of disrupted care (imagine your GP "provider" switching your GP around every two years), and poorer working conditions for medical staff - but these are issues for another post.

The mandatory tendering of health services may allow large US healthcare companies, who come from an environment that lacks the public service ethos of the NHS, to grab and hold parts of the NHS - and prevent future UK governments from bringing those parts of he NHS back into public hands. One wonders how bad a service such large companies will be allowed to provide before their contracts are terminated.

Given that they can take the UK Government to court, the answer may well be "very".

More information on this at www.stopttip.net (yes, they are biased, but it is the only info BFTF has available at this point).

The UK could exempt the NHS from TTIP (as the French have done with their media industry).

In a world class example of doublespeak, David Cameron responded to a direct question on this issue as follows (Hansard for 19th June 2013:
"Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab): Will the Prime Minister confirm that the NHS is exempt from the EU-US trade negotiations?

The Prime Minister: I am not aware of a specific exemption for any particular area, but I think that the health service would be treated in the same way in relation to EU-US negotiations as it is in relation to EU rules. If that is in any way inaccurate, I will write to the hon. Lady and put it right"

George Monbiot has written about ISDSs in the Guardian, commenting that :
"The hearings are held in secret. The judges are corporate lawyers, many of whom work for companies of the kind whose cases they hear. Citizens and communities affected by their decisions have no legal standing. There is no right of appeal on the merits of the case. Yet they can overthrow the sovereignty of parliaments and the rulings of supreme courts."
Adding that one of the judges has commented that:
"..it never ceases to amaze me that sovereign states have agreed to investment arbitration at all ... Three private individuals are entrusted with the power to review, without any restriction or appeal procedure, all actions of the government, all decisions of the courts, and all laws and regulations emanating from parliament."
And there is a chilling effect on new legislation, with threatening letters from corporations ensuring that new public protection laws are watered down or dropped entirely, especially in the case of environmental legislation.

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3) Cautionary tales from other Free Trade Agreements
Philip Morris sued Australia for billions of dollars in lost profits when the government there took action to reduce teenage smoking by introducing plain cigarette packaging. Unbelievably, the tobacco company simultaneously claims that there is no evidence the legislation will reduce smoking and is also suing for lost profits. So, Philip Morris, which is it?

Canada is being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars by pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for revoking the patent on drugs because (according to the Canadian Government) they were not as effective as claimed in the patent (Straterra) or that they did not meet Eli Lilly's promise of being significantly better than other drugs in the marketplace (Zyprexa). In contrast, Elli Lilly wants the Canadian legislation to change so that even a "scintilla" of evidence, no matter how dubious, is enough to grant and maintain a patent.

Dutch healthcare firm Achmea initiated arbitration proceedings against the Slovak government because of the possibility that the administration would nationalise the existing private healthcare providers to create one single, public health insurance company. Achmea claimed that the proposals would go against the Bilateral Investment Treaty between the two countries. The tribunal ruled against Achmea in this case, although it is a little bit more complicated than that. Full story here.

Read this on how Canadian asbestos mining interests attempted to overturn Frances, health risk related, ban on the import of asbestos.

South African healthcare reforms are under threat from GATS.

Lots more examples at the NAFTA Wiki page

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4) NAFTA - Framing, legalese and adverse effects
Dr Elaine Bernard at the Harvard Law School has written about the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), commenting that :
"The intellectual property provisions are just one example of how there is extensive protectionism in this so-called "free trade" agreement. However, this protection applies only to corporations, not to workers, consumers or small farmers.
The "free trade" aspect of NAFTA can be found in the serious restrictions that the agreement places on a government's ability to regulate. It explicitly requires, for example, that governments treat social institutions -- such as education or health care -- as service commodities open to the competitive pressures and the dictates of the marketplace."

Dr Bernard also gives an example of the impenetrable language used in the agreement :
""Nothing in this Chapter shall be construed to prevent a Party from providing a service or performing a function, such as law enforcement, correctional services, income security or insurance, social security or insurance, social welfare, public education, public training, health and child care, in a manner that is not inconsistent with this Chapter."[Chapter 11. Section 4 of Article 1101 on Scope]

and explains that :
"Double negatives such as "not inconsistent" are common language in many trade agreements. They are a trade lawyer's version of a positive assertion. That is, they allow the drafters to avoid a clear assertion that something is permitted. Instead, activities are crypticly permitted as "not inconsistent."

Dr Bernard also mentions the summary of NAFTA made by Michael Walker, chief economist with the right-wing economic think tank Fraser Institute in Canada who said:
"a trade agreement simply limits the extent to which the U.S. or other signatory governments may respond to pressure from their citizens."

Regarding protection of standards, Dr Bernard comments that :
"If a standard in one country is higher than the standard in another countries, such legislation and regulation could be challenged as "technical" or "non-tariff" barriers to trade. Once challenged, the onus is on the defending country to prove that its regulation is "based on scientific principles" and "risk assessment.".

And the focus on product instead of process undermines environmental and food safety legislation :
"The trend in regulation that NAFTA promotes is to regulate product not process...Regulating product means that if you grow a tomato and use DDT or other chemicals that are banned in this country, we cannot prohibit the import of that tomato. We can simply inspect it at the border to assure that any DDT residue is within legal limits, but we cannot regulate process, that is, how it is grown. Ultimately, this undermines our domestic regulation."

Of particular interest to the UK, is the way in which national healthcare systems can be targeted under free trade agreements :
"U.S. corporations [are ] pointing out that the Canadian government run health care insurance system works as a de facto government subsidy to industry -- and therefore could be viewed as a violation of the trade agreement. Lee Iacocca has stated that he saves $700 per car by producing in Canada because of the free (for him) Canadian health care system. He does not have to bargain with the Canadian auto workers over rising health care costs...so for Iacocca it's like getting a $700 government subsidy per car."

