Gary Monro’s blog

Children from council estates may be “bused” to wealthier middle-class suburbs under a government plan to give their parents more choice of schools.

In the age of ‘Education, education, education’ you’d think the government would actually work out why the local schools were so poor and do something useful with them. But you’d be wrong. You see, this is an ‘initiative’, it’s a ‘reform’, it’s probably ‘modern’ and it offers ‘choice’. Buzzwords fall like confetti but the bad schools remain bad and the poor sods left languishing there may as well give up now.

Mr Carke said

…there would be “a great deal of ill-feeling” if he did not make the final round. He claimed that rank-and-file party members wanted to be able to make a choice between him and Mr Cameron - as they plainly had “overwhelmingly more public support than the other two”.

You’re a nice chap and all the rest of it Mr C but the wails of your disappointed supporters will be drowned by the celebrations of those of us who want the Conservative Party to actually be conservative.

Bob Kiley, the commissioner of Transport for London, plans to use a maintenance and safety crisis on a key part of the capital’s underground rail system as a trigger to wrestle more control from the private sector.

He also called for Tube Lines to scrap a maintenance contract with the French firm Alstom.

The extent to which the commissioner has control over the system he’s commissioner of is revealed by the hoops he had to jump through just to be able to send inspectors in to oversee maintenance work on the Northern Line.

An army of lawyers had had to read the 2m words of the PPP agreement to ensure that TfL’s actions through its London Underground arm were appropriate, and check a separate private finance initiative (PFI) deal between Tube Lines and Alstom contained in another 18 volumes and 358 different documents.

When I get to vote in the Conservative Party leadership contest I’ll use it for the non-Ken candidate with the balls to admit some things shouldn’t be privatised - and that one of those some things is the railway system.

Every year about 28,000 projects receive funding but a further 56,000 are turned away because they fail to meet the criteria or the fund has run out of cash.

Ah, like The Samaritans, who were originally refused a grant because they didn’t do enough to encourage asylum seekers and immigrants to use their facilities.

[Davies] described it as “the X Files meets This Life”. Stuart Murphy, the BBC3 controller, said: “There will be sex and swearing, I assume. I’m quite relaxed about that, as it will be post-watershed and Russell can do it in a funny and sexy way.”

The star will be John Barrowman, who plays the bi-sexual Capt Jack Harkness.

How very ‘modern’ and ‘relevant’. Let’s hope they remember to include a story of some sort…

An independent anti-war tribunal has found the United States and United Kingdom guilty of a variety of crimes in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

‘Independent’ and ‘anti-war’? I guess independent in that it’s not affiliated to other anti-war movements. Not, as I initially thought, independent in that it starts with an open mind and lets the facts speak for themselves.

The independent panel of academics, writers and activists in its concluding verdict on Monday found the US and UK governments guilty of “planning, preparing, and waging the supreme crime of a war of aggression in contravention of the United Nations Charter and the Nuremberg Principles”.

I more or less oppose the war too - I wish I could find a principled and intelligent conservative to read about rather than these rent a hippy dudes.

Apparently the

Istanbul Bar Association a leading light in the prosecution of the UK government for its part in what the Istanbul lawyers claim is an illegal war.

Not the Istanbul Bar Association! We’re done for..! UNESCO Peace Prize winner Richard Falk addressed the tribunal:

“The tribunal is not set up to discover the truth but to confirm it…”

The Truth, already decided on, is: Guilty as hell.

Next!

The 245 members of the New Aspley Garden Holders’ Association have been offered an average of £28,000 each for their plots by a property developer. Most have said yes, 25 have said no. I share The Telegraph’s sympathy with

…the very small minority who want to keep their allotments simply because they enjoy growing their own vegetables, as they have done for years, and want to go on doing so more than they want a fat cheque from a property company.

[T]here is still something admirable about a bloody-minded Briton who knows his rights, and refuses to give them up under pressure from an insistent majority.

Too bloody right.

You might think, so what? The game’s over. Think again:

Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, said yesterday: “If Luxembourg had said No, the constitution would have been dead. As Luxembourg has said Yes, the process can go ahead.”

