Literal Fools

What is a museum? I rather thought it was a building containing historical artefacts which trace the various stages of evolution of mankind and the wider world. Curators are all essentially historians who present factual information to the interested public and their bored children.

Visitors to Ulster Museum have, for over 180 years, been able to study archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, industrial archaeology, botany, zoology and geology.

But NI culture Minister, Nelson McCausland, is far from satisfied. He wants museums to be, “reflective of the views, beliefs and cultural traditions of the people,” including exhibits setting out the thoroughly unscientific ‘intelligent design’ theory of the universe.

Many scientists have a degree of faith in a creative force and few would object to acknowledgement of this fact. However, McCausland takes a literal interpretation of the bible. I guess it is rather hard to reconcile the story of Noah’s ark with a large collection of dinosaur skeletons.

Old Nelson claims, “I’ve had more letters from the public on this issue than any other.” Although this barely credible claim does not mention how many were pleas to keep religion and superstition firmly in church.

McCausland is not a lone Creationist voice in Government. His buddy Mervyn Story is an Antrim member of the Northern Irish Assembly, whose constituency includes the Giant’s Causeway (above). Those awkward geologists have found, contrary to the cultural views and beliefs of many in Ulster, the cooling of volcanic lava leading to the hexagonal blocks of basalt occurred about 60 million years ago.

Damn. How can that be possible when the earth is only 6014 years old? It must be the Devil’s work.

Proper Charlie

It was not surprising to learn the toxicology tests from those Scunthorpe boys, who had reportedly overdosed on Mephedrone, found, er, they hadn't. The drug is an amphetamine which is rarely the cause of drug death even when combined with heavy drinking. However, it was surprising to find no trace of the drug at all in their systems.

Turn your mind back two months and we had Govt Ministers and their shadows making tough "whatever it takes" statements to control the drug and enforce the law "to avert such tragic consequences occurring in the future." Chief Inspector Mark Oliver of Lincolnshire police held a press conference on 16 March and told the world Mephedrone had killed those lads. He set in motion the full media hysteria which led to its control just four weeks later.

One would have assumed the police investigation had uncovered identifiable traces or wraps or some connection to a Mephedrone supplier. Apparently not, Oliver's wild assertions sound like they were based on hearsay evidence from someone who doesn't know the difference between Mephedrone and the opiote substitute Methadone.

If ever there were a case for taking the Misuse of Drugs Act out of the police Department of the Home Office and transfered to Health, this is it. The police have no more qualification to start pontificating on essentially scientific matters than the febrile politicians. It is a source of national shame we have come distrust the scientists' analysis on drugs and rather adhere to the words of inept and impotent officials who simply panic with fear.

Previous Home Secretaries like Jacqui Smith hardly helped; she was able to misrepresent scientists like David Nutt as eccentric and out of touch with the real concerns of worried parents. What utter hogwash. For a start scientists are often parents too, but their intellectual discipline has allowed them to separate their individual anxieties with a rational view of the level of risk which can be moderated by credible educational messages.

The Government's reaction to new threats is hugely exaggerated and their attempts at education are woefully inaccurate. TalktoFrank's current campaign on cocaine features a drug mule/dog Pablo. There can be very few users of coke who would associate the drug with a cuddly puppy being sliced open in a dingy basement as Frank would have us believe.

The fast-track 'banning' of Mephedrone was based on a clearly false premise. Drugs policy has a false founding principle that it is the illegality and threat from the flat-foots which is the best way to deter drug use. That doesn't mean the answer is legalisation. But the current approach is ineffective to the point of being delusional.

More than a Feeling

The new Coalition Government has had something of an enigmatic start. It feels rather unfamiliar and hard to acclimatise too. A bit like meeting your mate’s charming new boyfriend, only you didn’t know he was gay.

There are of course no visible cracks in the coalition as it ‘cleaves to the mould’ of power. But it has not yet been put under any substantive pressure. Ministers fall out with each other all time and it’s not always just about egos, occasionally it is about political philosophy. It will be illuminating to see how Ministerial bickering between figures from different parties can be resolved.