Some more information on the danger that TTIP poses for the NHS at this NHA Party article

Dr Bernard points out that, in contrast to NAFTA, the EU has mechanisms in its Single Market that reduce equality - such as allowing free movement of labour, the Social Charter and structural adjustment funds for poor regions.

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5) Petitions etc and feedback from politicians
A petition from SumOfUs regarding TTIP

You can read TTIP straight from the horses mouth, as it were, by visiting this European Commission page.

A Q&A section can be found here. Note in particular that it says that the treaty must be approved by the European Council and the European Parliament before it becomes law.

An anti-TTIP group points out that for every one NGO seen by the EU, over 20 trade representatives are seen.

BFTF has asked the local MP and Conservative Party how they are going to ensure that the TTIP agreement will prevent abuses of corporate power as described above.

And also, for example, will food goods coming into the UK from the US have to have the (sensible) EU format for dietary information which states calories per 100g - or will the US format which states calories per arbitrary serving amount be allowed?

Labour Response
Received a response from BFTF's local MP saying that "So far, the Government has demonstrated no intent to bring transparency and accountability to to bear to these talks..." and that no impact assessment has been carried out of the deal on the UK.

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6) Further Links
Open Democracy Article

Sunday 1 December 2013

Talk : The Hyson Green Eco-House

Cafe Sci hosted a fascinating talk recently entitled "The Hyson Green Eco-House" and presented by Moby Farrands from the Partnership Council and Dr Amanda Smith who is a Senior Lecturer in International Studies at Nottingham Trent University. This post is based loosely on the contents of the talk, with some added reference material thrown in.

Combating Climage Change
With some 80% of climage change emissions being caused by cities, they have become a focus for efforts to reduce C02 emmissions. Not least because it is often hoped that the rich mix of creative people and the way they are always changing and developing will allow innovative solutions to develop.

However, "top down" solutions imposed or parachuted in from central government simply do not work in the current economic and social climate, with factors such as transient populations and the economic downturn making it hard for projects to gain traction.

Fortunately, government thinking has moved on and the current thinking is in terms of "community resilience" and also encouraging "community organising"

A Nottingham Citizens Event - It's where change happens.

The Partnership Council and Area 4
The Partnership Council works on a model that empowers local people to influence decision makers. You can read more about their work at www.partnershipcouncil.co.uk. They have noted that within Area 4 (which is a broad strip of the city running from New Basford in the north, through Hyson Green and down to the Park) there are some areas where there is a big fuel poverty issue, and where deprivation is severe even on a national scale.

The fact that much of the housing is rented and terraced effectively puts the homes outside of many of the available insulation or energy generation schemes (landlords not interested, grants not available to tenants, no gardens for heat pumps, roofs too small to install usual solar panel kits etc)

And yet the houses are some of the most in need to help to reduce fuel costs, as front doors often open straight into the living room, roof insulation levels are low and solid walls lose a great deal of heat.

And there are few, if any, resources available online that are applicable to houses such as these.

So The Partnership Council are working with local residents to develop energy reduction approaches that are either very cheap, or that the tenants can take with them when they leave.

Wollaton Park, Nottingham

TimeBanks
A key piece of the jigsaw is the use of "Timebanks".

Time Banking began in the UK in 1998 and it works by people giving their time, rather than money.Participants ‘deposit’ their time in a Time Bank by helping and supporting other participants free of charge. They are able to ‘withdraw’ their time when they need to ‘pay’ for free help and support of their own.

In Area 4, the Time Bank project is called the "Skills Exchange", which has over 300 members including individuals and organisations. Those members have ‘exchanged’ an amazing 7,100 hours of free help, including ironing, jewelry repair, tuition to learn English and British Sign Language, gardening and DIY. For instance, one member ‘house-sat’ and looked after another member’s cat, whilst other members without cars have got help with lifts to and from places like the vets or health centre.

Implementing Change
The traditional approach to implementing change in local communities has been to hold meetings in libraries, print out leaflets etc and generally carpet bomb the area with information.

The only problem is that it doesn't work.

Moby commented on how the transient, often immigrant, communities in the most deprived areas of Area 4 will not visit libraries as they view them as places for students or old people trying to stay warm.

And they are under such stress from simply making ends meet that they do not have time to read complicated leaflets and fill in forms.

Also, in a comment that had BFTF searching his own heart, these communities are sick and tired of their children being lectured to at school about eco light bulbs (which they cannot afford) and Fairtrade food (which they also can't afford)

What DOES work, however, is genuinely engaging with the community and giving them something that is immediately useful to them, such as a social get-together with some freebies and useful items such as potted vegetable seedlings at a neutral, very local, venue.

In this context, timebanks can then allow the tenants to take advantage of their collective talents to reduce heat loss with simple approaches such as using old duvets to make insulating curtains, or installing Portiere curtains to reduce drafts and heat loss (see also here).

The Partnership Council then uses the opportunity of these initial low cost measures to inform tenants, hopefully in a more amenable atmoshpere, about other technologies such as the those eco-light bulbs mentioned earlier.

Encouraging people to have pride in their homes is another aim of the project, and again the timebank is key to allowing tenants to easily and cheaply access skills such as making window boxes.

After several years of delays in actually getting a lease signed, the Partnership Council have been given a house in the area at a peppercorn rent and hope to be using it to showcase many of the low cost technologies that are most relevant to the local residents.



