19 June 2010 9:32 PM
A genuine Tory speaks out... and all Dave can do is flannel
A real opposition is starting to take shape in the worst Parliament of modern history. Let us hope it now grows in strength and conviction. Among all the oily creeps, thrusting airhead careerists and quota-selected women, we can hear the occasional voice speaking for the people.
Prime Minister’s Questions, transformed by Coalition politics into a flabby, empty occasion, suddenly developed bite last Wednesday – but not across the Dispatch Box. The genuinely conservative MP Philip Davies smacked the Liberal Tory Premier, David Cameron, smartly about the chops. Mr Davies said: ‘The millions of people who voted Conservative at the last Election in order to make him Prime Minister did not do so in order to see a reduction in the number of people sent to prison or to see those criminals given softer sentences.
‘If he really wants to reduce the budget of the Prison Service, may I suggest that he starts by taking Sky TV away from the 4,000 prisoners who enjoy that luxury in their cells?’
Mr Cameron – who in my personal experience deeply dislikes and resents any kind of challenge – was noticeably peeved and retorted sarcastically: ‘May I thank my honourable friend for that helpful suggestion?’
The Premier then flannelled, because he knows perfectly well his Government is going to release lots of prisoners, early, and weaken sentences. Kenneth Clarke, Secretary of State for Injustice, had won the warm approval of soppy liberals (and soppy Liberal Democrats) a few days before, when he smugly brushed off the public’s fear of crime as ‘out of proportion’ and talked of prison cuts.
In this, he is in a long tradition of gutless Tory Ministers who have followed noisy promises to be tough on crime with reduced sentences and hamstrung police forces. As this Government continues, tightly clasped together at the centre by the Cameron-Clegg love affair, and by the shameless hunger for office of so many of the cyphers who sit in Cabinet, the strain will show at its edges.
How long, I wonder, can people such as Philip Davies sit on the same side of the chamber as Mr Cameron and his liberal, PC friends like Chris Huhne and Ken Clarke?How long, for that matter, will either Miliband brother, or most of the New Labour mob, be able to pretend that they are bitter opponents of Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg, when they agree with almost everything they say? Not long, I hope.
The resignation of Mr Heath would have been an apology worth having – as well as perhaps sparing us several other horrors of that nasty Cabinet, which took us into the EU, massacred scores of good grammar schools and destroyed traditional local government. So, for me, the Saville inquiry comes a long time too late, and is too hard on the Army, especially Lt Col Derek Wilford, who has been unfairly treated because of the need for a scapegoat.
The senator, it is always enjoyable to recall, is older than the Golden Gate Bridge, chocolate chip cookies, Israel and plutonium. But it wasn’t sleep that felled the warrior-scholar and puritan General David Petraeus, mastermind of the Afghanistan fiasco. The hollow-faced general, who looks as if he jogs far too much and drinks far too little, suddenly pitched face-forward on to the table. He claimed later that this was because he had skipped breakfast.
Last week my colleague Suzanne Moore retold a Tony Benn chestnut about how you wouldn’t trust a dentist who said he had no qualifications, but that his father had been a dentist. This is supposed to be a devastating blow at a hereditary House of Lords.
The admirable law against using a handheld mobile phone while driving is universally flouted – and if you urge drivers to stop texting or chatting as they try to control a ton of steel, glass and rubber, they generally swear at you as if you were the problem. This is because the police have pretty much abandoned road patrols, one of the many bad effects of relying completely on speed cameras.
17 June 2010 1:17 PM
I'm an anti-atheist, not a vicar
Mr 'Un' complains that a theologian I recommended (to persons who wanted to pick a fight with me about theology) doesn't agree with me about everything. So what?
These critics, who apparently couldn't be bothered to read my book 'The Rage Against God', and so wrongly imagined that it was a work of Christian apologetics, wanted to argue about theology, about which I know little and in which I have no great interest. And which I do not discuss in the book. Amusingly, Mr 'Un' says he found the theologian I recommended inferior to another, for whom he seems to have a high regard. Fine by me.
I suggested some good popular theologians they could take on, because they were theologians who dealt with the issues in which these people claimed to be interested. I don't think they really are interested in them. I think they just wanted to show off their recently acquired bumptious atheist standard-issue arguments, which bore me to tears.
Sorry, but I'm no more likely to argue about theology or scripture than I am to do so about literary criticism. I'm an anti-atheist, not a vicar.
