So much for 'paradise'

Whenever a 'natural' disaster occurs, it is instructive to compare the experience of the developing world in such situations with the West. The fact is that in these areas, people live in poor-constructed homes with a weak general infrastructure so that the consequences of any shock are much more devastating than they would be in Europe or the USA. We face a 'natural' disaster every year - it's called Winter. But we can prepare for it, so that people live in the most extreme conditions with little negative consequence.

'Paradise' is okay for holidays, but so much better to live in built-up, temperate, chilly, grey Britain.

BBC NEWS | World | At-a-glance: Countries hit

In defence of boozing

I've started another blog (as if the world needed any more from me) collecting together people's tales of inebriation. With all the fuss about binge drinking, I think it's important to say that (a) moderate drinking is a perfectly acceptable day-to-day activity and (b) even when we get slaughtered, it's a life-affirming thing because we have a laugh about it afterwards. A good drinking story is a wonderful social lubricant.

Obviously, alcoholism sucks.

My Best Drinking Story

Charles and the quacking watchdog

The government's new body to oversee complementary medicine is less about regulation than recognition.

Prince Charles' Foundation for Integrated Health will oversee the system, with £900,000 of government money, regulating homeopathy, aromatherapy and reflexology. Moreover, a new Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee will be set up to provide expert safety and quality advice to ministers.

Complementary and alternative medicine is a dodgy area, with anybody able to set themselves up as an expert and charge people for treatment and advice. For example, 'Dr' Gillian McKeith has made a fortune through TV and books, promoting herself as the World's Leading Nutritionist and dispensing dubious New Age advice, despite not possessing a widely recognised qualification in the subject.

But a more fundamental problem is that most of this 'medicine' is pure quackery, by definition. If these treatments really worked, they wouldn't be alternative at all, they'd just be medicine full stop. By setting up an official body to regulate these things, the government is sending out the message that these are valid theories and therapies, sitting as equals alongside mainstream healthcare. It is not 'cracking down' on crackpot theories, as some suggest, so much as incorporating them into the NHS.

Moreover, Charles is a big advocate of these therapies. So making him the frontman for this watchdog looks, to quote Jane Fonda on another issue, like 'putting Dracula in charge of a blood bank'. Instead of providing a critique of this lamentable retreat from scientific medicine, this initiative provides official approval.

More checks on alternative health, BBC News, 22 December 2004

Christmas and 'cultural suicide'

The idea of taking Christ out of Christmas is barmy - but the reaction against it suggests a deeper malaise.

Commentators have written about nativity plays and Christmas celebrations being replaced by more secular celebrations that avoid references to Christianity lest they offend other faiths. Anthony Browne, writing in The Times (London), refers to this as 'cultural suicide': 'Even as a lifelong atheist who finds all God stuff embarrassing, I appreciate Christmas's religious message. But you are as likely to find a reference to Christ in civic Christmas decorations as you are to find a sixpence in a Christmas pudding.' It is hard to disagree with Browne's analysis that, 'the real Christophobes are the self-loathing, guilt-ridden, politically-correct liberal elite, driven by anti-Christian bigotry and a ruthless determination to destroy their own heritage and replace it with "the other"'.

However, given that taking the Christ out of Christmas has become a cause célèbre for tabloids and broadsheets alike, even getting a passing reference in the BBC soap EastEnders, perhaps there is something else going on here too. Desperate to find something to hold the line against the corrosive effects of cultural relativism, many are defending Christmas and other traditions as 'our culture' - even when, like Browne, they have little interest in defending one bunch of religious myths against another. But by engaging in the debate about culture in these terms, they already concede the central argument that everyone's got their own culture, which must be protected. Before you know it, you're back in the whole relativist mess again. Far better to recognise the stupidity of the current official treatment of Christmas - but acknowledge that getting rid of religion altogether and upholding our universal human culture would be the best result of all.

First published on spiked

Professors: the one-in-ten

According to figures published in the Times Higher Educational Supplement (THES), 10 per cent of UK academic staff are now professors. Are standards slipping somewhat?

There were 1715 more professors in 2002-03 than in 1999-2000. Oxford University has 5.4 per cent professors and Cambridge about 10 per cent, but Essex University and the London School of Economics are pushing 20 per cent. Richard Wilson, a professor at Loughborough University, told the THES: 'There is a symbolism attached to the title professor. If we give these titles out willy-nilly, it debases the currency.'

While traditionally professors had to be both leading researchers in their field and active participants in the life and running of the university, many chairs are now awarded on the basis of teaching or administration. Universities - especially new universities - are struggling to attract high-quality staff, and seem to be issuing professorships as a lure. But while the marketisation of higher education has been the driving force for this process, it mirrors a general fall in standards throughout education. Expectations of excellence have been lowered, from schools through to the highest levels of academia. Wide access to high-quality education would be desirable, but this current hodgepodge seems to be making education worse, not better.

The result is more students who know less, being taught less, by more academics who are less well qualified.