Alain Job and his African fare - at an (unrelated) Area 4 community event

A comparison with Aspley
During the Q&A it was asked why there was such a difference between Hyson Green, say, and the large areas of Aspley had been fitted with solar panels. The response was that whereas in Aspley the homes were social housing, all owned by the Council, in Hyson Green the homes were owned by a multitude of independant landlords. This made it hard to implement the large scale program that was undertaken in Aspley

It was also noted that solar panel program in Aspley can clearly demonstrate a reduction in climate emissions (the leccy company will know how much energy is being generated by the panels and this can easily be converted to a CO2 saving). In contrast, the savings in areas such as Hyson Green may be much harder to quantify. It may even be that, after the energy saving measures have been implemented the energy use is exactly the same - it is just that instead of freezing all winter the tenants are now living in a reasonable level of warmth. This is not to denigrate such an achievement. A warm house allows children to study effectively, stops damp and prevents chest infections and asthma developing. It would only take a few saved hospital admissions for the monetary savings to become significant.

But it needs to be understood that energy companies are looking to demonstrate CO2 reductions, because that is what they are being motivated to deliver.

Whereas The Partnership Council is all about community, so the softer issues such as pride in ones house, a warm room for the kids etc are all important factors.

Lack of communication
One startling comment from the presenters was their observation that at the various conferences held around the UK, the climate change people do not seeem to talk to the fuel poverty people !

Examples of best practice
The Yellow House
West Bridgford Eco Houses

UPDATE 11 Dec 2013
Informed by the magic that is Twitter that "Areas were reorganised 2 yrs ago so Berridge (Forest Fields, Hyson Green, New Basford) is now part of Area 5 with Sherwood"

UPDATE Jan 2019
Update to links

Sunday 24 November 2013

Israr Raja and the "9 Dirham Survival Challenge"

BFTF recently received a message from Israr Raja, a Lancastrian with a big heart and a warm smile, who is currently working in Al Ain, UAE .

It turns out that Israr, together with his friend and neighbour Nicolas Wavrin, have decided to raise awareness of how difficult life can be for many around the world by embarking on a "9 Dirham Survival Challenge"...

The Issue
Almost half the world — over three billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day (approximately 9 dirham). There are 2.2 billion children in the world of which 1 billion are living in poverty.

The Challenge
Starting on "Universal Childrens Day" (20th November), the "9 dirham survival challenge’ is an experience to attempt to understand partly what life is like for people living in poverty in our world by living on 9 dirham a day for 30 days. It is important to remember that in reality most people are relying on this amount to cover all living costs and not just food. However, in the challenge the 9 dirham will cover food alone, no other living expenses included.

The aim is to raise awareness of issues of poverty around the world; to inspire young and old to join in this movement to become more mindful citizens and to support Dubai Cares in their work to make life easier for children in education across the world.

How you can follow
To keep up to date with how their challenge is going visit their blog :
http://www.9dirhamsurvivalchallenge.wordpress.com

How you can support
Why not try to survive for a few days on 9 Dirhams (about £1.50) per day? It would be great to hear how you get on and what your thought are. (BFTF will try to live on £1.50 a day for a week starting Monday 25th Nov).

You may wish to think about what structural problems are causing so many to live in such difficult circumstances (Trade barriers? Lack of a living wage? Government corruption? Something else?) and lobby to let those in power know how you feel.

You can donate at Israr's JustGiving page :
http://www.justgiving.com/9dirhamsurvivalchallenge
Proceeds go to Dubai Cares, a charity who work in countries as diverse as Haiti, Angola and Indonesia and run programs to improve access to primary education by focussing on four key components: School Infrastructure; School Health & Nutrition; Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) in Schools; and Quality of Education.

BFTF joins Israr for Day 6 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

BFTF's food today was half a fruit loaf (~40p) nibble on during work and a plate of porridge and a little jam in the evening (~50p) Also had a few cups of tea at work, which BFTF is classing as "free" although for many people around the world, both beverages and water have a significant cost...

Porridge is something that BFTF has only very recently re-discovered, after being given a small sachet from a vegan co-worker. BFTF very quickly moved on from that to buying a packet of ASDA own brand porridge oats and is becoming an increasingly fervent fan of the food. Kids weren't impressed though....

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, Israr seems to have cooked up a rather nice egg and potato curry - but will his money last out the week???

BFTF's Evening meal : Porridge with milk and a little strawberrry jam

BFTF joins Israr for Day 7 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

Today, BFTF finished off the last few slices of his fruit loaf at work (~30p)...

The last slice of fruitloaf. . .

And had a tin of lentil soup (~55p) for lunch, adding some zing with a strong dash of Worcestershire Sauce, the king of condiments. Below is a picture of the tin, because lentil soup itself is not the most photogenic dish on God's earth. It was, however, very delicious...

Lentil Soup, suitable spiced up, is delicious, nutritious, low fat, and economical

And in the evening it was porridge, milk and jam again. Having run out of jam, BFTF needed to buy another jar, and wondered whether to go for the "Smart Price" jam at 29p a jar (containing 25g fruit per 100g jam) or the ordinary Asda own brand at 89p a jar (containing 35g of fruit per 100g jam). BFTF decided to go for the economy grade - which turned out to be more of a smooth paste, without any identifiable bits of fruit in it at all. Weird. Was expecting FEWER bits of fruit, but not none at all.

Smart Price at 29p or Ordinary Own Brand at 89p?

It is worth pointing out that, while BFTF has at least a fighting chance of eating on £1.50 a day, this wage often has to cover all living expenses, including those of dependents.

If BFTF had to find travel expenses, or fuel expenses, or feed a dependent, or pay rent from that £1.50 a day he would be TOAST - and that is the scary part.

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, today sees Israr only having enough money for a little yogurt and little milk. But at least this is the last day of the week, so some more money coming in tomorrow.

Of course, Israr is (hopefully) in the position of being able to rely on being paid on time. Many workers aren't so lucky.

BFTF joins Israr for Day 8 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

This seems to have caught the imagination of co-workers, with a number asking how the callenge is going whether BFTF has corralled the rest of the family into taking part (he hasn't) and what the "rules" are (can BFTF eat roadkill? (no), what about leftover sandwitches from meetings (no) or food from dustbins (no thanks).