Erm… Ideas above your station there, old boy. The constitution is dead.

Isn’t it?

Germany’s Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, said of the result: “It is an encouragement and an invitation to all Europeans to seek joint ways of quickly overcoming the current crisis.”

What encouragement? How is it an encouragement? France said No, Holland said No and, given half a chance, the UK will say No. That encourages nobody - unless they have some secret plan B.

They need all 25 to ratify - that’s not going to happen. The UK almost certainly won’t ratify no matter what and Holland and France have said they won’t do a second vote anyway.

I think we need to be extremely vigilant. We may yet get the Constitution regardless of how we vote on it.

Maybe. But mostly they divorce because they can.

I understand - although have not confirmed this - that two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women anyway. One of the several places I’ve heard this is from the hallowed lips of his royal saintliness Bob Geldof so I’m hardly going to question it, am I? From The Telegraph:

Marilyn Stowe, a female divorce lawyer, suggested that working women had the economic freedom to consider life beyond marriage.

Wrong. Women have the economic freedom to not commit to their relationships in the first place. For too many people marriage is fine so long as it suits their needs but once it starts getting difficult then bailing out - rather than digging in - is the order of the day.

A handwritten memo from 1986 by Adml Pierre Lacoste, a former head of the DGSE, provides the first official proof of the president’s involvement in the sabotage of the vessel, which was trying to hamper French nuclear tests in the Pacific.

One of Greenpeace’s people drowned in the incident.

Two French agents were imprisoned for blowing up the ship but were freed within three years of the attack.

France paid compensation totalling several million pounds but has never officially apologised to the photographer’s family.

Would it cause a diplomatic incident of I suggested this was a terrorist act?

One can hope…

Chinese are more ignorant about sex than any other subject, the official Xinhua news agency quoted a sex expert as saying on Thursday.

“In the survey we conducted, not only youngsters but many grown-ups are sex idiots, which is really dangerous and woeful,” Xinhua quoted Xu Tianming, president of the China Sexology Society, as telling a seminar.

With over a billion of our oriental friends I think they’re still pretty much, ahem, on top of the situation, actually…

From The Independent:

“It is so over the top,” said Alex, a 16-year-old student. “They are picking on us because we are toffs. It is a real trek to Polzeath when they turn you away from Daymer. When you do get here there’s so many police, it’s like East Germany.”

Ah - bless…

VW in Germany is in a bit of industrial bother. It seems though when VW does industrial controversy it’s not due to union militancy, accounting creativity or because they’re products are no good. VW does sex scandals.

Last week German newspapers were filled with extraordinary stories claiming that the company had bought the support of union officials — who have the right to participate in important decisions — by supplying call girls and exotic holidays also enjoyed by senior managers.

Industrial relations have never been so interesting. Germany’s conservative opposition leader, Angela Merkel - known as Germany’s Iron Maiden (she’s a heavy metal fan?) - is hoping to use the scandal as leverage to weaken the power of over-strong unions.

I’ve been a union pay negotiator and, I tell you, call girls aren’t the norm. Not in my company, anyway. In fact, we were jubilant at the sight of a plate of chocolate Hob-Nobs. I remember the day they gave us Danish pastries. Heaven. We gave up half a per cent on the pay claim there and then.

It’s the simple pleasures, you know…

The “Sasser” and “Netsky” internet worms zippped around the world last year, infecting millions of computers, causing them to repeatedly shut down and re-boot, making them impossible to use. The worms took advantage of a flaw in the Microsoft Windows operating system. Prosecutors said that they caused millions of pounds of damage.

Six of the top ten favourite wines are Australian, with Hardy’s in the number one slot. In the top 50 there are now 15 Australian brands.

Meanwhile, sales of French wines have fallen by nearly 4 per cent, taking their market share to less than 18 per cent.

The biggest selling French brand is still Le Piat D’Or which comes in at number 11.

Well, call me a slob but nothing beats a couple of premium lagers at my local pub followed by a nice cup of tea and two slices of toast when I get home….