Aside from the rather sickening liaison between Cameron and Clegg, George Osborne and David Laws are maintaining the façade of their close working relationship at HMT. The Steve Bell’s portrayal of George as a sneering, sickly Victorian child was quite apposite but now Laws has taken on the role of Osborne’s limp puppet lolling on the exchequer’s sequined arm.

The tensions over the finances are certain to create some inter-Coalition division. But the focus at present is on Clegg pushing for electoral reform referendum in May 2011. The Tories need not fret, as that old crocodile, Francis Maude (above) at Cabinet office knows. The simple AV vote is not proportional and may yet solidify Tory electoral gains especially if combined with making uniform size seats and knocking out 10 percent of MPs.

Like most young relationships, the main protagonists find conflict difficult to cope with. Cameron has foreseen an ugly punch-up with the old farts over 1922 Committee and 55% vote over dissolution of Parliament. But a PM is not defined by dodging bullets but his capacity to fire them back. If anything he should be seeking trouble to establish his authority.

It is of course much easier to dictate policy and bark orders at pliant Ministers of your own party. Intimidating a Lib-Dem Minister may even encourage them to re-discover the point of principle and resign. Perhaps that is Dave's longer-term plan after all.

His Master's Voice

Devotees of 'Seinfeld' will be well aware of the significance of the mantra 'Serenity Now'. It is a phrase to be repeated at moments of high anxiety and stress. In the comedy, the constant suppression of emotion leads inevitably to an eruption of anger and torment.

How are the Tory Grandees feeling now about coalition politics? Is there enough gratification about gaining some degree of power to placate the myriad of compromises. They have been extra-ordinarily disciplined to keeping their fermenting frustration out of the news. Occasionally one breaks free and speaks his mind like Bill Cash (above) on Newsnight last night.

The proposal to neuter the independence of the 1922 Committee by Cameron may be a step too far for the old Guard. The Committee is essentially the Establishment of the party but distinctly separate from the Executive, working as a kind of barometer of the wider party. There is invariably strong mutual respect between its chair and the party leader but Cameron appears to be considering it like Labour's 'awkward squad'. In any event, if Cameron thinks he can do a Blair-style spiking of dissent, he may find a new 2010 Committee being formed.

The Coalition Government's general list of commitments (strangely listed alphabetically) has plenty of pressure points where the 'grey beards' may feel they can hold their collective tongue no more.
http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/media/409088/pfg_coalition.pdf

One example - despite the promise to "strongly defend the UK's national interests in forthcoming EU budget negotiations," little Hague may find no option but agreeing an increase of billions of British quids to Brussels. If that doesn't bring the Eurosceptic wing to a point of apoplexy nothing will.

Come on, chaps. Let it all out.

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Good gag on the News Quiz.

David Cameron welcomed Baroness Warsi into the cabinet. As a single-mother and Moslem, her first duties include cutting her own benefits before having herself deported.

The Case is Altered

Charlie Kennedy cannot be the only senior Lib-Dem to have deep reservations about the sense of the Clegg-Cameron alliance. He set out the detail in his article for yesterday’s Observer and judging by the bumbling style and irrelevant asides, I am pretty he sure he penned it himself.

Kennedy at least identified the most germane point which was the coalition rides “a coach and horses” through the prospects of a centre-left progressive alliance of Lib-Dem and Labour. On the Andrew Marr show, Daily Mail columnist Amanda Platell showed her political intelligence deficit when she claimed it amounted to a re-newed leadership bid from Charlie Boy. That ship never even had a sail (but no shortage of rum.)

I may not be the only enthusiast supporter of full PR (by AVplus) to have find their zeal waning somewhat. The point of introducing a more proportional system was to keep the Tories out, now Clegg has swooned before Cameron's power, it has lost all momentum. The next election looks a clear 1960s style fight between Labour and Conservative.

The Tory old guard of Peter Tapsell, Bill Cash, and Edward Leigh are suitably horrified by the liberalisation of much of Tory policy. The first test is the 55% threshold for dissolution of Parliament. Cameron is presenting it as his price for selflessly setting fixed terms to five years. It is simply a policy without principle. The only justification is to provide stability in which case the 55% is a thoroughly arbitrary figure. Imposing undemocratic 'bar-raising' in times of severe economic difficulties has long been the justification of tyrants.