Anyway, todays intake consisted of a few slices of fruitloaf during the morning (~20p), a bowl of mushroom soup and Worcestershire sauce at lunchtime (~50p) and then, in the evening, cooked a proper hot meal of new potatoes in a chunky tomato sauce (~70p).

It was a pretty hearty meal, to the extect that Mrs BFTF was surprised that it had not broken the daily budget. BFTF tried to save energy by not using energy by not spending valuable cooking gas frying some onions first. Somewhat to ones surprise, the result was still rather delicious! The issue of energy costs, and the fuel poverty of people who cannot afford the energy to cook food or heat their homes, is a serious one that BFTF hopes to talk about more in future posts

Oh, and ought to confess that BFTF also had a small piece of chocolate brownie and a quaver (not a packet of Quavers, just a single Quaver from a packet that No3 son was eating).
Mushroom Soup with a little Worcestershire Sauce
Should perhaps have done something clever
to make a nice pattern of sauce on the surface...

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, Israr has shown more evidence of his good-egginess by revealing that he likes Creamed Rice Pudding and Chip Butties. He has also been featured in the Lancashire Media !

As we used to say in the 80s, Raaas!

BFTF joins Israr for Day 9 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

It seems that BFTF is rather a creature of simple tastes, and was happy to go with exactly the same food as yesterday, the only difference being lentil instead of mushroom soup at lunchtime!

Somewhat to his surprise, BFTF was easily able to ignore the delicious looking meat and aubergine curry that the rest of the family was eating in the evening, and instead cook up another simple potato and tomato dish.

Potato and tomato curry - 20mins start to finish

On a related note, in 2005, Nelson Mandela addressed 22,00 people in Trafalgar Square, London as part of the "Make Poverty History" campaign. In this speech he commented that :
"Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. And overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life."

When we shop for groceries, or indeed any item, we are making choices about what we value. You can read about some of these choices in this post entitled "What do we mean by 'best'?".

And if we value justice for workers we need to make sure that message gets throught to the supplier. For example, this story looks at how BFTF tried to get Halfords to say whether they paid a living wage to the Cambodians who manufacture Halfords bikes in that country.

Why don't you, dear reader, challenge a supplier of something you have bought recently on whether they pay their workers a living wage (which can be a very different thing to the minimum wage).

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, Israr has been thinking about how desperation might send a person to eating waste food and has prepared a cool chana chaat for his evening meal

BFTF joins Israr for Day 10 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

While the day went routinely enough, with some fruit loaf and soup (and a handful of chips at a colleagues leaving do), the evening meal was something of a taste sensation. BFTF hijacked some of the plain boiled rice that Mrs BFTF had made, and stir fried it with a small tin of sardines and some diced tomato.

Wow! That recipe is a keeper !

Easy Rice and Sardines

Worth mentioning that one cause of poverty in coastal communities that rely on fishing is the reduction of fish stocks around the world. Sometimes this is caused by overfishing by the communities themselves (perhaps by the introduction of new techniques such as dynamite fishing) while sometimes it is due to large international trawlers hoovering up the local fish stocks, leaving nothing for the communities in the area.

When you buy fish, you are making a decision about whether you want to support fishing techniques that are sustainable, or fishing techniques that aren't. BFTF recommends that, especially when buying Tuna, Cod and Mackeral, you look for the MSC logo as this ensures that the fish is sustainable caught. Some examples here, and here.

If you are living in parts of the world where the MSC logo is rare, ask about the sustainability of the fish you are thinking of buying.

And lastly, check out this project on sustainable fishing by IFEES

Broccoli and Stilton Soup

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, Israr has had a rather alliterative evening meal of Pasta in the Park with the added excitement of nearly causing a nasty head injury to a bystander. Lancastrians eh? You just can't take them anywhere can you?

BFTF joins Israr for Day 11 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

Todays food began with a hearty bowl of porridge and jam and was followed later in the day by cheese toasties. Mmmmnnnn

This mornings, slightly untidy, bowl of porridge and jam

BFTF also made the "Rice and Sardines" dish for Mrs BFTF who said it was tasty but that BFTF needed to go easier on the black pepper (BFTF likes black pepper a lot).

Meanwhile, back at the 9 Dirham Challenge HQ, Israr had a vegetable curry and also linked to the article about the 9 Dirham Survival Challenge that has appeared in "The Source", a widely read UAE magazine. You can read it too, but getting all clicky here.

BFTF joins Israr for Day 12 of the Challenge
BFTF has decided to join Isar for a week of his "9 Dirham Challenge" which involves trying to survive on food that costs just 9 Dirhams (~£1.50) a day,

Today is the last of the seven that BFTF committed to undertaking in support of Israr's challenge.

It has been a fascinating journey and BFTF hopes that he can continue to stick to the £1.50 per day target, albeing perhaps not quite so evangelically.

BFTF wishes Israr all the best for the rest of his month, and hopes to keep tabs on his progress.

Israr, its been emotional!

Tuesday 12 November 2013

A Challenge to Local Political Parties

Following on from a recent example of how political parties peddle misleading information, and a recent post on the PCC legislation, BFTF thought it might be a nice idea to challenge the Conservative and Labour parties in Nottingham to see if they could talk to each other and actually agree on anything.

The challenge was very simple, and sent in the email below :

Dear Labour and Conservative Parties in Nottingham

I'm sure you are aware of how the public is becoming increasingly disengaged from politics and that some of the causes of this are the way political parties peddle misleading statistics, argue simply for the sake of it and refuse to see anything good in what the other side is doing.

I'd like to give you a chance to show that you are better than this, that you can talk to each other like grown-ups and can find the common ground between you.

I'd like to give you this chance in the form of a challenge :

"Can you, Labour and Conservative, talk to each other and put together a list of five things the current government has done well and five things that the current government should have done better. They don't have to be big ticket items, small issues will do."

Hoping you can rise to the challenge.