Apparently the new Fantastic Four movie has been panned by critics. Seems it’s rubbish. You know what? I’m not surprised. These stories were conceived with the comic storyboard format in mind and that, therefore, is where they’re best enjoyed. Spiderman - the movie - is nothing on the comic versions which were full of humour, tragedy and excitement. The movie version of ‘Daredevil’ - my favourite super-hero - I waited for with expectation and then… decided not to see it. No point in ruining a good memory.

The Superman movies were entertaining capers at best. Only Batman came close to being a decent film - I’m looking forward to the latest in the series. But the rest? Leave them in the pages of the comics - where they’re at their very best…

Revealed: how drugs war failed The Guardian’s main story today refers to a report that shows the war on drugs is failing. The government is refusing to publish it.

The profit margins for major traffickers of heroin into Britain are so high they outstrip luxury goods companies such as Louis Vuitton and Gucci, according to a study that Downing Street is refusing to publish under freedom of information legislation.

Only the first half of the strategy unit study led by the former director general of the BBC, Lord Birt, was released last Friday. The other half was withheld but has been leaked to the Guardian.

The Report says we need to be seizing 60-80% of the incoming drugs in order to have any meaningful impact on the drugs flow into this country. We’re actually managing to seize only 20%

Who’s surprised? The demand for drugs is evidently undiminished. Drug-related crime is endemic in this country and yet these people spend little, if any, time in prison. Incarceration plus drugs rehabilitation might work. But we don’t know because we incarcerate so few.

The government was selective in which parts of the report it withheld from the rest of us:

The government yesterday defended its decision not to publish the half of the report that delivers a scathing verdict on efforts to disrupt the drugs supply chain.

The Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman, Mark Oaten, called on the information commissioner to order full disclosure. “What this report shows and what the government is too paranoid to admit is that the ‘war on drugs’ is a disaster. We need an evidence-led debate about the way forward but if they withhold the evidence we can’t have the debate.”

The report does indeed tell us that the government’s war on drugs is a bit of a flop:

The suppressed pages say that the drugs supply market into Britain is sophisticated and attempts to intervene have not resulted in sustainable disruption to the market at any level. “Government interventions against the drug business are a cost of business, rather than a substantive threat to the industry’s viability,” it concludes.

Danny Kushlik of the Transform drugs policy foundation was equally scathing about the government’s timing when it came to releasing such a critical report:

“The fact that part of the report was released late on Friday night, right before Live 8 and the G8 meeting, shows how intent the government is on ‘burying bad news’. Fortunately, they won’t get away with it.”

In a letter to the chancellor, the chairman of Make Poverty History, Richard Bennett, expressed “dismay and serious concern” at the way Britain was presenting proposals for debt cancellation.

“What is being discussed is emphatically not 100% debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries, but government spokespeople continue to state or imply that it is.”

The government reject this accusation. However, it appears that

A meeting of finance ministers from the G7 countries - the G8 excluding Russia - agreed last month to write off the debts of up to 28 states, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, to the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.

Campaign groups said, however, that the deal did not include debts owed to the private sector and, in the case of four Latin American countries, did not include debts to the Inter-American Bank.

“A small minority of the world’s poorest countries will have significant debt cancellation if this deal is agreed,” the Make Poverty History group’s Richard Bennett said.

“This is a step forward, as we have publicly acknowledged, but does not even come close to ending the debt crisis.”

So we still have debt in Africa, we still have lousy government in Africa and we still have protectionist policies in the EU and the US which make trading difficult - or impossible - for African farmers. What worries me is that the G8 - driven by Blair’s need to leave a ‘legacy’ - could find itself settling for ‘look-good’ pronouncements and short-term victories in a bid to appear effective. In the meantime, one wonders if anything will actually improve for Africa’s starving.

From The Times:

Last night, as Mr Duncan was being questioned about the triple murder on May 15 of the girl’s mother, Brenda Groene, 40, her brother Slade, 13, and her mother’s boyfriend, Mark McKenzie, police were studying the blog for clues to a killing and kidnapping case that has repulsed America.

One of the last dramatic blog entries came on May 11, five days before the bodies were found at the family’s rural property. It was headed “The Demons Have Taken Over”.