Londonderry air
'Jonathan S' is against the apology for Bloody Sunday. He says the Crown cannot do such a thing. Nor can it. But Her Majesty's government can, and rightly did. Very few Irish people, either side of the border, wanted a war in 1969. A very small number of bilious hate-mongers did want a war, and succeeded in getting one by use of the classic methods of terror. The shame was that the lawfully-constituted authorities reacted with text-book incompetence, as if they had read the terrorist manual and had decided to do exactly what the terrorists wanted on every occasion - internment, Bloody Sunday, torture of suspects.
May I here recommend Dominic Sandbrook's extraordinarily good summary of the affair, with a good appreciation of the difficulties involved, in his book 'White Heat'.
The origin of the problem lies in the creation of the Stormont Parliament at partition, and the disastrous creation of the 'Protestant State' when there should have been direct rule from London from the start. Plenty of British politicians had long wanted to get rid of Northern Ireland, and didn't have their hearts in keeping it British.
In fact, Direct Rule, once begun, rapidly got rid of most of the anti-Catholic discrimination in the Six Counties of Northern Ireland. Enormous progress was made in this matter, especially in housing and employment - and could and would have been made in policing had it not been for the efforts of the terrorists to frighten Roman Catholics out of joining the RUC. There had always been plenty of peaceful, constitutional Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland who were happily reconciled to living under the British flag, and they have been betrayed by recent events just as much as have the Protestants who desire passionately to remain British.
Also, until quite late in the story, the Dublin government had no interest at all in encouraging the anti-British movement. They didn't want to acquire a resentful Protestant minority, thanks very much. In fact, the behaviour of recent Dublin governments, in promoting the 'Irish Dimension' is one of those odd cases of a political elite in the grip of impractical utopianism. It was encouraged by a strange combination. First, there was the effect of US politics (read Conor O'Clery's superb book 'The Greening of the White House' about Bill Clinton's cynical embrace of Irishry to win back Catholic working-class votes lost by his party because of abortion).
Then there was EU pressure (the EU has long believed in a reunited Ireland under the Euro, the kilometre and the EU flag, and for years the 'European Parliament' published presumptuous maps of Ireland in which the old Irish borders of Leinster, Munster, Ulster (with all nine counties) and Connaught were superimposed on the actual frontier.
These things, plus the desire of the British 'deep state' (well embodied by the Secret Intelligence Service) to get rid of a costly nuisance, lie behind the gradual surrender, starting with the Anglo-Irish agreement, moving on through the 'Peace Process', to the indefensible handover of the people of the Six Counties to the current shameful situation - rule by terrorist godfathers, Some Green and some Orange.
No, the behaviour of the British state has not been perfect. But set beside the criminal murderers of the IRA, INLA and the UVF etc, I think much of it comes out pretty well, not least the Army.Britain versus America
As usual, manycontributors to this discussion have paid little attention to what I actually said (but thanks to the Wall Street Journal for kindly mentioning this modest posting).
I was not, as one American critic claimed 'whingeing' about President Obama's behaviour. On the contrary, I was saying it was about time British people realised that the USA is not some kind of sugar-daddy, rich uncle and unflinching friend. President Obama, who threw his own grandmother 'under the bus' (as the graphic American saying goes) to get himself out of a campaign difficulty, is merely behaving like a politician, and a Chicago politician at that. I of all people can't be surprised or aggrieved by that, having pointed out (when the rest of the world was having its multiple Obasm) that Mr Obama was in fact a rather undistinguished cog in Mayor Daley's machine in the Windy City. I don't like what he is doing, but I didn't expect anything better, so I am not surprised or specially grieved by it.
I was just saying that this country should use this opportunity to develop a more honest and clear-eyed relationship with the USA, and that this should start by us ceasing to toddle along behind every American military adventure that happens to be going.
No doubt the ending of our naval supremacy in 1922 under American pressure, and the mortgaging of our future in World War Two, were the results of our foolish foreign policy decisions, getting needlessly involved in European continental wars in which we had no interest, or at times when we were ill-prepared to fight. As regular readers of this site will know, I don't criticise the Americans for taking advantage of our folly. I criticise our politicians for being foolish, and modern historians and politicians and commentators for continuing to endorse their folly. I still can't work out why we entered World War One, or why we declared war on Germany over Poland in 1939. The second point is not, as is sometimes alleged, a claim that we should never have got involved in the 1939-45 war. My mind is fairly open on that. It is this more limited point: that we had no interest in Poland's independence or integrity in 1939, and no ability to protect them either; that in any case we failed in this objective; that had Britain and France not declared war on Germany in September 1939 there is no reason to suppose that Hitler would have attacked either France or Britain in 1940 (as 'Stan' has shown by the emptiness of his arguments, in which he was eventually reduced to trying to out-patriot me into silence by claiming ludicrously that my case was in some way a criticism of our fighting forces, who of course had no choice about the stupid, doomed battles they were sent to fight by Westminster buffoons).