The seat of government in the UK


Image Source : Wikipedia

Saturday 2 November 2013

Talk : Mathematic­s, from failure to functionality

Cafe Sci hosted an interesting talk recently entitled "Mathematic­s : from failure to functionality?", and presented by UoN researcher Diane Dalby. This post is based loosley on the contents of the talk, with some added reference material thrown in.

Background
Diane described how she had progressed from O-Levels, to A-Levels, to a Mathematics degree and then to secondary school maths teaching - a academic route in which Diane commented that she "didn't have to know much about the rest of the world".

After a career break she restarted teaching in a college environment, firstly part time, then full time. The classes were for vocational courses in the beauty, construction and public service careers. Diane commented on her surprise at some of the course titles, such as "maths and physics for beauty therapists"

Then an opportunity came up to undertake a research project in an area that Diane was interested - what do we do with the students who are in a vocational courses and need a degree of maths ability, but who have been put off maths and have not achieved the magic "Grade C or above" at GCSE level.

Constuction Workers in 1932

More background
Diane pointed out that the UK does not perform well in international rankings of maths ability (see the OECD PISA study here).

2009 OECD PISA study. Selected numeracy scores
China(Shanghai)600
Korea546
Japan529
Germany513
OECD AVE496
UK492
Poland495
USA487
Turkey445
Indonesia371

The first international comparison that the UK participated in was the 1996 IALS (literacy) survey of 20 countries, in which the UK performed very poorly. This prompted a UK government to commission the Moser report in 1999, whose summary started with the emphatic comments that :
"Something like one adult in five in this country is not functionally literate and far more people have problems with numeracy. This is a shocking situation and a sad reflection on past decades of schooling. It is one of the reasons for relatively low productivity in our economy, and it cramps the lives of millions of people. We owe it to them to remedy at public expense the shortcomings of the past. To do so should be a priority for Government, and for all those, in the business world or elsewhere, who can help."
The Moser report prompted the Skills for Life strategy in 2001, as well as the Skills for Life surveys of the working age population in 2003 and 2011. During the interval between 2003 and 2011, billions of pounds of government money was spent on advertising campaigns

A BBC report on the Skills for Life research describes how the differning ethnicities in the UK had very different levels of adult numeracy:

%age of aged 16–65 at Entry 2 or below in England
All21%
White British19%
Asian Indian25%
Pakistani British43%
Black Caribbean54%
Black African49%


The Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) definitions for the various levels of competency in literacy and numeracy :

Entry Level 1 is the expected school attainment at age 5-7. Adults below this level may not be able to write short messages to family or select floor numbers in lifts.

Entry Level 2 is the expected school attainment at age 7-9. Adults below this level may not be able to describe a child’s symptoms to a doctor or use a cash point to withdraw cash.

Entry Level 3 is the expected school attainment at age 9-11. Adults below this level may not be able to understand price labels on pre-packaged food or pay household bills.

Level 1 is equivalent to GCSE grades D-G. Adults below this level may not be able to read bus or train timetables or check the pay and deductions on a wage slip.

Level 2 is equivalent to GCSE grades A*-C. Adults below this level may not be able to compare products and services for the best buy, or work out a household budget.

The 2011 Skills for Life follow on survey showed, disappointingly, that, despite all those billions of pounds of spending, the proportion of adults with low levels of numeracy had actually increased:

Numeracy Levels in 2003 and 2011 (%)
Entry 2 or below : 200321%
Entry 2 or below : 201124%

A NIACE report (which you really should have a look at, dear reader), considered what lessons could be learned from the efforts that had been made and made a number of recommendations, many of which relate to the fact there is a conflict between wanting to help those with the least skills, and measuring success of that effort by exam results:

"Evidence of ‘what works’ included flexible, individualised approaches within small groups, which offer friendly, fun, informal and small steps to learning.

Equally, respondents were clear about what is not working. They suggested that learning driven by qualifications rather than the learners can distort who is included in learning. (37.94 per cent of all 2006/7 Skills for Life qualifications were awarded to 16–18-year-olds who are not necessarily a priority target group).

Other learners may have been excluded because they are not at the ‘right’ level of learning (i.e. within easy access of gaining a level 1 or 2 qualification).

Many reported they are unable to use ICTs due to lack of training and equipment or technical support.

Contributors were very concerned about funding reductions which will remove ‘weighting’ for adult literacy from August 2011, and lead to large groups, reduced provision and less responsive teaching and learning."


Extreme hairdressing on the International Stace Station

The Research
The research Diane undertook looked at students studying vocational subjects (hairdressing, construction etc) at college. As part of these courses, students who had not performed well at maths in secondary school had to study maths to at least a "functional" level before proceeding with the rest of their vocational course.

Diane performed some 17 case studies, with comprehensive interviews and observations being made of students and teachers in each case.

The results showed a number of clear themes :

a) Attitudes were most postive towards maths at college (even in the first term) than they had been at secondary school, many gave as a reason the fact that college was a place where you were treated as an adult, and that college was a step closer to employment and therefore responsibility

b) The most successful teachers taught maths as a valuable life skill and engaged with the students on topics of relevance to them, such as the costs of alcohol consumption or the relative value of pensions today compared to historical levels.

c) Above all, the students reported that they liked their college maths teachers more that they liked their school maths teachers

Diane wondered what was an appropriate technical level of maths that these students should receive, so that they were had "enough to get by and sufficient to get on"

Diane Dalby

The Q&A
As is often the case at Cafe Sci, the Q&A session was just as interesting as the initial talk..

In response to a question about the benefits or otherwise of streaming, Diane commented that the available research suggested that it did not make a significant difference to outcomes. On the one hand it allowed bighter students to achieve more, but on the other, it left lower achieveing pupils disenchanted and feeling inferior. Diane commented that shw had once talked to a girl who was in the top set for maths but, because she was at the lower end of that set, felt she was "no good at maths". You can read more about the pros and cons for streaming (or tracking as it is known in the US) here , here, here and here.