Some of his writings seem especially desperate:

On April 24, he wrote: “If you are reading this, and you believe in God, please pray for God to help me defeat my demons.” In another entry, he wrote: “I’m afraid, very afraid. If they (my demons) win then a lot of people will be badly hurt, and they’ve had their way before, so I know what they can do.” The last entry, on May 13, two days before the murders, said: “My mother is crying right now, because her son is in trouble again.

His blog is called The Fifth Nail. I’ve had a look and it has become a bit of a circus with hundreds of joke comments added to his final post. It’s here if you’re interested - although for how long I don’t know.

The group, currently on a critically acclaimed comeback tour with former Free singer Paul Rodgers taking on vocal duties, have overtaken the Beatles and Elvis Presley as the artists who have spent the longest time on the British album charts.

According to the compilers of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and Albums, Queen have spent 1,322 weeks on the chart, compared with the Beatles’ 1,293 weeks.

The band’s first number 1 hit album was ‘A Night at the Opera’ which came out in 1974. Queen’s lead singer, Freddie Mercury, died of an AIDS related illness in 1991, aged 45.

The standard shirt and tie uniform at Huntercombe Young Offender Institution - which housed, amongst others, robbers, would-be murderers and rapists - was replaced with jogging bottoms and t-shirt in order to make the warders appear less intimidating and to put the inmates more at ease.

At first he complied when the prison governor ordered him to wear the casual blue polo shirt and jogging bottoms. But Mr Brooks, a burly, tattooed former prison guard with ten years’ experience in adult prisons, said he soon noticed that he was treated with less respect by the inmates. He reverted to wearing the collar and tie because he believed that it taught dangerous young offenders respect for authority.

From then on he was barred from going on the courses he needed in order to earn promotion. He resigned 10 months later.

What a dilemma. In order to resist the right-on political correctness of a service that regards criminals as the real victims Mr Brooks had to disobey a dress code that his employer, however misguided, had every right to enforce.

Andrew Darkin, a member of the national executive of the Prison Officers’ Association, said that the new uniforms represented a misguided ideology pushed forward by those who wanted to “empathise” with violent young criminals. He said: “The ideology is, ‘Let’s help children, let’s not punish them’. We are talking about children who have done some heinous crimes — rape, armed robbery and attempted murder.”

In contrast, mobile burger and ice-cream vans will enjoy bumper sales as they serve a captive audience in Hyde Park. Supermarkets yesterday also reported rocketing sales of beer and blank video tapes as shoppers prepared to watch the concert from home.

There’s more than just Live 8 going on today it seems. Since I’m not a sports fan I have only the barest clue of what events are occurring but, it seems, there’s a full calendar today:

Richard Ratner, a retail analyst at Seymour Pierce, said that the combination of Live 8, the Wimbledon women’s tennis final, the one-day cricket final between Australia and England, the start of the Tour de France and the British Lions’ rugby game against New Zealand would have a “major” effect on retailers by keeping people glued to their televisions today. “I don’t think it will be easy for the retailers,” Mr Ratner said.

Mr Abbas is hoping to involve Hamas in preparations to ensure a smooth exit by Jewish settlers and soldiers next month. Israel fears that the inexperience of his fledgling administration and the lack of unity among his security forces will lead to chaos in the Gaza Strip after an evacuation.

Mr Abbas has pledged to ensure a peaceful transfer of powers and to prevent militants from firing on withdrawing soldiers and settlers. But as the withdrawal nears, a fragile truce Mr Abbas reached with Hamas and other militant groups is falling apart and attacks on Israeli targets have increased in recent weeks.

Zimbabwe’s slum clearances claimed the lives of a pregnant woman, a toddler and a baby as police razed a shanty town outside Harare, sending 10,000 people fleeing into the bush.

The latest raid against what the government calls “illegal housing” took place as Anna Tabaijuka, the UN’s special envoy investigating the ruthless operation against informal settlements, was reportedly praising President Robert Mugabe for his “visionary approach” to rehousing.

Well, it’s certainly a novel approach to rehousing. But visionary? Only if you’re envisaging mayhem and suffering.