It would be extremely painful for the fledgling Government to suffer such an early defeat so it's a huge risk. It is ultimately about Cameron's political inexperience. In truth, I thought his naivety would prevent him from becoming PM, not wait to be fully exposed when he reached office.

The Beasts and the Children

New Home Secretary, Theresa May, is clearly elated to have been promoted and will now get to grips with the most progressive agenda in the new Liberal Conservative coalition. On entering the monolith of the Home Office, she immediately declared the scrapping of ID Cards and elections for police chiefs.

There will no doubt be plenty of time for old-fashioned, deeply Conservative policies to come. But by far the most welcome change this week was immigration Minister Damian Green's commitment to cease the incarceration of all children at the immigration detention centre at Yarl's Wood.

If ever there was a symptom of how illiberal Labour's policies had become, it was the sight of pig-headed Phil Woolas fobbing of any critisism of effectively imprisoning 1,000 children every year. He even dismissed, out of hand, the experience would be in the least harmful to the children. Even a pretty right-wing Conservative, like Green can see the moral principle and has overturned this outrage.

Green will, of course, be introducing caps on non-EU immigration which will lead to much distress in itself. He will need the co-operation of his civil servants including Perm Sec David 'Smiling Assassin' Normington. It is slightly ironic it was Normington's panic over leaks last year which led to Green's arrest and a few hours in jug. The Tories would be well advised to push Normington out.

In the meantime, Green and May should be allowed more than a modicum of praise for ceasing the physical and psychological damage to hundreds of children in the name of a "fair" immigration policy.

ConDemNation

For all those who appreciate political humour it must be a pleasure to see Labour's Stephen Pound returned to Parliament. His summary of the new coalition was suitably incisive; "the Lib-Dems are like vegetarians who've just got jobs at McDonalds."

This political marriage is the strangest and most unwieldy alliance since Heston Blumenthal joined up with Delia Smith. There will be sprinklings of Lib-Dem Ministers throughout Whitehall but only Vince Cable landed a heavyweight role as SoS for Business and Banks. The rest will have to act like civil servants, accepting highly unpalatable policies with the expectation they will be implemented with gusto.

A looser arrangement of supporting individual votes would have allowed both parties to retain political coherence. But this is not just a compromise, it amounts to a collapse in integrity.

If (and it is 20-storey high 'if') Labour can emerge united after the election of David Milliband as party leader, then they can establish themselves as the party of principle. What an amazing political turnaround. There is a fair chance unity can be achieved as the Brownite-Blairite schism becomes effectively obsolete although Ed Balls only really does tribalism.

Cameron has been canny in deluding Lib-Dems of the sense of ‘sharing’ power in that it buys him probably at least an additional 12 months as PM. When it falls apart he can continue on a minority basis for a little longer. So reports of this Parliament’s demise are certainly premature. I’d give it a couple of years at least.

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Sky News have maintained a fair level of impartiality through the election, scrupulously so given the crude insulting remarks of one Murdoch’s other organs, the Sun (on Monday they called Lib-Dems ‘Shysters’ and Brown ‘a Scottish idiot’.)

Kay Burley’s acid-in-the-face attack on a rather meek electoral reform activist was peculiar and disturbing. She was so aggressive she appeared to be in an audition for Fox news.

But that little spat was as nothing compared to the Hagler/Hearns like encounter between Sky’s Adam Boulton and Alistair Campbell. As a sporting contest Campbell won on points - Boulton looks like he wants to lamp him, breathing heavily and brooding like a grumpy gorilla. Alistair dances around coolly telling him to calm down. And Campbell get the last word, “Adam, you’re a pompous little arse.”

What is yet to be explained is why Sky’s political analyst is being interviewed as if he were a Conservative spokesman. A line was certainly crossed - after an exhausting post election period I hope it was more cock-up then conspiracy. We don’t do political TV news in this country. If anyone tries, this will be the result.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdidz_48fGI&feature=related