There was also quite a bit of discussion about whether the teaching of maths in secondary schools was fit for purpose in terms of giving young people the skills to critically evaluate the data and statistics that is put before them by companies and politicians - and whether there should be a greater focus in that than, say, trigonometry (which is rarely of use in combating misleading statistics and government spin).

Pythagoras, yesterday


Image Sources: Pythagoras, ISS haircut, Lunch, Olympic Stadium

Sunday 20 October 2013

Why some politicians are viewed as untrustworthy

A post provoked by being sick and tired of misleading or plain wrong information coming from politicians and political groups. Apparently, its not just me - reports looking at the causes of voter dissatisfaction can be found here and here

Perhaps we can break the issue down by looking at the types of approach taken by politicians and political parties when misleading the public or otherwise behaving in an untrustworthy fashion.

Cherry picking and generally distorting data
Using hopelessly weak data to justify policy
Hiding or burying data and reports that are embarrassing
Not practicing what they preach
Rowdiness, heckling and bad manners
Answering the question they want to answer, not the one actually asked
Railroading important legislation through Parliament without scrutiny
Just being plain stupid
Living on a different planet

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** Cherry picking and generally distorting data **

Dec 2013 : LibDems : Misleading Party Membership Tweets
New Statesman report on a Tweet from LibDem Press Office says "The Liberal Democrats are the first governing party in recent history to have increased its membership while in power" and links to a story saying:
"Figures released by the party showed that in the last three months of the year membership grew by more than 2,000 – wiping out reductions seen in the first two quarters of 2013. Overall the party will go into 2014 with over 200 new members – which is an achievement not matched by their Conservative coalition partners who have seen steep falls in paid membership since 2010."

What the Tweet (which talked about "while in power", remember) didn't mention is that the recent small increase in membership comes after a precipitous fall from 65,038 in 2010 to 42,501 in 2012.

******************************************************

Labour : Millibands misleading Unemployment Statistics
A rather wonderful article in the Guardian, points out a number of instances where senior politicians have said some very misleading things. Posssibly willfully, or (more worryingly) because they genuinely do not understand how to interpret basic data.

BFTF's favourite is Ed Milliband saying:
"Only crisis-hit Spain has higher numbers of young unemployed people than the UK"

without realising that this was a meaningless statistic. As the article sensibly points out :
The UK has a lot more of everything than most European countries, because it has a lot more people than most European countries. What matters if you're making a comparison with other countries is not how many under-25s are unemployed, but what percentage of them. In that regard, the UK is 10th best out of 27.


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Oct 2012 : Employment rate of people aged 16-64(inc) who were born in the UK
A Tweet from Conservative Central Office showed the graph below :

The Tweet from CCHQ Press Office


The Chart the Tweet from CCHQ linked to


Crikey, thought BFTF, the Conservatives have done an impressive job here, the number of UK born people in work has almost doubled in just three years.

Then BFTF thought "Hang on, surely it would take many years, possibly decades to achieve that kind of huge demographic change"

Then BFTF noticed the scale on the Y-axis, which goes from 69.5% to 72.5% in 0.5% increments, making the change seem very large, when it is actually very small.

This is PRECISELY the kind of misleading information that results in politicans being viewed as untrustworthy.

There are two possibilities here:

1) CCHQ cynically manipulated the Y-axis scale to make the change seem artificially large.

2) CCCHQ do not know how to use Microsoft Excel and/or do not realise that the graph is grossly misleading.

BFTF is not sure which of these is more scary.

This is how the Graph looks with the Y-axis starting at zero:

The same data plotted with a Y-axis set to 0-100%


And this is how it looks with the Y-axis starting at 50% and going to 100%:

The same data plotted with a Y-axis set to 50-100%


Doesn't look so impressive now, does it?

Finally, would like to emphasise that this is not an anti-Conservative post, BFTF fully expects to see this kind of misleading information from all parties, more examples as and when they are seen.

Update 20th Oct:
Comment from No3 Son is that Conservative Central Office should "behave more maturely".
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Feb 14 : Misleading and difficult to interpret graph in 2103 Infrastructure Plan
Check out the dangerously misleading chart on page 9 of the 2013 Infrastructure Plan, which is more realistically shown in this FT article.

. The report introduces the chart by saying the following :
"Most of the value of the [investment] pipeline is in the energy and transport sectors, worth over £340 billion of combined investment (as highlighted in the chart below, which shows investment on a logarithmic scale)."


Roughly how much larger is the biggest bar compared to the smallest bar?

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Dec 2013 : More examples of shoddy graphs from Full Fact
Great article from FullFact here. BFTF notes in particular the misleading Conservative employment increase graph which can also be found here

******************************************************

** Using hopelessly weak data to justify policy **

Nov 2013 : Education Secretary using surveys by Holiday Inn as evidence
A report in the Guardian describes how the Education Secretary commented that:

"Survey after survey has revealed disturbing historical ignorance, with one teenager in five believing Winston Churchill was a fictional character while 58% think Sherlock Holmes was real."

Retired teacher Janet Jones challenged him on this using a Freedom Of Information request and, after several weeks, received the information that the statistics had come from a UKTV Gold survey and that they had no details on it. It also turned out that the phrase "survey after survey" referred to surveys by Premier Inn and an article in London Mums magazine. No evidence was presented that the surveys met the standards of the the British Polling Council.

BFTF notes that, irrespective of the accuracy of the statistics used, these stories NEVER have any historical context. Is the %age of kids who know who Admiral Nelson (say) going up? Going down? Nobody ever says.

******************************************************

** Hiding or burying data and reports that are embarrassing **

2014 : Conservative Party Archives
In 2007, David Cameron said "It's clear to me that political leaders will have to learn to let go. Let go of the information that we've guarded so jealously".