Further, that had Hitler attacked France in 1940, we would have gained nothing by going to France's aid, since we had none to offer that would have turned the balance. In fact, I largely argue that Britain should have behaved more like the USA, whose sentimental defenders willingly forgive for its long neutrality during the rise of Hitler. And quite right too. If you're going to fight wars, fight them in such a way that you win, that your own country is not much damaged and that you do not end them as bankrupt client states of greater powers, with your society and culture undermined and demoralised and hundreds of thousands of your best people dead.Deep depression approaching from the Left
A few thoughts and responses to contributors follow, starting with some interesting reflections, by others, on the 'Depression' movement. The first comes from a report in 'The Times' (of London) on Monday 14th June. This quotes a psychologist called Irving Kirsch as saying that evidence is 'overwhelming' that there is no link between 'Depression' and Serotonin, the brain chemical that many (if not all?) 'anti-depressant' drugs are supposed to affect. Professor Kirsch says research shows that a new drug, Tianeptine (a Serotonin Reuptake Enhancer), is 'just as effective' as the widely used 'Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor' (SSRI) pills commonly prescribed for 'Depression'. His figures showed that 63% of patients responded to Tianeptine, as opposed to 62% to SSRIs (and 65% to another type of drug, tricyclics).
The report did not describe the presumed operation of tricyclics (which I believe have been largely abandoned in recent years, partly because of disagreeable side-effects) but Professor Kirsch pointed out that, while SSRIs increase Serotonin levels, Tianeptine decreases them. Yet it had almost exactly the same effect on patients as SSRIs.
He said: 'Although the chemical-imbalance theory is often presented as if it were fact, it is actually a controversial hypothesis. This is about as close as a theory gets in science to being disproven by the evidence.'
Almost as interesting was the defence of these drugs offered by Dr Hamish McAllister Williams (at the Times's Cheltenham Science Festival). Dr McAllister Williams said: 'We do not fully understand how these drugs work, but there is evidence that they influence the number of neurons and the connections between neurons. You can't draw conclusions about this because of the nature of the study'.
I am, as always, struck by frank confessions of ignorance by experts. 'We do not fully understand how these drugs work', perhaps ought to be written in letters of fire on the packets in which they are distributed to the three million people in Britain who are believed to take them every day.
Next, I shall quote (with permission) from a letter sent to me by a reader who gives a harrowing account of her experience with SSRIs. She says the pills 'turned me into a completely different person' as the levels of Serotonin in her brain began to increase.
'The body you are in is no longer your own,' she explains. 'From the very slim lady that I was, I ballooned, my hair, teeth and eyes were affected, I was no longer recognisable.' She also attributes a strong craving for alcohol (and sugar) to the effect of the drug on her taste buds. This craving vanished once she stopped taking the prescribed pills.
Given the immense ( and in my view deliberately exaggerated) fuss that is made about the difficulties allegedly experienced by heroin users who seek, or claim to seek, to give up their pleasure, it is interesting to note that some of her worst experiences came when she sought to stop taking her legal, culturally-approved, officially prescribed medication. I might add that there seem to be several instances of people being badly affected by such drugs, some time after they have ceased to take them.
It took her five months to get free of the effects. 'The pain was horrific, it ripped right through me. On one occasion, a family member had to hold me down because the pain was so bad.'
I have spoken to the author of this letter (which in contrast to much correspondence received in newspaper offices is beautifully typed, carefully written and wholly coherent) and she does not seem to me to be the type to exaggerate or dramatise.
And I offer these quotations as additions to a discussion which seems to me to one of the most important we have had here. They do not offer a conclusive proof that the prescription of anti-depressants is universally bad. They are not intended to do so, and the silly people - who will try to argue with me as if I had made such a statement when I have not - are asked not to bother.
But what they do offer is another reason for sensible people to begin to question the assumptions about anti-depressants - just as the apparent correlation between mass murders followed by suicides, and the taking of anti-depressants by the culprits, offers such a reason.
