After the Beijing opening ceremony, London has a lot to live up to

The Sunday Times hints at what kind of opening ceremony we can expect in 2012....

We will surprise the world with an imaginative display of dancing health and safety inspectors, their yellow reflective jackets glittering in the spotlights. The stage will then clear to reveal an Islamic dance troupe, fully veiled, who will take us through the highlights of our history, apologising after each incident to any nations we might have inadvertently offended. The proceedings will end with a lavish and ceremonial display of binge drinking.

Mixed feelings about the Beijing Olympics

It may have been the mother of all opening ceremonies, but even the most awesome display can't mask the unsavoury nature of the regime hosting this years olympics. No one has put it better than this week's Spectator:

"For many people, watching the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics will be like trying to enjoy a party above the din of police cars taking away uninvited guests. However much you turn up the music, you can still hear the sirens."

Michael O' Leary speaks his mind on global warming

The bête noire of environmentalists shares his views on the contribution of low cost flights to global warming. This has to be one of the most hilarious interviews I have ever read. I wonder whether George Monbiot will be carrying out a citizen's arrest on him?

The Blair memo....a case of sour grapes maybe?

When Labour were elected in 1997, Tony Blair had a massive electoral mandate to reform public services. But when push came to shove, he didn't have the guts to stand up to his chancellor, Gordon Brown, who stood in the way of his reforms at every turn.

I can't get over the fact that Blair never fired his chancellor. Had he done so, he would have been able to reassert his authority, and Labour wouldn't have got into the mess they are in now.

Gordon Brown's premiership is a disaster which is partly of Blair's making, so he has little cause to complain about his record being dissed.

Bring back Blair?!

How ironic that 14 months after being dumped by his own party, a recent opinion poll reveals that Tony Blair remains the only Labour figure who could seriously challenge the Tories. Despite all this, Labour doesn't seem to be particularly keen on Blair or Blairism (i.e David Milliband). It tells you much about the state of the Labour party today: They seem to be moving slowly to the bad old days where they are more interested in remaining true to their principles than in winning elections.

Scrap speed cameras...for the sake of road safety

One of the least attractive features of the last 11 years of Labour government has been the relentless nanny state mentality that has pervaded every aspect of public policy, none more so than the ubiquitous speed camera. So it was heartening to read that at least one county council is considering scrapping them.

There is a simplistic assumption that speed cameras save thousands of lives, and that opponents of speed cameras are petrolheads who are happy for thousands to die. The reality is a little more complicated. When placed at the worst accident blackspots (where speed is a factor) they have definitely saved lives (around 100 a year), but cameras used on those blackspots are a fraction of the 6,000 in use. Most have made little difference. Every life saved is priceless, but if over 3,000 people a year are dying in road accidents, there are clearly other things we should be doing to prevent the other 97% of road deaths.

Not everyone who supports road safety supports speed cameras. There is an alternative view, which is that we should go back to using human beings (i.e. police, remember them?) to patrol our roads rather than 6,000 machines. Unlike the police, cameras can't use discretion or give a caution. They can't pull over someone who is tailgating and they can't detect someone who is driving without insurance. In short, it's a pretty blunt law enforcement instrument. More importantly, when traffic police pull over suspicious drivers, they often discover bigger things: stolen goods, drugs, and even criminals who are on the run.

But the biggest change we can make is giving motorists carrots as well as sticks. A couple of years after passing my driving test, I took the advanced driving test. I was shocked to discover that although I had a full licence, I was making all kinds of mistakes that no camera would have detected and that could have easily led to an accident. Correct use of mirrors, planning ahead, knowing when to accelerate and when to brake, these are all basic skills that could save my life. Drivers who have taken the advanced driving test have 25% fewer accidents.

Clearly there are several pieces of the road safety jigsaw of which cameras are but one. Raising the standard of driving, engineering safer cars, better medical treatment and good road design are all important factors. If we have an exaggerated faith in cameras, we are in danger of neglecting everything else.

Has secular Europe found religion?

Yes, secular Europe has rediscovered religion, and that religion is.... Obamamania! Obama's visit to Europe has been treated as nothing less than the Messiah's second coming. Europe's citizens may be disappointed to discover that come November, the people responsible for electing him are the citizens of the United States and not those of the European Union.

The Blairites may be celebrating Gordon Brown's downfall more than the Cameroons

A year ago, Gordon Brown was riding high in the polls, and there was open talk of a snap general election. Even his critics were heaping praise on him. He was quite simply the Tories worst nightmare.

Twelve months later, the Tories worst nightmare may be his downfall, if you follow Janet Daley's logic: Labour's constitution makes it difficult but not impossible to remove their leader. Should they have a leadership contest, they may well end up with a young Blairite leader such as James Purnell or David Milliband. They could still lose the next general election but it may well be an honourable defeat rather than a wipeout. And with a party of inexperienced Tories in inheriting of a battered economy, David Cameron may end up leading a one term government. If I was in his shoes, I would be a little nervous.

Lies, damned lies and crime statistics

The problem with crime statistics, or just about any statistics is that they can be used to prove just about anything.