Too many professors say academics, BBC News, 16 December 2004

spiked-central | Bites | spiked bite

MPs: not fewer, but better

The Tories are discussing plans to cut the number of MPs. It might save money, but it won't revive British politics.

Andrew Tyrie, shadow financial secretary to the Treasury, is proposing to cut the number of MPs from 659 to 550. Taking into account salaries and expenses, he claims that the cut would save £25million. This wouldn't compromise the level of representation, he argues, since Britain currently has more MPs per head of population than most countries.

'The public do not want to pay more for politicians', says Tyrie: 'They do not want more politicians and prefer to see a reduction in their number. Politicians should find a way to arrest the growth in the cost of democratic politics.' The Tories see this as part of a drive to 'small' government. But the problem is not the number of MPs - it's the fact that politicians have nothing to say.

One example of the problem is the fact that the Tories are struggling to differentiate themselves from New Labour. They dare not make promises to cut public spending or reduce tax, they supported the war in Iraq, and are finding it impossible to be more authoritarian than the government on law and order. If politicians are only able to argue about the minutiae, all that is left is banter, backbiting and sleaze - and who wants to pay millions for that? What we need are fresh political ideas, not empty cost-cutting gestures.

In the meantime, if the Tories were serious about 'small' government, they wouldn't be fretting about our elected representatives. We can at least vote to get rid of them if they don't do their job. Instead, they should be worrying about the increasing power of quangos and 'independent' bodies, which we can't hold to account.

Tory plans £25m cull of MPs, Guardian, 13 December 2004

Never mind the ballots

The decision to press ahead with postal ballots shows just how desperate New Labour is to reconnect with the public.

The idea of having all votes cast by post was trialled in four areas this year. By common consent, these pilots were judged to be a disaster. Ballot papers were produced late and many didn't arrive in time. There were widespread allegations of fraud as masses of ballot papers were gathered up and filled in by activists rather than voters. The government's Electoral Commission concluded that the postal ballots were a bad idea and should be abandoned.

But the silver lining on this cloud was that turnout rose markedly. 'The turnout subsequently achieved in the North East regional referendum underlined, in the government's view, the value of all-postal voting in maximising participation, notwithstanding the conventional basis for the next general election', said a spokesman for deputy prime minister, John Prescott. So, a political decision has been made not just to try again but to allow the roll-out of all-postal ballots across the country. On paper, at least, the government will be able to show that more people have participated, strengthening their claim to legitimacy.

In reality, the majority of people will be as disengaged as ever. And if allegations of fraud become even more widespread, the outcome may even increase cynicism about politics.

Fraud fears as post replaces the ballot box, The Times (London), 10 December 2004

Cheating on democracy, by Frank Furedi

Cuba

I've just spent eight days on holiday in Cuba. Here are some thoughts.

Cuba is poor. The buildings are crumbling, the transport system is feeble bordering on non-existent. People exist on rations, although no-one appeared to be going hungry. They have the basics of life, please a relatively good education and health care. But many other things we would regard as basic and commonplace in the developed world are difficult to obtain for ordinary Cubans unless they can get hold of dollars - or the convertible pesos that have replaced them.

People's lives are heavily restricted. There's no foreign press or TV, no internet access, no private transport or foreign travel except where explicitly allowed by the government. On the other hand, in many ways ordinary people are better off than in many other parts of Latin America.

To what extent their problems are caused by the government or by US sanctions is not clear. It suits the government to keep things blurred. What is clear is that the sanctions aren't going to bring down the government any time soon. I'm not quite sure what the goals of the sanctions are, but it seems to me that they are pretty much counterproductive. Clearly, Cuba is more use to the American establishment as a bogeyman than as a trading partner. No such problem with China, for example. Far too big and important a country to mess about with. Far too lucrative a market to trade with.

Cubans want more freedom but there is also a clear memory of how things were before the revolution and so for the moment, people are happier to put up with daily hardships than risk the unwelcome attentions of the US and Cuban ex-pats.

BBC: it's grim up north

It's BBC charter renewal time, so the powers that be at the corporation are doing everything in their power to be 'on message'.

After the trials and tribulations of the David Kelly affair and the Iraq war, the BBC needs to mend fences with the government - which means playing along with the government's politically correct hobby-horses. One of these is regionalisation. So BBC director-general Mark Thompson has announced that two major production departments, for children and sport, are moving to Manchester.

Will this save money? Unlikely, given the high cost of relocation for all those staff. Will this improve output? Again, unlikely, given that many of the related resources, like the news department, are staying put down south. Getting high-profile people who live in London to appear on shows in Manchester is going to be hard work.

'This is a wake-up call for the smug London media set. It's fun reading about the changes but it's no fun when they start pissing on your own life’, one BBC Sport insider told the Guardian.

The move also seems about a month too late. While the government set great stall on devolution, its plans for regional assemblies are now dead after a crushing rejection by voters in November’s northeast referendum. In other words, this is a pointless, symbolic gesture - which should play well with a government that has pretty much cornered the market in pointless, symbolic gestures.

All sport and children's to go north in BBC Manchester move, Guardian, 7 December 2004