Those who wish to argue for complacency on this subject are welcome to do so. But let them do so plainly and openly, rather than by misrepresenting what I have said. It seems to me that any intelligent person now has to admit that the assumptions surrounding anti-depressants are open to serious question. In which case those who wish to defend those assumptions need to provide serious answers.16 June 2010 5:23 PM
Old Londonderry's Walls
I have said for years that the British government should apologise for Bloody Sunday. This is for firmly Unionist reasons. Londonderry ( as I still call it) is in my view a British city ( and certainly felt like one to me when I at last managed to go there a few years back). I've nothing against those who wish to call it 'Derry'(or 'Doire'), provided they don't mind me calling it Londonderry. But I think the BBC, being a British institution, should stick with 'Londonderry' - as should ministers in the British government. I'll relax my view of this if ever I hear an Irish politician , or RTE, the Republic's equivalent of the BBC, refer to the city as 'Londonderry' in a gesture to its Protestant inhabitants.
But the main point of this is simple. If such a thing had happened to Her Majesty's peaceful subjects in Portsmouth, Cardiff, Hull, Liverpool or Aberdeen, the government would - and should - have fallen the next day.
And it remains shameful that Edward Heath and his Cabinet did not resign the morning after this dreadful blunder, which was of course perpetrated by soldiers - but by soldiers whose orders and deployment originated in London, and in the not-very-bright policies of the day towards Ireland.
So I am glad of the apology, far too long delayed. I think David Cameron delivered it with proper gravity and without any attempt to qualify it. This was right.
But I am annoyed by the report, which seems to me to have an entirely political purpose and may not be a wholly accurate account of events. How can we know, in such detail, so long afterwards? It is interesting to examine one's memory, when events which took place in one's own lifetime gradually solidify into historical events. I can remember hearing the news of the shootings on the Sunday evening on the radio (as I generally heard news in those days of scarce TVs and infrequent bulletins) that freezing cold weekend in York, and the angry demonstration we students mounted the following day, its indignation for once entirely justified. But if you asked me for details of either day, instead of brief and probably misleading scraps of memory, I would be unable to help you.
In fact a couple of years ago, on an assignment in Moscow, I travelled by metro to the district where I had lived for a year in 1992. When I arrived at the familiar station, I made for the steps by which I was sure I had always exited, and walked as if to go to my block of flats. I was completely wrong. The exit was wrong. My direction was wrong. I walked the wrong way. in increasing bafflement, for half a mile because I was so sure I was right. Reluctantly, I had to accept that my memory, for all its insistent clarity, was misleading, to put it mildly. And that was a distance in time of about 16 years, less than half the period which separates us all from Bloody Sunday.
I'll have more to say about this later, but if we are to go on a voyage of rediscovery through the Northern Ireland Morass, I think we need to be a good deal more even-handed about what we study.
And by the way, the closed-minded people who always write in and say that I am some kind of patsy for the 'Loyalist' scum are completely wrong. I loathe the violent racketeers of the 'Loyalist' side just as much as I loathe the IRA. My case is and remains that the compromise which kept Northern Ireland British could have been reformed peacefully, and under British rule - and that Direct Rule was actually rather a good thing, which could and should have been made permanent. It was those who insisted on the 'Irish Dimension' who turned this from a reasonable campaign for reform into a struggle over sovereignty which is not yet over. And it was those people who also marginalised the decent and the lawful, and brought into power the bloodstained and the lawless.
If we ever conducted a proper inquiry into the whole Northern Ireland shambles, from 1969 to now, the Irish Republican Army and its front men and women would be the principal culprits, making trouble where there was none, pretending to be what they were not, always preferring hate and violence to peaceful compromise.14 June 2010 4:54 PM
Depressed about the Special Relationship? Try this
Back from my travels, I'll try briefly to address the many responses to some of my postings. First, the question of anti-depressants and the Cumbria murders.
This seems to have touched some sort of nerve, though in fact my original posting was rather cautiously worded. Why is this? I suspect it is because so many people are now taking anti-depressants, and so - having in many cases overcome their own doubts about swallowing such chemicals - are themselves automatically recruited as defenders of them. This suspicion is confirmed by an article in 'The Guardian' of Saturday 12th June, by Rowenna Davis.
This stated that the NHS issued 39.1 million, repeat, more than Thirty Nine Million prescriptions for 'drugs to tackle depression' in England during the year 2009. This compares with 20.1 million in 1999. The article dwells on the disquiet among doctors about this extraordinary growth in prescriptions.Interestingly the cost of these pills has fallen sharply during the same period, so the NHS drug bill for anti-depressants has dropped from £315 million in 1999 to £230 million last year, despite the near-doubling of prescriptions.