According to the UN over 200,000 people have been made homeless by Robert Mugabe’s evictions - which makes Anna Tabaijuka’s claims a little difficult to sustain. Mugabe says the operation is designed to rid Zimbabwe’s towns and cities of “criminals” and “illegal black-marketeers inhabiting insanitary slums”.

Ministers “bullied” academics who wrote a report criticising plans for identity cards, the director of the London School of Economics (LSE) has alleged.

The LSE report sparked a row after it claimed the cost of ID cards could reach three times the government’s estimate of £6bn over 10 years.

Home Secretary Charles Clarke said the study was “technically incompetent”.

As well as accusing the LSE of incompetence Mr Clarke also said the findings were ‘fabricated’ and that one of the academics - who was against ID cards - was partisan. So Mr Clarke isn’t exactly taking their report very well, then.

LSE’s Howard Davies said the report involved 60 contributors and took 6 months to compile. In addition, it had been overseen by a dozen LSE professors.

Mr Clarke had branded the study as “mad” before he had even seen it, Mr Davies added.

“It is unfortunate that, on an issue where the civil liberties concerns are so serious, the government should have chosen to adopt a bullying approach to critics whose prime motivation was to devise a scheme which might work at an acceptable cost.”

The LSE report also claimed plans for ID cards were too risky and lacked the trust of the public.

And the government’s proposed system was so complex it could itself become a target of terrorists, the academics warned.

The LSE academics need to be careful. If they’re decreed to be ‘antis’ then maybe that’s the kind of information that could be held about them in the identity database. There’s no telling how it might be used against them in the future…

Mr Blair’s cabinet colleagues have described him as showing great courage in sticking to his guns, despite being advised that it is “a very dangerous thing to do politically”.

Right. Seven against one is brave, is it? Knowing you’re not going to have to face the music of a damaged relationship with the US because you’re handing over to Gordon Brown is brave? Sticking two fingers up at America knowing that most of the electorate at home will applaud you for it is brave? Really, Guardian, what planet are you on?

The text, described as “the base for Friday, Saturday meeting”, shows that the US refuses to accept either the science surrounding climate change or that the burning of fossil fuels is contributing to it.

The US is objecting to these words: “Climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe. There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring and that human activity is contributing to this warming.”

Uh huh. So we’re ‘contributing’. How much are we contributing compared to the natural warming/cooling cycle the this planet is always under-going? Are we contributing 1% or 10% or 50% or 98%? Because if it’s less than about 10% I think we should worry a little less about our activity in causing it and spend a bit more time and energy preparing for the inevitable.

All the G8 countries accept the next sentence: “Global energy demands are expected to grow by 60% over the next 25 years. This has the potential to cause a significant increase in greenhouse gas emissions associated with climate change.” However, the US disputes the next sentence: “But we know that we need to slow, stop and then reverse the growth in greenhouse gases to reduce our exposure to potentially serious economic, environmental and security risks.”

The US objection here is, I suspect, largely economic. The problem - if we accept we must eventually reverse the amount of carbon we emit - is that with the US being the technological colossus that it is its non-involvement in the pursuit of lower emissions will be a serious blow to that effort.

“The nationalist rhetoric is self-defeating. It is impossible, it is irrational to come to Brussels and to go back to respective capitals saying every time ‘we have won’, as if it was a kind of boxing championship. People like that are destroying the very idea of Europe. That is my duty to say that.”

Interesting that nationalism (ie not racism, not xenophobia - just a simple preference for the independent nation-state) is not compatible with the idea of Europe. Does that mean we can leave now then?

Well, I’d like to hang around for as long as the President of the EU Commission has a sense of humour. And he has, so, here - courtesy of Mr Barroso - is today’s Joke of the Day:

Asked whether Turkey will become a member of the EU in his lifetime, he replies: “I cannot say neither one nor the other. I respect democracy.”

Honestly, the man kills me…

Doctors’ representatives voted to abandon their long-held opposition to a change in the law to permit them to help terminally-ill patients commit suicide yesterday.

The British Medical Association decided to adopt a neutral stance when private member’s legislation returns to parliament to provide a means of escape for people living in pain with no hope of recovery.