In the aftermath of the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the United States introduced a federal 55mph speed limit to save fuel. Following a drop in fatalities during the first year the law was introduced, the speed limit was made permanent in 1974. With hindsight, the drop in fatalities may have had more to do with the fact that fewer car journeys were made due to the very high cost of fuel. And it wasn't long till the fatalities started going up again. I don't mean to get into a debate about road safety, but it's a good illustration of how facts on the ground often relate little to the actual statistics.

Back to the subject of crime. The government says that overall crime (with the exception of violent crime) is falling and the liberal media keep telling us that fear of crime is just a lot of hysteria whipped up by the Daily Mail. Our course their arguments have little to do with personal experience, and everything to do with their political agenda: Namely that violent youth crime is a figment of our imagination and that feral youths are not criminals, but victims of social deprivation. Try telling that to the family of a stabbing victim or the residents of a sink estate living in constant fear of the thugs terrorising their neighbourhood. You can fool some people some of the time, but can't fool all the people all the time.

Recycling, why bother?

This is the kind of thing that really gets me.

The government keep telling us to throw away less and recycle more. That's fine. Despite my scepticism about man-made global warming, I happen to feel very strongly about recycling. The problem is, the dustmen won't take away our glass. They say that we have to take this to the bottle bank ourselves. So I went to the nearest recycling centre at my Tescos in Borehamwood, stood in a queue for ten minutes, and when it came to my turn, the recycling machine broke down. I finally found a bottle bank, several miles away in North Finchley. The round trip probably used up half a gallon of petrol and emitted several kilos of carbon into the atmosphere. Kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

It's another illustration of the government's lack of joined up thinking. It's all well and good to try and encourage people to recycle, but if you don't provide an infrastructure for recycling, people won't recycle. It's as simple as that.

Britains family courts and the children's lives they have destroyed

More than 15 years after the Orkneys child abuse scandal broke, it's clear that little has been learnt. This week, the Times newspaper is running a series of articles about the family courts. They operate in secrecy and with little transparency. Where there have been a miscarriages of justice, families have had little in the way of legal recourse. In some cases, parents have lost their children permanently even after being proven innocent as their children have been too well integrated with their foster parents.

Take the time to read these articles:

1. Times editorial on how the family courts allow miscarriages of justice without the possibility of redress.
2. Daniel Finkelstein on how evidence can be fabricated, and how the authorities will justify it.
   

And there are a series of articles by Camilla Cavendish on the family courts:

1. Family justice: The secret state that steals our children
2. Family courts: The hidden untouchables
3. Family justice: Your word against theirs
   

It's very clear that there are individuals within social services and in the child protection agencies who have their own agenda. Some are anti-family, and will push for children to be adopted even even after their parents have been found to be innocent. And there is little that can be done to prevent this. The social workers acting against parents have their identities protected. Parents are denied the right to face their accuser.

Social services are no different to the police (except that they regard their cause as more noble). If they regard someone as guilty, they will fabricate evidence if they have to in order to get suspects convicted. This happened in Orkney and is happening now.

The reason we have safeguards in our legal system is to prevent innocent people being convicted. Those very same safeguards should apply to our family courts as much as any other court. The argument frequently made by social services, the NSPCC and others is that children are vulnerable so these safeguards shouldn't apply. This is a spurious argument. A child's life is destroyed by a broken family every bit as much as it is by physical or sexual abuse.

Christopher Hitchens, a truly independent thinker

It's so rare to find truly independent thinkers. Conservatives have their holy cows as do liberals. I'm generalising here, but the conservatives who have dominated US politics for the last eight years have been generally pro war, pro torture, pro religion and anti immigration.

Britain's political and intellectual elite by contrast have been anti war, anti torture, anti religion and pro immigration. And it goes without saying that they regard George W Bush is the embodiment of evil.

So how refreshing it is to read Christopher Hitchens, someone who doesn't feel bound by "group think" and who is his own person. He is a staunch supporter of the war in Iraq, but strongly against torture (so much so that he chose to experience it himself). He is anti-theistic, and has no time for conservative bigots like the late Jesse Helms. He was even a plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit against the Bush administration. A textbook liberal no? But then again, he has also been fiercely critical of the Clinton administration, and is no fan of Obama either.

He is generally regarded as a conservative because he is admired more by conservatives than by liberals. I think that conservatives can live with his contradictions more than liberals can, which tells you something about liberals and their supposed open-mindedness.

There is an excellent critique of Christopher Hitchens in the National Post.

Time for Obama to make another U-turn....this time on Iraq

It's interesting to contrast the two presidential candidates:

McCain has consistently supported free trade, demanded that America get tough with Iran and promoted the surge in Iraq long before it became popular. Obama by contrast has been consistently against all three. Or so we thought.....

Early this year, it was revealed that Obama's NAFTA bashing was nothing but hot air.

In June, he told AIPAC that he would do "everything" -- "and I mean everything" to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

And in the light of Al-Qaeda's rout in Iraq we should soon be expecting another U-turn.

Obama is certainly the candidate of change....changed policies that is. Amongst Europeans, Obama has been regarded as something of a New Messiah, somebody who would expiate the sins of the Bush years. In the light of his increasingly hawkish politics, I wonder what they think of him now.