One consultant psychiatrist, Tim Kendall ( Director of the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health) is quoted as saying:'Anti-depressants are offered too frequently in primary care because the waiting lists for alternative treatments are too long .Doctors need to think hard about putting people on these drugs, because they can be hard to get off and have significant side-effects'.These are Mr Kendall's words, not mine. But with prescribing at this level (I'm told that the waste water in the drains of many industrial cities is full of anti-depressant drug traces) we may be dealing not with a few individuals but with something close to a national movement - of millions of people (and thousands of doctors who treat them) who have actively chosen to alter their perception and experience of reality through the use of potent psycho-active - and entirely legal - drugs. It is easy to see why anyone who casts doubt on the rightness of this, is going to be on the receiving end of a fair amount of vituperation. As usual( and as with 'ADHD') much of this will be an expression of the critic's own doubts, which he has fiercely suppressed and does not want to hear repeated back to him.
It would be helpful (though unenforceable and of course embarrassing and an invasion of privacy) to ask those who post on this subject to declare an interest, if they have one. I have no interest except a desire to discover the truth. But in the absence of a reliable way of ensuring that such interests are invariably declared (you cannot do a blood-test on an IP address) , I think I can reasonably assume that some of the anger against me for raising this question comes from people who have themselves joined what I shall call the Anti-depressant Movement.
By the way, a brief digression on the paper on this subject which I was recommended by Diarmid Weir(on 10th June) to read, with the implication that this was some sort of definitive refutation of my suggestion.
Mr Weir said (quoting me): 'The correlation between mass killings and anti-depressants should be investigated to see if there is a link.'
He then went on: 'It's not clear that there is any such correlation. Beyond such a correlation, were it to be proved - what other sort of 'link' would PH be looking for? I think we can rule out a randomised prospective double-blind crossover trial here!
Professor David Healy et al's review on the PLOS website 'Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law' seems a fair summary of the available evidence. And Healy is evidently no friend of the drug companies.'
I assume this paper is 'Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law' on the PLoS website.
Here's the summary:'Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence.
Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence.
The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response.'
And here's the conclusion of the paper:'The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are widely used. The problem is international, and it would make sense to organise an international effort now.
In practice, clinicians need to be aware of the issues, but serious violence on antidepressants is likely to be very rare. When violence is a suspected outcome, every case has to be considered carefully, on the principle that individuals are responsible for their conduct, unless there is clear evidence of compromised function that cannot be otherwise explained.'
I really cannot see why Mr Weir thinks this paper argues against my position. No doubt such cases are rare, or millions would lie dead in the streets. But if there is a link at all, then it seems to me to call into question the nature of these prescriptions. Regular readers here will be aware of my suspicion of mind-altering drugs, legal and illegal. And the most passing acquaintance with the existing research on antidepressants will show the honest reader that medical opinion is by no mean unanimous about their goodness.
In the meantime, I am still trying to establish whether Bird was in fact taking antidepressants. I have as yet been able to get no definitive answer, and am baffled as to the origin or justification of any statements made the day after the murders which suggested that this matter was closed. . The official statements made so far leave the possibility as open as it was when I wrote my original article. A full inquest - now the only public hearing at which this matter could emerge - is still some way away. Let us hope that the Coroner will be looking into this matter.
The latest official statement (given to me on Monday by Cumbria NHS) runs as follows: 'An NHS Cumbria spokesman said: “According to Bird’s medical records he did not present to any GP or other primary care service in Cumbria with mental health issues in at least the last six months. This includes any issues of alcohol addiction, depression or self-harm. Bird’s medical records now form part of the police investigation and, by extension, the coroner’s inquest into his activities and movements leading up to the tragic events of Wednesday 2 June.”'
This does not rule out a) Bird having seen a GP elsewhere in the country, or b) Bird having obtained drugs illegally or abroad. I also enquired as to whether he might have been on a repeat prescription originally issued more than six months ago. I received this reply: 'Bird's medical records are now with the police and, by extension, the coroner. Until the coroner's inquest has concluded we are unable to provide information on any aspect of his medical record beyond that which has already been provided to the media in the immediate aftermath of the events of 2 June for the preceding six months.
'His medical records for the last six months show no treatment for depression. This includes any repeat prescriptions or otherwise for any anti-depressant medication.'