A neutral stance seems a little, well, soft, when we’re talking about life and death situations - and when we’re talking about the acknowledged experts in such life or death situations.

Speakers distinguished between physician-assisted suicide, in which a doctor might facilitate death, and euthanasia, involving active killing - which the BMA will continue to oppose.

What does ‘assisted’ mean and how does it differ from ‘active’? If ‘assisted’ means allowing a person to starve to death while ‘active’ means giving a person drugs to hasten - or bring about - their death then it’s only a question of semantics that separates the two. If I can feed you but refuse to I am actively - and extremely painfully - killing you. Let’s not mess about with words.

The question then is far more profound: do we knowingly kill people we could otherwise keep alive if they request it due to unbearable pain and/or an untreatable and debilitating medical condition?

Sir Michael Peat said that the prince also donated £2.5 million of his own money to charity each year, which was a sizeable proportion of his income. “He is not Bill Gates,” Sir Michael added.

The annual review of the Prince’s household

…shows that the prince undertook more than 500 engagements, including 103 overseas, and received or entertained 7,400 official guests. He attended 191 formal briefings and meetings, received more than 47,000 letters from the public, and wrote more than 2,300 letters personally, with a further 18,000 written on his behalf.

Spending included

On his official and charitable duties, the prince spent more than £6 million, with staff costs accounting for more than half this sum. Spending on housekeeping was £96,000, gardens £30,000, and utilities £72,000. The cost of entertaining was reined in from £655,000 to £507,000 for a similar number of events as the previous year.

Over the 12 months, the prince entertained 7,400 guests at Clarence House and other residences, hosting 68 receptions, seminars, lunches and dinners.

And the Prince travelled a lot:

Overseas trips took up much of the prince’s time last year. He travelled more than 65,700 miles both in the UK and overseas, undertaking 103 official engagements at a cost of £1.06 million.

He visited 82 towns and 35 counties in the UK, as well as Italy, Turkey, Jordan, Sri Lanka, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Spain, France, the United States, Bosnia, the United Arab Emirates, Germany and the Netherlands.

Sir Michael said that criticism of the costs and method of the prince’s travel to ostensibly desirable places was often misconceived. ‘’He goes to these places exclusively to represent the national interest and he hardly has five minutes off,'’ he added.

The Royal Family costs each of us less than the price of a loaf of bread per year. I wish we could get such value for money from all the rest of government spending…

Human rights groups described the policy shift as a cynical ploy to avoid embarrassing Tony Blair during the meeting.

Ministers are also anxious to see an end to the hunger strike by Zimbabwean detainees as they do not want Britain’s treatment of refugees to dominate the summit agenda.

The government’s Commons majority was more than halved to 31 last night when leftwing MPs joined Tories, Liberal Democrats and other critics of Charles Clarke’s ID card bill to make clear that they want it radically improved - or dropped.

There were 40 abstentions in the vote. If they had voted - and voted wisely - they would have been able to throw this thing out. Now it will get its second reading.

Anyway, his latest escapades are described in the paper thus:

His offence was to cruise through Downham Market in a black jeep lit by blue neon lights taking pot shots at cars and shops with a ball-bearing loaded catapult. When he was arrested, Carroll admitted he had done the same thing on 29 other occasions, and wrote “sorry” on his police form. He was given 240 hours’ community service yesterday, ordered to pay £3,628.97 compensation and put on his first Asbo.

His lawyer admitted he was lucky not to be sent to prison. Many others might think it’s not luck at all. Rather it’s just another example of Blair’s ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ being the empty sham that we all knew it would be.

On Saturday 56 year old Terry Barrett was beaten to death by yobs he’d confronted after they’d thrown eggs at his house. And the week before (June 18) Peter Wareing, a 42 year old barrister, was beaten senseless by a gang of youths and has been in a coma for the last 10 days.

The truth is, the yobs and criminals rule our streets, not the police. One day this might change but that day won’t be soon. In the meantime, we live in fear and god help you if you should tackle one of these yobs. If they don’t do for you you’ll probably be arrested for infringing his civil rights.