In 2010 the Conservative Party removed the publically accessible archive from its public facing website, erasing records of speeches and press releases from 2000 to 2010 - including, critically, those prior to the last election. The records were also removed from Google Search and from the Internet Archive. As of 31st Aug, www.conservatives.com points towards the UK Web Archive for "For old speeches, manifestos and news items", where around 40 records can be found, covering the period 2004 to 2014.

As of 31st Aug, the Labour Party website list of speeches also only goes as far back as 2010. BFTF notes that old speeches are not dated, which is unhelpful. Have challenged Labour party on this point.

In both cases, this makes it difficult to check BACK TO THE OFFICIAL SOURCE, what was claimed by these two parties prior to the last election, whether they have kept their promises and make a view as to whether their words can be trusted this time around.

Speeches (not sure how many) can still be found at www.britishpoliticalspeech.org.

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** Not practicing what they preach **

Dec 14 : Extravagance by the Lords
During a recent Palace of Westminster governance meeting, this happened :
"..a proposal to save taxpayers some money by making peers and MPs share a catering department has been rejected “because the Lords feared that the quality of champagne would not be as good if they chose a joint service”...The astonished chair of the committee, former home secretary Jack Straw, asked: “Did you make that up? Is that true?”
No, they didn't make it up. Yes, it was true.

******************************************************

** Rowdiness, heckling and bad manners **

Dec 13 : All parties at the Foodbank Debate

A post about this, very interesting, debate can be found here. But what really let the MP's down was they behaviour. The booing, jeering and general disorderliness would not be acceptable in any branch of business or industry, so why MP's think it is acceptable to behave so badly in a debate that WAS DEMANDED BY THE PUBLIC is quite beyond me. Some measure of the rowdinessm especially in the first hour, can be seen in the interventions that the deputy speaker was forced to make, as shown below:

Interventions by the Deputy Speaker during
the first hour of the Foodbank Debate 18 Dec 2013


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** Answering the question they want to answer, not the one asked **

Oct 2012 : Conservative : Government ignores questions about airstrike killings
A post here explains how the US - which is the UK's closest military ally - has been using "double tap" airstikes in which an initial attack is followed up by a second missile that kills first responders and rescuers trying to save any wounded survivors from the first attack. This is a WAR CRIME.

BFTF challenged the government on this. The Government (when the eventually answered) chose not to address the issue of "Double Tap" airstikes at all and instead answered a different question entirely.

Unbelievable.

******************************************************

** Railroading important legislation through Parliament **

Oct 2015 : Tax Credit cuts pushed though Parliament with reduced oversight.
Oct 2015 : Prior to the 2015 General Election, the Conservative Party refused to say where the £12bn of cuts they intended to impose would actually fall, and in a Question Time debate, David Cameron strongly implied that Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits would not be hit.

Both of these credits allow people to keep some of their welfare payments if they take up work, with the credits gradually tailing off as the persons earnings rise. The intent was to remove the moral hazard whereby people had no incentive to take on low pay jobs because they would lose immediately be worse off because of the loss of welfare. They are not cheap, costing some 14% of the welfare budget, but according to the IFS, reducing the credits back to 2003 levels would take some 300,000 children into poverty, and reduce income by well over £1000pa for many of these working, but low earning, families. More info here)and here.

Having sailed through the Commons, the House of Lords has just rejected legislation to reduce Tax Credits, saying that the implementation should be delayed until until there is a plan for transitional protection. Senior Conservatives are angry that the Lords has done this, saying that the Lords should not vote against financial matters and that it raises "constitutional issues that need to be dealt with".

That would be true if the cuts has been mentioned in the Conservative Manifesto - but they were not.

It would have been true if the cuts had been introduced in a formal Bill - but they were not.

If would NOT be true if the cuts were pushed through parliament using a "statutory instrument" - which is what was actually used.
v According to author Ian Dunt :

"Statutory instruments mean you can quickly get a change to the law through parliament without the usual standards of debate and scrutiny. They are there to facilitate small changes in law which do not require much debate. But they have grown into a democratic menace, with governments regularly using them to sneak in substantial legal changes without submitting them to the will of parliament. But here's the good thing about statutory instruments: the Lords can vote against them"


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** Just being plain stupid **

Nov 2013 : US bid to name “Science Laureate” hits snag.
A report from Arstechnica describes how a US proposal to have a "Science Laureate" to show the US public how important science is. The legislation was going through Congress pretty smoothly until Conservative Republicans hit the roof and demanded that it be pulled, despite it having Republican and Democrat sponsors. The commment that really caught NSB's eye was from Myron Ebell of the Competitive Enterprise Institute who said "There’s no way to make it work...it would still give scientists an opportunity to pontificate, and we’re opposed to it.” (Thanks to @drkiki for the link)

******************************************************

** Living on a different planet **

In the wake of David Cameron off-shore funds scandal, Sir Alan Duncan, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton, commented thus in the house of commons:
"Shouldn't the Prime Minister's critics really just snap out of the synthetic indignation and admit that their real point is that they hate anyone who has got a hint of wealth in them?...May I support the Prime Minister in fending off those who are attacking him, particularly in thinking of this place, because if he doesn't, we risk seeing a House of Commons which is stuffed full of low-achievers who hate enterprise, hate people who look after their own family and know absolutely nothing about the outside world."


So you see, it is the little people who have to pay taxes for teachers, roads, policemen and hospitals - while the very rich can focus on making sure THEIR money stays in the family.

And let us pause for a moment here to remember that as the country was in the midst of global eonomic crash of 2008 onwards, there were MP's who thought the best way to demonstrate that we are all in it together was to claim expenses for moat cleaning.

Thursday 17 October 2013

Talk : Who's afraid of groups and why?