I am myself surprised, given the huge numbers of prescriptions of these pills, that a prescription for anti-depressants would even feature as a 'mental health issue', or have been noted as specially unusual on any doctor's books. And, as I have said, we still await the post mortem and the inquest.
**************************************
On the issue of the 'Special Relationship'. I was amused by the American contributors who assumed that I, of all people, was a disappointed Obama enthusiast. Look up my articles on Obama, guys.
As for the rest, I will not give details of the conversations I was referring to (except that one took place in Lafayette, Louisiana, and another in Los Angeles, and one was my own first-hand experience at a slightly heated moment, while the other was heard directly by an old friend (who never gets heated) then working for an international organisation, who formed part of a delegation to a major business in California. The senior executive who let rip about the faults of the British assumed that none of his listeners were British.
So these are just episodes suggesting that the 'I love your accent' stuff is not the whole story (which it isn't). the comparison between Britain and Yugoslavia was made to me personally by a senior White House aide, during the period when Bill Clinton was intent on legitimising the grotesque Gerry Adams.
As for the thick coating of glutinous Churchill sauce which is poured over the subject, it is too sweet and sickly for me, not least because the widely-accepted version of a 'shoulder-to-shoulder' alliance is simply false. Churchill and Roosevelt mistrusted each other greatly (Churchill didn't go to Roosevelt's funeral, odd if they were such great friends) , and with reason - Roosevelt went over Churchill's head to form a close alliance with Stalin, especially at the Tehran summit. The famous Atlantic Charter was a deep disappointment to Churchill, despite the sentimental hymn-singing on warship decks.
And of course the terms under which Britain received American war-aid more or less bankrupted the country, while the later terms under which Marshall Aid was granted brought the Empire to an end as a trading bloc. Personally, I find the whole Churchill cult in America patronising - summed up by the fact that the US Navy possesses a destroyer named 'USS Winston S.Churchill', which flies the White Ensign alongside the Stars and Stripes, and carries a token Royal Navy officer aboard (the way things are going, he or she may soon be the only member of the RN actually afloat). Am I supposed to be grateful? Or what? The whole Churchill cult was so shallow that it was easily converted into a America-wide worship for Anthony Blair. I remember once having to endure, with a fixed grin, a long lecture on how wonderful Mr Blair was from a nice American lady, as we waited at a level-crossing in Nashville, Tennessee, for a two-mile-long freight train to go by. I knew that sentiment, rather than reason, was involved and that there was no point in telling her who and what Mr Blair really was. I also attended one of Mrs Thatcher's lecture performances at the Kennedy Centre (Center?) in Washington DC, among hundreds of other paying customers. It was pathetic almost beyond bearing to see her reduced to this sort of thing.
As to the Washington Naval Treaty, yes it did leave the RN and the USN at parity. That is the point. Before that date the Royal Navy was supreme over all navies - and Britain more or less fought the First World War to avoid having to concede naval parity to....Germany. Also, as some contributors have pointed out, the Treaty ended Britain's alliance with Japan, a breach which led directly to Singapore in 1942.
Much more later in the week, as I settle back into this country(By the way, my recent travels were private, and I shall not be writing about them).
I'm an anti-atheist, not a vicar
Mr 'Un' complains that a theologian I recommended (to persons who wanted to pick a fight with me about theology) doesn't agree with me about everything. So what?
These critics, who apparently couldn't be bothered to read my book 'The Rage Against God', and so wrongly imagined that it was a work of Christian apologetics, wanted to argue about theology, about which I know little and in which I have no great interest. And which I do not discuss in the book. Amusingly, Mr 'Un' says he found the theologian I recommended inferior to another, for whom he seems to have a high regard. Fine by me.
I suggested some good popular theologians they could take on, because they were theologians who dealt with the issues in which these people claimed to be interested. I don't think they really are interested in them. I think they just wanted to show off their recently acquired bumptious atheist standard-issue arguments, which bore me to tears.
Sorry, but I'm no more likely to argue about theology or scripture than I am to do so about literary criticism. I'm an anti-atheist, not a vicar.
Londonderry air
Britain versus America
Deep depression approaching from the Left
Old Londonderry's Walls
Depressed about the Special Relationship? Try this
Back from my travels, I'll try briefly to address the many responses to some of my postings. First, the question of anti-depressants and the Cumbria murders.