Granted, the pictures weren’t exactly flattering but what does the ex-dictator and all-round monster want? A spread in ‘Hello’ magazine? And exactly how does he intend to spend the money? Hasn’t he got other things to think about? Like a possible death sentence?

Thousands of spectators braved wet weather to watch a Battle of Trafalgar re-enactment off Portsmouth - the climax of bicentenary celebrations. Fusillades of gunfire, blasts from cannons and fireworks helped mark the 1805 victory over France and Spain.

Earlier the Queen conducted a massive international fleet review.

As any history buff will tell you, this was an historic battle between the blues and the reds and the blues won. Or, if he isn’t politically correct, he’ll tell you it was a battle fought by Britain against the expansionist French and their Spanish allies and we won one of our most decisive victories ever.

Out-numbered 33 to 27 the British lost no ships, the enemy were left with just 16. Lord Nelson’s strategic brilliance and the unflinching courage of his captains and their crews inaugurated the beginning of Britain’s century of supremacy, an age when the Royal Navy dominated the seas. Our Navy has never been as large as it was then. Indeed, it is now smaller than it has ever been since the middle of the 18th century.

Let’s hope we don’t need a navy in the near future…

…literacy test scores for 11- year-olds jumped 18 percentage points between 1996 and 2004. But when the same children came to take their GCSEs five years later, their results improved by only four points — a rise no greater than would be predicted by long-term trends.

The article goes on to quote different reasons why this might be, including poor standards of teaching in some schools and also that the tests at 11 years exaggerate the improvements.

I’d add this: in a culture where the distractions of 24 hour television, X-box and games on mobile phones it’s a rarity to see a teenager on the bus or tube reading a book. Literacy isn’t a school-only thing it’s a lifestyle activity and teachers are having to teach children - teenagers - who have never read a book in their lives. This cannot be easy.

Anyway, Redbridge - where I live - is doing extremely well in education - take a look at the tables.

Overweight people who diet to reach a healthier weight are more likely to die young than those who remain fat, according to a study.

Now I’ve always railed against the diet industry because, from the days our ancestors left the African savannah, our bodies have been programmed to preserve body fat at the slightest hint of lack of food. It’s a survival measure to preserve our energy during what must have been frequent food shortages. This is why diets don’t work. But, it seems, diets are even worse than useless - they can be damaging. This was revealed by an 18 year study in Finland by Thorkild Sorensen of the Institute of Preventive Medicine at Copenhagen University hospital:

“It seems as if the long-term effect of the weight loss is a general weakening of the body that leads to an increased risk of dying from several different causes,” said Dr Sorensen. “The adverse effects of losing lean body mass may overrule the beneficial effects of losing fat mass when dieting,” he added.

Fat-loss from already lean organs is being suggested as one of the reasons some dieters die younger. Either way, it’s bad news if you want to slim down without exercising, great news if you crave a Mars Bar right now…

ID Cards are under attack again

This is about an increasingly authoritarian government extending its reach into as many aspects of yours and my life as possible. There’s no reason for it - they just can’t help themselves.

Anyway, they’re upsetting everyone, according to The Guardian:

Senior ministers refused to compromise yesterday in the face of a ferocious onslaught from MPs, trade unions and civil liberty groups seeking to overwhelm tomorrow’s Commons second reading of the ID cards bill.

Like other New Labour policies, the ID Card victimises the law-abiding majority. If you smoke or if you drive a car they’re after you because you’re an easy target. Once the ID cards are issued, leaving home without one will be illegal. Forgetting to tell the authorities you’ve lost it or moved address will be a crime too. It’s just getting easier and easier to fall foul of New Labour.

According to the BBC:

Anna Tribe, 75 and the great, great, great granddaughter of the admiral, criticised a mock-up of the 1805 sea battle as “politically correct”.

Tuesday’s re-enactment in the Solent will pit reds against blues, not English against French and Spanish.

What is it with these people? Will celebrating English victories of 200 hundred years ago against the FRENCH and the SPANISH cause racial hatred today? Of course not. There’ll be some patriotism and some triumphalism - we may learn a little history even - and we’ll all have a good time and then we’ll all go home again. Simple.

Whatever next? The Battle of Britain, as fought by the yellows and the greens?