Fascinating Cafe Sci talk recently entitled "Who's afraid of groups and why?" presented by Psychoanalyst and devout cyclist Prof Chris Evens (University of Nottingham, Institute of Group Analysis and Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust)

The Good in Groups
The talk examined the way in which humans are an intensely social species and how social groups have a role to play in promoting mental health.

To start with, Dr Evans tossed a small foam ball at a member of the audience and smiled at them. They smiled back and threw the ball back at him - which Dr Evans used as a demonstration of how people would almost instinctively react to others in a group and interact with them. It also demonstrated how much we expect to see certain reactions from others in a group, people returning a smile for example.Dr Evans explained that these social interactions were a key part of mental health.

The Cafe Sci Group in the interval between the talk and the Q&A

Dr Evans also mentioned how this needs for interaction meant that ostracism (a practice that oringinates with the greeks) is such a powerful threat

He pointed out that humans depend on groups for their very survival, noting that he would not be alive today were it not for his immediate family, farmers growing the food he ate, doctors treatinghim if he fell ill etc

As an example of how people turn out if they do not interact with human groups as a child, Dr Evans mentioned the strange case of Casper Hauser, who was allegedly kept in a cellar during his entire childhood

[BFTF does rather wonder about this story, struggling to see how a kid kept in those conditions would be able to walk up stairs, draw beautifully, see long distances etc as was the case for Casper]

Another example of how powerful and instincive human interactions can be was that of a ward of patients that Dr Evans had been involved with, and which contained patients with severe mental health issues such as believing they were dead, that they had no guts or that all the evil in the world was their fault. Sometimes toddlers were on the ward, as visitors, and it was fascinating to see how the faces of patients who were severely depressed and reluctant to engage with adults would light up as the small children approached them. To Dr Evans, this indicated that a very profound and basic interaction was happening here.

Dr Evans felt that we now engaged less in groups than used to be the case and were now "in a consumerist economy where we are purchasers of our own healthcare"

The Bad in Groups
On the other hand, as aspect of group behaviour that gave Dr Evans cause for concern was their ability to fall into mob behaviour patterns and violent behaviour. Dr Evans also referred to comments in a previous talk (by similarly soft spoken friend Prof Greg Hadley) on how the effects of war span multiple generations. Here is the relevant section of the BFTF report on Prof Hadley's talk :
"Prof Hadley explained that, in the case of Japan, the returning Japanese soldiers had not wanted to talk about their experiences overseas. This left the national narrative as being the one experienced by the women and children who stayed behind, a narrative of hunger, bombing and defeat.

The fact that the US lost the Vietnam war is one reason why many US police dramas of the 70s and 80s had a Vietnam vet with a tortured past as one of the characters.

Most troubling of all was the way in which returning soldiers who began to suffer PTSD (often several years after the end of the conflict) cause terrible stress in their families, and that their children can often grow up to show the same problems that their soldier parents had (e.g anger control, alcohol abuse) - thus repeating the cycle through multiple generations. One of the daughters of a Jordan crew member commented to Prof Hadley how she had felt that there was “a huge invisible B29 in the living room” throughout her childhood"

Prof Evans wondered whether we, in the UK, had yet truly dealt with the carpet bombing that was done in our name in WW2, often with little military justification.

Guernica, an example of what happens when groups go bad.

CORE
Another area that Dr Evans covered was that of measuring outcomes, as he had been part of the team that developed the CORE for scoring mental health treatment outcomes. Dr Evans felt this was important as, previously, highly paid professionals had been working behind closed doors without systmatic evaluation of whether they were always having a positive effect - and there had been a number of cases where the treatment given had not been harmful.

Prof Evans again voiced his concern that we were a society that it could "buy mental health an that mental health professionals can deliver mental health" and that the increase in individualism had meant that it was almost abnormal to be part of an organised group, adding that perhaps our "aspirations were very carefully fostered to be consumerist" and that the aspirations people used to give to the church or the football team, they now give to the TV. He referred to a famous study called "Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital" which looked at the post-war decline in civil participation in the US.

Prof Evans felt that the factors that had caused this were the revolutions in computer and monetary systems,increased social mobility - and perhaps also a wish to move away from the kinds of groups that had been the cause of two world wars.

He also commented on the fact that, whilst there was also a great deal of advertising in the 1940's, it had been was more stratified, there was not the mass marketing that we see today where Porsches are advertised to those who can afford them as well as those who will never be able to afford them.

CORE

The Armadillo way?
Dr Evans gave an insight into the kind of "out-of-the-box" thought experiments that academics sometimes consider by wondering how people might view groups if, like armadillos, they always gave birth to multiple, identical, young.

An Armadillo

Open Dialogue
The really eye opening part of the talk was the description of the "open dialogue" movement from Finland. This approach to treatment emphasises seeing the patients in their own home, a prompt start to treatment reduced medication/hospitalisation and respect for the individual.

In some respects this is similar to the pragmatic approach taken in the developing world where a community might take the view that "yes, you have a psychosis, but we still have to get the harvest in" and give a person with mental health issues a role in society, rather than shutting them out - and where outcomes for patients with psychotic disorders are much better than in the West.

A fascinating article by filmmaker Daniel Mackler on his visit to a hospital that practiced Open Dialogue can be found here. Frankly, it is more important that you read that than reading the rest of this blog post.

Lastly
To close this report, it's perhaps worth mentioning Dr Evans comments on the how different countries view groups. In his experience, groups such as villages are viewed much more positively in countries such as Greece than they are in the UK, although some aspects of village life were cut off for those perceived as outsiders (such as those of a different faith). And village life in Scandinavia was different again

And lastly, Prof Evans also talked about how creatures such as starlings clearly have a very strong group behavious built into them when they flock and that it felt as though human mob behaviour worked in a similar way, with people reacting to the behaviour of the few people directly surrounding them.

Flocking Starlings

Image Sources:
Guernica
Armadillo
Starlings