This seems to have touched some sort of nerve, though in fact my original posting was rather cautiously worded. Why is this? I suspect it is because so many people are now taking anti-depressants, and so - having in many cases overcome their own doubts about swallowing such chemicals - are themselves automatically recruited as defenders of them. This suspicion is confirmed by an article in 'The Guardian' of Saturday 12th June, by Rowenna Davis.
This stated that the NHS issued 39.1 million, repeat, more than Thirty Nine Million prescriptions for 'drugs to tackle depression' in England during the year 2009. This compares with 20.1 million in 1999. The article dwells on the disquiet among doctors about this extraordinary growth in prescriptions.Interestingly the cost of these pills has fallen sharply during the same period, so the NHS drug bill for anti-depressants has dropped from £315 million in 1999 to £230 million last year, despite the near-doubling of prescriptions.
These are Mr Kendall's words, not mine. But with prescribing at this level (I'm told that the waste water in the drains of many industrial cities is full of anti-depressant drug traces) we may be dealing not with a few individuals but with something close to a national movement - of millions of people (and thousands of doctors who treat them) who have actively chosen to alter their perception and experience of reality through the use of potent psycho-active - and entirely legal - drugs. It is easy to see why anyone who casts doubt on the rightness of this, is going to be on the receiving end of a fair amount of vituperation. As usual( and as with 'ADHD') much of this will be an expression of the critic's own doubts, which he has fiercely suppressed and does not want to hear repeated back to him.
It would be helpful (though unenforceable and of course embarrassing and an invasion of privacy) to ask those who post on this subject to declare an interest, if they have one. I have no interest except a desire to discover the truth. But in the absence of a reliable way of ensuring that such interests are invariably declared (you cannot do a blood-test on an IP address) , I think I can reasonably assume that some of the anger against me for raising this question comes from people who have themselves joined what I shall call the Anti-depressant Movement.
By the way, a brief digression on the paper on this subject which I was recommended by Diarmid Weir(on 10th June) to read, with the implication that this was some sort of definitive refutation of my suggestion.
Mr Weir said (quoting me): 'The correlation between mass killings and anti-depressants should be investigated to see if there is a link.'
He then went on: 'It's not clear that there is any such correlation. Beyond such a correlation, were it to be proved - what other sort of 'link' would PH be looking for? I think we can rule out a randomised prospective double-blind crossover trial here!
Professor David Healy et al's review on the PLOS website 'Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law' seems a fair summary of the available evidence. And Healy is evidently no friend of the drug companies.'
I assume this paper is 'Antidepressants and Violence: Problems at the Interface of Medicine and Law' on the PLoS website.
Here's the summary:'Recent regulatory warnings about adverse behavioural effects of antidepressants in susceptible individuals have raised the profile of these issues with clinicians, patients, and the public. We review available clinical trial data on paroxetine and sertraline and pharmacovigilance studies of paroxetine and fluoxetine, and outline a series of medico-legal cases involving antidepressants and violence.
Both clinical trial and pharmacovigilance data point to possible links between these drugs and violent behaviours. The legal cases outlined returned a variety of verdicts that may in part have stemmed from different judicial processes. Many jurisdictions appear not to have considered the possibility that a prescription drug may induce violence.
The association of antidepressant treatment with aggression and violence reported here calls for more clinical trial and epidemiological data to be made available and for good clinical descriptions of the adverse outcomes of treatment. Legal systems are likely to continue to be faced with cases of violence associated with the use of psychotropic drugs, and it may fall to the courts to demand access to currently unavailable data. The problem is international and calls for an international response.'
And here's the conclusion of the paper:'The new issues highlighted by these cases need urgent examination jointly by jurists and psychiatrists in all countries where antidepressants are widely used. The problem is international, and it would make sense to organise an international effort now.
In practice, clinicians need to be aware of the issues, but serious violence on antidepressants is likely to be very rare. When violence is a suspected outcome, every case has to be considered carefully, on the principle that individuals are responsible for their conduct, unless there is clear evidence of compromised function that cannot be otherwise explained.'
I really cannot see why Mr Weir thinks this paper argues against my position. No doubt such cases are rare, or millions would lie dead in the streets. But if there is a link at all, then it seems to me to call into question the nature of these prescriptions. Regular readers here will be aware of my suspicion of mind-altering drugs, legal and illegal. And the most passing acquaintance with the existing research on antidepressants will show the honest reader that medical opinion is by no mean unanimous about their goodness.
In the meantime, I am still trying to establish whether Bird was in fact taking antidepressants. I have as yet been able to get no definitive answer, and am baffled as to the origin or justification of any statements made the day after the murders which suggested that this matter was closed. . The official statements made so far leave the possibility as open as it was when I wrote my original article. A full inquest - now the only public hearing at which this matter could emerge - is still some way away. Let us hope that the Coroner will be looking into this matter.
The latest official statement (given to me on Monday by Cumbria NHS) runs as follows: 'An NHS Cumbria spokesman said: “According to Bird’s medical records he did not present to any GP or other primary care service in Cumbria with mental health issues in at least the last six months. This includes any issues of alcohol addiction, depression or self-harm. Bird’s medical records now form part of the police investigation and, by extension, the coroner’s inquest into his activities and movements leading up to the tragic events of Wednesday 2 June.”'
This does not rule out a) Bird having seen a GP elsewhere in the country, or b) Bird having obtained drugs illegally or abroad. I also enquired as to whether he might have been on a repeat prescription originally issued more than six months ago. I received this reply: 'Bird's medical records are now with the police and, by extension, the coroner. Until the coroner's inquest has concluded we are unable to provide information on any aspect of his medical record beyond that which has already been provided to the media in the immediate aftermath of the events of 2 June for the preceding six months.
'His medical records for the last six months show no treatment for depression. This includes any repeat prescriptions or otherwise for any anti-depressant medication.'
I am myself surprised, given the huge numbers of prescriptions of these pills, that a prescription for anti-depressants would even feature as a 'mental health issue', or have been noted as specially unusual on any doctor's books. And, as I have said, we still await the post mortem and the inquest.
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On the issue of the 'Special Relationship'. I was amused by the American contributors who assumed that I, of all people, was a disappointed Obama enthusiast. Look up my articles on Obama, guys.
As for the rest, I will not give details of the conversations I was referring to (except that one took place in Lafayette, Louisiana, and another in Los Angeles, and one was my own first-hand experience at a slightly heated moment, while the other was heard directly by an old friend (who never gets heated) then working for an international organisation, who formed part of a delegation to a major business in California. The senior executive who let rip about the faults of the British assumed that none of his listeners were British.
So these are just episodes suggesting that the 'I love your accent' stuff is not the whole story (which it isn't). the comparison between Britain and Yugoslavia was made to me personally by a senior White House aide, during the period when Bill Clinton was intent on legitimising the grotesque Gerry Adams.
As for the thick coating of glutinous Churchill sauce which is poured over the subject, it is too sweet and sickly for me, not least because the widely-accepted version of a 'shoulder-to-shoulder' alliance is simply false. Churchill and Roosevelt mistrusted each other greatly (Churchill didn't go to Roosevelt's funeral, odd if they were such great friends) , and with reason - Roosevelt went over Churchill's head to form a close alliance with Stalin, especially at the Tehran summit. The famous Atlantic Charter was a deep disappointment to Churchill, despite the sentimental hymn-singing on warship decks.
And of course the terms under which Britain received American war-aid more or less bankrupted the country, while the later terms under which Marshall Aid was granted brought the Empire to an end as a trading bloc. Personally, I find the whole Churchill cult in America patronising - summed up by the fact that the US Navy possesses a destroyer named 'USS Winston S.Churchill', which flies the White Ensign alongside the Stars and Stripes, and carries a token Royal Navy officer aboard (the way things are going, he or she may soon be the only member of the RN actually afloat). Am I supposed to be grateful? Or what? The whole Churchill cult was so shallow that it was easily converted into a America-wide worship for Anthony Blair. I remember once having to endure, with a fixed grin, a long lecture on how wonderful Mr Blair was from a nice American lady, as we waited at a level-crossing in Nashville, Tennessee, for a two-mile-long freight train to go by. I knew that sentiment, rather than reason, was involved and that there was no point in telling her who and what Mr Blair really was. I also attended one of Mrs Thatcher's lecture performances at the Kennedy Centre (Center?) in Washington DC, among hundreds of other paying customers. It was pathetic almost beyond bearing to see her reduced to this sort of thing.
As to the Washington Naval Treaty, yes it did leave the RN and the USN at parity. That is the point. Before that date the Royal Navy was supreme over all navies - and Britain more or less fought the First World War to avoid having to concede naval parity to....Germany. Also, as some contributors have pointed out, the Treaty ended Britain's alliance with Japan, a breach which led directly to Singapore in 1942.
Much more later in the week, as I settle back into this country(By the way, my recent travels were private, and I shall not be writing about them).
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